Religion and Freedom: Typology of an Iranian Discussion

Abstract

Freedom is essential for the blossoming of a truly democratic society, but how is the relation of religion and freedom to be understood in present-day Iran, which is ruled by a religious government and where debates over the extent of freedom and its compatibility with an Islamic state have gone unresolved for more than a decade? Leading Iranian intellectuals, a number of them clerics, some critics of the present Islamic regime, others, its ideologues, have discussed the issue of the compatibility of religion and freedom. This article proposes a typology applied to some discussions by a number of Iranian intellectuals on the compatibility or incompatibility of religion and freedom within a religious government.