On The Study Of Ahmad Kasravi’s Religious Thoughts

Since the Safavid Dynasty established the Shi’ism as its statereligion, the Shi’ism, one of two great Islam factions, has beenexerting a profound effect on Iran’s national identity and socialideology and culture even until now. In the twentieth century, thepoor and weak Iran fell to be the colony of Western powers in face ofdomestic strife and foreign aggression. For this, intellectuals of Iranexpected to change the backward situation of their country bycultural innovation, among them remarkably Ahmad Kasravi was.Meanwhile he was also one of the most controversial intellectuals.As an intellectual steeped in Western scientific culture, headvocated democracy, justice and freedom and was also theadamant supporter and practitioner of Constitutionalism; as aMullah(an Islamic scholar), he witnessed the corruption of Shi’ism.He dared to criticize the conservationism and backwardnesscontained in the Islam and Shi doctrine, and he argued that presentIslam was not the Islam by Mohammed; but one seriouslycontaminated by the society, thus unable to meet the demand of modern time, and even becoming a hindrance to the twentieth Iran’sdevelopment.On the basis of a deep analysis of his own works with the widesurvey of the past bibliographies, and widely collecting and sortingmaterials, the author focuses on the content of the religiousthoughts of Kasravi and his views on the criticisms thoughts for ofIslam and Shi’ism on the ground of Kasravi’s works.This article consists of three major components which areintroduction, body and conclusion. The introduction mainly narratesthe subject and significance, briefly introduces relative researchtrends in foreign academics and finally conducts the definition ofthe relative concerned concepts. The body includes three parts: thefirst part one introduces the background of the religious thought ofKasravi from three dimensions including Kasaravi’s life, Islam, oneof the world’s three greatest religions and Iran’s domestic andforeign environment from the mid-nineteenth century to thetwentieth century; the second part, one the focus of this article,narrates the content of the religious thought of Kasaravi includinghis views on cleric, science, Imam, hajj and Karbala martyrs; thethird part one introduces deals with Kasaravi’s criticisms thoughtsfor of the conservatism of Shia, Islam and Muslims. Conclusion as apart carries on a comprehensive summary of the whole article.