Christian Encounters with Iran: Engaging Muslim Thinkers after the Revolution (International Library of Iranian Studies)

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The interface between the current Shix2018;ite landscape and Christian thinking is of the greatest significance for the shifting political and religious dynamics of the Middle East. Sasan Tavassoli here examines Iranian Shix2018;ite thinkersx2019; encounters with Christian thought since the Islamic revolution of 1979, and provides insight into the cultural and intellectual climate surrounding Christian-Muslim dialogue in contemporary Iran. The literature on Christianity in Iran reveals a wide range of approaches and attitudes, and Tavassoli demonstrates that traditional polemics are giving way to a more descriptive and subjective understanding of Christian thought. He also studies Muslim-Christian dialogue and research conducted and supported by governmental as well as non-governmental organizations, and offers a close examination, with interviews, of the work of three prominent liberal religious intellectuals--Abdol Karim Soroush, Mostafa Malekian and Mojtahed Shabestari. Placing contemporary Shix2018;ite thought in the broad historical context of pre- and post-revolution Iran, Tavassoli relates concrete religious, cultural and socio-political realities to the themes and orientations in the latest phase of the Shix2018;i Islam-Christianity encounter, and offers fresh insight into the dynamism of contemporary Islam and the religious complexities of the Muslim world.

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Sasan Tavassoli received his PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Birmingham. He was born and raised in a Shix2018;ite-Sufi home in Iran and is now a minister in the Presbyterian Church of Iran.