ABD AL-KARIM SORUSH (1945– )

ABD AL-KARIM SORUSH (1945– )
Abd al-Karim Sorush is the pen-name of Hassan Haj-FarajDabbagh. Born in 1945 in Tehran, Sorush attended AlaviHigh School, an alternative school that offered a rigorouscurriculum of Islamic studies in addition to the state-mandated,standardized education in math and sciences. He studiedIslamic law and exegesis with Reza Ruzbeh, one of thefounders of the school. He attended Tehran University, andin 1969 graduated with a degree in pharmacology. He continuedhis postgraduate education in history and philosophy ofscience at Chelsea College in London. In 1979 he returned toIran after the revolution, and soon thereafter was appointedby Ayatollah Khomeini to the Cultural Revolution Council.He resigned from this controversial post in 1983.In his most celebrated book, Qabz va Bast-i Teorik-iShariat (The theoretical constriction and expansion of thesharia), Sorush developed a general critique of dogmaticinterpretations of religion. He argued that, when turned intoa dogma, religion becomes ideological and loses its universality.He held that religious knowledge is inevitably historicaland culturally contingent, and that it is distinct from religion,the truth of which is solely possessed by God. He posited thatculture, language, history, and human subjectivity mediatethe comprehension of the revealed text. Therefore, humanunderstandings of the physical world, through science, forinstance, and the changing nature of the shared values ofhuman societies (such as citizenship and social and politicalrights) inform and condition religious knowledge.There was a contradiction between Sorush’s understandingof epistemological problems of human knowledge, whichhe saw as logical and methodical, and his emphasis on the historical contingencies of the hermeneutics of the divinetext. This contradiction was resolved in his later writing infavor of a more hermeneutical approach. In his early work, hewas influenced by analytical philosophy and skepticism of apost-positivist logic, whereas in his later writings he adopteda more hermeneutical approach to the meaning of the sacredtext. In his earlier work he put forward epistemologicalquestions about the limits and truthfulness of claims regardingknowledge, but in two important later books, Siratha-yimustaqim (1998, Straight paths) and Bast-e tajrubih-e Nabavi(1999, The expansion of the prophetic experience), he emphasizedthe reflexivity and plurality of human understanding.In his plural usage of the Quranic phrase “straightpaths,” Sorush offered a radical break with both modernistand orthodox traditions in Islamic theology.In the 1990s, Sorush emerged as one the most influentialMuslim thinkers in Iran. His theology contributed to theemergence of a generation of Muslim reformers who challengedthe legitimization of the Islamic Republic’s rule basedon divine sources rather than on democratic principles andpopular consent.See also Iran, Islamic Republic of; Khomeini, Ruhollah.BIBLIOGRAPHYSadri, Mahmoud, and Sadri, Ahmad, eds. Reason, Freedom, &Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush.Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi