Theoretical Views in Inter-religious Dialog in Iran

It has almost passed one century from the emergence of the idea of the inter-religious dialog. The idea, being based on the assumption that no religion has the absolute truth, believes that there is the possibility of the dialog between all the existent religions in the social world. The dialog could make the coexistence and peace between the religions possible. The importance of this issue is increasingly growing and different ideas have been presented in the different religion departments worldwide. After the Iranian Islamic Revolution, a new image of Islam was offered to the world. An image whose true exposure made the use of the inter-religious dialog unavoidable. This also caused appearance of different views between the Muslim scholars. This article seeks to provide a presentation of three different approaches to the inter-religious dialog by exploring the works of three eminent scholars in the field; Mohaghegh Damad, Abolhassan Navab and Mohammad Masjed Jamei. These three approaches are: · Inter-religious dialog as an interaction-oriented action · Inter-religious dialog as a necessity-oriented action · Inter-religious dialog as a backgroubd-oriented action The necessity-oriented action is the approach taken by Mohaghegh Damad. He emphasizes on the acceptance of other religions. The active action referring to this acceptance is the foundation of this approach. This approach, accepting the developmental discourse in the meaning of inter-religious dialog, believes that this kind of dialog has been evolved from defensive and opposing to a new meaning. Hence, the inter-religious dialog in its new meaning possesses three conditions; the existence of common rights, emphasis on mutual respect and the effort for the two sides for religious exchange. This approach­ assumes that we must first establish a pattern from the current experiences of inter-religious dialogs in order to have an ideal cooperation and to fortify it. Then we could harmonize, by changing our attitude, our thoughtful interactions with other religions in order to solve the common issues such as the environment protection, the family and the human rights. The necessity-oriented action is the approach taken by Abolhassan Navab. He assumes two subjective interpretation of the inter-religious dialog. A dialog which is defined based on the western experience and atmosphere and a dialog which takes its roots from the eastern discourse. There is no necessity for the first dialog which is named prudential dialog and this is existent just to maintain the survival of the secular elements in the modern society. The second kind, on the other hand, is a necessary dialog and emerges in order to make the religion more meaningful. The goal of the ­latter is to save the humankind from the social crisis and is to make the religions more cohesive. Navab believes that there ­are two factors which have turned the attention of believers and religious leaders to the necessity of the inter-religious dialog in its new meaning; first is the opposition culture i.e. the mix of some extremist and modernized elements inside the religions; and the second is ­the gap between new aspects of religious thinking and the current traditions inside the religion. The necessity-oriented approach requires the two sides of the dialog avoid the theological and philosophical disputes. It also requires change and modification in the constitutional laws regarding the religious minorities and new interpretation of these laws according to the new conditions. The background-oriented approach is based on the views of Aohammmad Masjed Jamei. According to this approach, there are some intellectual, social and historical backgrounds which are the base for the emergence of a new notion for the inter-religious dialog. In genearl, Masjed Jamei corresponds the formation of every notion based on two major ­factor; first, the atmosphere and the social context in which the notion has been created, second, the concept transfer of one word from one field to another. From the viewpoint of this analysis, the inter-religious dialog is dependent to the intellectual, social and historical backgrounds and gets its meaning from the new conditions. Masjed Jamei believes that the Shiites has been always an axis for presenting a new meaning of inter-religious dialog due to their different methodology i.e. using the intellect in the theological argumentation as well as the existence of a historical and traditional memory. Therefore, by taking this approach, one can make contributions to the legitimacy of the inter-religious dialog which has been weakened due to the globalization by focus on the common values and their rational explanation, re-looking to the old patterns of dialog in the historical memory and tolerance in the acceptance of the other's religious discourse.