A Critique of Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari’s Account of Religious Experience

Document Type : The Quarterly Jornal

Authors

1 PhD student, Faculty of Education and Islamic Thought, University of Tehran, Iran

2 Associate professor, Faculty of Education and Islamic Thought, University of Tehran

3 Assistant professor, Faculty of Education and Islamic Thought, University of Tehran

Abstract

Religious experience has been a significant issue in Western philosophy since Renaissance, which led to developments in the thoughts of some Muslim intellectuals. Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, influenced by such developments, offers religious experience as the core of all religions, believing that religious beliefs, practices, and rulings are functions from such experiences. For him, religious experience is rational and knowledge-conferring. Moreover, Quranic verses should be understood in terms of religious experience. Since the approach has a remarkable role to play in our interpretation of the Quran, it seems necessary to examine Mojtahed Shabestari’s view. Drawing on the analytic-critical method, we conclude that religious experience is a product of Christian philosophy, which cannot be properly applied to Islam. Unlike religious experience, revelation is exclusive, and the two are indeed essentially different. Sense data are not authoritative and do not confer knowledge because of their fallibility. Religious experiences are themselves constrained by traditions, and hence, they cannot serve as grounds for the rationality of religious beliefs. Because of their sensory character, religious experiences cannot be accommodated within concepts. Thus, they cannot be criteria for an understanding of the Quran.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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