İRAN’DA RESMÎ DİNÎ YORUMUN ELEŞTİRİSİ: MUHAMMED MÜÇTEHİD ŞEBİSTERÎ ÖRNEĞİ
CRITICISM OF OFFICIAL READING OF RELIGION IN IRAN: THE CASE OF MUHAMMAD MUJTAHID

Summary/Abstract: Religious texts can be interpreted in different ways and this may lead to different understandings of any religion. This is also the case in Islam. Through history Islam has been interpreted in different ways and this has produced different religious traditions within the religion. Moreover, different readings have emerged within each tradition. This is not a problem as long as one of the readings has not emerged as an official and the only true reading of that religion. In today’s Iran one of the readings of the Shia Islam became an official reading of Islam. Shabestari criticizes this reading of religion and claims that this kind of reading causes great crisis, for it claims that Islam has an eternally valid legal, political and economic system and that it is a duty for the Islamic government to apply these eternally valid Islamic rules. For Shabestari, this reading of religion is against the ideals of Islamic Revolution and the values of the modern world. This reading, from a scholarly point of view, is untenable. He claims that a rational reading of religion which is compatible with the values of modern world is the only solution for Iran as well as other nations of the Islamic world.

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