Hossein Kamaly is a PhD candidate in history at Columbia University in the City of New York.
Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam:
Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush
translated, edited and with a critical introduction
by mahmoud sadri and ahmad sadri
New York, Oxford University Press, 2000. 236 pages
Hardback UK £24.50, US $37.50. Paperback UK £17.45, US $22.00
No thinker has had so direct and dominant an influence on intellectual life in post-revolutionary Iran as the philosopher/theologian Abdolkarim Soroush. Not everyone agrees with his teachings, of course, but even those who vehemently disagree feel compelled to address the questions he has raised in the course of two decades of extensive writing, teaching, and lecturing to the educated public.
Soroush belongs to the ranks of those revivers or reformers of religion who breathe new meaning into exhausted structures. But there is a caveat. Since the nineteenth century, Western pontificators about the Islamic world have periodically announced their discovery of rising stars who could allegedly accomplish with respect to Islam what Martin Luther did for (or, as some may prefer, to) Christianity in the sixteenth century. Local sages envisaging themselves as enlightened sceptics à la Voltaire have indeed prepared the ground for such proclaimed discoveries. More often than not, however, the jubilation of discovery has given way to frustration or disillusionment.
With the benefit of hindsight, it could be suggested that the quest for an Islamic Luther or European-style enlightened sceptic was uncalled for to begin with. The religious history of Islam differs so radically from that of Christianity that comparisons inevitably founder. Nor is the socio-political situation of Muslims in the modern world the same as that of Christians. Assimilating Soroush’s work to European historical models fails to illuminate its profound contribution to contemporary Islamic thought. Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam does much to provide such illumination. The editor/translators, Ahmad and Mahmoud Sadri, both distinguished sociologists in the United States, have rendered an invaluable service by making this collection of the “Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush” accessible to the English-speaking world.
The book gathers eleven essays written over the years up to 1996. A brief yet insightful introduction by the editors helps to situate Soroush within the broader context of contemporary Iranian thought. The first chapter presents an intellectual autobiography of Soroush in the form of an interview with the editors. This absorbing account opens vistas on some aspects of the Iranian intellectual scene between the 1950s and the 1970s. It is of especial interest because it differs in perspective from the mainstream secular intellectualism of the period as reflected most notably in the writings of Jalal Alahmad (d. 1969). At the same time, the interview highlights decisive points in which Soroush departs from the track followed by more conventional Muslim intellectuals.
Chapters are arranged according to the chronological order of original publication, except for chapter 12, which first appeared in 1985 and as such antedates the rest of the essays collected here. Entitled “Let Us Learn from History”, it argues that what constitutes the nature and character of humankind is best revealed and reflected in history, and not by logical definitions or introspective speculation.
Six of the chapters, namely chapters 3–6, 8 and 11, originated in lectures delivered by Soroush on a number of occasions in various Iranian universities, a Tehran mosque and a scholarly institution in Germany.
Chapter 2, “Islamic Revival and Reform: Theological Approaches”, excerpted from the author’s influential book Qabz o Bast-e Te’orik-e Shari’at (Theoretical contraction and expansion of religious knowledge), begins with a survey of the ideas of a range of Muslim reformists or revivalists. It adopts a wide historical perspective, looking at medieval thinkers such as Mohammad Ghazzali (d. 1111) and Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1274), as well as a number of twentieth-century reformists. Among those discussed are the cosmopolitan Sayyed Jamaluddin Asad-Abadi/Afghani (d. 1897), Sir Mohammad Iqbal Lahori (d. 1936) of India, and the Iranian Ali Shariati (d. 1977). Soroush stresses that while earlier revivalists sought to distinguish what constituted the essence of religion from contingent manifestations, modern revivalists inevitably confront a more daunting challenge. Whereas medieval reformists abhorred the eclipse of religious truth behind a masquerade of rituals and strictures, the modern revivalist aims at the seemingly impossible goal of reconciling the eternal with the temporal. Colossal transformations that have taken place over the course of recent centuries, and that as such have rendered the very notion of eternal truth difficult to fathom, further complicate the task of the modern reformist or revivalist.
The theme of a fundamental rift separating pre-modern, pre-secular tradition from modernity emerges strongly in this and several other passages in the book. In chapter 3, for example, “Life and Virtue: The Relationship between Socioeconomic Development and Ethics”, Soroush forcefully states that the “modern world is the ethical inverse of the old world” (p. 43). This chapter contains some of Soroush’s most original writing and is of central importance in the collection.
