Muṭahharī and the Neo-Religious Thinking

Neo-religious (Islamic) thinkers have frequently dealt with the issue of decline and revival of Islamic civilization and are thereby engaged in tradition and modernity. They have adopted two different approaches in confronting these two issues; one group support behavior therapy and the other are inclined toward cognitive therapy. The advocates of the second approach assert that in order to solve the problems of the Islamic society, our religious thoughts have to be refined and changed. Ustād Muṭahharī is among this group, albeit his model of neo-religious thinking and cognitive therapy has its own specifics. He tends toward a type of purging and purifying cognitive therapy based on constant religious principles and foundations and dependent upon ijtahādī (subject to individual reasoning) rationality. In this model, he tries to properly make a balance between the variable and the constant as well as between tradition and modernity.