KB's letter from a refugee centre in Vienna not long after leaving Australia confirmed my worst suspicions about the direction that the Islamic Revolution in Iran had taken.

I had met KB, an Egyptian doctoral student in his early 40s earlier, at the house of Javad Yarjani - post-revolutionary Iran's charge d'affaires in Canberra in 1981.

Javad and I shared a great admiration for and interest in Dr Ali Shariati, the highly charismatic and influential Iranian intellectual who died in 1977 not long after arriving in London as a political exile.

Javad was in his mid-30s then and like most educated Iranians, had been greatly influenced by Shariati's thoughts and teachings. In fact, he played a significant role in organising the students' movement in North America.

He studied economics in Texas where Dr Ibrahim Yazdi, the provisional government's first foreign minister was based. Being one of Dr Yazdi's close aides must have earned him that diplomatic job in Canberra.

Shortly before Ayatollah Khomeini's triumphant return from exile, Dr Yazdi and his aides, including Javad joined him in Paris. I remember a well publicised photo at that time of Ayatollah Khomeini making supplications after leading the prayers in a large tent outside his Parisian residence and Javad was leaning against a post.

He was among those on that historic Air France flight to Teheran that carried Ayatollah Khomeini, other leaders of the revolution and journalists in February 1979.

In Australia, Javad was the one who regularly sent me books by Shariati and that year when a students meeting was held in Canberra, I had the opportunity of meeting him.

Pointed criticism

That was where I met KB, who was then finalising his exile to the Islamic Republic of Iran. KB was having a run-in with the Australian immigration authorities and feared persecution if he were to return to Egypt because of his previous dissident activities.

I felt very uncomfortable with his pointed criticisms of everyone and everything, from the west to the east, except the Islamic Republic and leaders of the revolution. He was looking forward to be part of this Islamic utopia.

It was only when he arrived in Teheran that he saw the turmoil, harshness and contradictions in post- revolutionary Iran, which at that time, was in a bitter war with Iraq. He was not allowed to venture freely and mix with other people nor was he given a job.

His wife refused to wear the chador, and knowing him, his barbed criticisms of his hosts must have led to his expulsion to Vienna, from where he wrote a long letter full of bitterness, anger and regret, having finally ended up in an unfriendly foreign place, sharing a cramped hall with many other families, with no money and no where to go. That was the last I heard of him.

The revolution was indeed an original and popular one, and it succeeded because of the participation of the whole nation. The disparate forces consisting chiefly of the traditionalist ulamas and Muslim intellectuals with their student followers as well as smaller groups of leftists and secularists coalesced to end the Shah's despotism and foreign domination.

Personally, I had hoped that post-revolutionary Iran would embark on a path of reconstruction and reconciliation, establishing a modern progressive nation based on strong democratic principles and institutions that blend with the intellectual, artistic and cultural identity of Islamic Persia that had given humanity Ibn Sina, Rumi, Razi, Hafiz, Saadi, Ferdowsi, Omar Khayyam and many more luminaries of its glorious civilisation.

The most qualified people I thought were the Muslim intellectuals, technocrats and the heirs to Shariati's legacy from within the youthful intelligentsia.

But looking from afar, I could sense that the conservative ulamas wanted to impose their version of the Islamic state and began to dominate the affairs of the new republic.

The resignation of the provisional government's prime minister Dr Mehdi Bazargan and foreign minister Dr Ibrahim Yazdi, shortly after the takeover of the American embassy by radical Islamic students, were among the first indications that the conservative ulamas no longer needed the cooperation of the Muslim intellectuals, their former partners in the revolution.

This was followed later by the impeachment of Dr Abol Hassan Bani Sadr, Iran's first president, after vicious accusations of incompetence by clerics in Parliament (given Bani Sadr's penchant for childish self-absorption and grandiloquence, they were probably right in doing so).

