Post-islamist Political Theory ― Iranian Intellectuals and Political Liberalism in Dialogue

This book deals with the concept of post-Islamism from a mainly philosophical perspective, using political liberalism as elaborated by John Rawls as the key interpretive tool. What distinguishes this book from most scholarship in Iranian studies is that it primarily deals with the projects of Iranian intellectuals from a normative perspective as the concept is understood by analytical philosophers. The volume includes analyses of the strengths and weakness of the arguments underlying each thinker’s ideas, rather than looking for their historical and sociological origins, genealogy, etc. Each chapter develops a particular conjectural argument for the possibility of an overlapping consensus between Islam and political liberalism, though the arguments presented draw upon different Islamic, particularly Shia, resources. Thus, while Shabestari and Soroush primarily reason from a modernist theological or kalami perspective, M.H.Tabatabai and Mehdi Haeri Yazdi’s arguments are mainly based on traditional Islamic philosophy and Quranic exegesis. While Kadivar, An-Naim and Fanaei are post-Islamist in the exact sense of the term, Malekian goes beyond typical post-Islamism by proposing a theory for spirituality that constrains religion within the boundaries of enlightenment thought. Throughout the book, specific attention is given to Ferrara and March’s readings of political liberalism. Although the book’s chapters constitute a whole, they can also be read independently if the reader is only curious about particular intellectuals whose political theories are discussed.

Meysam Badamchi - has a BA in Physics from Tehran University and a Masters in Philosophy of Science from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Dr. Badamchi earned his PhD from Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome in 2012, with a dissertation entitled Political Liberalism for Muslim Majority Societies. Since September 2013 Badamchi has been a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Modern Turkish Studies at Sehir University in Istanbul, partially granted by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK). His fields of research include contemporary political theory in Anglo-American and Muslim traditions, political liberalism, multiculturalism, and nationalism as extended to Muslim Majority context, Iranian and Turkish Political Thought, and Iranian and Turkish politics. Some of Dr. Badamchi’s recent publications in peer reviewed journals include: “Political Liberalism for Post-Islamist, Muslim-Majority Societies”, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction (OUP, 2002) from English into Persian (Tehran: Negah-e Moaser, 2017) under the author’s supervision—in collaboration with Mohammad Mobasheri—, and participates in BBC Persian TV programs as analyst on the Turkish Politics. Badamchi is also a freelance writer for variety of Iranian websites in the diaspora.