Translated and edited, with a critical introduction by Mahmoud Sadri and Ahmad Sadri, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 236 pages.

Chapter 2 presents Soroush’s theory of the contraction and expansion of religious knowledge. Here, he makes the controversial (at least in the post-revolutionary Iranian context) argument that while religion and sacred scriptures may be flawless and constant, the interpreters of religion are not. Hence, Soroush argues that traditional Islamic knowledge needs to be treated like any other branch of knowledge, “as incomplete, impure, insufficient, and culture-bound” (p. 32).

Chapters 4 and 6-9 discuss the issue of morality in religious and secular forms of governance. In these latter essays, one senses Soroush’s assertiveness in objecting to Iran’s clerical regime and the threat that his ideas present. He argues that while the combination of religion and politics endows government with a sense of sacredness that puts it above critique, secularism is a form of non-religious reason that provides crucial limitations to the abuse of power by fallible leaders. In so doing, secularism may marginalize religion to the extent that it separates religion and politics. But, according to him, this need not entail an irreligious society.

Furthermore, Muslim societies seeking to harmonize Islam and democracy should begin this attempt by discussing human rights, justice, and the restriction of power, that is, with precisely those issues that are out of the jurists’ purview. In fact, this is a general point in Soroush’s arguments: Religious thought will only develop as a result of competition and struggle with ideas coming from outside of religion.

Although clearly rooted in Soroush’s desire to limit the power of Iran’s post-revolutionary regime by relativizing the fiqh-based understanding of religion and society, his work is theoretical and claims to be general. But this becomes problematic. Read outside of the Iranian context and in view of the innumerable critiques of critical reason, liberal democracy, modernization, and secularization, his unquestioning faith in the epistemological premises of liberalism and secularism appears exaggerated and naïve.

It is not that Soroush is unaware of the multifarious critiques; he just does not take them seriously enough. For instance, without falling prey to economic determinism, Soroush’s naïve belief in the competition and struggle of ideas would benefit from the argument of political-economy that the competition of ideas is never as free from distortions as the ideologues of liberalism make it out to be. Furthermore, he regards only the positive aspects of modernity – the liberal democratic version in its own ideal representation. He overlooks the fact that the socialist experiment, which was equally secular and modern, is the other half of modernity, as Z. Bauman has pointed out.

Another set of problems in Soroush’s work are the fundamental rifts that he draws between religion and religious knowledge, a traditional conception of the natural order of things and a modern conception of the conscious management of the social order, and a religious discourse of obligations and a secular discourse of rights. These dichotomies not only betray his desire to synthesize traditional Islamic teachings with modern philosophies, but also indicate that he has completely bought into an evolutionary model of history. However, tradition and modernity interpenetrate in so many subtle ways that go beyond dichotomies and evolutionary models.

These problems notwithstanding, this is an immensely interesting book. We are given insight into what an Islamist government cannot tolerate and to the latest turn in the current of reformist Muslim thought. Yet it will also appeal to those interested in more theoretical issues, such as the philosophy of science and social science, the sociology of knowledge, and the epistemological underpinnings of modernity.

Ali Hassan Zaidi
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Sociology, York University
Toronto, Canada

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