Signs of Religion-Making – Soroush the Prophet (2)

در بخش اول مقاله “سروش نبی“، نظریه نبوت سروش و دلایل پیغمبری‌اش را که نتیجه منطقی آن نظریه و مدعیات شخصی اوست، به تفصیل توضیح دادم. در بخش دوم، دلایل اختراع و تأسیس دین تازه توسط سروش را توضیح خواهم داد.

دلایل اختراع دین تازه توسط عبدالکریم سروش

همان طور که پیشتر به تفصیل توضیح داده ام، پروژه فکری سروش در سالهای اخیر تأسیس تدریجی یک دین تازه بوده است. البته کسانی معتقدند که حاصل کار سروش را هرچقدر هم که با باورهای اعتقادی و عملی دین اسلام فاصله بنیادین داشته باشد، می‌توان و می‌یابد بخشی از اسلام دانست. در واقع کار او چیزی نیست جز قرائتی تازه از دین اسلام که ریشه‌ها و مشابه‌هایی در تاریخ اسلام داشته است. بنابراین، جای این پرسش است که آیا دامنه تحولات و تغییراتی که در یک دین به وجود می‌آید تا هرکجا که پیش برود همچنان در دل آن دین است یا از جایی به بعد دین تازه‌ای متولد می‌شود که برغم پاره‌ای شباهت هایش با دین مبداء هویتی مستقل یافته است، و باید آن را دینی تازه تلقی کرد. در این جا البته می‌توان درباره معیارهایی که برای مثال، اسلام را از غیر اسلام متمایز می‌کند بحث کرد. اما من می‌خواهم در این جا بحث‌ام را درباره پروژه دین سازی سروش در چارچوب مفروضات خود سروش درباره تمایز میان دین و غیردین مطرح کنم. بنابراین، خواه با معیارها و چارچوب سروش درباره اسلام و مسلمانی از یک سو و آنچه خروج از اسلام و مسلمانی تلقی می‌شود از سوی دیگر، موافق باشیم یا نه، به نظر منصفانه است که پروژه سروش را با همان معیارهایی ارزیابی کنیم که دست کم مورد قبول خود اوست.

نخست آن که، سروش خود معتقد است که بازسازی دین و تحوّل در آن می‌تواند به جایی برسد که ما را به قلمرو تأسیس یک دین تازه وارد کند. از نظر او، مسلمان هم ممکن است از جایی به بعد از حوزه مسلمانی خارج شود. بنابراین، از نظر سروش تمایز معناداری میان دین و غیر دین یا مسلمانی و غیرمسلمانی وجود دارد. گویی از نظر سروش مرزهایی وجود دارد که اگر از آنها دربگذریم، لاجرم از حدود فلان دین خاص خارج شده ایم.

دوّم آن که، سروش خود دین (و نه معرفت دینی) را به ذاتی و عرضی تقسیم می‌کند، و مرز خروج از دین را عبور از ذاتیات دین می‌داند، و تغییر در این ذاتیات را تأسیس یک دین تازه به شمار می‌آورد: “ذاتی دین، به تبع، عرضی نیست و دین بدون آن دین نیست و تغییرش به نفی دین خواهد انجامید. ذاتی اسلام آن است که اسلام بدون آن اسلام نیست و دگرگونی اش، به پیدایی دین دیگری خواهد انجامید.”[1] بنابراین، سروش معتقد نیست که هرگونه تحوّل بنیادین در اسلام از منظر اسلامی رواست و تا هر کجا که پیش رویم مدعیات مان اسلامی خواهد ماند مادام که بتوانیم هاضمه مسلمانان را با آن مدعیات تازه هماهنگ کنیم. از نظر سروش اگر از محدوده ذاتیات دربگذریم از حدود اسلام خارج شده ایم، و چه بسا دین تازه‌ای را بنیان نهاده ایم.

سوّم آن که، سروش معتقد است که “شخصیت پیامبر” و “اسلام عقیدتی” عین ذاتیات اسلام است. او می‌نویسد: “به گمان من، مسلمان کسی است که در داوریهای خودش کتاب و سنت و شخصیت پیامبر اسلام را مرجع قرار می‌دهد، همین و بس…اصل مرجعیت کتاب و سنت شرط اجتناب ناپذیر دینداری است”[2]، و “همان طور که عرض کردم شخصیت نبی و کتاب و سنتاو ذاتی دین است”[3]. از نظر سروش درباره ذاتیات اسلام می‌توان نظرات متفاوتی داشت. اما اگر این نظرات به نفی ذاتیات اسلام بینجامد، فرد از دایره مسلمانی خارج خواهد شد: “و این آراء مادام که به نفی آن محورها منجر نشود، فرد را از حوزه دین خارج نمی‌کند”[4]. او تصریح می‌کند که “اسلام (و کذا هر دین دیگری) به ذاتیاتش اسلام است…و مسلمانی در گرو التزام و اعتقاد به ذاتیات است…هر ذاتی ضروری است”.[5]

