Topic summary
Abdolkarim Soroush
Abdolkarim Soroush (عبدالكريم سروش()Persian pronunciation:), born Hossein Haj Faraj Dabbagh (born 16 December 1945; Persian: حسين حاج فرج دباغ), is an Iranian Islamic and Rumi scholar, and a former professor of philosophy at the University of Tehran. He is among the most influential figures in the progressive religious intellectual movement of Iran.
Soroush is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. He was also affiliated with other institutions including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, the Leiden-based International Institute as a visiting professor for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) and the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin.
He was named as one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2005 by Time magazine, and as one of the most influential intellectuals in the world by Prospect magazine in 2008. Soroush's ideas, founded on relativism, prompted both supporters and critics to compare his role in reforming Islam to that of Martin Luther in reforming Christianity.