Clergy, Constitutional Revolution and the Conflict Between Tradition and Modernity

The entrance of Iran into the new age and creation of a split in the natural current of history and tradition-accompanied by violence, foreign defeats, and colonialism– made Iran enter an age resulting in a dramatic confrontation between tradition and modernity. Tradition and modernity being in an essential conflict in terms of philosophical, political, economic, social, and cultural foundations, the conflict involved the whole society in its subjective and objective forms. One of the principal institutions that underwent this conflict was religion and clergy. The clergy, having been looked into based on religious perspective and religious readings before the age of modernity, began to face various issues which were not within religious context but beyond it, and targetted the very essence of religion and traditional belifes.Such a conflict took a more serious form when the emergence of modernity in Iran accompanied the domination of the west, backwardness of Iranians, and their inability to react to new crises and settle new disputes.The constitutional revolution, being the starting point of Iran's entrance to the new age and the beginning of a serious and formal conflict between tradition and modernity, gave rise to a serious conflict among political authorities including the clergy in terms of the relation of tradition, modernity, and revolution.The clergy were divided into various groups out of which three are conspicuous: the religion-oriented, the justice-centered, and the religious new thinkers.The present article deals with the views and positions of all the three groups as to the challenge between tradition and modernity arising for the first time after the constitutional revolution.