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Abbas Manoochehri

Critical Religious Reason

Ali Shari'ati on Religion, Philosophy and Emancipation

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1. Introduction 2. Critique of Tradition and Modernity   2.1 Tradition     2.1.1 Religion, Reason and Morality     2.1.2 Religion Against Religion     2.1.3 Dialectics of Man and History     2.1.4 From Onto-Theology to Critical Social Ontology   2.2 Modernity     2.2.1 On Humanism     2.2.2 Machinism     2.2.3 Modernization and Civilization 3. Beyond Reified Tradition and Dominant Modernity   3.1 Mysticism   3.2 Equality   3.3 Freedom   3.4 A Synthesis   3.5 Constructive Erfan 4. Religion, Humanism and Emancipation 5. Conclusion Bibliography Notes

		Mohammad Reza Sarkeshik: Ali Shariati. Portal Iran Chamber Society: Iranian Personalities: Ali Shariati. Biography Ali Rahnema: An Islamic Utopian. A Political Biography of Ali Shariati. Introduction Laila Juma: Remembering the contribution of Shaheed Ali Shari'ati. Introduction A Shi'ite Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia Al-Islam: Ahlul Bayt Digital Islamic Library Project. Portal	1	During the past few decades, Ali Shari'ati's 1 thought has been approached from different angles. Ervand Abrahamian has analysed Shari'ati's ideas in relation to the emergence of the new Islamic thought. He has treated Shari'ati extensively in his book Iran Between Two Revolutions. According to Abrahamian, Shari'ati has tried to reorient the younger generation of Iranians towards the teachings of Islam by applying western methodological tools borrowed from the social sciences. In this regard, Abrahamian attempts to clarify the relationship between Shari'ati's teachings and Marxism (Abrahamian 1982).
			2	Shari'ati has also been studied in the context of general Islamic thought. In his book Islam and Modernity Fazlur Rahman argues that Shari'ati is one of the major thinkers in modern Islamic history. Shari'ati, however, ads Rahman, is a member of the movement that has undertaken the second attempt to modernize Islam; the first attempt having been made in the time of Al-Ghazali (11th century CE). Rahman's theory is that these two strands of modernization in Islam have been efforts to form new ways of educating the Muslim community. The significance of the second strand, according to Rahman, is challenging the established Islamic teachings that have made Islamic thought »stand on its head« (Rahman 1982, 109). Also, in a recent work, called An Islamic Utopian, Ali Rahnama refers to Shari'ati as a thinker »who sought a union of opposites« between Islam and Modernity (Rahnama 1998, ix).
			3	The purpose of my considerations on Shari'ati's thought is to introduce one of its most novel aspects, namely his dialogue with modern secular thought from a religious standpoint. By considering the content of his published works, Shari'ati can be characterised as a modern critical Islamist. Although every one of the three elements in this characterization is a fruitful interpretative approach in its own right, yet each one is valid only in its association and dynamic interaction with the other two. Therefore, it is the totality of this triad that is meaningful and not each individual element separate from such totality. As an Islamic thinker, Shari'ati understood Islam as a source of individual self-discovery and social emancipation. He, on the other hand, relates to problems such as ›machinism‹ and human alienation, which are essentially modern in origin. Also, by critical notions such as »religion against religion«, es'tehmar (acculturation) and assimilation he has presented a critical view of both ›tradition‹ and ›modernity‹. As an alternative vision, however, he has presented constructive erfan as a synthesis of equality, liberty and mysticism.

