Ali Akbar
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 228098 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Ali Akbar |
| PRENOMES | Ali |
| SOBRENOME | Akbar |
| ASSINATURA | AKBAR A |
| AFILIAÇÕES | The University of Melbourne |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4620-9953 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 59 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 72 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 59 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1967 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 4 |
Iranian Religious Intellectuals and Challenges to the Dominant Discourses on Hijab
This article explores the content and theoretical foundations of a line of thinking about hijab that has emerged among Iranian religious intellectuals. While criticisms of hijab by women's rights activists and the views of seminary‐trained Shīʿī scholars about a range of other issues are well‐covered in the existing literature, this article illuminates the largely neglected issue of the stances of Iranian religious intellectuals on hijab. First, …
Inclusivist discourses among contemporary Shia religious scholars about people of other faiths
Given the importance of interfaith dialogue in the modern period, some contemporary Muslim scholars have challenged exclusivist attitudes towards non-Muslims that were prominent in the pre-modern era. Relying on a rich array of primary sources in Arabic and Persian, this article presents key arguments advanced by contemporary Muslim scholars within the Shia tradition, particularly those with seminarian backgrounds, in support of inclusivist trend…
Debus2025-04-21 Pariaman
This article aims to analyze cultural continuity and the factors causing the shift of Debus Pariaman or Dabuih from tarekat practice to martial arts attractions. This study uses qualitative methods, and data collection techniques through field observations, interviews with 5 key informants who are closely related to dabuih and through documentation review. It was found that the history of the Pariaman debus has its origins from a popular tarekat …
Representations of Disability in Qur’anic Narratives
In some Muslim cultures disabled people are ridiculed, abused and face social injustice. Whilst there are texts which examine the representations of disabled people in a range of legal, social, religious, and cultural Muslim documents, there is a paucity of literature which analyzes the representations of disabled people in the Qur’an. Applying critical discourse analysis, this study interprets two well-known Qur’anic stories. Through the applica…
Healthy Living Behavior of Residents of The Muarajambi Temple Compound in The 7th To 11th Centuries AD
Archaeological research in the Muarajambi temple area has indicated its past function as a place for learning Buddhist teachings, inhabited by settlers between the 7th and 12th centuries AD. Its location near the Batanghari River and tropical forests made the settlers vulnerable to health disturbances. Starting with this phenomenon, the question arises: what was the picture of healthy living practices of the settlers in the Muarajambi Temple Comp…
Theology of Marine Ecosystems from the perspective of the Al-Qur'an and its relevance to Indonesia for Marine Areas Strengthening pursuant to Law No. 32 of 2014
The marine ecosystem plays a crucial role in maintaining environmental balance and supporting human life, as emphasised in the Qur’ān, which describes the sea as a manifestation of Allah’s greatness, a source of sustenance, and a domain for human exploration. However, challenges such as over-exploitation, pollution, and weak regulatory enforcement threaten its sustainability in Indonesia. Law No. 32 of 2014 on the Marine Environment aims to promo…
Post-revolutionary support of the Guardianship of the Jurist theory in Iran
The Impact of Technological Growth on Social Change Among Mothers in the Village of Aek Hitetoras District Marbau District North Labuhan Batu
This journal was written to find out how social change among mothers in Aek Hitetoras Village, Marbau District, North Labuhanbatu Regency, is affected by technological advancements. The research used is qualitative with a descriptive approach and observation and interview data collection methods. In this study, data analysis includes data reduction, data display, and drawing conclusions. Mechanical improvements manily affect parts of life, so it …
Islamic Contextualization on the Periphery of the Indonesian Sultanates
The spread of Islam in Maluku occurred not only in central areas of power but also in the peripheral regions. Based on various ancient Islamic manuscripts, this article examines the contextualization of these manuscripts within the broader framework of Islamization and acculturation with local traditions in the peripheral regions of the Maluku Islands. By combining a field research and literature study with contextual analysis, the article explor…
