Iranian Philosophy

La Europa que consideró que su destino, el destino de sus hombres, era hacer de su humanismo el arquetipo a alcanzar por todo ente que se le pudiese asemejar; esta Europa, lo mismo la cristiana que la moderna, al trascender los linderos de su geografía y tropezar con otros entes que parecían ser hombres, exigió a éstos que justificasen su supuesta humanidad.

"The Necklace of the Pleiades is a volume on Persian literature, culture and religion by Persian scholars from around the world. This book reflects the state of the field of Persian literary studies and will be of substantial interest not only to scholars of Iranian culture, history and religions, but of Middle Eastern and South Asian studies, as well.

The topics of the 24 essays range from the Persian Alexander romance, to Ferdowsi’s Shahnama and other epics, the poetics and imagery of the ghazal and the qasida, Mughal court poetry, Sufism, Ismaili history, Baha’i literature, Iranian linguistics, the modern writer Sadeq Hedayat, and the reception of Salman Rushdie’s novel in Persian translation.

In Persian literature the Necklace of the Pleiades is a metaphor for the six or seven stars (Parvin, or Sorayyâ, high up in the constellation Taurus) which the heavens bestow, like precious pearls, upon a poet in gratitude and reward for composing a beautiful poem. The poem itself is compared to a string of pearls, with its carefully chosen words bored like unique pearls and strung in perfect metrical proportion. As Hafiz puts it:

You’ve sung a ghazal, pierced the pearls, come and sing it sweetly, Hafiz!
The heavens strew the very Necklace of the Pleiades upon your verse. "

This volume was presented as a Festschrift for Prof. Heshmat Moayyad of the University of Chicago on his 80th birthday.  Originally published by (Amsterdam: Rozenberg Publishers and West Lafayette, Indiana:  Purdue University Press, 2007)
Publisher's Website: https://www.lup.nl/product/the-necklace-of-the-pleiades/

Martin Heidegger criticizes the loss of the truth for the being in the Western world as a result of technological development. He defines a discourse of authenticity, which seeks for vitality in tradition. Heidegger announces the end of metaphysics, which he defines as tendency that objectifies other people. Instead, Heidegger proposes overcoming of metaphysics through a return to what ancient Greeks had once done – simply letting other people unconceal and manifest themselves, without turning them into an object of thought.
Ahmad Fardid is the first commentator of Heidegger in Iran. Fardid is the author of the term “occidentosis”, with which he names the alienation of Iranians from their roots and the loss of subjectivity vis-à-vis the West.
Jalal Al-e Ahmad`s essay “Occidentosis: a Plague from the West” (1962) is an essay, whose social value is at global level. It traces a pathway for the search of a local, nativist modernity in Iran and unveils dissatisfaction with the role the West prescribes to the countries of the Third World – of an exploited periphery.
Ali Shariati turns Islam into a religion for mobilization of masses, and into an effort for return to the roots, which he sees not a step back to the past, but as a leap forward to a modernity that resonates with the Iranian essence. Shariati criticizes the “materialist cosmos”, where “man turns into an object”, while he sees in Islam “a fundamental bond, an existential relation (between man and the world). That is how the Iranian thinker copies literally ideas from Heidegger, who feels in his own times that withdrawal of religion from public life leaves men defenseless before the logic of the world of machine, in which the being is subordinated to the will for a greater power over man and life.
After the victory of the Islamic revolution, whose promise is to reconnect Iranians with their true essence, Reza Davari echoing Heidegger pleads for a return to the covenant with God (the Absolute, the Truth), from which the Iranian had departed in the times of occidentosis. This return takes place through negating the earthly subjectivity (the ego) and craves for turning man into a realizer of celestial subjectivity.
According to Bijan Abdolkarimi the huge influence of Heidegger in Iran is due to two basic reasons: he is the strongest and the most profound critic of West and at the same time he defends tradition.

