Research on religion and culture from the perspective of anthropology is considered
the newest approach in religious studies. This approach forms the foundation of
Geertz's studies. Clifford Geertz's thought is very important in the formation and
development of the anthropology of religion by emphasizing on his interpretive
approach and using the hermeneutics of Dilthey and Ricoeur to understand the
cultural system and relying on objective observations. The present article is based on
the analytical-critical method in which Geertz's interpretative view of the
foundations of religion is researched.
He tries to criticize the abstract approach by focusing religious studies on the
concrete method and by adopting the hermeneutic method, he explains the
fundamental connections between religion and culture and introduces the posteriori
method as the most important method of religious studies. In this article, by
analyzing the foundations of Geertz's view on religion, an attempt will be made to
analyze the origin and approach of religion, the place of rituals and lived experience
based on his interpretative approach to religion and culture.

Materials & Method
practical studies of religion. At the beginning of the 20th century, with the
development and progress of the scientific and field study of religions, we see the
emergence of thinkers such as Evans Pritchard and Clifford Geertz representing the
symbolist and interpretive school. Evans-Pritchard states by paying attention to field
research that the emergence of practical aspects of religion should not be explained
based on theological thought and religious scholars and thinkers, but by the lived
experience of ordinary people.
Culture and Religion. Habermas defends Geertz's approach and, like him,
considers religion to be the link between moral action and cognitive worldviews and
accepts that the important function of religion is to make human suffering
understandable and tolerable. But Geertz, who belongs to the continental theoretical
tradition, considering the cultural dimension of religion, believes that the only way
to know a religion is the cultural system and the lived experience of the people in
which the religion is located. He considers the relationships between humans and
divinity, the relationships between humans and the natural world, and the
relationships between humans in society as possible and understandable, which are
expressed by a common cultural system. Sharon Nepstad believes that Geertz's
outlooks to religion is a "culturalist" approach to religion in every sense.

Discussion and Result
By adopting a paradigm shift in social sciences, Geertz has emphasized on a new
thinking in the principles and foundations based on the anthropological approach
and states that this perspective directly leads to the understanding of the practice of
religion. Like Mircea Eliade, he tried to understand other dimensions of human life
by studying religion deeply and properly. In fact, Pritchard, Eliade, and Geertz, by
criticizing functionalism and reductionism, started a path that approached the
understanding of the specific human dimension of religion. Geertz believes that the
core of his theoretical approach is the explanation of "meaning" in
cultural phenomena.
An important counterpoint to Geertz's interpretive approach is Talal Asad's
thinking, who in a criticism of essentialist definitions of religion claims that,
contrary to Geertz's view, "there cannot be a universal definition of religion",
because this definition is a historical product of discursive processes.
The most important finding of the current research is to show that the analysis of
the relationship between religion and culture and the emphasis on concrete studies of
religion is the most important achievement of Geertz's method of studying religion.
Although he could not have a comprehensive and accurate look at the foundations of
religions and especially Islam, but at the same time, in adopting a critical approach
to the reductionist method of religious studies in the past, he has presented a new
and efficient perspective in religious studies. It can be said that the most important
shortcoming of his method is the dominance of the element of culture over the
foundations of religion, as is clearly evident in his book, “The Observed Islam”.

Conclusion
The dominance of the reductionist approach in Geertz's religious studies is an
important deficiency and plague that most sociologists and anthropologists
have suffered.
Geertz also studied religion on the bases of historical perspective and did not
discuss the fundamental distinction between the essence of religion and the
historical aspect of religion. His studies are essentially based on the historicism of
Islam and he thinks that the historical aspect of religion can be considered as the
fundamental origin of religion. While phenomenology emphasizes that not paying
attention to the essence of religion can cause many problems in religious studies.