The Contribution of Āstān-e Quds-e Razavī to Iran’s Soft Power Projection
This article sheds light on the role of Āstān-e Quds-e Razavī, the Iranian foundation that manages the Imam Reza shrine, in furthering Iran's soft power. Despite the growing body of work on Iranian soft power, the role of Āstān-e Quds has not yet been adequately addressed in the literature. The article is underpinned by three theoretical observations; namely, the key elements of soft power, the soft-hard power nexus, and religious soft power. Bas…
Heritage conservation and civilisational competition in the South Caucasus
This paper explores the role of cultural heritage in shaping competing civilisational identities amid the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. As its case studies, it focuses on the relatively recent restorations of two significant mosques, the Blue Mosque in Yerevan (capital of Armenia) and the Govhar Agha Mosque in Shusha (capital of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan), respectively. Referring to primary references in Persian, Azerbaijani, Turkish, Armenia…
Non-Muslims' Rights in the Jurisprudential Approach of a Contemporary Shīʿī cleric
This article explores the approach of contemporary Shīʿī Iranian cleric Ayatollah Yūsef Ṣāneʿī to the rights of non-Muslims. It addresses his ideas with regard to three key issues: 1) the notion of the ritual impurity (najāsat) of non-Muslims and interfaith marriage; 2) the inheritance of a Muslim and a non-Muslim; and 3) the retaliation (qiṣāṣ) and the blood money of a Muslim and a non-Muslim. The article demonstrates that Ṣāneʿī, as a reformist…
Whole-genome sequencing of multidrug resistance Salmonella Typhi clinical strains isolated from Balochistan, Pakistan
Introduction Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi ( S . Typhi) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries, contributing significantly to the global disease burden. Methods In this study, S . Typhi strains were isolated from 100 patients exhibiting symptoms of typhoid fever at a tertiary care hospital in Pakistan. Antimicrobial testing of all isolates was performed to determine the sensitivity and resistance pattern. Three MD…
Towards a semi-democratic authority
A major Shīʿī political system in the contemporary world is based on the theory of the 'Guardianship of the Jurist' (velāyat-e faqīh). The theory maintains that the most senior Shīʿī cleric, who is the deputy of the Hidden Imam, is not only the religious, legal, and judicial authority but should also be the head of an Islamic state. This article explores contemporary Shīʿī Iranian cleric Ayatollah Yusuf Sanei's approach to this theory. The articl…
Retracted
The multidisciplinary study of Gunung Padang has revealed compelling evidence of a complex and sophisticated megalithic site. Correlations between rock stratifications observed through surface exposures, trenching and core logs, combined with GPR facies, ERT layers, and seismic tomograms, demonstrate the presence of multi‐layer constructions spanning approximately 20–30 m. Notably, a high‐resistive anomaly in electric resistivity tomography align…
Heritage diplomacy and soft power competition between Iran and Turkey
In this paper, we examine the use of intangible cultural heritage as a vehicle for soft power in the service of geostrategic competitions between Iran and Turkey, two regional powers in West Asia. We focus on two significant trans-regional instances of intangible cultural heritage relevant to both countries: the mystic poet Rumi and the New Year’s celebration of Nowruz. We draw on theories in political science and cultrual heritage as well as a h…
Iran’s soft power in Venezuela
This article explores Iran’s soft power strategies in Venezuela in the past two decades. It first reviews the definition of soft power in the literature, followed by Iran’s overall soft power strategy. Then, the article addresses the broader relationship between Iran and Venezuela since 2001. The reasons why the Tehran–Caracas relationship has significantly strengthened during the past two decades will also be analysed in this section. Drawing on…
Change from within
This article demonstrates how some contemporary scholars, operating from within the traditional Shiʿi establishment, have paved the way for new interpretations of Islam in general and Shiʿism in particular. To do so, the article focuses on three specific themes: the notion of the (im)purity of non‐Muslims, rulings on apostasy and precepts related to women's rights. Following a brief explanation of the history of Shiʿism, the article addresses eac…
