Chapter VIII
ISLAM AND MODERNISM - III

IMAM RUHOLLAH MUSAVI KHOMEINI [1902-1989]
Imam Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, founder of the Islamic revolution in Iran,  believed in the all-comprehensive nature of the Islamic system and felt that Islam was perfect and had no need to emulate alien ideologies. He called for an independent Muslim outlook by eliminating from the society both Western and Eastern ideologies.

He said that the Quran was not a book of fables but was meant to deal with everything in the world, especially the advancement of humanity. The Quran directed not only the spiritual life of mankind but also its government.

Khomeini believed that the Shariah was an all-comprehensive system in which all the requirements of humanity have been met, that includes not only concerns of family and society but also international relations, commerce, trade, agriculture.

To Khomeini all non-Islamic ideolo gies were evil and that all goodness belonged to Islam with the Quran as the ultimate guidance for every situation for every individual and the society as a whole.

Khomeini pointed out that Islam "is a religion where worship is joined to politics and political activity is a form of worship."55   To him politics was the highest form of religious undertaking and the establishment of an Islamic state was his ultimate goal.  Unlike other ulema, who were mostly apolitical, Khomeini was a firm believer in the concept of jihad as a means to establish the power of Islam worldwide, starting the establishment of Islam in Iran itself.

Khomeini, in order to justify the role of ulema in politics, expounded the theory of wilayat-e-faqiah by saying that the ulema should lead the struggle to establish the Islamic state although the people as a whole had a duty this way, the burden of the Islamic scholars was momentous and crucial. He states that fuqaha (religious leaders), as the repr esentatives of the Twelve Infallible Shiite Imamas,  had the right to rule. In the absence of the Twelfth Imam, it is the responsibility of the just fuqaha, as the interpreters of the Shariah, to institute a social system for its execution and propagation. Khomeini declared that the faqih had the same power as that of the Prophet in supervising society.  Accordingly the fuqaha were trustees not merely because they gave juridical opinions, but because they fulfilled the most important function of the prophets, the creation of a fair social system through the execution of Islamic laws and regulations, meaning that the job assigned to the prophets must also be discharged by the fuqaha as a matter of trust.

He asserts: ...the true rulers are the fuqaha themselves, and rulership ought officially to be theirs, to apply to them, not to those who are obliged to follow the guidance of the fuqaha on account of their own ignorance of the law."56 

Khomeini blames the imperialists for t he division of the Muslim community by establishing separate nation-states and urges the Muslims to overthrow the existing  nation-states: " They have separated the various segments of the Islamic ummah from each other and artificially created separate nations...In order to attain the unity and freedom of the Muslim people, we must overthrow the oppressive governments installed by the imperialists and bring into existence the Islamic government of justice that will be in the service of the people."57

Khomeini distinguishes between patriotism and nationalism. He regards patriotism as a natural sentiment but rejects nationalism because of two reasons: (a) it is contrary to the Islamic teachings; (b) it is an alien idea propagated by foreigners in order to divide the Muslim community. He notes: "To love one's fatherland and its people and to protect its frontiers are both quite unobjectionable, but nationalism, involving hostility to other Muslim nations, is some thing quite different. it is contrary to the Holy Quran and the orders of the most Noble Messenger. Nationalism that results in the creation of enmity between Muslims and splits the ranks of the believers is against Islam and the interests of the Muslims. It is a stratagem concocted by the foreigners who are disturbed by the spread of Islam."58 

He also blames the imperialists for imposing an unjust order: " ... the imperialists have also imposed on us an unjust economic order, and thereby divided our people into two groups: oppressors and oppressed. Hundreds of millions of Muslims are hungry and deprived of all forms of health care and education, while minorities comprised of wealthy and powerful, live a life of indulgence, licentiousness and corruption. The hungry and deprived have constantly struggled to free themselves from the oppression of their plundering overlords, and their struggle continues to this day."59 

Khomeini was one of the most clear-headed and determined leaders who argu ed that the struggle between the West and political Islam was not just between Western imperlialsim and Islam as a religion. To him, Islam represented a whole way of life and civilization and he, as a spokesman for the Third World nations, opposed what he termed the oppressors and imperlialists.

Unlike other religious leaders in other Muslim societies, he constantly preached to his people that they had to participate in a massive socio-economic revolution. He asked Iranians to wake up from the sleep that had been imposed upon them for several hundred years - not so much performing prayers but for initiating rapid economic and industrial change.

