|
Abdolkarim
Soroush
The reformist thinker and philosopher Abdolkarim
Soroush is one of a new generation of theologians that openly speaks out
in favor of human rights and secularism in Iran. Katajun Amirpur about an
awkward Iranian intellectual.
Most people consider the Islamic Republic of Iran to be a fundamentalist
theocracy that fosters a radical interpretation of Islam.
However, such an interpretation of the Koran is now being rejected by a
group of Iranian theologians. The group, which is supported by the forces
of social reform in the Islamic Republic, is significant not only for
Iran, but also for the Islamic world far beyond its borders.
A changing religious cognition
Abdolkarim Soroush is one of the protagonists of this movement. The crux
of his main scientific theory is the changeability of religious cognition.
Soroush argues that because human cognition is changeable, so too is
humankind’s cognition of its religion because cognition in any era
generally depends on the prevailing state of science in that era. This is
why faith is continually being elucidated in new ways. These new
interpretations are adapted to suit the conditions in which the
interpreting person lives.
Soroush is trying to justify a political system that is both Islamic and
democratic. His starting point is the approximate nature of cognition.
Humankind cannot really ever know what God expects of it. It will never
find out what God’s law really is or what purpose it serves. God’s
intentions are unfathomable.
The Koran: open for interpretation
Humankind can only ever know and understand God’s aims. That is all.
Soroush goes on to say that this religious aim simply cannot contradict
humane concepts. The text of the Koran is, like every other text, open to
interpretation.
Soroush says that a rigid explanation of belief is a modern phenomenon. He
points out that in past times, people assumed that religious cognition
changed with time. This changeability, says Soroush, leaves room for new
interpretations. And this is why democracy, Islam, and human rights are
indeed compatible.
This attitude is sure to ruffle feathers in Iran, where discourse on such
matters is still chiefly dominated by the opinion of the founder of the
Iranian state, Ayatollah Khomeini. According to his image of humankind and
God, God is the only one who has rights. Humans have no rights. Above all,
humans do not simply have rights because they are human, as is the
assumption in the western world.
While humans do have obligations to God; only God has rights. While God or
his representative on earth might grant humans rights, he can just as
easily taken them away again because rights are a gift of God, not of
nature.
According to Ayatollah Khomeini, every human must submit to the good of
the community, i.e. the Islamic community. This anti-liberal world view
also permits the violation of individual rights for the benefit of the
community because the community always takes priority. This explains why
censure, force, and infringements of human rights are justified if the
well-being of the umma, the Muslim community, requires it.
Human rights and religion in harmony
Soroush refutes this line of argument. For him, human rights are the
commandments of human reason. This means that they cannot be in conflict
with religion because on principle, nothing unreasonable can be God’s
will.
The fact that human rights were established in a non-religious context
does not mean that their implementation is impossible or unnecessary in an
Islamic state system. On the contrary. While human rights are the
brainchild of humans, the fact that they do not contradict religion means
that God’s rights are not being infringed.
The logical consequence of this line of argument is that a whole series of
punishments recognized by Islamic law need no longer be applied, e.g. the
amputation of hands for stealing. Nor is it, according to Soroush,
absolutely necessary to follow Islamic laws down to the letter.
To justify this point, he differentiates between first- and second-degree
values. Second-degree values relate exclusively to the details of belief
and therefore differ from religion to religion. First-degree values, on
the other hand, such as justice, are the really important ones.
Searching for the essence instead of the dogmas
Details such as Islamic criminal law or dress codes are less important.
They are the “skin” that outwardly keeps religion together and have
nothing to do with the actual essence of religion.
Soroush argues that anyone who believes in the five irrefutable dogmas of
Shia - the unity of God, the prophets, the twelve Imams, the resurrection
and the justice of God - is a Shiite. In his opinion, strict observance of
religious rules is not essential. This is why human rights can be observed
even in an Islamic system.
In this way, Soroush is fundamentally adopting an attitude towards human
rights that is generally upheld by secularists. Like them, he assumes that
humans also have non-religious rights simply because they are humans.
A concept such as this does not rigidly adhere to the interpretation of
the Koran, but is instead guided by the ultimate will of the Creator. In
principle, it is completely different from another school of liberal
Islamic thought.
Other liberal Islamic thinkers’ apologetics describe how tolerant Muslims
have been towards other religions in the past. They gloss over attacks on
those who lapsed from the faith and emphasize how rare and politically
motivated - not religiously motivated - such attacks were.
Soroush, on the other hand, completely ignores the question as to whether
Islam was tolerant in the past or not. He does not employ the argument
that Jews in Spain were better off under Muslim rule than they were under
the Christians after the reconquest.
Nor does he play down the higher taxes and the lower blood money imposed
on non-Muslims. Such aspects are irrelevant to his argument because he is
trying to adapt his understanding of religion to suit the modern concept
of human rights.
He does so because he considers it necessary in the modern world. Soroush
is convinced that there is no alternative to this course of action. After
all, the fact that the Islamist experiment in Iran has failed requires no
further proof.
Katajun Amirpur © Qantara.de 2004
Translation from German: Aingeal Flanagan
http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-575/_nr-5/i.html
|