		Al-Tawhid: A Quarterly Journal of Islamic Thought and Culture. Journal M.M. Sharif (ed.): A History of Muslim Philosophy. Book	26	According to Shari'ati a similar »curve« can be observed in the history of religion. The first historical form of the religious view was a primitive form of oneness (tawhid, unity). Such a religious perspective was by its nature in harmony with the objective characteristics of a social formation, namely, communalism. However, with the emergence of private ownership and with the development of a hierarchical-social structure, a polytheistic world-view began to emerge to justify the objective tazad (contradiction) within the social formation of private ownership. In other words, the historical sources of polytheism were concrete socio historical developments that were subsequently reflected on the theological level:
			27	Social objectivity created religious subjectivity in order to let the latter manifest itself as the creator of the former. This is how the hierarchy which was imposed in the existential world created a polytheistic world-view to explain the intrinsic hierarchy in the social system. (CW XVI, 30)
			28	The first historical challenge to polytheism was the Abrahamic monotheism (tawhid). Abrahamic monotheism was not a response to atheism, but a challenge against polytheism, which had emerged with the appearance of private ownership and the ascendancy of the historical Cain. Polytheism, then, is the religion of social stratification. Monotheism, therefore, is not the beginning of religion, but its reorientation. The struggle between monotheism and polytheism is not a theological dispute but a challenge to polytheistic social formation (class domination, racism, etc.) Unlike monotheism (tawhid), which is rooted in ittehad (solidarity, oneness), polytheism was rooted in domination of some by others.
			29	As a monotheistic world view, tawhid rejects the division of the world into dichotomous categories like ›natural‹ and ›supernatural‹, ›matter‹ and ›idea‹, ›body‹ and ›spirit‹, or ›this world‹ and ›the other‹. tawhid is the negation of all dichotomies, in both the celestial and the social plane. Celestially, it is a living totality in process toward unity; socially, it is the foundation for unity and harmony in human relations. tawhid, then, is the negation of all forms of antagonisms. Since domination is anti-unity and tawhid is anti-domination, the social expression of tawhid is a dialectic of unity.
			30	Tawhid, in its social and historical expression, is the struggle for human emancipation from the historic dialectic of deception, a deception rooted in the projection of historical-social stratification on ontology. For, in its original form, the human community was a harmonious partnership, an expression of celestial harmony. At this stage, social reality reflected the ontological foundations of the existential world.
			31	Therefore, there has always been a struggle in history between the oppressed family of Abel, the Mustazafin (the oppressed), and the oppressive clan of Cain, the Mustakberin (the oppressors), historically symbolized in the trinity of wealth, power, and hypocrisy. It has been out of this contradiction (tazad) that the Abrahamic tawhid (unity) has emerged as the negation of the oppressive domination of Cain.

		Ali Shari'ati: The Free Man and Freedom of the Man. Article Reflections of Humanity. Article Where Shall we Begin? Article	33	Shari'ati highlights the main premises of modern humanism by identifying their intellectual foundations in Greek mythology. He believes that Greek mythology emanated from a certain historical experience of man in confrontation with non-human forces. Since these forces had been given divine attributes, human bondage was perceived as the work of anti-human gods:
			34	Of course, such a bond of enmity between men and gods was altogether natural and logical to the Greek myths; and from a certain point of view even proper and progressive. Since gods in these myths constitute archetypes and expressions of natural forces … The war between gods and men was in reality the latter's war against dominance of the physical forces that rule over human life, his will, and his fate … (1982a, 18)
			35	This mythological treatment of the human predicament, Shari'ati says, led to an anthropocentric view of the universe, a view in which man himself has become the basis for moral and aesthetic judgements. Greek humanism,
			36	through its denial of gods, disbelief in their rule, and severance of the bond between man and heaven, struggled to arrive at an anthropocentric universe, to make man the touchstone of truth and falsity, to take the human form as the criterion of beauty, and to assign importance to the components of life that enhance human power and pleasure. (Ibid., 19)
			37	Another historical reason which contributed to the formulation of this world view was Catholicism in the Middle Ages which:
			38	set Christianity (regarded as religion per se) at odds with humanity: it maintained the same opposition between heaven and earth that had obtained in ancient Greece and Rome; and, with its Greek-style exegeses of original sin and man's expulsion from paradise, it represented man as helplessly condemned because of divine displeasure to an inferior world, and declared him to be an abject, reprehensible, and weak sinner. (Ibid., 26)
			39	Therefore, with the philosophical standpoint of the Church and the Greek mythological heritage in mind, the new intellectual movements in early modern Europe took the road of secular humanism. By doing so, modern humanists committed a grave mistake. Secular humanism has developed its view in opposition to the ›historical‹ rather than the original, ›human‹ religion. Modern humanists, Shari'ati says, have equated »the mythical world of ancient Greece« with the original world of the Abrahamic heritage. Whereas in contradistinction with Greek mythology, in which the relation between man and gods required human bondage and suffering, in the Abrahamic tawhid the relation between humanity and the sublime is that of a dynamic process of love and emancipation.

