Abdolkarim Soroush, born Hossein Haj Faraj Dabbagh on December sixteenth, nineteen forty-five, is a prominent Iranian philosopher, writer, and university educator. Renowned for his contributions to Islamic thought and Rumi scholarship, Soroush has played a pivotal role in the religious intellectual movement in Iran.
Currently serving as a visiting scholar at the University of Maryland in College Park, he has also held positions at prestigious institutions such as Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Columbia. His academic journey includes a notable tenure at the Leiden-based International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World and the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin.
In two thousand five, Time magazine recognized him as one of the world's one hundred most influential people, while Prospect magazine honored him in two thousand eight as one of the most significant intellectuals globally. Soroush's philosophical ideas, rooted in relativism, have sparked both admiration and criticism, drawing parallels between his reformative role in Islam and Martin Luther's impact on Christianity.