Fourth, in “The Expansion of the Expansion of Prophetic Experience,” Soroush equates the negation of prophethood with the negation of religion itself: “If someone denies the prophethood of the Prophet, they deny religion.” And in the same place, he defines his conception of prophethood (the denial of which, in his view, amounts to the denial of religion) as follows: “I believe that God chooses certain individuals from among creation and, due to the aptitudes and qualities they possess, grants them the station of prophethood, whispers hidden tidings into their ears, and bestows upon them a social mission.”[6]

Fifth, in the autumn of 1994, Soroush counts “the Finality of Prophethood” among the essentials of religion, and writes on this matter: “The principle of the Finality of Prophethood is accepted by all Muslims and is one of the essentials of religion and among the pillars of Islamic thought, and in this respect there is no disagreement.”[7]

Therefore, in Soroush’s view, certain changes in religion amount to leaving religion and inventing a new one. If someone transforms the essentials of Islam to such an extent that nothing of them remains, according to Soroush’s belief, they have invented a new religion. Thus, the question is whether Soroush, over recent years, has so altered the “essentials” of Islam in his intellectual project that it has led to their negation?

Let us examine a few “essential” beliefs of Islam and see what new conception Soroush has presented of them:

First- Soroush believes that the God of Muhammad and the Quran is “a personified, anthropomorphic, sovereign, speaking, lawgiving God.”[8] But the image of God that Soroush proposes is, in his words, “absolute formlessness” or a “non-personified, non-anthropomorphic, non-speaking God,” a God whose image, Soroush believes, Rumi borrowed from Buddhism.[9]

Second- Soroush believes that the doctrine of the Resurrection is the foundation of religion, and without it religion is devoid of meaning: “Fundamentally, if there is no other life, religion has no meaning. Religions, in principle, did not come for this world. They came for the other world. If there were no Hereafter, there would be no need for religion either… Teaching the matter of the Resurrection was among the most principal pillars of prophethood, and it was not a speech that was among the secondary aspects of the Prophet’s mission, which he would want to share with people in a veiled and summary manner.”[10] Soroush believes that according to the image presented by Muhammad and the Quran of the Resurrection, all human beings possess personal life after death.[11]

He acknowledges that according to the teachings of the Quran, all human beings possess a soul and therefore partake in personal life after death: “إِذَا سَوَّیْتُهُ وَنَفَخْتُ فِیهِ مِنْ رُوحِی: So when I have proportioned him and breathed into him of My spirit” [Al-Hijr, 29], “کُلُّ نَفْسٍ ذائِقَهُ الْمَوْتِ وَ نَبْلُوکُمْ بِالشَّرِّ وَ الْخَیْرِ فِتْنَهً وَ إِلَیْنا تُرْجَعُونَ:Every soul will taste death. And We test you with evil and with good as trial; and to Us you will be returned.” [Al-Anbiya, 35].

But Soroush also disagrees with this picture. In expressing his opposition, he points to two things: first, he considers the entire Quran, and especially the depiction of the Resurrection in the Quran, to be the product of Muhammad’s dreams—dreams that are constructed by Muhammad himself and arise from his own psyche. That is, Soroush believes that Muhammad himself had “complete and total agency” in constructing all those eschatological images. The meaning of fire, water, the sun, and so on in a dream is not the same as their meaning in waking life. A dream that is the product of the dreamer’s own agency does not necessarily mean that its content has objective, external occurrence in the real, waking world. For this reason, dreams must be interpreted by psychoanalysts. Second, even if personal life after death were possible, Soroush prefers his own narrative and reading—derived from the views of certain Muslim philosophers and mystics—over what he himself calls the “Quranic conception.” In his belief, only a rare few human beings can continue their personal lives after death. Soroush believes that for their worldly life, human beings need, in addition to a material body, a “jān” (life-soul, in Rumi’s expression). But the “jān” is merely one of the constituents of human beings’ worldly survival. What an individual needs for the continuation of their personal life after death is the “ruḥ” (spirit) or the “rational soul.” But Soroush believes that only a rare few human beings possess the “ruḥ” or “rational soul,” and it is only these rare few who experience resurrection and personal life after death. In his belief, the majority of human beings lack a resurrection and life after death. When their death arrives, their life comes to an end and they become dust and are scattered.[12]

Of course, Soroush acknowledges that no Muslim philosopher or mystic holds such a view, and that it is rather he who infers this view from their unspoken words.