		Jalal al Haqq: Epistemology of Prophethood in Islam. In: Al-Tawhid 4.1/2. Article Muhammad Legenhausen: The Relationship between Philosophy and Theology in the Postmodern Age. In: Al-Tawhid 14.1. Article	50	Mysticism, Shari'ati believes, has always existed in both the East and the West. The reason for identifying mysticism with the East, he argues, is that advanced civilizations, and certainly the social order of domination, first arose in the East, »the birthplace of thought, culture, and the great religions«. Therefore, mysticism must also, as a matter of course, have had its beginning there (cf. CW II, 62). Mysticism, Shari'ati says, arises:
			51	from the essential nature of man. The most general meaning of the word ›mysticism‹ is the inner sense of apprehension people have while they are here in the world of nature. (Ibid., 50)
			52	Although it can provide man with spiritual sensitivity and sublime psychological and spiritual values, nevertheless, mysticism, blinds man to the disastrous conditions around him:
			53	Outside the wall of [the mystic's] place of retreat, oppression, disaster, poverty, shameful acts, ignorance, corruption, and decadence are dishonoring all the spiritual values of man. [Of these, the mystic] never becomes aware. (Ibid., 62)
			54	Shari'ati has further argued that aside from the essential weaknesses in mysticism itself, its historical transformation into established religions has in fact betrayed even the good that it contains. ›Eastern mysticism‹, Shari'ati argues,
			55	was later to enter religion, which gradually assumed the form of an ecclesiastical establishment and gave rise to a new class. As a part of the ruling class, it formed social ties with the other elements of that class. The unfortunate consequence was that religion and mysticism were transformed into a superstitious justification for the exploitation of the people by the ruling class, and also into an enemy of human growth, the growth of man's primordial nature. Mysticism became a shackle on the foot of the spiritual and material evolution of mankind. (Ibid., 52)
			56	[Such a religion] actually separates man from his own humanity. It makes him into an importunate beggar, a slave of unseen forces beyond his power; it deposes him and alienates him from his own will. It is this established religion that today we are familiar with. (Ibid., 60)

		Allamah Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i: Islam and the Modern Age. In: Al-Tawhid 1.2. Article Sayyid Muhammad Rida Hijaz: The Concept of Love in the Shi'i Creed. In: Al-Tawhid 11.1/2. Article	63	Existentialism has sought human freedom by rejecting all gods, earthly and heavenly alike. The essence of existentialism is to reject all bases for human choice outside man's own self. Freedom of choice is the founding principle of existentialism. Religion, argues an atheist existentialist, looks to God for what it seeks, whereas socialism gives legitimacy to the state (and the collectivism) for determining right and wrong, hence, both negate the authenticity and freedom of man. Existentialism, on the other hand, tells man that:
			64	choice and freedom are yours unconditionally. All values exist when this freedom exists. However, should this freedom be taken away from you, these values would cease to be, you would become a slave to other powers: God or the state. (Ibid., 111)
			65	With its rejection of both socialism and religion, therefore, existentialism gives man absolute freedom in choosing his own destiny. But, Shari'ati adds, if both the collective sense of choice and the transcendental basis of existence are rejected, then what is to stop a hedonistic form of self-fulfilment. Such a choice produces precisely those social consequences which existentialism was intended to challenge and provide an answer for. In order to reach its goals this philosophy would need an ethical ground which would justify altruistic action. Indeed, contemporary existentialist schools of thought are by their nature unable to provide such an axiology:
			66	Existentialism, however much it may turn on the primacy of man and human freedom, … leaves man suspended in midair … Existentialism lacks a basis on which to answer my questions. Now I am bent on a course of action where I may either sacrifice myself to the people or sacrifice the people to myself … (Ibid.)

