Iranian thinker
Hashem Aghajari
Hashem AghajariIslamic History and Religious IntellectualismIranian
Life and Thought
Hashem Aghajari (born 1957) is a historian, researcher of Islamic history, and associate professor in the Department of History at Tarbiat Modares University. He is considered one of the prominent figures of religious intellectualism and a reformist political and social activist in Iran.
Hashem Aghajari was born in 1957 in Abadan. During the Iran–Iraq War, he became a disabled veteran and lost one of his legs. After the war ended, he continued his university studies in history, earning a PhD in History from Tarbiat Modares University, and subsequently joined the faculty of the same university to teach and conduct research.
Aghajari's expertise and scholarly research are primarily focused on the contemporary history of Iran, the social and political history of Islam, Islamic movements, and historiography. In his works and lectures, he adopts a critical and sociological approach to re-reading Islamic history and religious thought, emphasizing the necessity of Islamic Protestantism, religious reform, and the critique of blind imitation (taqlid).
His controversial 2002 lecture in Hamedan, titled "Islamic Protestantism," in which he criticized the clerical establishment and the concept of taqlid, generated widespread controversy, leading to his arrest and an initial death sentence, which was later overturned. In addition to numerous scholarly articles, Aghajari has authored and translated various works in the field of Islamic history and political thought.
.webp)