This paper sets out to identify sciences prevalent among the Iranian Nizārīs through the fall of Alamūt in 1256 CE/654 AH. This is done through critical examination of two categories of documents: 1) the unpublished manuscript of Dustūr alMunajjimīn, which is currently housed at the Paris National Library; 2) Naṣīr al-Dīn-i Ṭūsī’s works from 1226 to 1256 CE (624-654 AH) while he stayed at the Ismā‘īlī fortresses. The unknown author of Dustūr al-Munajjimīn provides an invaluable account of books and treatises held at the Alamūt library as well as sciences practiced by the Iranian Nizārīs during the leadership of Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāh. The latter includes the whole array of sciences from literature, history and hadith to mathematics and astronomy. The Nizārīs’ dedication to these sciences after the death of Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāh is manifest in Nasīr al-Dīn Tūsī who, like the unknown author of Dustūr al-Munajjimīn, was committed to recording myriad sources and authors used for his research. This paper demonstrates the continuity of scientific tradition in Dustūr al-Munajjimīn and Tūsī’s works. Further, in light of the pedagogic character of Tūsī’s works, it shows how and why the aspirations of the Iranian Nizārīs were oriented to promoting sciences, rather than merely destroying their enemies.

This publication unveils the ideas of two philosophers, who contribute greatly to the intellectual debates for modernity in Iran in the 80s and 90s of the XX century.
Reza Davari relies on the idea of the Absolute, through which he defines the authentic human existence in opposition to the technological man, influenced by the West. In the thinker’s view, the subject of the Iranian modernity needs to renew his covenant with God and to merge again with the Truth, from which he has departed in the times of his occidentosis (or otherwise said “westernization”).
As opposed to Davari, Abdulkarim Soroush does not need an Absolute, in order to define the human condition. This author believes that the absolute moral categories are a territory preserved for Gods, but they are not a realm of humans. The idea of Soroush is that no understanding for the nature, God or the providence is perfect and that is why none should be used to define totalities like an unchangeable power, truth or ethics.

The Shi’ah Institute in London arranged the publication of an English translation of one of the most popular Iranian textbooks of the Avicennan tradition of metaphysics in Islam. First printed in Persian in 1956, Mahdī Ḥaʾirī Yazdī’s Universal Science gives an un-contextualized presentation of the most important discussions that happened within Avicennan metaphysics since its inception in the 11th century.

ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ
ВВЕДЕНИЕ
ГЛАВА I. ИРАНСКАЯ МИФО-РЕЛИГИОЗНАЯ ТРАДИЦИЯ
§ 1. Некоторые направления иранской мифо-религиозной традиции
§ 2. Реконструкция иранских доисламских онтологических представлений
ГЛАВА II. ИРАНСКИЕ ПАРАЛЛЕЛИ В ГРЕЧЕСКОЙ ПРЕДФИЛОСОФИИ
§ 1. Греческая традиция о куретах и корибантах и иранские параллели
§ 2. Иранские параллели в орфизме, греческих теогониях. Эпименид, «Теогония Иеронима и Гелланика», «Рапсодическая теогония»
ГЛАВА III. ИОНИЙСКАЯ ФИЛОСОФИЯ И ПАРАЛЛЕЛИ С ИРАНСКОЙ ТРАДИЦИЕЙ. МИЛЕТСКАЯ ШКОЛА
§ 1. Античная традиция о контактах ранних греческих философов с иранским миром
§ 2. Первый этап формирования онтологических и космологических воззрений раннегреческой философии. Милетская философия
ГЛАВА IV. ГЕРАКЛИТ И ИРАНСКАЯ ТРАДИЦИЯ
§ 1. Концепция «мудрого существа» и ее сопоставление с иранской традицией
§ 2. Время, судьба и душа в учении Гераклита в сопоставлении с иранской традицией
§ 3. Учение Гераклита о противоположностях
ГЛАВА V. ФИЛОСОФЫ ИТАЛИЙСКОГО НАПРАВЛЕНИЯ И ИРАНСКАЯ ТРАДИЦИЯ
§ 1. Начало италийской философии. Онтологические взгляды Парменида и их сопоставление с иранской традицией
§ 2. Онтологические взгляды Эмпедокла и их сопоставление с иранской традицией
ОСНОВНЫЕ ИСТОЧНИКИ И БИБЛИОГРАФИЯ

