Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari
Encyclopedia
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari (Persian: محمد مجتهد شبستری ; born 1936 in Iran
) is a highly influential Iran
ian philosopher, Shia Islamic theologian, writer and professor at Tehran University. He is noted for his idea that ad-din, (religion) is perfect, but not all-encompassing, i.e. it does not possess the answer to every question in life.
, Shabestari studied with Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini
and Ayatollah
Allameh Tabatabaei
. He was influenced by Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini
's idea that "Islamic ethics was not limited" to "personal relationships", but should be "reflected in the state and its form of government."
He stayed in the seminary for seventeen years, achieving both degrees of Ijtihad
(religious adjudication) and Doctor of Philosophy.
In the spirit of the political Shia in 1960s and 1970s Iran, Shabestari also felt closely associated with the thinking of religious intellectuals such as Jalal Al-e Ahmad and Ali Shariati
, as well as the politically motivated cleric Morteza Motahhari
.
From 1970-1978, Shabestari served as director of the Shiite Islamic Center in the Imam Ali Mosque in Hamburg
, Germany. He followed in this position Ayatollah
Mohammad Beheshti (who was to become one of the main architects of the Islamic revolution of Iran) and was later succeeded in this position by future president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, hojatoleslam
Mohammad Khatami
.
During the period he spent in Hamburg, Shabestari strongly supported the Christian-Islamic dialogue and extended the mosque’s scope of influence by opening it up to all Muslims. He also learned German and was able to pursue his interest, already evident in Qom, in Western philosophy and Christian, especially Protestant, theology. He studied the writings of theologians such as Paul Tillich
, Karl Barth
, and Karl Rahner
, as well as the thinking of philosophers such as Immanuel Kant
, Wilhelm Dilthey
, and Hans-Georg Gadamer
.
Upon his return to Iran, he served as a member of the first parliament (Majles of Iran) after the revolution, but distanced himself from politics afterwards.
Shabestari was a full professor of Islamic philosophy at the University of Tehran
from 1985-2006, where he also taught comparative religion and theology. He regularly organized international conferences on the theme of Christian-Muslim dialogue.
He is one of the editors of the Great Encyclopedia of Islam, published in Tehran, and chairs the department of Theology and Sects of the Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia
. So far 16 volumes have been published of the encyclopedia, covering the first five letters of the alphabet.
Shabestari argues that distinguishing the eternal (values), from the changeable (instances and applications) in religion needs a kind of knowledge that is not, itself, contained in the rules developed in Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqh
). He laments the lack of such a body of knowledge in Islamic society: In the same vein, he underscores the limited nature of religious knowledge in general, and religious jurisprudence, in particular.(10) In Shabestari's view, what is essential and eternal is the general values of Islam not particular forms of their realization in any particular historic time, (including the time of the prophet):
Also,
Shabestari even suggests that there has been a divine providence for a separation of religious values and secular realities: In his latest book, Naghdi Bar Ghera'at e Rasmi az Din (A Critique of the Official Reading of Religion, December, 2000) Shabestari pursues his critique of religious absolutism as hermeneutically naive and realistically unworkable. Also, he launches a major defense of modern concepts of individualism
, democracy
, and human rights, although they have not been articulated as such in Islamic sources.
In Shabestari’s view, human rights and democracy are products of human reason that have developed during the course of time and continue to evolve. As such, they are not already prescribed in the Koran and Sunna
.
Indeed, the Koran remains mute with regard to our modern understanding of human rights, and yet these do not in any way contradict the divine truth contained in the Qur'an. Drawing on modern hermeneutics, Shabestari dismisses any claim that man could ever come into direct possession of God’s absolute truth.
Since the early 1990s, he has been increasingly active in publishing articles in liberal daily papers and magazines in which he argues for a new, more critical approach to religion.
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Hermenutik, Kitab va Sunnat [Hermeneutics, the Book and Tradition], (Tehran: Tarh-e Naw, 1996).
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Iman va Azadi [Faith and Freedom], (Tehran: Tarh-e Naw, 1997). This also contains the essay titled "Christian Theology".
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Naqdi bar Qira’at-e Rasmi-e Din [A Critique of the Official Reading of Religion], (Tehran: Tarh-e Naw, 2000).
