Mohsen Kadivar (; born 1959) is an Iranian mujtahid, Islamic theologian, philosopher, writer, leading intellectual reformist, and research professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University. A political Iranian dissident, Kadivar has been a vocal critic of the doctrine of clerical rule, also known as Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), and a strong advocate of democratic and liberal reforms in Iran as well as constructional reform in understanding of shari'a and Shi'a theology. Kadivar has served time in prison in Iran for his political activism and beliefs.

Education and career

Born in Fasa (Fars province) to a politically active family,

Personal life

Kadivar married Zahra Roodi in 1981 and has four children. Jamileh Kadivar is his sister.

Dissent

Kadivar is a prominent critic of the Islamic Republic system in Iran, and wrote a detailed criticism of Ayatollah Khomeini's theory of Islamic government as rule by Shia clerics, Government by Mandate (see below).

As punishment for his criticism, Kadivar was sentenced to eighteen months in prison after being convicted by the Special Clerical Court in 1999, on charges of having spread false information about Iran's "sacred system of the Islamic Republic" and of helping enemies of the Islamic revolution, or as another observer put it, "for commenting on the contradiction between the revolution's aims to serve the people and the subsequent concentration of power in the hands of clerics." He was released from Evin Prison, on July 17, 2000. Kadivar was unrepentant on his release

In a 2004 interview, Kadivar told a journalist, <blockquote>"Every member of society and every member of government is subject to the law. No one can be above it. Everyone has the same rights, yet the root of the faqih is inequality. He assumes he is above it. ... It is time for the supreme leader to be subject to the constitution too. After all, the Supreme Leader doesn't come from God!"</blockquote>

On the issue of clerics in government, he has said: <blockquote>"Our job as religious people is not politics. ... They are taking Iran backward, not toward the future."

According to Kadivar, "Velayat e Motlaghe ye Faghih" reflects a spectrum of authoritative options for Islamic society. There are not one, but "no less than nine distinct possible forms of government all proposed and supported by most revered religious scholars and texts."

A. Theories of State based on Immediate Divine Legitimacy

Four theocratic types, in chronological order:

1. "Appointed Mandate of Jurisconsult" in Religious Matters (Shari'at) along with the Monarchic Mandate of Muslim Potentates in Secular Matters

(Saltanat E Mashrou'eh)

Advocates: Mohammad Bagher Majlesi, Mirza ye Ghomi, Seyed e Kashfi, Sheikh Fadlullah Nouri, Ayatollah Abdolkarim Haeri Yazdi.

2. "General Appointed Mandate of Jurisconsults"

(Velayat E Entesabi Ye 'Ummeh)

Advocates: Molla Ahmad Naraghi, Sheikh Mohammad Hassan Najafi (Sahib Javahir) Ayatollahs Borujerdi, Golpayegani, Khomeini (before the revolution)

3. "General Appointed Mandate of the Council of the 'Sources of Imitation' "

(Velayat E Entesabi Ye Ammeh Ye Shora Ye Marje'eh Taghlid)

Advocates: Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammad Shirazi

4. "Absolute Appointed Mandate of Jurisconsult"

(Velayat e Entesabi ye Motlaghe ye Faghihan)

Advocate: Ayatollah Khomeini (after revolution)

B. Theories of State Based on Divine-popular Legitimacy

Five democratic types, in chronological order:

5. "Constitutional State" (with the permission and supervision of Jurisprudents)

(Dowlat e Mashrouteh)

Advocates: Ayatollahs: Sheikh Esma'il Mahallati, Mohammad Hosein Na'ini

6. "Popular Stewardship along with Clerical Oversight"

(Khelafat e Mardom ba Nezarat e Marjaiat)

Advocate: Ayatollah Mohammad Bagher Sadr (secondary opinion)

7. "Elective Limited Mandate of Jurisprudents"

(Velayat e Entekhabi ye Moghayyadeh ye Faghih)

