نشریه معرفت ادیان
سال دوم شماره 4 (پیاپی 8، پاییز 1390)

Iqbal Lahori's most fundamental aim was reconstruction of religious thought. Regarding the recent developments in sciences and philosophy, he tried to expound the principles of Islam and prove them as compatible with the necessities of the time. He was concerned about religion and believed that Islam was the true religion; however, there are elements in his commentary of Islam which willingly or unwillingly skewed him towards a conventionalized commentary of religion. His special inclination towards experimental knowledge, his attitudes towards revelation, the end of prophecy, religious experiment, humanistic thought, and the influence he had on his successive modern thinkers are among the elements which led his religious thought towards a conventionalized interpretation of religion. The present paper tries to depict the conventionalized aspects of religion in Iqbal Lahori attitude through expounding these elements.

Although, nowadays, comparative studies are common in many disciplines, there are few scientific and cognitive comparisons in theological and metaphysical tradition. No doubt, we can better understand traditional legacy and modern metaphysical and cognitive trends in the light of scientific comparisons. The present paper tries to compare modern theology with traditional one and understand their differences through discussing some of the most important features of these two theological paradigms. Such features as being metaphysical, dogmatic, non-historical, based on authoritarianism, scholastic, normative and the like have been used along with their opposite features to understand different aspects between modern theology and traditional one. This paper tries to provide a more precise picture of differences and developmental path of theology by giving some examples of Protestant Theology and its developmental path. A critical, hermeneutic, pluralistic, text-based, historical, and non-dogmatic as well as negation of authoritarianism dominates in modern theology. In fact, these are main features of modern theological paradigm.

Undistorted Judaism is a divine and monotheist religion that has raised the flag of struggle against polytheism and resisted against Pharaoh and his people from its beginning. The clear evidence of this struggle and resistance is Quran's statements revealed in several phrases. The Holy Quran states:" when wizards were defeated by Mose's miracle, they said they adhere to the belief in the Lord of the world and heavens; the Lord of Moses and Aaron." (Quran: chapter 7: verses: 121-122). However, Some researchers of Judaism, like Julius Wellhausen, in an false perception of Tanakh and apparent meanings of some chapters of Old Testament, have cast doubt on the issue and claimed that Judaism was a polytheist religion and pursued a kind of Unitarianism at the beginning; but gradually this attitude was dismissed at the time of Babylon Exodus and monotheism prevailed. The present paper rejects aforementioned perception, insists on monotheism of Judaism since Mose's time, and proves this, using arguments taken from Old Testament.

"Christian Missionary" is considered one of the duties of church. This doctrine is rooted in Jesu's command to his companions. He ordered his companions to go to nations and gave them the glad tidings of Divine Dominion. Therefore, Christians believe that the message of missionary is Divine Dominion. The church must give people the glad tidings until Divine Dominion realizes. Accordingly, Christian society has had missionary activities individually or organizationally. The present paper tries to study the position and limits of missionary in Christian religious texts. Using a descriptive-analytical method, it expounds the concept of missionary, studies its scope and range, and proves that this doctrine has changed over the history. The research findings show that Jesus Christ and his Companions had apparently carried out missionary activities only for Israelites, but the missionary approach extended beyond Israelites since Paul's time.

Historically, Hinduism has experienced five period of change as follows: 1- prehistoric period; 2- Vedic period; 3- classic period; 4- medieval period; and 5-contemporary or modern period. Following these five periods, the systems of gods which have mostly been a polytheistic system and can be considered a particular polytheistic system have changed as well. Max Muller calls it Henotheism, that is, the position of gods has changed in this religion.

Thinkers and philosophers have always focused on and discussed about "peace" as one of the man's most fundamental needs over the history. "Stable peace" project proposed by Kant is one of the peace projects based on pure humanism which was proposed in modernity age and considered as the cause of initial steps in international peace. However, when we study the discourse based on Shiite thought which depicts the aim of existence in the light of Islam's doctrines, we can infer a special approach towards peace whose focal point is wise and religion-oriented man. This peace is called "just peace". The present paper compares these two approaches, that is, Kant's laic approach towards peace which is based on rational and moral necessities and Shiite thinker's approach towards just peace which holds that the basis of peace is to achieve justice. The latter is more effective and has more clear perspective because it tries to find the roots of peace realization and provides a comprehensive project to provide the grounds for peace.

The present paper studies the theory of salvation in Osho's movement and tries to find its roots. First, the following three important questions have been answered through a brief review of Osho's life and most important doctrines: salvation from what?; By what means?; Towards what? These questions have been answered in Osho's doctrines as follows: we should attain salvation from limited and deficient sexual desires which prevent the complete meditation of man's mind; however, we should not resist our sexual desires to decrease them. Rather, we should fulfill them by the guidance of a skilled master and without usual limitations. Furthermore, these desires will be decreased and the ground for passing the stages of meditation will be provided by building a particular electric circuit between opposite sexes and achieving complete orgasm. In Osho's doctrines, the focal point of meditation is emptiness of mind which results in absolute tranquility. Finally, this paper proves that contrary to Osho's claim, he has not provided a unique soteriology. Rather, he has mixed the doctrines of ancient eastern schools, especially Tantra and Kundalini Yoga, and Zen Buddhism, and provided them in a more modern format. Although these doctrines are themselves severely criticized, they have been briefly mentioned in some paragraphs.