opposition from conservative elements in the Islamic Republic. Both he and his audiences were assaulted by Ansar-e Hezbollah vigilantes in the mid-1990s. A law imposing penalties on anyone associating with enemies of the Islamic republic is thought by his allies to have been at least in part provoked by some of Soroush's lectures and foreign affiliations. According to the journalist Robin Wright: Over the next year, he lost his three senior academic appointments, including a deanship. Other public appearances, including his Thursday lectures, were banned. He was forbidden to publish new articles. He was summoned for several long 'interviews' by Iranian intelligence officials. His travel was restricted, then his passport confiscated. At the celebration of the sixteenth anniversary of the American embassy seizure in 1995, Wright found that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei "devoted more time berating Soroush ... than condemning the United States or Israel." Besides opposition from conservatives, Sourush has also been criticized by secular intellectuals who disapprove of the religious aspects of his ideas and argue that religious intellectualism is a paradoxical ideology. Research interests Persian literature Philosophy of science Iranian philosophy Eastern philosophy Theology Islamic philosophy Awards and honors 2004 Erasmus Prize 2005 Time 100 most influential people 2008 Prospect magazine's 7 of 100 most influential intellectuals in the world. 2009 Foreign Policy magazine's 45 of 100 world's elite intellectuals 2010 Foreign Policy magazine's 40 of 100 top global thinkers Selected works Dialectical Antagonism (in Persian), Tehran 1978 Philosophy of History (in Persian), Tehran 1978 What is Science, what is Philosophy (in Persian), 11th ed. Tehran 1992 The Restless Nature of the Universe (in Persian and Turkish), reprint Tehran 1980 Satanic Ideology (in Persian), 5th ed. Tehran 1994 Knowledge and Value (in Persian) Observing the Created: Lectures in Ethics and Human Sciences (in Persian), 3rd ed. Tehran 1994 The Theoretical Contraction and Expansion of Religion: The Theory of Evolution of Religious Knowledge (in Persian), 3rd ed. Tehran 1994 Lectures in the Philosophy of Social Sciences: Hermeneutics in Social Sciences (in Persian), Tehran 1995 Sagaciousness, Intellectualism and Pietism (in Persian), Tehran 1991 The Characteristic of the Pious: A Commentary on Imam Ali's Lecture About the Pious (in Persian), 4th ed. Tehran 1996 The Tale of the Lords of Sagacity (in Persian), 3rd ed. Tehran 1996 Wisdom and Livelihood: A Commentary on Imam Ali's Letter to Imam Hasan (in Persian), 2nd ed. Tehran 1994 Sturdier than Ideology (in