The Islamic State, Shia religious clerics and the mobilisation of Shia militias in Iraq and Syria
This article focuses on the Islamic State's (IS) attacks on Shia communities and their holy sites across Iraq and Syria and explores the responses of key Shia religious and political leaders. It demonstrates how these Shia elites utilised sophisticated mobilisation frames to admonish their followers to take up arms against the IS. To do so, these Shia elites drew on Shia religious symbols and historical events that emphasise Shia suffering at the…
Iran’s soft power in the Middle East via the promotion of the Persian language
This article explores the language-related instruments Tehran uses to pursue its soft power goals in the Middle East. The article first defines soft power and the role of language in its promotion, and then summarises Iran's overall Persian-language strategies across the region. The main part of the article uses a rich array of primary source material in Persian to focus specifically on Tehran's efforts to use the Persian language as a soft power…
A typology of shī ʿī discourses and possibilities of democracy
This article presents a typology of the major religio-political discourses in the Shī ʿī world, namely Shī ʿa orthodoxy, governmental Shī ʿism, and reformist Shī ʿism. We compare the political stance of the former discourse, which has received the least amount of attention in academic circles, with the other two well-researched discourses. The typology offered in this article will be helpful not only in providing a comprehensive picture of Shī ʿī…
Arkeologi Islam Nusantara
Archeology is a science that continues to develop, including the development of more specialized studies such as the Archeology of Islam Nusantara. This paper describes the word and word combinations, namely Archeology, Islam, Nusantara, and Islam Nusantara, and Archeology of Islam Nusantara. As part of archeology, the Archeology of Islam Nusantara also uses objects or data, purposes, and benefits, archaeological theories, and methods. This paper…
The emerging trend of theological inclusivism in contemporary Muslim thought
Rewriting Civilization Based on Scientific Revolution
The research on civilization in Indonesia has been conducted since 1800s. Around 1970s, there was theory regarding Out of Africa stating that ancient human was from Africa then spread to all over places in the world. Besides, around 1980s there was opinion theory regarding Out of Taiwan which stated that modern human culture spread from Taiwan to South East Asia. Different research findings then are considered anomaly and barely accepted as scien…
A Historical-Contextualist Approach to the Joseph Chapter of the Qur’an
This article applies a historical-contextualist approach to analyzing the Joseph sūra of the Qur’an. It first explores the theoretical framework of this study and introduces the historical-contextualist methodology employed and then provides a brief explanation of the Qur’anic account of the story of Joseph. The Joseph sūra is analyzed in light of the context of its revelation and the use it makes of fundamental Qur’anic teachings. This article d…
Problematizing norms of heritage and peace
The destruction of heritage in conflict has emerged as a key challenge to global security and the prospects of peace. In response to the deliberate targeting of heritage sites by the Islamic State (IS) and other actors in recent years, the international community has launched a number of initiatives designed to protect and reconstruct key heritage sites in complex (post-)conflict contexts. However, this article demonstrates that such initiatives …
Heritage diplomacy and soft power competition between Iran and Turkey
In this paper, we examine the use of intangible cultural heritage as a vehicle for soft power in the service of geostrategic competitions between Iran and Turkey, two regional powers in West Asia. We focus on two significant trans-regional instances of intangible cultural heritage relevant to both countries: the mystic poet Rumi and the New Year’s celebration of Nowruz. We draw on theories in political science and cultrual heritage as well as a h…
Iran’s soft power in Azerbaijan
This article explores Iran’s soft power appeal in Azerbaijan following Azerbaijan’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. It first reviews the state of the field and situates Iran’s overall soft power strategies in relation to that context and then focuses on the relationship between Iran and post-independence Azerbaijan. Drawing on a rich array of material, including the latest publications in Persian, the article explores Tehran’s exercis…
Iran’s soft power in Syria after the Syrian civil war
