Theoretical Perspectives of Islamic Reformist Discourse in Iran: Alternative of M.M. Shabestari and A. Sorusha

The article deals with ideas of two important representatives of Islam reformist discourse in Iran – Abdolkarim Sorush and Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari. Comparative analysis helps to reveal the theoretical potential of their methodes of explanation of phenomena of religious experience. These thinkers believe the main danger is not modernity, which allows many ways of development, but the profanation of religious experience and Quranic discourse. Such profanity turns religion into a political ideology. The author of the article analyzes their criticism of ideologization of religion, their theories of correlation between reason and faith, as
their views on positive relation of Islam to the modernity. The rethinking of the idea of religious renewal and the concept of tradition, proposed by these Iranian reformists, is an actual alternative to the traditionalist and fundamentalist interpretations of Islam that are common today.