"Religiously-motivated secularism"?

Nadia_H · May 11, 2003, 4:27am

Most individuals are familiar with Karen Armstrong. Some of her books include, The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism, The History of God, Islam: A Short History and Jerusalem. Bill Moyers of PBS described her as “one of the world’s foremost students of religion”. i think she was also interviewed on PBS’s Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet.

She wrote this interesting article in the Guardian. i am afraid i am not extremely familiar with the history referred to in her article - there are excerpts in this article that i am confused about. Excerpts are posted below, i would love a non-hostile, serious discussion about this issue.

If you are in the mood to bash a particular sect/belief/political event, i would be deeply obliged if you would take it to another thread which you can open yourself. Please don’t mess up this thread with any bickerings or arguments. Muchas gracias in advance.

…] Shi’ism has always had revolutionary potential, but the Kerbala paradigm also inspired what one might call a religiously motivated secularism. Long before western philosophers called for the separation of church and state, Shias had privatised faith, convinced that it was impossible to integrate the religious imperative with the grim world of politics that seemed murderously antagonistic to it. This insight was borne out by the tragic fate of all the Shia imams, the descendants of Ali: every single one was imprisoned, exiled or executed by the caliphs, who could not tolerate this principled challenge to their rule. By the eighth century, most Shias held aloof from politics, concentrated on the mystical interpretation of scripture, and regarded any government - even one that was avowedly Islamic - as illegitimate.

The separation of religion and politics remains deeply embedded in the Shia psyche. It springs not simply from malaise, but from a divine discontent with the state of the Muslim community. Even in Iran, which became a Shia country in the early 16th century, the ulama (the religious scholars) refused public office, adopted an oppositional stance to the state, and formed an alternative establishment that - implicitly or explicitly - challenged the shahs on behalf of the people.

In his opposition to Shah Reza Pahlavi’s brutal dictatorship, Ayatollah Khomeini was thus a typical figure, though in declaring that a mullah should be head of state he was breaking with centuries of sacred Shia tradition. Yet at the end of his life, even Khomeini insisted that government must be emancipated from the constraining laws of traditional religion. The experience of running a modern state had convinced him of the wisdom of Shia “secularism”.

It would be a mistake to imagine that Shias are reflexively opposed to modern, western ideals. In 1906, leading mullahs in Iran campaigned alongside secularist intellectuals for a modern constitution on European lines, and parliamentary rule. Because representative government would limit the tyranny of the shahs, it was a project worthy of the Shia. Today, 25 years after the revolution, Iran has moved beyond Khomeini. It has a freer press than any of its Arab neighbours. The conservative clerics whose ideas were forged in the 1950s seem increasingly irrelevant to the young, who want Iran to remain a religious country, and are proud to be Shia, but support President Khatami in his demand for greater democracy. Abdolkarim Sorush, the chief intellectual of Iran, argues that every Iranian has three identities: Shia, Persian and western.

The US administration has recently spoken darkly of Iranian “agents” infiltrating Iraq to spread revolutionary Islam. One of the Shia movements in Iraq, the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution, was indeed founded in Tehran in 1982 as an umbrella organisation for all Iraqi Shia opposition groups. But it never fulfilled this function, since Iraqi Shias resist Iranian control. Today Iraqi clerics, who were in exile in Iran, are now returning home. They have had enough of Iranian-style theocracy, and are reverting to traditional Shia “secularism”.

Article in its entirety accessible here.

Rhia · May 12, 2003, 5:45pm

Interesting. :)

A nice twist even though religiously motivated secularism might be an oxymoron. IMO its not so much of religiously inspired secularism as it is traditional ‘apoliticism’, i.e. being apolitical.

The author is right in saying that the traditional Shia clergy has been generally, although not always apolitical. In fact in the 60-70s when Ayatollah Khomeini began his public opposition of Shah's policies, he had to face the opposition of many prominent Shia clerics simply because as always they thought that politics was unjust and dishonest and therefore clerics shouldn't have anything to do with it. This despite the fact that they were being systematically targeted by Shah's SAVAK (Israeli-trained and American armed).

