En samling kilskriftstavlor från perserrikets metropol Persepolis står just nu i centrum för en rättsprocess i amerikansk domstol. De ovärderliga tavlorna, som nu riskerar att auktioneras ut, bär på persernas eget vittnesbörd om antikens Iran.

Contemporary Islam is witnessing the advent of new critical discourses from within its own modes of articulation. It confronts a new epistemic and interpretative situation, which is generally felt as something of an emergency. This emergency in epistemology and hermeneutics is largely the result of a radical shift of the categories of modern philosophy, science, culture and geography. Given the fact that the exploratory elaboration of law for centuries has been the dominant mode of self-expression in Islam, one of the key themes of contemporary Shici thought is the search for a legal identity. The current debate on the sharica (divine law) in Iran underscores the continued significance of this exploration. In the debate, the radical post-modernist Abdolkarim Soroush contests the epistemic certainty of eternal knowledge, so common among modernists.