Chapter 4, “The Sense and Essence of Secularism”, deals with what is a particularly controversial topic. Dreaded as some sort of affliction, secularism, the very word, is anathema to an influential body of clerics in Iran, and in the Islamic world at large. But Soroush argues that while secularism may in a sense neglect religion it does not negate it. He maintains that “the proper analysis of modern history entails an understanding of modern knowledge” and that secularism “is nothing but the ‘scientification’ of social and political thought and deliberation” (p. 57). Whereas the pre-secular age “is marked by the hegemony of metaphysical thought in political, economic, and social realms”, radical transformations that harnessed natural forces for humankind also “gave people the courage to revise social conventions and to initiate deliberate reforms in the world of politics” (pp. 58–9). As a corollary of this radical epistemic rift, rights enjoy a modern primacy over duties. The “language of religion” prescribes a set of commandments ordained by a supreme divine authority and as such it relegates rights to a subservient position with respect to duties. Scientifically empowered secular man, in contrast, transposes rights and duties (pp. 62–3).
Further philosophically acute discussions of politically relevant topics abound in the book. Chapter 8, for example, tackles “The Idea of Democratic Religious Government”, an edifice that appears precarious in that it is under siege from two sides. On the one hand, religious ruling elites claiming divinely ordained legitimacy regard popular consent as at best an ornament, and as a matter of principle eschew the libertarian ideals inherent in democracy. Secular intellectuals, on the other hand, wince at the apparently oxymoronic notion of a religious government loyal to democratic principles. Soroush sees here a threefold problem: (1) reconciling what the people want with what God approves; (2) striking a balance between what belongs to the realm of religion and what does not; and (3) maintaining at once both the sanctity of religion and the integrity of human beings. Consequently, the “task of democratic religious governments is, obviously, much harder than that of democratic or religious regimes” (p. 122).
Soroush attempts to show—primarily to the satisfaction of a religiously minded audience—the compatibility of religious governance with the requirements of democracy. He grants the validity of arguing that in a secular society a religious form of democratic government would be impossible “because religious governments are not answerable to the people”. But he denies it is valid to argue that
nowhere and under no conditions may one perceive the desirability of a religious democracy, even in a religious society. The truth of the matter is that a religious government can be an appropriate reflection of a religious society. Indeed, in such a society any purely secular government would be undemocratic. (P. 126)
Chapter 9, “Tolerance and Governance: A Discourse on Religion and Democracy”, further elaborates on the relationship between religion and democracy and clarifies some issues raised in the previous chapter.
Chapter 6, “Reason and Freedom”, considers reason “as a dynamic faculty for thinking and seeking the truth” and discusses “the freedom for exercising the faculty of reason, that is the freedom of thinking” (p. 89). Freedom emerges as a collective competitive contest with defining rules of its own. It improves with practice, and those who violate the defining rules of competition, or decide to withdraw from it, deprive themselves of benefiting from it. The author distinguishes between internal and external freedom. While Muslim mystics sought to free themselves from inner bondage, without giving much heed to external tyrants ruling over the societies in which they lived, “contemporary Westerners have entirely forsaken the internal battle” (p 103). He concludes, “[w]hat we desperately need today is to take our cue from the seekers of freedom and from our own religious and mystic culture, to combine external and internal freedoms” (p. 104).
Throughout the book, Soroush refers to the philosophical and epistemological foundations of religion in general and of Islam in particular. His enterprise is one of normative methodology, a key element of which is his distinction between what in Islam is essentially God-given and what has evolved as a matter of historical contingency or social exigency. Reading Soroush, one gets the impression that while the chain of contingencies is continually growing, the hard core of essentials keeps shrinking. Indeed, Soroush does not even reject the idea that anything beyond absolutely fundamental theological tenets may turn out to be non-essential and merely contingent. A later essay not included in the present volume, “On the Essential and the Contingent in Religion”, hints that the vast body of Islamic law regulating social transactions may fall into the latter category. This is an unpalatable proposition for advocates of an Islamic system of government and as such lies at the root of much controversy.
Chapter 11, “What the University Expects from the Hawzeh [traditional Islamic seminary]”, was originally delivered as a lecture at the University of Isfahan in November 1992. It has struck a sensitive chord with the ruling clerical elite in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iranian history bears unequivocal testimony that clerics have shown far more tolerance on matters of doctrinal or practical unorthodoxy than on any criticism of their own position in society. Perceived as an act of irreverence towards the Hawzeh, this essay in particular has occasioned considerable difficulties for its author. Since delivering the lecture from which the essay derives, Soroush has seen his career as a university professor in Iran officially terminated, and physical assaults and death threats have forced him into exile.
A significant aspect of Soroush’s work regrettably not reflected in the present collection is his extensive commentary on the Mathnawi of Rumi, by which he illuminates some major ideas in the Islamic tradition. A sequel volume illustrating this commentary, and containing examples of his more recent writings since 1996 that consider developments in Iran, would be most welcome. That said, Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam provides an indispensable introduction for English-speaking readers to one of the Muslim world’s most distinguished living thinkers.
