Ali Shariati

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"Shariati" redirects here. For other uses, see Shariati (disambiguation).

Ali Shariati
علی شریعتی
Hosseiniye Ershad
Political partyFreedom Movement of Iran[1]
SpousePouran Shariat Razavi
Children4

Ali Shariati Mazinani (

Islamic Revolution", although his ideas did not end up forming the basis of the Islamic Republic.[4]

Biography

Ali Shariati (Ali Masharati) was born in 1933 in

Khorasan Province.[7] It was a social Islamic forum which became embroiled in the oil nationalisation movement of the 1950s.[8] Shariati's mother was from a small land-owning family.[6] His mother was from Sabzevar, a little town near Mashhad.[9]

In his years at the Teacher's Training College in

Sir Allama Muhammad Iqbal of Pakistan, among the Muslim community, and Sigmund Freud and Alexis Carrel.[10]

In 1952, he became a high-school teacher and founded the Islamic Students' Association, which led to his arrest following a demonstration.[

University of Mashhad in 1955. In 1957, he was arrested again by the Iranian police, along with sixteen other members of the National Resistance Movement.[citation needed
]

Shariati then earned a scholarship to continue his graduate studies at

Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) in 1959. The following year, he began to read Frantz Fanon and translated an anthology of his work into Persian.[12] Shariati introduced Fanon's thought into Iranian revolutionary émigrée circles. He was arrested in Paris on 17 January 1961 during a demonstration in honour of Patrice Lumumba.[citation needed
]

The same year he joined

Jalal Al-e Ahmad's book Gharbzadegi (or Occidentosis) in Iran.[citation needed
]

Shariati then returned to Iran in 1964, where he was arrested and imprisoned for engaging in subversive political activities while in France. He was released after a few weeks, at which point he began teaching at the University of Mashhad.[citation needed]

The tomb of Shariat, fot. Hamed Jafarnejad.
The mausoleum of Shariat in 2001, fot. Ivonna Nowicka.

Shariati next went to

Hosseiniye Ershad Institute. These lectures were hugely popular among his students and were spread by word of mouth throughout all economic sectors of society, including the middle and upper classes, where interest in his teachings began to grow.[citation needed
]

His continued success again aroused the interest of the government, which arrested him, along with many of his students. Widespread pressure from the people, and an international outcry, eventually led to his release on 20 March 1975, after eighteen months in solitary confinement.

Shariati was allowed to leave for England. Not long after, on June 18, 1977, he was found dead in Southampton, at the house he was renting from psychology professor Dr. Butterworth. He is believed to have been killed by the SAVAK, the Iranian security service during the time of the Shah. However, in Ali Rahnema's biography of Shariati, he is said to have died of a heart attack under mysterious circumstances, although no hospital or medical records have been found. He is buried next to Sayyidah Zaynab, the granddaughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and the daughter of Ali, in Damascus, where Iranian pilgrims often visit.[citation needed]

Views and popularity

Main article: Shariatism
Shariati and his family, one day after his release from prison.

Shariati sought to revive the revolutionary currents of

Gustavo Gutierrez and Brazilian Leonardo Boff.[16]

Shariati was a prominent

Twelver Imams.[18] He argued that the role of the clergy was to guide society in accordance with Islamic values to advance human beings towards reaching their highest potential—not to provide/serve the hedonistic desires of individuals as in the West.[18]

At the same time, Shariati was very critical of some clerics and defended the

Marxists. "Our mosques, the revolutionary left and our preachers," he declared, "work for the benefit of the deprived people and against the lavish and lush... Our clerics who teach jurisprudence and issue fatwas are right-wingers, capitalist, and conservative; simply our fiqh is at the service of capitalism."[19]

Shariati's works were highly influenced by the

Jalal Al-e Ahmad and given it "its most vibrant and influential second life".[20]

He sought to translate these ideas into cultural symbols of Shiism that Iranians could relate to. Shariati believed Shia should not merely await the return of the

Ashoura, every place is the Karbala".[21]

When he was writing the three letters to Fanon, unlike him, Shariati believed that it is not true that one must put away religion to fight imperialism. He felt that people could fight imperialism solely by recovering their cultural identity. In some countries, such an identity was intertwined with fundamental religious beliefs. Shariati refers to the maxim of returning to ourselves.[22]