This article explores Iran’s soft power strategy in Syria in recent years. It first reviews the definition of and approaches to soft power in the literature, followed by Iran’s overall soft power strategy during the past few decades. The second part of this article addresses the close relationship between Syria and Iran since the latter’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, which has developed due to shared values as well as shared threats. Thirdly, draw…
Interpretation and mutability
Since the advent of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, radical changes have taken place in the views of many Iranian scholars regarding the nature of religious belief. In particular, the issue of the compatibility or incompatibility of Islam's socio-legal precepts and the challenges of time and space have become a crucial matter for numerous Iranian intellectuals. This paper discusses how three prominent Iranian intellectuals of the post-rev…
ʿAbdolkarim Soroush’s Approach to ‘Experience’ as a Basis for His Reform Project
During the past few decades, many Muslim scholars and reformers have established new principles of reform through various hermeneutical approaches towards primary sources of Islam. Thus, Islamic thought, like any other religious tradition, has undergone a process of development in the modern period and will surely continue to do so in the future. ʿAbdolkarim Soroush (b. 1945) is undoubtedly one of the most influential religious reformers in conte…
The Art of the Qur'an in Banten
Annabel Teh Gallop, The British Library, London & Ali Akbar, Office for Research, Development and Training, Ministry of Religious Affairs, Jakarta The Art of the Qur'an in Banten: Calligraphy and Illumination Cet article traite de treize copies du Coran de Banten, datant pour la plupart du XVIIIe s. et qui, par bien des aspects, diffèrent de celles des autres pays d'Asie du Sud-Est. Dans ce corpus, deux groupes peuvent être identifiés : l'un cons…
Iran’s soft power in the Middle East via the promotion of the Persian language
This article explores the language-related instruments Tehran uses to pursue its soft power goals in the Middle East. The article first defines soft power and the role of language in its promotion, and then summarises Iran's overall Persian-language strategies across the region. The main part of the article uses a rich array of primary source material in Persian to focus specifically on Tehran's efforts to use the Persian language as a soft power…
Sedigheh Vasmaghi
This article explores the ideas of Iranian reformist scholar Sedigheh Vasmaghi and her contribution to religious reformist thought in Iran. As this article demonstrates, a significant aspect of Vasmaghi's work concerns how she understands the extent to which the legal aspects of the Qurʾān and the associated rulings found in fiqh literature are relevant to the conditions of the modern world. This article investigates Vasmaghi's ideas about the Qu…
Philosophical hermeneutics and contemporary Muslim scholars’ approaches to interpreting scripture
Although the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer was not a religious thinker or theologian, his work and approach have influenced thinkers in the field of theology. This article explores some ‘overlaps’ between Gadamerian hermeneutics and the ideas of some contemporary Muslim scholars such as Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, Abdolkarim Soroush, Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari and Hassan Hanafi regarding issues of textual interpretation and understanding. In p…
Ayatollah Yusuf Sanei's Contribution to the Discourse of Women's Rights
Ayatollah Yusef Sanei was a prominent contemporary Shia scholar whose particular methodological approach led him to issue some of the most progressive Shia fatwas on the subject of women's rights. However, the ideas he expressed in the last decades of his life have scarcely been addressed in the English language scholarship. This article explores Sanei's broader jurisprudential approach and how he applied it to analyzing and often challenging tra…
Muslim reformist scholars' arguments for democracy independent of religious justification
This article examines the ideas of three contemporary Muslim reformists, namely Abdolkarim Soroush, Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, and Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari, concerning the relationship between democracy and the Islamic principle of shura (consultation). The article aims to demonstrate how the theological-philosophical approaches of these scholars-particularly with respect to their methods of interpreting the Qurʾan and the distinctions they draw be…
The Islamic State, Shia religious clerics and the mobilisation of Shia militias in Iraq and Syria
