24 Facts About Abdolkarim Soroush

Abdolkarim Soroush is among the most influential figures in the religious intellectual movement of Iran.

Abdolkarim Soroush was affiliated with other institutions including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, the Leiden-based International Institute as a visiting professor for the Study of Islam in the Modern World and the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin.

Abdolkarim Soroush was named as one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2005 by Time magazine, and as one of the most influential intellectuals in the world by Prospect magazine in 2008.

Abdolkarim Soroush's ideas, founded on relativism, prompted both supporters and critics to compare his role in reforming Islam to that of Martin Luther in reforming Christianity.

Abdolkarim Soroush then went to Tehran's Teacher Training College where he was appointed the director of the newly established Islamic Culture Group.

Abdolkarim Soroush's joining the Cultural Revolution Committee has been criticized on two sides.

Abdolkarim Soroush has been accused by orthodox critics of preventing the Islamization of human sciences, and of being involved in the dismissal of teachers by opponents of the Islamic Republic.

Abdolkarim Soroush has welcomed such study in his interview with Professor Forough Jahanbakhsh - inquiring into modern Iranian intellectual history.

Abdolkarim Soroush submitted his resignation from membership in the Cultural Revolution Council to Imam Khomeini and has since held no official position within the ruling system of Iran, except occasionally as an advisor to certain government bodies.

Abdolkarim Soroush co-founded a monthly magazine, Kiyan, which soon became the most visible forum for religious intellectualism in post-revolution Iran.

Since 2000, Abdolkarim Soroush has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University, teaching Rumi poetry and philosophy, Islam and Democracy, Quranic studies and philosophy of Islamic law.

Abdolkarim Soroush spent the fall semester of 2007 at Columbia University and the spring semester of 2008 at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs as a visiting scholar.

Abdolkarim Soroush's research focuses on the philosophy of science, religion, the philosophical system of Molana Jalaleddin Balkhi, and comparative philosophy.

Abdolkarim Soroush is considered an expert on Rumi and Persian Sufi poetry.

The philosophy of Abdolkarim Soroush can be summarized as follows:.

Abdolkarim Soroush's theory is called "the theoretical contraction and expansion of religious knowledge" and is primarily based on Kantian philosophy.

Abdolkarim Soroush maintains that one should distinguish between religion as divinely revealed and the interpretation of religion or religious knowledge which is based on socio-historical factors.

At Oxford, Abdolkarim Soroush was heavily influenced by Iranian philosopher Komeil Sadeghi, to whom he has dedicated one of his books Expansion of Prophetic Experience.

Abdolkarim Soroush believes that the assumption of the innate goodness of mankind, shared by radical utopians from anarchists to Islamic fundamentalists underestimates the staying power of social evil and discounts the necessity of a government of checks and balances to compensate for the weaknesses of human nature.

Abdolkarim Soroush introduced his own definition of the term religious democracy which is a topic in contemporary Iranian philosophy and means that the values of religion play a role in the public arena in a society populated by religious people.

In 2008, in an online open poll, Abdolkarim Soroush was voted the 7th-most intellectual person in the world on the list of Top 100 Public Intellectuals by Prospect magazine and Foreign Policy.

Abdolkarim Soroush's ideas have met with strong opposition from conservative elements in the Islamic Republic.

Abdolkarim Soroush was summoned for several long 'interviews' by Iranian intelligence officials.

Abdolkarim Soroush's travel was restricted, then his passport was confiscated.