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Ta'amulati dar Qira’at-e Ensan-i az Din [Reflections on the Human Reading of Religion], (Tehran: Tarh-e Naw, 2004).
Selected Articles:
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, 'Fetrat-e Khoda joy-e Ensan dar Qur'an' in Andish-e Islami, 1, 7 (1358/1979).
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, 'Fetrat-e Khoda joy-e Ensan dar Qur'an' in Andish-e Islami, 1, 9 (1358/1979).
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, 'Qara'at-e rasmi az din' in Rah-e Naw, 19. Shahrivar 7, 1377/August 29, 1998.
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, 'Qara'at-e Nabavi az Jahan' [A Prophetic Reading of the World].
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, 'Die prophetische Lesart der Welt'.
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
) is a highly influential Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian philosopher, Shia Islamic theologian, writer and professor at Tehran University. He is noted for his idea that ad-din, (religion) is perfect, but not all-encompassing, i.e. it does not possess the answer to every question in life.
Education and career
As a student in QomQom
Qom is a city in Iran. It lies by road southwest of Tehran and is the capital of Qom Province. At the 2006 census, its population was 957,496, in 241,827 families. It is situated on the banks of the Qom River....
, Shabestari studied with Ayatollah
Ayatollah
Ayatollah is a high ranking title given to Usuli Twelver Shī‘ah clerics. Those who carry the title are experts in Islamic studies such as jurisprudence, ethics, and philosophy and usually teach in Islamic seminaries. The next lower clerical rank is Hojatoleslam wal-muslemin...
Ruhollah Khomeini
Ruhollah Khomeini
Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was an Iranian religious leader and politician, and leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran...
and Ayatollah
Ayatollah
Ayatollah is a high ranking title given to Usuli Twelver Shī‘ah clerics. Those who carry the title are experts in Islamic studies such as jurisprudence, ethics, and philosophy and usually teach in Islamic seminaries. The next lower clerical rank is Hojatoleslam wal-muslemin...
Allameh Tabatabaei
Allameh Tabatabaei
Allameh Seyyed Muhammad Husayn Tabatabaei was one of the most prominent thinkers of philosophy and contemporary Shia Islam...
. He was influenced by Ayatollah
Ayatollah
Ayatollah is a high ranking title given to Usuli Twelver Shī‘ah clerics. Those who carry the title are experts in Islamic studies such as jurisprudence, ethics, and philosophy and usually teach in Islamic seminaries. The next lower clerical rank is Hojatoleslam wal-muslemin...
Ruhollah Khomeini
Ruhollah Khomeini
Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was an Iranian religious leader and politician, and leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran...
's idea that "Islamic ethics was not limited" to "personal relationships", but should be "reflected in the state and its form of government."
He stayed in the seminary for seventeen years, achieving both degrees of Ijtihad
Ijtihad
Ijtihad is the making of a decision in Islamic law by personal effort , independently of any school of jurisprudence . as opposed to taqlid, copying or obeying without question....
(religious adjudication) and Doctor of Philosophy.
In the spirit of the political Shia in 1960s and 1970s Iran, Shabestari also felt closely associated with the thinking of religious intellectuals such as Jalal Al-e Ahmad and Ali Shariati
Ali Shariati
Ali Shariati was an Iranian revolutionary and sociologist, who focused on the sociology of religion. He is held as one of the most influential Iranian intellectuals of the 20th century and has been called the 'ideologue of the Iranian Revolution'.-Biography:Ali....
, as well as the politically motivated cleric Morteza Motahhari
Morteza Motahhari
Ayatollah Murtaza Motahhari was an Iranian scholar, cleric, lecturer, and politician.Motahhari is considered among the important influences on the ideologies of the Islamic Republic, and was a co-founder of Hosseiniye Ershad and the Combatant Clergy Association...
.
From 1970-1978, Shabestari served as director of the Shiite Islamic Center in the Imam Ali Mosque in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, Germany. He followed in this position Ayatollah
Ayatollah
Ayatollah is a high ranking title given to Usuli Twelver Shī‘ah clerics. Those who carry the title are experts in Islamic studies such as jurisprudence, ethics, and philosophy and usually teach in Islamic seminaries. The next lower clerical rank is Hojatoleslam wal-muslemin...
