An Inquiry of the critical understanding of inter-religious dialogue in Iranian experience and mentality

It is more than 30 years that attending inter-religious meetings and symposiums has been on the agenda of some of the Iran's religious and social institutions. Those who have been and are still active in this area, as well as the different approaches they choose are an important source of analysis in terms of knowledge and experience. This research seeks to understand the knowledge and experience of the activists of the area and their critical interpretation of inter-religious dialogue and to provide a systematic analysis of it by constructing and systematizing its respective themes. Therefore, this research has been conducted with descriptive-analytic approach and qualitative method. For this purpose, along with theoretical findings, we have tried to collect empirical data using semi-structured interview techniques. The sampling method is purposeful and theoretical saturation criterion is an interview with 15 activists in this field. Thematic analysis method is also used for data analysis. Analyzing the findings, it became clear that the critics did not pay close attention to the religious and denominational origins of the subjects and were neutral in their critical analysis of them. Hence, their view to “the other” and the dialogue is “extra-religious” and they acknowledge the views and the ideas of this field in political and cultural terms and analyze them on this framework. In this approach, originality is with "the other" and the theological pluralism viewpoint is governed. Hence, dialogue with another-religious is not considered to be religious, but as an ethical-based subject. Through dialogue, critics do not seek to prove legitimacy, but consider their action as a means of looking at another according to moral standards, acting on ethical imperatives and sharing and generalizing ethics in controversial discussions. According to critics, the networking of societies, the attention to the ethical rationality, the ethical judgment and the expansion of rationality in the social and collective arenas of Iranians are among the factors that have led to the spread of the moralism for the issue of dialogue in Iran. Contrary to traditional beliefs that are loyal to religious texts and give importance to the role of religious government in interpreting religious texts, critics believe that this led to a political bias in the issue of dialogue and has created a serious weakness in the structure of government to make a decision about "the other" and the nature of dialogue. The critics try to separate the dialogue from theological perspective and believe the destruction of theology is the first step in the dialogue. They believe that this destruction leads to the emergence of a sound understanding of one another and the dialogue for the human beings. They criticize the bias in jurisprudential beliefs and considerations, and consider the unidimensional thinking and the disregard of the various human demands as major pitfalls for the failure to bring about social and religious justice in society and a reason for the creation of violence. In their view, jurisprudential monolog rather than a synthetic approach in this regard has led to a decline in tolerance in Iranian society. They insist on this fact that focusing on self-criticism, reviewing "the other" in religious interpretations, revising understanding of religious plurality, seizing the meaning of the invitation, which is a Qur'anic notion as well as an attention to the difference in the new concept of dialogue and making a distinction between dialogue and controversy in in the public domain and the theological system is the set of measures by which one can change the position of traditional theory of dialogue and define it in the context of the sociological studies of inter-religious dialogue.