April 15, 2005

Abdolkarim Soroush among TIME magazine's "100 Scientists & Thinkers - 2005"

Iran's Democratic Voice: Struggle For The Soul Of Islam
... Soroush, a devout Muslim born into a working-class Tehran household, has braved constant death threats while authoring books and giving speeches across Iran. He keeps a collection of shirts shredded during attacks on him by pro-regime militants. Soroush, now a visiting scholar at Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin, is disappointed in Iranian President Mohammed Khatami's failure to deliver on the tremendous mandate for change he was given in the 1997 and 2001 elections. Yet Soroush is not discouraged. "One of the achievements of the reform movement is that people realize that they can be democrats and remain faithful Muslims," he believes. "Democracy is now an established idea." >>> Full text

Sent by Behrad Nakhai

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