Abdolkarim Soroush and the discourse of Islamic revivalism

This dissertation presents a sociological interpretation of Abdolkarim Soroush's novel conceptualizations of the relationship between Islam and modernity. Using historical, hermeneutical, and sociological methods, I have reexamined the question of Islamic revivalism in the context of Soroush's response to the challenges of modernity. The findings of this dissertation indicate that the necessity of responding to the condition of modernity has occasioned a basic reconstruction of Islamic thought. I further maintain that Soroush's project of Islamic Reconstructionism constitute a paradigm shift in Islamic revivalism.;My research falls in the category of comparative case studies, where a set of questions are addressed to a chosen topic. These questions, in my case, aim to elucidate the relationship between Islam and Secularism, Islam and Freedom, Islam and Religious Pluralism, Islam and Human Rights, and Islam and Democracy. Obviously, there are many other issues that one can add to the above list when it comes to the question of Islam and Modernity. However, based on my review of the literature and the particular case that I have chosen, I discern the above mentioned topics as the major themes that have preoccupied Muslim thinkers in the on-going debate on the discourse of Islam and modernity.;The main body of this dissertation relies on the hermeneutical, critical, and textual analyses of both primary and secondary sources in English and Persian, in order to derive cogent conclusions.