Zaid Ahmad

Fundamentalism or Pluralism: Iranian Youth's Orientation

Islamic fundamentalism is an extreme perception of Islam that views ‘the “Other” as the enemy demonized’ against the ‘West’, which also views the Muslim ‘enemy within’. In contrast, pluralism perceives ‘others’ as different people, with different values from us. While the fundamentalist seeks to engage in war with the enemy/other, pluralism tolerates difference/conflict with others in peace and in the spirit of mutual acceptance. This article spells out the potential contributions to research regarding fundamentalism stemming from different approaches in Iran. Drawing on data collected from 31 individual in-depth interviews with Tehranian high school students and 206 questionnaires that were filled in by students who were randomly selected from 4 of 19 zones of Education in Tehran, their perceptions about pluralism and fundamentalism will be presented. The aim is to help move debate about fundamentalism beyond the pejorative labelling and to explore the concept of fundamentalism and pluralism in an Iranian context. As a case study, Tehranian pre-university students’ point of view about fundamentalism and pluralism will be discussed, in order to comprehend attitudes to fundamentalism and pluralism on the part of Iranian young people.

Religious pluralism in Iran

This article spells out the potential contributions to research about religious pluralism that stem from different perspectives about globalization. The approach challenges the conventional thesis of “the clash of civilizations,” which stresses the importance of challenges that have been raised by extremist and ignores publicly tolerated and moderate perceptions of Islam especially in Iran that have emerged with globalization. When the world of Islam is imagined as a world of fundamentalism and terror, there is no choice except for “the clash of civilizations.” The question examined here is: does the world of Islam – in this case Iran – really take into account fundamentalism as prior discourse? The findings show that despite the many forces in the world beliefs, trends, and attempts to highlight the thesis of “the clash of civilizations,” the people of the world (in this research, high-school students in Tehran, the capital of Iran) mostly recognize the diversity and plurality of other religions and beli...