Typology of Religiosity from the Perspective of Seyyed Heidar Amoli and Abdolkarim Soroush

The typology of religiosity is one of the topics that has been considered by theologians. Seyyed Heidar Amoli and Abdolkarim Soroush are among the thinkers who have made such efforts. Our purpose in the present fundamental-theoretical study is to compare their viewpoints on this issue. Seyyed Heidar enumerates three levels of ‘Sharia (the Way)’, ‘Tariqah (the Procedure)’, and ‘Haghighah (the Truth)’ for religiosity. Soroush also suggests a typical typology of religiosity that has distinctions and interferences with the mentioned divisions. The three types of religiosity are: ‘thoughtful to expediency’, ‘thoughtful to knowledge’, and ‘thoughtful to experience’. Although Seyyed Heidar and Soroush have a common policy in many religious, intellectual, and cultural characteristics, their intellectual atmosphere and time have caused their principles and approach to become different. Seyyed Heidar deals with the typology of religiosity in accordance with the traditional and mystical approach while Soroush focuses on a social approach based on the modern world. The most important result, which distinguishes these two approaches, is Soroush’s attention to epistemology as one of the components of modern thought, and Seyyed Heidar’s attention to traditional ontology.