By the end of the third century Islam which is the tenth century A.D., the whole Greek heritage was fully translated into Arabic almost through Syriac language mediation. After the Greek knowledge had been made available in Arabic, Arab scholars started to study Greek thought and then to adapt it to their own time, place and concerns. Although Muslim Scholars engaged with the Greek knowledge as it is, they added their own genuine elements of thinking that were mainly drawn from Islamic texts. In this light, my paper focuses on the transmission of one type of Greek knowledge, which is Ethics, into Arabic and traces its course until the fourth century Islam when it was read, studied and adapted by a Muslim scholar named “Miskawayh” (325-421 A.H. / 936-1030 A.D.).Indeed, Miskawayh is a perfect case study of knowledge transmission between Greeks, Persians and Arabs in Eastern Mediterranean for the fact that he had a wide range of culture and deep education in three main lines: in Islamic knowledge, early and late Greek thought and Persian culture. In addition to his multicultural formation, he produced extensively in metaphysics, Ethics and history.
In my paper, I explore how his treatise on Ethics “the Refinement of Character” had been synthesized from diverse sources that belong to different lines of thought. That is, how the treatise had been woven from platonic, Aristotalian, neo-platonic and Islamic elements. Moreover, I explore how Miskawayh incorporated his genuine elements of thought in a text synthesized from diverse heterogeneous sources. Finally, I investigate how the treatise itself had been accommodated and adapted in the new context of Islamic civilization and for new purposes and goals in the time after Miskawayh.

This is a revised text of any interview with Professor Ali Mirsepassi conducted in 2015 for a documentary about Ahmad Fardid (released in 2016). This revised interview, in a collection of interviews with people who mostly knew Fardid in person, was edited by Dr. Mirsepassi and published as "Iran's Troubled Modernity" (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019).  A sequel to this interview/article was presented in 2016 in a panel on Ahmad Fardid in the International Biannual Conference of Iranian Studies in the University of Vienna entitled: "Fardid of All Seasons."  I am planning to publish it in the form of an journal article.

The intellectual debates for modernity in Iran in the 60s and 70s are marked by the search for authenticity. Jalal Al-e Ahmad uses the term of “occidentosis” (loss of subjectivity vis-a-vis the West), in order to promote an Iranian who is loyal both to modernity and to its inner nature. Ali Shariati promotes the Iranian “return to roots”, but sees it not as a return to the past. Instead he places the Iranian authenticity in the spirit of the anti-colonial struggle of the Third world and it is once again a way to be both modern and traditional. Religious philosophers and clerics such as Khomeini and Motahhari also seek for complex identity “in the middle” between the celestial and the earthly, between God’s predestination and human free will. These ideas contribute significantly to Iranian searches for social change in the times of the Islamic Revolution.

This paper deals with contemporary Iranian philosophical and religious thought. It focuses on the reflections of a few of the most famous and highly regarded contemporary Persian intellectuals and philosophers, as well as on theologians such as Abdolkarim Soroush, Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari and also Mohsen Kadivar and Mostafa Malekian. In modem Iran, intellectuals play a key role in shaping and developing various debates and disputes concerning present-day problems and issues. Among the many ideas that have emerged in Iran in recent years, we can observe an attempt to reconcile the sacred with the humane. Persian thinkers try to define what in the world can be considered as being sacred, and which elements no longer belong to the sphere of the sacred and should, therefore, be considered as being humane and temporary. It appears to us that one of the main problems here lies in the separation of what is everlasting and eternal and what can be changed and modified by people. An analysis of the discussions that take place among Persian philosophers and religious thinkers reveals that the keynote which underlies the current Iranian debate is deeply rooted in the idea of the dynamic nature of the world. The idea of a constant movement leading to evolution can be found in mystical poetry as well as in philosophical works and is also a characteristic element of the Iranian outlook on life. It implies, therefore, a particular way of understanding: what changes and develops and what remains immutable.

