Fada'iyan-e Islam
Society of Fadayeen Islam جمعیت فدائیان اسلام | |
---|---|
Islamic revivalism[3] Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist | |
Religion | Shia Islam |
Slogan | Persian: اسلام برتر از همه چیز است و هیچ چیز برتر از اسلام نیست "Islam is above anything and nothing is above Islam" |
Website | |
www | |
Fadā'iyān-e Islam (Persian: فدائیان اسلام, also spelled as Fadayan-e Islam or in English "Fedayeen of Islam" or "Devotees of Islam" or literally "Self-Sacrificers of Islam"[4]) is a Shia fundamentalist group in Iran with a strong activist political and terrorist orientation.[3][5][6][7][8] The group was founded in 1946, and registered as a political party in 1989. It was founded by a theology student nicknamed Navvab Safavi. Safavi sought to purify Islam in Iran by ridding it of 'corrupting individuals' by means of carefully planned assassinations of certain leading intellectual and political figures.[9]
The group executed a series of successful killings (author
Background
The group was part of a "growing
History
In a 1945 declaration, Navvad Safavi stated:
We are alive and God, the revengeful, is alert. The blood of the destitute has long been dripping from the fingers of the selfish pleasure seekers, who are hiding, each with a different name and in a different colour, behind black curtains of oppression, thievery and crime. Once in a while the divine retribution puts them in their place, but the rest of them do not learn a lesson. … Damn you! You traitors, imposters, oppressors! You deceitful hypocrites! We are free, noble and alert. We are knowledgeable, believers in God and fearless.[15]
Rise
Its first assassination was of a
Hussein Emami, the assassin and a founding member of the Fada'iyan, was promptly arrested and sentenced to death for the crime. The Iranian intelligentsia united in calling for an example to be made of him. Emami, however, was spared the gallows. According to Taheri, he roused religious defenders and used his prestige as a
In November 1949 the group killed court minister (and former prime minister) Abdolhossein Hazhir.[17] On 7 March 1951, the Prime Minister Haj Ali Razmara was assassinated, in retaliation for his advice against nationalizing the oil industry.[7][18] Three weeks later the former education minister Abdul Hamid Zangeneh was assassinated by the group. Razmara's assassination was said to have moved Iran "further away from a spirit of compromise and moderation in relation to the oil problem" and "so frightened the ruling classes that concession after concession was made to nationalist demands in an attempt to pacify the intensely aroused public indignation."[19] An assassination attempt on Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, on 4 February 1949, was carried out by Fakhr-Arai; Fakhr-Arai was first attributed to be a member of the communist Tudeh Party of Iran,[20] but he was later found to more likely be a religious fundamentalist member of Fada'iyan-e Islam.[21][22]
In addition to Emami,
Although the Fada'iyan strongly supported the nationalization of Iran's foreign-owned oil industry, they turned against the leader of the nationalization movement,
After the coup that removed Mosaddeq, Safavi congratulated the Shah:
The country was saved by Islam and with the power of faith ... The Shah and prime minister and ministers have to be believers in and promoters of, Shi'ism, and the laws that are in opposition to the divine laws of God … must be nullified. … The intoxicants, the shameful exposure and carelessness of women, and sexually provocative music … must be done away with and the superior teachings of Islam … must replace them. With the implementation of Islam's superior economic plan, the deprivation of the Muslim people of Iran, and the dangerous class difference would end.[28]
In the years to follow, he enjoyed a close association with the government. In 1954, he attended the Islamic Conference in Jordan and traveled to Egypt. There he learned about Hasan al-Banna, the founder of Muslim Brotherhood (
Conflict with ulama
Safavi was not supported by the ulama and the Shia Marja, Ayatullah Hossein Borujerdi, rejected his ideas, questioning him about robberies that his organization committed on gun point. Safavi replied:
Our intention is to borrow from people. What we take is for establishing a government based on the model of Imam Ali's government. Our goal is sacred and prior to these tools. When we established an Aliid government-like state, then we give people their money back.[31] [32]
Fada'ian-e Islam launched a campaign of character assassination against the Marja and reportedly called for excommunication of Borujerdi and the defrocking of religious scholars who opposed the campaign of the Fada'iyan.[33] Navvab safavi didn't like Broujerdi's idea of Shia-Sunni rapprochement (Persian: تقریب), he[clarification needed] advocated Shia-Sunni unification (Persian: وحدت) under Islamist agenda.[34]
Crackdown
In 1955, Navvab Safavi and "other members of the Fedayeen of Islam, including Emami," were finally executed.
