The contraction and expansion of Islamic education: the possible contribution to Humanistic Islamic Religious Education in the work of Abdolkarim Soroush

Abstract This article suggests the potential existence of Humanistic Islamic Religious Education (HIRE) which is an education that is as Islamic and religious as it is humanistic and liberal. Analyzing the work of renowned Iranian theologian Abdolkarim Soroush, the article focuses on Soroush’s construction of three key concepts: religious reason, prophetic experience and religious pluralism and shows that Soroush uses a movement of contraction and expansion of those concepts which allows for a more flexible relationship between religion and modernity and Muslim and Western thought. We show how Soroush’s treatment of these concepts allows for a new way to read and teach religious texts, mainly the Quran. This in turn leads to a suggestion of how Soroush’s work could become a philosophical bedrock for a religious education that is as humanistic, open and liberal, as it is religious and Islamic.