Social theorist

Iranian revolution of 1979. He asserts that Shariati emerged at the time of the revolution as "an unparalleled revolutionary intellectual" with his portraits widely present during the marches and protests and his nickname as "mo'allem-e enqilab" (revolutionary mentor) chanted by millions and whose literature and tapes had already been widely available before the revolution. "My father" recalls Bayat, "barely literate, had his own copies" of Shariati's works.[23]

Shariati and socialism

It seems that his eagerness to explore

Abu Zarr: The God-Worshipping Socialist by the Egyptian thinker Abdul Hamid Jowdat-al-Sahar. According to this book, Abu Dhar was the very first socialist.[24] Then, Shariati's father declared that his son believed that the principles of Abu Dhar are fundamental. Even some thinkers described Shariati as the modern-day Abu Dhar in Iran.[25] Of all his thoughts, there is his insistence on the necessity of revolutionary action. Shariati believed that Marxism could not provide the Third World with the ideological means for its own liberation. One of his premises was that Islam by nature is a revolutionary ideology. Therefore, Islam could relate to the modern world as an ideology. According to Shariati, the historical and original origin of human problems was the emergence of private ownership. He believed that in the modern era, the appearance of the machine was the second most fundamental change in the human condition. In fact, private ownership and the emergence of the machine, if considered one of two curves of history, belong to the second period of history. The first period is collective ownership. However, Shariati gave a critique of the historical development of religion and the modern philosophical and ideological movements and their relationship to both private ownership and the emergence of the machine.[26]

Epistemology

Shariati developed the idea of the social, cultural and historical contingencies of religious knowledge in sociology.[citation needed] He believed in the earthly religion and in the social context in which the meaning of society is construed. He also emphasized that he understood religion historically because he was a sociologist. He said he was concerned with the historical and social Tawhid, not with the truth of the Quran or of Muhammad or Ali.[27]

Political philosophy

In the first place, Shariati criticised western liberal democracy.[citation needed] He pointed out that there is a direct relationship between democracy, liberalism and the plundering of nations. He believed that liberal democracy is the enemy of humankind. He also referred to the fact that the ruling economic system of liberal democracy is unjust and contrary to the rights of people. He maintained that in such a society, someone who is weak is already subjected to defeat and annihilation. There are basic foundations in Shariati's thoughts and his criticism of liberal democracy. The first foundation is related to the contrast between the religious worldview and the non-religious one. He explained history, society and humanity according to a monistic worldview. He explained liberalism as something with inequality and discrimination. Freedom and equality based on spirituality were the very basis of pre-modern societies which were devastated in one period of history.[citation needed]

Shariati believed that the government of Imam Ali could be considered the best form of democracy. On this occasion, he tried to interpret the behaviour of

Muslim citizens. He believed that one of the basic problems of western democracy is demagogy. Nowadays the votes of voters are directed to special channels with the help of advertising instruments. In such a condition only one who is critically conscious can dispose of distractions and surface-level arguments, and vote effectively for themselves and their communities. He maintains that the western democracy based on gold, cruelty and tricking (Zar, Zour va Tazvir) is an anti-revolutionary regime that is different from ideological Guidance.[28][clarification needed][clarification needed
]

Commitment democracy

For explaining better the commitment to democracy, he at first divides between two concepts.[citation needed] One of them is Syasat and the other is politic. Syasat is a philosophy by which the government would have the responsibility of changing and building the society. In fact, Syasat is a progressive and dynamic thing. The aim of the government in the philosophy of Syasat is to change social foundations, institutions and even all the norms of society (including culture, morality and desires etc.). In simple words, Syasat entails the construction of the people's existence.[citation needed] On contrary, there is no construction in politics. In other words, politics follows from the people. Politics does not construct the experience of people. Of course, Shariati prefers Syasat over politics because the former is more progressive. He considers making humanity (Ensan Sazi) important. In fact, his utopia is constructed with three concepts of Gnosis, equality and freedom. Commitment democracy appeared out of his lecture in Hoseyniyeh Ershad; a famous lecture with the name of Ummah and Imamate. According to him, Imam is one who wants to guide humans not only in political, l, social economic dimensions but also in all existential dimensions. He believes that Imam is alive everywhere and every time. On one hand, Imamate is not a metaphysical belief but a revolutionary guide philosophy. He added that Imam has to guide people not according to his desire like a dictator but to Islamic ideology and authentic values.[28][clarification needed]

