Introducing Mostafa Malekian's A Path to Liberation

In the 1990s, concurrently with the journal Kiyan, which was published under the intellectual leadership of Abdolkarim Soroush, the journal Naqd va Nazar (Critique and View) was published in the city of Qom under the intellectual leadership of Mostafa Malekian and the supervision of the Qom Seminary. Both Kiyan and Naqd va Nazar had an undeniable influence in introducing the contemporary views of Western philosophers in various fields of philosophy, especially the philosophy of religion. The book A Path to Liberation carries the fragrance of those days of Naqd va Nazar. Although the Malekian of A Path to Liberation is gradually distancing himself from religious intellectualism and seeking his own path in the project of “rationality and spirituality,” his religious and theological concerns, and the reform of religion from the first, second, and third accretions, remain prominent in him.

A Path to Liberation, like Malekian’s other books, is a collection of articles, most of which were previously published in various journals such as Kiyan and Naqd va Nazar, but are gathered together in this book to perhaps serve as a path to liberation. Although it seems that today’s Malekian has moved beyond many of the contents of A Path to Liberation, some of the articles in this book, such as the first article, “The Exposition of Truth and the Reduction of Suffering,” are still alive and generate serious discussions around themselves.