Mohammad Beheshti (who was to become one of the main architects of the Islamic revolution of Iran) and was later succeeded in this position by future president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, hojatoleslam
Hojatoleslam
Hujjat al-Islam is an honorific title meaning "authority on Islam" or "proof of Islam", given to Twelver Shī‘ah clerics...
Mohammad Khatami
Mohammad Khatami
Sayyid Mohammad Khātamī is an Iranian scholar, philosopher, Shiite theologian and Reformist politician. He served as the fifth President of Iran from August 2, 1997 to August 3, 2005. He also served as Iran's Minister of Culture in both the 1980s and 1990s...
.
During the period he spent in Hamburg, Shabestari strongly supported the Christian-Islamic dialogue and extended the mosque’s scope of influence by opening it up to all Muslims. He also learned German and was able to pursue his interest, already evident in Qom, in Western philosophy and Christian, especially Protestant, theology. He studied the writings of theologians such as Paul Tillich
Paul Tillich
Paul Johannes Tillich was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich was one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century...
, Karl Barth
Karl Barth
Karl Barth was a Swiss Reformed theologian whom critics hold to be among the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century; Pope Pius XII described him as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas...
, and Karl Rahner
Karl Rahner
Karl Rahner, SJ was a German Jesuit and theologian who, alongside Bernard Lonergan and Hans Urs von Balthasar, is considered one of the most influential Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century...
, as well as the thinking of philosophers such as Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
, Wilhelm Dilthey
Wilhelm Dilthey
Wilhelm Dilthey was a German historian, psychologist, sociologist and hermeneutic philosopher, who held Hegel's Chair in Philosophy at the University of Berlin. As a polymathic philosopher, working in a modern research university, Dilthey's research interests revolved around questions of...
, and Hans-Georg Gadamer
Hans-Georg Gadamer
Hans-Georg Gadamer was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 magnum opus, Truth and Method .-Life:...
.
Upon his return to Iran, he served as a member of the first parliament (Majles of Iran) after the revolution, but distanced himself from politics afterwards.
Shabestari was a full professor of Islamic philosophy at the University of Tehran
University of Tehran
The University of Tehran , also known as Tehran University and UT, is Iran's oldest university. Located in Tehran, the university is among the most prestigious in the country, and is consistently selected as the first choice of many applicants in the annual nationwide entrance exam for top Iranian...
from 1985-2006, where he also taught comparative religion and theology. He regularly organized international conferences on the theme of Christian-Muslim dialogue.
He is one of the editors of the Great Encyclopedia of Islam, published in Tehran, and chairs the department of Theology and Sects of the Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia
Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia
The Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia is a major research institute based in Tehran, Iran. Established in 1983, it is charged with the task of researching and publishing general and topical encyclopedias about Iranian and Islamic culture....
. So far 16 volumes have been published of the encyclopedia, covering the first five letters of the alphabet.
His philosophy and contributions
Although Shabestari has made a modest contribution to the introduction and application of modern hermeneutics to traditional Shiite theology and jurisprudence, and thus to the proposition of variability of religious knowledge, his most significant contribution seems to be his authoritative commentary on the essentially limited nature of religious knowledge and rules, and thus the necessity of complementing it with extra-religious sources.Shabestari argues that distinguishing the eternal (values), from the changeable (instances and applications) in religion needs a kind of knowledge that is not, itself, contained in the rules developed in Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqh
Fiqh
Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the code of conduct expounded in the Quran, often supplemented by tradition and implemented by the rulings and interpretations of Islamic jurists....
). He laments the lack of such a body of knowledge in Islamic society: In the same vein, he underscores the limited nature of religious knowledge in general, and religious jurisprudence, in particular.(10) In Shabestari's view, what is essential and eternal is the general values of Islam not particular forms of their realization in any particular historic time, (including the time of the prophet):
The meaning of perfection of religion (Ekmal e Din) is not that it contains everything under the sun, so that if we were unable to find a specific item in it, we could go off calling it imperfect. It is not perfection for religion to function as a substitute for science, technology, and human deliberation.
