Mohsen Kadivar (Persian: محسن کدیور; born 1959) is an Iranian mujtahid, Islamic theologian, philosopher, writer, leading intellectual reformist, and research professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University. A political Iranian dissident, Kadivar has been a vocal critic of the doctrine of clerical rule, also known as Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), and a strong advocate of democratic and liberal reforms in Iran as well as constructional reform in understanding of shari'a and Shi'a theology. Kadivar has served time in prison in Iran for his political activism and beliefs.
Born in Fasa (Fars province) to a politically active family, Mohsen Kadivar completed his primary and secondary education in Shiraz before being admitted into electronics engineering at Shiraz University in 1977. He became politically active as a student and was arrested by the Shah's police in May 1978 for his political activities. In 1980 he switched his focus to religious education and began attending Shiraz Seminary. He moved to Qom in 1981 to pursue his studies in fiqh and philosophy. In Qom, he was taught by prominent teachers like Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri. Kadivar graduated with a degree in ijtihad in 1997. He got his Ph.D. in Islamic philosophy and theology from Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran in 1999.
Kadivar started his career as a teacher teaching fiqh and Islamic philosophy at Qom Seminary for fourteen years. He began teaching Islamic philosophy and theology at Imam Sadegh University, Mofid University, Shahid Beheshti University, and Tarbiat Modarres University for seven years. He started as an assistant professor of philosophy at Tarbiat Modarres University in 2000. In 2007 political pressures forced Kadivar to leave his teaching appointment for a position at the Research Center of the Iranian Institute of Philosophy. As an associate professor of Islamic Philosophy Kadivar was fired from his academic job in 2011 because of his political critiques. He was visiting scholar at the Islamic Legal Studies Program of Harvard Law School in 2002, visiting professor of Islamic studies at the University of Virginia (2008–2009), and at Duke University (fall 2009 – spring 2014). He held the fall 2014 Keohane Distinguished Visiting Professorship of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Kadivar is currently a research professor of Islamic Studies in the department of religious studies at Duke University.
Kadivar married Zahra Roodi in 1981 and has four children. Jamileh Kadivar is his sister.
Kadivar is a prominent critic of the Islamic Republic system in Iran, and wrote a detailed criticism of Ayatollah Khomeini's theory of Islamic government as rule by Shia clerics, Government by Mandate (see below).
As punishment for his criticism, Kadivar was sentenced to eighteen months in prison after being convicted by the Special Clerical Court in 1999, on charges of having spread false information about Iran's "sacred system of the Islamic Republic" and of helping enemies of the Islamic revolution, or as another observer put it, "for commenting on the contradiction between the revolution's aims to serve the people and the subsequent concentration of power in the hands of clerics." He was released from Evin Prison, on July 17, 2000. Kadivar was unrepentant on his release and is currently active in the various reform movements of Iran. His publications including books, articles, and interviews were banned in Iran since 2009, and he was fired from his job in 2011. Kadivar has been in exile since 2007.
In a 2004 interview, Kadivar told a journalist, "Every member of society and every member of government is subject to the law. No one can be above it. Everyone has the same rights, yet the root of the faqih is inequality. He assumes he is above it. ... It is time for the supreme leader to be subject to the constitution too. After all, the Supreme Leader doesn't come from God!"
On the issue of clerics in government, he has said: "Our job as religious people is not politics. ... They are taking Iran backward, not toward the future."
Kadivar is a prolific author and has published thirteen books by 2009, and eleven books since 2009, when his publication was banned in Iran. He has also been writing extensively in various Iranian journals and has over 200 articles to his name.
One of his books is Human Rights and Reformist Islam (In Translation: Contemporary Thought in Muslim Contexts), 2021. ISBN 978-1-474-44930-4
Haqq al-Nass (The Right of People in Islam: Islam and Human Rights), Tehran, 2008, 439 pages.
Mujazat-e Ertedad wa Azadi-ye Mazhab: Naqd-e Mujazat-e Ertedad wa Sabb al-Nabi ba Mawazin-e Feqh-e Estedlali (Apostasy, Blasphemy, & Religious Freedom in Islam: A Critique Based on Demonstrative Jurisprudence), 2014, 406 Pages ISBN 978-1-474-45757-6
Gottes Recht und Menschenrechte: Eine Kritik am historischen Islam, 2017 ISBN 978-3-451-37778-5
Estizah-e Rahbari (Impeaching Iran's Supreme Leader on his Political Authority; Assessing the Supreme leader's 21 years in the Office: An Open Letter to the Head of the Assembly of Experts, and the Responses to the Letter), 2014, 418 pages.
Ebtezal-e Marja’iyyat-e Shi’a: Estidhah-e Marja’iyyat-e Khamene’i Maqam-e Rahbari (The Trivialization of Shi’i Authority: Impeaching Iran's Supreme Leader's Claim to Religious Authority), 2015, 314 pages.
MOHSEN KADIVAR God and his guardians Islam's 'Luther' talks of the democratic roots of Islam, Great Britain: HANS ZELL PUBLISHERS, 2004. ISSN 0306-4220
Asnadi az Shekaste Shodan-e Namous-e Enqelab: Negahi be Salhaye Payani-e Zendegani-e Ayatollah Seyyed Kazim Shari’atmadari (Evidence of Dishonoring the Revolution: Examining the last years of Ayatollah S. Kazim Shari’atmadari's life, 1905–1986), (The Dissident Ayatollahs Confronting the Islamic Republic of Iran Series -1), 2015, 447 pages.
Matsunaga, Yasuyuki (2007). "Mohsen Kadivar, an Advocate of Postrevivalist Islam in Iran". British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 34 (3): 317–329. doi:10.1080/13530190701388333. JSTOR 20455533. S2CID 143752945. Retrieved 2022-10-06.