Democracy: Forging the Future: Reclaiming Islam for a New World

In the repressive Islamic Republic of Iran, a cleric isn't a very popular thing to be nowadays. Mohsen Kadivar is a celebrated exception. A theorist behind Iran's struggling democracy movement, the modest mullah packs lecture halls like a pop star and attracts readers like a pulp-fiction author. Students in his graduate philosophy classes at Tarbiat Modarres University in Tehran hang on his every utterance. Kadivar, 44, has found academic stardom a dangerous occupation in Iran--in 1999 he was jailed for 18 months for his ideas. But his scholarly perseverance has led to breakthroughs in one of the great intellectual quests of...

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