Cover story
Photo by Nader Davoodi
Soroush interview:
Travelers on one ship
Part One
Mahmoud Sadri: I would like to ask you for an account of your
intellectual development. I am certainly interested in whether you distinguish
any turning points, watersheds, or distinct periods in the evolution of
your thought.
Abdolkarim Soroush: In the name of God the Compassionate, the
Merciful. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Let me first offer
a sketchy account of my life. We can then talk about anything you feel
needs further clarification.
I was born in 1945. My childhood years went by rather uneventfully.
The only noteworthy aspect of my early life is my interest in poetry. I
remember one of my classmates who had charming handwriting would make several
copies of my poems and distribute them among students during break periods.
Recently a friend showed me an old copy of one of those poems. It was such
a delight to discover a relic of my pre-adolescent years.
Sadri: Do you remember any of the poems?
Soroush: I vaguely remember one line that is not entirely disagreeable,
even with my current taste in poetry. It is not one of my earliest poems
though. It might date back to the last year of my primary school:
Rosebud has chosen its place atop a stem full of thorns,
For it's a place redolent with danger, and safety it scorns.
The first poet I came to know was Sa'di. My father was an admirer of
Sa'di's admonitory book of poetry; Boostan. He used to read from
the book aloud after his morning prayers. I remember hearing his voice
every morning as I sat at breakfast. We had an old copy of Sa'di's complete
works at home. It was full of misprints. I still know most of Sa'di's prose
and poetry by heart. Looking back, I realize that my style of writing is
influenced by him. This is definitely attributable to my childhood exposure
to his works.
I attended Alavi High School [in Tehran], a private institution dedicated
to the dissemination of religious ideas. It had a principal by the name
of Mr. Reza Rouzbeh who had a master's degree in physics. In addition,
he had studied Eastern philosophy and knew religious cannon law, Figh'h
and Osul. So he was well versed both in traditional seminary studies and
in modern science.
One of the most salient attributes of Mr. Rouzbeh was his single-minded
devotion to reconciling religion and science. At sixteen I attended his
extracurricular lessons on the exegesis of the Koran, where he made an
all-out effort to derive scientific principles from religious texts. I
had great difficulty convincing myself of the cogency of these arguments.
I frequently objected as I found his interpretations contrived and forced.
Mr. Rouzbeh would patiently listen to my arguments and respond. But his
answers rarely persuaded me. These occasional debates focused my attention
on the relationship between religion and science from early on.
The only other noteworthy event of these years was a memorable trip
the desert town of Gonabad. There I met the Ghotb or the master of the
mystic Sufi order of Khaksari that is also known as Gonabadi. Upon my return,
I wrote a fictionalized travelogue entitled "Journey to the Center."
This piece was published in the school newspaper. I no longer own a copy
of it.
Upon entering the University of Tehran, I approached a famous Islamic
philosopher, Mr. Morteza Motahhari, for instruction. He did not have the
time himself, but he introduced me to one of his students, a clergyman
and the Imam of one of Tehran's mosques, with whom I studied Islamic philosophy
for several years.
These private instructions proved highly beneficial. It was during these
lessons that I became interested in the relationship between philosophy
and religion. I distinctly remember that my tutor would initially present
philosophical arguments in a thoroughly logical and cogent fashion and
then proceed to demonstrate that religious principles and traditions already
contained those rational premises. This method of argumentation convinced
me, at the tender age of twenty, that Islam is philosophically sound and
unassailable, a belief I retained for several years and sought to bolster
through further studies of Eastern philosophy.
What happened that revolutionized my opinion is another story. I wrote
my first serious unpublished article, "The Philosophy of Evil,"
in this period. My mentor showed me the text of an inquiry on the nature
of evil and the meaning of suffering. I wrote a detailed treatise on the
subject and my teacher sent it out to the inquirer with some corrections.
I still have the manuscript of that essay. It must have been written around
1967.
There were other developments during my university years. I was becoming
gradually acquainted with science, taking it increasingly more seriously.
Also, these years coincided with the events of 1964 and its aftermath.