زینب دیرک استاد فلسفه کنونی دانشگاه کوچ استانبول و استاد پیشین دانشگاه گالاتاسارای این شهر است. او متخصص فلسفه اروپای قاره ای قرن نوزدهم و بیستم، پدیدارشناسی، نظریه فمینیستی، فلسفه سیاسی و تاریخ فلسفه در ترکیه است و به عنوان نمونه کتاب همراه بلکول بر دریدا را به همراه لئونارد لاولور ویراسته کرده است.  دیرک را که درمجموع صاحب بیش از ۱۰۰ مقاله، کتاب و ترجمه به زبانهای ترکی، انگلیسی و فرانسوی است، می توان جزو نسل چهارم اساتید فلسفه در ترکیه پس از تاسیس جمهوریت دانست. او تاملاتی انتقادی در مورد نحوه تاسیس فلسفه در ترکیه در دوران اصلاحات دانشگاهی دهه ۱۹۳۰میلادی دارد که موضوع این مقاله است.

منتشر شده در وبسایت آسو، ۲۳ نوامبر ۲۰۲۰

The Persian intellectual tradition (religion, philosophy - theosophy/Hikmah and Irfan) refers to two distinct ‘spiritual worlds’ - Zoroastrian and Islamic - with ‘the same Divine Origin’ and ‘certain profound morphological resemblances’ (Nasr, 1996). The tradition influences educational theory and practice in Iran. Therefore, writing past, present and future of Iranian philosophy of education required to scrutinize the most prolific Persian intellectual tradition. Further, philosophy of education in this country, as an academic discipline and institution, has a short history. As Clark (2015) pointed out, philosophy of education could be considered in three ways: as a social institution, as an academic activity, and as an intellectual pursuit. In this editorial, we would like to introduce and analyze developments in philosophy of education in Iran as in a different priority.

This paper compares the thought of John Stuart Mill and Mutahari, particularly their views of education, higher sentiments, and common values.  It furthermore argues that Mill and Mutahari provide a strong basis for a critique of consumerism in culture.

For a long time, Iranian Philosophy has been interpreted as a religious philosophy  concerned exclusively by the matters of theological and existential nature. In the paper, I argue that Iranian tradition of theoretical reflection offers some original solutions to general philosophical questions which has not been solved by Western, i.e.,  European philosophy. As an example, I will demonstrate the argument of transcendental unity made by the medieval Iranian thinker Yahyā ibn Habash Suhrawardī, the founder of the Philosophy of Illumination.  This argument presents a solution to the problem of perception, or better stated, the transcendental problem which until now remains at the core of philosophy and is often reinterpreted as the problem of consciousness, or the mind-body problem. To state succinctly, this is a question of how consciousness, which is “encapsulated” within the human body, perceives the outside world.
            Different from all other philosophers who subsume visibility under the general problem of perception, Suhrawardī constructs his argument around visibility, and only afterwards, around perception and knowledge. I demonstrate that his original solution to the situation of “disconnect” between the knowing mind and the world comes from recentering the argument on evidentiality  which he believes to be the foundational metaphysical property of the universe. Instead of being caught in subject –object opposition, Suhrawardī demonstrates the unity by essence between self-awareness and visual light. From here, he proceeds to explicate the nature of this foundational essence, and shows that  due to its self-luminous, self-evident, i.e., alive character, this essence is fully available in human knowledge .  I juxtapose this argument with the perspectives in phenomenological philosophy (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty , and Henry), and show that Suhrawardī’s solution closes an important gaps in their understanding of visuality and of the unity of perception.





