Who Is He Read online

  Ali Shariati

  Ali Shariati: Who is he?

  Laleh Bakhtiar

  Abjad Book Designers and Builders

  Contents

  Foreword

  Preface

  Who was Ali Shariati?

  1. Final Migration

  2. From Mazinan to France

  3. To France and Back

  4. From the City of Martyrdom to the Husayniyah

  5. From the Husayniyah to the Zaynabiyah

  The Husayniyah

  “This was not a dream. . . ”

  And that of the unknown heroes . . .

  Does God not know?

  Tomorrow’s Social Movement

  The Islam of Tomorrow

  The Husayniyah is a Movement

  The Final Journey

  6. Epilogue

  Appendices:

  A. Guide to the Volume Titles of Shariati’s Collected Works

  1. Volume Titles

  2. Detailed Guide to Contents of the Volumes of the Collected Works

  B. Indices to the Collected Works

  1. Alphabetical Index to the Translated Volume Titles of the Collected Works

  2. Alphabetical Index to the Transliterated Volume Titles of the Collected Works

  3. Alphabetical Index to the Translated Lecture Titles in the Collected Works

  4. Alphabetical Index to the Transliterated Lecture Titles in the Collected Works

  5. Chronology of Shariati’s Lectures from the Fall 1968-Fall 1972

  C. Works by Laleh Bakhtiar, Ph. D.

  Foreword

  ‘Am I not (alast) your Lord,’ (asked God, and) replied they, ‘Yea! We do bear witness.’ (7:174). This formed the initial covenant (ahd) of man with God. Through it, man inherited the heavens and the earth and in return for God’s promise of a Saviour and a Final Day, man assumed a responsibility to care for that which was entrusted to humanity.

  The human being who recalls the acceptance of the covenant, who assumes the responsibility, one ‘who has made the promise’ is known as one who is ‘committed’, ‘engaged’ (mutahid). In the view of Dr. Ali Shariati, this is the real artist for he or she is committed to the promise given that day and creates in anticipation of God’s promise.

  His point of view serves as an awakening to those who have not comprehended all of the criteria of art, to those who are not aware of the relationship between art and society and to those who think that society is beyond the realm of assistance by an artist. In this school of thought, the artist is bound to the promise and serves as a vehicle for its expression for it is through this expression that humanity continues to remember and recall.

  It is only artists, in his view, who, like the prophets of old, takes the sins of others upon themselves because a ‘real artist’ is attentive, engaged in social action and responsible. Their very attentiveness weighs down the sorrow they bear and builds artists into the form of messengers who, as prophecy was sealed with Muhammad, must remain unfulfilled.

  At the same time that they themselves remain unfulfilled, their art continues to be expressed and to ennoble for one of the major roles that art plays is to ennoble matter. The ‘matter’ of Shariati is humanity, people, the masses. With this in view, the real art of any society is faith and struggle upon this way. Anything less than this is to forget the covenant.

  Islam is centered on Unity and is expressed in art through what has been called ‘unity in multiplicity’, ‘multiplicity in unity’. Can one find a more appropriate symbol of multiplicity than humanity itself, created in the image of the One God, struggling and full of faith as it recalls the covenant by which it bound itself to God?’

  Laleh Bakhtiar

  Editor

  Preface

  ALI SHARIATI (1933-1977), a contemporary Muslim social activist, devoted his life to paving the way for the return to what he and those who followed him believed to be a non-distorted Islam.

  Ali Shariati left over 15,000 pages of lectures, letters, books and journals which were gathered together, divided into subjects and published from 1976-1986 in Persian in thirty-five volumes called The Collected Works. As comparatively few pages of his works have been translated into English, the almost fifty page English Guide and Indices to the Collected Works, appearing at the end of the present lecture in the Appendices, addresses this need in order to give those interested in Shariati’s ideas and his place in history an understanding of the extent and breadth of his work as well as an insight into his creative abilities which were so strong that the titles themselves call out to be heard.

  The “Index” gives all information heretofore unavailable on each of the titles including date, place where the lecture was given, and the surrounding circumstances, where known. Page numbers are given showing where a lecture can be found in the Persian Collected Works and indication of English translation where relevant.

  There are five additional indices given in the appendices of the Index in order to facilitate access to (1) the translated titles and (2) transliterated titles of the 35 volumes. In the third and fourth indices, every title that appears within the Collected Works (CW) is listed (3) alphabetically in translation and (4) transliteration followed by the number assigned to the work in the “Guide to Shariati’s Collected Works.” The fifth (5) is a list of the Dated Works According to Dates produced during his most prolific period of 1968-1972. Through this one can follow, day by day, the blossoming of the creative energies of this son of Islam and Iran, a man about whom Jean Paul Sartre said, “I have no religion, but if I were to choose one, it would be that of Shariati’s.”