Third— The matter of revelation and prophethood is not a very different story. In Muhammad’s conception and according to the Quranic narrative, a personal, anthropomorphic, speaking God chose an individual (namely, Muhammad) as a prophet, and recited His message (namely, the Quran) to him through an angel (namely, Gabriel), and charged and commanded him to convey that message to everyone without any alteration or interference. Soroush himself believes that the attribute “prophet” is specific to Western theistic religions. In Eastern non-theistic religions that lack a personal, anthropomorphic, speaking God (such as Buddhism), the term “prophet” has no place; instead, the term “founder” should be used: “We consider religion to be dependent on the bringers of religion, whom we call prophets. In non-theistic religions, the name ‘prophet’ is not a fitting name; we should use, for example, the name ‘founder.’ Buddhists themselves use the word Buddha for Buddha, which means an enlightened person. When Buddha attained clarity and luminosity, his title became ‘Buddha.’”[13]

But it seems that Soroush’s intellectual system ultimately leads to the negation of prophethood in its Quranic sense. For from Soroush’s perspective, the God he envisions cannot choose anyone as a prophet. Soroush’s God is not a speaker; therefore, He cannot have words, or a message, or a book to then send down to someone and demand that individual convey that message. Thus, if we accept Soroush’s God (a God that, by Soroush’s own admission, is closer to the God of Buddhism [and in fact Hinduism]), then we should not consider Muhammad a “prophet”; rather, the more fitting term for him would be “founder.”

Fourth— Soroush’s conception of the Quran has, of course, also undergone a fundamental transformation. In Soroush’s view, Muhammad saw dreams, and he personally decided to communicate those dreams (i.e., the Quran) to others. As it happens, according to Soroush, Muhammad’s interpretation of his dreams is often wrong and imprecise. For example, Muhammad mistakenly considered his dreams to be words that had come to him from a personal, anthropomorphic, legislating God.[14] The product of Muhammad’s dreams (i.e., the Quran), in Soroush’s phrasing, is a disordered text, full of contradictions and errors. Muhammad’s Quran is a “jihadist book of terror and enslavement” that must be interpreted by dream interpreters—that is, psychoanalysts and anthropologists. The “exegesis” of the Quranic dream-book by Muslims throughout history has been mistaken; the Quranic dream-book must be “interpreted” by dream interpreters.

Fifth— The “Seal of Prophethood” was also among Muhammad’s dreams. But the meaning of the “Seal of Prophethood” in sleep and wakefulness is not necessarily the same. Soroush, in seeking to understand the Quranic concept of the “Seal of Prophethood,” has sat in the position of a dream interpreter and has himself interpreted that Muhammadan dream. According to Soroush’s dream-interpreting reading of the Quranic doctrine of the “Seal of Prophethood,” after Muhammad, others must arrive and discover new points that did not exist in Muhammad’s religion, and in this way, bring the “minimal perfection” of Muhammad’s creed to “maximal perfection.”[15] It is for this very reason that Soroush puts forward Rumi’s claim to prophethood. And in contrast to the Muhammadan revelation (i.e., his jihadist book of terror and enslavement), he presents the Masnavi as a new revelation and calls it a “non-jihadist book of love and liberation.” In Soroush’s view, Rumi possesses all the attributes of prophethood, and therefore, the doctrine of the “Seal of Prophethood” has, in Soroush’s view, come to an end.

Sixth— Soroush the Messenger: But if the scope of prophethood remains broad after Muhammad and the door of revelation remains open, what reason do we have to consider prophethood and the revelatory experience to have ended with Rumi? Why should the seat of prophethood remain vacant after Rumi? Especially since Soroush believes that Rumi’s religion, despite its outstanding merits, also has worn-out and threadbare aspects that must be reconstructed in light of the findings of the modern world. If Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, and Rumi, by virtue of beholding the formless form—in a dream—had the right to go beyond text-centeredness and bestow their own particular form upon the subject of their experience and construct their own particular religion[16], why should Soroush, who also considers himself to possess such an experience, be deprived of that right? If, according to Soroush, the Quranic God is invalid and must be replaced by the image of God found in Eastern religions, and if, according to Soroush, the Quranic conception of prophethood is invalid, and the prophet, not from God but driven by an inner sense, found within himself a “feeling of mission and apostleship,” and if, according to Soroush, the Quran is nothing but Muhammad’s dreams, and if the entire prophetic tradition (i.e., the body of hadiths and narrations), according to Soroush, is entirely invalid and fabricated—except in very exceptional cases[17], and if, according to Soroush, the phenomenon of the “Seal of Prophethood” has come to an end, and if the rulings of the Sharia, according to Soroush, belong entirely to early Islam—except in exceptional cases[18], then has a sufficiently fundamental transformation occurred in the “essentials” of the religion of Islam by virtue of which we can speak of exiting that religion and founding a new one? If someone answers this question in the affirmative, have they offered an entirely misguided interpretation of Soroush’s views, born of malice and ill intent?

