Editing Abdolkarim Soroush (section)

==Biography==
Abdolkarim Soroush was born in [[Tehran]] in 1945. Upon finishing high school and passing national entrance exams, he began studying pharmacy. After completing his degree, he moved to [[London]] where he continued his studies.

After receiving a master's degree in [[analytical chemistry]] from [[University of London]], he went to [[Chelsea College of Art and Design|Chelsea College]], where he studyied history and [[philosophy of science]].{{sfn|Dahlén|loc=chpt. 6|2003}} Following the [[Iranian Revolution|revolution]], Soroush returned to Iran, where he published the book ''Knowledge and Value'' (''Danesh va Arzesh''), a book he had completed while in England. He then went to [[Tehran]]'s Teacher Training College where he was appointed the director of the newly established Islamic Culture Group. While in Tehran, Soroush established studies in both history and the philosophy of science.

A year later, all universities were shut down, and a new body was formed by the name of the [[Cultural Revolution in Iran|Cultural Revolution]] Committee comprising seven members, including Abdulkarim Soroush, all of whom were appointed directly by Ayatollah [[Khomeini]]. Soroush's joining the Cultural Revolution Committee has been criticized on two sides. He has been accused by orthodox critics of preventing the Islamization of human sciences, and of being involved in the dismissal of teachers by opponents of the Islamic Republic.

Soroush rejected the opposition's accusation. There is no independent historical research on Soroush's role in events that led to the Cultural Revolution and also his membership and his role in the Cultural Revolution Committee. He has welcomed such study in his interview with Professor Forough Jahanbakhsh - inquiring into modern Iranian intellectual history.<ref>Jahanbakhsh, Forough, Islam, Democracy and Religious Modernism in Iran, 1953-2000: From Bazargan to Soroush, Brill, 2001, p.145</ref> Soroush would later become a strong critic of the authoritarian path taken by the Islamic Republic.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Allawi|first=Ali A.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DRcHPCIFPzwC&q=We+are+not+afraid+of+economic+sanctions+or+military+intervention.+What+we+are+afraid+of+is+Western+universities+and+the+training+of+our+youth+in+the+interests+of+West+or+East.&pg=PA86|title=Crisis of Islamic Civilization|date=2009-04-28|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-15885-4|language=en}}</ref>

In 1983, owing to certain differences which emerged between him and the management of the Teacher Training College, he was transferred to the Institute for Cultural Research and Studies where he has served as a research member of staff. He submitted his resignation from membership in the Cultural Revolution Council to Imam Khomeini and has since held no official position within the ruling system of Iran, except occasionally as an advisor to certain government bodies. His principal position has been that of a researcher at the Institute for Cultural Research and Studies.

During the 1990s, Soroush gradually became more critical of the political role played by the Iranian clergy. He co-founded a monthly magazine, ''Kiyan'', which soon became the most visible forum for religious intellectualism in post-revolution Iran. In this magazine he published controversial articles on religious pluralism, hermeneutics, tolerance, clericalism, and other topics. The magazine was closed down in 1998 by direct order of the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, among many other magazines and newspapers. His public lectures at universities in Iran are often disrupted by hardline [[Ansar-e Hezbollah]] vigilante groups who see his intellectual endeavors as being mainly motivated by anti-regime politics.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

Since 2000, Soroush has been a visiting scholar at [[Harvard University]], teaching Rumi poetry and philosophy, Islam and Democracy, Quranic studies and philosophy of Islamic law. He is also a scholar in residence at [[Yale University]], and taught Islamic political philosophy at [[Princeton University]] in 2002–2003. From 2003 to 2004 he served as a visiting scholar at the [[Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin|Wissenschaftkolleg]] in Berlin. He spent the fall semester of 2007 at Columbia University and the spring semester of 2008 at Georgetown University's [[Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs]] as a visiting scholar. In the winter of 2012, he was a visiting professor at the [[University of Chicago]] teaching the intellectual and religious history of modern Iran.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}