The Expansion of Prophetic Experience

Famously described as the Martin Luther of Islam by The Guardian in 1995, Abdol-Karim Soroush (the pen-name of Hossein Dabbagh) has become a name synonymous with the project of reform in Iran and in contemporary Islam in general. His approach is a radical root-and-branch rethinking that focuses on epistemology and hermeneutics (one only needs to read his earlier works such as [Ilm chist, falsafa chist [What is Science? What is Philosophy], Danish wa arzish [Knowledge and Value], and middle works that usher in the transition such as Farba-tar az idiyuluji [Thicker than Ideology]). Since then a number of studies have been published on Soroush (including recently Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi’s Islam and Dissent in Post-revolutionary Iran published by Tauris in 2008) and a highly active website (www.drsoroush.com) promotes his work; an earlier collection of translations of his work was also published by Oxford in 2000 (Reason, Freedom and Democracy in Islam, edited by the Sadri brothers). Soroush’s work since the 1970s has been geared towards a more critical reading of religion, inspired by elements of scepticism in the Sufi tradition and a Popperian approach to epistemology. Translations into Arabic, Turkish and Malay as well as other European languages have further disseminated his thought and approach.