End

Part One

Soroush’s Theory of Prophethood

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The author strongly recommends that the esteemed readers of this article carefully study its footnotes to become closely acquainted with the exact phrases of Abdolkarim Soroush.

Footnotes

[1] The Expansion of the Prophetic Experience, p. 34.

Elsewhere, Soroush has also spoken of the possibility of new prophets and a new religion arriving. He says:

“Prophets, as they have been up to now, and as we know them and as induction shows, have each invited to their own religion and have accepted other religions to the extent that they were compatible and in conformity with their own, and insofar as commonalities allowed, they granted followers of other religions the right to exist or a share of guidance [religious exclusivism versus religious pluralism]; and the work of prophethood, according to the belief of Muslims, has reached its finality. Therefore, there is no room for another assumption [i.e., the assumption that past prophets were pluralists]. Now, if people later emerge and offer another form of religion, we can await the future; in any case, the past tells a different story” (Abdolkarim Soroush, Sirāṭhā-ye Mustaqīm, Serat, p. 141).

[2] “The Expansion of the Expansion of the Prophetic Experience,” p. 5.

[3] “The Expansion of the Expansion of the Prophetic Experience,” p. 6.

[4] “The Expansion of the Expansion of the Prophetic Experience,” p. 5.

[5] The Expansion of the Prophetic Experience, p. 30.

[6] “The Expansion of the Expansion of the Prophetic Experience,” pp. 7 and 9.

[7] Abdolkarim Soroush, Modārā va Modīrīyat (Tolerance and Management), p. 387.

[8] Soroush says:

“We have descriptions of God in the Quran that appear very human. When we say God is merciful, He shows mercy. Mercy is one of the things we do, one of the emotions we humans have. When we say that God becomes wrathful, well, in our daily prayers we recite: “غَیْرِ الْمَغْضُوبِ عَلَیْهِمْ وَلَا الضَّالِّینَ: Guide us to the straight path, the path of those upon whom You have bestowed favor, not of those who have evoked Your anger” [Al-Fatiha, 7]. So God also becomes wrathful, He has wrath. In the Quran it says: “فَلَمَّا آسَفُونا انْتَقَمْنا مِنْهُمْ: When these sinners angered Us, We took vengeance upon them” [Az-Zukhruf, 55]. Whom did they anger? Who took vengeance? Does God become angry? Is He vengeful? And there are many such descriptions that we have in the Quran. Or for example, “اللَّهُ یَسْتَهْزِئُ بِهِمْ: God mocks the disbelievers” [Al-Baqarah, 15]. Or “وَمَکَروا وَمَکَرَ اللَّهُۖ وَاللَّهُ خَیرُ الماکِرینَ: These evildoers, sinners, opponents, and deniers plot, and God plots against them” [Aal-e-Imran, 54]. And God appears here as a plotter. And then in other places there are other descriptions, for instance, on the Day of Resurrection it is as if God is seated on a throne: “وَیَحْمِلُ عَرْشَ رَبِّکَ فَوْقَهُمْ یَوْمَئِذٍ ثَمَانِیَهٌ: God is seated on the throne and eight angels are standing beneath this throne, bearing the throne on their shoulders and bringing it to the scene of the Resurrection” [Al-Haqqah, 16]. The God whose face is dominant in the Quran, whose face is dominant, is a God who is anthropomorphic and king-like. Both the states and descriptions of a human being are attributed to Him, and the states and descriptions of a king. A dominant, omnipotent king, and indeed most religious people see the divine apparatus as a royal apparatus and court. These angels are as if God’s special agents and servants. They also infer from revelation that He sends these angels as God’s agents to this prophet or that prophet, or He commissions them to rain down torment upon one people and bring mercy to another people, for example. We have constructed a model for God very similar to the model we have of monarchy and kings on earth… This repenting and being forgiven and being absolved at the court of God is constructed precisely on the model of a monarchical system… As I said, the Quranic verses and religious literature also greatly nourish and reinforce this mode of thinking. Now, if you step outside the Quran and refer to the narrations and hadiths that are current and common in religious literature, this type of thinking becomes much more concentrated… God comes to paradise, greets the people of paradise, or greatly honors His own prophets, exactly like the situation we have in this world; consider the night they give out the Oscars, the guests as they enter… some are very honored guests” (“Worshipping the Formless God“, September 2015, minute 23-16).

