Shi‘i Reformation in Iran ASHGATE NEW CRITICAL THINKING IN RELIGION, THEOLOGY AND BIBLICAL STUDIES

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Ali Rahnema The American University of Paris, France © Ali Rahnema 2015

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Rahnama, ‘Ali. Shi‘i reformation in Iran : the life and theology of Shari‘at Sangelaji / By Ali Rahnema. pages cm. -- (Ashgate new critical thinking in religion, theology and Biblical studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4724-3416-6 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-4724-3417-3 (ebook) -- ISBN 978-1- 4724-3418-0 (epub) 1. Sangelaji, Shari‘at, 1891-1944. 2. Muslim scholars--Iran--Biography. 3. Islamic renewal--Iran. 4. Shi‘ah--Iran. I. Title. BP80.S317R34 2015 297.8'2092--dc23 [B] 2014043569

ISBN 9781472434166 (hbk) ISBN 9781472434173 (ebk – PDF) ISBN 9781472434180 (ebk – ePUB)

Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited, at the Dorset Press, Dorchester, DT1 1HD Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements vii

Introduction 1

1 Genealogy, Environment, Convictions, Friends and Foes 11

2 Sangelaji’s Interlocutors 33

3 Reforming Actually Practised Islam 57

4 The Primacy of the Qur’an 71

5 Challenging Reports 91

6 Reason and Islam 109

7 Popular Shi‘ism 123

8 Was Sangelaji a Wahhabi? 143

9 Sangelaji’s Legacy 167

Bibliography 177 Index 181 This page has been left blank intentionally Preface and Acknowledgements

When I was researching on Ali Shari‘ati back in 1994, I came across the fact that during his stay in Paris he had asked for the works of Shari‘at Sangelaji from his relatives back home. Shari‘ati must have read some of Sangelaji’s works in his father’s library back in Mashhad. He must have also heard of Sangelaji from his father, Mohammad-Taqi Shari‘ati. Once the Shari‘ati project was over, this seemingly innocuous information piqued my interest to learn more about Sangelaji, the relatively unknown and enigmatic cleric. Who was he? Why was Shari‘ati interested in him? What made Sangelaji different from other clergy of his time? How different were his religious ideas from those of his clerical contemporaries? Why was he considered as a deviant by some clergy? The project on Sangelaji began in 1999. It was conducted in tandem with two imaginary, almost virtual conversations. The first involved my conversations with Shari‘ati over Sangelaji and the second involved Sangelaji and Shari‘ati on the one hand and Mohammad-Baqir Majlesi on the other hand. Pursuing and observing the latter conversation, based on tracing the residues of Sangelaji’s works on Majlesi in Shari‘ati’s writings, deflected the original course of the project, took a life of its own and turned into another independent work. Once that was finished I returned to the incomplete original Sangelaji project in 2009 and found myself tracing the history of Islamic/Shi‘i thought of Iran, by moving backwards in a time-machine. My focus shifted from the study of the tumultuous years of 1933 to 1977 (Shari‘ati’s life-span) to a different kind of a stormy period, that of 1891 to 1944 (Sangelaji’s life-span). Shari‘ati was in his late teens when the Oil Nationalization Movement started, while Sangelaji was in his early teens when the Iranian Constitutional Revolution began to unfold. While the Oil Nationalization Movement had a deep impact on politicizing Shari‘ati, the Iranian Constitutional Revolution seemed to have had little direct effect on Sangelaji. Even if it did, its impact cannot be easily detected in his works. Clearly, the two had different personalities and political proclivities, even though their religious, social and human sensibilities were somewhat similar. The more I read and re-read Sangelaji’s works and studied the writings of others on him, the more I found his personality and ideas thought-provoking. viii Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

It gradually became clear why he was considered as an annoyance. In the tradition of all modernist religious reformists, irrespective of their particular leanings, Sangelaji seemed interested in a community of liberated believers, free of the non-Qur’anic traditional ideas and customs which prevented the faithful from reflecting and exercising their faith as a rational belief-system, capable of adaptation to the demands of modern times. Sangelaji’s reformism was targeted at the transformation of the individual and the hope that social change would spin off from the reformed individual Shi‘i. Contrary to Shari‘ati, Sangelaji did not seem interested in whipping up revolutionary fervour, mobilizing the dispossessed and the discontented and initiating a social movement with the language and voice of Islam. Sangelaji was a moderate and mild reformer, cautious about the consequences of abrupt political change, yet he remained uncompromising in his assessment of the state of Shi‘ism during his time. It would be fair to say that Sangelaji did, however, pave the way for the development of many of Shari‘ati’s religious ideas. For Sangelaji the way in which believers blindly imitated their faith and mechanically carried out the details of their worship, according to a few towering jurists – or experts in the reports (ahadith) – of the past, gradually dulled their wits, precluded reflection on the real purpose and object of worship, prevented critical thought and interposed a growing distance between believers and God. Sangelaji was pre-occupied with the thought that monotheism and the Qur’an were becoming eclipsed by popular rites and superstitions, adversely affecting not only the faith of the believers, but the socio-economic development of Iran. Sangelaji believed that he was defending Shi‘ism against a multitude of questions and queries which during his time were unsatisfactorily responded to by the traditional guardians of the faith, causing the mass departure of the youth from the faith. Sangelaji’s reform project aimed at launching an in-house debate on the state of Shi‘ism, as it had evolved and demonstrating the necessity of change to save the faith and the convictions of the faithful. This book attempts to shed some light on this important yet little-known Iranian reformist cleric, his life, time, ideas and discourse. When this book project came to an end in June 2013, I thought that in view of Sangelaji’s anonymity it would prove difficult to publish this work. My misgiving proved correct at first until I heard from David Shervington of Ashgate, who encouraged me to submit the manuscript. I am grateful to him for making this possible and to the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript for their precious comments, which I have tried to act on as much as possible. I am also indebted to Abdollah Sangelaji, who met with me, responded to my questions, informed me and provided me with documents and publications Preface and Acknowledgements ix which I would not have been able to obtain without his generosity. Finally, I must thank Reverend Scott Herr, the Senior Pastor of the American Church in Paris, who kindly agreed to read the introduction, comment on it and correct it.

Paris, autumn 2014 This page has been left blank intentionally Introduction

Shari‘at Sangelaji began propagating his ideas somewhere between 1930 and the early 1940s in Tehran, Iran. He was a Shi‘i cleric who conducted his sermons in Persian. The content of Sangelaji’s talks mainly, but not exclusively, appealed to an educated audience, whose Islamic beliefs did not clash with their desire for finding rational and modern solutions for the country’s lingering and emerging social problems. Sangelaji’s disciples were aware of Iran’s political, social and economic position in relation to the rest of the world and believed that reforming Shi‘ism, as Sangelaji preached, was an important step towards redressing Iran’s problems. Sangelaji was a reformer, neither a revolutionary nor an iconoclast. Yet despite his moderate manner and approach, Sangelaji’s distinct ideas did seem dangerous and subversive to the practitioners of the prevailing popular Shi‘ism. Sangelaji was reacting to what he believed were historically accumulated exaggerations and excesses, which had originated with the gradual disregarding and replacement of the Qur’an. Sangelaji sought to restore the modernizing message of Shi‘ism. He believed that his ancestral religion, Shi‘ism, possessed the capacity and method to refresh itself and could, if reformed, act as a motor of socio-economic and political development and did not constitute a barrier to progress. Contrary to some religious reformers of his time, he was neither a religio-political reformer, employing a religious discourse to criticize one political condition or system and promote another, nor did he believe that Shi‘ism was incapable of reform and had to be replaced by another faith or simply abandoned. Sangelaji was a Shi‘i cleric with no manifest political agenda or plan and no religio-political ambitions. As a concerned Muslim, Sangelaji had become convinced that it was necessary to launch a religious debate within Shi‘ism to reform Shi‘ism for the benefit of Islam and Iran. Sangelaji was neither a political intellectual nor a political activist in the sense that he did not derive or advocate any particular socio-political and economic system or model based on his religious arguments or on religion in general. He was interested in reforming the individual first and saw his role as a religious reformer and not a political reformer. Martin Luther, the Roman Catholic monk, priest and professor of theology posted his 95 theses in Latin on the door of Castle Church at Wittenberg, 2 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

Germany in 1517. Luther’s disputation and questions concerning certain practices of the Church triggered what came to be known as the Protestant Reformation. The Protestant Reformation, which started as an invitation to a discussion over the practices of the Roman Catholic Church turned into a movement of monumental historical consequences. Max Weber associated the West’s different civilizational trajectory from the rest of the world with the influence of ‘the rational ethics of ascetic Protestantism’ on ‘the spirit of modern economic life’, which to him was no other than bourgeois capitalism. The historical fact that Sangelaji launched his reformist discourse some 400 years after Luther, Zwingli and Calvin had spearheaded their Protestant reformist movement may raise suspicions that the Iranian Shi‘i had borrowed or copied their ideas or that his reform was an imported replica of the Protestant movement. Whether Sangelaji was familiar with the writings of the founders of the Protestant movement, the lines of their argument, the details of their discourse, the nuances within that movement and the heterogeneity of the movement, is highly doubtful. A glance at the bibliography of Sangelaji’s writings reveals that he did not reference any sources related to the Protestant movement or its leaders. The absence of references to the Protestant movement in Sangelaji’s works could be the result of any of the following: he had not read any of the primary sources by the pioneers of Protestantism or anything substantial on the general topic; he had some secondary and tertiary notions about Christian Protestantism yet did not see any meaningful relation or likeness between the condition of Christians in sixteenth-century Europe and that of the Shi‘i in late nineteenth-century Iran; and that finally he had some knowledge of the Protestant movement, but did not want to acknowledge it in his writings, fearing that his detractors would write off his ideas as a Christian innovation. The general resemblance of ideas, where they do occur, is far from mechanical borrowings or incorporations of Christian notions by a Muslim cleric. Sangelaji’s argumentations, method and sources dispel doubts about the originality and Islamicness of his discourse. It could be suggested that Sangelaji, who was known among his supporters at the time as the great reformer (mosleh kabir) was an Islamic reformer in the tradition of Protestant Reformers, without knowing it. Luther’s reformist paradigm was launched some 1,500 years after the birth of Christ and Sangelaji propagated his reformist ideas some 1,300 years after the birth of Muhammad. The traces of wholesale or partial intellectual borrowing from Protestant writers, reflected in possible linguistic, ideational and conceptual grafting of Protestantism onto Islam, are absent in the writings and speeches of Sangelaji. It is most probable that Sangelaji arrived at a discourse Introduction 3 with some similarities to those of the Protestant Reformers independently and based on his own reflection on Shi‘ism and Iranian society. Sangelaji can be considered as an Islamic reformer who, relying on Islamic sources and reflecting on the condition of Shi‘ism in Iran during his time, ended up producing a reformist discourse which at times shared some similar core notions with his reformist Christian counterparts. In Sangelaji’s books, there are, however, references to works by Sheykh Muhammad Abduh and Seyyed Muhammad Rashid Rida (Reza). Given the reported interest of both Abduh and his colleague Rashid Rida in the issue of Protestantism, it could be surmised that Sangelaji may have been indirectly exposed to some of the principles of the Protestant movement, known to Abduh and Rashid Rida. Since our knowledge of the extent to which Abduh and Rashid Rida were knowledgeable about the Protestant movement is limited to their very broad and general comments about it, the hypothesis that Sangelaji obtained solid first-hand information from them on this issue is rather suspect. We know that in one of his essays Abduh associated his reform (eslah) project with the Protestant Reformation and that Rashid Rida believed in combining religious and worldly renewal, just as Europe had done with religious reformation and modernization. In view of the above speculations, it would probably be safe to assume that Sangelaji did not have a clear and focused notion of the ideas and writings of the main figures of the Protestant movement or of the movement itself. Reading Sangelaji’s texts does not impart the sense that the author has a well-digested grasp of an inner Christian debate and is subsequently reading it into Shi‘i Islam. Sangelaji’s discourse, research domain, registers and references are purely Islamic. There are no breaks or fractures in the flow of his Islamic arguments and ideas, which he carefully and laboriously develops step by step based on Islamic sources and debates. Sangelaji’s writings resemble well-cut pieces of a jigsaw puzzle which fit and compose smoothly to unravel a tightly argued and richly documented comprehensive Islamic thesis on why there should be reform in Shi‘i Islam and what needs to be reformed. Even though Sangelaji may not have been knowledgeable about or influenced by the methods and principal arguments of the leaders of the Protestant movement, it would be fair to assume that like all inquisitive scholars of his time, Sangelaji probably knew of the Protestant movement in general. To him, the Protestant movement must have represented a reformist attempt by an enlightened group of Christians interested in exposing the deviations of the existing Roman Catholic Church and intent on revitalizing their faith to enhance the spiritual and material condition of the believers. In the tradition of all reformers, Sangelaji wished to revise and renew 4 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran the actually existing Shi‘i Islam to guarantee the popularity of the faith at a time of rapidly changing conditions and powerful, competing ideas. His goal was the preservation and not the destruction of the faith. A cursory study of the ‘five solas’, generally understood as the five principal doctrines of Protestant Reformers and Reformation theology, and reading them back into the works of Sangelaji demonstrates some similarities and some dissimilarities between Sangelaji’s principal arguments, method of analysis, rationale for and objective of reform and those five key Protestant signifiers. The ‘five solas’ are generally composed of ‘Sola Scriptura’ (Scripture Alone); ‘Sola Gratia’ (Grace Alone); ‘Sola Fide’ (Faith Alone); ‘Solus Christus’ (Christ Alone); and ‘Soli Deo Gloria’ (To God Alone be Glory). Where resemblances may be identified, the ideas of Protestant Reformers and Sangelaji are made of the pure fabric and sources of their respective faiths. The representatives of each religion place emphasis on the specific problems within their own belief systems and give particular references to specific and particular debates within their different faiths, rendering their respective ideas and solutions unique and specific to their own creed. In the domains where Christian and Muslim reformers share common ideas and reactions, the problems they perceive about their respective faiths must have been somewhat similar. In Sangelaji’s reformist discourse, the notion of ‘Qur’an alone’, similar to ‘Scripture alone’ plays a key and axiomatic role on the basis of which his successive ideas are developed and established. Sangelaji first feels compelled to rebut all arguments made within Shi‘ism aimed at questioning the completeness and integrity of the Qur’an and then seeks to demonstrate that the Qur’an is comprehensible by all and therefore accessible to all. Sangelaji’s emphasis on the sufficiency and comprehensibility of the Qur’an is very similar to the Protestant notion of ‘Sola Scriptura’. To provide a new reading of the faith, Sangelaji embeds his analysis and extrapolation in the Qur’an, the uncontested source of the faith. Yet, sensing a growing historical process of marginalization and side-lining of the Qur’an to the benefit of other religious sources in establishing the correct Islamic way of life and code of conduct, Sangelaji is compelled to restate and re-establish the obvious: the Qur’an is singular, incontestable and irreplaceable. In his quest for returning the Qur’an to the heart of all Islamic understanding and analysis, Sangelaji is faced with the preponderate authority of the reported Tradition of the Prophet and/or the imams (Sunna and hadith) and the past teachings, rulings, interpretation and exegesis of Islamic scholars. The Shi‘i concept of ‘Qur’an alone’, promoted by Sangelaji, grows out of a long historical tradition of Muslim scholars negotiating the proper place of the Qur’an in relation to the Sunna/hadith. At one level, the concern of Introduction 5

Muslim reformists for upholding the notion of ‘Qur’an alone’ is similar to the Protestant’s emphasis on ‘Scripture alone’ in that both privilege what they believe to be the divine text. However, for Sangelaji, stressing the authoritative position of Qur’an was synonymous with intentionally undermining the status of the reports (ahadith/hadiths). The practical and not theoretical ranking of these two important sources of the Shari‘a (Qur’an and sunna/hadith) and the attempt by Muslim reformists such as Sangelaji to promote the status of the Qur’an and demote that of the hadiths, has its origin in the historical development of Islamic jurisprudence and is therefore specific to Islam. It is noteworthy that Sangelaji’s call to interpret the Qur’an with the Qur’an also resembles the Protestant Reformers’ practice of ‘interpreting the Scripture with Scripture’. For Sangelaji, the importance of returning to the Qur’an alone laid in two key features of the Text. First, understanding the Qur’an and compliance by its content would protect the believer from accepting the non-Qur’anic practices which, he believed, had crept into the faith and distorted it. Second, the study of the Qur’an provided solid arguments and proofs that faith and belief naturally followed from the strengthening and perfection of human reasoning. For Sangelaji, the Qur’an empowered ‘reason with absolute freedom’ to assure the well-being of humanity. Sangelaji’s emphasis on the rational teachings of the Qur’an did not undermine the Text’s spiritual, moral and ethical instructions, but simply underlined the fact that rational reasoning could not have been alien to God and that the source of the superstitions and irrationalities of the faith was not in the Qur’an, but the incorrect understanding and practices of human beings. Protestant Reformers maintained that salvation was a gift of God’s grace. ‘Sola Gratia’ or ‘by grace alone’ implied that only divine grace could secure salvation for human beings. By placing the emphasis on God’s ‘unmerited favour’, this second Protestant principle minimizes the human agency in attaining salvation. What the believer does or does not do plays no role in the automatic grace of God. The principle of ‘by grace alone’ implies that those human works and efforts such as engagement in religious ceremonies, prayers or the payment of indulgences with the aim of obtaining forgiveness for sins and thereby attaining salvation are ineffective and idle. The Protestant principle of ‘by grace alone’ was a strong reaction to the human efforts promoted by the Roman Catholic Church to effectively purchase God’s grace and salvation. Such Roman Catholic practices had developed into gainful commercial activities in the early 1500s. For Protestants, what lies at the heart of ‘by grace alone’ is the belief that the act of salvation has been accomplished for all humanity through the person and work of Christ. 6 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

To Sangelaji, the Muslim, the notion of ‘by grace alone’ was foreign and unfamiliar as he was not privy to the Christian debates around reformation. He was, however, deeply involved in the debate on whether salvation could be obtained through reliance on the intercession of others or the performance of certain acts or prayers regularly practised by Shi‘i of his times and upheld by them as a necessity of belief and faith. He was also engaged in the debate on whether the Shi‘i would be automatically redeemed simply because they were Shi‘is. In his writings, Sangelaji demonstrated that he did not believe that salvation could result from simply being a Shi‘i nor could it ensue from the intercession of sacred figures. For Sangelaji, similar to the Christian Reformers, believers engaging in certain idle practices which had become religiously popular during his time could not expect salvation. However, contrary to the Christian Reformers, he was of the firm opinion that only ‘righteous acts’ and ‘virtuous ideas’ would speak for a person in the hereafter and ensure their salvation. Sangelaji’s ‘righteous acts’ were different from grave- and shrine-worshipping or wearing a ring with supernatural powers. For him, ‘righteous acts’ were not related to rites, rituals and traditional religious customs which supposedly purchased the good will of intercessors or fulfilled the prescriptions of past jurists who decreed acts that would supposedly please God. They were acts that pleased God as they benefited the individual and the community of believers. It could be argued that the forefathers of the Protestant Reformation and Sangelaji both wished to denounce the commercial-like practices of their respective faiths in the form of purchasing God’s grace through some sort of a ritual, promoted by their respective religious institutions. The Protestant forefathers, based on the debates and the practical realities within their own faith, invited their followers to abandon their idle practices – passed off as good works such as buying indulgences – by arguing that Christ had already secured the salvation of Christians, while Sangelaji, based on the debates and the practical realities in his faith, argued that Muslims needed to personally and directly engage in righteous acts – with private and social benefits – and stop relying on irrational rites and rituals in order to obtain salvation. The concept of righteous acts is not absent from the vocabulary of the Protestant Reformers. For Luther, it was because of faith that the believer ‘freely, willingly and joyfully’ was ‘good to everyone’ and ‘served everyone’. Luther went as far as saying, ‘Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever’. The two types of reformation – Christian and Muslim – approach one another on the issue that good works and righteous acts go beyond praying, fasting, almsgiving and are not associated with buying indulgences or worshipping shrines. For both types of reformation, a predefined ritual upheld Introduction 7 by the official religious institution as good works was not necessarily the recipe for salvation. ‘Sola fida’ or ‘by faith alone’, the third key element of Protestantism, is closely linked with the notion of ‘by grace alone’. This concept seems to re-emphasize the idea that the sinner is justified or forgiven through faith alone and hence the concept of ‘justification by faith’. This belief, similar to ‘by grace alone’, is constructed on the premise that ‘good works’ do not constitute a necessary pre‑requisite for salvation, but that good works would naturally flow from faith. Once faith is established, good works will automatically ensue and not the reverse. The content of this key doctrine, ‘by which’, according to Luther, ‘the church stands or falls’, does find some resonance in Sangelaji’s writings. For Sangelaji, true felicity and salvation result from faith and righteous acts; the praxis. He seems to endorse a simultaneous process of faith and action (righteous acts), whereas Luther seems to argue that if faith, then action would follow or even any action that flows from faith would be a ‘good work’. If, however, the central concept of both ‘by grace alone’ and ‘by faith alone’, according to Reformation theology, is understood to be the condition by which the Protestant believer is not justified in the eyes of God because of his righteous works, but simply by faith in God’s grace, then Sangelaji’s notion of ‘by grace alone’ and ‘by faith alone’ would be different from that of the Protestant Reformation. The principle of ‘Solus Christus’ or ‘by Christ alone’, if considered as a concept pertinent only to Christ and Christians, would obviously have no echo in Sangelaji’s writings. However, if the doctrine is to be understood in terms of its practical implications and outcomes, then certain similarities could be found between Sangelaji and the Protestants. Furthermore, if we proceed from the fact that Christ for Christians is the human manifestation of the divine, while for Muslims Allah or God is the divine, then it may be possible to posit that what Protestants attribute to Christ would be comparable to what Muslims would attribute only to God. The Protestant doctrine of ‘by Christ alone’ would find its Muslim equivalent in the notion of ‘by God alone’. For the Protestants, the doctrine of ‘by Christ alone’, effectively removes the necessity of any intermediary strata mediating between Man and God. This is the key article in the Reformation movement which, by emphasizing that Christ and Christ alone is sufficient for salvation, in turn rejects the notion that Christians should place their faith in anyone or anything else. This principle demonstrates the theological inconsistency in and inappropriateness of reliance on prayers to ‘saints’ to attain rewards and dispel punishments. By focusing on Christ and dispensing with the saints of the Roman Catholic Church that could be conjured to help and assist in felicity both here and in the hereafter, the 8 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

Reformation rendered all intermediaries, including the priestly establishment, redundant and superfluous. When all intermediaries, including the priestly establishment, are removed, immediate and direct access to God, according to Protestants, becomes a reality and from it flows the doctrine of the ‘priesthood of all believers’. Salvation and obtaining forgiveness for one’s sins as well as the fulfilment of worldly wishes will no longer require the services of go-betweens and priests. Sangelaji’s prime objective was that of reviving, focusing on and extrapolating from the simple, yet complete message of Islam; there is no God but Allah – by God alone. Emphasizing and highlighting monotheism as his theological point of departure, Sangelaji sent the simple message that not only God was free of partners, but that no person or institution could claim a monopoly over speaking for Him or intuiting His will and desire. Sangelaji was adamant on demonstrating that the Muslim could not believe in monotheism in an abstract sense and practically place his reliance on individuals, acts and rituals in addition to God. Sangelaji’s quest for establishing the doctrine of ‘by God alone’ compelled him to identify and dismiss the multiple and complex layers and circles of appendages and addenda which had in the name of Islam gradually huddled around the concept of monotheism throughout history. This man-made additional cluster of concepts and rituals which had gradually spawned discrete associates for God needed to be distinguished and exposed, as they had come to crowd out the simple message of the faith: there is no God but Allah (by Allah alone). In Sangelaji’s eyes, the priestly or clerical establishment had throughout the years carved out a privileged, yet Islamically unjustifiable, place for itself, which obligated the common folks to blindly imitate its directives – at odds with monotheism. Sangelaji believed that Islam did not believe in intermediaries between God and human beings. The only Islamically justifiable intermediary, he argued, was the Qur’an – the word of God. In his own way, Sangelaji came to the conclusion that Muslims were justified in understanding and interpreting the Qur’an, without the interference and authorization of clerical intermediaries. The doctrine of ‘Soli Deo Gloria’ or ‘Glory to God alone’, constituting the fifth fundamental doctrine of the Protestant Reformation, highlights the believers’ debt towards God and His designs as the single source of salvation. It is the doctrine which encapsulates the other four. ‘Glory to God alone’ also imparts a particular view of life to the believer. The life of believers in all their varied aspects and manifestations is a praise and exaltation to the glory of God, since salvation is only in His hands. The notion of ‘Glory to God alone’, like all the other four fundamentals of the Protestant Reformation, includes a disclaimer or a disavowal. In this case, very much like the doctrine of ‘by Christ Introduction 9 alone’, believers are reminded that seeking the intercession or favour of others, such as the Virgin Mary, the saints, angels or the priests, is a misrepresentation of the faith. The notion of ‘Glory to God alone’, along with its disclaimer that any other than God cannot be glorified, can readily be found in the works of Sangelaji. To Sangelaji, glorifying others than God as intermediaries between human beings and God and attributing to them the powers to dispense blessings and gains and protect from hardship and danger represents a distortion of Islam as a monotheistic faith. Sangelaji warns that once such misrepresentations and replacements become common practice among believers it could ultimately lead to the unintended process of venerating others along with God, thus slipping back into the age of pre-Islamic ignorance or jahilliya. This seemingly innocent process may lead to a back-pedalling towards idolatry and polytheism. In conclusion, religious reformers become anxious when rites, rituals and customary practices developed by human beings and originally intended to glorify God and remind believers of Him gradually take a life and meaning of their own. Promoted and protected by the custodians of priestly establishments, these rites and customs come to demand and receive reverence, become objects of venerations and gradually threaten to veil the genuine Desideratum. At some stage in the history of religions, the transformation and substitution process, emphasizing protocol, ceremony and decorum reach a critical stage threatening the essence of monotheistic faiths. At this point, the originally simple and straight path to God becomes labyrinthine. Faced with a myriad of detailed addenda to the faith in terms of necessities and requirements, congesting the path to God, the threat of losing sight of God lingers. Yet the architects of these religious innovations, members of priestly institutions, become so deeply involved and implicated in the process that they fail to sense the bewildered and questioning look in the eyes of their flock, leading to their gradual withdrawal from their religion and final abandonment of their faith. Distressed by the growing chasm between human beings and their religions, which could end up with the human beings becoming alienated with God, reformers feel duty-bound to correct the deviation introduced and overseen by their professional kin. Reformations involve an in-house process of debating and criticizing those religious practices and beliefs which turned believers into agnostics and atheists. Reformers cannot be indulgent with the priestly institution which stands partly responsible for not preventing the departure of people from the path of God and partly responsible for playing a direct role in turning people away from God in the name of God. The task of the reformer begins by inviting the people to return to the simple notion of God’s sovereignty 10 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran and accessibility. This affirmation, which is also the rejection of the authority of all offices and practices that have cropped up as intermediaries, places reformers on a collision course with the traditional religious institutions they try to correct. Reformers of all religions, in particular the monotheistic and Abrahamic ones, naturally share the same basic anxieties and concerns over the ossification of their religions: the multiplication and growing complexity of their rites and rituals; the sanctification and almost deification of certain people, practices and protocols approved by priestly institutions; the arrogation of the monopolistic right to interpret God and speak for Him by priestly establishments; the management of the life of the believers by the priestly institutions; the growth of irrationalities and superstitious beliefs and practices among believers and ultimately the disconnect between God and human beings. Sangelaji was certainly in the tradition of all religious reformers, including the Protestant Reformers, yet as a Muslim reformer his concerns obviously had the scent and colour of his own faith. All children of Abraham engaged in constructing priestly institutions and from within those same institutions emerged the reformers who tried to revive the simple moto of monotheism, ‘Glory to God alone’ as there is no God but God. Chapter 1 Genealogy, Environment, Convictions, Friends and Foes

Mirza Rezaqoli Sangelaji was born in 1891 and named after his grandfather.1 In order to place him in a historical context, it may be useful to point out that he was some 11 to 17 years older than Khomeyni (1902), Mawdudi (1903), Banna (1906), Qutb (1906) and Bazargan (1908). He was, however, a year younger than Ahmad Kasravi. Rezaqoli was six when Seyyed Jamal-eddin Asadabadi (Afghani) passed away and 16 when Mozaffar-eddin Shah Qajar signed the Iranian constitution. From his early childhood, according to one account, Rezaqoli’s father, Sheykh Hasan Sangelaji, a renowned Islamic jurist, bestowed the title of Shari‘at or ‘the pathway’ on him.2 According to another account, the title of Shari‘at was given to the young Rezaqoli by Seyyed Mohammad-Kazem Yazdi, the influential Shi‘i Source of Imitation.3 The title stuck and effectively replaced his name. In contemporary Iranian history he is widely known as Shari‘at and not Mirza Rezaqoli. After his death, in the many obituaries that were written about him in the Iranian press and the poems that were published in his praise, he was consistently and solely referred to as Shari‘at.4 Shari‘at’s family was originally from the village of Sarasiyab near Nour in Mazandaran. His forefathers were said to have been related to Sheykh Fazlollah Nouri, the renowned anti-constitutionalist cleric, executed by the constitutional

1 Noureddin Chahardehi, Vahhabiyat va rishehhay-e an, Tehran: Entesharat-e Fathi, 1363, p. 159. Abolhasan Bigdeli, Be monasebat Yekomin Sal Rehlat Shari‘at, Tehran: Taban, n.d., p. 8. I am grateful to Abdollah Sangelaji for kindly providing me with this collection. It has been incorrectly claimed that Shari‘at’s name was Mohammad Hassan. His date of birth, 1891, is corroborated by all other accounts except that of Morteza Modaressi Chahardehi, published in the journal Vahid. Vahid, No. 119, November 1973. Morteza Modaressi suggests that Rezaqoli was born in 1892. 2 Morteza Modaressi Chahardehi, Vahid, No. 119, November 1973, p. 878. 3 Ayandeh, 12, Farvardin – Khordad 1363, Yousef, Khan-Mohammadi, Tafsir Siyasiy-e Qur’an dar Iran Moaser, Qom: Pajouheshgah Oloume va Farhang Eslami, 1392, p. 156. 4 Bigdeli, pp. 1–73. 12 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran revolutionaries in 1909.5 Shari‘at’s great grandfather Mirza Mohammad Shafi‘ Mazandarani had a ministerial post at the Qajar court. His son, Rezaqoli, Shari‘at’s grandfather, was prevented from following the family tradition of working in the government bureaucracy as he was blinded by smallpox and was subsequently encouraged by his father to go to seminary school and become a cleric.6 To complete his theological studies, Rezaqoli was sent to Najaf, the hub of Shi‘i learning at the time, and on his return to Iran he became a man of the cloth and took residence in one of the oldest neighbourhoods of Tehran, known as Sangelaj.7 Later, Rezaqoli built a school in Sangelaj, became established and acquired some fame. It is said that he was one of the most enlightened clerics of his times. By the time Rezaqoli’s son, Sheykh Hasan, who was born in Sangelaj, grew up and married, the family was known as Sangelaji or residents of Sangelaj. Sheykh Hasan followed in his father’s footsteps. He became a prominent Shi‘i jurist and was respected for his piety, knowledge, courage and oratory.8 Hasan, however, was not an ordinary traditional cleric. He is said to have been associated and affiliated with two highly controversial reformist clerics of his times, Sheykh Hadi Najmabadi and Seyyed Jamal-eddin Asadabadi (Afghani). Sheykh Hasan is said to have been a close friend and colleague of the modernist, constitutionalist and rationalist Sheykh Hadi Najmabadi (1834–1902).9 Sheykh Hasan shared Sheykh Hadi’s disdain for the injustices committed by the Qajar kings and the corruption and oppression which characterized their reign. The critical posture of these two Tehrani clerics towards the Qajar court, their rationalist and non-sectarian as well as their humble and unassuming close relation with the common and poor people, enhanced their popularity.10 The young Shari‘at, who must have been around 10 years old at the time, is said to have participated in the religious discussions of Sheykh Hadi Najmabadi and had been influenced by his ideas.11 Najmabadi, was a leading Tehran cleric during the reign of Mozaffar-eddin Shah Qajar and Nasser-eddin Shah Qajar.

5 Morteza Modaressi Chahardehi, Vahid, No. 119, November 1973, p. 878; Morteza Modaressi, Simaye Bozorgan, Tehran: Sharq, 2535, p. 182. 6 Mohammad-Ebrahim Bastani Parizi, Aftab Zareen Fereshtegan, Qom: Entesharat Khorram, 1377, p. 181. 7 Bastani Parizi, pp. 181–2. 8 Ettela’at, 17 Dey 1322. 9 Morteza Modaressi, Simaye Bozorgan, Tehran: Moaseseh Matbouatiye Sharq, 2535, p. 274; Seyyed Meqdad Nabavi Razavi, Negahi Tahlili be Takapohaye Fekriye Shari‘at Sangelaji, Faslnameh Emamat Pajouhi, Shomareh 4, Zemestan 1390. 10 Modaressi, Simaye Bozorgan, pp. 274–6. 11 Seyyed Meqdad Nabavi Razavi, Faslnameh Emamat Pajouhi. Shari‘at was 11 when Najmabadi passed away. Genealogy, Environment, Convictions, Friends and Foes 13

Sheykh Hadi Najmabadi was also known for his close ties to Seyyed Jamal‑eddin Asadabadi.12 It is reported that during Seyyed Jamal’s visits to Tehran in 1886 and 1889, Najmabadi was of great assistance to him and he is said to have been the closest cleric to Seyyed Jamal.13 Seyyed Jamal tried to convince Najmabadi of the necessity of political change in Iran based on the political principles of freedom, equality and fraternity. Concerned with the reception of such ideas among Iran’s illiterate population, Najmabadi warned Seyyed Jamal that before the people became educated and capable of understanding his arguments, his radical approach could backfire as it could provide the hidebound clergy with an excuse to denounce him as a heretic and a Babi (the followers of Ali-Mohammad Shirazi better known as Bab). Deeply concerned with the danger of the weapon of takfir (excommunication/declaring people non-Muslim) in the hands of the conservative clergy, Najmabadi counselled in favour of gradual change based on informing the people about the vices of autocracy and the virtues of freedom based on Qur’anic exegesis.14 He is said to have encouraged Seyyed Jamal to train individuals steeped in the Qur’an, who could gradually educate the people about the true message of the faith and thereby help the country out of its backwardness.15 To Najmabadi, the deep- rooted religious beliefs of the people provided the enlightened clerics with the opportunity to become agents of change. Seyyed Jamal, who was impatient with the situation in Iran, advocated a bloody revolution, while Sheykh Hadi Najmabadi, who was more familiar with the realities in his country, proposed a long-term reformist solution. To initiate personal, social and ultimately political reform, Sheykh Hadi believed in educating the masses on the basis of the socio-political and ethical teachings of the Qur’an.16 It has been suggested that Najmabadi was a member of Tehran’s branch of the Pan-Islamists, closely associated with Seyyed Jamal.17 Through his everyday practice, Najmabadi tried to set an example for anti- autocratic and reformist clerics. Every afternoon, people of all walks of life, ‘statesmen and scholars, princes and poets’ would congregate, form a circle and sit around him ‘on the grounds outside his house’ and discuss ‘all sorts of topics

12 Morteza Modaressi Chahardehi, Seyyed Jamal-eddin va Andishehhaye Ou, Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1381, p. 113 13 Seyyed Meqdad Nabavi Razavi, Tarikh Makhtum, Tehran: Pardise Danesh, 1393, p. 59. 14 Modaressi, Simaye Bozorgan, p. 290. 15 Modaressi, Simaye Bozorgan, pp. 290–91. 16 Modaressi, Simaye Bozorgan, p. 291. 17 Nabavi Razavi, Tarikh Makhtum, p. 101. 14 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran with utmost freedom’.18 Najmabadi was known for his unassuming piety and charity. He is said to have fed some 200 families of the poor and the destitute, while he would only eat a very humble meal of bread and dough (a yogurt-based beverage).19 Najmabadi was also a highly tolerant and anti-sectarian cleric. What made Najmabadi, the mojtahed, rather special was the fact that his eager interlocutors were composed of ‘Sunnis, Shi‘is, Babis, Armenians, Jews and Ali‑illahis [Ali-ollahis], etc.’20 According to Edward Browne, ‘he was at heart a free-thinker, and used to cast doubts into men’s minds and destroy their belief in popular superstitions and he was instrumental in awakening a large proportion of those who afterwards became the champions of Persia’s liberties’.21 Najmabadi was accused of unbelief (kofr) by Seyyed Sadeq Tabataba’ie and Mirza Hasan Ashtiyani.22 It is reported that some believed that Najmabadi was a Babi and a member of the ‘Secret Circle of Babis’.23 According to a report by Ezatollah Sahabi attributed to Mohammad Sangelaji, Shari‘at’s brother, Sheykh Hasan Sangelaji, their father, was a close acquaintance of Seyyed Jamal-eddin Asadabadi and when the Seyyed came to Tehran, he stayed at the Sangelaji resident.24 According to this account, while staying at the Sangelajis, Seyyed Jamal would read the Qur’an at nights and when he came across a verse (aya) which caught his attention and he felt like sharing it, he would wake up his host and discuss it with him. After having resided in Tehran for seven months, in July 1890, Seyyed Jamal was strongly encouraged by Nasser-eddin Shah Qajar to leave the capital city. At this time, it is said that he moved to Shah Abdolazim and resided at the home of one ‘Sheykh Hasan’. It has been suggested that ‘Sheykh Hasan’ was none but Sheykh Hasan Sangelaji.25 If the claim that Sheykh Hasan Sangelaji and Seyyed Jamal-eddin Asadabadi were closely acquainted is accepted, then it is possible that Hasan came to know

18 E.G. Browne, The Persian Revolution of 1905–1909, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910, available at: https://archive.org/stream/persianrevolutio00browuof t#page/406/mode/2up/ p. 406. 19 Modaressi, Simaye Bozorgan, pp. 274–5. 20 Browne, p. 406. 21 Browne, p. 406. 22 Nabavi Razavi, Tarikh Makhtum, p. 61. 23 Nabavi Razavi, Tarikh Makhtum, pp. 62–3. 24 Seyyed Meqdad Nabavi Razavi, Faslnameh Emamat Pajouhi. 25 Seyyed Meqdad Nabavi Razavi, Faslnameh Emamat Pajouhi. If it is assumed that Sheykh Hasan lived in the Sangelaj area, then the suggestion that the Sheykh Hasan with whom Asadabadi resided was Sheykh Hasan Sangelaji becomes suspect as the two areas of Sangelaj and Shah Abdolazim were at a distance from one another. Genealogy, Environment, Convictions, Friends and Foes 15

Seyyed Jamal through his father Rezaqoli. The link between Rezaqoli and Seyyed Jamal-eddin Asadabadi may have been Sheykh Morteza Ansari, who seems to have known both men. On the one hand, the prominent nineteenth-century Shi‘i theologian and revivalist Sheykh Morteza Ansari (1781–1864/5), who resided in Najaf is said to have appointed Rezaqoli to the position of speaker and Imam of the Mirza Zaki mosque in Sangelaj.26 On the other hand, in 1850/1851, Seyyed Jamal began his four years of studies at Najaf under the supervision of Sheykh Morteza Ansari and was said to have received his permission to exercise ejtehad/ijtihad, from him.27 It is, therefore, probable that Sheykh Hasan was well aware of and influenced by the modernist and rationalist Islamic ideas of both Sheykh Hadi Najmabadi and Seyyed Jamal-eddin Asadabadi. It would seem as if Sheykh Hasan was convinced that Iranians needed to be awakened to the reality of their unjust political and social condition, yet he privileged Najmabadi’s method of incremental change and reform over Seyyed Jamal’s revolutionary path. Sheykh Hasan seems also to have favoured Najmabadi’s inclusive approach of inviting, discussing and appealing to different social classes and beliefs. As such, his house in the Sangelaj area soon became the open door sanctuary of all those who wished to hear his opinions and whose problems and grievances could not be resolved through the official institutions of the state. According to one account, had it not been for Sheykh Hasan’s intercession, Reza, who later became Reza Khan and Reza Shah, the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, would not have been able to marry his second wife. Teymour Khan Ayromlou, who was a high-ranking Cossack officer (Mir Panj, the equivalent of a lieutenant general) in the army, objected to the marriage of his daughter Taj-ol-Molouk to Reza who was, at the time, a low-ranking (major) Cossack.28 Faced with Ayromlou’s staunch refusal, Reza, also a resident of Sangelaj, paid Sheykh Hasan, the neighbourhood cleric, a visit and asked for his help. Later, during a meeting with Ayromlou on the subject of Reza’s wish to marry Taj‑ol- Molouk, Sheykh Hasan inquired, ‘Your highness, why aren’t you giving a positive response to your fellow soldier?’ Ayromlou thundered back that, ‘He is a simple Cossack and not a fellow soldier. Furthermore he has had the audacity to ask me for my daughter’s hand’. Sheykh Hasan, who was expecting a reaction of this kind, retorted that: ‘a Cossack, without resorting to his gun has always the

26 Ettela’at, 17 Dey 1322, No. 5364. 27 M.R. Majidi and Reza Dehshir, The Life and Thought of Seyyed Jamal-ed-Din Assadabadi, available at: http://iranunesco.ir/project/fa/upload/publication/Assadabadi. pdf/ p. 52; http://www.avapress.com/vdchi-nk.23nzmdftt2.html/. 28 Bastani Parizi, p. 204. 16 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran possibility of being promoted to a rank right below that of the king. If, however, he uses his gun, he may even rise to a rank above the king. That which is written on our foreheads is not known to any of us!’ Ayromlou’s resolve is said to have softened by Sheykh Hasan’s reasoning and a few days later, with Ayromlou’s blessing, Sheykh Hasan married Taj-ol-Molouk to Reza in April 1915.29 Later, in 1919, Taj-ol-Molouk gave birth to twins, one of whom became Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. Reza Shah’s reported favourable disposition towards Sheykh Hasan’s children may well have been because of the favour that Sheykh Hasan rendered to him. Sheykh Hasan had three sons and one daughter. Rezaqoli, better known as Shari‘at, was his second child and eldest son. At the behest of his father, Shari‘at received a thorough theological education. He began his studies with his father and then went to the Mirza Zaki School, one of the most well-known clerical centres of Tehran, located in Sangelaj.30 Assuming that Sheykh Hasan Sangelaji shared some of the reformist ideas of Sheykh Hadi Najmabadi and Seyyed Jamal‑eddin Asadabadi, it could be argued that he passed on those ideas to his son and student, Shari‘at. Under the tutorship of Mirza Hasan Kermanshahi, one of the few peripatetic scholars of twentieth-century Iran, Shari‘at finished his studies of philosophy. Shari‘at Sangelaji received his formal training in kalam, theology or disputations on matters of religious belief from Sheykh Ali Nouri. With Mirza Hashem Ashkevari he studied erfan (theosophy). Once he completed his studies of feqh with Sheikh Abdolnabi Nouri, he attained his degree of ejtehad and subsequently became a mojtahed or Islamic jurist.31 Between the end of his studies in Tehran and his departure to Najaf, for the natural crowning of a sound theological education, Shari‘at spent two years preaching and leading the traditional congregational prayers in a small mosque close to the main square of Sangelaj. In 1918 accompanied by his younger brother Sheykh Mohammad, Shari‘at left for Najaf. There he studied with prominent jurists such as Aqa Seyyed abol-Hasan Esfahani and Aqa Ziaeddin Araqi.32 He was 31 years old when he returned to Iran in 1922. The Tehran which Shari‘at returned to was no longer the capital of the Qajars, but was now under the rule of Reza Khan, who had taken power in a coup. Upon his arrival, Shari‘at Sangelaji discontinued his practice of leading congregational prayers and focused on disseminating his religious ideas, which

29 Noureddin Chahardehi, Vahhabiyat va rishehhay-e an, p. 160. 30 Morteza Modaressi Chahardehi, Vahid, No. 119, November 1973, p. 878. Bastani Parizi, p. 182. 31 Bigdeli, pp. 26–7. 32 Morteza Modaressi Chahardehi, Vahid, No. 119, November 1973, p. 878. Genealogy, Environment, Convictions, Friends and Foes 17 had taken a particular and salient form after his stay in Najaf. Sangelaji started preaching at the Vakil-ol-molk Kermani School, an endowed institution, managed by his father and located in front of their house.33 Until 1939 Sangelaji preached regularly at the Vakil-ol-molk school, which had become his base for propagating his ideas. In 1939, the government decided to tear down the old Sangelaj area and rebuild it. The Vakil-ol-molk school along with the homes of the Sangelaji family and their relatives were subsequently destroyed. The Sangelaji family moved to Shahpour Street and Shari‘at constructed a new building which came to be known as Shari‘at’s darotabliq or his ‘abode of propagating ideas’. In this modern monument on Farhang Street, some 500 metres away from his new home, Sangelaji continued to preach every Wednesday nights, until his death.34 Abdollah Sangelaji, Shari‘at’s son, recalls that the bricks used in the construction of the new building came primarily from the old family buildings that were demolished in the Sangelaj area. The lion’s share of the building’s expenses is also said to have come from the sale of Shari‘at’s splendid private collection of Persian and Arabic books.35 In this modern structure, the absence of minarets and the existence of a separate gallery for women marked a somewhat different approach to the propagation of Islamic thoughts.36 The two-storey building stood as testimony to Sangelaji’s commitment to fusing Islam with certain notions of modernity. The seating arrangement on the ground floor was organized in the traditional style, where individuals sat on the carpeted floor, listening to the preacher. On Wednesday nights, Sangelaji would preach not from the altar but from a chair. The first-floor balcony with a view of the ground floor was furnished with chairs, a path-breaking innovation, which irritated the conservative clerics. It was not surprising that some of Sangelaji’s opponents sarcastically referred to the darotabliq as a church.37 Other adversaries malevolently referred to Sangelaji’s darotabliq as a business, demeaning his reform movement to a crude commercial quest.38

33 Morteza Modaressi Chahardehi, Vahid, No. 119, November 1973, p. 879. Bastani Parizi, p. 191. Modaressi, Simaye Bozorgan, p. 184. 34 Morteza Modaressi Chahardehi, Vahid, No. 119, November 1973, p. 879. Bastani Parizi, p. 191. 35 Abdollah Sangelaji, personal interview, 12 July 2000. 36 For a judicious and original article on Sangelaji see Yann Richard, ‘Shari‘at Sangelaji: A Reformist Theologian of the Rida Shah Period’, in S. Amir Arjomand (ed.),Authority and Political Culture in Shi‘ism, New York: State University of New York Press, 1988, p. 164. 37 Abdollah Sangelaji, personal interview, 12 July 2000. 38 Faiz-ol-eslam, Rahbar Gomshodegan, n.p., n.p., n.d., p. 26. 18 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

The Religious and Intellectual Environment of 1920–1940 Iran

During his rule (1925–1941), Reza Shah imposed his vision of a modern society on Iran, emulating the initiatives of his neighbour Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. While religion as the flag-bearer and cornerstone of the traditional society was downplayed by the regime, novel Western ideas appeared more forcefully on the Iranian intellectual and political scene. Some of these ideas not only tried to explain why countries such as Iran had fallen behind the fast-moving train of modernization, progress and industrialization in the West, but provided ideas and solutions to rectify the situation. As Communist, Fascist, secularist and positivist ideas entered the country in a translated, non-systematic, fractured and disjointed manner, they found disciples and partisans among Iranians. Bastani Parizi, an adept of Iranian history, points out that the Russian Revolution and Marxist ideas not only left their imprint on secular intellectuals but even the sincerely pious, whose daily prayers would never be neglected, were affected and swayed by this ideology.39 It would be fair to say that during Reza Shah’s reign, while ideologies which posed a political threat to his rule, such as the Marxism-Leninism of the Communist Party of Iran, were not tolerated, criticism of Shi‘ism by those who argued that Islam and progress were incompatible was tolerated and even perhaps encouraged. The search for understanding the reasons behind the material and intellectual gap between Iran and the West became more pressing with the greater exposure of Iranians to the West. By 1914, some 500 Iranian students were studying abroad.40 Even though some 200 studied in France, those studying in Germany and especially in Berlin became actively engaged in the debate on the origins of Iran’s underdevelopment and the possible ways of overcoming it. In 1918, Kaveh, the Persian language journal of a group of Iranian students in Berlin, set the tone for a wholesale modernization discourse, best identified as Europhile or even xenophile. The main message of the Iranian students writing inKaveh was that Iranians needed to shed whatever was incompatible with modernity in order embark on progress, measured by Europeanization. These students seemed convinced of the efficiency and appropriateness of a Eurocentric model of progress for all underdeveloped countries. Clearly the implementation of such a model in Iran necessitated the opening up of the debate on the role of Shi‘ism, the clergy and its official establishmentrowhaniyat ( ) in the development and underdevelopment of Iran.