Sociology

Some scholars classify him among the current religious neo-thinkers.[

ijmāʿ (consensus). Shariati also dismissed consensus as a source for understanding religion. He insisted on the concepts of knowledge and time along with the holy book and tradition and stressed the important role of methodology and changing of viewpoint.[29]

Shariati, who was the fan of Georges Gurvitch in his analysis of sociology, believed that there was no special pattern for the analysis of social affairs and historical events.[citation needed] He thought that there was no unity of religion and society, but rather there were many religions and societies. He referred to the active role of the scholar of human science during investigation and scientific research.[citation needed] He believed that there was a relationship between the values of scholarship and the effects of those values on the conclusions of an investigation. He believed that it was not necessary to extend the other conclusions of other Western scholars to our society. However, he criticized the Western ideological schools such as nationalism, liberalism, Marxism, etc. He maintained that there was conformity and correspondence between the Western philosophy and Iranian society. According to Shariati, democracy is inconsistent with revolutionary evolution and progress. One of his criticism of Western ideology is its [regardless imitation of those ideologies - check translation]. One of his other criticisms is the denial of spirituality in Western philosophy. In fact, those ideologies attempt to prevent humans from achieving transcendental goals and any [evolutionary movements - check translation]. In this vein, he firmly criticized capitalism, and at the same time, he admired socialism because it would lead humanity to evolution and free it from utilitarianism. However, he firmly criticized Karl Marx. According to Shariati, Karl Marx's theory on the economy as the infrastructure and foundation of human and society was strayed. Conversely, Sharia places the human, not the economy, as the foundation and origin of society.[30][clarification needed]

Modern problems

According to Shariati, human history is composed of two stages: the stage of collectivity and the stage of private ownership.[26] He explained that the first stage, collectivity, was concerned with social equality and spiritual oneness. But the second stage, which is the current era, could be considered as the domination of the many by one. The second stage began with the emergence of private ownership. The various types of private ownership in history have included slavery, serfdom, feudalism, and capitalism among others.[26] According to the concept of social ownership, all material and spiritual resources are accessible to everyone. But monopoly polarised the human community. In fact, according to Shariati, private ownership is the main cause of all modern problems. These problems change men's brotherhood and love to duplicity, deceit, hatred, exploitation, colonisation, and massacre. The polarisation by monopoly manifested itself in different forms throughout history. For example, in ancient times there were slave economies that transferred to capitalist society in modern times. In other words, machinism, or the dependence on machines, can be considered the latest stage of private ownership. Machinism began in the nineteenth century and human beings have had to confront the many anxieties and problems arousing from it.[31]

Legacy

1980 Iranian stamp honoring Shariati.

There are many adherents and opponents of Shariati's views and Shariati's personality is largely unknown.[clarification needed] Ali Khamenei knew Shariati as a pioneer of Islamic teaching according to the requirements of his generation. According to Sayyed Ali Khamenei, Shariati had both positive and negative characteristics. Khamenei believes that it is unfair to consider Shariati as someone who firmly disagreed with the Mullahs. One of the positive sides of Shariati was his ability to explain his thoughts with suitable and simple language for his generation. Shariati was somewhat supportive of Mullahs in Iran.[32][clarification needed] Some Scholars like Elizabeth F. Thompson try to envisage some similarities between Shariati and his role in the Islamic revolution in Iran with Sayyed Qutb's role in Egypt. One similarity is that both of them paved the way for the imminent revolution in Iran and Egypt. Both desired Islamic cultural dominance. Both were fans of being revolutionary about ruling values and norms. They considered Islamism a third way between those of America and the Soviet Union. At the same time, they were not wholly utopian and they were partly Islamic. [clarification needed] Of course there are differences between them - Shariati was a leftist while Qutb was a conservative. According to Mahmoud Taleghani, Ali Shariati was a thinker who created a school for revolution. The school guided young people to revolutionary action. Beheshti believes that Shariati's work was fundamental to the Islamic revolution.[9]

