The book Knowledge and Religious Experience, authored by Alireza Qaeminia, was published by the Research Institute for Islamic Culture and Thought. This 540‑page Persian work adopts an analytical and philosophical approach to examine the transformation of religious experience and understanding in the modern era.
In the modern era, the idea gradually emerged that religion is essentially the human encounter with the sacred. Within this view, religion relinquished its traditional epistemic dimension and came to be understood primarily as an inner feeling.
The book provides a philosophical and historical analysis of the term “the sacred” in Western religious literature, explaining how it differs from the traditional God of Abrahamic religions and how it has been advanced as a substitute in modern times. It also examines concepts formed within modern Western thought based on the idea of the “absence of God.” In this framework, religious experience is considered as an attempt to compensate for this absence. Drawing on philosophical and historical sources, the author investigates the dimensions of this transformation and provides grounds for comparative study of religious experience in the contemporary world.