39 Bastani Parizi, p. 183. 40 Kaveh, 15 March 1918. Genealogy, Environment, Convictions, Friends and Foes 19

In an unsigned article in Kaveh, which has been attributed to Seyyed Hasan Taqizadeh, it was argued that if progressive Iranians intended to guide their countrymen towards ‘the true European highway of civilization’, they would have to ‘courageously shed all their traditional customs and traditions’ and ‘without any pre-conditions embrace the European civilization and the means of acquiring it’.41 Counselling against half-baked reforms, the author of the article opined that things should either be left the way they are or they should be totally turned upside down and revolutionized. Aside from ‘the national language’ and ‘certain abstract and harmless Iranian practices rooted in ancient traditions’, the young Iranian concerned with the state of his country concluded that ‘nothing should be considered as a part of our national customs’ and therefore worth retaining.42 As time went by, Taqizadeh shed more light on his ideal model of development for Iran. For him, the imperative step towards modernization necessitated ‘absolute resignation to Europe and the acquisition of European customs, behaviours, habits, training, science, industry, livelihood, and Europe’s whole environment, without any exception, other than the language’.43 Summarizing his vision of Iran’s path to felicity, Taqizadeh coined a phrase which has been often referred to. He wrote, ‘Iran should become formally and essentially, physically and spiritually Europeanized’.44 Ten days before Reza Khan took control of Tehran in a coup (21 March 1921), in another article in Kaveh, Taqizadeh, who had been a man of the cloth, called for a fundamental reform of Shi‘i Islam. He identified the plethora of ‘irrational and illogical’ hadiths (reports) as the source of the problem.45 Actually existing Islam, he argued, should be cleansed of the ‘futile weeds’ permeating its transmitted literature, rites and rituals. Taqizadeh recommended that the faith should adapt itself to the ‘present time and its requirements’ by ‘ridding itself ’ of all those ‘thousands and thousands’ of reports contradicting ‘reason, civilization and science’.46 In 1924 a second group of Iranian students in Berlin gathered around a monthly called farangestan (foreign lands/Europe). Characterizing Iran as a country of illiterate masses, stuck in the Middle Ages, blindly and obediently following the dictates of an ignorant and hidebound clergy, farangestan called

41 Kaveh, 15 November 1918. 42 Kaveh, 15 November 1918. 43 Kaveh, 22 January 1920. 44 Kaveh, 22 January 1920. 45 Kaveh, 11 March 1921. 46 Kaveh, 11 March 1921. 20 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran for the rise of an ‘iron-fisted’ Europeanized and enlightened dictator who would ‘smash the jaws of the illiterate clerics (akhund) who considered the spreading of sciences as the source of irreligiosity’.47 This article appeared about a year and a half before Reza Shah became king of Iran in December 1925. Rather than criticizing actually existing hadith-based Shi‘i Islam as Taqizadeh had done, the contributors to farangestan simply attacked the Shi‘i clerics, as the incarnation and manifestation of a distorted and dated faith. For these Iranian students abroad, their fellow countrymen back home needed to be completely transformed and overhauled overnight, as if development and reform was a simple mechanical process. In an article in farangestan, which seemed like a request to Reza Khan whose power was on the rise back home, the author wrote: ‘We want a new Iran, a new Man. We want to Europeanize Iran. We want to channel the flood of modern civilization toward Iran. Retaining those ethical assets inherent among Iranians, we would like to pronounce these important words: spiritually, physically, formally and essentially, Iran must become Europeanized (farangimaab).’ 48 This sweeping modernization discourse based on wholesale or unconditional Europeanization was rooted in the firm belief that Iran’s ‘pre-modern’ socio-cultural identity was not only incompatible with and averse to progress, but constituted the most important barrier to it. A third trend among Iranian students abroad represented a different perspective for the modernization of Iran. In 1922, a few months after the closure of Kaveh, Hoseyn Kazemzadeh (Iranshahr), who had initially collaborated with Taqizadeh in Berlin, published the monthly Iranshahr. This journal is said to have been distributed in 40 Iranian cities. In this journal, again published in Berlin, a clear line of demarcation is drawn between the unfettered Europhiles and the nationalist-nativist modernists. Kazemzadeh readily admitted that Eastern countries needed to adopt and acquire Western civilization, yet he observed that the existing Western civilization was saddled with certain ‘faults and flaws’ best avoided by modernizing countries.49 Identifying ‘moral and spiritual decadence’ as a ‘swiftly spreading’ curse in the West, Kazemzadeh emphasized that the ‘road to civilization’ required the employment of Western science and expertise along with ‘strong morals and social values’.50 In contrast to the wholesale Europeanization discourse of Taqizadeh and farangestan the nationalist-nativist modernists wrote, ‘we maintain that Iranians should not become unconditionally, unreservedly, spiritually and physically Europeanized

47 Mahnameh mosavar farangestan, 1 May 1924. 48 Mahnameh mosavar farangestan, 1 May 1924. 49 Iranshahr, 15 June 1923, 17 December 1923. 50 Iranshahr, 24 August 1922, 17 December 1923. Genealogy, Environment, Convictions, Friends and Foes 21

(farangi) ’. 51 The realization of Kazemzadeh’s modernization project hinged on revolutions in the three principal spheres of political organization, religious ideas and literature.52 In an important article called ‘Religion and Nationality’, Kazemzadeh rejected the necessity or desirability of ‘replacing, changing or transforming Iran’s religion’.53 Arguing that the dissemination of irreligiosity and atheism was ‘injurious and damaging’ he called for the ‘reconciliation of religion with modern civilization’.54 Such a process, he argued, necessitated cleansing religion’s commandments and laws from superstitions and irrationalities, the separation of the religious or spiritual affairs from civil and worldly affairs and the coordination of religious commandments with the requirements of progress and civilization. The realization of these preconditions, he believed, would lead to the attainment of modernity.55 If, however, these reforms were not initiated, Kazemzadeh warned that ‘Iran would become red with the blood of many thousand decision- making clerics (akhund) and also that of many innocent people’.56 Kazemzadeh identified the ‘Iranian and progressive Shi‘i Islam’ as a historical product of the ‘Iranian spirit (rouh Iraniyat) ’. 57 He argued that even though it seemed as if religion was the main cause of the country’s ‘decline and destitution’, constituting the greatest barrier against ‘progress and civilization’, Shi‘ism was capable of securing Iran’s welfare.58 Kazemzadeh distinguished between the negative role of the clergy and their institution/establishment (rowhaniyat) and Shi‘ism. He posited that two key characteristics of Shi‘ism rendered it compatible with ‘all aspects’ of modernity. First, the openness of the gate of ejtehad, he argued, allowed the faith to adapt itself to modern developments and second, the fact that Shi‘ism had become a national religion bearing the imprint of the ‘Iranian spirit’ made it prone to modernization.59 Kazemzadeh, however, blamed the ‘olama (Islamic jurists) and the Shi‘i clerics for Shi‘i Islam’s inability to modernize Iran. From his perspective, it was the clerics who distorted the faith and presented it as an anti-modern religion, intolerant of the freedom of thought and opinion.60 According to

51 Iranshahr, 15 June 1923. 52 Iranshahr, 15 June 1923, 20 October 1924. 53 Iranshahr, 20 October 1924. 54 Iranshahr, 20 October 1924. 55 Iranshahr, 20 October 1924. 56 Iranshahr, 20 October 1924. 57 Iranshahr, 17 December 1923. 58 Iranshahr, 20 October 1924. 59 Iranshahr, 20 October 1924. 60 Iranshahr, 17 December 1923. 22 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

Kazemzadeh, superstition and irrationality crept into the faith during the Safavid period, while conditions deteriorated during the Qajars as the clergy became more corrupt, pillaging the people and the country in alliance with state functionaries.61 The nationalist-nativist modernists walked a tight-rope. They were weary of an indiscriminate Westernization process which would completely efface and erase the Iranian spirit and identity, including Shi‘ism. Politically, they opposed Iran’s subjugation to any and all foreign powers. Yet they recognized that the simple reliance on the Iranian spirit and identity had resulted in the backwardness of the country. Holding the clergy and the clerical institution/establishment (rowhaniyat) as distinct from Shi‘ism responsible for all the mishaps in the country was not a concept that could be easily comprehended by many. Since the Safavids, the fate of Shi‘ism and the clergy as its guardians, spokespersons and representatives was too closely interwoven to be easily disentangled. By challenging the performance and achievements of the clergy in terms of securing the development and welfare of the country and rendering it competitive in relation to the advanced countries of the West, the young Western-educated Iranians in the early 1920s were not only questioning the guiding role, authority and legitimacy of the clergy but were threatening the faith of both the believing intellectuals and the masses, for whom their local cleric was the representative and incarnation of Shi‘i Islam. Morteza Modaressi Chahardehi, who knew and worked with Shari‘at Sangelaji, vividly described the anguish of pious Iranians of this period caused by the onslaught of novel ideas and the dawn of a new era of scepticism and doubt. He demonstrated how the inroads made by materialism shook the foundations of the faith; some came to believe in Man’s lineage to the ape and a good number came to ridicule haj (pilgrimage) as ‘the rich man’s carnival’.62 By tracing the truth to physical matter, some hailed the end of the dark ages and celebrated the ‘Golden Age’ of science and rationality. Modaressi Chahardehi condemned the argument made by some among this group of modernists that God did not exist and that the words of the Prophets were suitable only for their own time and that each epoch required its own changing, adapting and applicable laws and tenets.63 Modaressi Chahardehi’s chronicle is enlightening as it reflects the anxiety of the faithful, faced with pressing and complex questions, which needed knowledge of the language and sciences of those challenging the religious establishment.

61 Iranshahr, 17 December 1923 and 20 October 1924. 62 Modaressi, Simaye Bozorgan, p. 180. 63 Morteza Modaressi Chahardehi, Vahid, Tir 1352 (July 1973), p. 518. Genealogy, Environment, Convictions, Friends and Foes 23

Confronted with new and possibly faith-shattering questions and concerns, the youth and the educated sought out a new type of a cleric, who would allow them to voice their concerns, anxieties and lingering doubts and subsequently respond to it rationally and systematically. They needed men of faith who would understand the faith-shattering propositions, engage them rationally and analytically in discussions and dialogues without denouncing and lambasting such ideas off-hand as heretical, atheistic and unacceptable. Whereas the connection between men of God and their educated and potentially straying flock was weakened, if not severed, Shari‘at Sangelaji, revered by some as a ‘most brave and audacious’ cleric, was one of those who opened a dialogue with a generation of contestants, who pointed an accusing finger, explicitly or implicitly, at Shi‘ism as the source of Iran’s misfortunes.64 Sangelaji was preceded in this rather non-traditional venture by Seyyed Asadollah Khareqani (1839–1936). Sangelaji is said to have attended Khareqani’s classes, yet it seems as if he was mostly influenced by Khareqani’s method of religious analysis and interpretation; reliance on the Qur’an and cleansing the faith of the superstitious moss that it had gathered. Sangelaji did not embrace Khareqani’s political discourse, his penchant for a republic or his belief that Islam was incompatible with monarchy. It seems as though in the early 1930s the followers of Khareqani who attended his lectures on the exegesis of the Qur’an, and were commonly known as ‘the Qur’an Group’ (jam‘iyat Qur’ani) first fell out with Sangelaji and then became bitter enemies of his.65 Mostafa Lankarani, who later became a Tudeh Party (Communist) sympathizer and member, recalled that when he and his twin brother Morteza were about 16 years old (around 1935) they were members of Khareqani’s ‘Qur’an Group’. According to Mostafa Lankarani, at this time ‘Sangelaji was a sworn enemy of Khareqani’ and he recalled that because of this enmity, the partisans of the two reformist groups were ‘at war’ with one another.66 The Lankarani family was another renowned resident of the Sangelaj neighbourhood. It is not clear whether relations between Sangelaji and Khareqani had become strained at this time or a rivalry had emerged between their devout followers. Khareqani’s opposition to Reza Shah and Sangelaji’s conciliatory attitude towards the Shah could have been a bone of contention. It is said that one night, on his way home from his mosque, Sangelaji was attacked by the three Lankarani brothers and was

64 Morteza Modaressi Chahardehi, Vahid, Tir 1352 (July 1973), p. 518; Modaressi, Simaye Bozorgan, p. 181. 65 Mostafa Lankarani, Iranian Oral History Collection, Harvard University, Transcript 2, pp. 4–5. 66 Mostafa Lankarani, p. 4. 24 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran given a good beating.67 Mostafa Lankarani, in turn, accused Sangelaji of being a ‘governmental cleric’ (akhund dowlati) and a ‘servant of the head of Tehran’s police’ and held him responsible for the arrest of his brother and himself.68 Sangelaji believed that unless doubts and uncertainties were rationally confronted and logically responded to, the individual’s faith would gradually erode, leading to apostasy. In addition to the question-and-answer session that followed his regular Wednesday night sermons, on weekdays Sangelaji used the small room adjacent to the entrance of his new darotabliq to meet and discuss with those who had an issue or a problem preoccupying them.69 Sangelaji spent relentless hours interacting, debating and discussing issues of importance with his audience, without tiring or boring them.70 Due to his efforts and especially his patient, gentle and amiable demeanour, Sangelaji has been credited for bringing back into the flock of believers many of those who would have lost their faith, in his absence.71

Sangelaji’s Islam in Practice

Sangelaji’s approach to Shi‘ism was far from conventional. He was much more concerned with the essence than the formalities of the faith. To him the true message had to be comprehended and that meant shedding accepted and unquestioned truisms, the proper sources of which to him were suspect and questionable. For Sangelaji certain practices unrelated to the faith which had gradually become fused with religious beliefs and signs of piety needed to be disentangled from the faith and placed in their proper context. Sangelaji recalled that once a pious Muslim approached him and asked whether dyeing his beard with henna during the month of Moharram was religiously forbidden (haram) or permitted (halal).72 Sangelaji inquired about the person’s profession and having discovered that he was responsible for weighing goods at the moment of sale, he informed the man that the Qur’an had left him free to dye or not to dye, but that the same Qur’an had clear stipulations about justice and fairness in sales and that it was forbidden to short-weight consumers.73 For Sangelaji Muslims

67 Abdollah Sangelaji, personal interview, 17 July 2000. 68 Mostafa Lankarani, p. 4. 69 Ra’d 28 Dey 1322. Quoted in Bigdeli, p. 93. I am grateful to Abdollah Sangelaji for kindly providing me with this collection. 70 Bastani Parizi, p. 184. 71 Morteza Modaressi Chahardehi, Vahid, Tir 1352 (July 1973), p. 518. 72 Bigdeli, p. 93. 73 Bigdeli, p. 93. Genealogy, Environment, Convictions, Friends and Foes 25 had to distinguish between what the Qur’an required of them and the domains in which they needed to apply their own choice and reasoning. Sangelaji’s emphasis on the Qur’an and his attempt at freeing Muslims from non-Qur’anic practices, which he believed had crept into the faith and were upheld by the traditional clerical institution, inevitably set him on a collision course with the clerical establishment (rowhaniyat). His claim that belief (iman) was the perfection of reason (kamal aql) gave an unprecedented position to human reasoning which was not compatible with the general perception of the traditional clergy of his time.74 Sangelaji’s breaking of rank with the traditional understanding of certain Shi‘i concepts and even more importantly the mission and purpose of the faith troubled the traditional clergy, as it threatened their conventional and long-established discourse and frames of reference. Sangelaji took every opportunity to undermine and challenge those formalistic lines of demarcation, separating and pitting one school of Islam against another. He viewed the official and fiercely defended divisions by various schools of Islam as stereotypical and futile, sapping the energy of the participants without any spiritual or material consequence for the practitioners of the faith. In this endeavour he seems to have followed the example of Seyyed Jamal-eddin Asadabadi and Sheykh Hadi Najmabadi.75 Whenever an occasion presented itself, Sangelaji sought to break down what he considered to be ill-founded religious beliefs turned into inflexible and rigid practices blindly followed by the unquestioning pious masses. Through taking issue with what he considered to be traditional and deeply embedded unproductive and even counter-productive non-Qur’anic religious practices, Sangelaji endorsed the possibility of being a good Muslim without narrowly following what had become understood as the official dogma. The alternative religiosity presented and supported by Sangelaji threatened the monopoly position of the official custodians of the faith. It could be argued that Sangelaji promoted a social Islamic humanism. On one occasion, probably at his darotabliq, Sangelaji observed that while everyone was busy performing their ablution (vuzu) and preparing for their daily prayers, an army officer stood by watching others. Sangelaji inquired why the officer was not getting ready for his prayers. The officer responded that he could not take his boots off to wash his feet and that he would perform his prayers later when he would go home. Perfectly aware of the consequences of his unusual advice in terms of standard Shi‘i practice, Sangelaji prompted the army officer to

74 Bigdeli, p. 77. 75 For examples of Najmabadi’s break with tradition and radical espousal of reason see: Morteza Najmabadi, Tahrir al-‘Oqala, Tehran: Armaghan, 1312, pp. 18–19. 26 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran wash his feet over his boots. ‘Wash over your boots and perform you prayers. I will accept all responsibility and I am sure God will accept your prayers – even with your boots on’.76 After some initial resistance, the officer complied and performed his prayers without taking off his boots. Once the news of Sangelaji’s surprising recommendation leaked out the more conservative clerics objected to his highly unconventional ruling. In response to the criticisms of the clergy, Sangelaji is said to have retorted that ‘I have brought the performance of prayers to the surface of the boots of this officer it seems as if you would want to place it beneath his boots’.77 The ritual of washing one’s feet in addition to certain other aspects of ablution as a pre-requisite to the performance of prayers is a bone of contention between Shi‘is and Sunnis. Supporting their position, Sunnis refer to reports attributed to the Prophet according to which, while travelling Muslims may wipe their boots instead of removing them and washing their feet before praying. Some Sunnis have even deduced that the wiping of the boots, facilitating the performance of prayers, could also be extended to non-travellers.78 Shi‘is, however, maintain that boots, socks or anything covering the feet must be removed before ablution and the performance of prayers. According to Shi‘is, the upholding of this ritual is supported by reports attributed to the imams. According to a report: ‘dissimulation constitutes nine tenth of the religion and whosoever does not practice it is not a believer. There is dissimulation in everything except in drinking of a wine made of dates (nabiz) and ablution by wiping over the shoes’.79 Aware of the difference between the Shi‘is and the Sunnis on the question of the modality of this ritual, Sangelaji’s objective in making an example of the officer was to highlight the relationship between the ritual of ablution as the means and the higher objective of prayers. By ruling on the fact that barriers to performing prayers should be minimized to encourage individuals to enter into communication with God, Sangelaji elevated the importance of prayers and played down the significance of the ritual. To Sangelaji, the performance of prayers as a means of seeking proximity to God remained the main objective of the whole exercise. Even though ablution as a means of assuring cleanliness was important it constituted a second-order objective in comparison to prayers, a first-order objective of the faith. In pursuit of the substance of the faith,

76 Bastani Parizi, p. 185. 77 Bastani Parizi, p. 186. 78 J. Burton, An Introduction to the Hadith, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994, p. 165. 79 Koleyni, Usul Kafi, translated by Haj Seyyed Javad Mostafavi, Tehran: Entesharat Golgasht, 1375, Vol. 3, p. 307. Genealogy, Environment, Convictions, Friends and Foes 27

Sangelaji was willing to sacrifice the form and accept admonition for acting in a un‑Shi‘i manner. This method of approach became the hallmark of his arguments and edicts. On another occasion, a peasant from Mazandaran, Sangelaji’s ancestral home, asked him to facilitate his pilgrimage to the haj by recommending him to the authorities in charge of the annual pilgrimage. During the latter part of Reza Shah’s reign, allowing people to go to the haj was rather restricted. Those interested were obliged to pull whatever strings they could. The peasant hoped that Sangelaji would intercede on his behalf. Sangelaji inquired about the means by which the peasant was to finance his pilgrimage. He was informed that the peasant had already sold his oxen with which he ploughed his small plot of land. Enraged by the news that the peasant had sold his means of livelihood to perform the haj, Sangelaji ordered him to go back to his village and to return the money and retrieve his oxen.80 Referring to the peasant’s wish to perform the haj and circumambulate the house of God, Sangelaji said; ‘Your proper circumambulation is the act of ploughing the land you cultivate with help of your oxen’.81 Sangelaji’s pronouncements on religiously proscribed issues highlights two key aspects of his view of the individual’s relation to religion which distinguish him from the majority of his fellow Shi‘i clerics. First, Sangelaji re-ranks and rearranges the order of priority of proper Shi‘i practice, according to particular circumstances and conditions of the individuals involved. By effectively prohibiting the peasant to perform haj, one of the four practical obligations of the faith, when such an act may threatens the livelihood of the individual and his family, Sangelaji engages in ruling according to some notion of the jurist’s preference. Sangelaji shifts the basis of his ruling from a literal reading of the text to a nuanced and a contextualized one anchored in the spirit of the law and concerned with maximizing the convenience and benefit of the particular individual involved. By employing and promoting an individualized and case by case method, Sangelaji demonstrated the constraints of generalized and universalized legal deductions and applications, when it came to shifting circumstances and contexts. Prioritizing the protection of Ghazali’s five basic necessities of the faith (zaruriyat-e khamsa) as first-order objectives, the attainment of which trumped all other targets, resulted in Sangelaji’s legal pronouncements and rulings, which were at times different from the conventional Shi‘i ones.

80 Bastani Parizi, p. 187. 81 Bastani Parizi, p. 187. 28 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

According to Ghazali, ‘the objectives of the faith as they relate to people are five; that is to protect their religion, life, reason, progeny and property’.82 Shatibi reiterates Ghazali’s position and maintains that: ‘the divine law is designed to protect five basic things. These are religion, life, progeny property and reason’.83 Sangelaji maintained that ‘the goal of the Qur’an in promulgating the Divine Law (Shari‘a) and formulating injunctions was to guarantee the peoples’ convenience (maslahat), well-being and expediency’.84 By adopting the principle that the goal of religion was to provide convenience, well-being and expediency for the faithful, Sangelaji set the parameter for his religious discourse. He upheld the five necessities as ‘those principles and injunctions that individuals would have to follow and defend to secure their interest both in terms of the affairs of this world and that of the hereafter’.85 Sangelaji’s list of the five necessities, without which he argued ‘life would be in shambles and the hereafter full of misfortunes’, included the ‘defence of religion, reason, life (body), progeny and property’.86 Sangelaji’s list of necessities differed from Ghazali and Shatibi only in its ordering and ranking of the necessities. Whereas Shatibi mentions the defence of reason as his last item of necessity, Ghazali considers it as the third item and Sangelaji raises it only second to religion, which he defines as a set of beliefs and not rituals.87 It is not, therefore, surprising that Sangelaji has been compared to Ghazali and, according to one of Sangelaji’s admirers, it was possible to consider Sangelaji as on par with Imam Ghazali.88 Second, under special circumstances, such as the cases of the peasant and the army officer, Sangelaji does not hesitate to de-couple the performance of religious rituals from the more fundamental issue of the faith of the individual. In both cases, his rulings send the clear message that in order to save religion, reason, life, progeny, and property, the ritual of going to pilgrimage or washing over the bare feet, as it has been traditionally promulgated, could safely be sacrificed. As long as rituals help to fortify, reinforce and uphold the faith, they assist the faith and should therefore be safeguarded, but as soon as they act as impediments, stifling it, Sangelaji felt as though they should be abandoned. Sangelaji’s judgement in case of the peasant is even more controversial since he

82 Iqbal, Munawar, Distributive Justice and Need Fulfilment in an Islamic Economy, Leicester: The Islamic Foundation, 1988, p. 258. 83 Iqbal, p. 258. 84 Sangelaji, S. Kelid Fahm Qur’an, Tehran: Entesharat Danesh, n.d., p. 61. 85 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 61. 86 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 61–2. 87 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 61. 88 Bigdeli, pp. 81–2. Genealogy, Environment, Convictions, Friends and Foes 29 rules against haj, an obligatory ritual, when its practice endangers the safety of life, reason and progeny. Ayatollah Khomeyni, one of Sangelaji’s critics passed a similar and equally controversial judgement some 55 years later. Khomeyni argued that for the safety and security of the Islamic State or for reasons of the state, even the performance of the haj could be forsaken. In May 1932, on his way back to India from a tour of Europe, Rabindranath Tagore came to Iran. Tagore was an eminent and internationally prominent Bengali poet and mystic. He was also the winner of the Noble Prize for literature in 1913. It is reported that curious about Tagore’s agenda in Iran and intent on setting him up against a worthy Iranian contender, Reza Shah, prompted Sheykh-ol-molk Ourang to arrange an encounter or debate between Sangelaji and Tagore.89 An interesting debate, which became a hot subject of discussion in the intellectual circles of Tehran, took place between the two men. The discussion, which took place at the ‘Literary Society’ (anjoman adabi), was conducted through a translator. Hoseynqoli Mosta‘an published a report of the debate in the daily, Iran.90 Sangelaji opened the discussion by asking Tagore what he believed to be the proper ‘path towards perfection and felicity’. Sangelaji asked: ‘Which commands shall we obey and whose teachings shall we follow? What would secure the greatest material and spiritual happiness and felicity?’91 Tagore answered that it was impossible to tell which path to felicity was better and which was worse. Sangelaji, however, argued that given the diversity of opinions on the issue and the multiplicity of paths proposed by different Prophets, messengers and philosophers, the ‘quickest path’ had to identified and pursued. Avoiding any categorical statements, which would limit and commit him to one path, Tagore responded that as he was a poet and that the poet travelled through the path of love, then love would become the inevitable signpost and signifier, indicating and determining the ‘correct path’. The ‘correct path’, Tagore argued would therefore, depend on ‘where the individual is born and the environment in which he is raised’. He then added, ‘which ever path is taken by the person in love, will prove to be the right path’. Impatient with the turn in the direction of the discussion, Sangelaji observed that identifying ‘love’ as the compass for seeking felicity, placed the debate outside the rational framework it was to be conducted within. Sangelaji concluded: ‘the path of love is different from that of reason, it is best if our discussion could be grounded in reason and

89 Abdollah Sangelaji, personal interview, 12 July 2000. 90 Iran, 18 Ordibehest 1311, 9 May 1932. 91 Iran, 18 Ordibehest 1311, 9 May 1932. 30 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran logic’.92 At this point, Tagore, who probably found Sangelaji rather brash and even too mechanical, excused himself for being too exhausted and the debate came to an abrupt end. To Sangelaji’s friends and followers, the discussion demonstrated that, unable to respond logically and scientifically to Sangelaji’s inquiries, Tagore preferred to bow out gracefully. According to Ourang, Reza Shah was thrilled with the news that someone from his old neighbourhood had demolished Tagore!93 Sangelaji, however, was not at all alien to callings of the heart. On a cold winter, looking out of his window Sangelaji is said to have observed a poor old man shivering on the street below. He is said to have grabbed a special Scottish blanket that had been sent to him from abroad and thrown it out to the old man.94 His compassion and love for his distressed fellow beings as well as his praxis of performing righteous acts is reported to have caused his death. From spring of 1942, Iran already occupied by the allied forces (Britain and Soviet Union) faced numerous socio-economic problems, including poverty, malnutrition and a typhus epidemic which ravaged the country and Tehran. In 1943, a young man from Taleqan, who had been afflicted by typhus came to Tehran seeking medical help at the capital’s hospitals. Searching for a place to stay at night the young man, whose relatives had in the past found shelter at Sangelaji’s Centre of Propagation darotabliq, approached the custodian, Mash Qasem, who in turn informed Sangelaji. Concerned with the fact that the sick young man may not be comfortable and well-cared for at the centre, Sangelaji invited him to stay at his own house, where he could be better attended to. The young stranger’s condition improved and after a while he left for Taleqan. However, his stay at the Sangelaji residence exposed the whole family to typhus. Shari‘at, his brother Mohammad-Mehdi, his son Abdollah, his wife Fatemeh Tal‘at Kamyab and his daughter-in-law Fatemeh (Mohammad- Baqer’s wife) were all afflicted by typhus. While Sangelaji’s son, his wife and his daughter-in-law were fortunate enough to survive, both Shari‘at and his brother Mohammad-Mehdi, succumbed to the disease and died. Early on a cold Thursday morning of January 1944 (15 Dey 1322) Shari‘at passed away at the age of 53. A fortnight later, the death of Mohammad-Mehdi Sangelaji, an erudite Islamic jurist and a professor of law at the University of Tehran, added to the family’s grief.95

92 Iran, 18 Ordibehest 1311, 9 May 1932. Vahid, Azar 1352 and 121, Dey 1352. 93 Abdollah Sangelaji, personal interview, 17 July 2000. 94 Bastani Parizi, p. 215. 95 Abdollah Sangelaji, personal interview, 17 July 2000. See also Morteza Modaressi Chahardehi, Vahid, Bahman 1352, pp. 1152–4. Genealogy, Environment, Convictions, Friends and Foes 31

In the obituaries that followed his untimely death, Shari‘at Sangelaji was hailed as ‘one of the greatest protectors of Islam and supporters of righteousness and ethical values, who bravely and selflessly fought for this cause’.96 In its editorial, one reputable Iranian newspaper of the time wrote: ‘[Shari‘at Sangelaji] was undoubtedly a great man. He was the kind of person who may appear once in every century.’97 Certain obituaries, probably with hidden political agendas, however, could not refrain from praising Sangelaji, without denouncing his conservative colleagues. One newspaper wrote,

I wish that in these crisis-ridden days during which rational and logical Islam, is facing great hardship and is difficult to come by, and when Islamic countries, especially the Shi‘i people are deprived of rationality and knowledge, Shari‘at would have stayed alive and instead of him, death would have come to hundreds of fraudulent pseudo-mullahs, hundreds of world-worshipping pseudo-clerics and hundreds of illiterate pseudo-‘olama who consistently deceive the people.98

96 Ettela’at, 17 Dey 1322. 97 Iran, 19 Dey 1322. 98 Qiyam-e Iran, 19 Dey 1322. This page has been left blank intentionally Chapter 2 Sangelaji’s Interlocutors

The ascension of Reza Khan to power in 1921 and the establishment of his dynasty in 1925 came on the heels of important transformations in Iran. The active participation of the clergy in Iran’s constitutional movement and revolution and their mobilization in favour of the two opposing sides of the constitutionalists and anti-constitutionalists had brought out into the public the deep differences within the clerical establishment rowhaniyat( ). From the moment when the first Iranian parliament majles( ) officially met (1906), it gradually became clear that Shi‘ism did not constitute a monolith, as the clerical deputies engaged in heated debates and discussions on local, national and international issues. The fact that the centre of Shi‘i learning and religious authority was outside Iran – in Iraq – did not help the articulation of a coherent and centralized Iranian Shi‘i discourse. The Shi‘i clerical establishment was faced with centrifugal forces acting on it. When in 1922, Sheykh Abdolkarim Ha’eri founded the Qom seminary school, he hoped to create a hub of Shi‘i learning and authority in Iran. Organizing, financing, staffing and running the Qom seminary school at the time was not an easy task. The success of the Qom seminary school depended on Ha’eri’s ability to centralize decision-making powers to help push through a comprehensive and rigorous curriculum, recruit the appropriate faculty and establish a distinguished reputation for the seminary school in a short period. Academically and intellectually Ayatollah Ha’eri wished to see the expansion and development of the Qom seminary school to a position where it would rival the Najaf and Karbala seminary schools in Iraq. Ha’eri’s main concern at this time was the proper education and training of distinguished Islamic scholars who could in turn transmit their knowledge to their students and train future Shi‘i scholars. Ayatollah Ha’eri faced the difficult task of efficiently managing the newly founded Qom seminary school in a country where Reza Shah, its absolutist and authoritarian ruler was neither enthused by the expansion of Shi‘i religious education nor by the regeneration of a Shi‘i centre of power (Qom) in Iran. The Qom seminary school’s success as a learning centre, in spite of Reza Shah’s 34 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran uncollaborative attitude towards it, was due to Ha’eri’s skill and ability to keep the monarch at bay. Ayatollah Ha’eri was intent on keeping out of the domains which would drag him and consequently the seminary school into a conflictual situation with Reza Shah. He, therefore, avoided entanglements or entrance into possible arenas of conflict with the government which could jeopardize the status or survival of the Qom seminary school. Ha’eri’s close watch on Qom and his policy of avoiding unnecessary clashes with Reza Shah provided an opportunity for heterodox Shi‘i discourses to voice their opinions. The change in dynasty from Qajar to Pahlavi in 1925 and the few years preceding it during which Ahmad Shah Qajar’s political power was effectively curtailed can be considered as an important threshold in the affective, cultural and ultimately political relation between the monarchy and the religious establishment in Iran. As much as the clergy had their political differences and even major quarrels with Qajar kings, they were convinced that the Qajar kings believed themselves to be upholders of official Shi‘ism, protectors of the Shi‘i creed and enemies of its detractors and adversaries. Reza Shah’s reign ended a long period of deeply felt security and trust, which was a creedal bond almost like a blood-bond between the monarchy and the Shi‘i clerical establishment. According to this traditional bond, the clergy were entitled to censure the Qajar monarchs, but the monarch was religiously, ethically and culturally bound to desist from being indifferent to or threatening, let alone belligerent, towards Shi‘ism, Shi‘i symbols and the rowhaniyat as the spokesmen of Shi‘ism. With the rise of Reza Shah to power, the traditional unsaid covenant and affective bond between the Qajar monarchs and the faith as well as the clergy, which shielded official Shi‘ism from adversity, was ruptured. This was a period when under pressure, mainstream Shi‘ism effectively withdrew to re-assess the new power relations imposed upon it by a monarch who did not consider his role primarily as that of the protector of the Shi‘i. With the departure of Ahmad Shah Qajar, official Shi‘ism lost its solid protective shield and was obliged to renegotiate a new modus vivendi with an absolutist king who did not consider his raison d’être in being the Shi‘i king. It is not surprising that in his book Kashf- al-Asrar, Ruhollah Khomeyni, later Ayatollah Khomeyni, argued that as long as Ahmad Shah Qajar was around, foreigners could not undermine the popularity and influence of the clergy and thereby colonize the country. In this book, Khomeyni reverently and endearingly referred to Ahmad Shah as marhoum or the one who has been graced by God.1 While praising Ahmad Shah, Khomeyni criticized Reza Shah as an ‘unwitted dictator’ who was an agent of the European

1 Ruhollah Khomeyni, Kashf-al-Asrar, n.p., Nashre Zafar, n.d., pp. 330–31. Sangelaji’s Interlocutors 35 colonialists. The same kind of respect and admiration towards Ahmad Shah Qajar can be found in the writings of other clerics.2 As Reza Shah consolidated his power, some clerics withdrew from public life, some preferred to stay at home, while a good number took off their religious garb for different reasons and many others embraced civilian life as government employees at the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Interior working as notary publics. The official religious establishment under the leadership of Ayatollah Abdolkarim Ha’eri while busy founding, protecting and developing the Qom seminary school, was too engaged in establishing a proper modus vivendi with Reza Shah to officially engage with heterodox Shi‘i discourses. Reza Shah’s indifference to religion and hostility towards the clergy, as its official custodians, along with his explicit political will to Westernize Iran, weakened the grip of the clerical establishment (rowhaniyat) on alternative Shi‘i narratives. In an environment, where the rowhaniyat were pre-occupied, anxious and under pressure from the state, the challenges to Islam by modernists, concomitant with direct and unprecedented attacks on Shi‘ism, allowed for the emergence and toleration of heterodox and non-conventional Shi‘i discourses. In his attempt to defend and modernize Shi‘ism, Sangelaji became the target of attack from two different and radically opposed quarters. He was derided and attacked by members of different echelons of the Shi‘i establishment because of his criticism of what he believed to be non-Shi‘i beliefs and practices that had crept into the faith, only to be saved from the charge of apostasy and infidelity by no less than Ayatollah Abdolkarim Ha’eri. On the other hand Sangelaji was also attacked by those who had ruptured with Shi‘ism. The new anti-Shi‘ites accused him of being an uncommitted wishy-washy salesman who continued to sell an irreparable false religion. Sangelaji’s heterodox ideas were denounced and vilified by Shi‘i clerics and he was accused of being a Wahhabi. Haj Seyyed Ali-Naqi Faiz-ol-eslam Esfahani, a low-ranking cleric, who presented himself as a candidate for the seventeenth parliamentary elections in 1952, wrote a book against Sangelaji called The Leader of the Strayed (rahbar gomshodegan). In this book, Faiz-ol-eslam began by referring to a previous book of his against Sangelaji and then accused him of being an unbeliever.3 He maintained that Sangelaji should not have uttered his nonsense (latael) against the notables of the Shi‘i faith and that furthermore he was forbidden to refer to the Qur’an, as this was only permissible for the imams

2 H. Bodala, Haftad sal Khatereh az Ayatollah Seyyed Hoseyn Bodala, Tehran: Markaz Asnad Enqelab Eslami, 1378, pp. 16–17, 19. 3 Faiz-ol-eslam, Rahbar-e Gomshodegan, n.p., n.d., p. 8. 36 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran and the upright of the faith.4 Faiz-ol-eslam questioned Sangelaji’s belief in Islam since the latter was said to have considered intercession (shafa‘at), the return of the dead (raj‘at) and visiting the grave of the imams as ‘the tree of idolatry and polytheism (shirk) ’. 5 Faiz-ol-eslam ridiculed the title of ‘the great reformer’ (mosleh bozorg), which Sangelaji’s followers had given him and maintained that the only great reformer was the Twelfth Imam.6 Referring to the anti-Shi‘i nature of Sangelaji’s centre of propagation (darotabliq), Faiz-ol-eslam argued that a place at which words were spoken against the Qur’an, the imams and the obvious facts and necessities of the Shi‘i, could not be called a darotabliq or a place where one propagates Islam.7 He therefore suggested that it should be called a darolertezaq or a place from which one earns ones means of subsistence, a commercial centre. Faiz-ol-eslam argued that Sangelaji was a corruptor (mofsed) and a hypocrite (monafeq), who was taking orders from foreigners (ajnabi) and unbelievers/ infidels kofar( ).8 These were grave religious charges with major consequences and heavy retributions, if zealots were to act on them as facts. Reacting to Sangelaji’s persistent invitation to Muslims to think and apply their reasoning to religious issues, Faiz-ol-eslam followed the traditional argument of the Akhbari school that human reasoning was incapable of understanding concepts such as the Prophet’s physical night journey (me‘raj) and the return of the dead (raj‘at) and that the faith neither expected humans to reflect upon such matters nor prescribed the application of reasoning to such issues.9 Faiz-ol-eslam concluded that the belief in the return of the dead was a necessity of the belief in Shi‘ism and passed judgement that people such as Sangelaji, who rejected it were outside the faith.10 Sangelaji was, thus, accused of denying the truths of Islam and Shi‘ism and basing his arguments on the books of an Englishman.11 Faiz-ol-eslam defended Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi and Bahar al-anwar, his compilation of reports, against Sangelaji’s criticisms.12 Finally, Faiz-ol-eslam accused Sangelaji of ‘subscribing to the nefarious ideas of the Wahhabis and the propagation of their ideas’.13

4 Faiz-ol-eslam, pp. 8–9. 5 Faiz-ol-eslam, pp. 21, 27. 6 Faiz-ol-eslam, pp. 25. 7 Faiz-ol-eslam, p. 26. 8 Faiz-ol-eslam, pp. 40, 42. 9 Faiz-ol-eslam, pp. 50–51; 57–8, 65. 10 Faiz-ol-eslam, p. 217. 11 Faiz-ol-eslam, p. 85. 12 Faiz-ol-eslam, pp. 148, 159. 13 Faiz-ol-eslam, p. 238; Ettela’at, 31 Day 1330. Sangelaji’s Interlocutors 37

In his sermons, Mirza Abdollah, another detractor of Sangelaji, who preached at Masjed Shah (The Shah’s Mosque) andMasjed Torkha (The Turks’ Mosque), is said to have claimed that Sangelaji’s blue-eyed and blonde daughter frequented one of the cabarets located in northern Tehran, dancing throughout the night until sunrise.14 The fact of the matter, however, was that Sangelaji had only two sons. To denigrate his reputation among the pious, the kinds of Mirza Abdollah did not seem concerned with facts but only effective means of character assassination. In the early 1970s Ali Shari‘ati came under significant attack by clerics of all ranks. Shari‘ati’s acerbic criticism of the clerical establishment (rowhaniyat) and some of its notable pioneers such as Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi, prompted his clerical opponents to revisit the recent genealogy of Shi‘i reformation and anti‑clericalism in Iran. Sheykh Qasem Eslami, a vocal critic of Shari‘ati traced his anti-clericalism to people such as Kasravi and Sangelaji, whom Eslami believed were much more knowledgeable than Shari‘ati.15 However, while Shari‘ati’s reformist thoughts were on some and not all levels similar to Sangelaji, contrary to Kasravi, both Shari‘ati and Sangelaji believed that Shi‘ism was the most complete and desirable faith to attain spiritual and worldly welfare. Eslami, however, was correct in tracing Shari‘ati’s anti-clericalism and even anti-Majlesism to both Sangelaji and Kasravi, the works of whom Shari‘ati had studied in Iran and re-read while in Paris.16

Khomeyni’s Criticism of Sangelaji

In a treatise called Kashf-al-Asrar or the ‘Discovery of the Secrets’, written in 1944, after Sangelaji’s death, Ruhollah Khomeyni, who was rather unknown at the time, wrote a sharp rebuttal to Ali-Akbar Hakamizadeh’s book, Asrar Hezar Saleh (The Thousand-Year Secrets). Hakamizadeh’s pamphlet was originally published as an article in the weekly Parcham in 1943. The weeklyParcham , in turn, belonged to Ahmad Kasravi. The publication of Hakamizadeh’s article in Kasravi’s weekly demonstrated the proximity of Hakamizadeh’s position to Kasravi who at this time had fully renounced Shi‘ism. In his controversial book, which had deeply disturbed the official Shi‘i establishment, Hakamizadeh posed 13 irritating questions to the custodians of official Shi‘ism

14 Abdollah Sangelaji, personal interview, 15 July 2000. 15 Q. Eslami, Rowhaniyat, n.p., n.p., n.d., p. 107. 16 A. Rahnema, An Islamic Utopian: A Political Biography of Ali Shari‘ati, London: Tauris, 2014, p. 10. 38 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran and charged that 95 per cent of what was considered by them as the Shi‘i creed was nothing but misleading ideas. The fact that Hakamizadeh was initially a cleric, knowledgeable on religious matters and the son of the prominent and pious cleric Sheykh Mehdi Qomi Pa’in Shahri, who had been a close friend of Sheykh Abdol Karim Ha’eri, the founder of the Qom seminary school seems to have necessitated a stern response.17 Khomeyni’s treatise, which was initially published without the name of the author, was the formal response of the Qom seminary school to Hakamizadeh’s book.18 In the opening paragraph of his rebuttal, Khomeyni stated that ‘recently a few ignorant/irrational (bikheradani chand) people have appeared who have placed all their energies at the service of causing corruption (fesadangizi), sedition (fetneh joi’e), dissent (tafaroq kalemeh) and undermining the principles of the community’.19 These few, according to Khomeyni, were writers who attacked ‘the faith, religiosity and the clerical establishment (rowhaniyat)’. Khomeyni pointed out that he did not intend to engage with these people but that since ‘those pens which are used against the clerical establishment (rowhaniyat) effectively help destroy the country and its independence’, he was compelled to respond.20 Even though Khomeyni’s book was primarily a response to Hakamizadeh, he used this opportunity to rebuke also Sangelaji and Kasravi. Khomeyni must have known that by 1943, Kasravi’s perception of the viability and necessity of Shi‘ism and Islam was radically different from that of Sangelaji. Whereas Kasravi had come to reject Shi‘ism and Islam, Sangelaji remained a fervent Muslim and Shi‘i reformer. Yet Khomeyni must have felt that Sangelaji’s criticism of actually existing Shi‘ism, as a Shi‘i cleric and a reformer, could have had much more impact on the thoughts of believers, than Kasravi who had moved himself outside the circle of the Shi‘i. By merging and amalgamating Sangelaji and Kasravi in one religious camp, Khomeyni effectively placed Sangelaji in a category – vis-à-vis Shi‘ism – to which he did not really belong. Referring to ‘these adventurists’, most probably implying Hakamizadeh, Sangelaji and Kasravi, Khomeyni accused them of believing that the backwardness of Iran in comparison to the modern European civilization was due to the belief in Shi‘ism, Shi‘i leaders or guides (pishvayan) and the solution to progress and development for them was to abandon religious ceremonies.21 Judging by the respective writings of Sangelaji and Kasravi on progress and the role of Shi‘ism as barriers to it, Khomeyni’s