This article focuses on the Islamic State's (IS) attacks on Shia communities and their holy sites across Iraq and Syria and explores the responses of key Shia religious and political leaders. It demonstrates how these Shia elites utilised sophisticated mobilisation frames to admonish their followers to take up arms against the IS. To do so, these Shia elites drew on Shia religious symbols and historical events that emphasise Shia suffering at the…
A typology of shī ʿī discourses and possibilities of democracy
This article presents a typology of the major religio-political discourses in the Shī ʿī world, namely Shī ʿa orthodoxy, governmental Shī ʿism, and reformist Shī ʿism. We compare the political stance of the former discourse, which has received the least amount of attention in academic circles, with the other two well-researched discourses. The typology offered in this article will be helpful not only in providing a comprehensive picture of Shī ʿī…
Fazlur Rahman’s Influence on Contemporary Islamic Thought
This article examines the influence of Fazlur Rahman, one of the most widely quoted scholars among contemporary Muslim modernists, on contemporary Islamic thought. It explores how Rahman’s ideas about revelation and the interpretation of the Qurʾān have influenced some contemporary Muslim scholars of the late twentieth and early twenty‐first centuries, such as Abdolkarim Soroush, Arash Naraqi, Abdullah Saeed, Nurcholish Madjid, Farid Esack and Am…
The Zoroastrian Provenance of Some Islamic Eschatological Doctrines
Zoroastrianism, as the major Iranian religion before the fall of the Sasanian Empire in the seventh century, exercised a deep influence on other religious traditions of the region around it. In particular, it has exercised a strong influence on the development of eschatological ideas in the Arabic and Islamic literature. This article explores some of the main features of the transmission of ideas from Zoroastrian sources to Islamic literature, fo…
Towards a humanistic approach to the Quran
Historically, Muslim orthodoxy has regarded the Quran as God’s Word dictated to Muhammad through the mediation of the Angel Gabriel, and has thus maintained the corresponding argument that the Prophet played no role in shaping the content of the Quranic revelations. This paper discusses a project of what I shall refer to as ‘reforming theology’ within contemporary Islamic scholarship which stands in contrast to the dominant orthodox view of revel…
The Political Discourses of three Contemporary Muslim Scholars
It is well-known that the quest for an Islamic state was a desire common to most Islamists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This article discusses three contemporary political theories that stand in sharp contrast to the Islamists' theory of an Islamic state. These political theories are developed by three prominent contemporary Muslim scholars, Nasr Hamid Abū Zayd, Ablodkarim Soroush, and Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari. The article att…
Heritage conservation and civilisational competition in the South Caucasus
This paper explores the role of cultural heritage in shaping competing civilisational identities amid the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. As its case studies, it focuses on the relatively recent restorations of two significant mosques, the Blue Mosque in Yerevan (capital of Armenia) and the Govhar Agha Mosque in Shusha (capital of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan), respectively. Referring to primary references in Persian, Azerbaijani, Turkish, Armenia…
Non-Muslims' Rights in the Jurisprudential Approach of a Contemporary Shīʿī cleric
This article explores the approach of contemporary Shīʿī Iranian cleric Ayatollah Yūsef Ṣāneʿī to the rights of non-Muslims. It addresses his ideas with regard to three key issues: 1) the notion of the ritual impurity (najāsat) of non-Muslims and interfaith marriage; 2) the inheritance of a Muslim and a non-Muslim; and 3) the retaliation (qiṣāṣ) and the blood money of a Muslim and a non-Muslim. The article demonstrates that Ṣāneʿī, as a reformist…
Towards a semi-democratic authority
A major Shīʿī political system in the contemporary world is based on the theory of the 'Guardianship of the Jurist' (velāyat-e faqīh). The theory maintains that the most senior Shīʿī cleric, who is the deputy of the Hidden Imam, is not only the religious, legal, and judicial authority but should also be the head of an Islamic state. This article explores contemporary Shīʿī Iranian cleric Ayatollah Yusuf Sanei's approach to this theory. The articl…
Iran’s soft power in Venezuela
This article explores Iran’s soft power strategies in Venezuela in the past two decades. It first reviews the definition of soft power in the literature, followed by Iran’s overall soft power strategy. Then, the article addresses the broader relationship between Iran and Venezuela since 2001. The reasons why the Tehran–Caracas relationship has significantly strengthened during the past two decades will also be analysed in this section. Drawing on…