Second revolution

If KB's bitter letter had served to confirm my suspicions, Javad's replacement as charge d'affaires by a religious cleric finally removed all my doubt that the ulama class had dominated almost every institution of government.

I did not know what happened to Javad and with Iran's international isolation, I lost interest in Iranian affairs until many years later, in the post-Khomeini era when stirs of discontent against the conservative ulamas gradually led to what has been termed Iran's second revolution.

Many of those western educated intellectuals who had played a pivotal role together with the ulamas in overthrowing the Shah, became dissidents themselves, and joining their ranks were progressive ulamas , who were persuaded to voice their protests over the excesses and failures of the Islamic state.

Among them was Dr Ibrahim Yazdi, the provisional government's first foreign minister, Javad's former boss. He was the secretary-general of the banned but tolerated until recently, the Freedom Movement of Iran.

Now 70, he is in the United States seeking treatment for cancer but has been sought by Iran's revolutionary court - under the control of the conservative ulamas , to face charges of trying to topple the Islamic regime by arms and infiltrating universities.

In a lecture presented at the Metro State University in Denver, Colorado last year, Dr Yazdi outlined the changes that have been taking place in Iran since the heady days of the revolution, how the ulamas had consolidated their power and the backslash by today's young and the intelligentsia against them.

He termed the period from the fall of the Shah in February 1979 to the passing away of Ayatollah Khomeini in June 1990 as 'the first republic'.

As part of the provisional government headed by his colleague Mehi Bazargan, founder of the Freedom Movement - another western educated liberal with a deep commitment to Iran and Islam, they had found it difficult to govern the nation, given the prevailing revolutionary euphoria which did not allow the voice of logic and reason to be heard.

Then there was the rift between Muslim intellectuals around Bazargan and the ulamas . The secular and leftist political groups who were already antagonistic towards Bazargan from the days when he served in Dr Mossadeq's nationalist government in the early 1950s, initiated a political campaign against the provisional government by labelling them as 'liberals'.

The ulamas who were looking for an opportunity to consolidate their power, subscribed to these campaigns and isolated the intellectual Muslim groups. The hostage crisis and later the Iran - Iraq war, further solidified the ulamas ' hold on the reins of power.

'Second republic'

Dr Yazdi characterised the 'first republic' as a period of internal rifts, political and social suppression, disregarding of the people's rights and freedoms, assassinations and armed confrontations, the hostage crisis, the Iran - Iraq war and the international isolation of Iran.

Mismanagement and corruption that partly resulted from confiscation of private industries and real estates to revolutionary institutions and Iran's international isolation led to economic decline.

During the 'second republic,' the period which ended with Mohammad Khatami's surprise election as president in May 1997, the conflict and confrontation between the forces of modernisation and the traditionalist ulamas became more pronounced.

Fundamental issues of modernity and their application and adoption to the Iranian culture, which were all pushed aside during the 'first republic,' surfaced and were debated openly. These were issues such as state and religion, the role of ulamas in the state, the conflict of democracy with the traditionalists' concept of government, the necessity to reform and reconstruct the understanding of Islam, women's social and civic rights, and traditional legitimacy versus rational legitimacy.

In this 'second republic', one of the major voices calling for reforms that challenge the ulamas ' monopoly of Islam is Abdul Karim Soroush, a pharmacology graduate turned philosopher and writer.

Almost the whole of chapter two of the book ' The Last Great Revolution - Turmoil and Transformation in Iran ' (Vintage Books, New York, 2000) by Robin Wright, Iran correspondent for, among others, the Washington Post and Lost Angeles Times discusses the personality of Soroush and his ideas.

Turning point

The emergence of Soroush symbolised a turning point in post-revolutionary Iran, at a time when disillusionment was running deep after Iran barely survived political isolation, economic sanctions and a prolonged war. Attention was then focussed on two issues - empowerment and the role of Islam in a modern state.

As Ayotallah Khomeini's death coincided with the sweeping political changes in the outside world following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and communism, Soroush started to challenge the untouchable core of ideas at the heart of the revolution and even of Islam itself.