17 Bodala, pp. 79, 196. 18 Bodala, p. 202. 19 Ruhollah Khomeyni, p. 2. 20 Ruhollah Khomeyni, p. 2. 21 Ruhollah Khomeyni, p. 5. Sangelaji’s Interlocutors 39 statement was more applicable to Kasravi’s position in the late 1930s and early 1940s, than to Sangelaji. However, Sangelaji and Kasravi did share a negative view of the clergy and the official Shi‘i clerical establishmentrowhaniyat ( ). If Khomeyni’s treatise is viewed as an official defence of the honour of the Shi‘i clerical establishment in the face of its heterogeneous adversaries, then it seems appropriate for him to lump together all those who were critical of the clergy, even though they may not have believed that Shi‘ism and the clerical establishment were identical. In Kashf-al-Asrar, Khomeyni referred to Sangelaji on four occasions. Under the subtitle of whether prostrating before a small piece of clay or soil (torbat) – a Shi‘i practice at the time of prayers – is idolatry, Khomeyni argued that if the prostrating person believed that the piece of clay or its owner was God, then the person would be considered as an idolator, but if he was prostrating for God, following the will of God, his act would not be considered as idolatry but as the practice of monotheism.22 According to Khomeyni, the Shi‘i believed that their act of prostrating was for God and that the charge of idolatry levelled against them by the Sunnis and Wahhabis was unfounded. He therefore invited those so-called Shi‘i who were levelling such charges to repent and recant. Khomeyni concluded his subtitle by addressing Sangelaji’s case and wrote that, ‘Until the end, Sangelaji, according to himself, insisted on a subject that he did not believe in, because he wished to challenge some of the preachers and by doing so, he left behind disgraceful memories, well known to the learned (not others)’. According to Khomeyni, Sangelaji ‘had been unmasked in the religious and scientific community’. Khomeyni passed judgement on Sangelaji and wrote that, ‘we do not consider such individuals to be free thinkers and in possession of sound characters; we consider them condemned before the court of humanity and freedom’.23 Khomeyni reproached Sangelaji for claiming that prostrating before a piece of clay (torbat) was an act of idolatry. Sangelaji, however, argued that prayers and worship had to be performed for God and all practices involving prostration before animate or inanimate objects were idolatrous, no matter how much the practitioner claimed to be a monotheist or Shi‘i.24 While Sangelaji believed that the Shi‘i should not substitute their objects of veneration for God and if they did, they would become polytheists, Khomeyni argued that they were not substituting their objects of veneration for God. It could be argued that in fact, both men were agreeing on the fact that substitution of the venerated

22 Ruhollah Khomeyni, pp. 56–7. 23 Ruhollah Khomeyni, pp. 57–8 (all three quotes). 24 S. Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, Tehran: Chapkhaneh Danesh, 2535, pp. 22–3. 40 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran object was an act of idolatry, yet to Khomeyni, the Shi‘i were perfectly conscious of the fact that they were not involved in a process of substitution. The debate between the two at one level was over the notion of intention or niyyat of each believer, which was very difficult to ascertain. Khomeyni’s writing also divulges a degree of sympathy for Sangelaji as he maintains that Sangelaji did not really believe in what he was accused of. Under the subtitle of building mausoleums and burial chambers, Khomeyni censured ‘those uninformed adventurists’ who thought that it was only the Shi‘i who built mausoleums and burial chambers for their religious dignitaries and consequently attacked Shi‘ites engaged in such activities as idolaters.25 He argued that since all faiths engaged in the same practice, then the detractors should consider all religious groups as polytheists. Once again in the conclusion of this subtitle, Khomeyni reproached Sangelaji for apparently another one of his so- called deviations. Khomeyni wrote that on the day that he read Sangelaji’s book Towhid dar Ebadat, he laughed at Sangelaji’s ‘witless mind’ when he came to the section of his book where Sangelaji claimed that wearing an agate ring was an act of idolatry and subsequently took it off on the way to thehaj (pilgrimage to Mecca).26 Khomeyni wrote, ‘Why is this man going to circumambulate Mecca? He must believe that the stone is God or that God resides there. If they claim that they are following God’s order then all these practices are the commands of God; otherwise no one worships a valueless black stone or asks favours from an agate or ruby ring’.27 In that section of Sangelaji’s book to which Khomeyni referred, Sangelaji addressed the belief among some believers that stones possessed properties such as protecting the persons wearing them from dangers. Sangelaji wrote that as he was on his way from Medina to the house of God in Mecca, he reflected on the ring of bloodstone or hematite (hadid sayni) that he was wearing on his finger and came to the conclusion that he was carrying with him an idol. Ashamed of his act, Sangelaji wrote that he should have accepted God as his protector instead of the ring and that is why he took it off and threw it away in the desert, where he said, it really belonged.28 Sangelaji’s act of rebellion, which Khomeyni reprimanded, was against a religious tradition common among the Shi‘i. Wearing different kinds of rings as a requirement of piety was strongly promoted and legitimized by Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi. By rejecting the necessity of wearing rings and

25 Ruhollah Khomeyni, p. 63. 26 Ruhollah Khomeyni, p. 64. The title of Sangelaji’s book isTowhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’. 27 Ruhollah Khomeyni, pp. 64–5. 28 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 46. Sangelaji’s Interlocutors 41 labelling it as an act of irrational idolatry, Sangelaji was also challenging the rationale and validity of the reports compiled in Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi’s, Heliyat al-Mottaqin under the title of, ‘on the virtues of wearing rings’. In this work, Majlesi referenced numerous reports supporting the so-called properties and blessings of rings with different stones.29 In his refutation of those who attacked the notion of intercession (shafa‘at), a common Shi‘i belief, as an act of idolatry, Khomeyni criticized Sangelaji for being the first to make a huge fuss about this issue. Khomeyni argued that opposition to intercession was a Wahhabi position first publicized by the Egyptian Sheykh Tantawi and then his ‘rubbish’ was borrowed and repeated by Sangelaji.30 Khomeyni did not enter into the details of Sangelaji’s arguments. In his works, Sangelaji first confirmed that intercessionshafa‘at ( ) was one of the certitudes of Islam and then embarked on presenting the different ways in which the notion of intercession was understood and practised.31 According to Sangelaji, the belief that a sinner could request the intercession of the imams for grace and would automatically obtain it was a belief supporting and guaranteeing idolatry.32 Sangelaji’s objective of criticizing certain readings and interpretations of intercession was to promote the idea that ‘righteous acts’ would speak for a persons in the hereafter and that Majlesi’s teachings were undermining the pious community when he propagated the notion that in response to the Prophet’s intercession on the part of all Shi‘i, God would expiate ‘the past and future’ sins of all Shi‘i.33 In Kashf-al-Asrar Khomeyni enumerated what he considered to be the criticisms raised against the topic of intercession and promised to answer them one by one. Khomeyni referred to four challenges and discussed them, but the point raised by Sangelaji in response to Majlesi, on the issue of intercession on the part of Shi‘i sinners, did not figure on his list. In concluding his treatise, Khomeyni returned to Sangelaji and accused him of writing against Shi‘ism in the name of reforming the faith. According to Khomeyni, Sangelaji and a number of other so-called clerics who ‘lacked in piety (taqwa) and science or just piety’ were being prompted and supported by Reza Shah Pahlavi to challenge the religious mainstream. To support his

29 Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi, Heliyat al-Mottaqin, Tehran: Ketab forushiye Eslamiyeh, 1373, pp. 15–24; Ali Rahnema, Superstition as Ideology in Iranian Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 242–5. 30 Ruhollah Khomeyni, p. 77. 31 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 130. 32 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 138. 33 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 138–40; Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi, Majmou‘eh Rasael E‘teqadi, Mashhad: Astan Qods Razavi, 1376, p. 96. 42 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran contention, Khomeyni argued that when Sangelaji wrote his book Islam va Raj‘at (Islam and the Return of the Dead), a religious figures in Qom wrote a rebuttal to it, exposing Sangelaji’s ‘lies and treasons’; yet the work was prevented from being published.34 It is true that Sangelaji did on certain occasions pay tribute to Reza Shah for forbidding certain rituals, which he deemed unacceptable, during the traditional Shi‘i mourning month of Moharram.35 But even though Sangelaji praised the Shah for improving the ‘social, material and ethical’ conditions of the country, he chided the king for being inattentive to the application of certain Islamic codes. Sangelaji deplored the fact that liquor stores were free to carry out their business and that prostitution was tolerated in Iranian cities. He also disapproved of women becoming breadwinners or going to the movies where they would hear licentious words.36 It is also probably true that Reza Shah was fond of Sangelaji and felt beholden to his father. Sangelaji’s challenging of certain popular Shi‘i beliefs and in particular his questioning of the authority of the Shi‘i clerical establishment, must have also appealed to Reza Shah. Yet there exists no proof of the contention that Sangelaji embarked on his mission of reforming Shi‘ism at the behest of Reza Shah. Nor is there any indication that Sangelaji benefited from any kind of material favours or dispensations by the court for his reformist campaign. The fact that Sangelaji contested certain popularized Shi‘i beliefs as distortions and fabrications and that Reza Shah did not take action to silence him, does not prove that Sangelaji was a ‘court cleric’ (rowhani darbari) as has been suggested by certain of his opponents.37 ‘Court clerics’ usually received some sort of financial or political rent or patronage from the court. One of Sangelaji’s characteristics seems to have been his distaste for politicizing Islam and involvement in political relations with their subsequent risks and rewards. If it is assumed that Reza Shah felt beholden to Shari‘at’s father for having facilitated his second marriage as well as to him personally for his criticism of the religious establishment, then it should follow that Sangelaji could have asked and obtained special favours, such as appointments to prominent, lucrative or powerful state functions. Sangelaji never occupied any official state positions, which renders the claim that he was a ‘court cleric’ rather dubious. According to Ali Javaher-ol-Kalam, given the respect that the court and the government

34 Ruhollah Khomeyni, p. 333. 35 Nameh Kanoun Sho’ara, 6 Azar 1313. 36 Nameh Kanoun Sho’ara, 5 Day 1313. 37 Tahajom be Rowhaniyat va Hozehaye Elmiyeh, Vol. 1, Tehran: Ghadr Velayat, 1379, p. 94. Sangelaji’s Interlocutors 43 had for Sangelaji, he could have easily attained a ministerial position or could have become the Chief Justice of the land, if he had so wished. Yet according to Javaher-ol-Kalam, Sangelaji was not the type of person to sell his soul to ‘human-looking wolves’.38 Comparing Muhammad Abduh of Egypt with Sangelaji, Javaher-ol-Kalam pointed out to a number of similarities in terms of their modernist approach to Islam, but concluded that they differed in terms of their approach to political and state power. While Abduh ended up becoming the Grand Mufti of Egypt in 1899, Sangelaji ‘remained unsullied by government and state employment’.39 Once Sangelaji embarked on what he believed to be reforming the faith through cleansing it from its accumulated impurities, his opponents subjected him to verbal abuse and even threats on his life. It was not unusual to see Sangelaji with his cane in his hand walking calmly and slowly down a sidewalk in his neighbourhood, ignoring the loud cursing and slandering of a young opponent of his.40 In one of his books, Sangelaji referred to two incidents when his opponents attempted to liquidate him.41 On one occasion, a heavily built man went up the stairs of his pulpit intending to attack him with a machete in his hand. After a short conversation between the two men, his would- be assassin is said to have walked down the pulpit while Sangelaji asked the public to allow the man safe passage.42 Some years later, the same man is said to have come to Sangelaji’s house repenting and asking for forgiveness. He is said to have confessed that Haj abu-Torab, the preacher at the Haj Mehrab mosque on Shahpour Street and three other men had paid him a sum to assassinate Sangelaji.43

Kasravi’s Criticism of Shi‘ism

At this time, another important religious discourse was gaining some following among the educated and the modernists. Ahmad Kasravi, was born in 1890 and

38 Ra’d Emrouz, 28 Day 1322. 39 Ra’d Emrouz, 28 Day 1322. 40 Noureddin Chahardehi, Vahhabiyat va rishehhay-e an, p. 160. 41 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 5. 42 Abdollah Sangelaji, personal interview, 17 July 2000. 43 Abdollah Sangelaji, personal interview, 17 July 2000. Yann Richard refers to a similar event and mentions the name of the would-be assassin as Sheykh Qoli. See his article, ‘Shari‘at Sangelaji: A Reformist Theologian of the Rida Shah Period’, in S. Amir Arjomand (ed.) Authority and Political Culture in Shi‘ism, p. 165. 44 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran had attended seminary school in Tabriz. Upon the completion of his education he became a cleric for some two years.44 At the age of 20 he wrote and published a book called Shari‘at Ahmadi in Tabriz. This book was later hailed by his detractors as ‘one of the best books of its time in the usul (principles) and the forou‘ (branches) of Islam and Shi‘ism’.45 Kasravi’s writings over time demonstrate that even though he started from a position of belief in Islam and Shi‘ism, he gradually became convinced that Shi‘ism along with all other monotheistic religions had become tainted with ‘confused and dispersed ideas’ (andishehhaye ashofteh va parakandeh) and as such had gradually been perverted and emptied of their original capacity to guide human beings towards spiritual and material progress and felicity. In his book What Do We Want (Ma cheh mikhahim) written in 1940, Kasravi claimed that ‘since Islam was inexistent it could no longer be considered as the last of the monotheistic faiths’.46 He came to the conclusion that as a deist, his mission was to overthrow and uproot all religions, which be labelled as ‘irreligious’, including the actually existing Islam as he had become convinced that the ‘religious institution’ (dastgah dini) of Islam was the cause of the misfortunes of the Arabs, the Iranians, the Egyptians and the Indians.47 Kasravi maintained that at a time when erroneous and misleading religions prevailed in the world, his teachings offered salvation to the people. Seeking some sort of divine justification for his calling, Kasravi hinted that his teachings and invitation were the proof of God’s existence and presumptuously affirmed that his monthlypeyman was the sole flag in the world that had been hoisted in the name of ‘recognizing or knowing God’ (khoda shenasi).48 In 1943, Kasravi published two works entitled ‘On Islam’ (Dar piramoun Eslam) and ‘Divine Foundation’ (Varjavand Bonyad), which Kasravi claimed to be the foundation of his new faith, pakdini (clean faith). In these writings Kasravi became more explicit in relation to some of the ideas he had already developed in What Do We Want (Ma cheh mikhahim). Kasravi reiterated that not only Islam in its entirety and comprising all its sects, but also all other faiths (Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity) were sunk in ignorance, error and misinformation. For Kasravi, these were polytheistic faiths on par with the

44 A. Kasravi, Zendegiy Man, Piedmont, CA: Jahan Books, 1990, pp. 39–43. 45 Haj Mehdi Saraj Ansari, Shi‘i cheh Migouyad, Tabriz: Ketabforoushi Banihashem, Ramazan 1385, p. 319. A. Abolhasani (Manzar), Shahid Motahhari, Efshagar Tote‘eh, Tehran: Daftare Entesharat Eslami, 1362, p. 172. 46 Kasravi, Ma cheh mikhahim, Tehran: Ketabforoushi Paydar, 1339, p. 160. 47 Kasravi, Ma cheh mikhahim, pp. 151, 162, 198. 48 Kasravi, Ma cheh mikhahim, p. 225. Sangelaji’s Interlocutors 45 beliefs of the Chinese, Japanese and Indians.49 He made the claim that all faiths (except his clean faith – pakdini) belittled the name of God and therefore, God despised them.50 Islam and other faiths, according to Kasravi, were imbued with falsities. He contended that they were dated, out of touch with modern times and the sciences and therefore needed to be totally abandoned or overthrown.51 Gradually moving towards the point of claiming a new faith and subsequently pronouncing himself as the new prophet, Kasravi advanced the notion that it was God’s will to open up a way to salvation through a divine movement at a time when ignorance, falsehood and deceitfulness prevailed in the world.52 The way to salvation, he argued, was guided by ‘someone who stood up’ and fought against the falsities and opened up new avenues, ‘helping human beings advance a few steps’.53 This new prophet had to address and dispel the prevalent distortion and falsities of the times and his destination was to advance the condition of human beings, present ‘a different path’, ‘establish a new foundation/structure (bonyad)’ and encompass the sciences of the times.54 Kasravi did not directly proclaim himself as the new prophet, but he left hardly any doubt that the hypothetical chosen one (barangikhteh) was no other than Ahmad Kasravi. Some two years before his death, he openly stated that he did not claim to be a prophet, but that he had done the work of prophets.55 He also drew parallels between what he had done and what the Prophet Muhammad had done.56 Convincing Muslims that he was a new prophet with a new faith had numerous insurmountable problems, two of which Kasravi attempted to solve; how could there be a prophet after Muhammad and how was Kasravi chosen to be the prophet? First, to pave the way for the idea that he was bringing a new faith, Kasravi needed to convince Muslims that the Prophet Muhammad was not the last of all prophets and that Islam was not the seal of all religions. Kasravi argued that Islam could not be the last of the monotheistic religions and that God was free to introduce a new faith, when the time was right. Kasravi directly hinted at his movement and religion, pakdini or the ‘clean

49 Kasravi, Varjavand bonyad, 1322, available at: http://tarnama.org/library/varjavand. pdf/ p. 51. 50 Kasravi, Varjavand bonyad, p. 51. 51 Kasravi, Dar Piramoun Eslam, 1322, available at: http://www.kasravi.info/ketabs/ piramon%20eslam/piramon%20eslam.pdf/ pp. 19, 21, 22, 36, 39, 40, 42. 52 Kasravi, Dar Piramoun Eslam, pp. 9, 44. 53 Kasravi, Dar Piramoun Eslam, p. 44. 54 Kasravi, Dar Piramoun Eslam, pp. 45–7. 55 Kasravi, Dar Pasokh Bad Khahan, Tehran: Chapkhaneh Peyman, p. 41. 56 Kasravi, Dar Pasokh Bad Khahan, p. 51. 46 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran faith’ as the new and superior religion willed by God.57 Second, Kasravi had to convince Muslims that his prophethood was not through revelation, but that simply the time had come for a new faith and that believers had to accept that this was willed by God.58 Kasravi, therefore, sought to prove that the classical notion of revelation was not only ‘simplistic and vulgar’, but a lie.59 To convince his audience of the veracity of his prophethood and to facilitate their task of understanding his new calling, Kasravi claimed that revelation (farahsh or wahy) was a simple process whereby God would choose anyone at any time, provide the person with sufficient knowledge necessary for the times and direct the person along a rational path to change the prevailing understandings and fight against the misguidedness.60 The chosen person, the prophet, Kasravi argued, would be a person like any other person, chosen by God.61 Aside from the contention that all the existing faiths were distorted, false and polytheistic Kasravi justified the necessity of his new religion by arguing that previous faiths did not have the ability to save humankind from materialism, the latest threat to humanity’s belief system. He insisted that only his new teachings possessed the logic and power to protect and save monotheism, uphold virtues and assure welfare and salvation in this world.62 Kasravi presented his new religion, pakdini (clean faith), as the only viable faith capable of confronting materialism, which he considered as the most fearful ‘misguidedness’ (gomrahi) of the world.63 As if he did not realize that he was calling on Muslims to abandon their long-held faith, culture and identity only to embrace his calling, the wording of which many of them did not understand, Kasravi lamented that instead of happily supporting his monotheistic cause, Muslims rallied against him. Kasravi also insisted that pakdini was some sort of an improved continuation of Islam and that his movement would keep alive the foundation/structure (bonyad) of Islam.64 He argued that just as Islam was a continuation of the faith of the hanifs (Abraham’s followers), pakdini was a superior or improved continuation of Islam.65 Kasravi concluded his book, On Islam by a seeming ambiguity. He claimed that: ‘pakdini (the clean faith) is the successor or

57 Kasravi, Dar Piramoun Eslam, pp. 9, 16, 41, 48. 58 Kasravi, Dar Piramoun Eslam, p. 47. 59 Kasravi, Dar Piramoun Eslam, p. 47; A. Kasravi, Varjavand Bonyad, pp. 67, 58. 60 Kasravi, Varjavand Bonyad, pp. 68–70. 61 Kasravi, Varjavand Bonyad, p. 72. 62 Kasravi, Dar Piramoun Eslam, p. 13. 63 Kasravi, Dar Piramoun Eslam, p. 14. 64 Kasravi, Dar Piramoun Eslam, p. 48. 65 Kasravi, Dar Piramoun Eslam, pp. 48, 50. Sangelaji’s Interlocutors 47 replacement (janeshin) of Islam, it is its continuation’.66 Perhaps, Kasravi saw pakdini as a dialectical synthesis. To assure the success of his new calling, Kasravi needed to appeal to Iranians first, yet claiming thatpakdini was the negation of Shi‘ism and Islam rendered his position as well as that of his faith extremely difficult among believers, since his acceptance as a new prophet by the believers required the Shi‘ites to renounce their faith and embrace his.

Kasravi’s Attack on Sangelaji

Throughout his works, Kasravi systematically targeted and attacked Sangelaji for various reasons. As time went by Kasravi’s criticism of Sangelaji in his works became more direct, personal and vehement. Kasravi believed Islam and Shi‘ism to be incapable of reform, irreparable and in need of uprooting. In Kasravi’s eyes Islam and the Islamic clerical institution were the source of Iran’s misfortunes and backwardness. Anyone who sought to defend Shi‘ism was, therefore, a foe of Kasravi’s attempt to uproot Shi‘ism and Islam. Kasravi realized that it was more difficult to counter the arguments of the reformists, who presented a modern-day exegesis, than those of the traditional and conservative custodians of the official faith. There were domains where Kasravi and Sangelaji were of the same opinion. The fact that Sangelaji did not deduce the necessity of rejecting Shi‘ism from some of his arguments and criticisms of the actually existing Shi‘ism presented a theoretical as well as an organizational challenge to Kasravi. Naturally, Sangelaji, who considered himself a reformist and sought to revive Shi‘ism through what he believed was its cleansing from the aberrations which had been grafted upon it, stood on the opposing fence from Kasravi. According to Kasravi the idea of reforming the faith, which had become popular since Seyyed Jamal-eddin Asadabadi and Muhammad Abduh, had attracted some of the clerics to this cause. Kasravi argued that this group of clerics labelled themselves ‘reformists’ (mosleh) and claimed to ‘return the faith to its essence’, by cleansing it of impurities and deviations. The objective of the reformers was, therefore, the strengthening of the faith.67 For Kasravi, who rejected Islam in its entirety and considered it as an irreligious belief, incapable of being reformed, the task of any well-wisher should have been uprooting Islam, not propagating it.68 Kasravi accused the reformers of failing to address

66 Kasravi, Dar Piramoun Eslam, p. 52. 67 Kasravi, Ma cheh mikhahim, pp. 184–5. 68 Kasravi, Ma cheh mikhahim, p. 198. 48 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran the major issues at hand, such as the enmity between the Shi‘i and Sunni or the myths that had been added to the faith during the past 1,300 years. He also reproached the reformers for reconciling Islam with modern concepts acceptable to the foreigners and reading present day concepts and sciences back into the faith.69 Categorizing the reformers as his enemies, Kasravi ruled that most of them were infidels bidinand( ) and disrespectful towards the Prophet. Kasravi accused the reformers of having turned their religion into a commodity, making a living from its sale as any shopkeeper would. He ruled that the reformists opposed him simply in order to maintain their business or because they were jealous of him.70 It seemed as if the success of Sangelaji’s discourse compelled Kasravi to adopt a more stern and caustic language against him and confront him directly. There seems little doubt that Kasravi did consider Sangelaji as a real competitor, undermining his attempts at turning the educated away from Islam. In his book, On Islam, Kasravi referred to the reformers as imposters and charlatans who swindled the people with their false claims. He wrote about a reformer in Tehran who found a place and a reference in Islam for everything that he heard. One day, influenced by the praise heaped on sports by the newspapers, this reformer argued that prayers was a form of sport and the next day excited by literary seminars he praised the likes of Saadi, Hafez and Mowlavi (renowned Iranian poets).71 Kasravi, then informed his readers that this reformer had copied his ideas about worshipping the dead and the Twelfth Imam and had written a book called Monotheism (yekta parasti).72 Kasravi clearly sought to expose ‘the charlatan reformer from Tehran’, since Sangelaji was well known – especially in the circles who read Kasravi’s works – as the author of Monotheism, a book which had made considerable waves. What disturbed Kasravi most about Sangelaji and he was not abashed about raising it candidly was that Sangelaji would not abandon his faith after having criticized it in Monotheism. Kasravi wrote that he was bewildered that Sangelaji continued to consider himself as a Shi‘i. Kasravi expected Sangelaji to follow his path and renounce his Shi‘ism. Sangelaji’s insistence on representing a cleansed Shi‘ism irritated Kasravi and forced him to repeat his old invectives, accusing Sangelaji of being irresolute, ambiguous, needy of befriending all sides, an opportunist, a charlatan and a peddler of the faith.73

69 Kasravi, Ma cheh mikhahim, p. 185. 70 Kasravi, Ma cheh mikhahim, p. 179. 71 Kasravi, Dar Piramoun Eslam, p. 30. 72 Kasravi, Dar Piramoun Eslam, p. 30. 73 Kasravi, Dar Piramoun Eslam, p. 30. Sangelaji’s Interlocutors 49

Unable to attract Sangelaji to his cause, Kasravi toned up his attacks on him. In spring 1943 or some eight months before Sangelaji’s death, Kasravi wrote about a ‘pitiful’ and ‘sinister’ mullah in Tehran who had opened up a store selling religion as a commodity. Kasravi accused Sangelaji of trying to satisfy everyone, uttering one thing to the modernists and the opposite to the traditionalists and constantly changing his ideas. Kasravi recommended that Sangelaji should find a respectable employment instead of living off the sale of religious ideas.74 After Sangelaji’s death, Kasravi openly attacked him by referring to him. In Dialogue (Goft o Shenid), Kasravi divulged that he had attended at least one of Sangelaji’s sermons (pay manbar). Kasravi maintained that in one of his sermons, Sangelaji had praised Abu Bakr and Omar (sheykheyn), but in the subsequent sermon he had recounted a dream in which Fatima, Imam Ali’s wife, had appeared to him and had informed him that she was not happy with Abu Bakr and Omar since they had expropriated her garden of Fadak after the death of the Prophet.75 Kasravi caustically added that in order to satisfy his rich followers, Sangelaji had many such dreams. In the same book, Kasravi reported another anecdote from Sangelaji, indicating that he may have attended more than one of Sangelaji’s sermons. This one was intended to present Sangelaji as an irrational, hidebound and anti-modern cleric. Kasravi maintained that Sangelaji had told the women at his sermon that the reason for the shortages and the famine that had occurred in Iran (after the allied occupation) was that women had ceased wearing socks and frequented movie theatres.76 In his writings of 1944, Kasravi became more intolerant of his opposition and more obsessed with the importance of his calling and mission not only in Iran, but on a world scale. At this time – after Sangelaji’s death – Kasravi sharply criticized Sangelaji’s followers in Tabriz, who called themselves ‘monotheists’ and who opposed Kasravi’s ideas. Kasravi accused them of repeating Sangelaji’s propositions and labelled them as irreligious and adamant in not seeing the truth and joining Kasravi’s camp.77 Even though Kasravi and Sangelaji were both critical of the state of Shi‘ite popular beliefs and the Shi‘i establishment at the time, the two had very different agendas in relation to Shi‘ism. They had different characters and temperaments as well. Kasravi found Islam irreparable, believed he had a calling and sought to replace Shi‘ism and Islam with his own new religion. Sangelaji neither

74 Kasravi, Az cheshm kour binesh mitalaband, Parcham, No. 3. Ordibehesht 1322, available at: http://kasravi-ahmad.blogspot.fr/2010/12/106.html/ p. 5. 75 A. Kasravi, Goft o Shenid, Tehran: Chapkhaneh Peyman, 1323, p. 7. 76 Kasravi, Goft o Shenid, p. 28, 29. 77 Kasravi, Dar Pasokh Bad Khahan, p. 13. 50 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran believed in the necessity of replacing Islam with another faith, nor did he share Kasravi’s megalomania. Sangelaji did not believe that he had a national, let alone international, religious mission. While Kasravi did not shy away from character assassination in regards to Sangelaji, simply to eliminate the competition, Sangelaji did not refer to Kasravi in his writings. It was probably the negative attitude of both Kasravi and Sangelaji towards the clerical establishment (rowhaniyat) and their ‘sowing of dissent’ and ‘spreading of disunity’ which compelled Khomeyni to homogenize them and then sharply criticize them as a single unit.

Sangelaji’s Audience

Both the content and audience of Sangelaji’s sermons were different from that of other clerics and the vo’az or religious preachers. According to one report, army officers and government employees of different ranks constituted the majority of those present at his sermons, while shopkeepers, merchants, theological students and the ‘olama or Islamic jurists, hardly attended them.78 However, according to another report, even though the educated and students formed the majority of his audience, an interesting variety of people including workers, peasants, shopkeepers, merchants, journalists and even members of parliament regularly attended his lectures.79 It seems as though in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Sangelaji’s novel ideas about Shi‘ism were received with curiosity and interest and not necessarily approval among a good number of young seminary school students. With the departure of Reza Shah, the cautious sense of restraint and discretion was relaxed. One of Esfahan’s ‘olama and a renowned preacher who had lived in Tehran for a long time recalled that in his youth Sangelaji’s novel ideas were widely discussed in religious circles. He remembered that even though some people favoured his ideas, the majority of the ‘olama and the pious opposed it.80 Keen on hearing Sangelaji’s ideas the young cleric had sought his father’s permission to attend his sermons. His father, also a prominent preacher in Tehran, counselled against it. Yet, unable to resist the temptation of hearing what Sangelaji had to say, the young cleric convinced his father to allow him to attend one of Sangelaji’s

78 Noureddin Chahardehi, Vahhabiyat va rishehhay-e an, Tehran: Entesharat-e Fathi, 1363, p. 160. 79 Morteza Modaressi Chahardehi, Vahid, Tir 1352, p. 518. Bastani Parizi, pp. 184–5. 80 M. Mahdavi, Zendeginameh ‘Allameh Majlesi, Vol. 1, Tehran: Vezarate Farhang va Ershad Eslami, 1378, p. 227. Sangelaji’s Interlocutors 51 sermons. According to the cleric, in his lecture, Sangelaji commented on a report (hadith) from Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi’s famous collection of Shi‘i reports, Bahar al-Anvar. Majlesi’s report was on the topic of how certain animals became believers and some did not.81 Apparently, Sangelaji had evoked the report and then criticized Majlesi for having included such reports, allegedly attributed to the imams, in his book. After the sermon, the young cleric tried in vain to defend Majlesi. But neither Sangelaji nor his disciples were convinced by the young cleric’s arguments. Frustrated by his inability to effectively defend Majlesi, the young cleric walked home, chiding Majlesi in his head for including weak and indefensible reports in his compilation.82 Hoseyn Bodala who entered the Qom seminary school in 1924 recalled that Sangelaji’s religious ideas began penetrating Qom and his partisans in the hub of traditional Shi‘i teaching began growing.83 According to Bodala, who later became an ayatollah, Sangelaji was a deviant and an anti-Shi‘i who denied that the belief in the return of the Twelfth Imam raj‘at( ) was a necessity of the faith. In his memoires, Bodala informed his readers in passing that he met with Sangelaji in Tehran, yet did not disclose the circumstances and the reason for his meeting with a so-called religious deviant of that epoch.84 It would be safe to assume that by the mid-1930s, Sangelaji’s Shi‘i reformism was making some if not important inroads among the educated, both modern and traditional. Sangelaji’s appeal to the educated was rooted in his attempt to refine and purify the faith by uprooting superstitious and fantastical concepts and ideas, which had crept into it. Defending the faith was in need of strengthening it by reforming and cleansing it. Such a task necessitated the application of reason in challenging the religious status quo. Sangelaji’s mission became that of scrutinizing, challenging and cleansing those aspects of the faith, which constituted its weakest logical links, its Achilles’ heels in the battle against the rationalists. In his lectures and discussions, Sangelaji tried to capture the importance of changing times. His arguments and responses were based on reasoning and the significance of understanding the implications of changing times in terms of a re-reading of certain religious beliefs and rituals. Sangelaji’s message was a simple one. It was based on his belief that faith was the manifestation of a state of ‘perfection of reason’ and that the Qur’an was the ‘strongest elixir of humaneness’.85 True felicity, he argued, was simply composed

81 Mahdavi, p. 227. 82 Mahdavi, p. 228. 83 Bodala, p. 214. 84 Bodala, p. 215. 85 Bigdeli, p. 77. 52 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran of faith and righteous acts.86 In almost all his writings, he sets out to show how certain beliefs and rituals, in contradiction with true monotheism, had replaced the kernel of faith and the importance of performing righteous acts. Despite regular attempts at undermining his reputation and intimidating him and his followers, Sangelaji attracted an interesting mix of prominent personalities, cutting across the Iranian social structure. Ali-Akbar Davar, Reza Shah’s Minister of Justice is said to have been Sangelaji’s ‘disciple and student’.87 It is reported that Davar ‘had planned to create for him the post of President of the High Court of Justice’, which Sangelaji had refused.88 Many later influential Iranian public figures are said to have loyally attended his regular sermons and his exegesis of the Qur’an. Among his regular and irregular ‘students’, some of the most renowned were Abdollah Entezam (the future Minister of Foreign Affairs in the ‘Ala government and the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company), Ali-Pasha Saleh (future author, translator, professor of English at Tehran University and a local member of the American Embassy), Asadollah Mobasheri (future Minister of Justice in the Bazargan government), Ahmad Fardid (future professor of philosophy at Tehran University), Hoseynqoli Mosta‘an (future journalist, writer and translator, director of the Iranian Radio), Gholam-Hoseyn Mosahab (future mathematician, university professor and director of the three-volume Farsi encyclopedia), Abbas Zaryab Khoie (future historian, archivist, Tehran University professor, seminary student of Ayatollah Khomeyni), Ebrahim Khajehnouri (future politician, author, journalist, psychologist), Abdolrahman Faramarzi (future politician, member of the parliament, journalist, lawyer and professor), Yadollah Sahabi (future member of the Islamic Republic’s Constituent Assembly and parliament), Mehdi Bazargan (future prime minister of the Islamic Republic), Ali-Akbar Hakamizadeh (author of The Thousand-Year Secrets) and Sobhi – real name Fazlollah Mohtadi – (future radio performer, known for his story-telling) who is said to have returned to the Shi‘i fold under the direct influence of Sangelaji.89 It is reported that Ayatollah Mahmud Taleqani also visited the darotabliq. Some 1,000 people are said to have attended Sangelaji’s regular Wednesday night sermons from six to seven in the evening. After the hourly sermon, a large group usually stayed behind for the question and answer session.90

86 Bigdeli, p. 77. 87 Richard, p. 163. 88 Richard, p. 163. 89 The names are mainly based on Abdollah Sangelaji, personal interview, 17 July 2000, and Seyyed Meqdad Nabavi Razavi, Faslnameh Emamat Pajouhi. 90 Abdollah Sangelaji, personal interview, 15 July 2000. Sangelaji’s Interlocutors 53

Apart from those disciples of Sangelaji who became prominent figures in Iran’s mainstream social, cultural, academic and political milieu, there seems to have been another group of attendants at Sangelaji’s sermons, whose life trajectory proved to be different but equally interesting. It could be surmised that these were curious young boys of about 15 or 16 (around the end of 1920s and early 1930s) who came from religious backgrounds and their intellectual formation was impacted by Sangelaji in a particular manner. Taqi Makki-Nejad, was one example of these young boys. Makki-Nejad came from a well-off, pious family and used to wear the clerical garb before coming to Tehran from Arak. Because of the regulations in place during the reign of Reza Shah only a selected number of clerics who succeeded in passing a state exam were permitted to wear their robe and turban. In Tehran, Makki-Nejad attended Sharaf high school, where Taqi Erani used to teach. Around 1929 and 1930 Makki-Nejad began attending Sangelaji’s sermons. Makki-Nejad recalled that it was his religious zeal as well as his interest in reflection and discussions that attracted him to Sangelaji’s lectures, which he regularly attended on Monday nights at the Hey’at mosque in the Sangelaj neighbourhood.91 During his talks, Sangelaji is said to have presented an alternative view and interpretation of certain traditional Shi‘i notions such as the return of the dead (raj‘at) accompanying the return of the twelfth Imam from his long occultation. Makki-Nejad recalled that contrary to well-established Shi‘i beliefs, Sangelaji refuted the notion that the dead, including the first three Shi‘i Imams could return at some point in the future and that history could repeat itself.92 Makki-Nejad’s regular Monday night ritual of attending Sangelaji’s thought provoking heterodox Shi‘i ideas was interrupted when after having studied the communist monthly Donya, published by his teacher, Erani, the young man became deeply interested in the prevalent social and class cleavages in his country. Makki-Nejad recalled that once he became socially conscious he stopped going to Sangelaji’s Monday sermons and joined Erani’s Monday night circle on Jami Street, where he met some of Iran’s future prominent communists, Iraj Eskandari and Anvar Khameh’i. Later, Makki-Nejad became a left-wing student activist at the University of Tehran and was arrested in 1937 as a member of the famous communist ‘Group of 53’.93 Jalal al-Ahmad, who later became a popular Iranian writer, social critic and political activist, seems to have had a trajectory similar to that of Makki-Nejad.

91 Mehr Nameh, Azar 1392, Kaveh Bayat’s interview with Taqi Makki-Nejad. 92 Mehr Nameh, Azar 1392. 93 Mehr Nameh, Azar 1392. 54 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

Both young men came from pious clerical families, became loyal followers of Sangelaji and then joined the budding Iranian communist movement. Al‑Ahmad’s father, Seyyed Ahmad Taleqani was a prominent cleric who ran the Pachenar Mosque. Al-Ahmad was Ayatollah Mahmud Taleqani’s first cousin. In 1944, Al-Ahmad was sent to Najaf by his father to continue his religious studies. Depressed and dejected by his stay in Najaf, Al-Ahmad returned home very quickly. It was during 1943 or some 15 years after Makki-Nejad had attended Sangelaji’s sermons that Al-Ahmad became a regular listener of Sangelaji’s lectures. According to Jalal al-Ahmad’s brother, Shams, after his return from Najaf, Jalal was no longer in the mood to attend the regular religious ceremonies held at mosques or the traditional mourning ceremonies (rowzeh khani). At this time, he is reported to have become infatuated with Shari‘at Sangelaji’s sermons.94 In 1944, however, Al-Ahmad joined the Tudeh Party (communist party) along with Ali-Naqi Monzavi, the son of Aqa Bozorg Tehrani, a highly prominent Shi‘i cleric. It is not known whether he continued to attend Sangelaji’s sermons after joining the Tudeh Party. The migration of Sangelaji’s followers to communist circles is ironic in retrospect. One of Sangelaji’s worst nightmares was that chased away by popular Shi‘ism, the educated youth would leave the faith. Sangelaji had predicted that unless Shi‘ism was cleansed of its irrationalities and superstitions, ‘rational and educated Iranians would leave the faith’.95 In his sermons, however, Sangelaji was supposedly presenting a rational and superstition-free Shi‘ism, so the question remains as to why some of his students were attracted by a communist discourse. Was it possible that Sangelaji’s criticism of certain Shi‘i practices inevitably pushed some of his students to denounce their faith all together or were his attempts at presenting a rational Shi‘ism insufficient to keep some of the youth from becoming attracted to ideas propagated by the communists? In addition to Sangelaji’s Iranian disciples an equally curious mix of foreigners were also attracted to his ideas and his teachings. Some became regular attenders at the darotabliq. After Sangelaji’s death, an apparently American woman by the name of Neola Graham-Cook wrote a most moving obituary for him in Persian. She wrote: ‘My true religious brother and guide … I came from beyond the oceans to hear from your lips the most beloved name and you told me that together we will have to go to Mecca and I wept. Now you have gone to the

94 Shams Al-Ahmad, Az Cheshm Baradar, Qom: Entesharat Ketab Saadi, 1369, p. 176, cited in Fatemeh Pahlavanpour, Jalal Al-Ahmad, Pajouheshgadeh Baqer al-olum [online], available at: http://www.pajoohe.com/fa/index.php?Page=definition&UID=38670#_ftn9/. 95 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 6. Sangelaji’s Interlocutors 55 golden Mecca all alone … You have abandoned us all, the barefoot pilgrims, rich and poor. We are impoverished for we have lost you. Yet we are rich since you have left behind many precious works.’96 The American envoy to Iran at the time, George Allen, who later became ambassador, is said to have been very impressed with Sangelaji and had offered to financially help his project of creating a centre similar to the Al-Azhar in Tehran. Concerned with the possible political implications of such an offer Sangelaji is said to have turned down Allen’s offer.97 The Soviet diplomatic envoy to Iran also developed an interest in Sangelaji’s reputation and ideas. Through Sobhi, he arranged to attend one of Sangelaji’s lectures. On the occasion of his visit, Sangelaji spoke for two hours instead of his usual one-hour lecture to a full house. Probably intent on showing the Soviet envoy that Islam’s concern with the fate of the under-classes predated that of the communists, Sangelaji spoke eloquently on Imam Ali’s justice in regards to the poor.98 Sangelaji’s non- sectarian, non-exclusive and open-minded perception of Shi‘ism may have been one of the main reasons for the attraction of non-Muslims to a Muslim religious figure. As such, Sangelaji can be considered as one of the early bridge-builders who sought to reach out to members of other confessions, attracting them and taking them along on his journey to seek the Truth.

Sangelaji’s Essential Means of Communication

Sangelaji’s religious outlook, his critique of actually existing Shi‘i practices and certain dogmas are well reflected in his published works as well as a number of sermons and speeches printed in newspapers and pamphlets. Sangelaji’s three major books under his own name, in the chronological order of publications, are Mahv-ol-Mohoum (Eradicating Superstitions), Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’ (Monotheism of Worshipping) and Kelid Fahm Qur’an (The Key to Understanding the Qur’an). After his death two of his sermons,Hormat Reba (The Prohibition of Interest) and Eslam va Mousiqi (Islam and Music) were published in a small pamphlet. It is said that Sangelaji had other unpublished or unknown works such as his philosophical writings or his first book written in Najaf.99

96 Iran, 20 Dey 1322. 97 Abdollah Sangelaji, personal interview, 12 July 2000. 98 Abdollah Sangelaji, personal interview, 12 July 2000. 99 Hoseyn-qoli Mosta‘an, introduction to S. Sangelaji, Mahv-ol-Mohoum, Tehran: Chapkhaneh Taban, 1323, p. 7. Richard, p. 162. 56 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

To propagate his ideas, some of those regularly participating in his sermons took notes of his lectures and later published them. Sangelaji’s Wednesday night lectures were transcribed and compiled by Ali Fazel, a cleric who was also one of his students and later went under the name of Dejkam.100 These lectures subsequently appeared in a numerated series of pamphlets printed and distributed by his son, Mohammad-Baqer (Shahabeddin) Sangelaji. Hoseyn Moti‘ee, editor and publisher of the weekly Namee Kanoun Sho‘ara (The Letter of the Poets’ Society) started publishing Sangelaji’s sermons in November 1934.101 After a month, the lengthy sermons became so popular that Namee Kanoun Sho‘ara was published twice weekly essentially carrying Sangelaji’s lectures. There is one other important book attributed to Sangelaji that predates the three mentioned above. According to numerous sources, the controversial book Eslam va Raj‘at (Islam and Return of the Dead) officially published under the name of Abdolwahab Farid as the author of the work, is Sangelaji’s own work. The confusion over the real author of the book continued to linger even after Sangelaji’s death. The obituaries that appeared in certain newspapers continued to refer to Sangelaji as the author of Eslam va Raj‘at.102 Sangelaji, added to the riddle by referring to Farid Tonokaboni and not Abdolwahab Farid as the author of Eslam va Raj‘at.103 Abdollah Sangelaji, Shari‘at Sangelaji’s son, provides the clue to the riddle. Farid was an educated cleric and a disciple of Shari‘at Sangelaji. When Sangelaji asked Farid to transcribe and organize his sermons on the issue of raj‘at or the return of the dead, Farid welcomed the assignment and immediately set out to work on it. The book, however, reflects the ideas, arguments and concerns of Sangelaji. Even the form and sequence of the arguments and topics belong to Sangelaji. With a considerable degree of certainty it could be ascertained that Farid is the editor and the compiler and probably the protective shield against the invectives that the work was to draw from the religious establishment. The work in its entirety is, therefore, that of Sangelaji.