		Martyr Murtada Mutahhari: Introduction to 'Irfan. In: Al-Tawhid 4.1. Article Muhammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi: Islamic Gnosis ('Irfan) and Wisdom (Hikmat). In: Al-Tawhid 14.3. Article Sayyid Wahid Akhtar: The Islamic Concept of Knowledge. In: Al-Tawhid 12.3. Article	70	In search of existential self-realization and social harmony, Shari'ati has tried to find a way of possible unity between the liberating principles of authentic religion with the modern ideals of equality and freedom. Such effort can perhaps been categorized under the title of constructive erfan. Erfan is an existential self-awareness, a way of relating to tawhid, and of experiencing tawhid at a personal level.
			71	[Erfan] in the most general sense, is that inner sense of apprehension people have while in the world of nature. Man qua man experiences needs that nature can no longer satisfy … That is what produces a lack, a sense of alienation and exile in us while we are in this world … Erfan is a manifestation of the primordial nature of man and it exists as a means of journeying to the ›unseen‹. It is the mystical sense that endows man, with excellence and nobility; the more highly developed a person is, the stronger this need, this thirst, becomes. (1982a, 26)
			72	Erfan, then, is an existential force which enables man to inwardly transcend whatever forces are surrounding him. In fact, contrary to the materialists belief:
			73	that man's propensity for the unseen degrades him – we might say that man's propensity for what actually exists degrades him. By pursuing values that do not exist in nature, he is lifted above nature and the spiritual and essential development of the species is secured. Erfan is thus a lantern shining within humanity. (CW II, 64)
			74	Shari'ati then characterizes the erfanic sense of relation to the Divine and also to the social other as love:
			75	Love is a power that has an unknowable source and can inflame and melt all of my existence; it even impels me to self-denial. Love grants me values higher and more sublime than expedience; and no physical, material, or biochemical account can comprehend it. If love were taken away from man, he would become an isolated, stagnant being, useful only to the systems of production. (1982a, 112)
			76	Erfan, therefore, is that current which manifests the human pursuit of happiness through a purely spiritual and ontologically transcendental self-awareness in the world. As such erfan is an emancipatory theistic humanism. This is a philosophy of existence in which individual self-awareness and the social sense of practical responsibility for human liberation are harmoniously embodied. Emanating from the world view of tawhid, erfanic humanism puts God, man, and nature in a meaningful and dynamic harmony with each other. Constructive erfan is a transcendental insight that retains the concreteness of the individual self as an essential element. This insight involves an inherently dialectical interaction between the human self and the Divine Other. In this interaction there is a dialectical process of simultaneous reduction/elevation. The Divine Other is related to from the human standpoint (reduction); meanwhile the individual human being is enabled to transcend the confining constraints of his life-situation (elevation). The most immediate and essentially fruitful outcome of such a process is the formation of a critical attitude that can focus on the surrounding problems of life while having the transcendental ability to subject those problems to profound questioning and critique. By pursuing ethical unity with the Divine Other (tawhid), the individual comes to confront domination in all its various forms. As such, this perspective is seriously oriented towards fundamental social change; hence it is constructive.