"Those who developed industries are just like us - one hand and two ears. But the difference is that they woke up before us and they put us to sleep and used their forces to keep us in that situation… In every revolution in the beginning there are slogans. But after the revolution we have to act. Your hand should not be stretched either East or West . We don't want to be dependent. First, we have to wake up."60

DR. ALI SHARIATI  [1933-1977]
Dr. Ali Shariati, an eminent Iranian scholar, argues that  the two types of Islam that had confronted one another in Islamic history were "the degenerate and narcotizing religion" and "the progressive and awakening religion."  Shariati was convinced that Islam had been reduced by the traditional religious leaders, or ulema and others to a "degenerate and narcotizing religion" and had to be replaced by an Islam which could be progressive and dynamic. At the same time, he was against those Muslim intellectuals who immitate the Western ideologies which are being imported into the Muslim society "like canned and packed products to be opened and consumed."61

Shariati called for launching of a religious renaissance through wh ich, by returning to the religion of life and motion, power and justice, will on the one hand incapacitate the reactionary agents of the society and, on the other hand, save the people from those elements which are used to narcotize them. By launching such a renaissance, these hitherto narcotizing elements will be used to revitalize, give awareness and fight superstition. He believed that returning to and relying on the authentic culture of the society will allow the revival and rebirth of cultural independence in the face of Western cultural onslaught.

He pleaded for the destruction of all the degenerating factors which, in the name of Islam, have stymied and stupefied the process of thinking and the fate of the society. Shariati also called for eliminating the spirit of imitation and obedience which is the hallmark of the popular religion, and replace it with a critical revolutionary, aggressive spirit of independent reasoning (ijtihad).

Shariati advocated that the anti-religious experience o f Christianity in the Middle Ages cannot be extended to the Islamic world, whether its past or its present. "One cannot extend anti-religious feelings of Europe - stemming from the unique religious experience in the Middle Ages and the ensuing freedom of European society in the 15th and 16th centuries - to the Islamic world, because the culture of an Islamic society and the tradition which has shaped that society is utterly different from the spirit which under the name of religion ruled Europe in the Middle Ages. logically, therefore, one cannot judge and condemn both religions on the same ground. A comparison between the role of Islam in Africa and that of Christianity in Latin America illustrates my point."62

He believed that unlike what we are told it was not the negation of religion which created modern Western civilization but the transformation of a corrupt and ascetic religion into a critical, protesting and mundane Christianity. That is, Protestantism was the creator of modern Wester n civilization, rather than materialism or anti-religious sentiments which did not exist in the Renaissance.63

Therefore, an enlightened person in an Islamic society, regardless of his own ideological convictions, must, of necessity, be an Islamologist. Having understood Islam, he will in astonishment realize the grave and disastrous waste of the intellects and the efforts of the people due to "wrong start," misunderstanding, irrelevant appreciation and irrational connections.

An enlightened Muslim  should be fully aware of the fact that he has a unique culture which is neither totally spiritual, as is the Indian culture nor totally mystical, as is the Chinese, nor completely philosophical, as is the Greek, and nor entirely materialistic and technological, as is the Western culture. His is a mixture of faith, idealism and spirituality and yet full of life and energy with a dominant spirit of equality and justice, the ideology that Islamic societies and other traditional societies of the East are in desperate need of.

He advised the Muslim intelligentia to obtain the raw materials from its contemporary society and social life. "There exists no universal type of enlightened person, with common values and characteristics everywhere. Our own history and experience have demonstrated that whenever an enlightened person turns his back on religion, which is the dominant spirit of the society, the society turns its back on him. Opposition to religion by the enlightened person deprives society of the possibility of becoming aware of the benefits and the fruit of its young and enlightened generation."64

An enlightened Muslim must know that the Islamic spirit dominates his culture and that the historical processes of his society, aswell as its moral codes, have ball been shaped by Islam. To fail to understand this, as the majority of our 'intellectuals' have, limits and restricts a person to his own irrelevant atmosphere.

Shariati thought that only the enlightene d intellectuals and not the traditional ulema could spearhead an Islamic resurgence. "This can be accomplished through scientific research and logical analysis of political, religious, and philosophical ill-motives and class factors which had been at work throughout our history as well as through diagnoses of religious innovations, deviations and negative justifications that have occurred throughout history plus their negative social effect and ominous ideological and practical consequences in the lives of the Muslims.65

In the final analysis, Shariati points out that "the tragedy is that, on the one hand, those who have controlled our religion over the past two centuries have transformed it into its present static form and, on the other hand, our enlightened people who understand the present age and the needs of our generation and time, do not understand religion. As a result, our Islamic society, despite Islam with its rich culture and history which would have otherwise enabled it to emanc ipate itself, could not acquire the religious awareness necessary for its salvation. The intellectuals erroneously fought Islam and the reactionaries used it to narcotize the masses and to maximize their own gains. Meanwhile, true Islam remains unknown and incarcerated in the depths of history. the masses buried in their own static and restricted traditions. and the intellectuals isolated from the masses and disliked by them." Therefore,  "whereas our masses need self-awareness, our enlightened intellectuals are in need of "faith."66