From Traditional Islam to Islam as an End in Itself

e development of religious thought in Iran has particularly accelerated during the past century. It can be interpreted as the passage from a traditional view of religion to one which is an end in itself. I mean by traditional Islam the domination of the culture and exigencies of the time, place, and special circumstances of the Age of the Revelation as the immutable, sacred, and idealized framework for Islamic thought (retrospective utopia). It is as if the genuine form and appearance of Islam is its form and appearance at the time of the Revelation, and the further we are from that sacred past and those historical circumstances, the further we are from genuine and true Islam. e best conditions are those of the age of the Prophet, and the revival of the Faith has no meaning other than the reconstruction of those initial conditions, exigencies, and frameworks.