Khomeini
The organization dispersed but after the death of Ayatullah Borujerdi, the Fada'ian-e Islam sympathizers found a new leader in Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini who appeared on political horizon through the June 1963 riots in Qom.[37] In 1965, prime minister Hassan Ali Mansur was assassinated by the group.[38]
Revolution and Islamic Republic
After the 1979 Iranian Revolution and establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, there were "three abortive attempts" made by "old members or sympathizers" of the Fada'ian to restore the organization.[39]
- by Ṣādeq Ḵalḵālī with ʿAbd-Allāh Karbāsčīān;
- by Moḥammad-Mahdī ʿAbd-e Ḵodāʾī, Shaikh Moḥammad-ʿAlī Lavāsānī, and Jawād Wāḥedī;
- by Abu’l-Qāsem Rafīʿī, a former security chief of the Fada'ian.
According to Farhad Kazemi of Iranica, "the main carriers" of the Fedāʾīān’s legacy in the Islamic Republic, are the Coalition of Islamic Associations, which "grew from the former members and sympathizers" of the Fedāʾīān who have developed connections to "Ayatollah Khomeini and his lieutenants since 1963".[40]
Members of the group
These persons are main member of the group:[41]
- Navab Safavi, leader of the group Fadayan-e Islam
- Zanjan Province. Mozafar was born in a rural and religious family. Mozafar Zolghadr decided to murder Hossein Ala' but his gun did not fire. After that he arrested and executed.[42][43]
- Seyyed Muhammad Vahedi
- Khalil Tahmasebi, the member of Fada'iyan-e Islam who assassinated Iranian Prime Minister Haj Ali Razmara in March 1951.[4] He was described as a "religious fanatic" by The New York Times[44] and was executed in 1955.[45][46]
- Jafar Shojouni
- Seyyed Mehdi Tabatabaei
See also
- Terrorism in Iran
References
- ^ "List of Legally Registerred Parties in Iran". Khorasan Newspaper. Pars Times. July 30, 2000. p. 4. Retrieved 21 August 2015.
- ISBN 978-1-59558-826-5.
Although these and future assassinations gave the Fedayan much publicity, their inner core contained no more than a handful of zealots. Their total membership was less than a hundred. Most were young semiliterate apprentices in the Tehran bazaar.
- ^ a b c d FEDĀʾĪĀN-E ESLĀM. (1999). In Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved from http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/fedaian-e-esla The Fedāʾīān’s importance in Persian politics was due to several related factors. First, they were exceptionally successful as a rebel organization
- ^ a b "Ali Razmara – Prime Minister of Iran". Encyclopædia Britannica. 25 August 2016. Retrieved 12 December 2016.
- ^ Masoud Kazemzadeh (4 January 2005). "Finding Mossadegh. (Reconstructing the story of a coup that changed history)". Web.mit.edu.
The "terrorist group" that Kermit Roosevelt and Donald Wilber mobilized was the Fadaian Islam
- ^ Iran: between tradition and modernity By Ramin Jahanbegloo
- ^ The University of Michigan. p. 35.
The Fada'iyan-e Islam were the first Shiite Islamist organization to employ terrorism as a primary method of political activism
- ISBN 9781438400846.
- ^ a b Taheri, The Spirit of Allah, (1985), p. 98
- ^ a b Taheri, Amir, Spirit of Allah : Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution, Adler and Adler 1985, p. 187
- ^ a b Moin, Khomeini (2000), p. 224
- ^ a b Taheri, The Spirit of Allah, (1985), pp. 107–108
- ^ Fundamentalist Islam at Large: The Drive for Power by Martin Kramer, Middle East Quarterly, June 1996
- ^ Abrahamian, Ervand Iran between Two Revolutions, Princeton University Press, 1982, p. 259
- ^ Behdad 1997, p. 45.