  It is hoped that this work will be viewed as an attempt to give wider scope to Shariati’s ideas and that interested readers will contact the publisher with any information or criticism that they may have. This then can be passed on to other readers. Inshallah.

  Laleh Bakhtiar

  Who was Ali Shariati?

  1.

  Final Migration

  ON THE DAWN of Ali Shariati’s last day in Iran, May 16, 1977, just be­fore his final migration to Europe, he wrote to his beloved father Muhammad Taqi Shariati1 saying:

  “Presently I am preparing for a journey.... I will be gone for one or two months to study and seek treatment. With the Will of God, I shall return. The reason why I did not say good-bye to you was because I knew how you were feeling and how you would worry. Now in these last few minutes in my home and in my country, I kiss your hand. I will await you....

  “....Now that it is near dawn on Monday, after the morning prayer and two or three hours before we leave (turning to the Holy Quran) I asked for guidance from Him in regard to this journey.2 The top of the page said ‘bad’. Shaken, I read the verse and cried in hap­piness. I will record it from a few verses before:

  “Those who believed and emigrated and struggled in the way of God with their wealth and their lives are sublime in their degree with God. And those, they are the ones who are victorious. [9:20].

  And then the verses that first appeared: “O those who believed! What was it with you when was said to you: Move forward in the way of God, you inclined heavily downwards to the earth? Were you so well-pleased with this present life instead of the world to come? But the enjoyment of this present life is not but little compared to the world to come.

  “Unless you move forward, He will punish you with a painful punishment and will have in exchange for you a folk other than you. And you will not injure Him at all. And God is Powerful over everything. If you help him not, then, surely, God helped him when those who were ungrateful drove him out.

  “The second of two, when they were both in the cavern, he says to his companion: Feel no remorse. Truly, God is with us.

  “Then
, God caused His tranquility to descend on him and confirmed him with armies that you see not and made the word of those who were ungrateful the lowest. And the Word of God is Lofty. God is Almighty, Wise.Move forward light and heavy and struggle with your wealth and your lives in the way of God. That is better for you if you had been knowing.” [9:38-41].3

  A little over a month later, on June 19, 1977, Ali Shariati died. According to popular belief, his death was directly and/or indirectly connected to SAVAK.

  Mourning ceremonies were held for him throughout the world as his body was flown to Damascus to be buried beside his beloved Zaynab, whose role he described as ‘greater than martyrdom’ for it was she who carried the message of Imam Husayn to the world and without her, Karbala would have been an event lost in history. To many, he played the same role in contemporary history. His message—greater than martyrdom—was to command good and prevent evil, the very cause for which Imam Husayn set out from Makkah and the beloved Zaynab, from Karbala. So he lived his life in the cause of Imam Husayn, dying, many believe, a martyr on the 3rd of Shaban, the anniversary of the birth of Imam Husayn, having delivered his message as had the beloved Zaynab, beside whom he is buried.

  Many years later, after the victory of the Revolution, his father, Muhammad Taqi Shariati, was in­terviewed4 and asked to describe his son who was born in the environs of Mazinan, a village in north east Iran on November 23, 1933.

  2.

  From Mazinan to France

  HIS FATHER DESCRIBES his son saying, “A quality that he had from early childhood was his love for learn­ing and studying. Even in the fifth and sixth grades of primary school, he would stay up late into the night reading. When one of his eyes developed a spot on it, I be­came very worried. I did not want him to study so much at such an early age. At night, around mid­night, I would go to his room and turn off his light. He would du­tifully pretend to go to bed, and I would leave his room. Many times when I would go to check again, I would see his light was on until 2:00 am and he was still reading.

  “As a child, he had no desire for any of the games children play or toys children play with. He was not even interested in sports. He loved reading and learning. Among the gifts which God the Most High blessed him with were this desire for learning, the strength of his pow­er of deduction and the wealth of his literary talents.”1

  Ali, recalling his relationship with his father, wrote: “My father fashioned the first dimension of my spirit. It was he who first taught me the art of being human. As soon as my mother weaned me, he gave me a taste for freedom, nobility, purity, steadfastness, faith, chastity of soul and independence of heart. It was he who introduced me to his friends—his books. They were my constant and familiar companions from the earliest years of my schooling. I grew up and matured in his library which was, for him, the whole of his life and his family. Many things that otherwise I would have had to learn much later, in adult life, in the course of long experience and at the cost of long-lasting effort and struggle, he gave to me as a gift in my childhood and early youth, simply and spontaneously. My father’s library is now a world full of precious memories for me. I can remember each of his books, even their bindings. I love greatly that good, sacred room which is, for me, the summation of my sweet good, but distant, past.” 2

  His father continued, “All of our family for generations had been ulama. My grandfather was one of the outstanding pupils of Haj Mulla Sabzevari, known as the Seal of Philosophers. Thus, I was, myself, born into such a family of scholars and ulama, and I followed their way. I established the Center for the Propagation of Islamic Truth in the early 1940s in Mashhad when there was a brief spell of freedom after Reza Khan resigned from the monarchy.