His main thesis is that, not only Islam and democracy are compatible, their association is inevitable in the modern world, and that no individuals or class has a monopoly on the interpretation of religion.

For Soroush, the texts of the Quran and the Bible are sacred but human understanding of what is in those texts is imperfect. Exploring what they mean is an ongoing process. Though religion itself is sacred, its interpretation is not sacred and therefore it can be criticised, modified, refined and redefined.

For a growing group of followers - ranging from young mullahs to regime opponents, intellectuals to government technocrats - the reformist ideas of Soroush and his peers represent the hope of reconciliation, both within Islam and between Islam and the outside world.

'In questioning rigid traditional thinking, particularly about political and human rights, Soroush created a 21st century world view that was both, authentically Islamic and authentically modern. He made it possible to be Islamist without being fundamentalist, to be reverent but free,' wrote Wright.

The controversy over Soroush, turned ugly in the mid-90's. There were death threats, physical assaults and banning of his public lectures and publications. He finally had to flee the country in 1996.

Bold step

But the crisis over reform did not end with Soroush's departure, as indeed by the mid-90's, he was no longer unique in issuing challenges to the regime. For a growing number of Iranians, the regime had lost its claim to legitimacy and as the debate gained momentum, the Iranian public also took a bold step in revitalising and redefining its role.

In May 1997, Iranians went to the polls in near-record numbers to elect a new president and to reject the regime's designated successor to President Rafsanjani. They instead voted for dark-horse candidate, Mohammad Khatami, who pledged to open up society and restore law and order.

Since his ouster from the Ministry of Culture, Khatami had also quietly become another advocate of Islamic reform. The results of the February 2000 Parliamentary elections seemed to indicate that the path towards reforms is irreversible.

The Islamic Iran Participation Front headed by Reza Khatami, a London trained kidney specialist and the president's younger brother won impressive victories. But the conservative clerics seemed equally determined to check the reformists' ascendancy and thwart Khatami's reform programme by using the judiciary which is under their control, closure of reformist newspapers, arrests and even through violence.

Just weeks before the presidential election last June, it seemed that many Iranians would register their frustration with Khatami's inability to fulfill his promise to create a law-based civil society by staying home on election day.

But the extraordinary voter turn out and landslide election victory for Khatami, illustrates that no matter what his failures, the vast majority of the Iranian electorate believed it still had both, a stake in Iran's electoral system and at least some hope for his vision of reform.

Raging controversy

What is the relevance of all this to Malaysia's political climate today?

In the raging controversy on the Islamic state issue between PAS and DAP, we would do well to learn the lessons from Iran's recent history.

In the absence of an enlightened and rational debate on the role of Islam in a modern state, a multi-cultural and multi-religious one at that, but mere sloganeering, it can perhaps be safely assumed that the proponents of an Islamic state in Malaysia are want to repeat the Iranian experience.

Despite the prods, there has been very little explanation from its proponents on the shape and form of the envisaged state, and how different it would be from that which is envisaged by their coalition partners.

It is baffling that for all which has unfolded in Iran, almost no reference have been made to that experience in the current controversy. Granted that there are some fundamental differences between Sunni and Shiite Islam, is there nothing that we can learn from that experience?

Never mind the virtual impossibility of the Islamic opposition securing a two third Parliament majority, the sloganeering that the rule of the ulamas will create the perfect society must make way for a healthy debate on how Islam can accommodate the demands of a progressive modern society that stresses the rule of law, social justice, fundamental liberties, empowerment and participation of its citizens as its core values. In other words, how can Islam remain relevant in the public affairs of a modern state?

The use of religion as a political idiom produces utopian expectations among its believers which no state could ever hope to achieve and alienates the majority of citizens of other faiths, no matter how attractive its selling points are, given the weaknesses of the current government. Let us learn from the Iranian experience. There is no need to re-invent the wheel.