Abdolkarim Soroush: The Neo-Muʿtazilite that Buries Classical Islamic Political Theology in Defence of Religious Democracy and Pluralism

Abstract

Islam_And_Democracy-Reflections_On_Abdolkarim_Soroush. html. Dallmayr says "It is time to recuperate the meaning of Islam as a summons to freedom, justice, and service to the God who, throughout the Qurʾan, is called 'all-merciful and compassionate' (rahman-i-raheem)." Abdolkarim Soroush Studia Islamica 109 (2014) 147-173 henceforth the relevance of political theology,4 or what Mohammed Arkoun calls "applied Islamology."5 4 I make two notes here. One, by political theology I simply and briefly mean the intertwining territories between religion and politics, namely, the incorporation and interpretation of some theological aspects of religion in the public debate for public use. For example, theological debates on some of the attributes of God, like Oneness, Justice, Forgiveness and Mercy, or the ontological equality in creation and judgement between man and woman, are issues that stir re-interpretation in Islamic thought, both past and present, for political debates on social justice and freedom. It is in this sense that religion cannot be excluded from politics nor can politics be severed from religious contribution, seeing that some theological matters, even though metaphysical or ontological in nature, are relevant for mundane and epistemological reconsiderations. This does not, however, necessarily mean that Islam speaks of a State in its major sources of reference, but means that the public sphere cannot be isolated from the moral codes that are directed particularly to the individual. As a social being, the individual cannot be asked to leave to the private sphere what he (or she) believes is essential in his life. Accordingly, Islamic theology is also political. Two, if Muslim scholars and Muslim citizens are deprived of their major sources, which are substantially religious/ Islamic, in their involvement in politics in this period of debating modernity, then they are deprived of their right to their own sources, thus their right to think from within, and that is contrary to some of the major values of modernity. Otherwise said, Islamic thought, at least in this historical period, cannot be but religious, minimally or maximally. As to the future, it is up to future generations of Islamic scholarship to debate. I consider that most contemporary Muslim scholars that speak of reform from within hold the same perspective. For a perspective from comparative political thought, the work of Nader Hashemi is interesting in this regard: Islam, Secularism and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, Chapter I, pp. 23-66. Still, I note that though he tries to defend his idea that a (liberal) democratic change in the Islamic world should go through the integration of theology in the political debate, as I also noted above, he fails to give ample evidence and examples from contemporary Islamic scholarship. This article, then, with some coincidence, may be a modest contribution in this direction of reading this scholarship from political theology perspectiv...

Kontribusi Abdul Karim Soroush dalam Mendialogkan Agama dan Sains

“…Kontribusi gagasan-gagasan Soroush dalam diskursus pemikiran kegamaan telah banyak dibahas oleh para peneliti. Sebagian peneliti memberi perhatian pada aspek diskursus teologi, politik, kebebasan, dan demokrasi (Fadoil, 2013;Ghamari-Tabrizi, 2008;Hashas, 2014;Jahanbakhsh, 2001;Parray, 2013;Purnama, 2016). Selain itu, beberapa peneliti membahas kontribusi pemikiran Soroush pada tataran hermeneutika al-Qur'an (Akbar, 2019b;Leirvik, 2015;Rexhepi & Memishi, n.d.).…”

“…Keragaman atas pemahaman teks akan melahirkan intra-religious pluralisme. Sementara, keragaman dalam menafsirkan pengalaman keagamaan dapat menghasilkan ekstra-religious pluralism (Hashas, 2014). Keduanya pada dasarnya memiliki tujuan yang sama yaitu menjaga agar misi keagamaan tetap eksis (Soroush, 1998).…”

A Model for Reconciling Islamic Teachings with the Intellectual and Scientific Achievements of Modernity

“…1. Scope: For extreme Islamic modernism, the elements and achievements of modernity take a central position, 37 regardless of whether those elements are definitive scientific achievements, a result of common reason, or a product of the lifestyle of the twenty-first century. Extreme Islamic modernism insists on forcing Islamic teachings to conform to modernity in its entirety.…”

Epistemological Analysis of Traditionalist and Reformist Discourses Pertaining to Islamic Feminism in Iran

“…Soroush further proposed the notion of "minimalist religiosity" against the notion of "maximalist religiosity" as a supplemental commentary to "the theory of essential and accidentals in religion." Soroush believes that religion does not say everything and believers should not expect too much of religion (Hashas, 2014). He has a minimalist perspective toward the elements of religion, like fiqh and ethics.…”