100 Abdollah Sangelaji, personal interview, 17 July 2000. Noureddin Chahardehi refers to the person who transcribed Sangelaji’s lectures as Ali Dejagah, Noureddin Chahardehi, Vahhabiyat va rishehhay-e an, p. 172. 101 Namee Kanoun Sho‘ara, Seshanbeh 22 Aban 1313. 102 Ettela’at, 17 Dey 1322. Nejat-e Iran, 19 Dey 1322. 103 Sangelaji, Mahv-ol-mohoum, p. 26. Chapter 3 Reforming Actually Practised Islam

Sangelaji looked upon the Islam of his days, as it was understood and practised among his contemporaries, with a sense of sorrow and regret. He spoke of very ‘dark times’ that had descended upon the Muslim community. Sangelaji warned that the Qur’an had become veiled by innovations and that both ‘the faith and its sacred objectives were forgotten and abandoned’ among Muslims.1 Actually practised Islam, he maintained, had been distorted and disfigured. Superstition and muddled ideas had replaced the true teachings of the faith.2 Polytheism, obscurantism and ignorance, he concluded, had eclipsed the Muslim world.3 Acknowledging a new age of ignorance similar to the pre-Islamic age of ignorance (jahilliya), Sangelaji diagnosed the main problem of his time and society as the ‘corruption of beliefs’.4 Whereas before him, Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab and after him, Seyyed Qutb had revived and employed the same concept of jahilliya to chastise and exclude Muslims, other than their own loyal followers, from the fold, for Sangelaji, those who had become ignorant needed to be brought back into the fold through invitation, education and persuasion. Ibn Abdul-Wahhab and Qutb considered those whom they labelled as infidels and polytheists as beyond redemption and enemies of the faith and called for either their conversion or extermination. For Sangelaji, rejection, excommunication and violence against those whose beliefs had supposedly become corrupted were not Islamic, rational and humane solutions. According to Sangelaji, minds filled with superstitious, rash and ultimately irreligious ideas, produced bleak, arduous and burdensome lives. Once wrong and corrupt ideas were grappled with, rebutted and repulsed, the pre-requisite for social progress, welfare and development would be at hand.5 Sangelaji maintained that ‘the spirit of civilization and urban life was based

1 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 3. 2 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 4. 3 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 3. 4 Nashriyeh Shomareh Panj, Darotabliq Eslami, Tehran: Chapkhaneh Taban, n.d., p. 36. Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 51. 5 Nashriyeh Shomareh Panj, p. 36. 58 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran on [correct] beliefs’.6 Referring to the tradition of prophets, Sangelaji argued that the repelling of false ideas first required a cleansing tathir( ) of thoughts, succeeded by action and even force, if necessary.7 Even though Sangelaji did not rule out the theoretical possibility of recourse to force as a final solution, he never elaborated or expanded on that eventuality, effectively sweeping it under the carpet. The mission of the true believer he postulated was that of ‘uprooting the tree of superstition with the mighty axe of monotheism’.8 According to Sangelaji, the Muslim was emancipated once he rejected and relieved himself of the deception of worshipping stones, believing in the ominousness of certain days and bondage to individuals. The Muslim, he argued, was thus transformed from a simpleton or imbecile to an emancipated and learned person.9 Sangelaji’s objective was to effectuate and accelerate the transition from what he believed to be the duped superstitious Muslim to an emancipated and rational modern Muslim. For Sangelaji, the average common Muslim of his age, whose beliefs had become corrupted, was not the guilty party but the victim. Sangelaji believed that the actually practised faith which had become replete with superstitious, occult and irrational ideas was propped, defended and propagated by ‘swindlers and highway robbers’, claiming to be priests. Sangelaji observed that in view of the actual state of the faith, people would have no reason to remain Muslims, a faith from which nothing seemed to remain but a name.10 Under such conditions, Sangelaji inquired, how would people get acquainted with the true faith of the Prophet? The sole path to salvation, he argued, was reliance on the Qur’an and the Tradition of the Prophet.11 Outlining his mission of exposing and distinguishing ‘false Islamic practices’ from authentic ones, Sangelaji announced that, ‘I have to say these things so that people would know that in Iran a theology student (talabeh) and a Sheykh did stand up and say that these superstitious accounts have nothing to do with Islam.’12 Sangelaji saw his task as one of unmasking the false teachers of Islam and their teachings and disclosing their errors by bringing to light what he believed was the true essence and message of Islam and Shi‘i Islam. Sangelaji asserted that, ‘I wish to show the learned, who will come [to pass judgement on

6 Nashriyeh Shomareh Panj, p. 36. 7 Nashriyeh Shomareh Panj, p. 37. 8 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 167. 9 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 167. 10 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 173. 11 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 173. 12 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 13 Azar 1313. Reforming Actually Practised Islam 59 us] a hundred years from now, that there was a person who considered [some of these religious notions] as untruths’.13 Sangelaji’s self-defined religious mission, somewhat quixotic, became that of denouncing what he identified as problems within the faith and reforming it, through an intellectual cleansing process. In Sangelaji’s writings there is no indication of his intention to spark a social or political movement. On the contrary, he seems only intent on initiating an in- house debate on the state of Shi‘ism during his time. To assure the felicity and welfare of Muslims, the first step in accordance with the tradition of the Prophet was to ‘negate falsities’.14 Sangelaji identified his initial task as that of propagating the true meaning of the faith based on the Qur’an. Once equipped with the knowledge of the Qur’an, he believed that people would not follow ‘the false pretenders and the satanic deceivers’.15 Pinning his hopes on the educated youth, Sangelaji identified them as his main audience and the messengers of his ideas.16 The moment, Sangelaji, the cleric, broke rank and decided not only to swim against the powerful tide of popular Shi‘ism and the Shi‘i establishment, but to reverse and reform it, he was perceived as a deserter, a renegade and almost an apostate.

Method and Rationale

Sangelaji’s systematic disavowal of certain prevalent Shi‘i practices was coupled with an attempt on his part to present an alternative Islamic view through the reinterpretation of certain concepts. He sought to sketch a different philosophical, legal and social reading of Islam on the basis of which Muslims could coordinate their private and social behaviour. In his sermons on Islam’s view of music, painting, sculpture and charging interest (reba/riba), Sangelaji embarked on a much more ambitious project, than simply repeating the rulings of traditional jurists on various topics. Sangelaji tried to demonstrate that there existed a rational design and method behind every Islamic ruling. He argued that if certain teachings of Islam seemed questionable or reproachable, it was simply because Muslims were incapable of identifying and understanding its nuanced rationale. Sangelaji attempted to deconstruct, contextualize and look beyond the traditionally accepted explanations of why certain acts were discouraged or forbidden in Islam. Instead of an a priori vice and virtue approach, Sangelaji

13 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, Aval Dey 1313. 14 Nashriyeh Shomareh Panj, p. 37. 15 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. Jim. 16 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. Vav. 60 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran employed a pedagogical and analytical method, dissecting and diagnosing the issue rather than simply passing judgement. According to Sangelaji, even the most insignificant of Islamic teachings aimed at advancing and improving human welfare.17 In his discussion of music, first, Sangelaji provided a short history of its origin, use and evolution. He argued that music as a skill, which had its origin in humankind’s creativity, deeply influenced the heart and spirit of humans. The human heart-beat, he maintained, coordinated itself with musical rhythms.18 In his opinion poetry and music, which had accompanied humankind from its inception on earth, gradually gained importance as human beings found benefits in them. He posited that the original purpose of music, which he believed had gradually become distorted, was different from its present day function. He maintained that originally, music was not developed for ‘useless’ (lahv) and ‘playful’ (la‘b) purposes.19 Second, Sangelaji presented an innovative Islamic explanation of the relation between music and the universe. Music, he argued, reflected the natural world order and the foundations of life. The rotation of the earth around itself and the sun as well as the motion of the planets, he argued, followed a complete and harmonious system and each part played its respective tune. The universe, Sangelaji ascertained, was full of soothing murmurs and enamoured roars, only if we were to listen closely.20 Similarly on earth, he posited, a harmonious system of law and order prevailed. The flowing waters, tumbling stones, ageing animals and sprouting plants were all operating according to the laws of music. Even human beings, Sangelaji argued, were created in conformity with the laws of music.21 The human pulse, he argued, beats with a musical rhythm. Third, having argued that musical rhythms constituted a permanent feature of the universe, Sangelaji posited that once human beings discovered that tunes had therapeutic effects, they began to cure human ailments by playing music.22 Sangelaji argued that people of different cultures and nationalities possessed their own particular and specific tastes, different from others. Even within nations, he argued, different individual had different temperaments and preferences and therefore the tunes and melodies suitable to each person were distinct from another. A melody which was soothing and curing for one culture

17 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, Tehran, Entesharat Danesh, 2535, p. 5. 18 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, p. 7. 19 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, p. 7. 20 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, pp. 7, 8. 21 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, p. 8. 22 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, pp. 9–10. Reforming Actually Practised Islam 61 was not necessarily relieving and relaxing for another culture; it could even prove to be detrimental to it. Therefore, Sangelaji concluded against the concept of an internationally consoling music.23 Employing music as a symbol, Sangelaji was voicing his concern and anxiety about the unfettered inflow of Western culture into his society and the ultimate process and danger of cultural homogenization. By evoking the possible harmful impact of one culture’s music on another, even though it may be soothing to its own culture, Sangelaji was warning against the blind imitation of the foreigner’s ways of life by his countrymen. His subtle argument could be construed as a veiled criticism of Reza Shah’s policy of Westernizing Iran and of some social groups embracing it unconditionally. Fourth, returning to his main subject of an Islamic perception of music and having established that in principle music was a divine gift, Sangelaji distinguished between two types of music. He intimated that music which disrupted and muddled the natural functioning of the mind – imported music – resulting in dancing and prancing, was the kind of music that was forbidden in Islam. Sangelaji argued that this type of music affected the soul in the same manner as wine altered the body and the mind.24 Sangelaji made a case for judging music on the basis of its effect on human beings and argued that wherever a rational argument could be made for the use of music, such as in war and marriage, Islam had permitted its usage.25 Sangelaji presented a utilitarian reading of Islamic law, where unequivocal rulings were absent. For Sangelaji, Islam’s ruling on painting and sculpture were similar to that of music; these manifestations of human creativity, representing the harmony innate in creation were positive and beneficial.26 However, when human beings misused or abused these arts, sculpted idols and worshipped them as gods, then Islam forbade the harmful outcome of the practice. In an almost tangential manner, Sangelaji blamed the Zoroastrian clerics, whom he called the ‘ignorant ‘olama’ for transforming the beneficial art of sculpting to the forbidden act of producing idols to be worshipped instead of God.27 It seems as though in cases where Islamic ordinances were not categorically established, for Sangelaji the result that ensued from an act – beneficial or harmful – constituted the proper Islamic criteria for judging an act and not necessarily the act itself.28

23 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, pp. 10–11. 24 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, pp. 11–12. 25 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, p. 12. 26 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, pp. 1, 12. 27 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, p. 14. 28 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, p. 16. 62 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

Fifth, having established the importance and usefulness of musical coordination, rhythm and symmetry in private life, Sangelaji extended his analysis to social organization and interaction. He argued that in the absence of economic division of labour and specialization, society would fall into disarray and annihilation.29 Sangelaji warned that if a people’s march towards progress and development was to be un-synchronized and discordant with the laws of music and harmony, it would not only fail, but certainly culminate in retrogression. Claiming that movement towards objectives, incompatible with or counter to the harmonious laws of music, were fruitless, Sangelaji argued that in a society where its youth did not possess the proper moral education and were not committed to chastity and virtue, it was counterproductive for women to remove their veil.30 Employing music as a symbol of harmony and coordination, Sangelaji emphasized the importance of social order and coordination in attaining social ends. For him, in the absence of synchronized and orderly social progression, in which each constituent social element moved in harmony and tandem with one another, society would break down before it attained its lofty objectives. Socio-economic progress from Sangelaji’s point of view needed to function as a harmonious symphony orchestra. From the harmonious laws of music, Sangelaji derived a gradualist, step-by-step reformist theory of social change. For Sangelaji’s taste, revolutionary change was too anarchic, disorderly and messy. Furthermore, he was convinced that the discord, asymmetry and unevenness involved in a revolutionary situation guaranteed the failure of its objectives and ideals, as it would imply each musician playing her own tune. In his assessment of Islam’s rationale for forbidding interest or usury (reba), Sangelaji approached the topic as the particular case of a broader category of social problems. Sangelaji placed the usurer in the broad social category of parasites and loafers who took from society without contributing to it, ignoring their social responsibility and neglecting the fact that human beings were social creatures.31 According to Sangelaji, no one benefited from the activities of the parasitic classes but themselves. Socio-economic parasites received monetary compensations or rewards without the provision of work or effort. But to Sangelaji, an individual’s assets had to be the result of his labour/work and effort.32 Therefore parasitic and rent-seeking activities, he argued, were not only unjust and ignoble but harmful to social harmony and cohesion.33

29 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, p. 9. 30 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, p. 9. 31 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, pp. 20, 23. 32 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, p. 31. 33 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, p. 21. Reforming Actually Practised Islam 63

Casting a glance at the appearance and evolution of rent-seeking parasitic classes in societies, Sangelaji argued that throughout history asceticism (rahbaniyat) constituted another manifestation of this social category. According to Sangelaji, the ascetics ‘appeared in thousands of different guises’.34 Categorizing asceticism (rahbaniyat) as a practice which appeared among Christians and Hindus, Sangelaji extrapolated that ‘anyone in any garb who lived from the work of others without contributing to society’ irrespective of whether they worshipped God and belonged to the ascetics or exploited the poor, belonged to the parasitic class.35 Sangelaji posited that a parasite, even ‘in the most sacred of garbs’, was still ‘a thief ’ and as such was engaged in a prohibited activity.36 Sangelaji encouraged his audience to look around them and recognize the new members of ‘the ascetic class, who wore a majestic cloak made of theft’.37 Aware of the fact that he was drawing a parallel between the ascetic establishment (rahbaniyat) and the (rowhaniyat), the Shi‘i clerical establishment, Sangelaji rushed to distinguish between the ‘real/true knowledgeable cleric (‘alem)’ and the parasites, namely the ‘pseudo-clerics’ and ‘deceitful monsters’ who misled the believers for their private interest.38 He labelled the ‘real knowledgeable cleric’ as ‘society’s source of reasoning’ and credited him for guiding individuals towards private and social good, thus deserving a compensation and differentiated him from those parasitic clerics who, like exorcists and futurologists, swindled the people.39 In spite of certain blanket statements, value-judgements and generalizations about clerics throughout his works, Sangelaji delineated between three categories of clerics. First, those who were beneficial to society as they understood its needs and interests just as well as they identified and explained the vices in society.40 Second, those who were injurious to society and a burden upon it; and finally those whose introverted existence had neither a positive or negative impact on society. Sangelaji explicitly considered the second category of clerics as parasitical and a barrier to social welfare and progress. For Sangelaji, usury was reprehensible from an Islamic point of view not only because it violated the relation between work and reward, promoting parasitic

34 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, p. 22. For a similar view see A. Shari‘ati, C.W. 16, p. 266. 35 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, pp. 21, 22. 36 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, p. 22. 37 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, pp. 22, 23. 38 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, pp. 23, 24; Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 174, 175. 39 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, pp. 23, 24. 40 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, pp. 23, 24. 64 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran behaviour, but because it divided society between the wealthy few and the poor masses.41 Usury for Sangelaji was anathema to the solidarity and cohesion of the Islamic community. Refuting the argument that since usury was a common practice in Europe and that it had created wealth and progress there, it should therefore not be considered as harmful, Sangelaji described the situation in Europe as such; ‘if the banks [there] are full of money, the poor and destitute abound too, since wealth has accumulated in the hands of a few and destitution has become the lot of the majority’.42 Under the rubric of usury, Sangelaji described the identifying feature of the parasitic class, then presented what he considered to be Islam’s ethical, social and economic position on the members of this class and then explained the adverse socio-economic consequences of their activities. Sangelaji then moved to discuss the Islamic instruments which if employed could uproot the socio-economic necessity of usurers and the charging of interest. Sangelaji argued that Islam promoted interest-free loans (qarz al- hasaneh) instead of usury and encouraged personal and individual charity (sadaqeh) since these acts endeared the have-nots to the haves; bolstering social cohesion instead of sowing enmity and class hatred.43 According to Sangelaji, the rationale for promoting interest-free loans and charity in Islam was that it ‘made the poor particularly fond of the rich and the resulting affectionate and emotional bond between the two distinct classes, strengthened the social fabric of nations’.44 These two Islamic ideas, Sangelaji argued, were conceived and promoted by the Prophet Muhammad to forge proximity, solidarity and empathy between the two opposing social classes.45 The political consequence of implementing these reconciliatory socio- economic measures – interest-free loans and charity – he argued, was that ‘anarchist and terrorist organizations’ which had popped up in Europe, would not be able to take root in Islamic communities.46 Sangelaji saw Islam as a moderate and reformist force which attenuated and dampened polarities and class conflicts rather than a revolutionary movement which relied on antagonism, championing the cause of one class at the cost of the other. Sangelaji was aware of class contradictions and struggles in society, yet to him the reformist road of mediating and moderating such contradictions had a greater chance of being

41 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, pp. 25, 26. 42 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, pp. 25, 26. 43 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, pp. 26, 27. 44 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, p. 27. 45 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, p. 28. 46 Sangelaji, Eslam va Mousiqi, p. 28. Reforming Actually Practised Islam 65 sustainable. Sangelaji’s Islam envisioned socio-economic and political change as a harmonious, orderly, continuous and incremental process.

The Primacy of Righteous Acts

Sangelaji had an almost rigid idea of what actually existing or popular Shi‘ism represented. His ideal image of the faith, however, was different from the perception of a good majority of his colleagues. Sangelaji argued that the essence of the religion was encapsulated in ‘faith in God, resurrection and performance of good deeds’.47 It was only through good deeds or righteous acts (amal saleh) with private or social, material or spiritual consequences that individuals could practically demonstrate the degree to which they truly understood, believed and practised the essence of monotheism, Prophethood and resurrection. Claiming faith, without the praxis of righteous acts was looked down on by Sangelaji as an insufficient claim to piety and faith. Sangelaji’s antidote to fatalism, renunciation of worldly achievements and asceticism, an important under-current of Shi‘i behaviour of his times, was the promotion of righteous acts. Reacting to popular Shi‘ism’s emphasis on compliance with fine details of required private rites and practices as the manifestation of proper faith, Sangelaji sought to promote beneficent, useful and earthly righteous acts as a counter- veiling force to pure ritualism. Whereas the practice of rites and rituals was at best a guarantor of salvation in the hereafter, Sangelaji hoped to convince his audience that righteous acts could secure progress, development and welfare in this world as well as felicity in the hereafter. Hoping to dilute the importance attached to non-constructive ritualism by popular Shi‘ism, Sangelaji raised the importance of righteous acts to the status of a determining factor in seeking proximity to God.48 For Sangelaji, the primacy of consciously willed righteous acts by individuals also constituted the antithesis and the antidote to the passive and resigned belief in seeking intercession from someone other than God in the absence of righteous acts. In his campaign against the belief that the Prophet, imams and even fetishes were empowered to intercede on behalf of individuals, without those individuals acting in a socially beneficial manner, Sangelaji reiterated that proximity to God cannot be secured through intercession but only through ‘virtuous ideas and

47 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, Aval Dey 1313. 48 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 121. 66 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran acts’.49 Instead of passive reliance on the intercessor to attain an objective in the virtual world, Sangelaji sought to emphasize the importance of the human agency and the individual’s real efforts in this material world. By arguing that God valued righteous acts and rewarded them as He saw fit, Sangelaji sought to replace the culture of fatalism with responsible initiative. To Sangelaji, it seemed as though simply relying on the efforts of others, the intercessors, without some direct active engagement on the part of the person looking for a reward, gave rise to a parasitical relationship, where one benefited from the work or labour of the other. Sangelaji went as far as singling out righteous acts as the only means to salvation.50 He argued that as long as believers engaged in unrighteous or wicked acts, the mere performance of rituals, on their own, as formal proof of faith neither secured proximity to God nor a place in heaven. Whereas according to popular Shi‘ism the fact of being a Shi‘i or claiming to be a Shi‘i was said to be sufficient to secure salvation, Sangelaji sought to minimize the historical rifts between Muslim creeds by arguing that belonging to a school or sect neither guaranteed salvation nor precluded it. Dispelling the Majlesi propagated notion that the Shi‘i enjoyed a privileged position with God and that they had the privilege of automatic access to redemption as followers of Imam Ali, Sangelaji argued that the rewards promised by God to the faithful could not be automatically cashed by the Shi‘i only upon demand.51 Sangelaji reiterated that just being a Shi‘i was not sufficient to obtain felicity in this world and the hereafter. The promised bliss was the reward for ‘knowledge and righteous acts’ and could not be obtained from a mere desire or wish without the necessary supporting concrete acts.52 According to Sangelaji, the status and importance of performing righteous acts was well documented in the Qur’an. God promised the believers and practitioners of righteous acts forgiveness and a mighty reward.53 Those who have faith and perform righteous acts are promised permanent residence in the Garden of Heaven.54 In his highly authoritative Shi‘i exegesis of the Qur’an, Allameh Seyyed Mohammad-Hoseyn Tabataba’ie provided a lucid interpretation of the Qur’anic verses in which references are made to righteous

49 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 121. 50 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 178. 51 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 136. 52 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 136. 53 Abdullah, Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur’an (text, translation and commentary), Beltsville, MD: Amana Corporation, 1989 (2:62, 3:57, 5:9, 45:30). 54 Abdullah, The Holy Qur’an (2:82). Reforming Actually Practised Islam 67 acts. Based on the exegesis of two different verses, Tabataba’ie argued that the criteria for salvation and felicity were faith in monotheism and engagement in righteous acts or belief in God, the Day of Judgement and engagement in righteous acts.55 Based on verse 30 of the Ayah Jathiyah (45), a minimalist definition of religious necessities consisting of monotheism and the performance of righteous acts could be inferred. It is important to note that Mu‘tazelites also single out good deeds or righteous acts as a yardstick of faith and piety.56 In his exegesis of the Qur’an, Seyyed Mahmud Taleqani interpreted righteous acts as ‘those suitable and principled acts, within the context of time and social conditions, directed towards perfection and the truth’.57 The fact that Taleqani emphasized the importance of time and social conditions in defining righteous acts indicated that in his eyes, these were not eternally static acts, but they evolved and changed over time. Therefore acts which helped human beings progress towards perfection and the truth could develop, become transformed and change, thus they did not necessarily need to be limited to the obligatory performances. As a modernist, Taleqani, shared the concerns of Sangelaji and emphasized that, righteous acts were not the same as ‘imitative rites and traditions’.58 The somewhat ambiguous and unspecified notion of righteous acts, which may be construed as generous, charitable, chivalrous, just and compassionate acts, allows those who emphasize it as a key feature of the faith to read into it from a minimal to a maximal array of deeds. Righteous acts could also refer to those deeds which benefit society materially and contribute to output and wealth. Assuming that the notion was flexible and dynamic, evolving times could transform the significance and connotation of the term.

Reviving the Message of Islam

Intent on his mission to revive and modernize the faith by cleansing it of its impurities, in his writings and sermons Sangelaji systematically addressed and criticized two interrelated ‘problematical’ domains in the popular Shi‘i belief system. Focusing on the principal message of Islam, there is no God but

55 M.H. Tabataba’ie, Tafsir Al-Mizan, Tehran: Reja’ va Amir Kabir, 1376, Vol. 8, p. 290 and Vol. 1, pp. 256, 290. 56 C. Martin and M.R. Woodward, Defenders of Reason in Islam, Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1997, p. 86. 57 M. Taleqani, Partovi az Qur’an, jeld sevom, Tehran: Sherkat Sahami Enteshar, 1358, pp. 162–3. 58 Taleqani, Partovi az Qur’an, pp. 162–3. 68 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

Allah, Sangelaji began his reformist discourse by revisiting and establishing the significance of this simple yet key dictum. The revival of monotheism or belief in the notion that God was free of partners necessitated identifying and dismissing the multiple circle of appendages and addenda which had gradually gathered around the concept of monotheism throughout history. For Sangelaji, these man-made additional circles gradually spawning discrete associates for both God and the Qur’an needed to be distinguished and exposed, as they had come to crowd out the simple message of the faith. Addressing the first set of problems resulting from these newly added appendages, Sangelaji sought to question the institutionally established layers of intermediaries between God and His subjects. Concomitantly Sangelaji sought to challenge the weighty influence of the secondary literature, which in the name of facilitating the understanding and interpretation of the Qur’an, he believed, had come to speak for it and had effectively replaced it. Sangelaji realized that both his objectives hinged upon addressing and grappling with the thorny notion of hadiths or report literature, their status in the faith, their message and their authenticity and finally their role in shaping popular Shi‘ism. In all his works and especially Islam and the Return of the Dead (raj‘at), Sangelaji engaged in the study, analysis, authentication and prudent critique of Shi‘i reports. The second set of problems which Sangelaji addressed was that of superstitious ideas, certain rites and rituals along with certain specific Shi‘i popular beliefs, which he believed had entered into and gradually dominated the principles of the faith. Sangelaji defined the faith on the basis of its essential core concepts of monotheism, Prophethood and the day of resurrection. He argued that believers in these principles irrespective of their affiliation as Sunnis, Zaydis or believers in eight imams deserved to be respected and honoured.59 An essential corollary of this position was his firm belief in the unity and solidarity of all Islamic creeds, replacing the rifts and animosities which existed between them. In his works Sangelaji challenged concepts such as intercession (shafa‘at), reliance (tavakol), visiting and worshipping shrines (ziyarat), return (raj‘at) imitation (taqlid), antichrist (dajal), shedding tears (geryeh), sense-based miracles (mo‘jezat hessi) which had come to be considered as salient features of popular Shi‘ism in the minds of the masses. Challenging deep-rooted and popular religious concepts enmeshed throughout the years with Iranian culture went hand in hand with a criticism of the works of those scholars and jurists forming the basis of such ideas. To liberate the mind of believers from what he considered to be un-Islamic notions,

59 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 1 Day 1313. Reforming Actually Practised Islam 69

Sangelaji needed to expose the irrationality, social harm and non-Islamic roots of such notions, rupture with past interpretations and exegesis which upheld them and subsequently invite his followers to cease their blind imitation, if as Muslims they wished for social progress. It would be safe to say that behind every controversial debate in the pages of Sangelaji’s writings lurks a major debate with one of Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi’s ideas or propositions. Sangelaji’s criticism or refutation of popular superstitious Shi‘i beliefs was often connected with Majlesi’s praise for such practices in his works. Even though it seems as though Sangelaji was writing for the intellectuals, the educated, the professionals and the young clerics, it was primarily the clergy and laymen familiar with Majlesi’s works who were equipped to follow the under-current debate between Sangelaji and Majlesi. The study of Sangelaji’s works, therefore, exposed the young seminary school students to his methodical and rational assault on Majlesi’s doctrine and discourse, which constituted one of the firm bases of their religious educational system. Sangelaji’s educated audience not privy to Majlesi’s works could certainly understand Sangelaji’s general criticisms and solutions, yet Sangelaji’s attempt at dethroning the Majlesi discourse would have escaped them. As such, it would be fair to suggest that Sangelaji was consciously pursuing a reformation campaign to revive Islam by challenging and laying bare the weaknesses of what he considered to be un‑Islamic ideas of certain key clerical predecessors. Sangelaji’s attacks on Majlesi’s ideas were often veiled. In his critique of the Majlesi School’s position that the meaning of the Qur’an was only understood by a select few, Sangelaji caustically quipped: ‘Did the people during the Prophet’s time possess Majlesi’s Bahar al-Anwar in order to understand the meaning of the Qur’an?’60 In his book, Islam and the Return of the Dead, written under a penname, Sangelaji felt free to directly criticize both Majlesi and his specific works. Sangelaji meticulously researched, reviewed, analysed and criticized the 198 reports (hadiths) on the topic of the return of the dead (raj‘at) found in volume 13 of Majlesi’s Bahar al-Anwar.61 It is not surprising that Faiz ol-Eslam, Sangelaji’s opponent and detractor, rushed to Majlesi’s defence and lashed out at Sangelaji’s ungracious comments about him. Staunchly defending Majlesi, Faiz ol-Eslam praised him as the last and loftiest of allmojtaheds , the unique and most learned scholar, Imam of all people and lord or master (mowla).62 Faiz ol-Eslam also found fault with

60 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 22 Aban 1313. 61 A. Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, Tehran: Danesh, 1318, p. 114. 62 Faiz ol-Eslam, Rahbar Gomshodegan, n.p., n.d., p. 148. 70 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

Sangelaji’s method of replacing traditional references of jurists with new sources. This intentional and important substitution process, which supported Sangelaji’s arguments and conclusions, disturbed the mainstream clergy. Yet it constituted an important aspect of his rupture with past interpretations and traditions. Criticizing the legitimacy of Sangelaji’s sources and references, Faiz ol-Eslam claimed that seeking proofs in the works of Ahmad Amin and Shahrestani was completely unacceptable.63 It is important to note that Ahmad Amin, whose works were used by Sangelaji, is said to have been influenced by Ignaz Goldziher’s views on widespread fabrication of reports.64 In his book, Islam and the Return of the Dead, Sangelaji’s study of hadiths constitutes a considerable part of the 234- page book. Through references to Ahmad Amin, Sangelaji demonstrated how the fabrication of hadiths started during the time of the Prophet and continued, reaching its apogee in the second century After Hejira.65

63 Faiz ol-Eslam, p. 147. 64 J. Burton, An Introduction to the Hadith, pp. 19, 52, 183. 65 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, pp. 50–58. Chapter 4 The Primacy of the Qur’an

Sangelaji’s personal journey from a state of ‘Islamic ignorance’ to one of ‘Islamic enlightenment’ began after he had reflected on the Qur’anic verse, ‘Do they not earnestly seek to understand the Qur’an, or are their hearts locked up by them?’ (47:24). Sangelaji described his inner transformation, through which he reclaimed his true monotheism, as a liberating experience of ‘tearing asunder the chain of imitation and the veil of superstitious, hidebound and tenacious dogmas’. Having freed himself of the opinions of the various sects within Islam and having turned only to the Qur’an, Sangelaji praised God and acknowledged his complete change of vision.1 For Sangelaji, the return to the Qur’an became the gateway to understanding Islam and Shi‘ism in general and reclaiming piety in particular. For Sangelaji, the Qur’an was a book that needed to be reflected upon and understood and not just read superficially as a divine text. By choosing to return to the Qur’an, the only undisputed reference of all Muslims, Sangelaji sought to demonstrate that deducing the correct Islamic mode of belief and behaviour could only be based on the Qur’an. The Qur’an was not only a divine text, but it naturally preceded all the sectarian feuds and bloodlettings that later came to haunt Muslims. Sangelaji’s emphasis on the Qur’an logically implied his serious questioning of all the non-Qur’anic literature that had come to support the Islam of various competing sects throughout history. Sangelaji’s claim that understanding the faith and acting according to its teachings necessitated ‘reflection on the Qur’anic verses’, constituted the first step in the private and social re-discovering of Islam and Shi‘ism.2 The second step for Sangelaji was that of rejecting all those beliefs and ideas, which were not rooted in or derived from the Qur’an. Sangelaji’s almost Qur’an-only approach was a serious challenge to just about all Islamic schools of thought and creeds, which had developed their schools of jurisprudence and feqh/fiqh based on a plethora of non-Qur’anic Islamic references. Sangelaji argued that the misfortunes of Muslims was caused by their failure to deduce

1 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 5. 2 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 3. 72 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran their religion from the Qur’an, which he believed had been neglected and shunned by contemporary Muslims.3 For Sangelaji, the Qur’an was also the most comprehensive educational book, encompassing religious, philosophical, social, ethical and legal domains.4 To him, this was a book with solutions and cures for all spiritual ills. It trained the mind and the soul and developed human reasoning, illuminating the correct path.5 The objective of the Qur’an, he believed, was to educate, form, and spiritually elevate human beings. The ‘elevated human being’, in turn, had a worldly function and responsibility as well as a spiritual one. To Sangelaji, the human beings who were educated and formed by the Qur’an would subsequently engage in building their civilization by conducting scientific research on microbes, manufacturing cars and tanks or generating electricity.6 The instruction of such sciences and industry, Sangelaji argued, was not the responsibility of prophets and below the dignity of divine texts and was therefore not included in the Qur’an.7 For Sangelaji, the Qur’an was endowed with yet another key feature which made reliance on it, before all other literature, imperative for all Muslims. Sangelaji argued that the objective of the Qur’an in founding the Shari‘a and legislating laws was to assure human welfare and convenience.8 On numerous occasions Sangelaji reiterated that the content of Qur’anic edicts were intended for the convenience or expediency (maslahat) of God’s subjects; this, he argued, constituted the basis on which the Lawgiver promulgated his rules.9 Once again, by arguing that human benefit and welfare constituted the main objective of the Qur’anic teachings, he laid the ground for rejecting those non-Qur’anic edicts and rulings that either made life difficult for Muslims or neglected to take their convenience into consideration. For Sangelaji, the Qur’an taught not only the prevention of unnecessary hardship, but the pursuit of private and social convenience and welfare. Finally, for Sangelaji, the Qur’an was the antidote to fantastical, irrational and superstitious ideas. Intent on chasing out fantastical and irrational ideas, which he believed had come to blunt the senses of Muslims, holding back their progress, Sangelaji sought to explain that returning to the Qur’an would demonstrate that the transcendence and perfection of human beings was intended by God without

3 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 3. 4 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 3. 5 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 37. 6 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 37–8. 7 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 38. 8 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 60. 9 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 60, 63. The Primacy of the Qur’an 73 reliance on irrational ideas and through the strengthening of human reasoning (taqviyat aql ensan).10 For Sangelaji, the Qur’an held the key for Muslims to chase away superstitions and replace them with reason and rationality. In his discourse on the method of understanding the Qur’an, Sangelaji demonstrated an intuitive grasp of the hermeneutical approach to texts, which later became fashionable. Emphasizing the importance of taking into consideration changing times, conditions and contexts on the understanding and meaning of a text, Sangelaji argued that ‘the understanding of a single word or utterance, will be different under different circumstances and conditions, just as its meaning will be different depending on the recipient of the word’.11 Allowing for an evolving understanding of the Qur’an, in the spirit of Seyyed Jamal-eddin Afghani, Sangelaji paved the path towards the rational interpretation of the Qur’an based on the Qur’an. Sangelaji criticized the process of understanding the Qur’an through the various interpretations originating in the different Islamic schools of thought. Referring to the divided and feuding house of Islam, he lamented the ‘incredible schism’ between the different schools and attributed it to the adoption of ideas not rooted in the Qur’an.12

Qur’an: Method

The Qur’an according to Sangelaji was the sole explanatory factor for the spectacular progress of the Muslim community from the age of ignorance to the zenith of Islamic civilization. For Sangelaji, the Qur’an was a book of knowledge and philosophy and a medium which strongly promoted reflection and inquiry.13 Sangelaji argued that the Qur’an constantly regenerated and revitalized the community because it called upon it to think. Teaching people how to reflect was the first step in the process of helping them pursue and attain the truth, which would inevitably secure their well-being and felicity. Sangelaji identified eight successive stages in the Qur’anic educational process, the end result of which revealed to the believers the mysteries of existence, the here and the hereafter.14 At each step of the way, Sangelaji posited that the Qur’an taught humankind a key principle, the mastery of which led to a natural progression to the next stage.

10 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 37, 93–4. 11 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 28. 12 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 3. 13 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 156–7. 14 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 161. 74 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

First, the Qur’an reminded human beings that they did not possess complete knowledge (17:85) and that once they became conscious of their ignorance, they would naturally seek to overcome their deficiency by becoming inquisitive and subsequently embark on probing into matters.15 In the second stage, the Qur’an invited humankind to request God to advance and enhance their knowledge (20:114). Knowledge itself, according to Sangelaji’s reading of the Qur’an, was infinite.16 Based on the principle of seeking knowledge, Muslims realized their quest, but according to Sangelaji, they remained bewildered as to the kind of knowledge they should pursue and the proper method they should employ.17 To help them, Sangelaji maintained, that the Qur’an stipulated a third principle; after the truth, there lies nothing but misguidedness and deception (10:32). For Sangelaji, at this stage, believers were expected to distinguish between seeking knowledge for arriving at the truth in contrast to following superstition, supposition and hunch (zan o goman). Therefore, the fourth principle guided Muslims not to pay attention to suppositions and hunches, heeding against engaging in them (10:36).18 In the fifth stage, Muslims were warned not to obey what they were ignorant of (17:36). According to Sangelaji, the Qur’an expected Muslims to make informed decisions, thus accepting responsibility for their acts and choices. In the sixth stage, the Qur’an invited Muslims to reflect on the creation of heaven and earth (3:191).19 Through this key principle, Sangelaji argued that Muslims were taught to consider the here and the hereafter as a repository, as well as a subject, of knowledge and philosophy, if they were properly reflected upon. The seventh Qur’anic principle, taught at the seventh stage, advanced humankind another step in their quest for the truth by reassuring human beings that they were endowed with the capacity to discover the mysteries of the here and the hereafter. At this stage, Sangelaji observed that the Qur’an taught humankind that they were capable of understanding heaven and earth and that the earth could be tamed by them (14:33). Finally, according to Sangelaji, the eighth Qur’anic principle capped the pedagogical objective of the Book. At the eighth stage, humankind was informed that the proper path as well as the end objective of life would be revealed to those who strived and exerted themselves in the cause of God (26:69).20 For Sangelaji the striving and

15 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 158. 16 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 170. 17 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 158. 18 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 159. 19 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 160. 20 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 161. The Primacy of the Qur’an 75 exertion referred to in the Qur’an, as the means to discovering the mysteries of the world and obtaining knowledge was of an intellectual nature, requiring contemplation and argumentation. By exploring, understanding and describing the method of analysis of the Qur’an, Sangelaji hoped to set up an ideal framework or model of inquiry and analysis for Muslims. His message was rather simple. If the Qur’an employed and promoted a method of research and understanding, then would it not be incumbent upon Muslims to follow that method in order to obtain felicity? Sangelaji argued that the Qur’anic method was one of reflection and argumentation, based on the assumption that reasoning (aql) was a compass and a guide to human conduct.21 The Qur’an, according to Sangelaji, was a book which presented the fundamentals of the faith and its rules, through solid reasoning and concrete proofs.22 According to Sangelaji, in order to assure the well-being of humanity, the Qur’an empowered ‘reason with absolute freedom’ (aql ra azadi motlaq ata nemood).23 Endowed with the gift of reasoning, therefore, humankind was first capable of understanding and grasping Qur’anic reasoning and proofs and secondly human beings were prepared to apply reasoning to the world around them to improve their material condition. If reasoning and the power to reflect was a divine gift, as Sangelaji believed it to be, then it followed that imitating ideas not based on contemplation and knowledge (‘elm) would be considered as a rejection of God’s bounties and favours.24 Sangelaji’s study of the Qur’anic method led him to believe that barriers to reasoning, such as blind imitation of traditional ways and customs and unreflective compliance with the rulings of dogmatic doctors of law, would prevent mankind from embarking on the path to knowledge, as prescribed by the Qur’an. According to Sangelaji, inability to pursue and obtain knowledge (‘elm) prevented individuals from attaining proximity to God. Consequently, for Sangelaji, all those beliefs, individuals and institutions preventing human beings from attaining knowledge, were working against the will of God and the rationale of the Qur’an. Sangelaji believed that the seeking of knowledge promoted by the Qur’an had the double purpose of attaining human welfare and progress in the material world as well as felicity in the hereafter. Sangelaji regarded pursuit of knowledge as a means of attaining proximity to God and consequently the medium of achieving felicity in the hereafter, the objective

21 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 161. 22 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 125. 23 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 179. 24 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 125. 76 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran of all believers.25 For Sangelaji, not only was reasoning a Qur’anic method of exposition and a divine gift, but it was necessary for understanding the faith and its intent as well as for seeking knowledge, which allowed for proximity to God and felicity in the hereafter as well as the furthering of welfare in the material world. Having explored Qur’an’s method of argumentation and exposition, Sangelaji attempted to identify and analyse the Qur’an’s audience. According to Sangelaji, the Qur’an addressed the common people because it believed that once the common people were reformed and enlightened, then society as a whole would follow suit since the notables, the Islamic jurists (‘olama), the kings and nobility, all had their origin in the masses. Sangelaji chastised the philosophers who focused their attention on the education of the elite and the learned and argued that their method was of no social value.26 To educate the masses in the reflective, reason-based and argumentative method of inquiry which Sangelaji derived from the Qur’an, was not to be an easy and speedy task. Sangelaji acknowledged the limitations of the masses in learning and applying this process. For him, the major weakness of the masses was that they were primarily ruled by their instincts rather than their reasoning.27 Sangelaji, who had criticized the philosophers for focusing their pedagogical efforts on the elite, initially focused his own attention on the masses – the method promoted by the Qur’an – yet ended up placing his hope entirely on the educated youth.28 Perhaps Sangelaji came to feel as though the popular masses of his time were so immersed in the practices and beliefs that he wished to examine and scrutinize that their emotion and zeal prevented them from understanding his teachings. After 15 years of swimming against the religious currents of his time, Sangelaji readily admitted that it was neither easy nor safe to speak out against the beliefs and superstitions of the masses. To him, the negative reaction and even ‘hatred’ of the masses towards his teachings was understandable.29 Sangelaji hoped that the properly guided educated youth, who were prepared to hear him, would in turn educate the masses. It is not surprising that he optimistically hoped that the seeds that he was sowing would one day yield its results.30

25 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 121, 136. 26 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 74. 27 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 75. 28 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. vav. 29 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. be. 30 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. vav. The Primacy of the Qur’an 77

Debate on the Distortion of the Qur’an

As Sangelaji’s point of entry into the analysis of Islam was through the study of the Qur’an, he needed to grapple with and respond to the controversy over the incompletion of the Qur’an. He, therefore, first engaged in dispelling the notion that the Qur’an as it existed was distorted or incomplete. The idea that the Qur’an in its present form was incomplete was harboured by certain Sunni and Shi‘i circles. For Sangelaji, the concept of a distorted Qur’an was a totally unfounded, false and harmful dogma. If the Qur’an in its present form was incomplete and incorrect, then the anchor of Islam, the Muslim’s criteria of right and wrong would be lost, causing utter chaos and rendering Muslims eternally incapable of deducing the correct path. The legitimacy of the faith rested on the correctness and completion of the Qur’an. Qur’an was the word of God according to which people were invited to monotheism. Questioning the Qur’an’s completion and authenticity was questioning the most fundamental pillar of the faith. In response to the idea circulating among some Shi‘i that the authentic Qur’an was in the possession of Imam Ali, Sangelaji forcefully argued that it was impossible to think that Imam Ali, the model of piety and honesty, would conceal the so-called authentic Qur’an and deprive the Muslims he ruled from the true source of guidance and enlightenment.31 With reference to and based on Qur’anic verses, the Tradition of the Prophet, the acts of the first three Shi‘i imams, rational thought and reports of prominent Shi‘i jurists, Sangelaji sought to prove the completeness and correctness of the Qur’an in its present form.32 Addressing those who believed in and propagated the notion that the Qur’an was distorted, Sangelaji inquired rhetorically: ‘the belief in the deficiency and distortion of the Qur’an is not only scientifically, rationally and historically false but also, is it not a manifestation of infidelity and apostasy?’33 Sangelaji’s campaign against those who undermined the Qur’an by shedding doubt on its integrity and completion was in reality an open challenge and rebuff to the extremist Shi‘i notions that were revived and popularized by Majlesi as well as an attempt to restore and confirm the proper status and position of the Qur’an. Sangelaji’s concern with the debate on the deficiency of the Qur’an was not an abstract and futile scholastic issue. Subsequent to the revival of the notion

31 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 13. 32 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 9–15. 33 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 14. 78 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran of an imperfect Qur’an by Majlesi, the idea received support among the more extremist Twelver Shi‘i and remained an important undercurrent at the time. It was in reaction to this current that Sangelaji sought to debate and combat the idea. The debate over the integrity of the Qur’an is not limited to the Shi‘i and has its original roots among the Sunnis.34 References to distortions in the Qur’an can be found in the authoritative Shi‘i hadith compilation of Mohammad ibn Ya‘qub Koleyni (d. 329/940). According to a report, the Qur’an, which was revealed to Mohammad by the angel Gabriel, had 17,000 Aya.35 Based on the number of Aya in the Qur’an compiled by Othman and in circulation today, the report quoted by Koleyni insinuates that approximately a third of the Ayas in the ‘original’ Qur’an were lost or had been deleted. Certain other reports in Koleyni’s compilation also suggest that the present Qur’an contains only a third of the complete Qur’an which is said to be in the possession of the imams and will not reappear until the coming of the Twelfth Imam.36 Some 700 years after Koleyni, Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi revived the old debate over the deficiency of the Qur’an.37 According to a report, Majlesi maintained that the original reference to the Prophet’s progeny and the members of his household in the Qur’anic Sura of Al-e Imran were later omitted, thus suggesting that the Qur’an was deficient.38 Arguing that the number of reports on the deficiency of the Qur’an was no less than the reports on the key concept of Imamate, Majlesi once again sowed the seeds of doubt on the completion and authenticity of the Qur’an.39 Majlesi regularly referred to the incompletion and deficiency of the Qur’an compiled by Othman as a fact. He argued that the greatest part of the ‘original’ Qur’an pertained to the glorification and acclamation of the imams and the condemnation of their enemies. Majlesi posited that one-third of the Qur’an was concerned with the glorification of the imams, one-third with the denunciation of their enemies and only the remaining one-third dealt with religious edicts and

34 For an excellent and learned review and analysis of this topic see: Hossein Modaressi, ‘Early Debates on the Integrity of the Qur’an’, Studia Islamica, Vol. 77, 1993. 35 Koleyni, Usul Kafi (translated by Javad Mostafavi), Vol. 4, Tehran: Entesharat Golgasht, 1375, p. 446. 36 Koleyni, Usul Kafi, Vol. 4, pp. 441–6. 37 M.B. Majlesi, ‘Ayn al-Hayat, Tehran: Eslamiyeh, n.d., pp. 92, 450. M.B. Majlesi, Hayat al-Qoloub, Vol. 5, Qom: Entesharat-e Sorour, 1376, p. 168. 38 Majlesi, Hayat al-Qoloub, Vol. 5, p. 168. 39 Majlesi, Merat al-‘Uqoul, Vol. 12, p. 525. Cited in Keyhan Andisheh, No. 44, Mehr va Aban 1371, pp. 14–37. Also in M. Mehrizi and H. Rabbani, Shenakhtnameh ‘Allameh Majlesi, Vol. 1, Tehran: Entesharat Vezarate Farhang va Ershad Eslami, 1378, pp. 132–3. The Primacy of the Qur’an 79 practices.40 Almost all reports concerning the incompletion of the Qur’an are compiled in Majlesi’s Bahar al-Anwar.41 According to Majlesi ‘the final and complete Qur’an’ was in the hands of the Prophet and the Shi‘i imams.42 It was argued that Imam Ali, who possessed the Qur’an in its entirety, passed it on to the imams and once the Twelfth Imam reappeared he would bring it back with him.43 Majlesi believed that after the return of the Twelfth Imam, this ‘new Qur’an’ would be taught to the people by the Shi‘i.44 The notion of the incompleteness of the Qur’an was later propagated by Ne’matollah Jazayeri, a collaborator and follower of Majlesi and Mirza Hoseyn Nouri (1836–1902), better known as Mohaddes Nouri.45 Rebutting the idea that the Qur’an could have been tampered with, Sangelaji argued that with all the memorizers of the Qur’an at the time of the Prophet it would have been impossible to delete or hide two-thirds of the Qur’an from the people. According to Sangelaji, those who promoted such ideas were not only engaging ‘in a rational, historical and scientific distortion’, but were disrespectful towards the Qur’an and Imams Ali, Hasan and Hoseyn. Sangelaji enquired whether those who believed in the idea that the Qur’an was distorted and promoted such notions were not infidels kofar( )?46

The Incomprehensibility Debate

The second ‘false’ notion that Sangelaji sought to dispel was that the Qur’an was incomprehensible to ordinary people. This belief, similar to that of the deficiency of the Qur’an could be traced to the very early Shi‘i hadith compilers.47 Both ideas of the deficiency and the incomprehensibility of the Qur’an were understood by Sangelaji as means of preventing believers from referring to the Qur’an as the most important source of learning for Muslims, and the replacement of the Qur’an by