The rise of political struggles and upheavals in Iran made politics unavoidable
for university students. Gradually, the despotic nature of the imperial
regime was becoming more evident, and the guerrilla groups were starting
to gain popularity. Among these the Mojahedin Khalgh (literally, the people's
holy warriors) had a special allure for the religious-minded because of
the religious overtones of its rhetoric.
That was when the question of the relationship between politics and
religion first caught my attention, especially in so far as it contradicted
what I had been taught in high school -- to avoid politics, an allegedly
complex science that could only be mastered after many years of apprenticeship
at the feet of such gurus as Winston Churchill; their exact words! However,
the events of that bloody and contentious decade taught me otherwise and
awakened my political sensibilities.
My familiarity with the teachings of the aforementioned Islamic guerrilla
group persuaded me to study Marxist and leftist thought as well. Marxism
made its debut in Iran some eighty years ago and was bolstered after the
allied invasion of Iran in 1941 which gave the Soviet Union a foothold
in Iran. The influence of Marxism continued throughout the reign of the
Shah. During most of this era intellectual identity and enterprise was
more or less synonymous with Marxism.
Although the pro-Soviet Communist Party of Iran, the Toudeh party, was
formally banned, Marxist thought was quiet prevalent, and a number of prominent
Iranian poets had well-known Marxist tendencies. As a result, Marxism had
a tremendous appeal as the mainstream modern political ideology. Moreover,
the clergy's exhortations against Marxism had the unintended consequence
of intensifying its allure.
Before continuing further let me relate a couple of fleeting experiences
during these college years as well. First, from the last year of high school
I entered Anjoman e Hojatieh, which was a religious organization that attempted
to recruit from religious high schools in general and from Alavi High School
in particular.
The aim of this group was to face the theological challenge of the Bahai
faith. In order to preserve the scientific nature of the polemic it had
developed a curriculum of studies that was, on occasion, quite profound.
It dealt with the historical origins and texts of the Shiite religion and
Bahai faith. The emphasis of this group on Shi'ism in general and on some
relatively obscure and esoteric aspects of this religion in particular
was intriguing to me.
Looking back on my intellectual development, I can trace to this involvement,
the origin of my interest in the questions of sectarianism, heterodox interpretations
of religious traditions, and the question whether a particular denomination
brings one closer to the truth of the faith. My involvement with this group
was brief because I found its goals not entirely scientific, and I did
not relish certain encounters that it required.
The second event was my exposure to groups that identified themselves
as The Koranic Muslims who were active in various neighborhoods of Tehran.
They argued that they were beyond the sectarian divisions of Shiite or
Sunni schools, and that they held a literal interpretation of the Koran.
I used to attend their Koran study sessions, and as a result I became familiar
with their arguments, positions, tracts, and texts. These were two relatively
fleeting experiences that nevertheless left their mark on my religious
and intellectual sensibilities.
Throughout these years I continued my study of and companionship with
Persian literature, poetry, philosophy, and mysticism, especially the works
of Rumi. It was in these years that I was introduced to three contemporary
Iranian thinkers as well. The first was the aforementioned Mr. Motahhari.
The first work of Motahhari that I read was his annotated interpretation
of the late Mr. Tabatabai's "The Principles of Philosophy and the
Method of Realism."
This book made a profound impression on me. I can even say that reading
this book instilled some kind of a philosophical hubris in me. I took this
book as evidence of the indisputable superiority of the Islamic philosophy.
I went around believing that "the entire world is under our wings"
and that we can fend off any criticism and philosophical argument ... CONTINUED
HERE
- Introduction
- Part
one
- Part
two
- Part
three
- Part
four
- Part
five
- Part
six
Interviewer
Mahmoud Sadri is an associate professor
of sociology at Texas Women's University. He has a doctorate in sociology
from New York's New School for Social Research. For more information see
his page at the Texas
Women's University. He is the coauthor, with Aruthur Stinchcombe, of an
article in "Durkheim's Division of Labor: 1893-1993" Presses
Universitaires de France, 1993. To top
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