He says: The Quran’s image of the relationship between man and God is the relationship of a slave (abd) and a master (mawla). He says: The theory of “Muhammad’s dreams”:

“There is a theory that is made for a world and befits a world in which God in that worldimpersonal is. That is, He is not a person…I certainly accept that if we refer back to the text [the Quran] itself, perhaps this view [of an impersonal God] may not be found there…if we refer to the text again…God has sent someone, He has a prophet, he is His messenger…This is the shepherd-like understanding of God…They are all shepherds…We conceive of God as a person who is, say, seated somewhere, on the Throne or, who also has a mind, for instance, and His mind works, He thinks, He has an understanding, we pray, and as a result of our prayer, for example, He makes a decision, or answers, or does not answer, rejects, accepts, His opinion changes, for instance, and one day He is pleased, one day displeased, and so on. Well, these states cannot be attributed to God, for the very reason that even traditional theology says that God’s existence is boundless and infinite and there is constancy in His essence, many of these states cannot be attributed to Him, even praying in this conventional way we do is, in any case, a form and caricature of prayer. That is, if we believe in a God who does not change His will or opinion, then we must reconsider all of these matters. In any case, the presupposition of these articles is an impersonal God, an impersonal God, whom we can interpret as a cosmic consciousness, or let us say an infinite spirit that flows through the entire body of the universe. A consciousness that encompasses everything, we can interpret it thus. As Rumi says, the soul of the world…our metaphysics is a metaphysics of union, not a metaphysics of separation. That is, in absolutely no way, from no direction, and in no sense is God separate from His creation. And this union is a complete and perfect union. Not a metaphorical union, nor a half-finished union, it is not so” (The Method of Interpreting the Prophetic Dream, December 2014. Part One, Minutes 15-25 ).

[9] Soroush’s God, like the rest of his beliefs, is afflicted with numerous conflicts and contradictions. He has a page where he answers questions. In the seventeenth series of answers, he writes:

“The formless God is the real God“.

True, for years he has been an advocate of the absolutely formless God and says that God is truly and really absolutely formless. But in the face of questions and critics, he quickly changes his position, and suddenly, astonishingly, you see that his God transforms into the “anthropomorphic-animalistic personal God.” In the nineteenth series of answers to questions, a critic asks:

“Sajjad’s question: If God, by the standards of the Quran, is to cast a servant into His hellfire, can one ask God this question: O Lord, we were not, and it was not our request, why did You create us and then place us in Your religious contracts so that we would have the ability to sin and consequently cast us into the fire of Your wrath? Who said to create me when there was a possibility of falling into hell? I was not; You gave me existence and then You torment it? Non-existence was better than being in Your hell…I know this is a question for the anthropomorphic personal God (as Mustafa Malekian puts it), but my question to you is: is the resurrection and reckoning as it exists in the common understanding of society? Or not?”

Soroush’s answer: “I have no answer but what Rumi said: In the clutches of a bloodthirsty male lion/ What choice is there but submission and contentment??? “.

This means the “anthropomorphic-animalistic personal God.” In epistemology, he is an advocate of coherentism, but there are fundamental conflicts and inconsistencies among his main religious claims.

[10] “The Interpretation of the Resurrection in the Theory of Prophetic Dreams“, August 21, 2015, 39-41.

[11] In June 2014, in “Muhammad, the Narrator of Prophetic Dreams (5): One Night He Rose and Passed Beyond the Heavens,” Soroush had written: “And the Quranic resurrection is an elaboration of the resurrection of the Ascension, as will be detailed in another article.” His promise was to conclude this series of articles with the article on resurrection. In the lecture “The Interpretation of Resurrection in the Theory of Prophetic Dreams,” he says: This final part that we had promised, I present here now, so that I may later write its article:

“Two years ago, I began writing a series of articles under the title ‘Prophetic Dreams.’ In these writings, of which five parts have been published so far and the sixth part remains, which, God willing, will be penned, I introduced a point and a theory that differs from the orthodox theory, the prevailing theory among Muslim sages and exegetes. And these very differences have raised questions, and continue to raise them, and of course, oblige me to respond. Fortunately, these remarks today will serve as an encouraging prelude for me to send the sixth part of this writing to the press and the market as soon as possible and bring that theory to its perfection and complete it” (“The Interpretation of Resurrection in the Theory of Prophetic Dreams” on August 19, 2015, minutes 2-4).

In fact, in this session, the final part of the claim of “Muhammad’s Dreams” was also laid out, and no point remains for those awaiting its conclusion. The final part was about one-third of all the Quranic verses—namely, the resurrection—which was also explained in this session as all having been seen by Muhammad in a dream. More precisely, he himself had constructed all the images of the afterlife in his sleep.