40 Majlesi, ‘Ayn al-Hayat, pp. 450–51. 41 In his excellent article on the integrity of the Qur’an, Baha-eddin Khoramshahi, mentions that these reports are gathered in Vol. 92 of Bahar al-Anwar. See Encyclopedia of Shi‘a, edited by A. Sadr, K. Fani, B. Khoramshahi and H. Yusefi Eshkevari, Vol. 4, Tehran: Shat Charity and Cultural Foundation, 1994. Tahrifnapazirie Qur’an, p. 145. 42 Majlesi, ‘Ayn al-Hayat, p. 450. 43 Encyclopedia of Shi‘a, Vol. 4, p. 147. 44 Majlesi, Majmou’eh Rasael E‘teqadi, p. 110. 45 Encyclopedia of Shi‘a, Vol. 4, p. 145. 46 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 12, 14. 47 See Saffar Qomi in Ali Amir-Moezzi’s excellent book,The Divine Guide in Early Shi‘ism, New York: State University of New York Press, 1994, pp. 17, 82–3. 80 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran other sources. The endurance, systematization and quasi-incorporation of these ideas into Shi‘i dogma in post-Safavid Iran must again be attributed to Majlesi and his School. Rebuffing the popular Shi‘i or Majlesi discourse intent on minimizing the role of the Qur’an in the absence of hadith literature, Sangelaji sought to demonstrate that the Qur’an by itself and independent of any other literature was the only authentic source of guidance for human felicity. Sangelaji entered into a disputation with the proponents of presenting the Qur’an as an incomplete and inaccessible text and asked: ‘why would God instruct Mankind to reflect on the Qur’an, if the Qur’an was incomprehensible?’48 Sangelaji posited that it is an indubitable fact that the totality of the Qur’an is understandable and that there is not even a verse in the Book of God which is incomprehensible to the people.49 He rhetorically asked: ‘how can the Qur’an maintain that it is the repertoire of all explanations and is therefore a gift and a guide to all Muslims’, if due to its incomprehensibility, humankind was incapable of using it?50 Sangelaji was trying to rebut the claims by previous Shi‘i scholars who irrespective of their intentions were presenting the Qur’an as an incomplete and incomprehensible text. For Sangelaji, since the Qur’an was a divine textbook for educating humankind, it must have been written for all to understand. Both the classical compilations of Shi‘i hadith and Majlesi’s works are replete with references to the fact that the Qur’an can neither be read nor understood let alone provide an independent source of knowledge for the common people in the Islamic community. The general consensus among thehadith -only Islamic jurists was that an infallible interpreter was needed to explain the Qur’an and that without the report of an imam the Book of God was of no use.51 Majlesi even argued that the right to read the Qur’an was contingent upon knowledge of its secrets and layers, a knowledge which only the Shi‘i imams possessed.52 Reacting to this hegemonic discourse of his time among the clerics, Sangelaji referred to the Qur’anic verse 29:51 and lamented that even though the Qur’an maintained that its verses were evident and clear to polytheists, how could anyone argue that the same Qur’an was unintelligible to the faithful. Sangelaji chastised the upholders of the incomprehensibility thesis of the Qur’an and suggested that those holding such views ‘ought to be ashamed of God’ (az khodavand sharm konand).53

48 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 17. 49 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 17. 50 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 20. 51 Majlesi, Hayat al-Qoloub Vol. 5, p. 22. 52 Majlesi, Hayat al-Qoloub Vol. 5, p. 150. 53 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 21. The Primacy of the Qur’an 81

The notion that the Qur’an was not understandable by the common folk rested on two key presumptions: first, the Qur’an was too difficult for the common folk to understand; second, the common folk were not endowed with intellect and the capacity to understand and reason. The notion that the common folk possessed deficient minds was key in the argumentations of the believers in the thesis that the Qur’an was incomprehensible to the masses. The first ramification of the incomprehensibility of the Qur’an was that the Qur’an could not provide an independent and autonomous primary resource of knowledge for Muslims. The second inference from the incomprehensibility thesis of the Qur’an was that the meaning of the Qur’an could only be understood through the reports, interpretations and exegesis attributed to the imams. Finally, in the absence of the imams, the notion of the incomprehensibility of the Qur’an justified the intervention of the specialists or the clergy. In a pious society, seeking guidance according to the Qur’an and convinced that the Qur’an was incomprehensible to the common folk, the clergy as experts on the Book of God, therefore, became the only viable candidates for guiding people and religio-political leadership. The division of the population between those who could and those who could not understand the Qur’an perpetuated the dependence of the popular non-experts on the clergy and fostered the tradition of blind imitation and obedience to clerical leaders. Sangelaji warned that religious pretenders were intent on dethroning the Qur’an as a source and a proof only to propagate their own ends. He posited that while the clergy created a flourishing market for themselves based on innovations and wrongdoings, superstitions and irrationalities would pile up in the minds of the people.54 Based on Qur’anic verses, reports and rational thought, Sangelaji sought to prove that since the Qur’an was revealed for the purpose of guiding the people, its language and content were easily accessible and comprehensible to the people.55 Refuting obedience to those who spoke in the name of the Qur’an and promoted reports which veiled the Qur’an, Sangelaji concluded that, ‘whoever seeks guidance from a source other than the Qur’an will be misled’.56 The schism within Muslims, he concluded was an outcome of failing to seek direction from the Qur’an. In a thinly veiled attack on the Shi‘i institution of marja‘iyat or the religious source of imitation, Sangelaji maintained that ‘if Muslims were to set the Qur’an as their marja‘ [source of imitation] deducing their religion from it, their misery and disunity would be transformed into blessedness and unity’.57

54 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 5. 55 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 17–27. Verses such as: 16:89, 47:24, 26:192–5. 56 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 24. 57 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 24. 82 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

Elaborating on a theme repeated by most Islamic modernists, Sangelaji warned that those who argued that the Qur’an was incomprehensible to the people, ‘wished to take away the Qur’an from the people and propagate falsities in its place’.58

Qur’an, the Clergy and the Clerical Establishment

Starting from the premise that God had ordered people to reflect upon the Qur’an in order to understand the intention of the Lawmaker, Sangelaji defended exegesis and interpretation as a Qur’an-endorsed practice. Under the title of ‘interpretation based on personal opinion (ra’y) and its division into the permissible and the forbidden’, Sangelaji salvaged the concept of personal opinion (ra’y) by distinguishing between an Islamically condoned and Islamically condemned employment of opinion in interpreting the Qur’an.59 To lay down his arguments, he initially employed the traditional argument and warned against interpreting the Qur’an according to one’s own will and pre- conceived ideas. He condemned the process of starting from a pre-conceived notion or judgement and subsequently reading it into the Qur’an or using the Qur’an to demonstrate pre-conceived notions, as un-Islamic.60 According to Sangelaji, reading into the Qur’an one’s presumed notions and intentions would not constitute ejtehad/ijtihad, but interpretation based on one’s own opinion (ra’y), culminating in attributing personal opinions to God. Sangelaji insisted on repudiating the process by which interpreters of Qur’an extended their imagination way beyond the evident and manifest Qur’anic message seeking and attributing a particular and pre-supposed meaning to the verses where no such meanings could be inferred. Sangelaji seemed perfectly aware of the fact that the text which could lead one interpreter of the Qur’an to come to one understanding and judgement could potentially lead another interpreter to come to a different if not opposing one. Distinguishing the fine line between the Islamically condemned and Islamically condoned use of ra’y is at best a difficult if not an almost arbitrary task, even though the rules set down on analogy (qiyas) and ejtehad/ijtihad by jurists can certainly help delineate one from the other. Sangelaji’s criteria for distinguishing between the two types of personal opinion seems to be pragmatic, utilitarian and humanist. According to Sangelaji, a personal opinion

58 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 25. 59 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 52. 60 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 52. The Primacy of the Qur’an 83 which enhanced human welfare, as defined by Ghazali’s five basic necessities of the faith (zaruriyat-e khamsa), was an acceptable one, while a personal opinion which impaired human welfare defined by the same criteria was an Islamically condemned personal opinion.61 The real target of Sangelaji’s attack against personal and unfounded interpretations was the method of exegesis employed by the Majlesi School. Throughout his works, Sangelaji referred to cases of unfounded interpretations, judgements and attributions. He sometimes directly named Majlesi as the main culprit and at other times referred to his interpretations without naming him.62 Sangelaji argued that when interpreters fail to pay attention to the actual and evident meaning of the terms and concepts employed in the Qur’an, they can deduce any meaning that they wish. This process, he claimed, was wrong, sinful and slanderous towards God.63 In his attempt to defend personal opinion in interpreting the content of the Qur’an, which would be both Islamically condoned and conducive to human welfare, Sangelaji argued that since all verses in the Qur’an were not explained or interpreted by the Prophet or the imams and that God had ordered humankind to reflect on the content of the Qur’an, human intellect and therefore independent thought had to be applied to such cases. For Sangelaji, Muslims in the modern world faced the difficult choice of either stopping before the unanswered new questions and unresolved situations which presented themselves or they needed to exert their intellect to deduce new responses and edicts based on and compatible with the Qur’an.64 Privileging the first option would admit to the inability of Islam to adapt to changing times while the choice of the second option confirmed Sangelaji’s hypothesis that once Muslims were trained by the Qur’an they would be able to resolve all emerging problems by applying their independent reasoning and thought. Justifying ejtehad/ijtihad by those other than the Prophet or imams, Sangelaji argued that interpretations and exegeses ‘did not necessarily have to be by the Prophet or the infallible imams’.65 With the passing of time and unfolding of events, new laws and rulings needed to be deduced from the Qur’an, necessitating an ongoing process of ejtehad or the application of independent thought to the Qur’an.

61 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 60–62. 62 Farid, Eslam va Raj’at, pp. 66, 113, Majlesi, Hayat al-Qoloub, Vol. 5, pp. 362, 453–6, 463–5. 63 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 51. 64 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 53. 65 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 53. 84 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

Sangelaji concluded that interpretations of the Qur’an which employed two types of personal opinion were reprehensible. First, capricious and malicious opinions based on pre-conceived and prejudicial notions. In this category he placed all sectarian (Mu‘tazelite, Ash‘arite, Batinite, Sufi) interpretations of the Qur’an.66 Second, in his opinion, interpreting the Qur’an without taking into consideration the context, the prevailing historical conditions and the specificities surrounding the revelation of the text, was also objectionable. To Sangelaji, knowledge of Arabic without knowledge of the conditions surrounding the revelation of the text as well as the chronology of the text led to Islamically condemnable application of independent thought.67 Upholding the necessity of ejtehad did not necessarily resolve the problem of who had the right to engage in this exercise and what was the relation of those who were excluded from this exercise to those who were allowed to become involved in it. In contrast to mainstream Shi‘i jurists, Sangelaji did not seem to assume a classical hierarchical relation of command and compliance between the mojtahed (cleric) who was religiously entitled to apply independent thought, derive solutions and inform his followers and the non-mojtahed laity who were traditionally supposed to imitate and obey him. It was this traditional relationship of dominance and dependence between the clerical mojtahed and the lay moqaled (imitator/follower), which gave authority and power to the Shi‘i clerical establishment. By promoting ejtehad at the same time as denouncing blind imitation or taqlid, Sangelaji seemed to be questioning the rationale for the traditional mojtahed–moqaled association in society, which provided religious justification for the existence of the clerical establishment. Furthermore, by probing into the Qur’an and searching guidance and rulings from it on the prevalent mojtahed–moqaled association in society, Sangelaji sought to shed doubt on the emphasis placed on the guiding religio-social role of the cleric (mojtahed) in relation to the lay (moqaled). Themojtahed–moqaled religio-social nexus was upheld and strictly protected by the Shi‘i jurists because they believed it to guarantee faith among believers and to act as the cement which assured social cohesion based on proper Islamic behaviour. In the absence of the mojtahid–moqaled nexus, the Islamic jurists could argue that society would lose its proper Islamic bearing and characteristics. Sangelaji, however, seemed to argue for the decoupling of the mojtahed–moqaled nexus. For Sangelaji, it was through the teachings of the Qur’an, which Islam pursued and promoted its objectives of endowing human beings with ‘freedom,

66 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 53–5. 67 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 55. The Primacy of the Qur’an 85 knowledge and reason [thus] liberating them from the bondage of priests (kahenan) ’. 68 Once human beings began reasoning based on their acquired knowledge, Sangelaji believed that they were capable of directly coordinating and regulating their own relationship with God. As such, he maintained that ‘Islam did not believe in intermediaries between God and human beings’.69 To Sangelaji, an interfering institution, such as the clerical establishment could misrepresent the message of God, in the name of God. It could usurp the power of the people in the name of God. According to Sangelaji, once an individual became a Muslim and found shelter in the Qur’an he was no longer in need of an intermediary.70 In Islam, he argued, the reliance of the believer on the Qur’an would free him of the need to follow any other intermediary. It is not very clear if Sangelaji believed in one of the possible logical consequences of his own argument, which was that the laity were equally justified in engaging inejtehad for their own private purposes, as were the clerics. Remaining good Muslims without reliance on an intermediary necessitated belief in some degree of the idea that the laity was capable of deriving their own solutions from the Qur’an. Sangelaji’s conclusion sounded rather similar to Martin Luther’s notion of ‘the priesthood of all believers’. The conviction that lay believers were obliged to follow their religious leaders in not only religious and social domains but also that of the political could result in arguing for the religious necessity of some form of clerical guardianship (velayat). Sangelaji argued that by bestowing upon themselves the religious right of rulership/guardianship (velayat) over the people, the clergy had expropriated the people of their inherent rights. To Sangelaji, the clergy’s conceptualization of the idea of their own guardianship, justifying and even sanctifying clerical dominance from a religious point of view, was politically motivated to attain power, domination and control over the people.71 Invoking the Qur’an (23:71), Sangelaji argued that following the clergy would result in confusion and corruption.72 According to Sangelaji, the clergy opposed the use of reasoning by the people to maintain their power and sovereignty over them. To prevent the development and propagation of rational thought in society, Sangelaji believed that the clerics first tried to fill the peoples’ minds with irrational, occult and superstitious ideas. They subsequently sought to contain and stamp out any questioning, doubt or

68 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 169. 69 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 169. 70 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 169. 71 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 174, 179. 72 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 174. 86 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran resistance to their stupefaction campaign by condemning the non-compliers and dissidents to apostasy.73 Dismissing the concept of rulership/guardianship of the clergy, as contradictory to true monotheism, Sangelaji argued that monotheism implied the recognition of God as the only ruler or guardian (vali).74 If God was the only true ruler worthy of obedience then rulership/guardianship was His exclusive and sole monopoly and could not be transferred to individuals, irrespective of their lineage and position. For Sangelaji, the acceptance of any person’s religious rulership/guardianship in the name of God was tantamount to polytheism. It seemed as if for Sangelaji, since all Muslims a priori benefited from an equal spiritual status and station, irrespective of their distinction between clerics and lay, membership of the clerical establishment could not constitute a reason for claiming the right to socio-political rulership/guardianship. Referring to the early days of Islam and setting it as a social and political model to be emulated, Sangelaji argued that in those days Muslims simply had faith in God and considered the reciting of the Qur’an and abiding by its rules as the only intermediary between themselves and God.75 For Sangelaji, Muslims equipped with the Qur’an, could find their way to spiritual and material well-being. Sangelaji intimated that the clergy regarded the knowledge of the Qur’an by the public as threatening to their position and chided them for propagating an Islam which ignored the Qur’an. The clergy, he argued, educated the people to imitate them, demanding that they be followed on religious grounds.76 Yet, according to Sangelaji, the faith that the clergy taught was a distorted and false Islam, which had replaced the true Islam. In this false Islam, he reiterated, obeying and prostrating before someone other than God was common practice, the minds of the people were filled with superstitions and worst of all the Qur’an was set aside.77 Sangelaji’s reference to the idea that in his days Islam had become a stranger was directly related to his concern with the fact that the Qur’an had been side-lined.78 Sangelaji argued that the clergy intentionally minimized the effective voice of the Qur’an, by either ignoring it or replacing it with other sources, because they knew that the Qur’an opposed their ways and designs.79 Sangelaji lashed out at the ‘deceitful monsters’ who, he claimed, promoted

73 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 179–80. 74 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 202. 75 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 12. 76 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 174. 77 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 4–5. 78 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 5; Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 3. 79 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 5. The Primacy of the Qur’an 87 bondage and servitude to their own rulings.80 Advocating subservience to the views and rulings of the clergy, as a religious obligation, he maintained, denied the people their freedom and sovereignty, leaving them at the mercy of ‘charlatans and imposters’ swaying them in any direction they pleased.81 Sangelaji pushed his anti-clerical argument further and maintained that the clergy were promoting the practice of priest veneration among believers. In his typical style of argumentation and analysis, avoiding direct, open and brash criticism of the Shi‘i clergy, Sangelaji presented his arguments and criticisms, first by reference to non-Muslims. Sangelaji began by addressing priest veneration among the Jews and Christians only to draw a parallel and show the resemblance between irreligious and deviant practices in those two faiths and Islam. Sangelaji maintained that worshipping a person in the place of God, or as an intermediary to God, was a clear case of polytheism. Christians, he argued, prostrated and genuflected before their priests, believing that because of their asceticism and spiritual status, God had dwelled within them. The Jews, Sangelaji posited, considered their priests as their masters and were consequently obedient to their commands. In both cases, Sangelaji argued that even though the persons concerned belonged to monotheistic religions, they were polytheists violating the essence of monotheism, as they effectively worshipped their priests.82 Sangelaji, finally extended his observation to Islamic priests and cautioned that just as ‘the Jews and Christians substituted their priests for God (rab)’ Muslims too ‘substituted their religious leaders (morshed) and guardians (vali) for God’.83 Sangelaji believed that if the common people harboured superstitious and erroneous beliefs it was because their teachers, the clergy, had transformed Islam into an occult and irrational faith. The clergy, he posited, had historically tried to convince the people that certain rationally inexplicable rituals or practices could cause desirable outcomes and effects. For example, people were assured that a horseshoe would cause an improvement in their welfare or that a ring with an agate stone would keep away all misfortunes from those wearing it.84 According to Sangelaji, these types of convictions propagated by the clergy blunted the people’s power to reason and were the source of occult and superstitious beliefs. Sangelaji asserted that once people became deceived by believing in superstitious relations, they were exposed to confusion and

80 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 175. 81 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 175. 82 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 17. 83 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 170. 84 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 144. 88 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran rational degeneration. Superstitious believers would hope for the realization of impossible outcomes, ignoring the fact that the causes in which they had placed their faith were incapable of delivering the promised ends. Faced with the failure of superstitious promises, believers in the quasi-sacred status of the clergy and their superstitious formulas would lose faith. According to Sangelaji, ‘ignorant teachers’ continuously promised their flock of superstitious and misguided followers that if they perform a particular prayer or if they pledge a particular act of charity their wish would be summarily realized.85 Once desired results were not obtained and wishes were not fulfilled, Sangelaji warned that the believers whose prayers had not delivered the presumed outcomes could lose faith and conclude that prayers were useless and a hoax.86 Throughout his works, Sangelaji avoided openly calling for a Shi‘i Islam without the guiding role and function of the clergy and the clerical establishment. Yet he seemed to insinuate that Islam with the clergy had implied an Islam almost without the Qur’an and therefore a return to an Islam at the core of which stood the teachings of the Qur’an would require an Islam without the traditional religio-social guiding role of the clergy and the mojtahed–moqaled relationship explicit in the functioning of the Shi‘i clerical establishment. Sangelaji’s criticism of the clergy was at times acerbic and harsh. Often he engaged in stereotyping and amalgamating, presenting a homogeneous and negative picture of the clergy. At other times and less often his analysis of the clergy was more nuanced. In accordance with the view of mainstream Shi‘ism, Sangelaji formally acknowledged that the ‘olama were ‘in reality the general representatives of the Prophet’ and teachers of the Qur’an as well as the tradition and the life of the Prophet.87 Yet it could be postulated that through recurrent use of symbols, analogies, the drawing of parallels and hints, Sangelaji exhibited a clear preference for de‑linking Shi‘ism from actually existing clericalism. Sangelaji wrote: ‘Islam has not appointed a particular group of Muslims with particular privileges to perform a particular task and has held all equal before the law. Islam has opened the gates of blissfulness on all those who wish to embark on this journey, those who enter have no use whatsoever for a guide other that the Book of God and the Tradition of the Prophet.’88 Sangelaji viewed such a de-linking process as a necessary pre- requisite for liberating the believers from their traditional obligation to follow the views of the clergy, enabling them to freely reflect and reason.

85 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 144. 86 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 144. 87 Farid, Eslam va Raj’at, p. 222. 88 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 177. The Primacy of the Qur’an 89

By looking back into the history of Islam, Sangelaji reviewed how the priests and the custodians of the idols in Mecca resisted the Messenger’s call to monotheism. Drawing a parallel between the clerics of his time and the custodians of the idols during the time of the Prophet, Sangelaji argued that the clerical establishment having developed deep political and economic vested interests was adamantly change resistant. Any idea or thought, irrespective of its validity, which undermined the authority and rule of the clerical establishment, was construed by them as a threat to their economic interests. Their opposition to ideas threatening their hold on society, Sangelaji argued, was not rooted in their piety or any deep felt religious beliefs, but was simply a matter of material interest and gain. Their battle, he said, was not over religious issues but over economic ends.89

89 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 163–4. This page has been left blank intentionally Chapter 5 Challenging Reports

Aware of the important reliance of his clerical colleagues on reports or ahadith (hadiths) attributed to Shi‘i imams as the proper source of knowledge, Sangelaji labelled such reports and the erroneous information that they propagated as one of the main causes of Islam’s plight. Breaking rank with the clerical tradition he took it upon himself ‘to open the eyes and ears of the people’ by criticizing the beliefs and practices of actually existing Shi‘ism based on hadiths and its official theoreticians and custodians.1 A critical reading and assessment of Shi‘i hadiths could be considered as a major challenge to the foundations of popular Shi‘ism as established by Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi in the seventeenth century.2 Acknowledging a profound crisis among the Shi‘i of his time, Sangelaji observed that they were Muslims in name only and effectively unbelievers kofar( ) in their beliefs, as they obtained their knowledge from a source other than the Qur’an.3 Intimating the role of hadiths and its propagators in the deviation of Islam, Sangelaji suggested that the source of false beliefs could be traced to the people’s acquisition of their faith from sources other than the Qur’an, thereby pointing an accusing finger athadiths or reports. Sangelaji ruled out the possibility of any association between Islam in its original form and what he labelled as unreasonable and irrational concepts that later crept into the faith. He attributed the irrational ideas and tendencies in Islam of his time to a plot by the early enemies of the faith, namely the original hypocrites (monafeqin).4 The hypocrites, Sangelaji argued, fabricated reports by mixing falsities with certain realities of the faith, to combat the purpose and objectives of Islam.5 The hypocrites, operating as reporters, interpreters and preachers of the hadiths, attributed irrational, occult and unbecoming statements to the Prophet and the imams. To prove the absurdity of certain far-fetched reports, Sangelaji referred to a bizarre report on the supposed

1 Nameh Kanoun Sho’ara, Aval Dey 1313. 2 For further information on Mohammad-Baqir Majlesi see Ali Rahnema, Superstition as Ideology in Iranian Politics. 3 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 126. 4 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 168–9. 5 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 169–70. 92 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran breast‑feeding of the Prophet by Abu-Taleb, his uncle and Imam Ali’s father. This report attempted to prove that Imam Ali and Mohammad were brothers.6 Sangelaji concluded that these superstitious reports were fabricated to belittle the faith and present it as irrational.7 Therefore, for Sangelaji, returning Islam to its original fountainhead implied cleansing it of all unreasonable and alien concepts maliciously injected into it. If Muslims were to be freed of their state of ignorance hampering their progress, then the faith needed to be purified and refined without concern for the extent to which such detrimental beliefs and practices were popular, widely practised or staunchly believed in. To achieve this end, Sangelaji challenged traditionally respected and widely practised Islamic rites, rituals and dogmas by questioning the non-Qur’anic sources from which they were deduced. Sangelaji’s major practical challenge was that he aimed at cleansing and reforming reports that were generally attributed to Shi‘i imams. In the eyes of Shi‘i believers, the fact that the reports were said to have originated from the infallible imams provided their content and message with unassailable legitimacy. Consequently, the popular respect for Shi‘i imams was projected on the content of the reports attributed to them, rendering the reports as solid and unquestionable foundations of Shi‘i canon and dogma. Unlike Ahmad Kasravi, who having questioned the reports jumped to the conclusion that Shi‘ism in general was incapable of reform and therefore had to be rejected, Sangelaji did not see the problem with Shi‘ism, but its heavy reliance on irrational and deviant reports popularized after the Safavid period. For Sangelaji, Shi‘ism was not synonymous with the blind acceptance of reports attributed to the imams. First, Sangelaji acknowledged that when the Qur’an dealt with generalities, without delving into details, it was necessary to consult the reports attributed to the Prophet to clarify the particulars and facilitate the understanding of the Qur’anic message.8 Sangelaji referred to the famous saqlayn (the two most valuable things/legacies) report to prove the basic and indispensable role of Prophetic traditions in explaining the Qur’an. The Prophet is reported to have said, ‘I have left amongst you two weighty or valuable things, the Book of God and my tradition (Sunna) or my family (etrat) ’. 9 Both Shi‘i and Sunni are in agreement over the primary position or rank of the Qur’an as the first item of the two most valuable legacies left behind by the Prophet. The fact that Sangelaji referred to the tradition of the Prophet as well as the tradition of the

6 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 171. 7 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 170–71. 8 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 39–40. 9 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 40. Challenging Reports 93

Prophet’s family, as the second most valuable vestige of the Prophet, is in itself controversial. The Shi‘i are adamant that the correct version of thesaqlayn report only referred to the family of the Prophet as the second precious relic of the Prophet, implying that reports not transmitted by the imams were not trustworthy and usable. Sangelaji felt obliged to explain his reference to the tradition of the Prophet as the second valuable source left behind by the Prophet instead of keeping to the traditional Shi‘i practice. In the tradition of mainstream Shi‘i jurists, Sangelaji maintained that etrat or the family of the Prophet referred to the imams constituting the Prophet’s household. Sangelaji suggested that ‘since members of the family of the Prophet recounted the Tradition (Sunna) of the Prophet that act in reality constituted the Tradition itself ’.10 By placing the emphasis on the imams rather than the Companions of the Prophet, as the legitimate or preferential transmitters, Sangelaji showed his Shi‘i colour. In another vein, Sangelaji repeated his understanding of the relationship between the family of the Prophet and his Tradition (Sunna) by stating that ‘the enunciation of the Tradition of the Prophet (Sunna) remains with the family of the Prophet’.11 By reserving the right of recounting and transmitting the acts and expressions of the Prophet for Shi‘i imams, Sangelaji aligned himself with the mainstream Shi‘i position on the acceptable reporters of the Prophet’s words or conduct. Furthermore, according to traditional Shi‘i conviction, the Sunna included ‘the reports, words and acts of the infallible, be they the Prophet or the imams’.12 In one of his works, in line with mainstream Shi‘i dogma, Sangelaji provided a similar definition for the termSunna .13 This Shi‘i definition endowed reports of the sayings of Shi‘i imams with a legal status similar to that of the Prophet in terms of its binding power and legitimacy to interpret the Qur’an independently. In another one of his works, however, Sangelaji seemed to resist the inclusion of the acts and the words of the imams, detached from the sayings of the Prophet, in the Sunna. In his important book, The Key to Understanding the Qur’an, Sangelaji definedSunna as, ‘the acts, utterances, words or expressions of the Prophet’.14 Here, it may be inferred that Sangelaji hesitated to provide the imams with a special position of authority almost on par with the Prophet. Therefore, even though the imams were recognized by Sangelaji as the sole legitimate reporters on the Prophet’s acts and words, they were excluded from

10 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 40. 11 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 40. 12 Z. Qorbani, ‘Elm Hadith, Qom: Entesharat Ansarian, 1370, pp. 20, 22. 13 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 49. 14 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 41. 94 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran consideration as acceptable producers of traditions. It may also be argued that in the above passage, Sangelaji was simply defining theSunna of the Prophet, in contrast to the Sunna of imams. In the absence of a direct reference by Sangelaji to the status of the reports on the acts and words of the imams, it could be inferred that Sangelaji considered them as unacceptable. If this supposition is valid, then for Sangelaji, an acceptable report needed to originate only from the Prophet, expressing only his words and acts. This position was clearly in contradiction with mainstream Shi‘i belief. Even though Sangelaji was upholding the status of the Sunna – irrespective of whether it was transmitted or originated from the imams or it reflected the Tradition of the Prophet alone – his main concern seemed to be focused on reducing the weight placed on hadiths and reports as a sources of identifying the correct course of individual behaviour and action to the extent possible. He pointed out that in the early days of Islam, once belief in one God was professed, Muslims would only act according to the instructions of the Qur’an.15 By emphasizing that the only intermediary between the Muslim and God, at that time, was the Qur’an, Sangelaji insinuated that the importance attached to hadith and Sunna was a later development. Sangelaji’s insistence on the fact that anyone seeking guidance from a source other than the Qur’an would be misguided and that those who mislead believers intend to ‘take the Qur’an away from the people and propagate falsities in its place’, leaves little doubt that to him the Qur’an and not the hadith or Sunna was the only viable source of reference for Muslims.16

Hadith as a Base for Interpreting the Qur’an

In his defence of Muslims engaging in Qur’anic interpretations based on personal opinion (ra’y), Sangelaji pointed out what he believed was but one of the problems of the Shi‘is’ over-reliance on hadith. Sangelaji argued that since the infallibles had not provided comprehensive interpretations of the Qur’an and that new problems needing immediate solutions were constantly on the rise, it was incumbent on Muslims to ponder over the Book of God, deduce its meaning and intention and subsequently engage in ejtehad or independent judgement.17 Sangelaji intimated that if the purpose of relying on hadiths was to

15 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 12. 16 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 24–5. 17 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 53. Challenging Reports 95 understand the Qur’an and adjust life according to it, then hadiths were unable to accomplish this task in its entirety and it was up to human reasoning to accomplish this task. At this point, Sangelaji seemed to present human reasoning as a complementary to hadiths in order to assist Muslims in understanding the Qur’an and calibrating their lives according to it. Sangelaji identified a second problem with over-reliance on hadiths. Once again in the process of Qur’anic exegesis, instead of privileging the interpretation of the Qur’an by reports attributed to Shi‘i imams, Sangelaji suggested that explanations should first be sought from the Qur’an itself. So in the first place, he proposed that clarity and guidance could best be obtained from the Qur’an through interpreting one Qur’anic verse by another Qur’anic verse. In case an interpretation was not found in the Qur’an, then Sangelaji proposed that an explanation for it had to be sought in the tradition of the Prophet. If the explanations could not be found in the tradition of the Prophet, then Sangelaji suggested that the accounts of the family and Companions of the Prophet (sahabeh) had to be consulted and considered.18 Through his explanation of how to interpret the Qur’an, Sangelaji indirectly engaged with the position and status of reports. Sangelaji suggested that the Qur’an needed to be first interpreted and its meaning understood by reference to other Qur’anic verse or verses. Here, he must have been aware of the role that he was assigning to human reasoning in the process of comparison, association, analogy and deduction to seek the interpretation of a Qur’anic verse from the Qur’an itself. The emphasis that he implicitly placed on human agency seemed like an intentional attempt to replace reports with some sort of ejtehad. In effect he seemed to promote the delaying of the use of reports to a recourse of last resort. In a non-Shi‘i tradition, Sangelaji also placed the reports attributed to the family of the Prophet or the imams on an equal footing with that of the Companions and ranked them below the reports attributed to the Prophet. Contrary to his previous classification ofhadiths , somewhat in line with the mainstream Shi‘i view, in this case, his opinion on reports by the family of the Prophet is rather controversial. In contrast to the Shi‘i, who reject the authority of the reports attributed to a source other than imams, the Sunni interpret the Qur’an based on the accounts of the Prophet’s Companions. The Sunnis argue that the Companions heard the reports first-hand from the Prophet and so they constitute a highly reliable source. The Shi‘i argue that the infallibility of the imams is the only solid guarantee against misinformation and falsifications,

18 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 55–6. 96 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran even though all of the imams could not have had first-hand information directly from the Prophet. Once again, Sangelaji intentionally diluted the significance of reports attributed to the imams as the only means of attaining a correct interpretation of the Qur’an. Sangelaji argued that relying on hadiths to interpret the Qur’an posed a third kind of problem. For Sangelaji, the subjective interpretation of Qur’anic verses on the basis of suspect reports enabled interpreters to read into the Qur’an whatever they wished. Referring to a book called Ayat al-Velayat (The Qur’anic Verses About Guardianship), Sangelaji regretted the manner in which a handful of fabricated hadiths attributed to the imams were employed to arbitrarily interpret some 1,000 verses of the Qur’an in order to infer and deduce the government or guardianship (velayat) of Imam Ali.19 Sangelaji advised that one should not study and understand the Qur’an through the interpretation of those belonging to a particular Islamic sect or school. Reliance on such interpretations as the key to understanding the Qur’an would, in Sangelaji’s opinion, lead to ‘confusion’ and even ‘apostasy and infidelity’.20 Deriding the superstitious ideas in some of these reports, he attacked a book called Zia’ al ‘ayoun al-Nazerin, written in the Safavid period as a ‘shameful book’ in ‘total opposition to the principles of Islam’.21 In his lectures, Sangelaji also attacked another such work as ignominious and added that he would not name the author or the work.22 Finally, for Sangelaji, certain reports could not constitute a base for explaining and interpreting the Qur’an since their content was in stark contradiction with the letter and spirit of the Qur’an. In his works, Sangelaji frequently referred to Shi‘i reports (akhbar) which he described as being in contradiction not only with the Qur’an but also with the Tradition of the Prophet and the life of the imams. In his criticism of those Shi‘i reports attributing supernatural powers to certain rings and their promotion of the notion that believers should wear such rings, Sangelaji declared that such reports (akhbar) were opposed to the principle of monotheism.23 He therefore called for their elimination arguing that if a report negated the Book of God that report had to be discarded.24

19 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 67. 20 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 4. 21 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 171. Even though Sangelaji does not refer to the author’s name, he is Nezam-eddin Mohammad Hadi ben mir Mehdi khan Safavi, better known as Shah Mirza. 22 Nashriyeh Shomareh Panj, p. 31. 23 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 45. 24 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 46. Challenging Reports 97

The Question of the Authenticity of Reports

For students of the history of hadith, the second century after Hejira constitutes a historical watershed.25 Prior to this date, a moratorium had been imposed on the collection of hadiths in the Islamic community. Both Abu Bakr and Omar, the first two Rightfully Guided Caliphs had maintained that the propagation and compilation of differing and at times contradictory reports attributed to the Prophet would further aggravate the existing seeds of dispute and disunity among Muslims. Their opposition to collecting and officially transcribing the reports attributed to the Prophet was also based on the fear that the public might become confused between the content of the Qur’an and the collection of sayings and deeds attributed to the Prophet and that the compilation of reports would undermine the fundamental significance of the Qur’an. Anxious about the authenticity and reliability of the hadiths attributed to the Prophet, Omar, the second caliph, is reported to have gathered and burnt all the reports that he had complied.26 It was in the second century that the compilation and collection of hadiths was for the first time ordered by the caliph Omar ibn ‘Abd al ‘Aziz (Omar II) who ruled some two and a half years (99–101/717–19).27 The promotion of collecting and propagating reports culminated in the flourishing of compilations. These new canonical texts ‘took their place alongside the Qur’an as fountainheads of religion’.28 The ‘six authentic books’ of Sunni reports (al‑sihah al-sittah) including the classic Bukhari and Muslim collections were all compiled during the ninth century (ce), while the ‘Four Books’ of Shi‘i reports (al-kotob al-arba‘a) including the collections of Koleyni and Ibn Babuyeh were compiled in the ninth and tenth century. So the important milestone in the development of Islamic law after 99–101 ah is the appearance of hadith compilations in both the Sunni and Shi‘i Schools and their incorporation as a solid base of explaining the Qur’an and establishing Islamic law. According to Sangelaji, the second century after Hejira marks the debut of false practices in Islam. Sangelaji deplored the unregulated explosion of hadiths. He considered the proliferation of unverifiable exegeses and reports that appeared during this period

25 J. Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991, p. 34. Z. Qorbani, ‘Elm Hadith, Qom: Ansarian, 1370, pp. 44–6. 26 Qorbani, p. 42. 27 M.Z. Siddiqi, Hadith Literature, Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1993, p. 6. 28 I. Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981, pp. 39–40. 98 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran as responsible for the confusion, disarray and distortions that came to reign within Islam.29 There can be little doubt that Sangelaji’s firm ruling that ‘whoever seeks guidance from a source other than the Qur’an will be misled and deceived’, was primarily directed at those whose understanding and interpretation of the faith was almost exclusively based on reports.30 For Sangelaji, the misfortunes of the Muslim community began in the second century as the abundant reports, many of which he believed were ‘fabrications’, were compiled and recorded as unequivocal references of the faith and key sources of Islamic conduct and law.31 By delving into the position of the Prophet in relation to his own Sunna as reported in the hadiths, Sangelaji demonstrated that the compilations of the reports attributed to the Prophet were essentially against the will of the Messenger of God. If he could make a case for the Prophet’s disinterest or even opposition to the collection of his own Tradition, then Sangelaji could implicitly intimate that there could have been no grounds for the collection of the reports of the imams. Sangelaji argued that while the Prophet had assigned certain people to transcribe the revelations which were eventually compiled into the Qur’an, he had certainly not charged anyone with the compilation of his words and acts. Furthermore, based on the words of the Prophet, Sangelaji claimed that the Companions were even forbidden to transcribe the Tradition of the Prophet in order to avoid a possible confusion between hadiths and the words of God.32 Undermining the importance of the Sunna, Sangelaji argued that after the death of the Prophet, there was no attempt on the part of the four caliphs to officially compile the reports of the Prophet.33 In the absence of an official compilation ofhadiths during the first century after Hejira, Sangelaji argued that for some, ‘the door to the fabrication of hadiths was wide open’.34 Sangelaji outlined the process by which fabricated, fake and falsified reports crept into thehadith literature. Individuals, he argued, intent on justifying and legitimizing their position or argument in political, religious, scientific and even personal disputes and conflicts, unabashedly fabricated reports and no one even noticed it.35 For Sangelaji, a good number of reports were void of religious and spiritual authenticity and were generated as opportunistic tools to further particular worldly interests. As such, they were

29 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 4. 30 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 24. 31 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, pp. 52–3. 32 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, pp. 49–50. 33 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 50. 34 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 51. 35 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 51. Challenging Reports 99 unrelated to the ethical conduct and words of either the Prophet or the imams and could not, therefore, guide the religious experience of believers. Siddiqi, a contemporary scholar of hadith literature, maintains that: ‘During the first century of Islam, and also thereafter, the various political parties, the heretics, the professional preachers, and even a number of sincere Muslims all made their contribution to the growing rubbish-heap of false traditions.’36

Fabricated, Corrupted and Exaggerated Hadiths

Sangelaji was of the opinion that one of the reasons for fabricating reports was to tarnish the faith with irrational and superstitious ideas. This practice, he argued, went back even to the time of the Prophet.37 Sangelaji argued that the hypocrites (monafeqin) who pretended to be Muslims began injecting falsities and superstitious ideas into the faith, which they attributed to the Prophet, in order to weaken and destroy Islam from within.38 According to Sangelaji, these hypocrites posing as Islamic experts took control of Islamic beliefs. Some among them, such as Ka‘b al-Ahbar became reporters of hadiths, others became interpreters or preachers. Sangelaji believed that these hypocrites armed with the science of interpretation and hadith (reports) began attacking Islam, presenting it as an irrational faith.39 The objective of the hypocrites, Sangelaji maintained, was to chase away from the Islamic community anyone who was prone to reasoning and reflection, limiting the faithful to the irrational and superstitious who would obediently accept all falsities attributed to the Prophet and the imams.40 According to Sangelaji, the second wave of falsities entered Islam with the advent of the exaggerators (ghollat). The systematic aberrations within Shi‘ism, also traced to the second century, corresponded with the rise of the ghollat or the Shi‘i exaggerators, who overstated the status, capabilities and position of Shi‘i imams, elevating them to the station of God and attributing supernatural characteristics to them. Sangelaji directly associated the contamination process of Shi‘ism with the formal canonization of certain irrational, superstitious and occult ideas, belonging to the ghollat, as part and parcel of mainstream Shi‘ism.41

36 Siddiqi, p. 32. 37 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 52. 38 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 168. 39 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 169. 40 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 170. 41 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, pp. 60, 62, 63. 100 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

Following the formulation of Shahrestani on the distinguishing features of the ghollat, Sangelaji argued that they can be identified by their belief in four key innovations (bed‘at). Theghollat were said to have believed in God’s physical resemblance to human beings or anthropomorphism (tashbih), the possibility of a change in what God had predestined (bed‘aa), the return of the dead (raj‘at) and reincarnation (tanasokh).42 Having identified the hypocrites monafeqin( ) as one of the main early sources of Islam’s distortion and deformation, Sangelaji traced the exaggerators (ghollat) and their destructive influence, back to the hypocrites. Both the hypocrites and the exaggerators introduced their perverse and false ideas into Islam through narrating baseless reports and attributing them to the Prophet or the imams. From Sangelaji’s point of view, hadiths, therefore, became the ideal medium for the hypocrites and exaggerators to pollute the faith. The newly fabricated ideas, he argued, some of which existed in previous religions but were alien to Islam, were passed off as Islamic and attributed to the Lawmaker.43 According to Sangelaji a whole series of superstitious ideas essentially rooted in Judaism found their way into the reports through Jews who had converted to Islam.44 Some of these newly converts such as Ka‘b al-Ahbar, Abdullah ibn-Salam and Wahhab ibn-Munabah, became highly influential figures, recounting the stories of their own religious books in the name of Islamic hadith.45 Sangelaji argued that the whole range of reports dealing with the creation of Adam and Eve, the attributes of heaven, stories such as Abel and Cain, were Israeliyate or literature based on the Old and New Testament which has crept in to the Shi‘i hadith literature. Sangelaji maintained that the ideas of Shi‘i extremists, attributing superhuman qualities to Imam Ali and the other imams, was rooted in Judaic superstitions. According to Sangelaji, the first person who came to believe in raj‘at or the return of the dead, one of the main beliefs of the exaggerators, was Abdullah ibn-Saba who had converted from Judaism to Islam. Ibn-Saba was also said to have believed in the deity of Imam Ali arguing that thunder was Ali’s voice while lightening was the illumination of the strike of his whip.46 Attempting to disassociate Shi‘ism proper from what he considered as distorted Shi‘ism, which had in time become mainstream Shi‘ism, Sangelaji

42 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 63. 43 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 168. 44 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 80. 45 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 80. 46 Nameh Kanoun-e Sho’ara, 27 Azar 1313. Farid, Eslam va Raj’at, p. 63. See the debate over the historical existence of Ibn Saba: N. Safari Foroushani, Ghallian, Mashhad: Astan Qods Razavi, 1378, pp. 71–83. Challenging Reports 101 attributed a number of practices and beliefs long associated with mainstream Shi‘ism to Jewish practices and beliefs. He argued that, by looking closely at six Shi‘i beliefs or practices, the clear influence of the Jewish faith could be identified.47 It could be surmised that Sangelaji believed that fabricated hadiths acted as an important medium of officially transforming non-Islamic ideas and practices into Islamic ones. First, just as the Jews departed from monotheism by worshipping calves, Sangelaji argued that Shi‘ites have long been worshipping unauthorized objects and have subsequently engaged in ‘worshipping stones, trees and shrines’.48 Second, Sangelaji posited that the Jewish tradition of relying on the super power of Jacob to intercede on their behalf and relieve them of their punishments had crept into Shi‘ism. Believing in a similarly exaggerated form of intercession, Sangelaji maintained that the Shi‘i had replaced obeying the Qur’an and the rules of Islam by ‘a false fondness for the house of Ali and a deceitful and dishonest mourning of their imams’.49 Sangelaji derided the belief that on Judgement Day the Shi‘i would be absolved of their sins and guaranteed a privileged place in paradise because of their adulation for the imams. Third, Sangelaji posited that having invented a series of baseless ideas and having mixed it with the Old Testament, Jewish priests propagated false ideas while securing their own status and interest. In the same vein, Sangelaji argued that ‘a group of pseudo-clerics’ have long taken root among Muslims behaving in the same way as the Jewish priests. As a result of their activities, Sangelaji maintained, Islam and the social organization of Muslims degenerated into a ‘pitiful stat e ’. 50 Fourth, alluding to dissimulation or taqiyyeh without mentioning the term, Sangelaji argued that just as the Jews engaged in falsifications and hiding the truth, Muslims too had lost their ‘spirit of honesty’. He posited that dissimulation and lies, with all their manifestations, had replaced moral virtues.51 Fifth, Sangelaji maintained that among the Jewish people, a group emerged who considered themselves superior to all others. He argued that they invited the people to honesty and piety while they themselves felt free to engage in all kinds of immoral activities. Among Muslims too, Sangelaji posited, such a group had taken shape. They claimed their devotion to Islam, yet their actions were those of the enemies of the faith.52 Finally, Sangelaji argued that the belief

47 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, pp. 217–18. 48 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 218. 49 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, pp. 218–19. 50 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 224. 51 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 224. 52 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, pp. 224–5. 102 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran in the deficiency of the Qur’an had its precedence in the tampering of Jewish priests with the Old Testament.53 Sangelaji’s purpose in this comparative exercise was certainly not a scholarly assessment of Judaism. Through his demonstration of how Judaism had gone astray and how its corrupted version had effected Islam, Sangelaji was attempting to show that the distorted Jewish ideas had found their way into Islam through hadiths fabricated and reported by converted Jews.

