The Phenomenon of Religious Modernism: University of Tehran Students’ Lived Experience

This study deals with students’ lived experiences of the emergence of modernism in their religiosity by conducting an inquiry into their religious life and observing the dynamic quality of their religiosity. The method of this research is analysis of narrations. Of University of Tehran students, 26 students were chosen for a validity and semi-structured interview in accordance with the theoretical saturation technique. The interviews were condensed into individual narratives as well as a general narrative and were thematically analyzed. The findings of the research indicated the emergence of a change in the students’ religious life. The students’ narrations of their religious life indicated that they have been influenced by personal and environmental changes and, in consequence, they reconsidered their religiosity. To illustrate this change, the interviews were divided into three periods—“sustainable religious life”, “crisis in religious life”, and “religious modernism”. Three fundamental themes were derived, which includes “religiosity as a priori”, “crisis of religious identity”, and “religiosity as a posteriori”. In the end, it can be said that the students’ overall narration of their religious modernism indicated a posteriori understanding of religiosity. Religious modernity is neither a fully conscious action here nor a fully structured phenomenon.