- ^ Taheri, The Spirit of Allah, (1985), p. 101
- ISBN 978-1-349-06849-4.
- ^ "Iran. Mossadeq and oil nationalization". The Library of Congress Country Studies. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
- ^ Zabih, Sepehr, The Mossadegh Era : Roots of the Iranian Revolution, Lake View Press, 1982, pp. 25–26
- ^ "The Shah". Persepolis. Retrieved 18 June 2011.
- ISBN 0-8050-8137-2.
- ^ Molavi, The Soul of Iran, (2005), p. 323
- ^ S2CID 145391253.
- ^ Taheri, The Spirit of Allah, (1985), p. 109
- ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, A History of Modern Iran, Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 116
- ^ Abrahamian, Khomeinism, 1993, p. 105
- ^ a b Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran, Mark j. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne (Eds.), Syracuse University Press, 2004, p. 66
- ^ Behdad 1997, p. 50.
- ^ Behdad 1997, p. 51.
- ^ Syed Viqar Salahuddin, Islam, peace, and conflict: based on six events in the year 1979, which were harbingers of the present day conflicts in the Muslim world, Pentagon Press (2008), p. 5
- ^ Khalaji 2009, pp. 70–71.
- ^ رسول جعفریان، ”جریان ها و سازمان های مذهبی سیاسی ایران“، ص٢٧١ ، ١٣٩٤ شمسی
- ^ Khalaji 2009, p. 71.
- ^ Bohdan 2020, p. 247.
- ^ Taheri, The Spirit of Allah, (1985), p. 115
- ^ Taheri, The Spirit of Allah, (1985), p. 156
- ^ Behdad 1997, p. 60.
- ^ Behdad 1997, p. 61.
- ^ Y. Richard, “Ayatollah Kashani: Precursor of the Islamic Republic?” in N. Keddie, ed., Religion and Politics in Iran: Shiism from Quietism to Revolution, New Haven, 1983, pp. 76–79. cite from Kazemi, Farhad (1999). FEDĀʾĪĀN-E ESLĀM. Encyclopaedia Iranica.
- ^ Kazemi, Farhad (1999). FEDĀʾĪĀN-E ESLĀM. Encyclopaedia Iranica.
- ^ "8 Steps to Solidarity". Retrieved 18 January 2016.
- ^ "یکی ازافتخارات خدابنده،شهید ذوالقدر است/تصویر". www.dana.ir. Archived from the original on 19 January 2015. Retrieved 18 January 2016.
- ^ "روی کفن مظفر ذوالقدر چه حرفی برای نخست وزیر نوشته شده بود". Fars News Agency. Archived from the original on 5 July 2015. Retrieved 18 January 2016.
- ^ "Premier of Iran Is Shot to Death In a Mosque by a Religious Fanatic; Premier of Iran Slain in Mosque, Cabinet in Emergency Session, Victim of Assassin". The New York Times. Associated Press. 8 March 1951. Retrieved 12 December 2016.
- S2CID 145391253.
- ^ "Iran: Time of the Assassin". Time. 1 December 1952. Archived from the original on November 25, 2010. Retrieved 12 December 2016.
Works cited
- Behdad, Sohrab (Jan 1997). "Islamic Utopia in Pre-Revolutionary Iran: Navvab Safavi and the Fada'ian-e Eslam". Middle Eastern Studies. 33 (1): 40–65. JSTOR 4283846.
- Bohdan, Siarhei (Summer 2020). "'They Were Going Together with the Ikhwan': The Influence of Muslim Brotherhood Thinkers on Shi'i Islamists during the Cold War". The Middle East Journal. 74 (2): 243–262. S2CID 225510058.
- Khalaji, Mehdi (November 27, 2009). "The Dilemmas of Pan-Islamic Unity". Current Trends in Islamist Ideology. 9: 64–79.
Further reading
- Katouzian, Homa (2013). "Fidāʾiyyān-i Islām". In Fleet, Kate; ISSN 1873-9830.