The Islamic Political Tradition: Can It Be Saved? (with Abdolkarim Soroush & Paul Heck)

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For more on this event, visit: http://bit.ly/179plLs For more on the Berkley Center, visit: http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu March 9, 2008 | In this event sponsored by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, Abdolkarim Souroush and Paul Heck addressed the various issues facing the Islamic political tradition in the modern age. This Islamic political tradition represents a rich array of dialogue on the welfare of human society; however, this tradition is increasingly threatened by extremists committed to militant ideologies. During this conversation, Souroush and Heck revisited the politics of Islam in order to see what light they can shed on contemporary political and religious issues. This event was part of the Berkley Center's project on The Future of Political Theologies that explores the intersection of religious traditions and politics in the current day. Abdolkarim Soroush is a researcher at the Institute for Cultural Research and Studies in Iran and was a visiting fellow and scholar in residence with the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs during the spring 2008 semester. One of the Muslim world's most influential thinkers for his analysis of the relationship between religious and secular knowledge and authority, Soroush has also been a Visiting Professor at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale Universities and the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. In 2005, Time listed him as one of the world's 100 most influential individuals. A good introduction to his numerous publications is Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam: Essential Writing of Abdolkarim Soroush (2000, translated and edited by Mahmoud Sadri and Ahmad Sadri). Born in Tehran in 1945, Soroush studied pharmacy in Iran before moving to the United Kingdom to continue his studies in the philosophy of science and history at Chelsea College. Soroush returned to Iran after the fall of the Shah and published Knowledge and Value (Danesh va Arzesh), the first of many books relating Islam to the challenges of democracy and modernity. He was appointed Director of the Islamic Culture Group at Tehran's Teacher Training College. In 1983, disillusioned with the course of the Iranian revolution, Soroush resigned from the Culture Revolution Council and moved to the Institute for Cultural Research and Studies, with which he remains affiliated. Paul L. Heck, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies in Georgetown University's Department of Theology, received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. His scholarly interests focus on the history of skepticism in Islam, mysticism and the role of spirituality in Muslim society, views on martyrdom in the three monotheist traditions, the phenomenon of religious humanism, and questions of political theology. Some of these themes were treated in his most recent publication, Common Ground: Islam, Christianity and Religious Pluralism (2009). His work overall, looking at two religions through a single if refracted lens, seeks to bring sharper insight to our knowledge of the phenomenon of religion and its role in both scholarly circles and society in general.