Murtada Mutahhari and the enduring epistemological impression on theophilosophy

Abstract

Contemporary polemics of Islamic thought in Iran expound upon the synthesis of philosophy, sapiential theology and mystical thought articulating the Islamic Republic’s edifice. Chief among revolutionary theological architects, Ayatollah Murtada Mutahhari, was able to carve out an ideological space for deeply spiritual impulses tempered by the anxieties and alienations of the Shah era. My primary purpose in this research is to evaluate the epistemological perspective of Mutahhari and the characteristics and intricacy of his systems of knowledge, both historical and apocryphal, influencing modern Muslim scholarship. These patterns of thought have proved to possess a particular staying power, the concepts of which still interacting and being negotiated by intellectual and religious figures alike in a variety of contexts. Through Mutahhari’s conflation of metaphysical themes found in Shi'ah philosophical meditation with active sites of contested realities, Shi'ism goes through a process of ontological purging, meting out paradoxical ideals of justice, historical causality, and the politics of transgenerational dissolution. These enduring properties will be tested in terms of continuity, relevance, and transmission with post-Revolutionary thought. I aim to reflect the mosaic of emerging socio-historical structures and processes that distinguish divergent viewpoints from one another.