The history of religion refers to the written record of human religious feelings, thoughts, and ideas. This period of religious history begins with the invention of writing about 5,200 years ago. The prehistory of religion involves the study of religious beliefs that existed prior to the advent of written records. One can also study comparative religious chronology through a timeline of religion. Writing played a major role in standardizing religious texts regardless of time or location, and making easier the memorization of prayers and divine rules. A small part of the Bible involves the collation of oral texts handed down over the centuries.
Religion is usually defined as a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements—although there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacredness, faith, and a supernatural being or beings.
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic ontology and an eschatology which predicts the ultimate conquest of evil by good. Zoroastrianism exalts an uncreated and benevolent deity of wisdom known as Ahura Mazda as its supreme being. Historically, the unique features of Zoroastrianism, such as its monotheism, messianism, belief in free will and judgement after death, conception of heaven, hell, angels, and demons, among other concepts, may have influenced other religious and philosophical systems, including the Abrahamic religions and Gnosticism, Northern Buddhism, and Greek philosophy.
Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices, themes and impacts of the world's religions. In general the comparative study of religion yields a deeper understanding of the fundamental philosophical concerns of religion such as ethics, metaphysics and the nature and forms of salvation. It also considers and compares the origins and similarities shared between the various religions of the world. Studying such material facilitates a broadened and more sophisticated understanding of human beliefs and practices regarding the sacred, numinous, spiritual and divine.
The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam is a compilation of lectures delivered by Muhammad Iqbal on Islamic philosophy and published in 1930. These lectures were delivered by Iqbal in Madras, Hyderabad, and Aligarh. The last chapter, "Is Religion Possible", was added to the book from the 1934 Oxford Edition onwards.
The status of creation and evolution in public education has been the subject of substantial debate and conflict in legal, political, and religious circles. Globally, there is a wide variety of views on the topic. Most western countries have legislation that mandates only evolutionary biology is to be taught in the appropriate scientific syllabuses.
Abdolkarim Soroush (عبدالكريم سروش Persian pronunciation: [æbdolkæriːm soruːʃ]; born Hossein Haj Faraj Dabbagh, is an Iranian Islamic thinker, reformer, Rumi scholar, public intellectual, and a former professor of philosophy at the University of Tehran and Imam Khomeini International University. He is arguably the most influential figure in the religious intellectual movement of Iran. Soroush is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. He was also affiliated with other institutions, including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, the Leiden-based International Institute as a visiting professor for the Study of Islam in the Modern World and the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. He was named by Time magazine as one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2005, and by Prospect magazine as one of the most influential intellectuals in the world in 2008. Soroush's ideas, founded on relativism, prompted both supporters and critics to compare his role in reforming Islam to that of Martin Luther in reforming Christianity.
The Muslim conquest of Persia led to the end of the Sasanian Empire and triggered the decline of Zoroastrianism among the Iranian peoples due to large-scale persecution by Arab Muslims under the newly-arrived Rashidun Caliphate. Since its establishment after the 7th-century conquest, Islam has remained the official religion of Iran except for during a short period after the Mongol invasions and subsequent establishment of the Ilkhanate in the 13th century. The 1979 Islamic Revolution brought an end to the historic Persian monarchy, after which Iran emerged as an Islamic republic.
The Iranian Research Institute of Philosophy is a public research institute in Tehran, Iran.
Islamic views on evolution are diverse, ranging from theistic evolution to Old Earth creationism. Some Muslims around the world believe "humans and other living things have evolved over time", yet some others believe they have "always existed in present form". Some Muslims believe that the processes of life on Earth started from one single point of species with a mixture of water and a viscous clay-like substance. Muslim thinkers have proposed and accepted elements of the theory of evolution, some holding the belief of the supremacy of God in the process. Some scholars suggested that both narratives of creation and of evolution, as understood by modern science, may be believed by modern Muslims as addressing two different kinds of truth, the revealed and the empirical. Others argue that faith and science can be integrated and complement each other.
Iranian philosophy or Persian philosophy can be traced back as far as to Old Iranian philosophical traditions and thoughts which originated in ancient Indo-Iranian roots and were considerably influenced by Zarathustra's teachings. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, the chronology of the subject and science of philosophy starts with the Indo-Iranians, dating this event to 1500 BC. The Oxford dictionary also states, "Zarathustra's philosophy entered to influence Western tradition through Judaism, and therefore on Middle Platonism."
Religious intellectualism in Iran reached its apogee during the Persian Constitutional Revolution (1906–11). The process involved philosophers, sociologists, political scientists and cultural theorists.
Gary Carl (Muhammad) Legenhausen is an American philosopher who teaches at the Imam Khomeini's Educational and Research Institute, which was directed by Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi.
Islam and modernity is a topic of discussion in contemporary sociology of religion. The history of Islam chronicles different interpretations and approaches. Modernity is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon rather than a unified and coherent one. It has historically had different schools of thought moving in many directions.
Asma Afsaruddin is an American Islamic scholar and Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University in Bloomington.
Abdol Hossein Khosrow Panah is an Iranian Shia cleric and professor of philosophy at the Research Institute for Islamic Culture and Thought. He is also Secretary and member of Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution since January 2023.
Islamic Sciences and Culture Academy (ISCA) is a scientific and research academy for issues in Islamic sciences. It is affiliated to the Islamic Propagation Office of Qom seminary. This academy together with Baqir al-'Ulum University form research and education departments of the Islamic Propagation Office of the seminary. Najaf Lakzaee, lecturer of political studies and the research deputy of the Islamic Propagation Office of Qom seminary, is the president of the Academy.
Research Institute for Islamic Culture and Thought is an Iranian Research institute whose main purpose is theorizing on religious thought and enhancing the epistemological bases of the Islamic Revolution. The institute has departments of philosophy, mysticism, and ethics, as well as Western Studies and Islamic economy among others.
Mohammad Arab-Salehi is an Iranian philosopher and associate professor of religion at the Research Institute for Islamic Culture and Thought. He is also the head of Hikmat and Religious Studies Faculty of the Institute. Arab-Salehi is known for his works on hermeneutics and historicism and is a recipient of the Iranian Book of the Season Award for his book Historicism and Religion (2012).