Questioning the Validity of Reports

Sangelaji argued that in the absence of a system of verification once the compilation of hadiths was permitted, anyone could at any time concoct fake reports and effectively canonize them.54 According to Sangelaji, disputes over the election of the first caliph after the death of the Prophet later spurred the fabrication of reports by the feuding Ummayids, Abassids and Fatemid sects.55 Cautioning against the danger of indiscriminate and unswerving acceptance of the hadiths in Shi‘i compilations, Sangelaji provided a rudimentary analysis of the process by which such reports were collected and compiled. He then intimated that varying compilations contained different degrees of impurities in terms of fabricated and therefore unacceptable hadiths. Based on his analysis of the research methods used by compilers of reports, both Sunni and Shi‘i, Sangelaji distinguished between four different categories of compilers. First, compilers who indiscriminately and uncritically collected whatever hadith existed during their time. These compilers were not selective in terms of the hadiths they quoted in their compilations. Sangelaji implied that in the absence of a rigorous system of sifting between the fake and the authentic hadiths, these types of compendiums were apt to be unreliable. Sangelaji placed Majlesi in this category of compilers and referred to him not as a jurist, but as one of the Imammiya’s greatest hadith compilers (mohadeseen) in the eleventh century (seventeenth century ae). Majlesi’s magnum opus Bahar al-Anwar, was referred to as ‘a Shi‘i encyclopedia’ and Sangelaji claimed that Majlesi intended to compile and collect all the works attributed to the imams.56 Having provided a long list of bizarre and fantastical hadiths which he attributed to the ghollat, Sangelaji affirmed that the exact replica of such extremist reports existed in

53 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 225. 54 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 53. 55 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 56. 56 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 55. Challenging Reports 103

Majlesi’s Zad al-Ma‘ad and Bahar al-Anwar.57 Having stated that (tashbih) anthropomorphism or the belief in God’s physical resemblance to human beings was a characteristic of the exaggerators (ghollat), Sangelaji reiterated that the volumes of Majlesi’s Bahar al-Anwar were replete with these types of unacceptable hadiths.58 By demonstrating that Majlesi’s works contained fake reports fabricated by the ghollat, Sangelaji shed doubt in the minds of his readers on the legitimacy of one of mainstream Shi‘ism’s most influential books of reference. The fact that Majlesi’s works included fabricated reports was not unknown among Shi‘i scholars and Islamic jurists, but Sangelaji was making the information public. He was also insinuating that Majlesi was a propagator of the heretical religious ideas of the exaggerators (ghollat). The second category of compilers, according to Sangelaji, were those who applied a degree of selection, but were not committed to compiling only correct or sound (sahih) reports. A hadith was usually classified as authentic and acceptable when the people transmitting it were known to have a good retentive memory and were considered as honest and upright individuals. Sangelaji argued that Koleyni, the author of Usul Kafi, one of the four most authoritative Shi‘i hadith compilations, belonged to this group, but he qualified his statement by adding that from the approximately 16,199 hadiths in Kafi, only some 5,070 could be categorized as sound.59 For Sangelaji, the third category of compilers were those who were not selective in terms of the hadiths they reported orally, yet when it came to their compilations, they chose those hadiths which they thought were sound. In this category, Sangelaji included the Sunni imams Malik and Hanbal as well as Bukhari and Muslim, yet he did not mention any of the Shi‘i compilers.60 To demonstrate his point, Sangelaji argued that from 600,000 reports, Bukhari included 9,200 in his classic compilation, 3,000 of which were repetitive.61 Sangelaji’s fourth group of compilers were those who held hadiths in great esteem and were therefore very selective in their approach. They relied on analogical deduction and set high standards for the authenticity of reports, subsequently reporting very few of them. Sangelaji referred to imam Abu Hanifa, who is said to have only accepted and reported 17 reports throughout his life, as a member of this category.62

57 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, pp. 66–7. 58 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 89. 59 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 55. 60 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 55. 61 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 55. 62 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 55. 104 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

Having categorized the compilations, Sangelaji referred to the works of jurists involved in the critical study of hadiths and presented a method of distinguishing between fake reports from authentic ones.63 Even though he presented seven distinct criteria for authentication purposes, he first grouped and addressed three criteria as if they were of greater significance and later clustered the remaining four separately. First, Sangelaji claimed that the following three types of hadiths were fakes and fabrications: (1) those employing vulgar or obscene language or communicating vulgarities, (2) those containing ideas contrary to reason and rationality, and (3) those in contradiction with the Qur’an.64 He then suggested that the following four types of hadiths were also fake: (1) those clearly contradicting established and ascertained Sunna, (2) those referring to an important issue transmitted by one person (ahad) even though many may have repeated it, (3) those in which minor or insignificant wrongdoings were punished by heavy retributions, and (4) those in which minor or insignificant virtuous acts were promised excessive rewards. In relation to those fabricated reports promoting excessive punishments or rewards, Sangelaji provided two examples the kinds of which were rather common in the popular Shi‘ism of the Majlesi School. Sangelaji posited that the hadith claiming that shaving one’s beard would be equivalent in terms of its retribution to having committed adultery 70 times with one’s mother in the house of God was clearly a fabrication. He claimed that the exaggerated reports on the forthcoming rewards for believers who mourned Imam Hoseyn were equally false.65 Here Sangelaji was referring to rulings and interpretations similar to those of Majlesi. Majlesi maintained that shaving one’s beard was prohibited (haram) and mourning Imam Hoseyn would enable the mourner to enter paradise.66 Sheikh Abbas Qomi, a later key proponent and propagator of the Majlesi School maintained that the revival of reports belonging to the imams along with mourning and shedding tears for them was the most important means of finding proximity to the imams and the most important of duties.67 Sangelaji continued his critical study of hadiths by first dividing reports into the two broad categories of the indubitable or firmly established mutawatir( ) and the isolated or not firmly established wahed( ).68 Sangelaji defined an

63 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 101. 64 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 101. 65 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 104. 66 Majlesi, Heliyat ol-Mottaqin, p. 101. Majlesi, Bahar al-Anwar, cited in Sheikh Qasem Eslami, Ashk va Khoun, n.d., n.p., pp. 70–72. 67 Qomi, Haj Sheikh Abbas, Montahi ol-Amaal, n.p., Hellal, 1376, p. 1. 68 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 104. Challenging Reports 105 indubitable or recurrently narrated report (mutawatir) as one narrated by such a large group of transmitters that collusion by the reporters on a lie would have been impossible. An isolated report was one which had not attained the recurrence in repetition or narration of a highly recurring report. This could have been due to the fact that the narrator was only one person, giving rise to the suspicion of a falsification. Even if the narrators were more than one person, yet they were spread out historically across different time periods, the report would still be considered as an isolated one. The isolated reports were subdivided by Sangelaji into four categories, the correct (sahih), acceptable (hasan), reliable (movassaq) and weak (za‘ief ). The weak reports were further broken down into six different groups, each distinguished from the other based on the reasons for its unreliability and weakness.69 Sangelaji emphasized that at each step of the transmission process, from the Prophet or the imam down to the subsequent reporters, the law of the large number of narrators repeating the same report was the only guarantee against fabrications or misinformation.70 Quoting Shahid-e Sani (Sheykh Zein-eddin) author of Sharh-e Lo‘meh and a pioneer of the critical study of hadith literature, Sangelaji argued that even though a report may be recounted by a large group of narrators at a later period of time, giving it the semblance of an indubitable report, it may very well not be so. Sangelaji opined that unless it could be proven that a report was recounted by a large number of narrators at every stage of its early transmission, it would fail to be considered as an indubitable or massively narrated report (mutawatir).71 Sangelaji argued that numerous fabricated reports attained a relative degree of prevalence and currency at a much later date since large groups of latecomers were fabricating and repeating them, giving them an aura of incontestability. Sangelaji cast doubt on the practical possibility of proving that a hadith had been massively reported (mutawatir). He argued that for a hadith to qualify as a massively reported (mutawatir) one, its transmission by a large enough number of narrators, at every successive historical time period since the imams, needed to be verified and ascertained.72 Concurring with Shahid-e Sani, Sangelaji maintained that ruling on the incontestability of a firmly established report, ‘which was extremely difficult, if not impossible’ hinged on the report’s accordance or correspondence with the fundamentals of the faith such as the necessity of daily prayers, zakat and haj. Invoking Hoseyn ibn-Abdulsamad

69 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, pp. 107–10. 70 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 105. 71 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 105. 72 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 106. 106 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran al-Haresi al-Hamadani, in his book Darayeh, Sangelaji moved towards a key proposition with important religious consequences. He posited that indubitable reports were so rare that the experts on hadiths (mohadeseen) were unable to identify them among existing reports.73 Sangelaji pursued his attempt at undermining the importance of hadiths by pointing out that indubitable reports with the same exact wording were also extremely rare. Sangelaji finally arrived at a highly controversial conclusion both from a Shi‘i and Sunni point of view. He posited that identifying the language and content of a report as firm and indubitable (mutawatir) was extremely difficult if not impossible except in cases where they corroborated ‘the necessities of the religion’.74 Thus, Sangelaji pruned the plethora of Shi‘i reports to those repeating or reflecting the commonly known basic necessities of the religion. He accepted all reports confirming and supporting the well-known major principles of the faith as valid, since they were different wordings of the same basic necessities of the faith found in the Qur’an and rejected all other reports as unreliable.75 Sangelaji did not draw any explicit conclusions from his statement on the impossibility of ascertaining the validity of a report except in cases where it corroborated with the necessities of the religion. He withheld analysis and synthesis of his key proposition, leaving it to his readers to draw their own logical conclusion. If according to Sangelaji, only the firm or indubitable reports (mutawatir) were completely free of falsification and fabrication then all the remaining isolated (wahed) reports may have been fabrications and as such could have been void of any real value, since their attribution to the Prophet or the imams could not have been proven. By rupturing the presumed correspondence between the hadith and the word of the infallible imams or the Prophet, Sangelaji neutralized the charges that Kasravi levelled against Shi‘ism and the Shi‘i imams. In the same breath, Sangelaji purified the faith from the long-held dominance of superstitious and occult beliefs. Referring to Shahid-e Sani, Sangelaji argued that there was absolutely no reason to abide by or accept isolated or singular (ahad) reports emanating from the imams on issues, essentially other than the basic necessities.76 If only a handful of reports concurring with the necessities of the faith could be regarded as truly authentic, then what was the pious Shi‘i to do with those volumes of reports which addressed the minutest details of life on earth and in the hereafter, which were of dubious authenticity but had become part of the

73 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, pp. 106–7. 74 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 106. 75 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 107. 76 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 42. Challenging Reports 107

Shi‘i popular culture? By downsizing the importance of the hadiths as a source of knowledge and a basis of religious rulings, Sangelaji was also minimizing the role and significance of the Majlesi School and its scholars who propagated it as well as its modern adherents, interpreters and beneficiaries. Sangelaji, implicitly returned to his old notion of the faith based on the Qur’an-only, minimizing the role of hadiths and maximizing the weight of the Qur’an and reasoning. By questioning the validity, legitimacy and usefulness of the content of hadith compilations, Sangelaji came close to calling for the abandonment of the use of Sunna as a source of Islamic knowledge and jurisprudence. Sangelaji’s rejection of the hadith-only methodology was a rebuttal to the ‘people of hadith’ (ahl-e hadith) both their pioneers and followers. One could surmise that those targeted by Sangelaji were Majlesi’s followers among the Shi‘i as well as Ibn‑Hanbal’s followers, such as the Wahhabis, among the Sunnis. Interested in the present state of affairs of Muslims and reforming past distortions, Sangelaji maintained that those who compiled the reports were not blameworthy, since they had passed away.77 For Sangelaji the process of reforming the faith required the pious to engage in reflection and the application of reasoning to all that they had been taught as their faith. Such Qur’an-based reflection on old teachings, Sangelaji believed, would liberate believers from the ‘charlatans’ who exploited religion by transforming it into the commercial activity of fabricating hadiths.78

77 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 213. 78 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 169. This page has been left blank intentionally Chapter 6 Reason and Islam

While conducting an in-house debate with the clergy on the true teachings of Islam and the objectives of the faith, Sangelaji needed to prevent the educated and the socially conscious from abandoning their faith. Sangelaji had to prove to those modernists among his countrymen who believed that Islam was incompatible with rational thought and therefore needed to be discarded that Islam was perfectly compatible with reason and rationality. Intent on eliminating all doubts about the rationality of the faith, Sangelaji maintained that Islam was a religion of ‘reason, logic and human nature’ which promoted ‘monotheism, the destruction of idols, high morals and virtues’. He argued that Islam fostered ‘patience, bravery, knowledge and righteous deeds’ and was subsequently ‘the pathway to humaneness’.1 Sangelaji reiterated that Islam endowed human beings with ‘the freedom of spirit, acquiring knowledge and reasoning’. Sangelaji implied that these were the tools with which ‘Islam freed human beings from the bondage of priests’.2 Once human beings came to possess knowledge, reason and free will, then they could find their path towards God and define their correct relation with God. While denying the need for a go-between in Islam, Sangelaji emphasized the role of the Prophet as the only justified human intermediary between human beings and God.3 Sangelaji ascribed a pivotal role to the Prophet in realizing the virtuous spiral of believers towards God. This spiral relied on a sequence of interactions between the Prophet and his revelations on the one hand and human beings and their capacity to reason on the other hand. Sangelaji first considered the role of the Prophet as a guide who directed and helped people understand metaphysical concepts which, left to their reasoning alone, would have been incomprehensible to them.4 Prophets, he argued, were sent to inform the people of what was approved and disapproved by God and subsequently the acts, which would or would not provide them with felicity. The inability

1 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 169. 2 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 169. 3 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 106. 4 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 106. 110 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran of human beings to grasp and explain metaphysical concepts through the use of rational thought, therefore, necessitated the appearance of Prophets. At this stage, the knowledge of the Prophet acted as an invaluable complement to human reasoning and where reason failed to understand, due to its relatively primitive level of development, the Prophet armed with revelation led and assisted human knowledge. Sangelaji suggested that an account of the definition, characteristics and features of God or the modality of resurrection could not be provided through the use of rational thought.5 Once, however, the Prophet recited the Qur’an a parallel process was set into motion.6 First, the content of the Qur’an informed human beings, enriching them. Sangelaji maintained that since the purpose of the Qur’an was to reform the minds – knowledge or understanding – and the acts of people, it sought to train and educate their self or ego (nafs) as well as developing and reinforcing their intellect and power to reason (aql).7 Second, according to Sangelaji, Islam’s invitation was founded and based on reason. Instead of threatening, bribing or playing on peoples’ emotions, Sangelaji maintained that ‘Islam invited human beings to ponder and apply their reasoning to their surroundings’.8 According to Sangelaji, since Islam claimed to provide for human welfare until eternity, it needed to rely on human reasoning. Invitation to such a religion could not be through coercion and force, but rather through an inducement to reflect.9 Sangelaji blended the significance and status of reason and revelation in a fashion, which rendered difficult the task of the adversaries of reason to undermine it by setting it in contradiction to revelation. He argued that the mission of all prophets was to lead human beings by the hand to the final destination of reason.10 Sangelaji maintained that human welfare and felicity were contingent upon arriving at this destination. Apart from the educational and remedial goals of developing and enriching the peoples’ capacity to reason, Sangelaji’s Islam sought to emancipate the peoples’ capacity and ability to reason. Sangelaji wrote, ‘It [Islam] intends to liberate human reasoning from all the veils and constraints that have enchained it throughout the years. Islam wishes to provide humanity with independence of thought so that it may guide society to material and spiritual well-being.’11

5 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 106. 6 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 37. 7 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 36–7. 8 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, pp. 1–2. 9 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, pp. 3–4. 10 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 29 Aban 1313. 11 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 7. Reason and Islam 111

According to Sangelaji, the ultimate stage of the Muslim’s virtuous spiral was reached when two pre-requisites were fulfilled. First, human rationality was sufficiently developed and reinforced and second, the self was embellished with virtuous manners and morals.12 To attain the desirable end of material and spiritual well-being, Sangelaji’s Islam relied on the Qur’an and the individual’s capacity to reason. From Sangelaji’s analysis, it could be deduced that the age of revelation prepared the grounds for the subsequent age of reason. Human beings entered into Sangelaji’s age of reason endowed with all the spiritual, intellectual and moral teachings of the Qur’an. Sangelaji claimed that the Prophet ‘completes the spiritual and moral education [of the people]’ and that ‘spiritual education comes to an end after the grasping of the Qur’an and from that stage onwards revelation takes another form’.13 From Sangelaji’s writings one could infer that the role of religion was to prepare and groom human beings for the historical moment when based on their own reasoning they would freely regulate their relation with God and pursue their lives. For Shi‘i modernists, the Qur’an, along with reasoning, constituted the key sources of human felicity. Sangelaji maintained that, ‘first people have to rid their intellect and rationality of superstitious ideas, the customs and traditions of their forefathers and the influence of their environment that had prevailed over the years’. Only then, he argued, can people ‘adopt the Qur’an, the Sunna, the ascertained practices of the Prophet and the imams and the purified and emancipated faculty to reason, as their guide and shepherd’.14 As a reformist and a modernist, Sangelaji readily established a correspondence between liberated minds and a genuine faith independently arrived at. For him, this new type of faith alone, in contrast to the imitated, hereditary and submissive one, was conducive to progress and development. Based on the historical necessity of liberating reflection and enabling inquiry, Sangelaji posited that ‘Islam wishes to trigger an intellectual revolution in the depths of human spirit liberating it from inertia and callousness and returning it to the path of progress and advancement’.15 The Majlesi School, which Sangelaji constantly challenged, rejected the role of reasoning and diluted the significance of the Qur’an, when it was not interpreted by a hadith. Majlesi wrote, ‘after the knowledge of imams, the door of reason has been closed by Shi‘i imams and they have said that everything

12 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 37. 13 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 6 Azar 1313. 14 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 45. 15 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 38. 112 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran should be obtained from them [imams] and on no occasion should one rely on deficient minds [and defective reasoning]’.16 This statement was an attempt at validating and justifying the notion that the understanding of the Qur’an was only possible if it was based on interpretations ascribed to the imams and the traditional hadith commentators and compilers. It also served to legitimize the politico-religious power of the clerical interpreters claiming to possess a monopoly of knowledge over such reports and their interpretation. Finally, it foreclosed the possibility of envisaging any social or political Islamic order based on human reflection and thought. Renunciation of reason by Majlesi and its substitution by reports from imams should not be construed as a total rejection of reasoning by him. The Majlesi School permitted the clergy to engage in nearly unrestricted interpretation of the Qur’an as well as the Sunna, in light of the hadiths. Whereas the knowledgeable in the faith, a euphemism for the clergy, were given latitude, the laity were considered as mentally deficient and incapable of reasoning. By proclaiming the clergy as the learned spokespeople of reports, the Majlesi School wished to legitimize its domination and command over a society, the members of which it deemed as feeble-minded. Through his explanation of the role of the Prophet and the Qur’an in the development of rational thought, Sangelaji settled another score, once again echoed in the works of later modernists. Analysing the statement that the Qur’an includes all knowledge, Sangelaji argued that ‘all which is concerned with teaching knowledge and reforming actions’ could be found in the Qur’an. Yet he warned that this did not imply that human, social or natural sciences could be deduced from the Book. He argued that it would be misleading to assume that the purpose of the Prophet and the Qur’an was to provide and impart knowledge about astronomy, botany, biology, bacteriology, history or the manufacturing of guns and cars.17 The generation of knowledge in these fields, he wrote, was ‘not the responsibility of prophets’.18 According to Sangelaji, in all such domains, the duty of generating knowledge fell upon human beings. Sangelaji’s methodological position in relation to the employment of rational thought and reasoning emerged from his analysis of the predicament of different Islamic discourses faced with the complicated issue of explaining Qur’an’s allegorical or analogous verses (moteshabehat), the meaning of which was generally believed to be neither plain nor clear. Muslims had always tried to

16 M.B. Majlesi, Bahar al-Anwar, Vol. 1, p. 104, cited in A. Soroush, Qabz o Bast Teorik Shari‘at, Tehran: Sarat, 1370, p. 152. 17 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 37–9. 18 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 39. Reason and Islam 113 crack the enigmatic safe of such esoteric verses (moteshabehat), the meaning of which was not definitive or decisive since it employed symbols and metaphors. In cases where the object and intent of a Qur’anic account was not manifested in its clear-cut appearance, reason had to be applied to the Qur’an to uncover the real purpose of its words. According to Sangelaji, Qur’anic stories and accounts such as the creation of Adam and Eve or their expulsion from heaven constituted allegorical verses (moteshabehat). Such narratives, therefore, were not supposed to be considered as historical accounts, but as metaphorical allegories. To his list of allegorical verses in the Qur’an, he added anthropomorphic verses, those verses describing heaven and hell and their features as well as verses concerning Satan.19 These were texts that needed to be understood in another way as their apparent sense was not the true intention of the Lawmaker, but only a window to understanding the real meaning of the text. Sangelaji rejected the literal sense of such texts and read into them some sort of metaphorical and symbolic truth. In contrast to the domain of allegorical verses, Sangelaji maintained that the Qur’anic verses considered as mohkamat or definitive certitudes were clear and categorical, leaving little doubt as to their intent or meaning.20 According to Sangelaji, allegorical verses used a figurative and metaphorical language to explain abstract concepts through palpable accounts that appealed to the senses. Prophets, he argued presented complex rational truths through examples based on the use of senses, so that they would become comprehensible to the common folk.21 The common people, he opined, could only understand what they could feel with their senses.22 They would not, therefore, readily grasp the meaning of the ambiguous texts. But this, Sangelaji argued, did not prove that God did not want people to understand the ambiguous verses. Sangelaji posited that God had revealed the ambiguous verses to Muhammad for the purpose of guiding the ‘ignorant and the masses’.23 According to Sangelaji, it was the duty of the experts in the sciences (religious sciences), the real jurists, who could distinguish between the categorical and ambiguous verses, to explain and interpret the ambiguous verses on the basis of the categorical ones.24 Distancing himself from the mainstream Shi‘i jurists, Sangelaji maintained that all accounts of the attributes of God, the process of resurrection, the day

19 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 80–81, 83, 86–7. 20 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 81. 21 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 119. 22 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 75–6. 23 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 80. 24 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 81. 114 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran of judgement and the attributes and properties of heaven and hell were all ambiguous and should not be taken formally, apparently and nominally.25 The Qur’anic accounts of pain and pleasure in hell and heaven respectively were presented by Sangelaji as cases of such symbolic allegories. Sangelaji praised allegories as the most effective means of bringing superstitious and baseless ideas under the control of reason.26 Verses referring to heavenly pleasures, such as beautiful nymphs, streams of milk and honey, abounding fruits of paradise and even wine, Sangelaji argued, were merely metaphorical similitudes for the purpose of communicating a degree of spiritual beatitude incomprehensible and intangible by the masses.27 Allameh Tabataba’ie concurs with Sangelaji that the purpose of such verses was to bring realities of other dimensions and magnitudes closer to the minds and cognitive powers of human beings.28 Sangelaji’s rationalization of concepts such as heaven and hell should be understood in contrast to the fantastical and popular notions on these topics. The irrational and superstitious ideas, permeating the notion of heaven and hell, which Sangelaji was combating, were directly related to Majlesi’s Shi‘i discourse. In his voluminous writings, based on transmitted Shi‘i reports attributed to the imams, Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi provided a detailed and palpable, yet far-fetched, account of heaven and hell and the pleasures and pains awaiting their occupants. According to Majlesi’s compilations, heaven was endowed with numerous marvels. It possessed a special stream along each side of which ‘grew’ female slaves, who could be plucked from the earth by the pious if they desired to have them. Once a female slave was pulled out of the ground another would immediately grow in its place. In heaven, Majlesi reported, each pious man would possess 800 virgin girls, 4,000 non-virgin (sayyebeh) women and 2 heavenly nymphs (hour al-‘ayn) created from heavens’ special clay, to satisfy his needs. According to Majlesi, heaven possessed eight doors, five of which were especially for the Shi‘i, one for the prophets and the righteous, one for the martyrs and finally one for other Muslims, who had not borne the slightest grudge against the Shi‘i.29 In his unequivocal style, Majlesi first raised blind faith in such bodily, sensual and physical attributes and pleasures to a necessity of the faith.30 Subsequently, he did not hesitate to label those who questioned the physical attributes of

25 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 76, 80–81. 26 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 119. 27 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 86. 28 M.H. Tabataba’ie, Tafsir-e Al-Mizan, Tehran: Reja’va Amir Kabir, 1376, Vol. 3, p. 90. 29 Majlesi, Majmou’eh Rasael E‘teqadi, pp. 131–4, 154–5. 30 M.B. Majlesi, Haq al-Yaqin, Tehran: Entesharat Rashidi, n.d., p. 466. Reason and Islam 115 heaven and the bodily sensual pleasures found therein as atheists or apostates (molhed).31 Majlesi posited that those who interpreted the promised pleasures of eating, drinking and fornicating in heaven as spiritual satisfactions were in denial of the necessities of the faith and were therefore unbelievers.32 At times, Sangelaji nuanced his position. On one occasion, he asserted that: ‘God forbid, we do not wish to say that these types of pleasures are non-existent in heaven but that the sensations in heaven are superior to these [earthly] ones and that the pleasures of the hereafter are more complete than our earthly satisfactions’.33 At other times, however, he blatantly claimed that: ‘If the Qur’an speaks of heavenly fruits, it is figurative and metaphorical. One should not think that if heaven is supposed to have sweet melons, they would be similar to the sweet melons grown here on earth with the help of manure’.34 To demonstrate the different methodological approaches to ambiguous verses Sangelaji reviewed the position of the scholars at the time of the Prophet in contrast to the latter ones.35 He argued that the method of the predecessors (salaf ) or the first generation of Muslims was based on entrusting everything to God, whenever they were confronted with inexplicable texts. Faced with a verse the exactitude of which was not clearly discernible, such as the account of Adam, this school accepted the verse based on faith in the Prophet and God, relegating the exact knowledge of the case to God. According to Sangelaji the predecessors (salaf ) believed that the content of such accounts contained useful information and advice on proper human conduct, ethics and behaviour. God, they argued, used this form of language to render certain abstract concepts more understandable and accessible to the intellect of human beings.36 The successors khalaf( ) or the later generation of Muslims, however, employed interpretation (ta’wil ) to explain the inexplicable texts.37 Invoking the arguments that ‘Islam is based on reason and logic’ and that ‘Islam has never deviated from the path of reason’, this school reinterpreted and rationalized the text.38 Sangelaji maintained that the successors believed that in case the manifest or apparent (zaher) meaning of the text clashed with reason, the text

31 Majlesi, ‘Ayn al-Hayat, p. 452. 32 Majlesi, ‘Ayn al-Hayat, p. 452. 33 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 87. 34 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 22 Aban 1313. 35 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 93–5. For a detailed and outstanding categorization of Ta’wil and its relation to ambiguous verses see Tabataba’ie, Tafsir Al-Mizan, Vol. 3, pp. 80–91. 36 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 93. 37 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 93. 38 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 93. 116 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran had to be reconciled with the explanation concurring with reason.39 This type of interpretation was deemed justifiable since the manifest meaning of an ambiguous text did not constitute the true message or meaning of the text. The major difference between the two discourses is rooted in their respective perception of human intellect. Faced with the Text, the predecessors, according to Sangelaji, renounced reasoning and speculative investigation. Through passive acceptance, they conceded to the incapacity of human intellect and the ineffectiveness of rational thought. The successors claimed that reason, a God- given capacity, was capable of shedding light on the mysteries of this world and the hereafter. Having presented the methodology of the predecessors or the traditionists and that of the successors some of whom were rationalist, Sangelaji employed an interesting dual approach to expressing his own preference and position. First, he claimed allegiance to the school of the predecessors or the salaf. On matters pertaining to God or His attributes as well as all issues related to the unseen world, Sangelaji declared that he would relegate the issue to God.40 This would imply that similar to the traditionalists, Sangelaji relinquished reason as a means of attaining knowledge in relation to topics that scientific inquiry could not be applied to, such as those issues which did not follow the laws of this world. Yet in the same breath, he added that ‘in order to enlighten the people and dialogue with those who are knowledgeable’, he would employ the methodology of the successors or those who interpreted the text on the basis of reason.41 Rationalists have traditionally argued that only the use of rational thought would prevent believers from falling into the trap of anthropomorphism, ‘which debased the true perception of God as an eternal being unlike any other being’.42 Engaging with the issue of anthropomorphism (tashbih) Sangelaji sought to prove that accepting the appearance or literal meaning of a verse on face value would mislead the reader. In the tradition of rationalists he proposed that the verse would make rational sense if only it was accepted as a figurative or metaphorical account.43 On this issue, Sangelaji employed his own independent judgement in interpreting the text, rather than following it literally or accepting the ruling of anthropomorphist jurists before him.

39 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 94. 40 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 94. 41 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 94. 42 B. Abrahamov, Islamic Theology, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998, p. 23. 43 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 95, 97. Reason and Islam 117

Barriers to Reasoning and Progress

Based on the premises that the felicity of human beings was incumbent upon their ability to reason, Sangelaji maintained that prophets were sent to direct human beings towards this end.44 The fact that Muhammed was the last messenger implied that the task of developing the people’s capacity to reason had been successfully concluded. Sangelaji suggested that once human beings became truly developed and educated through the study of Qur’an, ‘whatever they would do, would be correct and whatever they learnt, would be satisfactory’.45 Explicit in this important and non-conventional statement was Sangelaji’s firm belief in a threshold in human history and development, beyond which rational thought, steeped in the knowledge of the Qur’an, became humanity’s prime guide to thought and action. Based on the essential groundwork of revelations, Sangelaji claimed that once human beings reach this gate they will be ‘guided by reason and intellect’.46 This bold conclusion, which again resonated in the works of future modernists, imparted the message that once the Qur’an enriched and re-oriented human beings, they were set loose on their own, armed with their matured intellect and reason to seek their own answers. Chiding the clerical establishment which demanded an unflinching compliance with the mainstream clerical interpretation of the Qur’an, which in time had solidified into a dogma, Sangelaji reiterated that ‘the Qur’an’s path (tariqeh) or method was based on reflection and argumentation’.47 One of the objectives of Islam, according to Sangelaji, was the emergence of a reflective and speculative Muslim, capable of freely regulating his relation with God on the basis of revelation, reason and intellect. The birth of this new rational and speculative Muslim necessitated the elimination of certain barriers. Sangelaji argued that the Qur’an clearly identified such barriers, the removal of which guaranteed the progress and felicity of human beings.48 Through highlighting the harmful impediments to reasoning and argumentation, based on the teachings of the Qur’an, Sangelaji wished to prove that in the name of protecting the faith, reason could not be side-tracked, abandoned or opposed. Sangelaji sought to prove that it was the Lawgiver who had elevated the status of reasoning and rationalization to an inviolable attribute and prerequisite of human progress and happiness. Deriving his evidence from the Qur’an, Sangelaji

44 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 29 Aban 1313. 45 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 38. 46 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 161. 47 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 161. 48 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 161. 118 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran argued that reasoning and rationalization may be obstructed by imitation (taqlid), obedience and compliance (eta‘at) and whim (hava).49

Imitation

By invoking two Qur’anic verses (43:23 and 2:170), Sangelaji demonstrated that the Book of God looked down upon those who blindly and ignorantly persisted in following the religion of their forefathers. He argued that the longer something or someone was imitated throughout generations, the more difficult it became for the later generations to free themselves of the vicious circle set into motion by their predecessors, especially when imitation was deemed to result in felicity in this world as well as the hereafter.50 According to Sangelaji, breaking with long-held traditions, repeated and imitated throughout history, and embracing new and different approaches caused anxiety and fear among the practitioners, causing them to give a sacred aura to their old ways. Thus, Sangelaji ruled that ignorance was the companion of imitation and the upholder of superstition.51 Sangelaji posited that people seemed to dread an invisible power that would punish them in this world and the hereafter if they were to abandon or oppose the old ways they retained through imitation.52 He identified three factors which reinforced imitation. First, he argued that the aged were more prone to being conservative and resistant to change than the young. Second, Sangelaji posited that geographical isolation, introversion and the absence of cultural interaction prevented a community from being exposed to new ideas, fortifying their sense of imitating old established ways. Finally, Sangelaji maintained that the absence of a common language in a community rendered people of that community more tenacious in the imitation of their old ways, since they would lack a common means of communication to conduct debate and discussions among themselves.53 According to Sangelaji, since constant imitation of the elders resulted in ignorance, the Qur’an countered it by providing ‘cures’ for the ‘disease’ of imitation. The reason that the Qur’an commanded believers to go tohaj , Sangelaji maintained was to promote interaction among different people and the greater acquisition of knowledge about different ideas and opinions. Learning about different views and beliefs, Sangelaji argued, allowed people to

49 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 162, 173, 181. 50 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 163. 51 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 164. 52 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 163. 53 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 163–4. Reason and Islam 119 welcome new ideas and abandon imitation.54 Sangelaji was weary of the Muslim community introverting and shunning interaction with others. For Sangelaji, lack of interaction with the wider world reinforced imitation, which in turn prevented felicity in this world and the hereafter. Sangelaji identified ‘knowledge and wisdom’ as the cure for what he called the ‘disease of imitation’. He argued ‘that ignorance and nescience were friends of imitation, while the absence of knowledge accentuated superstition’. The liberating antidotes to the enchaining twins of imitation and superstition, he argued, were knowledge and learning.55 Sangelaji posited that due to the emancipating power of knowledge, Egyptian, Babylonian, Jewish and Christian priests ruled that knowledge was forbidden since it was evil.56 Sangelaji insisted that learning, knowledge and science were the enemies of imitation and their acquisition would eventually allow people to ‘break the chains of superstition and throw off their backs the hefty weight of imitation’.57 Praising reason and science as the pre-requisites for casting off the practice of blind imitation or taqlid, Sangelaji pointed out that ‘those who humiliated humanity and enslaved free men, the priests (kahenan) and the lords of the synagogues, also forbade the acquisition of knowledge and ruled that it was a vice’.58 Extending his argument to the role of the clergy in perpetuating imitation, superstition and ignorance, he asserted that whereas the Qur’an invited all mankind to acquire knowledge, Islamic jurists (motefaqeheh) dissuaded the people from studying the sciences and philosophy. They forbade the study of all sciences except Islamic jurisprudence, Islamically related subjects and ‘a few reports’.59 Accusing the clergy of misguiding the people, Sangelaji held them responsible for the backwardness and ignorance of Muslims and their dislike for the sciences and scorned them for labelling the sciences as forbidden (haram) and innovation (bed‘at).60 Sangelaji reiterated that such ugly teachings prevented reason (aql) from freely enquiring and seeking the truth, which the Qur’an adamantly upheld and promoted to put an end to the humankind’s state of bondage.61 Blind imitation, Sangelaji argued, denied the people their

54 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 172–3. 55 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 164. 56 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 165. 57 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 164. 58 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 165. 59 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 165–6. 60 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 165. 61 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 175. 120 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran natural rights and denuded them of their innate talents.62 Sangelaji’s indictment against the clerical institution is a radical one as he holds them responsible for tenaciously upholding a vice – imitation – which he argues to be condemned by the Qur’an as it undermines the intention of the Lawgiver; the free use of human reasoning and reflection to obtain felicity. For Sangelaji, it was clear that Islam had forbidden blind imitation, which prevented human reflection and progress.63 According to Sangelaji, the Qur’an prohibited imitation (taqlid) as well as following that which was other than ‘science’ or ‘knowledge’ (‘elm).64 Imitation was only allowed in the modality of performing Islamic duties.65 For Sangelaji all stand-ins, alternates and substitutes for God and his words were unjust usurpers.

Obedience

Addressing the second obstacle to reasoning, Sangelaji argued that priests and men of religion seeking supremacy and domination exacted total obedience and compliance from their followers. Through the promotion of blind obedience and the stifling of inquisitiveness and speculation, priests arrogated a position of guardianship and tutelage over all human beings.66 In the name of religion, Sangelaji argued, minds were controlled, reflection was kept in check and the pursuit of knowledge was prohibited lest the people would revolt against their Qur’anicaly unjustified overlords. Sangelaji rejected the notion fostered by the clergy that Islam was a religion of unquestionable obedience.67 For him, such a notion was neither upheld by the Qur’an nor compatible with human nature. In a scathing attack, he assailed the ‘monsters’ whose teaching had ‘robbed the people of their freedom’, ‘debased them’ and ‘prevented reason and intellect from reflection, investigation and probing the truth’.68 Attacking the notion of religious obedience, Sangelaji reminded his readers of the results of blind obedience according to the Qur’an. Again, Sangelaji pitted the Qur’an against the teachings of the clerical establishment. He referred to the Qur’anic verse 33:67 which stated that in the aftermath of the Day of Judgement, those condemned to hell will complain to God that; ‘We obeyed our chiefs and our

62 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 174. 63 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 169. 64 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 125. 65 Nashriyeh Shomareh Panj, Darotabliq Eslami, Tehran: Chapkhaneh Taban, n.d., p. 37. 66 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 174. 67 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 174–5. 68 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 175. Reason and Islam 121 great ones, and they misled us as to the (right) Path’.69 Relying on verse 9:31, Sangelaji demonstrated that the Qur’an chided those who would ‘take their priests and their anchorites to be their lords in derogation of Allah’.70 Sangelaji contrasted the position of the priests of institutionalized religions with that of the Qur’an and insisted that while priests and clerics of institutionalized religions denied the people their free will and right to reflect, in order to guarantee the uncontested domination of their own thoughts and ways, the Qur’an had bestowed human beings with freedom of spirit and liberated them from subjugation and bondage to all but God. Sangelaji argued that it was the application of reason by human beings which enabled them to survive, evolve and progress.71 Questioning the right and legitimacy of the clergy to dominate, command and demand obedience, Sangelaji rejected the validity of clerical dominance and lay dependence. He maintained that ‘other than the Qur’an and the reports of the Prophet’, individuals were ‘in no need, whatsoever, of a pole or a guide’.72 By claiming that contrary to the teachings of the Qur’an, the traditional jurists were restraining the intellectual, social and political development of the people, Sangelaji, very much like the layman Hoseyn Kazemzadeh (Iranshahr) was arguing that it was not Islam which was a barrier to progress and development, but the traditional Islamic jurists’ application of Islam.73 In his severe criticism of the clergy, Sangelaji suggested that by rallying against the freedom of human reasoning and by exacting obedience from the people, the clergy undermined if not opposed the design of God. To assure blind obedience, Sangelaji argued that the clergy had ruled that ‘reason had no right to ponder over’ their proclamations and rulings.74 Fearing that people would reflect, question their authority and disobey their commands, Sangelaji argued that the clergy pronounced those who reflected and reasoned as atheists and apostates.75 Sangelaji posited that for the clergy, religion was a matter of obedience, unrelated to reflection and contemplation.76 Sangelaji concluded that a close reading of the Qur’an would demonstrate that obedience to the

69 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 174; Abdullah Yusuf ‘Ali (tr.), The Holy Qur’an, p. 356. 70 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 173; Abdullah Yusuf ‘Ali (tr.), The Holy Qur’an, p. 147. 71 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 179. 72 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 177. 73 Sangelaji was familiar with the journal Iranshahr, in which Kazemzadeh wrote his articles; see Farid, Islam va Raj‘at, p. 30. 74 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 179–80. 75 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 180. 76 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 180. 122 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran clergy and priests had to be replaced with the application of human reasoning, ‘the real guide of human beings’.77

Whim

Finally, Sangelaji maintained that compliance with one’s whim (hava) constituted the last impediment to reasoning.78 Whim, he argued, prevented human beings from doing good deeds and was in contradiction with reason. Referring to whim and lust interchangeably, Sangelaji contended that as whim grew more powerful in individuals, lust would begin to prevail and the power to reason would gradually pale before it. However, eventually he distinguished between whim and lust and maintained that whim was only associated with ideas and beliefs while lust was associated with the attainment of pleasure.79 Even though he left his analysis somewhat incomplete, it seems as if Sangelaji was associating whimsical, unwarranted and implausible ideas, views and concepts with obstacles to reason. This may well have been a different way for Sangelaji to reiterate his old preoccupation that superstitious beliefs – whimsical and unwarranted ideas – prevented the blooming of the people’s capacity to reason. Sangelaji argued that the Qur’an ‘granted reason (aql) unrestricted freedom’, since this was the ‘most significant and precious human quality’ guiding humankind from the darkness of backwardness to the light of civility.80 For Sangelaji, the application of unrestricted reasoning generated both spiritual felicity and material progress and as such it was an exercise not only compatible with Islam, but a necessity of Islam. In his novel and subversive approach, Sangelaji demonstrated that contrary to the traditional claim of the clergy, who traced their raison d’être to the imams, the Prophet and finally to God, the clerical practice of thwarting reflection and speculation was exactly opposed to the will and intention of God. If the clergy claimed legitimacy, credibility and authority on earth in the name of God, in the spirit of the anti-papist reformists, Sangelaji wished to show that such a claim, based on the Qur’an, was unfounded. Sangelaji lashed out at the traditionalists and wrote: ‘religion is synonymous with reason and he who does not reason cannot have a religion’.81

77 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 180. 78 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 181. 79 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 183. 80 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 179. 81 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 180. Chapter 7 Popular Shi‘ism

Grieving the state of the faith and concerned with its bleak future, Sangelaji argued that apostasy and turpitude was being passed off as monotheism and religiosity. What seemed like a monotheistic faith was in practice polytheistic. Without directly referring to Shi‘ism, Sangelaji implied and intimated that popular Shi‘ism, due to the impurities injected into it, had become a false or erroneous religion.1 Monotheism, Sangelaji argued, had lost its meaning among the people since thousands of polytheistic acts had been propagated in its name.2 If the objective of the religious experience was to identify God as the true and only goal and subsequently seeking proximity to Him, then all veils, guises and colours shrouding or concealing Him had to be removed. Pursuing his mission of cleansing the faith of those veils which he believed impaired or violated his ideal concept of monotheism, Sangelaji took issue with several popular religious beliefs essentially propagated and elevated to the status of Shi‘i dogmas among Iranians during the Safavid dynasty. Sangelaji challenged popular and well-entrenched Shi‘i beliefs and practices such as intercession or mediation of the Prophet and imams on the part of sinners (shafa‘at), the return of the dead before the Day of Judgement (raj‘at), and numerous other worshipping and mourning practices. He argued that such beliefs and practices contravened monotheism, the Qur’an, the sound Tradition of the Prophet and rational thought and were subsequently impurities and falsities. Sangelaji’s definition of monotheism is composed of two equally important components. In line with his conviction of the importance of righteous acts in Islam, Sangelaji maintained that the claim to believing in one God needed to be supported by monotheistic practices. To him, claim to monotheism accompanied by polytheistic acts were in contradiction with monotheism. For the greatest majority of people, he argued, monotheism simply implied attestation or confirmation of one’s faith in God as the creator of the world and everything within it. This aspect of monotheism, Towhid ruboubiyat, or the singleness of

1 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 3, 4, 6. 2 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 8. 124 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran the creator, Sangelaji posited, constituted only one part of monotheism. Belief in a single creator, he argued was also practised by polytheists and idolaters.3 Idolaters prostrated before and prayed to their man-made statues, believing that they were intermediaries between them and God, interceding on their behalf on Judgement Day.4 According to Sangelaji, God, however, invited His subjects to a different kind of monotheism called Towhid oluwhiyat, or the worship of a single God, without associates, partners or intermediaries.5 This true kind of monotheism implied that believers would only fear God, act to please Him, demand His grace alone, pray only to Him and be submissive only to Him.6 Towhid oluwhiyat incorporated monotheism both in theory and practice. Sangelaji defined true monotheism as the praxis of monotheism. This concept implied that the precondition of monotheism was not only the verbal attestation to but the practical exercise and pursuit of monotheism. Following his definition of monotheism, Sangelaji identified two different kinds of polytheism: major or greater (shirk akbar), and minor or lesser (shirk asghar).7 Greater polytheism was defined as considering a partner for God in the practice of worshipping. Sangelaji argued that greater polytheism applied to a person who worshipped and venerated another creature of God, thus placing the – created – venerated person/object on an equal footing with or superior to God, the creator.8 Lesser polytheism applied to individuals who maintained that creatures or creations of God could possess certain attributes and powers specific to God. Those who believed that anyone or anything other than God could intercede, provide for human beings and dispel misfortunes were lesser polytheists.9 Sangelaji’s categorization of two levels/kinds of polytheism mirrored two levels/kinds of monotheism: monotheistic orthodoxy or correct beliefs, the violation of which constituted greater polytheism; and monotheistic orthopraxy or proper practices, the breach of which amounted to lesser polytheism. The general understanding among Islamic jurists is that the penalty for major or greater shirk (polytheism) which is synonymous with having rejected the faith

3 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 11–12. 4 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 20. 5 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 202. Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 13–14. 6 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 202. Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 14, 17, 19–20. 7 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 36. 8 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 36. 9 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 36. Popular Shi‘ism 125 or having apostatized, is execution. In contrast, there are no commonly agreed upon worldly penalties associated with minor shirk. By addressing specific practices, Sangelaji analysed the prevalence of both greater and lesser polytheism in the popular belief of the Shi‘i. Severely criticizing those common practices in Shi‘ism constituting lesser polytheism, Sangelaji posited that the whole ritual of praying and worshipping ‘others’, sacrificing animals for ‘others’, circumambulating ‘others’, prostrating and genuflecting before ‘others’, asking for favours or intercession from ‘others’, was an aberration and a blasphemy.10 Sangelaji defined the ‘others’ as dead or alive personalities, idols, rulers, stones, trees or shrines.11 The main target of his criticism was the Shi‘i practice of quasi-deification and exaggerated veneration of imams and their relics. Sangelaji warned that affirming and attesting to the unity of God, Prophethood of Muhammad and the succession of the 12 infallible imams did not qualify a person as a monotheist if he continued to practise such polytheistic customs, rituals and acts.12 Sangelaji presented a fairly detailed list of those rituals and practices, which he considered as acts of polytheism. Interesting enough, the assortment of practices which he derided and criticized as minor or lesser polytheism constituted the array of popular activities and rituals which typical pious Shi‘i were inclined to indulge in. In fact, Sangelaji engaged in a sweeping and caustic criticism of the prevalent Shi‘i mode of conduct established by the Majlesi School. Every practice that Sangelaji criticized could be traced to a rite or ritual that was celebrated and promoted, as just about an obligation, by Majlesi. On every issue, Sangelaji engaged in a veiled yet heated debate with his unnamed adversary, Majlesi.

