Theoretical Foundation of Departure from Tradition in the Course of Religious New Thinking in Iran

It is possible to classify the Islamic trends-established in the contemporary era in terms of relation between religion and modernity- into three types of religious new thinking, religious modernism, and religious radicalism. Taking this classification for granted, we can say religious modernity is an intellectual trend which- in the process of confrontation with modernity and in its attempt to adapt the religious intellectual tradition with modernity-makes a transition from the above- mentioned tradition with a sort of breakaway from the traditional reading of religion. Asserting the inconsistency of the traditional reading of religion with modernity along with its characteristics and requirements, and being influenced by the epistemological and methodological foundations of modernity, religious new thinkers have suggested a new reading of religion the outcome of which is transition from the religious intellectual tradition in Muslim societies. This transition rests on certain theoretical foundations which are taken into account in the present article.