Conventionalization of religion in contemporary Iran

Conventionalization of religion has different meanings in the political Islam and modernity discourses. Modernity is to conventionalize religion to give meanings to its basic concepts out of the domain of religion; but Islamism wants to conventionalize religion so that it can find solutions for problems and needs in the territory of Sharia, within the limits of Ijtihad and on the basis of the developments, changes, and circumstances of time and place. In the contemporary history of Iran, these two discourses were the cause of many socio-political developments for the analysis of which one has two look through the windows of these discourses. To explain the problem of conventionalization in contemporary Iran, I have analyzed the two discourses of modernity and Islamism and the concept of conventionalization on the basis of Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. Thus, I have identified the articulations of several important signifiers around the nodal points of modernity and Islamism, explaining these concepts with respect to the meaning systems of modernity and Islamism by means of evidence from contemporary Iran. Finally, I have elaborated several instances of conventionalization in contemporary Iran.