Advocates: Ayatollahs Murtada Motahhari, Nimatullah Salehi Najaf-Abadi, Hosein-Ali Montazeri

8. "Islamic elective State" (Dowlat e Entekhabi ye Eslami)

Advocates: Ayatollahs Mohammad Bagher Sadr (primary opinion), Mohammad Mahdi Shamseddin, Muhammad Jawad Mughniya (Sayyed Kazim Shari'atmadari)

9. "Collective Government by Proxy" (Vekalat e Malekan e Shakhsi ye Mosha)"

Advocate: Ayatollah Mehdi Ha'eri Yazdi

Government by Mandate

Having laid out a spectrum of authoritative options for Islamic society, in his second volume, Government by Mandate (Hokumat e Vela'i), Kadivar criticises Ayatollah Khomeini's theology, the most absolutist thesis among the varieties of "Velayat e Motlaghe ye Faghih" and the one enshrined in the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Islam as an End in Itself

The comparative studies between Kadivar's approach to reforming Islamic thought and other Shi'a thinkers reach these concluding remarks: There are three approaches to the discussion of the compatibility of Islam (or more precisely Shari’a and fiqh) with modernity among Muslim Shi’i thinkers in the recent century and a half in Iran. Although the Constant and Variable Perspective in its different expositions by Na’ini, Allama Tabataba’i, and Seyyed Muhammad Baqir Sadr, is the most famous perspective of the compatibility of Islam and modernity, it has four serious problems. Ayatollah Khomeini's Perspective of Governmental or Expedient Fiqh, which is the official policy of Islamic Republic of Iran, aside from its flexibility, encounters four problems.

The Perspective of Islam as an End in Itself is the third approach that Kadivar argues has four advantages. It has the capacity of giving a new interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) in the modern world based on the spirit of Islam and the goals of the Qur’an, the tradition of the Prophet (Sunna), and his household (Ahl al-Bayt). He finds that Islam as an end in itself is a perfect perspective for the modern world.

Revisiting Women's Rights in Islam

Kadivar mentioned his innovative ideas on women's rights in 2013: There are two types of verses and hadiths regarding women's rights in the Qurʾan and Sunna. The first type designates full human rights for women, and recognises equal rights for men and women as humans, despite bodily differences between them. The second type considers that women, because of their lesser capacities, are entitled to fewer rights than men in managing the home and in society. At the same time, reason and Shariʿa required that women be treated with justice and according to what is commonly accepted as good, as right (maʿrūf).

Muslim scholars, following Aristotle, construed justice as deserts based on the basis of proportional equality and considered women as entitled to fewer rights because of what they considered to be women's inherent lesser capacity. They took the first type of verses and hadith as the basis for equal rights, and the second type as the standard for women's rights and duties, and defended patriarchy as consistent with justice and Shariʿa.

Both proportional equality and deserts-based justice are indefensible and unjustified. Contemporary rationality recognises humans, as they are humans, as rights-holders, and thus upholds fundamental equality and egalitarian justice. This notion of justice is very close to human dignity and Qurʾanic anthropology. The first type of verses and hadiths, on grounds of contextual rational argument, imply fixed and permanent rulings, and, by analogy, verses that apparently imply legal inequality and greater legal rights for men are considered temporary rulings whose validity has expired.

According to egalitarian justice and fundamental equality, although women differ from men physically and psychologically, they are entitled to equal rights because they are human, and it is humanity – not gender, colour, race, class, religion, or political ideology – that carries rights, duties, dignity, and trust and divine vice-regency. This position is more consistent with the Qurʾanic spirit and Islamic standards; evidence for legal inequality, because of its temporariness, cannot be counted as an obstacle to the realization of legal equality.