		Mehrzad Boroujerdi: Iranian Islam and the Faustian Bargain of Western Modernity. In: Journal of Peace Research 34.1 (1997). Article Can Islam be Secularized? In: M.R. Ghanoonparvar / Faridoun Farrokh (eds.): In Transition: Essays on Culture and Identity in the Middle Eastern Society. Laredo: Texas A&M International University, 1994. Article Lamin Sanneh: Between East and West: Confrontation and Encounter. In: The Christian Century (13 November l99l). Article	77	According to the vision presented by Shari'ati, religion, as ethical awareness, allows man to move from the »instinctive heaven« to the »promised paradise«, to ascend (me'raj) from an earthly to a divine being. Such an ascent is in fact an existential responsibility, a Divine Trust (lmana) imposed on man. Such characteristic is the core of what Shari'ati calls Islamic Humanism. As such:
			78	Islam bases its divine humanism on tawhid; on the scientific level it defines man as of the earth while on the level of existential analysis it raises him from dust toward God and absolute transcendental values. (Ibid., 85)
			79	Based upon such a conception of human existence, and deriving his ideas from the notion of the »forbidden fruit of awareness«, Shari'ati introduces his view of Islamic humanism. According to him, human authenticity is rooted in »the pain of existence«, a pain that is the outcome of human awareness:
			80	To the degree that one attains this fruit, one finds oneself more and more contained by the earthly life. It is out of this pain and the need for that which is ›absent‹ that man comes to rebel against the ›will of God‹, the will that is manifested, through the ›four prisons of man‹ in the natural, historical, social, and physiological laws. (CW XXXII, 16)
			81	Human revolt against these »prisons« would ultimately lead man to unity with God. As man frees himself more and more from these »prisons«, the world declines more and more for him. Transcending these »prisons« creates higher and more sublime needs, needs which in man's loneliness would be met only in his return (tawba) to God, a ›return‹ which is the realization of man's becoming. The Quranic humanism, hence:
			82	resembles a reciprocal relationship between God and man. A relationship which accounts values as the emanation of divine attributes in the human sphere and defines man's self perfection as the self aware return to God. We see that in the philosophy of Islam … self-knowledge and knowledge of God come to be synonymous, where the former functions as a preliminary to the latter; as the Iranian Aref [Bayazid Bastami] puts it in a profound remark: For years I sought God and found myself; now that I seek myself, I find God. So, quite to the contrary [of the materialist philosophy of Feuerbach], it is not humanity that has made God, reposed its proper values in Him, and worships Him; it is rather God Who has made humanity, reposed His proper values in it, and praises it. (Ibid., 88)
			83	Such a perspective, Shari'ati then notes, stands in opposition to both materialist and providentialist determinism. While it avoids materialist determinism by conceiving of free will as an essential facet of human existence, it simultaneously remains free from providencialism by attributing to man the character of rebellion. In explaining these dimensions of Islamic humanism, Shari'ati argues that in Islam:
			84	The society possesses ordering principles, and the continuous evolutionary movement of human history is based upon scientific laws. But because it considers the human will to be a manifestation of the universal will of being (and not an unwitting product of the exigencies of production or of society), Islam never hurls into the terrible pit of materialistic determinism. Likewise, by proclaiming the principle of ›assignation‹ or ›descent‹ [huboot], it frees mankind from the bond of divine determinism in which the Eastern religions are caught. … In this way, by presenting man as an aware being possessed of a will and freed from the captivity of heaven and earth alike, [Islam] arrives at true humanism. (Ibid., 85 and 90)
			85	Therefore, in Islam, Shari'ati adds, man carries the divine responsibility of making his own self and the world as an ontological axio-praxis. (Ibid., 88-89)

Bibliography

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Notes

1

Ali Shari'ati was born in 1933 and was raised in a highly enlightened atmosphere. His parents and the political milieu in which he grew up contributed substantively to his unconventional education. His father was known for his open criticism of the government and in 1953 was along with him imprisoned for political activities against the Shah's government. In 1959, after finishing his studies on Near Eastern Languages, Shari'ati received a scholarship and went abroad. At Sorbonne he studied philology and sociology and was politically active during his five-year stay in France. During the Algerian war, he was imprisoned in Paris for his collaboration with the Algerian revolutionaries. Upon his return to Iran in 1963, he encountered problems with the government for his past political activities. He nevertheless continued his activities by teaching and co-operating with the underground revolutionary movements.
Having strong convictions as to the value of direct communication with his audience, and having a personal sense about his »time-limit«, Shari'ati presented his ideas almost entirely through lectures to university students both in classroom and in mostly student sponsored forums. These lectures, along with two books and a few hand-written pieces are now compiled in a collection of 35 volumes.
In 1976 Shari'ati was imprisoned for eighteen months and was brutally tortured. After an international campaign he was released, but in a few months died mysteriously in exile.

2

All Collected Works (=CW) are in Farsi (Persian) and the references are translation into English.

3

Shari'ati has not made any reference in this regard to Hegel's notions of Sittlichkeit and Moralität.

4

Such a conception of morality seems to be reminiscent of Kohlberg's theory of moral development.

5

It is important to note that Shari'ati, according to the Qur'anic view, conceives of the Abrahamic religion as one religion. Islam is the name for this religion and not one among several.

6

In his views regarding »machinism«, Shari'ati is profoundly affected by Herbert Marcuse.

Author

Prof. Dr. Abbas Manoochehri
International Center for Dialogue Among Civilizations
Political Science Department
Farmaniye Ave. Ziba Station
Tehran
Iran
amanoocheri@yahoo.com