Also,
Religion does not wish to replace science and technology, and lay claim to the place of reason ... God has only offered answers for some of the needs of human beings. As for other needs, He has left it to reason and human effort to supply the answer.
Shabestari even suggests that there has been a divine providence for a separation of religious values and secular realities: In his latest book, Naghdi Bar Ghera'at e Rasmi az Din (A Critique of the Official Reading of Religion, December, 2000) Shabestari pursues his critique of religious absolutism as hermeneutically naive and realistically unworkable. Also, he launches a major defense of modern concepts of individualism
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
, democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
, and human rights, although they have not been articulated as such in Islamic sources.
In Shabestari’s view, human rights and democracy are products of human reason that have developed during the course of time and continue to evolve. As such, they are not already prescribed in the Koran and Sunna
Sunnah
The word literally means a clear, well trodden, busy and plain surfaced road. In the discussion of the sources of religion, Sunnah denotes the practice of Prophet Muhammad that he taught and practically instituted as a teacher of the sharī‘ah and the best exemplar...
.
Indeed, the Koran remains mute with regard to our modern understanding of human rights, and yet these do not in any way contradict the divine truth contained in the Qur'an. Drawing on modern hermeneutics, Shabestari dismisses any claim that man could ever come into direct possession of God’s absolute truth.
Since the early 1990s, he has been increasingly active in publishing articles in liberal daily papers and magazines in which he argues for a new, more critical approach to religion.
Mojtahed Shabestari's Writings
Books:Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Hermenutik, Kitab va Sunnat [Hermeneutics, the Book and Tradition], (Tehran: Tarh-e Naw, 1996).
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Iman va Azadi [Faith and Freedom], (Tehran: Tarh-e Naw, 1997). This also contains the essay titled "Christian Theology".
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Naqdi bar Qira’at-e Rasmi-e Din [A Critique of the Official Reading of Religion], (Tehran: Tarh-e Naw, 2000).
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Ta'amulati dar Qira’at-e Ensan-i az Din [Reflections on the Human Reading of Religion], (Tehran: Tarh-e Naw, 2004).
Selected Articles:
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, 'Fetrat-e Khoda joy-e Ensan dar Qur'an' in Andish-e Islami, 1, 7 (1358/1979).
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, 'Fetrat-e Khoda joy-e Ensan dar Qur'an' in Andish-e Islami, 1, 9 (1358/1979).
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, 'Qara'at-e rasmi az din' in Rah-e Naw, 19. Shahrivar 7, 1377/August 29, 1998.
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, 'Qara'at-e Nabavi az Jahan' [A Prophetic Reading of the World].
Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, 'Die prophetische Lesart der Welt'.
See also
- Abdolkarim SoroushAbdolkarim SoroushAbdolkarim Soroush , born Hosein Haj Faraj Dabbagh , is an Iranian thinker, reformer, Rumi scholar and a former professor at the University of Tehran. He is arguably the most influential figure in religious intellectual movement in Iran. Professor Soroush is currently a visiting scholar at the...
- Eastern philosophyEastern philosophyEastern philosophy includes the various philosophies of Asia, including Chinese philosophy, Iranian philosophy, Japanese philosophy, Indian philosophy and Korean philosophy...
- Iranian philosophyIranian philosophyIranian philosophy or Persian philosophy can be traced back as far as to Old Iranian philosophical traditions and thoughts which originated in ancient Indo-Iranian roots and were considerably influenced by Zarathustra's teachings...
- Islamic philosophyIslamic philosophyIslamic philosophy is a branch of Islamic studies. It is the continuous search for Hekma in the light of Islamic view of life, universe, ethics, society, and so on...
- Modern Islamic philosophyModern Islamic philosophyAziz Abbassi’s English translation found in the following pages wasmade from the French Introduction à la critique de la raison Arabe,translated from Arabic to French by Ahmed Mahfoud and Marc Geoffroy,...
- Intellectual movements in IranIntellectual movements in IranIntellectual movements in Iran involve the Iranian experience of modernity and its associated art, science, literature, poetry, and political structures that have been changing since the 19th century.- History of Iranian modernity :...