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Ali Shariati

1933–1977

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Shia Islam, read as a religion of justice and protest, can liberate people from Western domination better than Marxism can.

Placement

Philosophy in the Islamic World · West Asia & North Africa · Politics & Law, Religion, Society & History

Iranian thinker educated in Paris: a revolutionary Shiism as “return to the self” against Western domination – in dialogue with Fanon and critical of Marxism.

Key ideas

  • Return to the self
  • Religion against religion
  • Islam as liberation

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Influence

Influenced by 2

  • Muhammad Iqbal

    influenced by

    Shariati presented Iqbal as a model Muslim reformer who joined faith, mysticism and political commitment, in lectures collected as We and Iqbal (Ma va Iqbal). A. Shariati, Ma va Iqbal; A. Shariati, Iqbal: Manifestation of the Islamic Spirit (tr. 1991)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Muhammad Iqbal › 1877–1938

  • Frantz Fanon

    influenced by

    Shariati read Fanon in Paris and, according to Abrahamian, wrote to him that the colonised must first regain their cultural identity; his role as Fanon’s translator is disputed. E. Abrahamian, “Ali Shariati: Ideologue of the Iranian Revolution”, MERIP Reports 102 (1982); A. Rahnema, An Islamic Utopian (1998); E. Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, “Who Translated Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth into Persian?”, Jadaliyya

    Evidence: AI draft

    Frantz Fanon › 1925–1961

Influenced 1

  • Raewyn Connell

    influenced

    In Southern Theory (2007) Connell discussed Shariati’s call for a ‘return to the self’ against Western domination as one Iranian source for a social science beyond the metropole. R. Connell, Southern Theory: The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science (2007); A. Shariati, On the Sociology of Islam, trans. H. Algar (1979)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Raewyn Connell › b. 1944

Criticism

Criticized by 1

  • Abdolkarim Soroush

    criticised by

    Soroush criticised Shariati’s turning of Islam into a revolutionary ideology, arguing that religion is richer than any ideology (‘Loftier than Ideology’, 1994). ʿA. Soroush, Farbehtar az ideolozhi, 1994; Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam, tr. M. Sadri & A. Sadri, 2000

    Evidence: AI draft

    Abdolkarim Soroush › b. 1945

Criticizes 1

  • Karl Marx influenced by

    influenced by

    Shariati borrowed Marxist class analysis and the concept of alienation to recast Shiism as a revolutionary ideology of the oppressed, while rejecting Marxist materialism. E. Abrahamian, “Ali Shariati: Ideologue of the Iranian Revolution”, MERIP Reports 102 (1982); A. Rahnema, An Islamic Utopian (1998)

    Evidence: AI draft

    criticised

    Shariati criticised Marxism as a materialism that reduces the human being to economics, while taking up its language of class struggle for a revolutionary Shiism. ʿAlī Sharīʿatī, Marxism and Other Western Fallacies, tr. R. Campbell, 1980; E. Abrahamian, ‘Ali Shariati: Ideologue of the Iranian Revolution’, MERIP Reports 102, 1982

    Evidence: AI draft

    Karl Marx › 1818–1883

Position

Shariati wanted to turn Shiism from a quietist tradition into an ideology of liberation. Against Westernization he called for a “return to the self” – to Iran’s living Islamic culture. He set the revolutionary “Alavid Shiism” of Ali and Husayn against the “Safavid Shiism” of clerics allied with power: religion against religion. Drawing on Fanon, he used Marxist class analysis yet rejected Marxism’s materialism and determinism. The committed intellectual, not the cleric, was to awaken the people. His ideas inspired many young revolutionaries of 1979; conservative clerics attacked him, and his idea of a “guided” transitional leadership has been criticized as authoritarian.

Life & context

Ali Shariati was born in 1933 near Sabzevar in Khorasan, the son of a religious reformer in Mashhad. Arrested in 1957 as a Mosaddegh supporter, he studied in Paris (1959–1964), earning a doctorate in Persian philology and attending sociology lectures. His lectures at Tehran’s Hosseiniyeh Ershad drew huge crowds until its closure in 1972. Imprisoned 1973–1975, he left for England in 1977 and died there weeks later.

Main works

  • Religion versus Religion (Mazhab ʿalayh-i mazhab, lectures, early 1970s)
  • Alavid Shiʿism and Safavid Shiʿism (Tashayyuʿ-i ʿAlavi va tashayyuʿ-i Safavi, lectures, early 1970s)
  • Return to the Self (Bazgasht bih khwishtan, lectures, 1970s)

Sources: Wikipedia · Wikidata

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