According to Hamid Enayat, Shariati was not only a theorist but also an adherent of Islamic radicalism. Enayat believes that Shariati can be considered the founder of Islamic socialism. Enayat considers him to be one of the most beloved and popular individuals in Islamic radicalism and socialism.[33][clarification needed]

According to Hamid Algar, Shariati was the number one ideologue of the Islamic revolution.[34]

Publications

Despite Shariati's early death, he authored some 200 publications including "articles, seminar papers, and lecture series"[35] in addition to more than a hundred books.[36][37]

Major works

  • Hajj (The Pilgrimage)[38]
  • Hubut in Kavir
  • Guftuguhaye Tanha’i
  • Marxism and Other Western Fallacies: An Islamic Critique
  • Where Shall We Begin?[39]
  • Mission of a Free Thinker[39]
  • The Free Man and Freedom of the Man
  • Extraction and Refinement of Cultural Resources
  • Martyrdom (book)
  • Ali
  • An approach to Understanding Islam
  • A Visage of Prophet Muhammad[39]
  • A Glance of Tomorrow's History[39]
  • Reflections of Humanity
  • A Manifestation of Self-Reconstruction and Reformation
  • Selection and/or Election
  • Norouz, Declaration of Iranian's Livelihood, Eternity
  • Expectations from the Muslim Woman
  • Horr
     (Battle of Karbala)
  • Kavir (Desert)
  • Abu-Dahr
  • Red Shi'ism vs. Black Shi'ism
  • Jihad and Shahadat
  • Reflections of a Concerned Muslim on the Plight of Oppressed People
  • A Message to the Enlightened Thinkers
  • Art Awaiting the Saviour
  • Fatemeh is Fatemeh
  • The Philosophy of Supplication
  • Religion versus Religion[40]
  • Man and Islam – see chapter "Modern Man and His Prisons"
  • Arise and Bear Witness[41]
  • Lessons on Islamology
  • Ali is Alone
  • Community and Leadership
  • Religion against Religion
  • We and Iqbal
  • Historical Determinism
  • What is to be Done?'
  • "The Intelligentsia's Task for Reconstruction of Society"[42]

Other works

  • Hegel und Ali Shariati: Geschichtsphilosophische Betrachtungen im Geiste der islamischen Revolution im Iran
    doi:10.1515/hgjb-2014-0158
  • Paradox as Decolonization: Ali Shariati's Islamic Lawgiver
    doi:10.1177/0090591720977804