  “I had two purposes in mind. One was to activate the people in an organization similar to one established in Tabriz. I began by teaching classes and then we bought a center where we were actively involved in con­fronting Marxism and communism.

  “The other work that we did, which was more difficult, was to con­front the traditionalists whose faith and belief had become inun­dated with superstitions and distortions to the point that the real Is­lam had become transfigured and transformed. It had been changed from a dynamic, moving, active religion of jihad into a reli­gion of indifference in the face of what destiny supposedly had in store. The human being was at the mercy of forces around him.

  “One of the events in history which can best awaken the people to jihad (activity and struggle) is the story of Karbala and the rising of Imam Husayn. You will notice to what extent the message of Imam Husayn has been distorted. The goal of his supporters has simply be­come crying once a year. The people have been told for centuries: Imam Husayn arose to die so we would cry for him and go to heaven!’ Do you see to what extent the truth has been transformed?

  “The first Muharram after I had opened the center, I began by stressing this point: I do not oppose tears and the expression of emo­tions, as you will see. When I narrate the story, I cry more than any­one else. What I object to is making crying and tears the goal for a great movement like that of Imam Husayn.

  “Then I would begin to narrate from the time Imam Husayn left Medinah and went to Makkah, left Makkah and went to lraq, to Karbala, and the time spent in Karbala. I spoke of his sermons, his letters, the conversations he had with various people. I pointed out that in none of those did he indicate we should cry. In his last will and testament written in the first hours there and given to his brother Muhammad Hanifi, in order to prevent the spread of rumors begun by the Umayyids, he said: ‘I did not arise for mutiny or revolt. I arose to command to good and prevent evil,’ and not a com­manding to good or preventing of evil by going down a street and calling out to an oppressor, ‘Do not oppress’ or sitting upon the min­bar and saying, ‘Do not oppress’ or ‘Do not drink wine.’ No. Rather he meant to prevent the evil from which Islamic states are suffering, from the rule of Yazids.

  “Imam Husayn arose to prevent an evil. He arose because the rule was not an Islamic rule. Neither was the rule of Yazid an Islamic rule, nor was that of his father, Muawiyyah. They had transformed Islam. They were not Islamic rulers and had not under­stood Islam in the least bit.

  “Therefore, this great arising, which can revive an entire nation, and enliven a whole nation by calling it to movement and jihad, has been so distorted that it has become exclusively a means to cry. How far this is from fairness. How unfair it is!

  “My son, Ali, was born into a home in which he heard stories like this from the beginning. He heard all aspects of lslam discussed. He would come to the center and attend the classes I gave and natu­rally was very effected. I was sure from the beginning that Ali would choose to study lslam, to come to know Islam and to help oth­ers understand Islam because of his special talents.

  “He was seven when he first went to primary school (Ibn Yamin) and from there to secondary school,” (Ferdowsi High School) “in 1948. It was when he was in high school that he became actively involved in the new Islamic movement through the Center for the Propagation of lslamic Truth. Through his activities, he became fa­miliar with young people and university students. He began writing articles. He also became familiar with the works of the Socialist Movement of Believers-in-God towards which he became most suppor­tative.” 3

  The Socialist Movement of Believers-in-God was a group found­ed as an underground movement in Tehran in 1944-45. This movement was founded by young devoted Muslims. While stressing their belief in the One God and accepting the world view of monothe­ism, they believed that from the economic point of view, the Islamic economic system was, in truth, a kind of socialism and that a revolu­tionary movement was required in which all of the stagnant values of society would be destroyed and a new society formed based upon monotheistic values. Their method was an underground one. The first phase was one of ideological struggle and training people.

  Later a difference of opinion arose between the members as to whether or not the work sho
uld continue underground or openly in support of the movement to nationalize the oil industry led by the Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq. The group which be­lieved in open activities under those conditions separated from this move­ment. It was this group which was later to form the People’s Party of Iran. The other faction of the Socialist Movement of Be­lievers-in-God continued its organizational work and by estab­lishing some open and semi-open groups, it was able to print magazines like Mahd-i-ilm (Cradle of Knowledge) and Danesh-juyan wa danesh-amuzan-i-fars (University and High School Students of Fars Province) without mentioning the association behind them.

  The interview with Muhammad Taqi Shariati continued, “After the first cycle of high school, he had been accepted at a male Teachers Training College (1950). The condition was that a student who graduated would have to work for five years as a teacher in the provincial areas. When he finished the course work, he taught in Ahmadabad which was then outside the city limits of Mashhad.