ABSTRACT
In the final chapter of Section 3 we outline the discourse on human rights and democracy from the perspective of several contextualist Iranian scholars, paying particular attention to the following questions: To what extent is the emphasis on human rights and democratic norms grounded in scholars’ re-interpretation of traditional interpretations of the Qurʾān? Can democracy and human rights be derived from the primary sources of Islam, particularly from the Qurʾān? To what extent do the political theories proposed by contextualist scholars represent the notion of the separation of religion and the state that is emphasised in the West? We posit that the political theories presented by scholars such as Soroush, Shabestari, Kadivar and Yousefi-Eshkevari share a number of common themes which contrast in many ways with the principles of the project of Islamism. These scholars’ ideas generally fall within the scope of post-Islamist political theories in that they attempt to promote certain aspects of political liberalism without confining religion to the private sphere.
