Research
Theology and religions
Fatimah Bahjat; Asghar Islami Tanha
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to critically review and evaluate the book "Theological Roots of Modernity" written by Alan Gillespie. The work is one of the successful socio-theological texts. The author develops his idea in the book with an optimistic stance towards modernity. His main concern is to ...
Read More
The purpose of this article is to critically review and evaluate the book "Theological Roots of Modernity" written by Alan Gillespie. The work is one of the successful socio-theological texts. The author develops his idea in the book with an optimistic stance towards modernity. His main concern is to prove the role of theology in the formation of modernity. A claim that has no place in the narrative of the Age of Enlightenment. Gillespie believes that not only is the antithesis to religion not the basis of modernity, but modernity has a religious origin and emerged in a theological dialogue; it is not a new issue. The conflict over the issue of the will of God and man, and the combination of the duality of determinism and free will, shape subsequent philosophical conflicts in every era. From the nominalist revolution to Petrarch's invention of individuality, the subsequent insoluble contradictions between Erasmus and Luther over the consequential problem of the contradiction between the will of God and the will of man provided the ground for Descartes to establish the semantics of subjectivity that has formed the basis of modernity and the present West. Gillespie analyzes modern evil as the transfer of divine attributes to man or the secularization of these attributes. Thus, he speaks of the disappearance of secularization and attributes the responsibility for the disasters of world wars and other modern evils to the secularization of divine attributes and their transfer to man and social forces.
Research
Theology and religions
Mohammadreza Salehi Vasigh
Abstract
The present article offers a critical review of Wasserstrom's book "Religion After Religion", examining its main themes, methodological approaches, and scholarly impacts. The primary objective of this article was to assess how Wasserstrom portrays the contributions of Scholem, Eliade, and Corbin to modern ...
Read More
The present article offers a critical review of Wasserstrom's book "Religion After Religion", examining its main themes, methodological approaches, and scholarly impacts. The primary objective of this article was to assess how Wasserstrom portrays the contributions of Scholem, Eliade, and Corbin to modern religious thought, particularly their shared focus on mysticism, symbolism, and the phenomenological study of religion. Utilizing text-based content analysis of the book, this research examined Wasserstrom's use of the concept "Religion After Religion" and his critical engagement with the scholars' ideological commitments and methodological choices. The findings highlighted significant strengths, such as Wasserstrom's comprehensive historical context and interdisciplinary approach, but also raised notable criticisms. These include ambiguity in defining "Religion After Religion," which blurs the boundaries between personal spirituality, academic inquiry, and ideological commitments, raising questions about the concept's coherence as an analytical category. Additionally, the overemphasis on mysticism often overshadows critical historical analysis, particularly in Scholem's works, and an insufficient critique of the ethical dimensions of the scholars' political ideologies limits the depth of Wasserstrom's analysis. This review emphasizes the need for a more balanced and precise engagement with the complex interplay between mysticism, history, and politics in modern religious studies.
Research
Philosophy
Alireza Kermani
Abstract
In the modern era, after the weakening of theoretical rationality, religious experience became the center of attention of many philosophers of religion. Among the topics that these philosophers showed great interest in is the nature of religious experience and its validity. For example, Schleiermacher ...
Read More
In the modern era, after the weakening of theoretical rationality, religious experience became the center of attention of many philosophers of religion. Among the topics that these philosophers showed great interest in is the nature of religious experience and its validity. For example, Schleiermacher and Otto considered religious experience to be a feeling associated with consciousness, and Alston and Swinburne tried to validate it by expressing its similarity with sensory experience. The book "Elements of the Philosophy of Religion: Religious Experience", after a brief overview of some views on the nature of religious experience and explaining the perceptual approach to prove the validity of religious experiences and the challenges facing them, is based on the fact that such discussions about religious experience are based on a knowledge-centered approach in the philosophy of religion; An approach that, by creating limitations in the definition of religious experience and its exclusivity in certain experiences, only seeks to discover the correspondence of these experiences with reality. But the author considers it necessary to complement this knowledge-centered approach with an understanding- centered approach. The understanding-centered approach considers the development of religious man's understanding to be much more important than the discovery of correspondence with reality, and it is based on the philosophy of religion that it is necessary to be oriented towards the development of the subject and the expansion of his understanding.