For a long time, Iranian Philosophy has been interpreted as a religious philosophy  concerned exclusively by the matters of theological and existential nature. In the paper, I argue that Iranian tradition of theoretical reflection offers some original solutions to general philosophical questions which has not been solved by Western, i.e.,  European philosophy. As an example, I will demonstrate the argument of transcendental unity made by the medieval Iranian thinker Yahyā ibn Habash Suhrawardī, the founder of the Philosophy of Illumination.  This argument presents a solution to the problem of perception, or better stated, the transcendental problem which until now remains at the core of philosophy and is often reinterpreted as the problem of consciousness, or the mind-body problem. To state succinctly, this is a question of how consciousness, which is “encapsulated” within the human body, perceives the outside world.
Different from all other philosophers who subsume visibility under the general problem of perception, Suhrawardī constructs his argument around visibility, and only afterwards, around perception and knowledge. I demonstrate that his original solution to the situation of “disconnect” between the knowing mind and the world comes from recentering the argument on evidentiality  which he believes to be the foundational metaphysical property of the universe. Instead of being caught in subject –object opposition, Suhrawardī demonstrates the unity by essence between self-awareness and visual light. From here, he proceeds to explicate the nature of this foundational essence, and shows that  due to its self-luminous, self-evident, i.e., alive character, this essence is fully available in human knowledge .  I juxtapose this argument with the perspectives in phenomenological philosophy (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty , and Henry), and show that Suhrawardī’s solution closes an important gaps in their understanding of visuality and unity of perception

مطالعات فلسفی در حوزۀ میان فرهنگی و تطبیقی برای شرایط علمی کنونی ما از اهمیت بسیار بالایی
برخوردار است؛ این نوع از تبادلات علمی خردورزانه م یتواند با شکست فضای انحصاری مبتنی بر شناخت فلسفۀ غربی و عبور از این نوع نگرش به بروز و ظهور اندیش ههای فلسفی در قالب ها و فرهنگ های دیگر امکان حضور دهد. فایدۀ این نوع از مطالعات به طور خاص برای ما، ایجاد بستری برای نهایتِ بهره وری علمی از دانش مورد مطالعۀ بوم می‌مان، یعنی حکمت اسلامی، است؛ همچنین این دسته از مطالعات تطبیقی می تواند به شناخت صحیح اندیش ههای موازی دیگر  خاصه آنهایی که با مکاتب فکری ما رابطه تأثیر و تأثر داشت هاند  کمک نماید. در همین راستا باید به مقالۀ مهمی که در این شمارۀ نشریۀ علمی  تخصصی «لوگوس » به چاپ میرسد با عنوان «تحوّل و توسعۀ فلسفۀ تصوّف در چین » که پروفسور ایهونگ لیو نگاشته است، اشاره نمود. این مقاله یک نمونه بارزِ پاسخ به نیازی اساسی در مطالعات فلسفی فرهنگی است که به تأثیرگذاری تصوّف ایرانی در صوفی گری چینی پرداخته و ضمن مطالعه و بررسی تاریخچۀ این رویداد فرهنگی، ابعاد آن را نیز مشخص نموده و تلاش کرده است راهی به سوی مطالعات ژر فتر برای مخاطب بگشاید.

این ترجمه به پیشنهاد لوگوس و طی مکاتبات مستقیم با خانم پروفسور ایهونگ لیو انجام شده و متن اصلی نیز در بخش انگلیسی زبان نشریه در اختیار مخاطبان گرامی و علاق همندان به این حوزه پژوهشی قرار داد شده است. لازم است در این راستا به عنوان مسئولان ارشد نشریه از همکاری ایشان قدردانی کرده و از اینکه دانششان را بی دریغ در اختیار اعضای جامعه آکادمیک فلسفی ایران و دیگر علاق همندان قرار داده اند، سپا سگزاری نما ییم. با امید به اینکه این دست پژوهشهای فلسفی و همکاری های مشترک تداوم یابد و این نوع نگاه پژوهشی که در مقاله هایی از این دست شاهدش هستیم، راهگشا و بسترساز پژوهش های مشابه و متنوعی در این حوز ه از کار فلسفی  بالأخص در سطوح تحصیلات تکمیلی  باشد.

در انتها باید اضافه گردد که نقطه نظرات اساتید گرامی فلسفه، جناب دکتر ذکیانی  عضو هیئت علمی گروه فلسفه و ریاست محترم دانشکده ادبیات و زبان های خارجی دانشگاه علامه طباطبائی و همچنین دکتر احمد علی حیدری  عضو محترم هیئت علمی گروه فلسفۀ دانشگاه علامه طباطبائی و همچنین دبیر علمی همایش بین المللی «گفت وگوهای فرهنگی  تمدنی ایران و چین » در شمارۀ آتی نشریه در مورد این مقاله و همچنین اشاره به جایگاه و اهمیت چنین اقداماتی در نظام آموزشی  پژوهشی ما به چاپ خواهد رسید.