Superstition as Polytheism

Providing an explanation for the origin of superstitious and fantastical ideas, Sangelaji discussed two procedures for establishing causal relations. First, a causal relation could be established and proven through the trial and error approach, which was associated with scientific experimentation. Second, sometimes experimentation failed to explain the cause of certain occurrences whereas reliance on revelation could solve the riddle. In the language of a believer and a social scientist, Sangelaji argued that the experimental or scientific method was

10 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 22. 11 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 22. 12 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 23. 126 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran the source of human material progress in this world, whereas revelation, which determined the causal relation between righteous acts in this world and salvation in the hereafter, or abominations in this world and damnation in the hereafter, was the source of felicity in the hereafter.13 All other types of causal relation, he believed, were false cause or unrelated fallacies; the source of superstitions. In his analysis, Sangelaji focused on the examination of absurd causal relations. These cases of false-cause fallacy relied neither on experimentation nor on revelation. Baseless causal relations such as the belief that the number thirteen was ominous or that sneezing implied that one should stop ones activities and pause were superstitious beliefs rooted neither in religion nor in reason.14 Superstition, Sangelaji argued, was rooted in the belief that a specific and precise effect could be caused by any random cause. Confusing causes and effects led to widely accepted superstitious Shi‘i notions such as the belief in the supernatural properties of certain prayers or that of rings with a particular stone. These notions, Sangelaji argued, were not only polytheistic (lesser polytheism) but detrimental to reasoning and rational argumentations.15 Sangelaji’s writings on superstition and illogical causal relations needs to be contextualized by glancing at the writings of Majlesi and a popularizer of his works, Sheykh Abbas Qomi. Qomi – born in 1875 – was the author of the famous book of supplications, Keys to Heaven (Mafatih al-jenan). Majlesi’s works contain a considerable amount of fantastical and bizarre propositions, predominantly based on false-cause fallacies. For example, Majlesi argued that whoever wished to live long had to drink tea in the morning, wear proper shoes and light jackets and refrain from excessive intercourse with women.16 Majlesi has a chapter on the virtues of wearing silver rings. He not only praised and strongly encouraged people to wear a ring with an agate stone, but also claimed that the stone had miraculous protective properties. According to Majlesi, the person wearing such a ring would be protected from being whipped and amputated.17 Based on a report, Majlesi maintained that God created agate from the light that reflected Moses’ face and promised that those who wore a ring of agate and were Ali’s followers would not be condemned to hell.18 Abbas Qomi, Majlesi’s devout follower believed in the same kind of supernatural properties for a ring with an agate stone. Repeating word for word

13 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 142–3. 14 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 144. 15 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 144. 16 Majlesi, Heliyat al-Mottaqin, Tehran: Eslamiyeh, 1373, p. 13. 17 Majlesi, Heliyat al-Mottaqin, p. 18. 18 Majlesi, Heliyat al-Mottaqin, p. 17. Popular Shi‘ism 127

Majlesi’s account, Qomi recounted the miraculous properties of a ring with an agate stone. He posited that if early in the morning before getting out of bed, a person wearing a ring with an agate stone turned the stone towards the palm of his hand, looked at it and recited a prayer, which Qomi provided, on that day, he would be safe from all possible kinds of misfortune.19 Both Majlesi and Qomi provide ample supplications and prayers as prescriptions for overcoming and resolving different problems, ranging from health to financial. Based on different reports, Majlesi had written chapters on particular supplications, which were said to cure just about all conceivable bodily pains and diseases known to him, from headaches and being poisoned to epilepsy and haemorrhoids.20 Qomi’s writings were also replete with supplications which promised to cure diseases, free prisoners, guarantee safe journeys, provide abundance, protect individuals from torments, harassments and being robbed, provide food, insure against the destruction of the house one sleeps in and attacks by wild or poisonous animals.21 In his detailed assessment of certain superstitious Shi‘i practices, Sangelaji began with the practice of grave-worshipping or shrine-worshipping and attributed it to the extremists, ghollat, who genuflected and prostrated before individuals and things.22 Sangelaji maintained that there was nothing wrong with visiting the tomb of pious people. Yet he believed that worshipping, petitioning the righteous dead for favours and praying over tombs were different forms of lesser polytheism.23 Building and decorating mausoleums over tombs and converting tombs to shrines and mosques, Sangelaji maintained, were forbidden in Islam. Islam, he argued, prevented tomb-worshipping or shrine-worshipping by promulgating laws such as levelling tombs.24 According to Sangelaji, idolatry started with the worshipping of the dead. Gradually the stone placed on the grave of the dead was thought to have the same powers as that person before his death.25 To prevent polytheism and guarantee monotheism, Sangelaji posited that the Prophet forbade people from visiting tombs as a place of worship.26 Deriding the rule and hegemony of the

19 A. Qomi, Mafatih al-Jinan (translated by Moussavi Kalantari Damghani), Tehran: Simin, 1376, pp. 869–70. M.B. Majlesi, Heliyat al-Mottaqin, p. 24. 20 Majlesi, Heliyat al-Mottaqin, pp. 165–82. 21 Qomi, Mafatih al-Jinan, pp. 183–8, 219–20, 287–9, 364–5, 458–542. 22 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 102. 23 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 151–4. 24 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 148–9. 25 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 157–8. 26 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 154. 128 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran senses in shaping the perception and outlook of the common people, Sangelaji maintained that the more extravagant and opulent the shrines and tombs of the imams, the more impressed and humbled would people become. As long as the senses veiled and overcame human rationality, people would be in need of worshipping golden domes and would subsequently remain polytheists. Only when this veil was lifted, Sangelaji argued, would God become visible to human beings.27 Sangelaji considered the practice of wearing rings with special kinds of stone as a different aspect of stone worshipping or idolatry. This type of fetishism, promoted by the Majlesi School as a distinctive characteristic of Shi‘ism, if not a practical requirement of the faith, was condemned by Sangelaji as a case of minor or lesser polytheism (shirk asghar). Sangelaji argued that a stone or an object couldn’t possess magical or metaphysical powers. It could not therefore become the means of satisfying the wishes of those who expected it to effectuate their needs. Sangelaji considered the belief in the ability of objects or people other than God to effectuate outcomes as utter polytheism, superstition and heresy.28 Supernatural expectations and seeking desired outcomes from talismans and lucky charms such as rings and horseshoes was rejected by Sangelaji as it contradicted the principle of monotheism.29 Sangelaji criticized those reports attributed to the Prophet, which posited that the wearing of certain rings shielded the owner against misfortune and acted as a means to well-being and welfare. Claiming that reports which went against Islam and monotheism needed to be discarded, he also rejected a report suggesting that one of the five characteristics of the faith was wearing a ring on the right hand.30 Majlesi claimed that according to a report, the angel Gabriel revealed himself to the Prophet and ordered him to wear a ring with an agate stone on his right hand and instructed the Prophet to inform Imam Ali to do the same.31 According to Majlesi, wearing a ring was a virtue and whoever wore one and became lost and confused on the Day of Resurrection would be directed to the Prophet and Imam Ali by the angel Gabriel.32 Sangelaji deplored the fact that certain superstitious, fabricated and heretical practices were injected into the faith as ‘necessities of the religion and certainties of the Shari‘a’.33

27 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 29 Aban 1313. 28 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 40. 29 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 45. 30 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 43, 47. 31 Majlesi, Heliyat al-Mottaqin, p. 17. 32 Majlesi, Heliyat al-Mottaqin, p. 15. 33 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 51. Popular Shi‘ism 129

Combating another distortion within the faith, which he called ‘astrological superstitions’, Sangelaji argued that attributing special metaphysical powers to the days, stars, moon, months and various celestial bodies was once again an act of polytheism. Sangelaji implicitly challenged the literature written by Majlesi and his disciples on the influence and effect of celestial bodies on the livelihood of individuals. He further criticized the literature produced by the Majlesi School on the auspiciousness and inauspiciousness of the hours in the day, the days in the week, the weeks in the month and the months in a year.34 Majlesi established fantastical causal relations between particular days of the month and various natural phenomena. For example, he asserted that if the eclipse of the sun occurred during the first month of the spring, the price of staple crops, food and fruits would decrease and a king or statesman will perish in Syria. If, during an eclipse, the colour of the sun turned red, it would cause famine and deprivation, the price of staple crops will increase, the people would live in fear and anxiety; a period of insecurity and instability will prevail. The eclipse of the moon, however, during the first month of the spring would lead to the abundance of fish and fowl along with war and strife throughout the land.35 Majlesi ruled that the first day of the first lunar month, which was an auspicious date, was suitable for wedding, seeking knowledge, visiting kings, going on trips, buying and selling. He ruled that on this month if a slave or a domesticated animal escaped or was lost, it would be recuperated within eight days and whoever fell sick would recover rapidly.36 Sangelaji argued that it was absurd and irrational to believe that a particular day was suitable or unsuitable for visiting another person, conducting business, going on a journey or building a house, because of the particularity of that day or the position of the moon.37 The tradition of considering certain days of the year as ominous and others as blessed, which had become a part of the Shi‘i orthopraxy was again rejected by Sangelaji as a pre-Islamic tradition, which had crept into the faith.38 The Sabians, Sangelaji argued believed that the stars were sacred and their customs crept into Islam to the extent that every year many calendars were published with particular reference to ominous and auspicious dates.39 Sangelaji considered fortune-telling and divination through astrology also as lesser polytheism. He criticized astrologically based predictions of auspicious

34 M.B. Majlesi, Ekhtiyarat, Tehran: Eslamiyeh, n.d., pp. 3–4, 6, 7, 13, 124; Rahnema, Superstition as Ideology in Iranian Politics, pp. 249–52. 35 M.B. Majlesi, Molhemeh, Tehran: Eslamiyeh, n.d., pp. 4–5. 36 Majlesi, Ekhtiyarat, p. 4. 37 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 86. 38 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 170. 39 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 170. 130 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran times, such as the right day and time for travelling, marriage and bathing, as absurd superstitions in contradiction with reason.40 Debunking fantastical causal relations, Sangelaji concluded that the day on which individuals performed righteous acts was an auspicious day irrespective of how it may have been categorized by astrologers and the day on which a foul act was committed was an ominous day, even if it coincided with the festive New Year (Nowruz) day.41

False-Cause Fallacies

Sangelaji dealt with miscellaneous categories of common Shi‘i practices which he considered as polytheistic. Undermining the prevalent Shi‘i practice of solemnly vowing an act in return for the accommodation of a request (nazr) from those other than God, Sangelaji argued that such a solicitation could only be practised in relation to God.42 According to Sangelaji, one could neither solicit a favour from anyone other than God nor from the tombs of the righteous Muslims or the sons of imams. Settling issues with the common Shi‘i practice of petitioning and soliciting the imams rather than God for mercy and blessing, Sangelaji posited that such a practice contradicted monotheism. A Muslim, he claimed could not even petition the prophets or imams for penitence or recovery from a disease.43 The practice of pledging a sacrificial lamb, a carpet or an ornament for a shrine, in return for the entombed holy person to fulfil a wish was labelled by Sangelaji as polytheistic.44 Sangelaji condemned the practice of venerating and worshipping shrines and graves along with petitioning the dead for favours but argued that visiting the grave of believers was permitted, as long as it did not involve idolatrous acts.45 Irreligiosities, he argued, resulted from thinking that a particular supplication (do‘a) or a solemn vow (nazr) could yield results.46 Petitioning anyone other than God in one’s prayers to relieve one of misfortunes such as seeking cure from sickness or seeking sustenance was once again deemed as an act of lesser polytheism.47 Placing reliance on (tavakol)

40 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 86–7. 41 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 91. 42 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 60, 62. 43 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 66. 44 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 62. 45 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 148–52. 46 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 144. 47 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 67. Popular Shi‘ism 131 anyone but God was not only considered as idolatry, by Sangelaji, but the cause of all vices and social corruptions.48 Sangelaji called on believers to rely only on God and their own righteous acts for salvation and not to exaggerate about the status of holy individuals or prostrate before individuals and shrines.49 For Sangelaji, relying on the intervention of holy individuals promoted fatalism, lethargy and social resignation. In his list of lesser polytheisms, Sangelaji included riya or false pretension for the purpose of appealing to people. Riya can also be understood as an act of self-promotion shrouded in religiosity. Sangelaji argued that those who sought religious respect and status among the common people by pretending to be virtuous, pious and over-mindful about their religious duties were deceivers and condemned by God.50 For Sangelaji, acts of worship or piety with the intention and purpose of seeking the favour or approval of others than God or seeking social approval was an act of deception; a case of lesser polytheism.51 Concerned about ostentatious flaunting of religiosity asriya or religious pretentiousness, Sangelaji warned against those who pretended to be ascetics and devout Muslims by acting as if they were weak from having fasted, sleepy from having kept vigil and ragged from being indifferent to worldly belongings. Such individuals, he ruled, were corrupting the concept of worship and their so-called acts of worship were less effective and rewarding in the eyes of God, than those who did not worship at all.52 The Shi‘i practices criticized by Sangelaji, which relied on an otherworldly intervention to improve the worldly condition of the petitioner, promoted a sense of fatalism and resignation – among believers – in the face of challenges and adversities. It could be inferred that for Sangelaji, lesser polytheistic acts were not only an affront to God, but also an insult to human beings, His vicegerents on earth. Believers who engaged in these practices usually projected extraordinary powers to other individuals or objects, erroneously believing that they would have extraordinary powers to intervene and realize their wishes. By placing their faith in unverifiable cause and effect suppositions, believers lost self-confidence, minimizing or ignoring their own capacities and potentials to effectuate change. Those engaged in these rites and rituals, not only neglected the powers of the creator, but also their own inner strength. The practitioners of such rites gave agency to sources other than God or worldly individuals.

48 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 119, 135, 167. 49 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 102. 50 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 129. 51 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 127–8. 52 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 128–9. 132 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

Superstition was a case of projecting false powers onto others or objects and placing faith in unfounded and imaginary sources of power. Sangelaji argued that in addition to all polytheistic acts practised by the Shi‘i, they were also afflicted by ‘causal polytheism’sherk-e ( sabab) as they considered all weak and untenable causal relations as solutions to their problems.53 Sangelaji’s discourse was one of dispelling the self-deception of the common people and returning their self-confidence to them by reminding them that the ultimate worldly power after God was none but themselves. Seeking to empower the common man and mobilize his initiatives and capabilities through shedding his false impressions cultivated throughout the years by religious distortions, Sangelaji reiterated that ‘nothing will be fixed by wishing, since salvation depends on righteous knowledge and acts’.54 Sangelaji’s enthroning of the common man comes with the dethroning of those maleficent clerics ‘olamay-e( sou) who kept the people feeble minded and benefited from their superstitious beliefs passed off as religious beliefs.55

Intercession

Sangelaji maintained that intercession (shafa‘at) was undeniably one of the certainties of Islam.56 However, he took issue on two subjects; the types of sins for which intercession could prove effective, and the key topic of who possessed the power to intercede with God to secure the salvation of a sinner. According to Sangelaji, while the Ash‘arites and the Imamiyyeh believed that the Prophet could intercede to annul the punishment of wrongdoers, the Mu‘tazelite maintained that the Prophet did not have the power to expunge the sins of transgressors through mediation. Searching for the correct answer, Sangelaji returned to the Qur’an and asserted that certain verses clearly reserved the right of mediation for God. According to Sangelaji ‘there are verses in the Qur’an which clearly and categorically reject intercession’.57 To Sangelaji, the only power capable of intercession was God, who was eternal and interminable.58 If intercession implied that a person would sin and then ask for a holy person to mediate between he

53 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 142. 54 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 136. 55 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 163. 56 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 130. 57 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 131–2. Sangelaji cites: 1:52, 26:98–102, 74:48–50, 6:51, 6:70, 30:12–13, 39:45–6. 58 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 77. Popular Shi‘ism 133 and God and that God would then grant the sinner’s request and forgive him, then God would be intentionally overlooking or ignoring a sin or what was prohibited out of favouritism toward the holy intercessor. For Sangelaji this was inconsistent and irrational and therefore could not be in accord with the intention of the Lawgiver. Sangelaji argued that individuals were responsible for their own actions and decisions and could therefore expect salvation and redemption only through their own righteous acts.59 Sangelaji sought to ‘responsibilize’ the Shi‘i by arguing that they could not engage in vices and shirk its negative consequences by seeking the intervention of a holy person. The fortune and misfortune or destiny of individuals, both on earth and in the hereafter, was the consequence of their own choice and doings and they had to accept responsibility for it. Sangelaji maintained that according to the mainstream definition of intercession, wrongdoers would petition someone other than God, such as prophets or imams for forgiveness of their sins. Sangelaji rejected this notion of intercession, rooted in the teaching of priests who wished to secure a position of honour and respect for themselves among the people, as a harmful idea to the community of believers.60 He argued that the priests fabricated this concept of ‘polytheistic intercession’ in order to create an inviolable position for themselves.61 This concept of intercession, according to Sangelaji, not only impaired the primacy of righteous acts and its relation with outcomes, but also undermined Prophethood and its purpose, which was guiding the people to do good and desist from doing evil. ‘Polytheistic intercession’ implied that on the one hand the Prophet instructed people to do certain things and forbade them to do other things, while on the other hand the Prophet would readily intercede on behalf of those who disobeyed his instructions as well as those of God.62 The act of intercession would therefore undermine and neutralize the Prophet’s mission to guide the people to worldly welfare and bliss in the hereafter. Sangelaji referred to a popular Shi‘i claim that on the Day of Judgement the sins of the Shi‘i would be pardoned through the mediation of the Prophet and imams and labelled such claims as polytheistic notions of intercession.63 Based on a report attributed to the Prophet, Majlesi argued that God had said that if people appealed to Muhammad, Ali, Fatima, Hasan and Hoseyn and asked them

59 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 135. 60 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 135–8. 61 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 138. 62 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 138. 63 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 138. 134 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran to intercede on their behalf, their intercession would be accepted.64 According to the Majlesi discourse, the fate of Shi‘i as friends and followers of Ali and the imams was effectively sealed and they would all end up in heaven. According to this discourse, there was no connection between good acts in the world and positive rewards in the hereafter. Majlesi posited that on the Day of Judgement, the sins of the Shi‘i would be forgiven through the intercession of the imams.65 According to Majlesi, the simple act of believing in the imams, irrespective of one’s impiety and wrongdoings would guarantee the person’s escape from hell and entrance into heaven.66 Sangelaji sought to dispel the notion that the imams had the power to intervene and expunge the sins of wrongdoers and fulfil the earthly wishes of believers only if the sinners and the believers were to perform an array of supererogatory prayers and rituals glorifying and revering the imams. However, Sangelaji allowed for an escape clause. He argued that a wrongdoer could plead his case before the prophets or imams and petition them to pray to God for the fulfilment of his wish or request.67 This manner of requesting, Sangelaji argued, would not be considered ‘polytheistic intercession’. Sangelaji attenuated his firm position against the legitimacy of an intermediary person between the people and God and partially conceded to the mainstream Shi‘i position. He acknowledged that since God would readily accept the prayers of the prophets and the imams, the request of the sinners asking the imams to petition God on their behalf would be eventually accepted. Even though this formulation ultimately recognized God as omnipotent and the source of all decisions, it still acknowledged quasi-equal powers for the prophets and the imams. Realizing the neutralizing implications of his argument, Sangelaji immediately reiterated his old position that the belief in an intermediary between the people and God was polytheistic.68 Based on the Qur’an, Sangelaji claimed that invoking the prophets, the angels and the imams directly as intermediaries and petitioning them for life, health, provisions, redemption and dispelling of misfortunes and destitution was an act of unbelief and infidelity.69 The act of seeking help from someone other than God and addressing him as a trustee, even if he was a prophet, was an act of lesser

64 Majlesi, Bahar al-Anwar (translated by Moussavi Khosravi), Vol. 7, (Imamat) Part Five, Tehran: Eslamiyeh, 1364, pp. 4–5. 65 Majlesi, Bahar al-Anwar, Vol. 7, (Imamat) Part Five, pp. 254, 255–7. 66 Majlesi, Hayat al-Qoloub, Vol. 5, p. 258. 67 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 118. 68 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 119. 69 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 110, 113, 122. Popular Shi‘ism 135 polytheism. Sangelaji suggested that the polytheistic notion of intercession which assumes God-like attributes for the Prophet and imams is rooted in the ideas and beliefs of the ghollat or those extremist Shi‘i who ascribed God-like features to the imams.70 Rebuking the clerical tradition of encouraging people to seek favours and help from imams and the descendants of imams (imamzadeh), Sangelaji accused those who sought such favours from anyone but God as ‘absolute polytheists’.71 Questioning the significance and importance of an association or lineage with either the Prophet or the imams as a means of obtaining salvation, grace or redemption, Sangelaji rejected the custom of worshipping individuals as sacred figures.72 He challenged those Shi‘i who respected their imams more than God and declared that human beings were incapable of intercession, healing the sick, securing a place in heaven, forgiving sins and fending off misfortunes and adversities.73 Those who believed that mortals possessed such supernatural capabilities, Sangelaji claimed, were polytheists and those who tried to religiously justify the polytheism of the masses, were ‘charlatans and merchants of religion’.74 Both ‘charlatans’ and the ignorant masses who blindly followed the priests, Sangelaji warned, would end up in hell.75 By taking issue with the mainstream interpretation of intercession, Sangelaji was defying a long-standing belief, which he considered as incompatible with true Islamic monotheism. In the name of an enlightened and superstition-free Shi‘ism, Sangelaji sought to awaken the masses from their slumber and also reform the faith by returning to the Qur’an, which he believed modernized and rationalized the faith.

Return of the Dead

The issue of the return of the dead orraj‘at , similar to intercession, has long constituted one of the cornerstones of the Shi‘i belief system. In the main Shi‘i compilations of reports, affirmation of this belief can be readily found. Ibn Babuyeh categorically asserts that raj‘at is a definite Shi‘i belief and that it could be deduced from the Qur’an.76 The return of the dead in mainstream Shi‘i thought

70 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 123. 71 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 22. 72 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 24, 36. 73 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 36–7. 74 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 38, 66. 75 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 59. 76 Ibn Babuyeh, A Shi‘ite Creed, translated by A.A.A. Fyzee, Tehran: World Organization for Islamic Services, 1982, pp. 60–61. 136 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran could be considered as the last episode in the trilogy of, the life, occultation and return of the Twelfth Imam. Technically the concept of the return of the dead is different from the return of the Twelfth Imam as he is believed to be alive. Yet it seems as though the period during which the dead do return occurs around the time of the return of the Twelfth Imam. In his explanation ofraj‘at or return of the dead, as a necessity of Shi‘ism, Majlesi maintained that a group of the very pious and a group of the most evil will return from the dead before the Day of Judgement and during the time of the reappearance of the Hidden Imam.77 According to Majlesi, immediately preceding the return of the Hidden Imam, an unusual rainfall will cause the ‘body and flesh’ of the dead to grow enabling them to rise from their graves as soil trickles down their heads.78 According to Majlesi, belief in the resurrection of a group of pious believers and a group of disbelievers and opponents of the Shi‘i and their return on earth is a necessity of Shi‘ism and disbelief in it constitutes infidelity.79 Majlesi did, however, acknowledge the fact that the denial of return (raj‘at) would not constitute disbelief in Islam.80 After the return of the Hidden Imam, it is reported that Jesus, Imam Ali and Imam Hoseyn would return and the battle between Imam Hoseyn and Yazid will be fought once again and this time, Imam Hoseyn will be the victor.81 Majlesi, however, did concede that the characteristics, modality and sequence of the return of each of these individuals was not clear and that it was also not known whether others will return after the Hidden Imam or concurrently with him.82 Therefore, the belief in the return of a selective group of the dead, occurring simultaneously or after the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam became a litmus test for distinguishing the Shi‘i from the non-Shi‘i. From the point of view of mainstream Shi‘i, while denying intercession was deemed as a veritable transgression of Shi‘ism, questioning raj‘at was considered as plain infidelity and disbelief. Throughout 117 pages, Sangelaji, demonstrated that the return of a dead person to this material world was impossible. He set out to prove his position by relying on the Qur’an and rational thought. Sangelaji argued that the return of the dead to life was against the unswerving laws of nature established by God and therefore, unacceptable.83 Looking into the evidence provided by those

77 Majlesi, Haq al-Yaqin, p. 335. 78 Majlesi, Majmou‘eh Rasael E‘teqadi, p. 120. 79 Majlesi, Haq ol-Yaqin, p. 354. 80 Majlesi, Haq ol-Yaqin, p. 354. 81 Majlesi, Haq ol-Yaqin, pp. 344–7. 82 Majlesi, Haq ol-Yaqin, p. 354. 83 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 110. Popular Shi‘ism 137 who believed in the return of the dead, Sangelaji posited that Majlesi and others claimed to base their arguments on the three sources of the Book, reports and the consensus of jurists.84 According to Sangelaji, believers in the return of the dead used the Qur’an in the light of reports and relied on a few interpretations of Qur’anic verses attributed to the imams. Consensus on the return of the dead among Shi‘i jurists was also formed on the basis of the same interpretations. Consequently, Sangelaji maintained that the proponents of the return of the dead were basing their case on the single evidence of reports.85 First, Sangelaji sought to establish that instead of relying primarily on the Qur’an to deduce the salient features of Shi‘ism the proponents of the return of the dead relied entirely on hadiths or reports. Second, Sangelaji strived to demonstrate the unreliability of the 198 reports supporting the concept of the return of the dead compiled in Majlesi’s Bahar al-Anwar. Behind this key debate over dogma lied a fundamental clash between the reformist, Qur’an-based and rationalist Shi‘ism of Sangelaji and the traditionist, report-driven and anti- rationalist Shi‘ism of the Majlesi School. Through his study of the topic of the return of the dead, Sangelaji was once again taking issue with the methodology of those who interpreted the Qur’an on the basis of reports. Sangelaji attempted to demonstrate that the report-driven jurists read back into the Qur’an reports which may have been falsified and fabricated to obtain the ultimate interpretation that they sought. So, they selected a verse and interpreted it according to fabricated reports, deducing the concept of the return of the dead from it. Sangelaji argued that with the help of Islamic jurists who confined the understanding of the Qur’an to its interpretation by reports, false beliefs were elevated to the level of certainties.86 Providing a detailed breakdown and classification of each one of the reports compiled by Majlesi on raj‘at, Sangelaji argued that 79 of the 198 reports could be traced to Shi‘i extremists or the ghollat. Sangelaji ascribed the belief in the return of Imam Ali and other Shi‘i imams with the object of punishing Abu- Bakr, Omar, Osman, Muawiyyeh and Yazid to the extremist Shi‘i.87 All the remaining reports, he posited, were different kinds of isolated wahed( ) and not firmly established reports. None of thehadiths compiled by Majlesi, he argued, fell under the rubric of indubitable, massively transmitted or firmly established (mutawatir) reports.88 Majlesi, however, gave the impression that the reports he

84 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 113. 85 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 113. 86 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 146. 87 Sangelaji, Mahv al-Mohoum, p. 29. 88 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 115. 138 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran used in his compilation on the return of Imam Ali and Imam Hoseyn were all firmly established mutawatir( ) reports. He considered his reports on the return of other imams, which must have also implied the return of the Hidden Imam, as ‘close to firmly established reports’.89 Invoking the opinion of numerous Shi‘i luminaries such as Sheykh Morteza Ansari, Shahid-e Sani, Sheykh-e Tusi, Ibn Idris and Seyyed Morteza, Sangelaji repeated his contention that indubitable or firmly established reports were extremely rare.90 Sangelaji aimed to prove that reliance on reports to establish the validity of a doctrinal belief was an untenable and false practice, which needed to be abandoned, since the authenticity and therefore reliability of reports were extremely difficult to ascertain. Having argued that the reports Majlesi compiled and relied on to prove the validity of the return of the dead were unsound, Sangelaji returned to Qur’anic verses disproving the basic tenets of this concept. He posited that the Qur’an was categorical on the fact that the dead could not return to this world until the end of the world and the Day of Judgement.91 The Shi‘i belief in the return of the dead, some few hundreds of years before the Day of Judgement, therefore, clashed with the message of the Qur’an. Sangelaji concluded that when a report contradicted the Qur’an, it had to be rejected and abandoned as ‘false and futile’.92 Falling back on his main thesis, Sangelaji maintained that even if all the reports on raj‘at were correct/sound (sahih) – which he believed was not the case – and their content did not conflict with Qur’anic verses, they would still fail to qualify as valid proofs since they were isolated or wahed reports not sufficiently corroborated by other reporters in the early stages of transmission. Sangelaji reiterated that isolated reports did not constitute proof in matters of belief.93 Finally, in opposition to the common opinion of Shi‘i jurists, Sangelaji concluded that the return of the dead as it was understood by the mainstream of the Shi‘i was neither supported by the Qur’an nor by reason and was therefore a simple superstition that was best discarded.94 Based on an interpretation (ta’wil) of Seyyed Morteza, reported by Majlesi, Sangelaji attempted to put a spin on the concept and give a different meaning to it by suggesting that perhaps the return of the dead referred to the return of the grandeur and popularity of Islam

89 Majlesi, Majmou‘eh Rasael E‘teqadi, p. 123. 90 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, pp. 117, 206. 91 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, pp. 207, 209. Qur’an: 95:21, 30:36. 92 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 212. 93 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 213. 94 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 213. Popular Shi‘ism 139 precipitated by the imams, as it existed in the early days of the faith. Such a return, Sangelaji argued, would be the result of the development and maturing of the general public’s capacity to reason independently.95 Eventually, he argued, the day will come when the majority of the people will be able to reason and would subsequently understand the truths about Islam. At that point, he concluded, the faith would return (raj‘at) to its original position.96 Sangelaji tried to rationalize a concept which modern minds had difficulty reconciling with the laws of nature. Clearly to the mainstream clerics and the Shi‘i establishment, Sangelaji’s criticism and rejection of the concept of the return of the dead, which seemed canonized as a necessity of the faith, was a major act of heresy. From the fatwa issued by the Grand Ayatollah Abdolkarim Ha’eri, the most esteemed Source of Imitation (marj‘ taqlid) of the time, it is clear that as the final arbitrator of religious debates and disputes in the land, the Grand Ayatollah was approached by the clergy to pass judgement on Sangelaji’s views on raj‘at. Ayatollah Abdolkarim Ha’eri’s formal religious opinion proved to be ground-breaking and historical. Ha’eri was asked whether the physical return of the dead, a conviction of the Shi‘i, was deduced from the Book and the Tradition.97 Resisting whatever pressure there may have been, Ha’eri ruled that raj‘at did not constitute a principle (usul) of Islam or Shi‘ism. A disbeliever in it, he argued could not be considered as someone who had rejected Shi‘ism or Islam. He further maintained that the return of the dead was not a practical matter incumbent upon believers to act according to. Going against the mainstream discourse and cultivating inclusion, heterodoxy and tolerance, Ha’eri’s authoritative pronouncement affirmed that the denial ofraj‘at did not constitute excommunication. Ha’eri, however, did confirm his general belief in the concept of raj‘at because of ‘the abundance of reports’ on the topic.98 At the end of his fatwa, in the tradition of the enlightened custodians of the faith, Ha’eri urged unity and warned against harmful schismatic debates.

95 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 227. 96 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 227. 97 Bastani Parizi, Aftab-e Zareen Fereshtegan, Qom: Entesharat-e Khorram, 1377, p. 189. The full text of the question posed and Ha’eri’s response orfatwa is reproduced in Bastani Parizi’s book. Also see Yann Richard, ‘Shari‘at Sangelaji: A Reformist Theologian of the Rida Shah Period’, in S. Amir Arjomand (ed.), Authority and Political Culture in Shi‘ism, New York: State University of New York Press, 1988, p. 171. Richard refers to the journal Homayoun, Bahman1313/Shaval 1353/1935, as his source for Ha’eri’s fatwa. I have in my possession a xeroxed copy of the 4-line istifta and Ayatollah Ha’eri’s 12-line response. 98 Bastani Parizi, p. 189. 140 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

Occultation of the Twelfth Imam

In a small pamphlet called ‘Purging Superstitions’ (mahv al-mohum) considered by Hoseynqoli Mosta‘an as a second-rate work among Sangelaji’s writings, Sangelaji sought to demonstrate that the idea of eternal or quasi-eternal life was suspect and untenable.99 Mainstream Shi‘i, he argued, attributed to the Qur’an the ‘superstitious and fantastical notion’ that prophets such as Khezr, Elias and Jesus continued to be alive.100 Sangelaji ascribed this belief to Judaism and Christianity. He deplored the fact that not only did the ignorant masses believe in this notion as one of the certainties of the Muslim faith, but that whoever denied it was considered as a disbeliever or a heretic. To prove that all prophets were human beings who passed away before Mohammad, Sangelaji referred to verses of the Qur’an, which he characterized as a ‘rational and scientific book’.101 Based on the Qur’an, Sangelaji argued that prophets could neither have a long bout of interruption in their natural life, nor could they live beyond a natural life span.102 Therefore, he concluded that Khezr, Elias and Jesus who were prophets must have also died at some point. Sangelaji posited that in contrast to the contention of mainstream Shi‘i, Khezr’s name was not mentioned in the Qur’an, while even though Elias’ name was mentioned in the Book, there was no specific reference to his age.103 Maintaining that the reports supporting such notions were fabricated, false and in contradiction with one another, Sangelaji called for a moratorium on the use of such reports.104 Lamenting the ignorance of Muslims, Sangelaji urged them to read and use the Qur’an to grasp the absurdity of such superstitious ideas which brought shame and disrespect upon the faith.105 On the surface it may seem as if Sangelaji’s short manifesto ‘Purging Superstitions’ (mahv al-mohum) refuting the excessive longevity of the life of Khezr, Elias and Jesus was an overreaction to a relatively inconsequential and insignificant issue. This small work, however, was probably Sangelaji’s most provocative writing with major religious consequences for Shi‘ism. In it, Sangelaji laid the foundations of questioning and shedding doubt on the possibility of the Twelfth Imam’s occultation. By undermining Majlesi’s argumentations justifying occultation, Sangelaji indirectly debated a key pillars of mainstream Shi‘ism,

99 Sangelaji, Mahv al-Mohoum, p. 3. 100 Sangelaji, Mahv al-Mohoum, p. 1. 101 Sangelaji, Mahv al-Mohoum, pp. 2, 6. 102 Sangelaji, Mahv al-Mohoum, p. 9. 103 Sangelaji, Mahv al-Mohoum, p. 14. 104 Sangelaji, Mahv al-Mohoum, p. 23. 105 Sangelaji, Mahv al-Mohoum, p. 29. Popular Shi‘ism 141 namely the whole notion of occultation as well as the return of the Shi‘i messiah, the expected deliverer, the Imam of the Age or Imam Zaman. At no point in his writings, however, did Sangelaji explicitly reject the validity of the concept of occultation or undermine the accounts of the reappearance of the Hidden Imam, yet he did drop hints, letting his readers in on his suspicions and misgivings about the possibility and veracity of occultation. As in a jigsaw puzzle, the juxtaposition and association of certain related key notions in Sangelaji’s writings reveal his attempt to debate the possibility of the Twelfth Imam’s occultation and return. Sangelaji’s questioning of the notion of longevity in excess of the natural life cycle and his emphasis on the irrefutability of death, even for prophets, paved the way for his argument that if according to the Qur’an, prophets were mortals then it could not be claimed that the imams could be any different. Sangelaji’s assessment of the implausibility to take leave from this material life on this earth for a bout of time and then return to it along with his dismissal of raj‘at, or return of the dead before resurrection, constituted highly controversial and sensitive areas of debate for the mainstream Shi‘i. For those Shi‘i familiar with Majlesi’s arguments on the veracity of the return of the dead, Sangelaji’s debates were in fact primarily directed at discrediting Majlesi’s Shi‘ism. Majlesi’s explanation – in the seventeenth century – of the continuous life and existence of the Hidden Imam since his occultation in ninth century, was simple and straightforward. Majlesi posited that if Khezr, Elias and Jesus had unlimited lives, then ipso facto Mehdi or the Twelfth Imam could also possess eternal life. Majlesi dedicated the famous thirteenth volume of Bahar al-Anwar (Sea of Lights) to an account of the Twelfth Imam, his occultation and his return. According to Majlesi, the continued life and existence of the Twelfth Imam since his occultation could be proven on the basis of the fact that Khezr and Elias as well as the Dajal (Islamic Antichrist) and Satan also continued to live.106 Majlesi argued that the Book and the Sunna provided proof for their continued lives. Majlesi based his justification for the unusual longevity of the Hidden Imam’s life on the precedence of the excessively long life of Khezr, Elias and Jesus. As such, Majlesi left his theory vulnerable to any argument which could reject the unusually long lives of Khezr, Elias and Jesus.107 To refute the criticism of those who rejected the continued life of the Twelfth Imam on the grounds that hidden in a basement (sardab) with no food and water available

106 Majlesi, Bahar al-Anwar, Vol. 13, Tehran: Eslami, 1377, p. 74. 107 Majlesi, Hayat al-Qoloub, Vol. 2, Qom: Entesharat Sorour, 1375, p. 846; Majlesi, Bahar al-Anwar, Vol. 13, pp. 74, 77. 142 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran to him, he would have certainly perished, Majlesi drew a parallel between the Twelfth Imam and Jesus. He argued that Jesus was a human being just as Mehdi was. ‘If Jesus could continue to live in the sky, Mehdi could also continue to subsist in the basement. Just as Jesus’ means of sustenance was provided for in the skies, Mehdi’s livelihood was also provided for in the basement.’108 Sangelaji tried to debate with those jurists who had read Majlesi and knew his key arguments on this issue. While for the laymen it was not very clear why Sangelaji adamantly sought to prove that Khezr, Elias and Jesus could not have possessed eternal lives, for the learned members of the clergy, Sangelaji’s strategy was very clear. In view of Majlesi’s position and reasoning, it was evident that Sangelaji sought to undermine the basis on which Majlesi was constructing his proof and arguments in support of the Twelfth Imam’s continuous existence. Through demonstrating that Khezr, Elias and Jesus did not possess eternal lives, Sangelaji was undermining the foundations of Majlesi’s analogy. Sangelaji concluded that according to Qur’anic verses, whoever passes away does not return to this world. Sangelaji reiterated that he had already provided sufficient evidence on the refutation of the return of the dead.109

108 Majlesi, Bahar al-Anwar, Vol. 13, Tehran: Eslami, 1377, pp. 75, 77. 109 Sangelaji, Mahv al-Mohoum, p. 26. Chapter 8 Was Sangelaji a Wahhabi?

During his life and after his death, Sangelaji’s detractors accused him of being a Wahhabi. An important aspect of such a branding, irrespective of its validity, was the disparaging if not treasonous weight that it carried among the Shi‘i. At the time and even later, the most effective weapon of clerics to stigmatize and discredit in-house criticism of popular Shi‘is practices and/or beliefs had been that of labelling dissidents and reformists as Wahhabis. The naming was an unofficial way of declaring someone heterodox, heretical and eligible for excommunication from the Shi‘i community. Sangelaji’s opposition to intercession, worshipping and venerating shrines and petitioning human beings to secure God’s blessing and his nuanced questioning of the Twelfth Imam’s exceptionally long life as well as the return of the dead, gave cause to his opponents to accuse him of being opposed to Shi‘i imams and being a Wahhabi. There is no doubt that some of those particular Shi‘i rituals identified and criticized by Sangelaji as being un‑Islamic were also targeted and denounced by Ibn Taimiyeh, the forefather and Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab, the founder of Wahhabism. On the meaning of monotheism as not only a belief in the unity of God, but also the ‘correct’ practical worship of one God, there was also a concordance between Sangelaji and ibn Abdul-Wahhab. Sangelaji’s criticism of the excesses of certain Shi‘i practices did overlap with ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s denunciation of such excesses. Yet Sangelaji’s agreement with ibn Abdul-Wahhab on certain issues does not necessarily prove that he was a Wahhabi or a follower of ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s doctrine. Agreement between the two men over certain issues concerning orthopraxy should be contrasted with the fundamental doctrinal, methodological and legal differences separating and opposing the two. A study of the doctrine developed by ibn Abdul-Wahhab and the religious rulings based on it demonstrates that despite certain overlaps between the ideas of ibn Abdul-Wahhab and Sangelaji, their religious perception, approach and outlook differed radically. So did the practical consequences of their respective religious perceptions. 144 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

According to numerous sources, ibn Abdul-Wahhab visited several Iranian towns before launching his movement.1 It is said that he spent four years in Esfahan, the city where Majlesi had been Sheykh-ol Eslam and where his discourse continued to impact the city’s socio-cultural and religious environment and life.2 Some sources have reported that ibn Abdul-Wahhab visited Iran in 1736.3 If this date is to be accepted, his visit would have taken place around the time of Nader Shah Afshar’s reign, some 47 years after the death of Majlesi and 14 years after the fall of the Safavid dynasty. Ibn Abdul- Wahhab was born some four years after the death of Majlesi and Sangelaji was born some 60 years after the death of ibn Abdul-Wahhab. The extent to which the Islam practised in Iran and witnessed by ibn Abdul-Wahhab played a role in forming his staunch stance against what he considered as deviant and illegitimate rites and rituals, common among the Shi‘i, is difficult to determine. Yet it may safely be assumed that it must have had some influence, as it is reported that it was upon his return from Iran that he wrote the Kitab at-Tauhid (Book of Monotheism), his principal doctrinal text.4 According to one source, however, ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s ideas were formed during his visit to Basra which was heavily populated by the Shi‘i and that he ‘reacted against Shiite veneration for the imams when he first encountered it’.5 In his major book, Kitab at-Tauhid, ibn Abdul-Wahhab presented the essentials of his teaching. This book is said to ‘represent the core of Sheikh Muhammad’s teaching and the foundation of Wahhabi canon’.6 For ibn Abdul- Wahhab, the real proof of monotheism was epitomized in an unadulterated and pure act of worshipping only God. The belief that monotheism could be solely expressed and measured by a correct manner of worship lies at the heart

1 The Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edn, ibn ‘Abd Al-Wahhab, p. 677. See M. Cook, On the Origins of Wahhabism, Journal of Royal Asian Society, 1992, pp. 191–202. Cook refers to other sources confirming Abdul-Wahhab’s visit to Iran, yet he privileges the Wahhabi sources which do not mention Abdul-Wahhab’s journey to Iran. A.A. Rezvani, Salafigari va pasokh be Shobahat, Qom: Entesharat Masjed Moqadas Jamkaran, 1387, p. 181. D. Commins, The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia, London: I.B. Tauris, 2013, pp. 2, 11. 2 H. Enayat, Seyri dar Andisheh Siyassi Arab, Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1370, p. 6. 3 The Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edn, ibn ‘Abd Al-Wahhab, p. 677. Britannica, 15th edn, Vol. 10, Micropaedia, p. 510. For other sources documenting his visit to Iran see Seyyed Abdul-Latif Tostari (Shushtari), Tohfat-ol ‘Alam, and Mirza Mohammad Taqi Khan Sepehr, Nasekh ol-Tavarikh, cited in M.J. Mashkour, Farhang Feraq Eslami, Mashhad: Entesharat Astan Qods Razavi, 1368, p. 458. 4 Britannica, 15th edn, Vol. 10, Micropaedia, p. 510. 5 Commins, pp. 11–12. 6 Commins, p. 12. Was Sangelaji a Wahhabi? 145 of ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s teaching. He believed that since ‘worship is Tauhid [monotheism]’ those who did not fulfil the requirements of monotheism, through pure worship, were not worshippers of Allah.7 Any belief, statement or act which even slightly deviated from the pure and absolute act of worship, as strictly defined by ibn Abdul-Wahhab, was readily castigated as polytheism. According to ibn Abdul-Wahhab, ‘the meaning of singling out Allah Alone in worship and being sincere in His Oneness is the meaning of the Shahadah; “La ilaha illa-Allah” [There is no god but Allah]’.8 Once ibn Abdul-Wahhab identified monotheism with a particular and inflexible notion of worship, he passed swift and categorical religious judgement on those who failed to worship God according to his specifications. Based on a report attributed to the Prophet, for which ibn Abdul-Wahhab provided neither reference nor a chain of transmission, he concluded that a mere pronouncement of the key statement of La ilaha illa-Allah (there is no god but Allah) did ‘not protect the pronouncer’s blood and wealth’. Abdul-Wahhab maintained that ‘the pronouncer’s wealth and blood do not become inviolable until in addition to all of the above, he totally rejects all else that is falsely worshipped besides Allah’.9 Whereas the classic declaration of faith in one God seems to categorically refute the worship of anyone or anything at the same times as God and clearly rejects the existence of any partners for God, from ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s point of view, the simple pronunciation of the Shahadah, did not qualify a person as a Muslim or a believer. According to the Prophet, the proclamation of the Shahadah was sufficient to guarantee a person the safety of his life and property, yet ibn Abdul- Wahhab believed otherwise.10 To carve out a unique Islamic discourse based on an exaggerated disdain for a particular set of rites, ibn Abdul-Wahhab tightened the circle of believers by squeezing out what he branded as polytheists. Ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s Islam gravitated towards a rejectionist takfiri position, by excommunicating those who did indeed believe and practise Islam according to the rules of the Book, but not according to ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s extra requirements, which he considered as necessary. Therefore a Muslim’s wealth and blood became readily forfeit if he acted differently from ibn Abdul- Wahhab’s prescription of how to worship God. The practice of accusing Muslims of disbelief (kofr) is said to have been censured and condemned by the Prophet. According to a report attributed to the Prophet, those who accused the pronouncers of La ilaha illa-Allah of disbelief were themselves closer to

7 Abdul-Wahhab, Kitab At-Tauhid, Riyadh: Dar-us-Salam Publications, 1996, p. 20. 8 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 37. 9 Abdul-Wahhab, pp. 41–2. 10 Sahih al-Bukhari 6924, Sahih Muslim 33. 146 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran kofr.11 For someone who claimed to be averse to innovations, ibn Abdul-Wahhab provided a long list of acts and beliefs constituting polytheism (shirk) caused by direct or indirect worshipping of someone or something other than God. Clear references, however, to ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s list of prohibited acts are not to be found in the Qur’an. To remain a monotheist and subsequently saved from death and expropriation of wealth, ibn Abdul-Wahhab commanded Muslims to shun acts and beliefs which he had extrapolated from his interpretation of Islamic key texts and then converted into inflexible markers of belief. The dogmatism, religious sectarianism, categorical harshness and intolerance found in ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s writings and the actions of his followers cannot be found in any of Sangelaji’s works. Whereas ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s rigid criteria excluded Muslims – both Shi‘i and Sunni – from the fold of believers, casting them off as if they were perpetrators of major polytheism shirk( akbar) and promoted waging jihad against them as infidels, Sangelaji minimized the sectarian differences between the Shi‘i and the Sunnis as well as the People of the Book and Muslims to forge proximity and understanding between faiths and believers. For ibn Abdul-Wahhab, Islam was a clear-cut, strict religion of retribution and punishment, based on undebatable rights and wrongs, while for Sangelaji, Islam was a subtle and lenient religion aimed at improving the livelihood, material and spiritual of Muslims, through invitation, explanation and education. For Sangelaji, one who affirmedLa ilaha illa-Allah (there is no god but Allah) had opted to open the door of his heart and mind to receiving divine guidance (47:17–19) and could neither be prevented from entering the fold of believers nor forced outside it. For ibn Abdul-Wahhab, this was not the case, but more importantly, he believed that those who were already members of the fold needed to prove that they were true Muslims so that they would be allowed to stay in the fold. Clearly in ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s eyes the only true Muslims were the Wahhabis. The rest, Sunni or Shi‘i, risked having their blood spilt and their property confiscated unless they recanted, admitted to their heresy and converted to Wahhabism. The acts and beliefs prohibited by ibn Abdul-Wahhab as polytheistic all have one thing in common. Each act could, if interpreted in an exaggerated and extremist manner, imply the presumption of a partner for God, by the person performing the deed. Expecting from a person or a thing a response or reaction, which only God was capable of providing, is considered as assuming a partner for God and subsequently polytheism. Ibn Abdul-Wahhab maintained that ‘hoping to get cured from fever by using a talisman is shirk [polytheism]’, just

11 Rezvani, p. 308. Was Sangelaji a Wahhabi? 147 as ‘seeking relief against an evil eye by using amulets is shirk’. 12 In these cases, the person appealing to the remedial powers of the talisman or the amulet is considered as a polytheist since he places his hopes in a talisman or an amulet, instead of expecting a cure from God. Ibn Abdul-Wahhab considered wearing a ring by individuals as a means of protection against evil also as a polytheistic act, since the object was assumed to have the powers possessed by God alone.13 Ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s strong opposition to grave-worshipping as well as praying at graves – not necessarily visiting graves – followed the same logic. Relying on a report, according to which the Prophet forbade people to take graves as a place of worship, ibn Abdul-Wahhab posited that ‘those who take graves as places of worship (masjid)’ are ‘most evil’.14 Rejecting grave-worshipping as an innovation (bed‘at) and a polytheistic practice, ibn Abdul-Wahhab attributed the custom to the rafidah (the Shi‘i), arguing that the Shi‘i were the first to build mosques (masjid) over graves.15 Basing his ruling on two reports attributed to the Prophet, ibn Abdul-Wahhab reprimanded the practice of mourning, sobbing and wailing for the dead as a practice of the pre-Islamic period of ignorance. Such acts of grief are construed as manifesting disapproval and dissatisfaction with God’s pre-ordained design and subsequently repulsive.16 Ibn Abdul-Wahhab concluded that ‘bewailing the deceased’ amounted to disbelief.17 If belief in the worship of graves belonging to saints and the use of rings, talismans and amulets to fulfil requests only accomplishable by God were considered as acts of polytheism then requesting individuals to perform the same task should have also been considered as polytheism. Ibn Abdul-Wahhab ruled that belief in all those who pretended to perform extraordinary acts or pretended to have knowledge of future events was an act of disbelief in God. Based on reports, he ruled that sorcerers, magicians and astrologers were disbelievers who deserved to be executed.18 In line with the same argument and again based on reports, ibn Abdul-Wahhab sought to prove that painters of pictures and sculptors would also find themselves in Hell, on the charge of ‘not having proper regard for Allah’. He summarily ruled that images, pictures and statues should be defaced when found.19