[12] Soroush says:

“For some people, not all of them, here paths diverge; both philosophers and mystics say this. It differs somewhat from religious teachings. Some people possess another spirit. That spirit is, in fact, the rational soul. And it is that spirit which endures. But many people do not truly have a spirit that remains. That is, after death, they perish and are gone. Nothing of them remains. And therefore, according to the teachings that mystics and philosophers hold, not all people will be resurrected. Not all of them have a resurrection. Not all will be called to account. None of it. They go and vanish. There are a few who possess the rational soul, meaning they have a superior power of reasoning. It is that power of reasoning in its highest degrees that makes a person attain true humanity. That is, it elevates them from the animal horizon, raises them higher, and endows them with the rational soul. That rational soul which is the criterion of humanity, and it is that which becomes accountable, is questioned, has gathering, has dispersal, has hell, has damnation, and so forth. Otherwise, the rest… they have nothing to do with them. No one has anything to do with them. They come and, ‘A fly appeared and vanished,’ they perish, they have a simple animal life, or a simple vegetative life, and after that, there is no news of anything. Well, it is here that the matter becomes somewhat more precise. Now, let me tell you the words of Rumi on this subject. He does not explicitly state this matter. No philosopher has explicitly stated this matter. I am telling you the conclusions of their words. Do not expect that the philosophers themselves say something, and also draw its conclusions themselves and tell you. They state the premises; you must deduce. If you do not, you do not. That is up to you. But the deduction is yours… It is not the case that any sage has said that not everyone has a resurrection, but when you read their arguments concerning the soul, concerning the spirit, and precisely who possesses a spirit, that superior human spirit, and who does not, you realize that the necessary implication of their words is that not everyone is endowed with that soul, and that superior rational soul” (“Commentary on the Masnavi – Book One – Session Ten,” minutes 33-38).

Soroush adds that Rumi considers human beings to be a two-story building, the first floor of which is the body and the second floor is the spirit or soul. He then asks: Did Rumi consider all human beings in this way—as possessing a spirit and soul? In response, he says:

“I do not think that Rumi insisted on saying that everyone is like this. Does everyone possess a rational soul? I do not think he had such an insistence. Look, the proof that Mulla Sadra offers for the existence of the soul is the perception of universals. That a human being can perceive universality. That is correct. Now, listen. The late Allameh Tabatabai, who was a great philosopher, said in the final years of his life that he had only recently come to think that he could perceive universals. So, if the perception of universals is so difficult that a philosopher reaches this degree only at the end of his life, what are we to say? And if the proof for the existence of the soul depends on the perception of universals, then who in this world has a soul? Who does not? The calculation and conclusion are now up to you” (“Commentary on the Masnavi – Book One – Session Ten,” minutes 65-66).

If you look at Soroush’s words from the session before this one, or his words from a year earlier, you will see that his philosophical and religious view regarding life after death suffers from fundamental conflicts and contradictions. First, look at his words from last year:

Soroush explicitly states that all the outward meanings of the Quranic verses indicate bodily resurrection, and all commentators from ancient times understood the verses in this way. However, none of the Muslim philosophers could accept bodily resurrection because it contradicts philosophical principles. Because the problem of the eater and the eaten arises. That is:

“If someone is eaten by wild animals in the desert, how will God then gather his parts? Now, if that animal is eaten by another animal, and that animal is eaten by yet another animal, a part of one person’s body becomes a part of several people’s bodies. How should this be resurrected? They had many difficulties. But they said the Prophet has said so, the Quran has said so, and we affirm it” (“The Interpretation of Resurrection in the Theory of Prophetic Dreams” on August 19, 2015, minute 60).

According to Soroush, personal life after death also grapples with the philosophical problem of the impossibility of reincarnation and cannot be a true claim. He says:

“It has been said that in the resurrection, the soul returns to the body. The problem begins right here. Mulla Sadra says that the return of the soul to the body is reincarnation itself, and reincarnation is forbidden and impossible. He says that reincarnation is not just the soul returning to a body again in this world; the return of the soul to a body is reincarnation, period. Wherever it may be, because a philosophical principle admits no exceptions. And those who believe that on the Day of Resurrection the soul returns to the body have unknowingly subscribed to reincarnation. And reincarnation is philosophically impossible. So that path is also closed. So, what should we do now? In short, Mulla Sadra’s solution is that the resurrection is of the nature of the world of dreams, not of the nature of this material world… He believes that the world of the resurrection is of the nature of the world of dreams. Not that we are dreaming, but it is of that nature. Beings there are of the nature of dream-beings” (“The Interpretation of Resurrection in the Theory of Prophetic Dreams” on August 19, 2015, minutes 64-65).

Soroush says that Mulla Sadra considered one of his prides to be that he had solved the problem of bodily resurrection. But the scholarly community of believers considered his theory a “fraud” and said:

“Yes, you did that, but you destroyed the Resurrection. You destroyed the bodily resurrection. He [Mulla Sadra] would say, no, even in a dream you see the body. When you see me in a dream, do you see my spirit or do you see me with this very physical stature and form? They said you are pulling the wool over our eyes. It is true that in a dream we see a body, but well, it is not the body that exists externally” (“The Interpretation of Resurrection in the Theory of Prophetic Dreams” on August 19, 2015, minutes 65-66).

