Abdulkarim Soroush

One of Iran’s longtime leading intellectuals, Abdulkarim Soroush, who was “chosen by Ayatollah Khomeini to ‘Islamicize’ Iran’s universities,” is “sending shock waves through Iran’s clerical establishment” because he has questioned the traditional Muslim concept of who wrote the Koran, according to a report in The New York Times by Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabar. As Tabar carefully explains it, “Muslims have long believed that their holy book was transmitted word for word by God through the Prophet Muhammad.” However, Soroush gave an interview with Dutch radio in which he said “that the prophet was no parrot.” As a result of the remarks, “Soroush has been described as a Muslim Luther,” notes Tabar, while others “have accused him of heresy, which is punishable by death.”