Daily Times

Ali Shariati of Iran was one of the greatest philosophers and revolutionary Muslim modernists produced by the Islamic World. He was a well-intentioned political Islamist in a positive sense. His idea of Islam was not based on persecution and marginalisation of others. Interestingly, the country that honours him as its philosopher of the “Islamic Revolution,” Islamic Republic of Iran is precisely the antithesis of the revolutionary and progressive idealism that Shariati had laid before his people. He was a modernist, though never a secularist, but nevertheless, fiercely anti-clerical. Post-revolution Iran is nothing if not clerical. This has been the common tragedy of Muslim countries — the distortion of religio-political ideals that have created Frankenstein’s monsters.

I first came across the writings of Ali Shariati at college in the US. To me, at the time, the name was oddly familiar. My early childhood was spent in Khomeini’s Iran, and my mother was a doctor at Bemaristan-e-Ali Shariati or the Ali Shariati hospital there. Naturally, I was curious to learn more about this extraordinary man whose name had echoed throughout my childhood. As I read more about this Sorbonne educated intellectual colossus, the more I felt a kinship to the struggles of countless leftwing and liberal Iranian intellectuals, who like their Pakistani counterparts, had supported and even led people’s movement only to face betrayal at the hands of religious clerics usurping the mantle leadership in those movements.

Shariati, who was profoundly impacted by Allama Iqbal and his reformist principle of movement within Islam, postulated what he called “Red Shiism.” Red Shiism was a form of revolutionary Islamic modernism that sought to challenge both global imperialism and clerical hegemony of Islam. It echoed the Catholic liberation theology that was gaining currency in South America. Shariati contrasted his Red Shiism to “Black Shiism” that denoted clergy and the Ayatollahs. Iran at the time was led by Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi who was a modernising autocrat. Despite his many praiseworthy reforms, Pahlavi’s modern Iran created sharp divisions between the haves and the have-nots. He encountered opposition from intellectuals like Shariati as well as more dogged religious opposition in the form of Khomeini and his clerics. Like any autocrat, Shah’s instinct was to crush all opposition. Shariati himself died in mysterious circumstances while being treated abroad. He was only 43 at the time. His death created a vacuum that ultimately led to Khomeini’s takeover of the movement.

While Shariati’s ideas were revolutionary within the Shia context, they nevertheless remained wedded to Islamic political ideal. Here is where much of the nuance is lost. Shariati is projected by Iran as the foremost theorist of the principle of Villayet-e-Faqih based on lectures where he seemed to argue that the differences between Islamic democracy and western democracy were based on the former’s subservience to the ideology of the 12th Imam, said to be in hiding. The larger context of his message, the need to embrace modernity and humanity, and the need for ijtihad (independent thinking) are conveniently sidestepped. Like Iqbal, Shariati had accepted a meta-system in which to operate, and which ultimately the religious clergy would dominate. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The reality of the Islamic Republic project tells us a very different story. Iran is a full-blown theocracy where the principle of Villayet-e-Faqih has been taken to its logical conclusion: the tyrannical rule of the mullah (clergy). There is very little room for the reformists to maneuver. There was much enthusiasm about President Khatami’s modernist regime at the turn of the century, but it ended with the election of President Ahmadinejad’s reactionary and conservative government. Now President Rouhani is attempting to integrate Iran with the world, but here too Iran will go only as far as its Supreme Leader Khamanei will allow it to go. Meanwhile, women are still forced to cover their heads. People are still stoned to death for adultery. The Bahais, a distinct religious group, are still persecuted as heretics in Iran. Intellectuals and activists like Shirin Ebadi are still driven out of the country.

Across the border, the Islamic Republic project has hardly fared better. Pakistan, no doubt, has been lucky to have evaded direct rule of the clergy, but our record of persecuting minorities, especially forced minorities like Ahmadis, is virtually indistinguishable from Iran’s treatment of Bahais. Women are not forced to cover their heads in Pakistan, and promised equality in the constitution, but for all practical purposes women in the country remain second-class citizens. Iqbal’s ideas of ijtihad seem as hollow now as Shariati’s Red Shiism when the whole system is held hostage by clerics, who though not in power directly in Pakistan, dictate terms through constitutional institutions such as the Council of Islamic Ideology and the Federal Shariat Court. Pakistan post 1973 and Iran post 1979 should serve as stark reminders for what happens when you play with fire — the attempt to synthesise Islam with political ideals. Erdogan in Turkey is walking the same perilous and reckless path these days. May God help Turkey!

The panacea of these ills in the Muslim world is separation of religion from the state. Religion should not be the business of the state. Political theories that accept the Islamic meta-system, no matter how well intentioned, ultimately lead to theocracies that distort the meaning of religion, and in the process make it a tool of oppression. Ali Shariati was a great intellectual, as was Iqbal before him, but their ideas have failed, and only by frankly admitting their failure can we proceed towards securing a better and more hopeful future in the Muslim world.

The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore and the author of the book Mr Jinnah: Myth and Reality. He can be contacted via twitter @therealylh and through his email address yasser.hamdani@gmail.com