A year later, Soroush says on the same subject that the restoration of the non-existent is possible and that the existence of the soul has no necessary connection with life after death. He says:

“The tale of soul and body from the perspective of Rumi and the mystics. From the perspective of past philosophers, it is perhaps somewhat known. Today, few people believe in soul and body or self and body, especially in the world of science. Well, with the materialist view that prevails, a human being is just this body, a human being is just this brain, these nerves, and this particular physiology that it possesses, and there is no soul, self, or spirit to survive the person. And every day, as they advance further in these neurosciences, they become more steadfast in this belief. I am not engaging in a philosophical discussion on this matter, but the ancients, well, as you all know, did not think this way. There were very few who believed that a human being has no soul, no spirit, and is just this body. There were, not that there weren't. There were some among Muslims too. And I also point out, although it is not directly related to our discussion, that our not believing in a soul or self does not cause any disruption to the Resurrection. Those Mu'tazilite sheikhs who held that human beings have no soul, they said a person dies and then on the Day of Resurrection God brings them back to life. Not that they have a spirit that remains. They are brought back to life and by Resurrection, meaning the restoration of the non-existent or the restoration of one who has passed away, they had no problem with this matter, and the soul, in any case, is not one of the necessities of religion. That we believe in a soul and self for the human being has entered religions mostly through philosophy. Otherwise, that a human being exists and God has created them, then they depart from the world and then are raised and brought back to life again, these are among the necessities that have no necessary connection with having or not having a soul. But that they nonetheless thought that a human being has a soul that is other than the body, well, it was a very strong, widespread, and firm thought among philosophers and mystics and among the religious and everyone” (“Commentary on the Masnavi – Book One – Session Nine“, August 28, 2016, minutes 57-60).

Now compare this latest claim of his about the rational soul and life after death with his views from 1994. There, to prove the guidedness and salvation of the majority of human beings, he refers to the views of Avicenna and Mulla Sadra. Quoting Avicenna and Mulla Sadra, he states that the majority of human beings, in their personal life after death, are recipients of mercy, well-being, and salvation, and a minority suffer non-eternal punishment (Abdolkarim Soroush, Tolerance and Management, pp. 390-395). Now the question is: from the perspective of Muslim philosophers like Avicenna and Mulla Sadra, do all human beings have a resurrection and gathering, or only a small group of them? Do all of them possess a soul, or only a minority of them? The statements quoted from Soroush show that he alters the views of Muslim philosophers and mystics in accordance with the changes in his own claims.

[13] Straight Paths, p. 174.

[14] Soroush says that because Muhammad lived in a Judeo-Christian metaphysical atmosphere, he misinterpreted his dreams and thought that God had spoken to him in his sleep. He says: “But none of this prevents us from being curious about what it means that what the Prophet saw in his own experience—this auditory-visual word or revelation from a cause and force called God. The Prophet said these are the products of that revelation. This very Qur’an that we have. My [Muhammad’s] understanding was also that someone, a force, a formless one, as the mystics say, was teaching me these things. Fine. So far, so good. Is the story over? No, it is not over. One issue is, on what grounds is he truthful? Well, we assume it as a matter of faith, and it is not currently our subject of discussion. Second, assuming the Prophet’s truthfulness, what is the precise meaning of this phenomenon? That is, that someone feels that a God, a formless one, is speaking to him, and these words he hears come from Him. Our discussion concerns this last part. That is why I said if you hear these words from Baha’u’llah, you pay no attention to them because you do not consider him truthful; you say he said what he said, what is that to us. We therefore cannot stop at this level. Let us go further. Then we know that when the Prophet received auditory and visual revelation, he was in an unconscious or semi-conscious state. These are phenomena we are familiar with and must investigate… The Prophet explicitly said, ‘This is how I understand that this Qur’an comes to me from somewhere.’ We accept it because we consider him truthful. But the story does not end here. We want to know the how and the mechanism of this. What does it mean that someone, in an unconscious or semi-conscious state or in a dream state, feels that someone is speaking in his ear? Dozens of theories can be proposed here. Dozens of theories can be proposed about what this phenomenon means if it occurs within a person’s essence, and how it can be interpreted. We said that even a mystic like Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi said that when the Prophet Abraham saw in a dream that he was told to go and sacrifice his son, he misinterpreted his dream. So a dream can be misinterpreted, even if you are a prophet. Or we have it in the Qur’an that the enemy army was shown to you as small in number in a dream, so that you would not lose courage and would strike at the heart of the enemy. If the real number had been shown, you would have been paralyzed, you would have become weak, and you would have been defeated. Even regarding a dream the Prophet himself had, the Qur’an later says that this dream was not interpreted correctly, though there was wisdom in this error. It was a felicitous sin, so to speak… You can apply modern interpretations that psychoanalysts and others propose, that all of these are of the same nature as the unconscious. You can apply the interpretations of our past mystics, upon which I have relied more. What are the interpretations of our past mystics? One is what Rumi says. Another is what Ibn al-Farid says. Both of them say almost similar things, and they lived close to each other in terms of their lifespans. Rumi says: ‘When you go into sleep, / You go from yourself to yourself.’ When you sleep, you go from yourself to yourself. That is, to put it a bit more philosophically, you go from one level and layer of your existence to another layer of your existence. Then you talk to yourself. You yourself give form to those speakers. Then he says that you are not one; you have various layers, and you go from one layer to another. Well, see, this is Rumi’s interpretation. I have relied more on this interpretation. Ibn al-Farid says exactly the same thing: that we talk to ourselves, we ourselves take on a form… This is, in fact, a journey that a person takes within himself. Those who interpret dreams also think along these lines. That is, they do not come and say someone came from outside and told you things” (The Method of Interpreting the Prophetic Dream, December 2014. Part Two, Minutes 26-33 ).