Change from within
This article demonstrates how some contemporary scholars, operating from within the traditional Shiʿi establishment, have paved the way for new interpretations of Islam in general and Shiʿism in particular. To do so, the article focuses on three specific themes: the notion of the (im)purity of non‐Muslims, rulings on apostasy and precepts related to women's rights. Following a brief explanation of the history of Shiʿism, the article addresses eac…
Political Theology in Iran
This article examines a specific line of thinking shared by several contemporary Iranian reformist scholars which emerged partly in response to the doctrine of velāyat-e faqīh, a political-theological theory instigated by Ayatollah Khomeini. Focusing on the ideas of reformist Iranian scholars, such as Abdolkarim Soroush, Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari, Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari, Mohsen Kadivar and Ahmad Qabel, unpacks these thinkers’ views concerning…
A Critique of the Concept of Ḥākimiyya
This article seeks to demonstrate how the Egyptian scholar Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (d. 2010) challenges the concept of divine sovereignty (ḥākimiyya), or the rule of God, developed during the twentieth century, primarily by Sayyid Qutb and Abul Ala Mawdudi-a concept that has inspired many Sunni Islamist movements. The article first explores key aspects of the concept of ḥākimiyya as presented by these two thinkers. Then, key components of Abu Zayd's …
Consultants and Consultees the View from Within
Mr. Macarov is a member of the faculty of the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. Mr. Akbar is a member of the faculty of the College of Social Welfare, Dacca University, Dacca, East Pakistan. Mr. Kulkarni was formerly director of social welfare of Delhi State, India. Mr. Wertheimer is deputy director-general of the Ministry of Social Welfare of Israel. When the paper was written, the authors were doctoral c…
Tawaran hermeneutika untuk menafsirkan Alquran
Hermeneutics is a word that becomes popular lately especially among postmodernist people. Since the definition and the scope become broader, many groups of people can use hermeneutics nowadays. One of the application of hermeneutics is the interpretation of Al-Qur’an, the Moslems’ holy bible. It is known that Moslems has their own way in interpreting their bible, with Tafsir. The focus of this paper is to convey the similarity and the difference …
The Art of the Qur'an in Banten
Annabel Teh Gallop, The British Library, London & Ali Akbar, Office for Research, Development and Training, Ministry of Religious Affairs, Jakarta The Art of the Qur'an in Banten: Calligraphy and Illumination Cet article traite de treize copies du Coran de Banten, datant pour la plupart du XVIIIe s. et qui, par bien des aspects, diffèrent de celles des autres pays d'Asie du Sud-Est. Dans ce corpus, deux groupes peuvent être identifiés : l'un cons…
Cultural Resource Management for a Majapahit Kingdom Site in Trowulan, East Java, Indonesia
The Kingdom of Majapahit located in East Java, Indonesia, was established in 1293 ce and lasted until its destruction in the sixteenth century. At its peak, the Kingdom covered the modern-day region of Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula. Archaeological remains from the Majapahit era have been discovered in several places, including Java, Bali, and Sumatra, but the most important site is located in the small town of Trowulan in East Java. Trowulan …
A Jawi Sourcebook for the Study of Malay Palaeography and Orthography
This special issue of Indonesia and the Malay World was compiled by friends and colleagues as a tribute to Professor E. Ulrich Kratz's three decades of teaching Jawi and traditional Malay literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and to mark his 70th birthday on 14 October 2014. Reflecting Ulrich's deep interest in Malay manuscript texts and letters over many years (see the list of publications compiled by He…
A Contemporary Muslim Scholar’s Approach to Revelation
Over the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, rethinking the traditional understanding of revelation has been welcomed by a number of Muslim scholars. Moḥammad Moǧtahed Šabestarī, an influential Šīʿī reformer from contemporary Iran, certainly falls in the category of such scholars. The aim of this paper is to discuss his theory of revelation for the purpose of exploring the potential values it holds for flexible interpretation of Isla…
The Political Discourses of three Contemporary Muslim Scholars