Apostasy and Blasphemy

Rafiq Taqi, a journalist residing in Baku, Azerbaijan was fatally stabbed based on fatwa of an Ayatollah the student of Ayatollah Khomeini in 2011, accused of apostasy and blasphemy because of his articles. Kadivar denounced the ruling of execution openly and wrote a book on this issue. Here is the abstract of his opinions in the case of apostasy and blasphemy in Islam: There is no reliable proof from the Qur’an, Sunnah, consensus (ijmaʻ), or reason that can establish the validity of shedding the blood of anyone who has been accused of apostasy or defaming the Prophet. On the contrary, this goes against the Qur’an and reason. Moreover, the negative effects that would ensue from making licit the shedding of someone's blood would be plenty and, as such, would certainly weaken Islam.

Only a sound judicial system can issue a judgment and supervise its implementation. The issuance of a judgment by a jurist who is qualified to issue a legal opinion (fatwa), out of the judicial system, does not suffice.

A judgment on the apostate and defamer of the Prophet is absolutely lacking in evidence from the Qur’an. Traditional jurists, by employing ijtihad, have arrived at this judgment and have claimed consensus by relying on solitary (akhbar wahid) or dependable (muwatthaqah) hadiths.

The ruling on killing the apostate and defamer of the Prophet is incorrect and not possible to implement on account of the following seven proofs:

(a) The necessity of stopping the implementation of the rule of execution of an apostate or a blasphemer as a secondary injunction, "debilitating Islam" (avoiding the harm or seeking public welfare or governmental injunction).

(b) The necessity of suspending or stopping the implementation of punishment for hudud that would lead to the killing of a person during the Occultation of the Twelfth Imam.

(c) Since the judgment on killing is based on solitary reports (al-akhbar al-ahad), it is mandatory to exercise caution by negation the rule of shedding someone's blood.

(d) Any judgment of killing based on solitary reports is not a valid basis for dealing with vital and critical issues.

(e) Alteration of the subject matter or situational context (mawduʻ) of apostasy.

(f) The hadiths mandating the execution of the apostate and defamer of the Prophet are contrary to Qur’anic dictates.

(g) The rational proof is too weak to establish the execution of one who abandons religion or insults the holy personages.

In conclusion, exiting from religion (i.e., apostasy) has no temporal punishment. Executing anyone on the basis of insulting the Prophet or the Qur’an or other sacred objects in Islam is therefore indefensible.

Articles

Selected articles and book chapters in English:

  1. Badaye' al-Hikam of Sage Agha Ali Modarres Tehrani, in S. H. Nasr & M. Aminrazavi (eds.), An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, Vol. 5, London, I B Tauris, Jan. 2015.
  2. Routinizing the Iranian Revolution, in Jeffrey T. Kenney & Ebrahim Moosa (eds.), Islam in the Modern World, New York, Rutledge, 2014, pp.&nbsp;351–368.
  3. Revisiting Women's Rights in Islam: 'Egalitarian Justice' in lieu of 'Meritocratic Justice', in Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Lena Larsen, Christian Moe, and Kari Vogt (eds.) Justice Through Equality: New Approaches to Muslim Family Law, London, I B Tauris, 2013, pp. 213-234.
  4. Wilayat al-faqih and Democracy, in Asma Afsaruddin (ed.), Islam, the State and Political Authority, Medieval Issues and Modern Concerns; New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp.&nbsp;207–224.
  5. "From Traditional Islam to Islam as an end in itself", Die Welt des Islams International Journal for the Study of Modern Islam, No.51, 2011, pp.&nbsp;459–484.
  6. "Human Rights and Intellectual Islam", in Kari Vogt, Lena Larsen & Christian Moe (eds.), New Directions in Islamic Thought: Exploring Reform and Muslim Tradition, London, IB Tauris, 2009, pp.&nbsp;47–74.
  7. "Theories of Government in Shi’i Fiqh", in Paul Luft & Colin Turner (eds.), Shi’ism, Critical concepts in Islamic Studies, Vol. 3: Law, Rite & Rituals, New York, Rutledge, 2008, pp.&nbsp;267–82.
  1. "Freedom of Religion and Belief in Islam", in Mehran Kamrava (ed.), The New Voices of Islam: Reforming Politics and Modernity – A Reader, London, I. B. Tauris, 2006, pp.&nbsp;119–142.
  2. "Political Innovative Ideas and Influences of Molla Muhammad Kazim Khorasani", Annals of Japan Association for Middle East Studies (AJAMES), No. 21-1, (Special Issue Changing Knowledge and Authority in Islam), Tokyo, September 2005, pp.&nbsp;59–73.
  3. "An Introduction to the Public and Private Debate in Islam", Social Research, Vol.70, No.3, New School University, New York, Fall 2003, pp.&nbsp;659–680.

