The Iranian Post-Islamist Intellectuals and Christian Theology: The Case of Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari

Abstract Both the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and Āyatollāh Ruhollāh Khomeyni (1902–89)’s conception of Islamic government reflected traces of an opposition to modernism and a discourse of self-return advanced by Iranian thinkers in the 1960s and 1970s. The end of the Iran-Iraq War, the pursuit of economic liberalization policies, the emergence of an urban middle class, and the challenges of theocracy created conditions for a new religious discourse among Iranian post-Islamist intellectuals. Influenced by the historical experiences of the church and Christian theology in the Western world, as well as the need to reconsider religious knowledge, these new Iranian post-Islamist thinkers introduced fresh interpretations of religious and Shariʿa-based government. Drawing on Christian theological approaches, they initiated a dialogue with Shiʿi Islamic texts. Focusing on the thought of Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari (b. 1936), this paper argues that Iranian post-Islamist scholars, in adapting Islam to contemporary realities, employ Christian theological frameworks to reinterpret Shiʿi jurisprudence.