Khosrow Bagheri Noaparast and Islamic scholarship: a Calvinist appraisal

Abstract

This article introduces and evaluates, from a Christian-Reformed point of view, the essential lines of Bagheri Noaparast's project concerning the establishment of an integral type of Islamic scholarship. After recommending his fundamental approach as preferable to other models for (Islamic) "religious" scholarship, the article moves to a few critical questions and suggestions, with the purpose of improving, if possible, Bagheri Noaparast's approach. In this section the main issues that are discussed are the nature and role of religion, religious scholarship, its philosophical foundations, the presumed neutrality of philosophical methods, the fields of study of the different scientific disciplines and the realism/nominalism dilemma