It is well-known that the quest for an Islamic state was a desire common to most Islamists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This article discusses three contemporary political theories that stand in sharp contrast to the Islamists' theory of an Islamic state. These political theories are developed by three prominent contemporary Muslim scholars, Nasr Hamid Abū Zayd, Ablodkarim Soroush, and Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari. The article att…
Islam–science relation from the perspective of post-revolutionary Iranian religious intellectuals
Throughout Islamic history, various arguments have been raised by Muslim scholars concerning how the Quran and scientific knowledge are related to one another. This paper seeks to examine how contemporary Iranian religious intellectuals (rowshanfekrān-e-dīnī) have dealt with the question of the compatibility or incompatibility between Islam and science. In particular, the paper focuses on the writings of two of the most significant reformers of t…
ʿAbdolkarim Soroush’s Approach to ‘Experience’ as a Basis for His Reform Project
During the past few decades, many Muslim scholars and reformers have established new principles of reform through various hermeneutical approaches towards primary sources of Islam. Thus, Islamic thought, like any other religious tradition, has undergone a process of development in the modern period and will surely continue to do so in the future. ʿAbdolkarim Soroush (b. 1945) is undoubtedly one of the most influential religious reformers in conte…
Reconstruction of an indigenous community‘s belief in dragon; Research on prehistoric Batu Naga Site in Kuningan, West Java
Archaeological remains can be used as data to reconstruct the culture of the past. At the top of Mount Tilu, Kuningan, stands a menhir decorated with reliefs. The indigenous community which once cared for this site has long vanished. This paper is the result of a research applying archaeological method and semiotic interpretation to reconstruct the life of this long-dead indigenous community. The reliefs on the menhir tell of the beliefs of this …
Towards a humanistic approach to the Quran
Historically, Muslim orthodoxy has regarded the Quran as God’s Word dictated to Muhammad through the mediation of the Angel Gabriel, and has thus maintained the corresponding argument that the Prophet played no role in shaping the content of the Quranic revelations. This paper discusses a project of what I shall refer to as ‘reforming theology’ within contemporary Islamic scholarship which stands in contrast to the dominant orthodox view of revel…
Interpretation and mutability
Since the advent of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, radical changes have taken place in the views of many Iranian scholars regarding the nature of religious belief. In particular, the issue of the compatibility or incompatibility of Islam's socio-legal precepts and the challenges of time and space have become a crucial matter for numerous Iranian intellectuals. This paper discusses how three prominent Iranian intellectuals of the post-rev…
From archaeological artefact to unlimited heritage concept; Redefining museum collection in disruption era
In the beginning, artefacts are an object studied by archaeology to produce knowledge. Artefact is restored in museum as collection and it is determined as heritage to be used by many people. The last two decades have shown that artefact and heritage have shifted their meaning. Along with that, disruptive era occurring for mainly the last decade has affected various lines of life including museum. The study on the impact of disruptive era on muse…
Death penalty for apostasy
The principle of freedom of religion holds a significant place in today's world.According to Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance".One k…
USA–China trade war
The trade war between the US and China is one of the big problems that have a propagating effect on other countries. Even though the tension is currently on the decline, the impact on the slowdown in the global economy is expected to continue until 2020. The effect of falling commodity prices that underpin Indonesia's economy is that the Indonesian economy only grows at around 5%. The World Bank estimates that the global slowdown will suppress In…
Fazlur Rahman’s Influence on Contemporary Islamic Thought
This article examines the influence of Fazlur Rahman, one of the most widely quoted scholars among contemporary Muslim modernists, on contemporary Islamic thought. It explores how Rahman’s ideas about revelation and the interpretation of the Qurʾān have influenced some contemporary Muslim scholars of the late twentieth and early twenty‐first centuries, such as Abdolkarim Soroush, Arash Naraqi, Abdullah Saeed, Nurcholish Madjid, Farid Esack and Am…
The Zoroastrian Provenance of Some Islamic Eschatological Doctrines
