Islam and the Unfinished Project of Modernity

The main question that this study deals with is related to the place of religion in the contemporary Iran. By asserting the undesirability of the present situation in Iran where religion became the basis of sociopolitical formation, the study attempts to explain on the one hand the causes of this misplacement of religion and on the other hand, at a speculative level, it searches to adopt a sociopolitical framework in which religion s place fits the order of a modern democratic society. The study views the failure of modernization as the main cause of the dislocation of religion in Iran. In other words, the occupation of the political stage in Iran by the forces of religious traditionalism, rather than being a sign of their political dynamism and strength, is a manifestation of the symptoms of a failed modernization. Therefore, at one level the present study attempts to understand and explain the different root causes of the failure of a democratic modernization in Iran, and at another level it tries to find out whether there is a possibility for a different, but more suitable, path of modernization for the present context of Iran.