[15] In his answers to the fourth series of questions, Soroush promises his questioners that he will soon begin the dream interpretation of the Qur’an. He writes:

“The time will come, God willing, for the interpretation of the Quran as well… For now, the ripest fruit is that, according to the dream theory, the Quran does not necessarily imply bodily resurrection, and this is no small achievement.”

[16] We have previously explained that God does not enter anyone’s dream, and no prophet or mystic sees the formless God in a dream; rather, the dreamer himself shows himself to himself in the dream in the form of the formless God. Soroush says:

“I had this exact same view, of course, regarding the Quran… Does the Prophet imagine that God spoke through his tongue or did he truly speak himself, when he was immersed in the being of God? …Look, where Rumi says: ‘You are a mirror bearing the reflection of someone / You yourself have been separate from all forms,’ here you understand correctly. Rumi considers his beloved as a mirror in which he sees himself. Therefore, when he speaks with his beloved, who is a mirror, since he himself is also seen in the mirror, it is as if he is speaking with himself. Then, if the mirror speaks, because his reflection is in the mirror, he imagines that he himself is speaking. This is a very important point. In fact, I am telling you the theoretical basis of the matter: if a being stands before you like a mirror, your speaking with it causes the speaker and the listener to merge into one another, and it becomes unclear who is the speaker and who is the listener… God always plays the role of a mirror for human beings, meaning everyone sees themselves in God. Few are those who see God Himself. God Himself is colorless and therefore cannot be seen. But since we have color, when our color is reflected in the mirror, we see that color and make a mistake, thinking that this is God. Everyone’s God is of the stature of that person. And He is realized to the extent of their capacity and takes on form and limitation.” (“A Night Beside the Sun,” third session, minutes 7–11).

[17] As an example, Soroush says:

“In fact, if you listen to me, with any hadith you encounter, assume the principle that it is false and fabricated unless the contrary is proven. Everyone who has worked in the field of hadith and has knowledge confirms my statement. Because the number of incorrect and unsound narrations, sometimes even forged by friends of Islam, is limitless, and the hadith scholars themselves have identified these.”

“The first biographies written about the Prophet were 150 years after his passing. Whatever there was, was transmitted orally, and much of what is related from the Prophet, whether concerning his biography and life matters, or the sayings attributed to him, all of this is subject to doubt. I personally, my idea, my philosophy, my methodology is that I consider all narrations false unless the contrary is proven.” (Second session of the lecture series “Iqbal the Poet”, minute 32).

And elsewhere he adds:

“My theory and thesis has always been and remains this, and I have expressed it: The narrations transmitted from the Prophet and from the Shia Imams, the principle is that they are all false, unless the contrary is proven. Whereas our clerics and scholars say the opposite.” (“Commentary on the First Book of the Masnavi – Fourth Session,” June 5, 2016, minute 5).

[18] He says on this matter:

“The certain minimum is that the rulings of the Sharia, as found in the Quran and the Prophet's Hadith, are all temporary, local, and belonging to the pre-modern world, unless proven otherwise… For politics, penal matters, economics, and so on, one must refer to modern science and ethics” (“Muhammad, the Narrator of Prophetic Dreams (4): The Cessation of Sharia and the Impossibility of Prophethood. Footnote 32).

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Soroush's Theory of Prophethood – Soroush the Prophet (2)

Author: Akbar Ganji | 13 November 2016

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