Review Artical
Theology and religions
Yadollah Nasrollahi
Abstract
"Rovzat ol-Muridin" is a mystical prose work written in Arabic by Abu Ja'far ibn Yazdaniyar Hamadani (380-472). Today, there are manuscripts of this work in the world, and Suri and Pourjavadi have corrected and published this work for the first time. The book "Rovzat ol-Muridin" is a concise and comprehensive ...
Read More
"Rovzat ol-Muridin" is a mystical prose work written in Arabic by Abu Ja'far ibn Yazdaniyar Hamadani (380-472). Today, there are manuscripts of this work in the world, and Suri and Pourjavadi have corrected and published this work for the first time. The book "Rovzat ol-Muridin" is a concise and comprehensive work that has 44 chapters and is written in simple and fluent language. The main question is what the place of "Rovzat ol-Muridin" in mystical sources is, and what the value and importance of this source is. This work is similar to other mystical works of that period and explains mystical principles in a simple way. Dividing topics into types can be considered one of its expressive techniques. The editors have presented the book in three parts: introduction, text, and notes, along with an index. They had eleven copies in their hands in correcting the text, seven of which were used. There are some questions and even doubts, especially about the author. However, now that "Rovzat ol-Muridin" has been published, scholars will certainly raise some questions and answers about the work and its author, and by recognizing another legacy of mysticism, they will deepen and enrich this process. And certainly, in the future, there will be more discussion about the status of Ibn Yazdaniyar and the honor of "Rovzat ol-Muridin".
Research
History
Zahra Rajaee; Nader Shayganfar; Gholamreza Maroof
Abstract
This article critically analyzes the book “Discourse of the Left in Iran”. This book is a four-chapter book structured chronologically and causally as follows: 1) The Foundations of Left Discourse, 2) The Influence of Socialist Ideas, 3) The Rise of Communism in Iran, and 4) Arani and a New ...
Read More
This article critically analyzes the book “Discourse of the Left in Iran”. This book is a four-chapter book structured chronologically and causally as follows: 1) The Foundations of Left Discourse, 2) The Influence of Socialist Ideas, 3) The Rise of Communism in Iran, and 4) Arani and a New Chapter in Left Discourse. The article examines the articulation of left discourse in Iran based on the extent to which discursive elements are employed in the analysis of contemporary Iranian social history. By posing four key questions, it evaluates the methodological similarities and differences of this book concerning various historiographical approaches, including modern, social, political history, and discourse analysis. The findings indicate that the methodological heterogeneity of the book has affected its methodological coherence. Consequently, the text oscillates between traditional and modern historiography. Despite the book's title suggesting an engagement with critical discourse analysis, it at times aligns with social history and at other times with political history.
Research
History
Seyed Mohammad Rahim Rabbanizadeh; Mohsen Daryabeigi; Lotfollah Lotfi
Abstract
Getting out of decadence is one of the major issues of thought of contemporary thinkers of the Arab world. The gap between the current situation of the Arab world and the Western world and the recognition of the main factors of this and how to get out of it has been a matter of concern. Mohammad Abed ...
Read More
Getting out of decadence is one of the major issues of thought of contemporary thinkers of the Arab world. The gap between the current situation of the Arab world and the Western world and the recognition of the main factors of this and how to get out of it has been a matter of concern. Mohammad Abed Al-Jabari, one of the prominent thinkers of the 80s and 90s of the 20th century, made the knowledge of tradition and how to reproduce it in the new world the center of his thought. After authoring the book "Al-Khattab al-Arabi al-Mudhamdin" (Contemporary Arabic Discourse), he focused his research on explaining a method to criticize the Arabic intellect, which became one the most controversial issues in the Arab world. In addition to giving a brief description of Mohammad Abid Jabri's project and the framework of his thinking about Shia and mysticism in Islamic history and culture, this article deals with the formulation of Arab thinkers' criticisms. The categorization of this critical view has been done based on the content, form and data of Jabri, which is remarkable for the inclusion of discussion and attention to his status in the Arab world. The main question of this article is the position of Mohammad Abed Al-Jabri among the thinkers of the Arab world. While expressing some of these criticisms, we judged them. Our method was descriptive analysis. The classification of these criticisms is in three levels: 1. Attitudinal-methodical criticism 2. Criticism of historical data 3. Criticism of structure. A purely structural view without considering the capacity of the Arab East to get out of the cultural situation of the new world while being influenced by Orientalists is one of the main problems of Jabri's project.
