An Epistemic Shift from Islamism to Post-Islamism: Abul A'la Mawdudi versus Abdolkarim Soroush

Islamic countries began to feel the intellectual impact of the West severely in 20th century due to their military and economic loss against the West in the 19th century. As a result, a phenomenon called Modern Islam Political thought having its theory and practice emerged in discrepant Muslim countries as a reaction among the Muslim thinkers. One of them was Abu A'la Mawdudi, who was born in the first quarter of the 20th century of Western colonialism. The another was Abolkarim Soroush, who was among the preparers of the Revolution of 1979 in Iran and was born in different historical setting, where the West do not exist physically. Consequently, this produced different political horizons. As both thinkers thought about how Islam should be linked to politics, they were naturally deeply influenced by the conditions in which they lived. On the one hand, the essay will try to deepen into Mawdudi's concept of Islam, secular man-made law, and his Islamic state, it will focus on Soroush's renewal of Islamic knowledge, democracy and on a new rapprochement with the West, on the other hand.