Some phenomenologists have tried to interpret the cultural differences of identity in a variety of climatic and natural fields in the light of the Genius Loci theory. The theory has been verified in many studies by the traditional-Islamic philosophers. Proving the closeness of these two viewpoints in extent and type of the environmental influences on disposition can open a venue for applying the theory of Genius Loci to establish a basis for environmental design in regions with Islamic and traditional cultures. This research traces the origins of this theory to the ancient Islamic philosophy. In the first step, the relationships between environmental and cultural characters are explained in four climate-temperamental patterns using Christian Norberg-Schulz’s theory of Genius Loci. The second step deals with the philosophical origins of the theory within the Islamic thoughts through four patterns. Islamic philosophers have considered the types and the extent of climate’s influences on disposition and have distinguished different faculties and behavioral affordances for various temperaments and four climates - “hot and dry”, “hot and wet”, “cold and dry” and “cold and wet”. The findings of the present study, the phenomenologist’s ideas concerning the character type and environmental/cultural characters in different climates, and the association of the environment and human, have over lapses with the theories of the Islamic philosophers.

История таджикской философии (с древнейших времен до XV в.). В трех томах. Том I. Ответственный редактор: К. Олимов. — Душанбе: «Дониш», 2014. – 504 с.
Настоящий том «История таджикской философии», пред-ставленный на суд читателей, охватывает философские и религиозные воззрения таджикского народа в доисламский период. Данная работа является первой попыткой всеобъемлющего анализа протозороастрийских и зороастрийских религиозно-философских учений.
Том предназначен для философов, историков, религиоведов, культурологов, преподавателей вузов, аспирантов, студентов, а также широкого круга читателей.
Авторы с благодарностью примут замечания и пожелания читателей по улучшению содержания тома, которые будут учтены в последующих изданиях.

An Analysis of History, Causality and Evolution in Islamic, Iranian and Polish Philosophy
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International Journal of Philosophy
Volume 8, Issue 4, December 2020, Pages: 104-111
Received: Oct. 28, 2020; Accepted: Nov. 26, 2020; Published: Dec. 31, 2020
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Mohammadreza Shahidipak, Department of Humanity, Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran
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The historical issue of the clash of civilizations from traditional to postmodern has led to emergence of reactionary and evolutionary ideas. My goal is to compare the philosophy of history in Polish Catholic and Iranian Islamic philosophical schools. Avicenna, AL-Farabi, Ibn Muskawiyyah, Averroes, Ibn Khaldun have presented political hypotheses about the progress of history and its degeneration, and they discovered laws governing history that are the key for analysis causality in history. The end of history in Shiite and Catholic thought, is related to the emergence of an expected man, a Savior, who gives a meaning and significance to religion, politics, sociology, and brings a society to perfection. The belief in Jesus in Christianity as an expected Man is the cause of progress and social changes. This evolutionary approach in the form of Messianism and issue of evolution are the main topics of religious philosophy. It is common to Iranian and Polish political philosophy to consider the unseen unity of existence. A significant trace of Polish thought about philosophy of history has emerged in the post-Hegelian philosophy of August Cieszkowski (1814-1894), who called his philosophy of history “historiosophy”. It is based on the acceptance of unseen world. Concepts of causality in ideas based on stillness of history and Marxism and any other materialist thinking that do not believe in the unseen or the spiritual have never completely convinced Iranian and Polish thinkers. Among contemporary Polish philosophers W. Julian Korab-Karpowicz has focused on the issue of evolution. He is an interpreter of the philosophy of Josef Hoene-Wronski (1778-1853), who was the founder of independent school of Polish religious philosophy in 19th century and has developed the concept of Messianism. In many of his works, Korab-Karpowicz has criticized philosophical systems of communism, liberalism, and capitalism in the context of the Catholic Christian thought whose influence has continued in Poland in the postmodern period. He has also referred to the philosophical work of Al-Farabi. The result of Al-Farabi's classical philosophy is thus an influence on two philosophical systems, both Western and Eastern, whose practical outcome is a theory of evolution. It is because Al-Farabi has set theoretical foundations of progressive and degenerative processes in societies. His work is like a gold mine of political philosophy based on Plato, Aristotle and Islamic political philosophy from which the rules governing evolution can be extracted. This influence can be seen as an inspiration of Korab-Karpowicz’s ideas of human evolution and attainment of happiness. They are fully compatible with theoretical foundations of Al-Farabi political philosophy.
Keywords
Civilizations Clash, Historiosophy, Messianism, Polish and Islamic Political Philosophy, Human Evolution
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Mohammadreza Shahidipak, An Analysis of History, Causality and Evolution in Islamic, Iranian and Polish Philosophy, International Journal of Philosophy. Special Issue: Evolutionity. Vol. 8, No. 4, 2020, pp. 104-111. doi: 10.11648/j.ijp.20200804.14
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Статья посвящена рассмотрению взглядов иранского философа Сайида Хуcсейна Насра на ислам и его роль в современном мире. Автор обращается к философским идеям философа, легализирующим привилегированное положение ислама среди прочих религий. В частности, анализируется возможное влияние индийской парадигмы мышления на обоснование Насром исламской доктрины единобожия (ат-тавх̣ ӣд) как наиболее оптимального выражения вечной мудрости (philosophia perennis).

