Kessler, Sanford. “Religion & Liberalism in Montesquieu’s Persian Letters.” Polity 15, no. 3 (April 1, 1983): 380–396.

Taking shelter behind a fictional account of happenings in an Iranian seraglio and in a presumably Islamic paradise, Montesquieu attacked the orthodoxy in Biblical religions. Professor Kessler examines Montesquieu’s treatment of religion in the Persian Letters and argues that it would help us understand, and perhaps even respond to, the currently growing conflict between liberalism and religious fundamentalism in the United States and elsewhere.

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