Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives - Islamic Books ...

Shi’ite Islam in Contemporary Iran 9 7Young Iranian women looking at election leaflets in front of Tehran University at the beginningof Friday prayers, February 2004. (Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters/Corbis)religion is considered the final or most complete understanding. (Quoted inVakili 2001, 158)This quotation, although apparently pro-religion, actually undermines the importanceof a premodern notion of Islamic law from what one observer hascalled a postmodern perspective (Dahlen 2002). Postmodernism is a philosophicalposition that arose in Europe in the 1970s as a way of deconstructingtheoretical systems to show that all so-called truths are actually relative to one’sh i s t o ry and current sociocultural circumstances. This quotation reflectsS o r o u s h ’s postmodern interpretation of Islam, by saying that Islamic law is relativeto the times and that no single conception of it is final or complete. Accordingto this perspective, there are no “official interpreters” of Islam; all canparticipate in the process of redefining Islam in contemporary society. On thes u rface, this argument appears to follow the Osuli argument that all law mustconstantly be rethought and reformulated by qualified m u j t a h i ds. However, unlikethe traditional Osuli system, which argues that only a mujtahid is qualified,