Zoroastrianism, as the major Iranian religion before the fall of the Sasanian Empire in the seventh century, exercised a deep influence on other religious traditions of the region around it. In particular, it has exercised a strong influence on the development of eschatological ideas in the Arabic and Islamic literature. This article explores some of the main features of the transmission of ideas from Zoroastrian sources to Islamic literature, fo…
Muslim reformist scholars' arguments for democracy independent of religious justification
This article examines the ideas of three contemporary Muslim reformists, namely Abdolkarim Soroush, Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, and Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari, concerning the relationship between democracy and the Islamic principle of shura (consultation). The article aims to demonstrate how the theological-philosophical approaches of these scholars-particularly with respect to their methods of interpreting the Qurʾan and the distinctions they draw be…
Punishment for Apostasy
This article explores and compares the views of two traditionally educated Muslim scholars, namely Taha Jabir al-Alwani (d 2016) and Hussein Ali Montazeri (d 2009), about the classical rulings on apostasy in Islam. The article argues that both al-Alwani, a Sunni scholar educated at al-Azhar, and Montazeri, a graduate of the Shiʿi seminary in Qom, defend freedom of religion in the sense of converting from Islam to another religion—an idea that sta…
The Green Movement in Iran
The protests that rocked the streets of Tehran and some other major Iranian cities in 2009, gradually coming to be known collectively as the Green Movement, were triggered after the official announcement of that year’s presidential election result. This article will demonstrate how key features of the Green Movement – including the mass participation of youth, women and university students – were rooted in sociopolitical changes that occurred in …
Rediscovering Archaeology Using the Cultural Heritage of Serang City, Banten Province for Community Recovery During Covid-19 Pandemic
Many archaeological researches have been conducted in Serang City, Banten Province for decades so that a significant amount of knowledge has been produced. The Public Archaeology approach, especially museums and cultural resource management, has also been applied. However, these efforts have not been maximized resulting in several problems. Particularly, since 2020, COVID-19 pandemic has affected various fields and sectors, including the cultural…
Iran’s soft power in Syria after the Syrian civil war
This article explores Iran’s soft power strategy in Syria in recent years. It first reviews the definition of and approaches to soft power in the literature, followed by Iran’s overall soft power strategy during the past few decades. The second part of this article addresses the close relationship between Syria and Iran since the latter’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, which has developed due to shared values as well as shared threats. Thirdly, draw…
Iran's Regional Influence in Light of Its Security Concerns
During the past two decades, Iran has gained a prominent position in the Middle East. Its influence in Iraq has gradually increased following the US invasion in 2003, and in Syria after the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011. Many scholars and political analysts frame Iran's actions in the region as driven by the country's desire for expansionism. This article, however, demonstrates that Tehran's foreign policy rationale for exercising regional influe…
Abdolkarim Soroush’s Theory of Revelation
The Iranian scholar Abdolkarim Soroush has recently developed an account of revelation referred to as the theory of Prophetic Dreams. This article seeks to analyse this theory and its relation to two earlier theories developed by him (that of the Contraction and Expansion of Religious Knowledge and that of the Expansion of Prophetic Experience). In addition, it explores whether the theory of Prophetic Dreams has any roots in classical Islamic lit…
Philosophical hermeneutics and contemporary Muslim scholars’ approaches to interpreting scripture
Although the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer was not a religious thinker or theologian, his work and approach have influenced thinkers in the field of theology. This article explores some ‘overlaps’ between Gadamerian hermeneutics and the ideas of some contemporary Muslim scholars such as Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, Abdolkarim Soroush, Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari and Hassan Hanafi regarding issues of textual interpretation and understanding. In p…
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