Reviews

Selected reviews in English:

  1. Yasuyuki Matsunaga; "Human Rights and New Jurisprudence in Mohsen Kadivar’s Advocacy of 'New-Thinker' Islam", Die Welt des Islams, Vol. 51, Nos. 3-4 (2011), pp.&nbsp;358–381
  2. Banafsheh Madaninejad; New Theology in the Islamic Republic of Iran: A Comparative Study between Abdolkarim Soroush and Mohsen Kadivar, Ph.D. Thesis in The University of Texas at Austin, 2011
  3. Mottahedeh, Roy; "WIlAYAT AL-FAQIH", in Esposito, John L. (editor in chief); Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, (Oxford University Press, New York, 2009); Vol. 3, pp.&nbsp;288–290.
  4. Sadri, Ahmad; "KADIVAR, MOHSEN", in Esposito, John L. (editor in chief); Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, (Oxford University Press, New York, 2009); Vol. 3, pp.&nbsp;288–290.
  5. Yasuyuki Matsunaga; Mohsen Kadivar, An Advocate of Post-revivalist Islam in Iran; British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Rutledge, December 2007, No.34(3), pp.&nbsp;317–329.
  6. Mervin, Sabrina; in Les mondes chiites etl’Iran, Mervin, Sabrina (ed.), p.&nbsp;417-430: Mohsen Kadivar, un clerc militant et réformiste.
  7. Geneive Abdoh and Jonatan Lyons; Answering only to God, Faith and Freedom in Twenty Century in Iran (A John Macrae Book, New York 2003); chap 5: Reinventing the Islamic Republic, pp.&nbsp;123–150.
  8. Farzin Vahdat; Post-revolutionary Discourses of Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari and Mohsen Kadivar: Reconciling the Terms of Mediated Subjectivity: Part II: Reconciling the Terms of Mediated Subjectivity, Mohsen Kadivar; Critique (Critical Middle Eastern Studies); No.17, Fall 2000; pp.&nbsp;135–157; Hampshire, United Kingdom.
  9. Ervand Abrahamian; Book Review (Political Thought in Islam, Vol.1, by Mohsen Kadivar); Islamic Law and Society, Vol.8, No.2 (2001), Brill, pp.&nbsp;295–298.

See also

  • Mahmoud Taleghani
  • Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari
  • Abdolkarim Soroush
  • Intellectual Movements in Iran
  • Religious Intellectualism in Iran

Further reading

References

  • Global Ethics Fellow Alumnus- Carnegie Council
  • Mohsen Kadivar's website
  • Mohsen Kadivar (NHC Fellow, 2019–20)
  • Mohsen Kadivar- Edinburgh University
  • Professor Mohsen Kadivar's profile at Duke University
  • Kadivar's List of other publications
  • The Critical Cleric, Mohsen Kadivar in Time
  • Human Rights and Religious Intellectualism (interview): Part 1, Part 2
  • BRISMES Annual Lecture by Prof Mohsen Kadivar
  • Profile: Mohsen Kadivar at Berkley Center
  • In Iran, democracy wrestles with clerical authority
  • Connor Southard, A scholar, and a dissident
  • Interview with Mohsen Kadivar: "People Have Started Believing in Their Own Strength"