Islam, Democracy and Religious Modernism in Iran, 1953-2000: From Bāzargān to Soroush

Front Cover
BRILL, Jan 1, 2001 - Religion - 201 pages
This volume focuses primarily on the question of the compatibility of Islam and democracy. It highlights the contribution of seven prominent pre- and post-revolutionary Iranian religious thinkers on the subject. Situating the discussion in its specific religious context, the book critically examines those elements that are usually referred to as democratic norms in Islamic tradition. It also provides, for the first time, an exposition of the emergence of religious intellectualism in post-revolutionary Iran, focusing on the ideas of its leading figure, Abdolkarim Soroush. His discussion of religious democratic government presents a paradigm shift in the Muslim modernists' discourse on the issue. The book also delineates the intellectual component of the current reformist movement in Iran and sheds light on the challenges that the pro-democracy movement has to overcome.

From inside the book

Contents

Chapter One What is Democracy?
5
Chapter Two Democratic Norms in Islam
20
Chapter Three The Emergence of Muslim Intellectualism
50
13
57
2230
78
50
85
Chapter Five PostRevolutionary Religious Intellectuals
140
Epilogue
172
Bibliography
186
Index
196
Copyright

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About the author (2001)

Forough Jahanbakhsh, Ph.D. (1997) in Islamic Studies, McGill University, is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at Queen's University, Canada. She specializes in modern Islamic Thought and has written extensively on religion and politics. She is currently writing a book on a newly emerging Muslim intellectual movement.