Not many people are aware of Ayatollah Khomeini's 'failed' revolution in 1963 after which he was forced to leave Iran and live in exile. Probably the main contributing factor was that he did not have the much needed broad based support at that time. The mass revolution in 1979 came about in part due circumstances such as the earlier CIA coup of the democratically elected goverment of Dr Mosaddeq (due to oil control- I'm suddenly engulfed by state of de ja vu!!), thus the anti US sentiments and partly due to a revolution in traditional thinking of the Ulema.

I think the last paragraph is a bit oversimplistic. Although the Iraqi Howza of Najaf al Ashraf and that of Qom (Iran) has been fairly synonomous, I think the Iraqi's realise there is no need to establish the Irani model in its entirety, eg I don't think they'll want to impose a dress code etc. I think Iraqi's think that democracy with Islamic ethos (Islamic democracy) is possible and that is as far from secularism as it gets. But I agree with the author here, they should be given a chance to try it out.

Zakk · May 12, 2003, 6:23pm

I got my hands on Bernard Lewis's new book, an interesting read. I don't agree with many of the things written and it is disappointing that Muslim Islamic scholars have not attempted to project a Muslim view point of view when interest in Islam is at record levels.

Anyway Nadia..Shia's Imam'at , style of governance in contrast to the Consensus driven style of the sunni's is a form of separation of state from religion. The Islamic Revolutionary Council of Iran emulates that, the catch is the Council is supreme over the Legislative body and controls appointments.

Rhia · May 12, 2003, 9:15pm

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Zakk: *
Anyway Nadia..Shia's Imam'at , style of governance in contrast to the Consensus driven style of the sunni's is a form of separation of state from religion.
[/QUOTE]

Can you explain that please? How is the imamia style of governance a form of separation of state and religion?

I'm getting quite an insight into new stuff here :)

Just to point out, I don't think there is a specific format as such for a Shia governance. Any sort of just government, serving the people based upon Islamic principles suffices.

Imamia/Jafari/Ithna Asheri Shia have never believed as far as I know in separation of religion and state. In fact historically political opposition has always been because Shias believe the right of Khilafat or Leadership after the Prophet (pbuh) belongs only to the Imams, the divinely chosen representatives of God. Even today the Iranian constitution 'testifies' to this and has a special article stating the Government is being administered as a trust of the twelfth Imam, Imam Mahdi (as).

Nadia_H · May 13, 2003, 2:15am

:love: Thank you, you two. This is so interesting. Finally - a non-argumentative discussion in this Forum that i am excited about :k:

Thank you, Rhia and Zakk, so much for sharing your thoughts. Much appreciated.

i don’t really have any queries - for the simple reason that i am afraid i don’t know much about this issue and would rather just read at this point. This is a part of history i have only really become to ‘understand’ in the past several months, so i am afraid i am extremely ignorant about this whole issue.

Thanks so much for your comments, both of you, as well as for keeping the tone non-angry and respectful Much appreciated.

eemo · May 13, 2003, 9:58pm

salaam,

attempting to continue on the non-grr theme.

The article written by Karen here is part of the media campaign for what is the "islamic revival" to occur under the banner of pluralism i.e the capitalist ideology in iraq.

I really wouldnt read into the secularism side of things. The facts stated are merely to provoke thoughts and emotions in the ummah about the upsurgence of an islamic state in iraq.

With the current hatred towards US, its understandable that the muslims in iraq would desire to choose leaders of their own.
The US's only way to do this is to provide them with "suitable" leaders i.e the imams from the sects of Shia, and a place in the civil authorites for the other parties eg The Kurds, while making sure that their political objectives are secured.

I realise ive gone onto the political side of things, but thats exactly what that article is there for, its not to serve purpose to highlight the existence of secularism in islam, only to purport the objectives for iraq.

open to constructive criticism here and btw yes this is my opinion and NO im not an affiliate of khilafah.com :P

Rhia · May 14, 2003, 10:39am

This is what I thought too but it was a really neat twist . I think it is more political article (i would agree with your opinion) than a ‘religious’ one, as its summed up in the last para. But I guess Nadia wanted to discuss the idea of religiously motivated secularism as opposed to the political side of it (please correct me if i’m wrong nadia). And to my mind, I think this idea doesn’t exist. Not in the Shia faith anyway. As I mentioned before it has been more apoliticism than secularism but now they think they’ve got a chance, I think the apoliticism will end too.