Translation

Shariati translated many books into Persian. Besides the work of Abu Zarr mentioned above, he translated Jean-Paul Sartre's What Is Literature?, and Che Guevara's Guerilla Warfare. He also began to work on the translation of Franz Fanon's A Dying Colonialism. He admired Amar Ouzegane as a major Marxist Muslim and began to translate his book Le meilleur combat (The Best Struggle).[43]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 1860645615
    .
  2. ^ "30th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Islamic Republic". Qantara. Retrieved 11 December 2012.
  3. ^ Gheissari, Ali. 1998. Iranian Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century. Austin: University of Texas Press.
  4. ^ Abrahamian, Ervand. 1993. "Ali Shariati: Ideologue of the Iranian Revolution". In Edmund Burke and Ira Lapidus (eds.), Islam, Politics, and Social Movements. Los Angeles: University of California Press. First published in MERIP Reports (January 1982): 25–28.
  5. ^ Rahnema, Ali. 1998, 2000. An Islamic Utopian. A Political Biography of Ali Shari'ati. London: I.B. Tauris, p. 35.
  6. ^ a b Rakel, E.P. (2008). The Iranian Political Elite, State and Society Relations, and Foreign Relations since the Islamic Revolution. University of Amsterdam. Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 June 2022.
  7. ^ An Islamic Utopian, p. 13.
  8. ^ An Islamic Utopian, pp. 13–18.
  9. ^
    ISBN 1850430772
    .
  10. ^ An Islamic Utopian, pp. 61–68.
  11. ^ Rahnema, Ali. 1998, 2000. An Islamic Utopian. A Political Biography of Ali Shari'ati. London: I.B. Tauris.
  12. L'Express
    , 26 January 2006 (in French)
  13. ^ Ostovar, Afshon P. (2009). "Guardians of the Islamic Revolution: Ideology, Politics, and the Development of Military Power in Iran (1979–2009)" (PhD Dissertation). University of Michigan. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
  14. ISBN 978-0-8179-1136-2
    .
  15. ^ Ali Shariati, "Red Shi'ism vs. Black Shi'ism".
  16. ^ Nasr, Vali, The Shia Revival, Norton, (2006), p. 129
  17. ^ "- YouTube". YouTube.
  18. ^ a b "- YouTube". YouTube.
  19. ^ Ali Shariati (1980). Jahatgiri-ye Tabaqati-e Islam [Class bias of Islam], in Collected Works, 10. Tehran. pp. 37–38.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  20. ^ Mottahedeh, Roy, The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran, p. 330
  21. ^ Nasr, Vali, The Shia Revival, Norton, (2006), pp. 128–9
  22. ^ Naser Gharagozlu (2006). From Blank Revolution to Islamic Revolution. p. 87.
  23. ISBN 9781503602588
    .
  24. ISBN 0691101345
    . Retrieved 25 May 2017.
  25. ISBN 1850430772
    .
  26. ^ a b c Manouchehri, Abbas (1988). Ali Shariati and The Islamic Renaissance (PhD dissertation). University of Missouri. p. 78.
  27. ^ Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, Abdolkarim Soroush, The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics, Edited by John L. Esposito and Emad El-Din Shahin, online pub date: Dec 2013
  28. ^ a b c Sayyed Javad Imam Jomeh Zadeh, Hosein Rouhani (2007). comparative inquiry on western democracy and commitment democracy of Ali Sharity. pp. 59–78. {{cite book}}: |magazine= ignored (help)
  29. ^ "40th memorial ceremony of Dr. Shariati held in London". Iran Daily (Tehran, Iran).
  30. ^ Fardin Qoreishi (2001). Shariati and thinking on west from religious neo reflection. pp. 178–179. {{cite book}}: |magazine= ignored (help)
  31. S2CID 32027587. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 19 February 2020.
  32. ^ "بازخواني مصاحبه رهبر معظم انقلاب درباره مرحوم شريعتي | خبرگزاری فارس". Archived from the original on 9 January 2017. Retrieved 8 January 2017.
  33. ISBN 978-1597404600
    .
  34. ^ Abdollah Vakili (1991). Ali shariati and the mystical tradition of islam. Institute of Islamic studies, Mc Gill University. pp. 30–37.
  35. ^ Najibullah Lafraie, Revolutionary Ideology and Islamic Militancy: The Iranian Revolution and Interpretations of the Quran, I.B.Tauris (2009), p. 127
  36. ^ Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, Iran, the untold story: an insider's account of America's Iranian adventure and its consequences for the future, Pantheon Books (1982), p. 129
  37. ^ Charles W. Scott, Pieces of the Game: The Human Drama of Americans Held Hostage in Iran, Peachtree Publ (1984), p. 118
  38. ^ "Hajj – Dr. Ali Shariati". Al-islam. Retrieved 11 December 2012.
  39. ^ a b c d "Ali Shariati علی شریعتی". Shariati. Retrieved 11 December 2012.
  40. ^ "Shariati, Ali". Ezania. Archived from the original on 12 March 2007. Retrieved 11 December 2012.
  41. ^ "Martyrdom: Arise and Bear Witness – Ali Shariati". Scribd. Retrieved 11 December 2012.
  42. ISBN 1850430772
    .
  43. ISBN 1850430772
    .

Further reading

  • Latifiyan, Ali. 1995. "Reviewing the Performance of Intellectuals from 1941 to 1979", Tehran: Imam Sadiq University
  • An Islamic Utopian: A Political Biography of Ali Shariati
    . London: I.B. Tauris.
  • Gheissari, Ali. 1998. Iranian Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century. Austin: University of Texas Press.


External links

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