The key-point of this article is the theory of 'qabz va baste teurik-e shari'at' (The theory of expansion and contraction of religion) developed by Abdolkarim Soroush, one of the most famous and highly regarded contemporary Iranian intellectuals. His theory is centred around the issue of variability of our perception of the world and religion. Soroush calls for constant interpretation of the sacred texts and insists on perceiving knowledge as a process of permanent contractions and expansions (qabz va bast). By using these concepts he refers to Sufism, where both terms are often applied to describe mystical states of the disciple. The analysis of the terms 'qabz' and 'bast' makes it possible to place his theory in the context of a much broader problem, that is to say the dynamic nature of the world. It allows one to demonstrate that the idea of constant change which leads to development, found in Sufi poetry and in philosophical teachings of some Persian philosophers, is still present in human culture and consciousness regardless of the passing centuries.

Iran’s encounter with the European colonialist powers not only had a number of political consequences, it also had a significant impact on modern Iranian intellectual history. The reception of various strands of European philosophical thinking - especially positivist philosophy a la Comte and Spencer, materialism, empiricism as well as political thinking ranging from liberalism and socialism to anarchism and nihilism – initiated new intellectual discourses which were intended to either overcome the “old fashioned” Islamic philosophical tradition or at least to supplement or reform Islamic thought. These ideas were first propagated by Iranian intellectuals and dissidents, most of them were educated abroad in England, France, Russia or the Ottoman Empire (Istanbul) and played an important role in constitutional movement at the beginning of the 20th century. European influences were also spread via new European-style institutions of learning in Iran, which constituted a challenge to the traditional i.e. religious educational system. As a consequence philosophy was formally split up into Islamic philosophy taught mainly in the religious seminaries and Western philosophy, which became part of these new colleges’ curricula and subsequently developed into an independent discipline.
On the other hand despite the claims of some intellectuals, that Islamic philosophy had stagnated and was nothing more then mere repetition of unworldly medieval thought, we witness not only a continuation but a vivid and creative development of this philosophical tradition in Qajar Iran, where both the Avicennan and the Molla Sadrian T
tradition had a number of proponents. (Mullā Abdallāh and Mullā ʿAlī Zonūzī; Sabzavārī). Although Western and Islamic philosophy are often regarded as separate subjects, from the very beginning of the reception of European philosophy in Iran we find encounters between these traditions and even some scholars trying comparative approaches in an either inclusive or exclusive manner (Badī ol-Molk Mīrzā, Hā’erī-Yazdī, Ṭabātabā’ī, Moṭaharrī).
In my paper I shall give a concise historical overview to various strands of philosophy in 19th/20th century Iran and – eventually focussing on comparative approaches – discuss some of their characteristic features.