12 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 45. 13 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 44. 14 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 84. 15 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 85. 16 Abdul-Wahhab, pp. 111, 123. 17 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 123. 18 Abdul-Wahhab, pp. 97–8, 102. 19 Abdul-Wahhab, pp. 81, 175. 148 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

In reference to those who sought the assistance of righteous individuals such as prophets and saints to solve their problems or seek salvation in the hereafter, ibn Abdul-Wahhab argued that ‘calling [on] others for help besides Allah’ was not only futile but also an act of ‘disbelief (kofr) ’. 20 Technically if a believer in Islam becomes a disbeliever (kafar), he apostatizes and is legally liable to be executed. Thus ibn Abdul-Wahhab converted what Sangelaji considered as a minor polytheism or a sin, with no worldly punishments, into a case of major polytheism worthy of execution. Even though ibn Abdul-Wahhab agreed that God had given the Prophet the right to intercede on behalf of sinners, he maintained that in the final analysis it was only God that should be called upon for intercession and not any other human being.21 Minimizing the role of intermediaries, he argued that individuals should only place their trust (tavakol) in God.22 Expounding his analysis of the absence of any veritable role for individuals as intermediaries in Islam, ibn Abdul-Wahhab lashed out at the practice of worshipping priests as another manifestation of polytheism. He argued that ‘under the name of Al‑Wilayah (sainthood)’ people considered the ‘worship of monks as the best of deeds’.23 The specific mention ofAl-Wilayah , the spiritual office or guardianship of Shi‘i imams and their successors is probably a direct reference to what ibn Abdul-Wahhab believed to be the Shi‘i practice of imam and priest worshipping. Identifying a gradual substitution process, characterized by expecting of individuals or saints what should be expected of God, ibn Abdul-Wahhab believed that ultimately individuals would be raised to the station of God and worshipped, transforming the monotheistic worshippers into polytheists. Thus adulation and excessive reverence for anyone but God was viewed by ibn Abdul- Wahhab as polytheism. He considered the intermediary, who was entreated to intercede, as an idol, assuming the powers of God. The worshipper of the intermediary, in ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s opinion, was a polytheist.24 Reacting against the excessive and popular emphasis placed on magnifying the role of intermediaries between believers and God, ibn Abdul-Wahhab slipped into an exaggerated and die-hard position, in relation to dealing with such practices. Invoking the danger of an assault on monotheism, ibn Abdul-Wahhab

20 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 61. 21 Abdul-Wahhab, pp. 72–3. See Abdul-Wahhab, Kashf-al Shobahat, cited in H. Moussavi Ghazvini, Naqdi Bar Andisheh Vahhabiyan, Tehran: Sazeman Chap va Entesharat Vezarat Farhang va Ershad Eslami, 1374, pp. 54–5. 22 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 120. 23 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 132. 24 H. Moussavi Ghazvini, Naqdi Bar Andisheh Vahhabiyan, pp. 68, 111. Was Sangelaji a Wahhabi? 149 elevated relatively minor concerns and details into major acts of apostasy and polytheism. Arbitrarily promulgating a list of prohibitions, neither explicitly mentioned in the Shari‘a, nor commonly accepted by Muslims as forbidden or reprobated, ibn Abdul-Wahhab justified and endorsed religious fratricides in the name of true Islam. Muslims attesting to the unity of God and innocently praying at the graves of their saints could consequently be categorized as infidels and perhaps slaughtered. Ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s intolerance for deviation from his point of view and his belief that any disagreement with his position constituted an act of infidelity and unbelief became the trademark of his movement and his followers. In his attempt to free the faith of what he believed to be innovations (bed‘at) by the Shi‘i and the Jahmiyeh, ibn Abdul-Wahhab crossed the Rubicon and introduced his own counter innovations. Seeking religious evidence and support for his innovations and his modifications of the faith, ibn Abdul-Wahhab was forced to rely on a selected number or at times a single report by the Companions of the Prophet. To prove, for example, that Islam prohibited ‘the cursing of the wind’, Abdul-Wahhab was unable to find a relevant let alone direct reference in the Qur’an. As a proof for the validity of his contention, he was forced to seek refuge in a single report by Ubai bin Ka‘b, attributed to the Prophet in Tirmidhi’s compilation.25 In Kitab at-Tauhid, ibn Abdul-Wahhab systematically made a case for his addendums to the faith and his novel positions and rulings by primarily relying on the hadiths found in the classical Sunni compilations of Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi and Ahmad ibn Hanbal. In the tradition of the ahl-e hadith, or those who constructed their religious arguments primarily on the basis of reports attributed to the Prophet, ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s arguments were void of reasoning and rational considerations as an evidence or proof of his religious rulings. Sangelaji and ibn Abdul-Wahhab did share certain ideas, concerns and views. The danger that believers could increase their reliance on individuals or objects other than God for the realization of their wants or for seeking help and comfort bothered and irked both men, yet each reacted differently and used different methods to confront it. Both believed that a gradual process of appealing to and petitioning another, alongside God, was in contradiction with true monotheism, defined as faith in one God through the worship of only one God. True believers needed to demonstrate their faith through the practical rejection of anyone or anything else, as a possible source of power. Both men’s refutation of intercession and coveting God’s blessing through the intermediary

25 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 167. 150 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran of another person was rooted in their perception that God alone was the source and dispenser of all pardons, rewards and punishments. Both men challenged the mainstream ritual practices of Muslims as well as the behaviour and practices of the clerics and spiritual leaders of their times. They both identified distortions and shortcomings in the practice of the faith by their contemporaries. There are even similarities between certain topics in Sangelaji’s book Towhid Ebadat (Monotheism of Worshipping) and ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s Kitab at-Tauhid (Book of Monotheism). Sangelaji’s criticism of certain popular Shi‘i practices and his heeding against the danger of reversion to polytheism, as a consequence, gave rise to the notion that he was a Wahhabi, since ibn Abdul-Wahhab had criticized the same practices earlier on. In the context of ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s open hostility towards the Shi‘i and the historical campaigns of his followers to cleanse Shi‘i Islam from Arabia, the charge of Wahhabism coming from Shi‘i sources was indicative of the fact that the accused was viewed as an enemy of Shi‘ism. The claim that Sangelaji was highly influenced by or was in fact a Wahhabi effectively classified his thoughts, works and criticisms as that of an enemy of the Shi‘i and not as a reformer of Shi‘i Islam. The amalgam of placing Sangelaji and Kasravi in the same category also serves the purpose of proving that Sangelaji was an enemy of Shi‘ism and not a Shi‘i reformer. In fact, the reasoning, criticisms, arguments, references and sources of Sangelaji and ibn Abdul-Wahhab had very little in common and were often highly at odds with one another. The historical, social, political, religious and geographical context in which Sangelaji and ibn Abdul-Wahhab breathed, lived, preached and functioned were also very different. Their audience and followers were quite dissimilar. They had different agendas, visions and missions. The religious, social and cultural end-result of their arguments and ideas were diametrically opposed as were the methods of deduction and argumentation they employed and advanced for attaining their objectives. In sum other than their common criticism of certain prevalent rites and rituals, the two men stood at two extreme poles of the Islamic rainbow. While ibn Abdul-Wahhab pressed hard to exclude all Muslims, Sunni and the Shi‘i in particular, who disagreed with him on certain rituals – without having renounced their monotheism or belief in Prophethood and the Day of Resurrection – from the Muslim fold, Sangelaji sought to attenuate the distrust and animosity of the Shi‘i towards the Sunnis by giving reference to their sources and respected religious figures among the salaf. To prove a point, Sangelaji would evoke the words and practices of the imams as well as the righteous salafs among the Companions (ashab) and the followers (tabe‘yn) Was Sangelaji a Wahhabi? 151 of the Prophet.26 When Sangelaji believed that ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s teachings were in contradiction to his understandings of the Qur’an, he criticized the idea without generalizing it to the belief of all Sunnis and then claiming that all Sunnis were disbelievers.27 While Sangelaji’s method was based on heeding, reconciling and healing sectarian differences, ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s discourse denounced, excommunicated and divided Muslims.28 Furthermore, despite similarity of views on certain practices, Sangelaji differed fundamentally from bin Abdul-Wahhab on a series of interrelated key issues.

Wahhabism, the Sunna and Reason

Ibn Abdul-Wahhab was a believer in the Hanbali School of jurisprudence, the most salient feature of which was the importance that this school attached to Sunna and reports in deriving Islamic rulings.29 Ibn Hanbal compiled some 30,000 reports out of some 750,000 in his exhaustive musnad or compilation. Many of his reports were later claimed to be ‘baseless and forged’ and many of the narrators he relied on were claimed to be of ‘dubious worth’.30 For Ibn Hanbal, the Qur’an was made comprehensible and intelligible to the general public through the interpretations and explanations of these very same reports. His juristic rulings were essentially based on the Tradition of the Prophet or the legal opinion of the Companions of the Prophet. Hanbal is known as the real founder of the traditionalist tendency of ahl-e hadith, the proponents or people of reports. Reiterating his reliance on hadiths and his distaste for human reasoning, Hanbal is reported to have said: ‘You hardly see anyone applying reason (ra’y) [to some issue of religion or law] except that there lies, in his heart, some deep-seated resentment. An unreliable narration [from the Prophet] is thus dearer to me than the use of reason.’31 The Islam of ibn Abdul-Wahhab and his followers was primarilyhadith - based. One of ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s teachers in Medina is reported to have been a hadith-reviver and according to some sources ‘this teacher urged him to dedicate himself to a campaign to purify religious practice at odds with the Sunna’.32

26 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 126, 203. 27 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 47, 76. 28 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 85. 29 M. Amin, Wahhabiha, translated by Seyyed Alawi, Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1376, p. 135. 30 Siddiqi, Hadith Literature, p. 50. 31 J.A.C. Brown, Hadith, Oxford: Oneworld, 2009, p. 17. 32 Commins, p. 11. 152 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

Muhammad ibn Abdul Latif, a descendent of ibn Abdul-Wahhab claimed that: ‘Our creed is that of Ahmad ibn Hanbal. We do not make any claim to ejtehad and are not proponents of it. If we come across a correct Sunna and hadith of the Prophet we will act according to it and will not favour anyone else’s word over it.’33 On the process of deriving Islamic laws from the four religious proofs or evidences of the Qur’an, Sunna, consensus and analogy (for the Sunnis) or reason (for the Shi‘i), ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s approach is similar to the hadith- only Akhbari school of the Shi‘i. Given the Wahhabi’s esteem for the reports attributed to the Prophet and narrated by the Companions they rely almost entirely on tradition, which they believe constitutes the best explanation and interpretation of the Qur’an. Kitab at-Tauhid (Book of Monotheism) is said to have been written ‘on the basis of Hadith collections he [Abdul-Wahhab] found in B a sr a’. 34 Curiously, ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s grandson, provided a supernatural explanation for the writing of Kitab at-Tauhid as he suggested that while studying in Basra, ‘God revealed to him [ibn Abdul-Wahhab] hidden aspects of God’s unity and His attributes’.35 Ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s whole mission, was constructed on the basis of his reliance and emphasis on hadiths. He privileged three hadiths as oracular prophecies to justify his calling, discourse and actions. In chapter 23 of his Book of Monotheism, entitled ‘Some people of this Ummah (nation) will worship idols’, ibn Abdul-Wahhab provided an explanation for his invitation and cause. Based on a report that he attributed to Bukhari and Muslim, without referring to its particulars or concise line of transmission other than it was narrated by Abu Sa‘id, ibn Abdul-Wahhab intimated that Muslims would eventually follow the Jews and Christians.36 For ibn Abdul-Wahhab, the Jews and Christians and all People of the Book were polytheists.37 Based on a second hadith reported in Muslim’s book of compilations, with no references to this specific report except that it was narrated by Thawban, ibn Abdul-Wahhab sought to demonstrate that having expanded to the four corners of the world, Islam’s demise would begin from within, pitting one group of Muslims against the other. ‘Only one section of them will destroy another section, and a section will take prisoner another section.’38 Finally based on a report and a commentary from Al-Barqani, ibn Abdul-Wahhab sought to establish that the Muslim community would be led

33 Amin, p. 135. 34 Commins, p. 12. 35 Commins, p. 12. 36 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 92. 37 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 51. 38 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 93. Was Sangelaji a Wahhabi? 153 astray by some of its leaders and subsequently ‘tribes’ of Muslims will ‘attach themselves to the polytheists’.39 However, he argued, ‘a section’ of Muslims ‘will continue to hold to the truth and will be victorious and they will not be harmed by those who oppose them’.40 It was based on these hadiths that ibn Abdul-Wahhab hoped to prove that his calling had been foretold and that his followers would be those who ‘hold to the truth’, while all other Muslims were polytheists and idol-worshippers as were the Christians and the Jews. Finally, he gave the impression that ultimately his followers would be the victorious group of Muslims in a Muslim against Muslim inevitable battle. In the Kitab at-Tauhid, ibn Abdul-Wahhab supported his arguments on general topics such as the unity of God and the fear of polytheism, on which all Muslims are unanimous, through reliance on the Qur’an. Yet when it came to the proof of the prohibition of wearing rings his principal and primary source was the Sunna, even though a Qur’anic verse was evoked.41 This Qur’anic verse, however, did not unequivocally support the particular interpretation which he sought and presented. Ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s ruling on the prohibition of praying at graves, building mosques at graves and excessive visiting of the Prophet’s grave was entirely based on hadiths. It seems as though when ibn Abdul-Wahhab wished to prove an idea for which an explicit reference could not be found in the Qur’an, he turned to the Sunna. In his attempt to prove that the use of amulets and talismans constituted polytheism or that it was prohibited to worship at graves, ibn Abdul-Wahhab relied entirely on reports, some of which were not even traced back to the Prophet.42 To support his ruling that sorcerers and magicians were disbelievers and should therefore be executed and consulting a soothsayer was an act of disbelief, ibn Abdul-Wahhab did not provide an explicit or implicit Qur’anic proof and consequently relied entirely on reports.43 Ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s application of independent judgement or personal effort to decide on a point of law was primarilyhadith -based. Focusing on a seemingly minor detail discerned in a report supporting his preconception, ibn Abdul-Wahhab converted the idea into a necessity of the faith. This process of transforming a peripheral issue on which there was no clear Qur’anic ruling into a central one, served to construct his variant or a sub-system of Islam. The newly invigorated concept elevated to the position of a necessity of the faith then became the distinguishing feature of the Wahhabi School, distinct from others.

39 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 93. 40 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 93. 41 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 43. 42 Abdul-Wahhab, pp. 46–7, 82–5. 43 Abdul-Wahhab, pp. 96–8. 154 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

Embracing ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s newly discovered dogmas further became the litmus test of belief and disbelief for his followers. One of the central themes in Sangelaji’s writings was the importance and primacy that he attached to the Qur’an as the foremost evidence or proof of any ruling or pronouncement. In his time, Sangelaji’s main objective was to redraw attention to the Book as the most privileged source of Islamic inferences and deductions. Consistently minimizing the role of reports, in view of their authenticity, Sangelaji considered the discourse which placed almost complete emphasis on reports as problematic and deviant. His analysis of the question of raj‘at or the return of the dead is a case in point. Throughout his writings Sangelaji tried to free the Qur’an from the reports, which in his view, were used capriciously and selectively by jurists to explain the Book and at times even superseded the Book. Subjecting the acceptability of reports to the test of the Qur’an and reason, Sangelaji replaced undependable and weak reports with the Qur’an and reason. Whereas in his arguments and rulings, Sangelaji relied on reason second to the Qur’an, ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s position on reason was muddled. Ibn Abdul- Wahhab assailed certain superstitious activities of his times, while he upheld others. He maintained that true dreams were similar to ‘revelations’ and that they could become a ‘reason for initiating some rulings in the Shariah’.44 This type of analysis, which could make religious rulings contingent upon the contents of someone’s dream, the recollection of their dreams or the fabrication of dreams was not only arbitrary, but more importantly was cut off from Qur’an and reason, the two major sources of Islamic conduct according to Sangelaji. By placing their reliance primarily on reports, ibn Abdul-Wahhab and his followers relapsed into either ignoring and rejecting reason or employing it in an ad hoc and arbitrary manner. Opposition to reason and rationality was said to be one of the main features of Wahhabi thought.45 Sangelaji’s consistent reliance on the Qur’an and human reasoning sets him very much apart from ibn Abdul-Wahhab. In stark contrast to ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s reliance on reports and his proclivity for desisting from employing reason, Sangelaji questioned the reports, challenged the hadith-based school and praised the use and application of reason. Sangelaji did not reject the use of hadiths. However, he argued that popularized innovations and heresies had replaced authentic reports thereby obscuring the Tradition of the Prophet.46 Sangelaji claimed that lucky were those who understood the objectives of the faith and were able to ‘distinguish innovations

44 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 144. 45 Rezvani, p. 32. 46 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 6. Was Sangelaji a Wahhabi? 155 or heresies (bed‘at) from the Sunna’, thereby reforming whatever had become contaminated in the Traditions of the Prophet.47 Sangelaji rejected the rulings that flowed from contaminated reports and the discourses constructed upon them. For Sangelaji, the Qur’an was the prime source for guiding Muslims as it was a pedagogical book for the welfare of humankind as well as a text which developed the rational capacities of human beings.48 Sangelaji’s emphasis on the Qur’an was therefore twofold: the irreplaceable role that its content played in guiding human beings to felicity and its inherent quality of ripening and developing human reasoning. It was because of the Qur’an’s dual function of securing material and spiritual, earthly and otherworldly felicity that Sangelaji argued that replacing the Qur’an with other sources only caused deviation and misguidedness.49 In terms of methodology, Sangelaji’s emphasis on the Qur’an and then reason set him in opposition to ibn Abdul-Wahhab. Furthermore, Sangelaji’s concern with Islam as a holistic educational process, where mundane happiness and welfare is recognized and valued along with felicity in the hereafter, is different from ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s perception. While the followers of ibn Abdul-Wahhab fought against the adoption of modern technology such as the wireless and telegraphy, arguing that it was the work of Satan, for Sangelaji such scientific achievements were the natural outcome of human knowledge based on reasoning, promoted by the Qur’an.50 Sangelaji recognized that the Qur’an was not a technical book on identifying microbes, a book of astronomy or a book on industry and crafts.51 To understand and find solutions for emerging material problems of humankind, Sangelaji relied on the application of human reasoning matured by the ethical values imparted to humankind by the Qur’an. To him, spiritual and material well-being in the modern world required the knowledge of the Qur’an and the application of human reasoning. On these fundamental aspects of religious outlook, Sangelaji could hardly be considered a Wahhabi, the religious chief of which in the 1930s believed that the earth was flat.52 However, on the issues of privileging reports as the main legal source for deriving Islamic judgements and solutions and belittling human reasoning as a defective instrument for problem-solving, a close affinity could be detected between the Shi‘i proponents of hadith or the akhbariyoun, and the Sunni

47 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 7. 48 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 37. 49 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 24. 50 Commins, p. 97. 51 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 37–9. 52 Commins, p. 96. 156 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran proponents of Sunna (ahl-e hadith) such as the Hanbalis, certain Shafi‘is and the Wahhabis. Irrespective of their fundamental differences on the validity and legitimacy of the source of reports, in practice these Islamic schools implicitly considered hadith as the, or a, most important proof or evidence of law. According to Mohammad Amin Astarabadi, the founder of the Shi‘i Akhbari school, the most important and indispensable source of law was the tradition of the imams, which allowed for a correct understanding of the Qur’an and the words of the Prophet. Without such reports, ‘the Qur’an would remain beyond human comprehension and could not serve as a source of law’.53 Sangelaji’s Qur’an and reason-based Shi‘ism was fundamentally at odds with both Shi‘i and Sunni sympathizers of the hadith-only paradigm. What is most ironic is that Majlesi and ibn Abdul-Wahhab share a common hadith- based, anti-rational methodology, which Sangelaji strongly opposed. Ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s reliance on reports, in the tradition of Hanbalis along with his engagement in unconventional sectarian Islamic pronouncements on the basis of his own opinion (ra’y), is rather paradoxical. As a Hanbali, ibn Abdul- Wahhab should have steered clear from any type of independent reasoning. Yet his unprecedented rulings on certain rituals were primarily based on his own independent opinion and at times supported by controversial reports. Ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s breaking of rank with past jurists on the issues which he argued led to unbelief was not in the tradition of Ibn-Hanbal. According to Schacht, the ‘inconsistency’ of rejecting imitation (taqlid) and retaining Hanbali positive law did not seem to trouble Wahhabis.54 At times, ibn Abdul-Wahhab opposed the abandoning of reports attributed to the Prophet just because of the opinion and ejtehad of Islamic jurists.55 Ibn Abdul-Wahhab seemed to reject the independent reasoning of jurists when they countered hadiths. But hadiths did not necessarily represent a homogeneous position on a single issue, providing him with the opportunity to find reports (irrespective of their authenticity) which supported his point of view and opposed other reports and the common view of the jurists before him. Even though at one level he seemed to be staunchly against innovations and in favour of imitation, at times, ibn Abdu-Wahhab warned against exaggeration in imitation, without clearly explaining what he implied by exaggerated imitation.56

53 E. Kohlberg, Belief and Law in Imami Shi‘ism, Aldershot: Variorum, 1991, p. 134. 54 Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991, p. 34. Qorbani, ‘Elm Hadith, pp. 72–3. On Abdul-Wahhab’s divine inspiration, see Commins, pp. 3, 12. 55 Amin, p. 136. 56 Amin, p. 136. Was Sangelaji a Wahhabi? 157

Ibn Abdul-Wahhab seemed to reserve the right of exercising independent thought uniquely for himself, especially when he could not find sufficient proof for his innovations even in the reports. It was probably at these moments that ibn Abdul-Wahhab ruled that ‘imitation or taqlid was a principle shared by the original and late infidels’ (those of the age of ignorance before the Prophet and those of the Najd during ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s life).57 Ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s long list of prohibitions in the realm of rituals is sufficient proof of his reliance on rulings based on his opinion and interpretation of reports. While chastising others for ‘heretical innovations’ and condemning them to polytheism and infidelity, ibn Abdul-Wahhab must have felt that his arbitrary practice of focusing on and prohibiting certain minor practices of the faithful was far from innovative or heretical. Ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s manner and method of ejtehad/ ra’y can be labelled as loose or careless in terms of following the strict rules of ejtehad. He is said to have lacked the necessary conditions and requirements entitling a person to exercise ejtehad.58 It is possible that this was the reason for which his learned Hanbali brother Suleyman bin Abdul-Wahhab accused Muhammad ‘of undertaking independent legal reasoning (ejtehad) without the necessary scholarly qualifications’.59 Suleyman is reported to have believed that his brother was void of any of the necessary qualities and qualifications for exercising ejtehad.60 It may be inferred that ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s rupture with the traditional Hanbali procedure of strictly abiding by reports and his promotion of non- traditional, innovative opinions was aimed at weakening the allegiance of believers to their traditional religious customs, thus paving the way for attracting his own followers. Ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s invitation as the ‘purifier’ of the faith needed a new and different religious angle and standpoint, distinguishing his ideas from those of other Islamic schools of thought. The claim by ibn Abdul- Wahhab that the degree of infidelity and polytheism of the Muslims living in his times (1740s) was much higher than that of the Quraysh, with whom the Prophet battled, was audacious.61 His warning against a new age of ignorance (jahilliya) seemed to imply that the Prophet’s mission had failed and therefore it was necessary for a new messiah to invite to Islam and battle against the polytheists. It is reported that those who accepted ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s faith were obliged to re-pronounce their Shahadah and were further compelled to

57 Seraj Monir, No. 3, ‘Ejtehad az negah Vahabiyoun’, Hamed Mohammad Khorasani. 58 Seraj Monir, No. 3, ‘Ejtehad az negah Vahabiyoun’, Hamed Mohammad Khorasani. 59 Commins, p. 22. 60 Seraj Monir, No. 3, ‘Ejtehad az negah Vahabiyoun’, Hamed Mohammad Khorasani. 61 Commins, p. 19; Rezvani, p. 317; Amin, pp. 151, 163. 158 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran give witness to the fact that they and their forefathers had been infidels.62 Finally, while Sangelaji’s life demonstrated his reticence about gaining access to any position of power and authority, ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s life testified to his thirst for power and his skills to manoeuvre for it.63

Attributes of God

Another key topic on which ibn Abdul-Wahhab and Sangelaji differed radically revolved around the old debate over the physical appearance and attributes (sefat) of God. While Sangelaji considered the Qur’anic verses referring to the physical attributes of God as symbolic and figurative and unrelated to God’s appearance, ibn Abdul-Wahhab believed in anthropomorphism. Based on a report, ibn Abdul-Wahhab upheld and confirmed his belief in the physical attributes of God, despite what he maintained to be the Ash’ariyah’s claim to the contrary.64 For ibn Abdul-Wahhab, God possessed bodily features similar to human beings. He resorted to a report by Jabir to affirm ‘Allah’s attribute of having a face’.65 Where references are made in the Qur’an to the hands of God, His throne (arsh) or His footsool (kursi) ibn Abdul-Wahhab interpreted such expressions literally and came to believe that God possessed physical attributes and belongings, as did human beings.66 Ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s literalist approach led him to argue that based on reports, the distance between heaven and earth was 500 years, ‘the distance between one heaven and the next was 500 years and the dimension of each heaven would take 500 years to travel, and there is a sea between the seventh heaven and the Throne’.67 Sangelaji, on the contrary, lashed out at those who presented a literal and superficial interpretation of the Qur’anic verses in which mention was made of God’s attributes. He labelled them as dogmatic believers in external appearances and maintained that they were incapable of understanding the essence, subtleties and purpose of the Book. He argued that those who thought that God possessed hands, eyes and ears were assuming that God had attributes similar to human beings thus falling into the trap of (tajsim)

62 Amin, p. 163. 63 Commins, pp. 17 (Abdul-Wahab and his father), 19 (Abdul-Wahhab and Ibn Saud’s political alliance). 64 Abdul-Wahhab, pp. 24–6. 65 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 164. 66 Abdul-Wahhab, pp. 188–91. 67 Abdul-Wahhab, pp. 190–92. Was Sangelaji a Wahhabi? 159 anthropomorphism.68 For Sangelaji, anthropomorphism was one of the four features of the ghollat or the Shi‘i exaggerators, whom he held responsible for distorting the faith, by fabricating hadiths. To Sangelaji, the exaggerators who believed in anthropomorphism, as ibn Abdul-Wahhab did, were heretics. The Qur’anic verses referring to God’s attributes, according to Sangelaji, intended to provide people with a physically palpable and tangible account of an otherwise invisible and abstract truth.69 For Sangelaji, such verses were perfect examples of analogous verses (moteshabehat) the real meaning and intent of which could only be interpreted and understood by referring these verses to the definitive and categorical verses (mohkamat) of the Qur’an. The categorical and definitive verses, Sangelaji argued, demonstrated that God was unique. There was nothing similar to God and since He was neither born nor gave birth to any being, He could not conceivably possess attributes similar to His creations.70 The purpose of the references to God’s physical attributes in Qur’an, Sangelaji argued, was to enable the ignorant masses, only capable of grasping concrete concepts through their senses, to visualize, actualize and realize Him. Otherwise, Sangelaji reiterated that God has no substance, place or colour through which He could be located or felt.71 Expounding his concept of monotheism not only in terms of belief in one God, but also in the act of worshipping one God, which is similar to ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s notion of monotheism, Sangelaji clearly demarcated his own position from that of ibn Abdul-Wahhab on the key issue of what ought to be worshipped. Sangelaji argued that monotheism implied the affirmation that God was free of all conceivable physical attributes. He ruled that God could not have a physical or material existence and therefore could not possess a face.72 Ibn Abdul-Wahhab, however, maintained that ‘whoever denies any of the attributes of Allah, would be ruined’.73 On the issue of God’s attributes, Sangelaji and ibn Abdul-Wahhab stood in stark opposition to one another.

Disbelief, Retributions and Sectarianism

Another key issue pitting Sangelaji against ibn Abdul-Wahhab was the difference between the two on their definition of belief and the repercussions

68 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 47. 69 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 81. 70 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 82. 71 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 76. 72 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 14–15. 73 Abdul-Wahhab, M., Kitab At-Tauhid, p. 137. 160 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran of disbelief. Ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s mission was at first focused on combatting what he labelled as jahilliya traditions, encapsulated in a series of rituals ranging from wearing rings and slaughtering animals to seeking good fortune from the veneration of shrines and seeking intercession and favours from them. These acts, as innocent and innocuous as they may have been, were considered as a serious rejection of monotheism and the slipping into idolatry by ibn Abdul-Wahhab. To him, such acts implied the worship of some powers besides or aside from a single God. Muslims engaged in acts prohibited by ibn Abdul-Wahhab were considered as major idolaters and disbelievers. Even though he referred to the distinction between lesser and greater polytheism, ibn Abdul-Wahhab never pursued or elaborated on the idea, leaving behind the thought that his distinction was only a formality and that for him lesser polytheism was equally reprehensible as greater polytheism. Ibn Abdul- Wahhab ruled that the punishment of those engaged in polytheistic practices was death because in practice they had failed to deny idolatry. The fact that such individuals affirmed the unicity of God and performed their prayers along with the other obligations of the faith, did not change the fact that in ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s eyes they were unbelievers worthy of death. Ibn Abdul- Wahhab moved rapidly from admonishing to passing swift judgement. As has been mentioned, he ruled that sorcerers or magicians were unbelievers (kafar) and deserved to be executed. He even barred the possibility of grace and clemency through repentance.74 Without any clear or concrete reason or evidence from the Qur’an ibn Abdul-Wahhab added minor details to the necessities of the faith. Based on certain reports he ruled that shedding tears and bewailing a dead person was an act of unbelief (kofr) as the act of mourning demonstrated displeasure with God’s designs.75 Even though, in the text under consideration, ibn Abdul- Wahhab did not specify the punishment for this act of unbelief he did reiterate that there was a ‘punishment promised to the bewailing women’.76 Labelling the Muslims who disobeyed his ‘new necessities’ as unbelievers, ibn Abdul-Wahhab ruled that in the name of Islam Muslims should be put to death and their wealth should be confiscated.77 Assuming that ibn Abdul-Wahhab considered all those reprehensible acts, which he came to label as prohibited, as acts of polytheism and ruled that the punishment for some of those acts was execution, it would be justified to argue that he left open the possibility of a similar punishment for acts

74 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 98. 75 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 123. 76 Abdul-Wahhab, p. 113. 77 Amin, p. 198; Moussavi Qazvini, p. 74. Was Sangelaji a Wahhabi? 161 such as bewailing the dead, vilifying or defaming one’s lineage, calling on others besides Allah for help and practising astrology.78 Ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s inflexible and categorical position on those who did not comply by his rulings was in line with that of his predecessor and source of imitation, Ibn Taimiyeh, who believed that building shrines on the graves of the dead as well as intercession were polytheistic acts and if those who engaged in such acts did not repent (towbeh) their punishment was death.79 This process of transforming and elevating minor and peripheral aspects of the faith to necessities of the faith and its subsequent ossification into an ideology supported by state political power corresponded with Majlesi’s approach. Sangelaji’s relatively moderate discourse and method, however, was opposed to both ibn Abdul-Wahhab and Majlesi. One of the central issues in Sangelaji’s writings was to dispel and refute the Majlesi School’s transformation process of elevating details to the level of doctrine and necessities of Shi‘ism, subsequently castigating and punishing believing Muslims, who did not abide by the new principles, as so-called infidels. Sangelaji’s position on what constituted belief and disbelief may also seem rather ambiguous at first. Similar to ibn Abdul-Wahhab, he too established ‘new quasi-necessities’, demanding adherence to them as a prerequisite to proper belief. Sangelaji identified circumambulating, genuflecting and prostrating as acts of worship. He subsequently ruled that those who testified to one God and Mohammad as his Prophet would be considered as polytheists if they engaged in such acts in relation to anyone or anything but God.80 In contrast to ibn Abdul-Wahhab, Sangelaji did not pronounce worldly punishments for the acts, which he verbally categorized as polytheistic. Also distinguishing between minor and major polytheism, Sangelaji maintained that major polytheism applied to an individual who worshipped another individual, while minor polytheism applied to those who considered that individuals and things other than God may have the powers and capabilities of God. For Sangelaji, seeking intercession from anyone but God, demanding the fulfilment of wishes from others than God and believing in the protective or curative powers of objects such as rings and trees were all examples of minor polytheism.81 Sangelaji wrote that whoever placed his trust (tavakol) in the prophets, angels or the imams and held them as intermediaries, requesting them to intercede on his behalf was kafar to the text of the Qur’an and the

78 Abdul-Wahhab, pp. 61, 98, 100, 123. 79 Rezvani, p. 56. 80 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 22. 81 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 36. 162 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran consensus of the Islamic community.82 Aside from its usual meaning of disbelief, the term kafar, particularly in the manner in which Sangelaji used it in his sentence, could also mean that a person engaged in such acts ignored or hid the text of the Qur’an and the consensus of the Islamic community. If it is assumed that Sangelaji intended to use the word kafar, implying disbelief, it would be fair to expect him to mention or hint at the reprisal or punishment he envisaged for such acts of unbelief. Yet Sangelaji remained completely silent on what he believed to be the punishment of the polytheists. By placing those practices, which he considered as deviant and polytheistic in the category of minor polytheism, Sangelaji intended to minimize the possibility of others using his arguments as an excuse to levy heavy worldly punishments on possible offenders. Sangelaji heeded against what he labelled as idolatrous acts but at no point did he claim that the blood and property of the transgressor was forfeit, as ibn Abdul-Wahhab had done. Sangelaji’s call on the Shi‘i not to venerate and worship their shrines was the same as that of ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s message. However, Sangelaji neither pronounced a worldly penalty for those who venerated shrines nor did he demand reprisals against the shrines. In the early 1800s, however, the Wahhabis desecrated Muslim shrines in Mecca and Medina.83 Sangelaji presented a highly tolerant view of Islam, in contrast to ibn Abdul- Wahhab’s. Sangelaji maintained that in Islam, testifying to the existence of a single God was sufficient proof of being a believer.84 In the same style, he recognized that even though monotheism should also be proven through worshipping God alone, the pinnacle of worship and the foundation of belief was encapsulated in the proclamation that there is only but one God.85 Sangelaji reiterated that anyone who believed in the three pillars of Islam – monotheism, Prophethood and the Day of Resurrection – had to be respected as a believer, irrespective of his or her Islamic creed.86 Islam, according to Sangelaji was a religion of facility and ease, which intended to dispel hardship, strictness and rigidity. Therefore, he argued that the easy edicts and rulings of the faith assuring human comfort needed to be privileged over the difficult and harsh rulings.87 Sangelaji’s concern with the selection of religious edicts facilitating the life of believers was open-minded, indulgent and clement. On the prime issue of what made

82 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 113. 83 Amin, pp. 29, 45–6. 84 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 194. 85 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 19–20. 86 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 1 Day 1313. 87 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 1 Day 1313. Was Sangelaji a Wahhabi? 163 the life and property of a Muslim inviolable, Sangelaji sided with those Muslim scholars who maintained that proclamation and affirmation of the unicity of God was a sufficient condition. Whereas ibn Abdul-Wahhab considered the spilling of the blood of another Muslim, under the pretext of idolatrous acts, an acceptable Islamic practice, Sangelaji viewed such a position as un-Islamic and fratricidal. While both ibn Abdul-Wahhab and Sangelaji engaged in the Islamic principle of ‘enjoining good and forbidding evil’, ibn Abdul-Wahhab chose the sword and Sangelaji the word as the means of successfully fulfilling their religious responsibility. In his writings, Sangelaji’s tone and style was one of guidance, counsel and advice. For him, Islam was a faith constructed on invitation and in its interface with the people, it was not meant to rely on threats and coercion, but on reflection.88 Sangelaji believed that according to the Qur’an, the Prophet’s responsibility was to remind the people of Islamic laws and not to pressure or force them to become believers in God.89 He advocated discussion and argumentation as the Qur’anically justified means of convincing people. In his works, there is no reference to coercion and violence as justifiable or necessary means of resolving problems or changing people and society. Sangelaji assumed that the common folk were misled and deceived because they were ignorant of the true teachings of the faith. He argued that once believers were informed and enlightened of the facts, they would change their old ways.90 For him, the polytheistic ways or acts of the masses could be corrected and rectified without recourse to worldly punishments. If there was to be blame for wrongdoings, Sangelaji held the clergy, the spiritual guides and teachers of the common folk as responsible for religious deviations in society.91 Sangelaji’s indulgent and clement perception of the faith was clearly at odds with ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s highly strict approach. Whereas Sangelaji believed in the power of the word to raise consciousness and awareness, ibn Abdul- Wahhab relied on the fear of the sword. One of Sangelaji’s major criticisms of actually existing Shi‘ism was its narrow-mindedness towards dissent. This same criticism may be equally applicable to ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s unequivocal call to the unquestioning and strict following of his rulings. Sangelaji lamented the homogeneity imposed by the clergy and wrote ‘when the light of reflection struck someone’s mind and he would utter the word why or ask the reason for something, they would immediately excommunicate him and rule on

88 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, p. 3. 89 Farid, Eslam va Raj‘at, pp. 3–7. 90 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 63. 91 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, pp. 59, 163. 164 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran his apostasy’.92 Those intolerant opponents of speculative and independent reasoning who would throw ‘the learned unfortunate to the flames’ were the ascetics, priests and the clergy (kahenan, ahbar, rahban), whom Sangelaji characterized as ‘the despots of the land and corruptors of nature and life’.93 For Sangelaji, the forceful imposition of ideas on believers through the threat of excommunication and execution was un-Islamic and inhuman. In his public sermons, Sangelaji referred to the key verse in the Qur’an, stating that, ‘let there be no compulsion in religion’.94 He argued that the Qur’an prohibited compelling people to blindly accept and follow. For Sangelaji, one needed to understand and grasp the logic of edicts before accepting them. Rebelling against exclusiveness and superstition, Sangelaji’s Islam and Shi‘ism was based on the assumption that individuals did not need to prove their religiosity through newly defined necessities or orthopraxy, as long as they claimed their faith and engaged in righteous acts. Both ibn Abdul-Wahhab and Majlesi articulated new sets of necessities and requirements for being a Muslim, defined Islam according to their newly established criteria and ruled that those who did not fulfil the said criteria were deviants and unbelievers. Both clerics disseminated their ideas through close alliance with political powers, thus guaranteeing the imposition of their rigorous definition of the faith not only through the fear of religious excommunication, but through the military force of the state. Contrary to Sangelaji, both ibn Abdul-Wahhab and Majlesi greatly benefited from their attachments to political power and the patronage of rulers during their life-times. During his life-time, Sangelaji did not become the official religious theoretician of any ruler or state nor did he obtain worldly benefits from his ideas. Finally, ibn Abdul-Wahhab not only considered the People of the Book as idolaters, but believed that the Muslims of his time and age were greater idolaters than the polytheists of the jahilliya period before the Prophet’s invitation.95 It is reported that on 24 occasions, ibn Abdul-Wahhab addressed Muslims, other than Wahhabis, as mushriks or polytheists.96 The fact that Abdul- Wahhab considered the blood and property of the polytheists, according to his criteria, as forfeit, partially explains the hostile attitude of Wahhabi’s towards those who were religiously different from them. While ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s Islam was based on an exclusivist, xenophobic, intolerant and ultimately violent

92 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 174. 93 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 174. 94 Namee’ Kanoun Sho‘ara, 1 Dey 1313, Qur’an 2:256. 95 Amin, p. 161. 96 Amin, p. 161. Was Sangelaji a Wahhabi? 165

Islam, bent on converting the polytheists (non-Wahhabis) and saving their souls, Sangelaji’s reading of Islam was rational, inclusive and indulgent. Sangelaji believed that Islam was the law (Shari‘at) of humanism as it endowed humans with free will (horiyyat nafs), knowledge and reason.97 In order to enlighten the people, Sangelaji claimed to employ a method of argumentation in Islam that was founded on reason and logic (aql o manteq). According to this Islamic method, since reason and logic were held as fixed criteria of judgement, whatever was reported (naql) in the form of hadiths which contradicted reason had to be reconciled with it through interpretation (ta’wil).98 As such, Sangelaji’s reason- based, humane and moderate Islamic discourse, interested in both the spiritual and material well-being of Muslims, remains irreconcilable with ibn Abdul- Wahhab’s Islam.

97 Sangelaji, Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’, p. 169. 98 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 93–4. This page has been left blank intentionally Chapter 9 Sangelaji’s Legacy

Sangelaji was neither a typical spiritual nor political cleric. Spiritual clerics of his time were usually absorbed in the study of traditional Shi‘i books of reference, giving the same courses at the seminary schools and providing proper guidance to their followers on minor details and practicalities of traditionally approved correct Islamic conduct and behaviour in the private realm. They were usually too involved with the minute intricacies of performing rites and rituals that they neglected the social and political conditions around them. Detached from the developments and changes in their own society and faced with the increasing influence of foreign ideas, concepts and products, most may have felt that their role was not to change society but to assure the pious conduct and salvation of their flock and that what they taught and practised was sufficient to keep their followers within the faith. The spiritual clerics were usually the upholders and guardians of a conventional Shi‘ism, privileging caution and vigilance with a penchant for maintaining the status quo in both the religious and political realm. They were mostly involved in seminary schools, educating the future members of the clerical establishment. Politically, the high-ranking spiritual clerics of Sangelaji’s time tried to coexist peacefully with the powers to be. In order to defend the independence and integrity of the religious realm and the seminary schools from possible incursions of political powers, the high-ranking spiritual clerics opted for political quietism. If the political quietism of the high- ranking clerics was due to the potential aggressiveness of the political order, the high-ranking clerics were also exposed to the unpredictable and potentially aggressive reaction of their followers, causing them to adopt a different kind of quietism: religious quietism. If long-ingrained religious customs and traditions, which had come to be considered as hallmarks and identifiers of Shi‘ism, were suddenly questioned by high-ranking clerics as non-Islamically condoned practices which also hindered the self-reliance and individual initiative of believers, the common folk could either rebel against their religious leaders and throw their support behind those who continued to support such practices, or see their faith shattered and their beliefs undermined. The great fear of either possibility forced the majority of Shi‘i 168 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran clerics to become religious quietists. Religious quietism was a somewhat different kind of taqiyyeh (dissimulation). Political taqiyyeh was practised to protect the Shi‘i against the violence of those in positions of political power and authority with religious persuasions hostile towards the Shi‘i. Political taqiyyeh was exercised when openly challenging and confronting the hostile religio-political authority seemed unreasonable and even suicidal. In effect it was a realist, pragmatic and conservative policy of self-preservation in a hostile political environment. Religious taqiyyeh, however, implied avoiding and warding off serious questioning of certain dearly held popular Shi‘i ideas and practices. In this sense, religious taqiyyeh was employed not to preserve the faith against the enemies of the faith, but to preserve a popular faith, which may have become distorted and incapable of coping with rising social issues and problems, from critical friends of the faith. Religious taqiyyeh seemed also necessary for the preservation of the leading role of the clerical establishment. Opening a dialogue on identifying possible problems with the practice of the common folk seemed too dangerous in view of their possible reactions. Mainstream Shi‘i clerics thus became highly sensitive to any questioning of the common people’s state of belief and manner of practice. In general and in public, they became the defenders of popular Shi‘ism and opposed the examinations and questionings of potentially reformist clerics. Reforming the faith became synonymous with opposing the faith. Sangelaji, as many before him, belonged to that category of clerics who believed that the religious quietism of the clergy and their blanket support of the common practices and beliefs of the Shi‘i would in the long run be detrimental to the faith. Sangelaji believed that in time, given socio-economic development, the people would come to pose fundamental questions regarding certain practices and that it was best for the clergy to initiate the reform process in order to guarantee the faith of the people in the future. For Sangelaji, the Shi‘ism of the common folk in the future would fundamentally question the popular Shi‘ism of his time. Sangelaji was interested in examining, reforming and changing actually existing Shi‘ism. Once this objective was attained, he believed that the outlook and perception of the people and finally their spiritual and material condition would automatically change for the best. His objective, however, was not only to reform Shi‘ism but to assure the material progress and well-being of the Shi‘i as well as their spiritual development. For him, religion was equally responsible for the advancement of human beings in the spiritual domain as their progress in the material domain. Sangelaji identified the compartmentalization of knowledge into the religiously acceptable and unacceptable and the promotion of the former and condemnation of the latter as one of the reasons for the reverses Islam had experienced in its recent history. Sangelaji criticized the ‘hidebound Sangelaji’s Legacy 169 and ignorant jurists’ (motefaqehey-e jamed) because they prevented the people from studying natural and pure sciences as well as philosophy.1 Sangelaji argued that once ‘hidebound jurists’ ruled that the study of the sciences were forbidden (haram), ‘Muslims fell behind from the caravan of progress and became dim- witted’.2 Fusing religious reformation with socio-economic progress, Sangelaji argued that once reason and the power of reflection was empowered, which was the object of the Qur’an, then human beings would be able to acquire the sciences and the technical skills which they needed for their progress.3 Sangelaji envisioned a sequential process whereby Shi‘i reformation would result in socio- economic and political development and progress. In his search for transforming the people and returning them to the caravan of progress, Sangelaji needed to start with what he believed was causing the people to become dim-witted. For him, political and economic change without a transformation in the people’s religious perception, which played a key role in their world outlook and vision of life, was not a viable solution. Throughout his works, Sangelaji sought to dispose of those deep-rooted superstitious beliefs and practices which he believed had obscured Shi‘ism, distorting its message and mission and consequently dimming its appeal. Having distinguished between two opposing Shi‘i discourses, monotheistic and polytheistic, Sangelaji differentiated between the proponents and propagators of these two paradigms and ultimately criticized the upholders of what he believed to be a distorted, superstitious and polytheistic Shi‘ism. Sangelaji referred to those mainstream Shi‘i clerics, whose Shi‘ism was rooted in the Majlesi discourse and believed in the inability of the people to reflect and reason without the aid of the clergy, as ‘charlatans and merchants of religion’, who distorted God’s religion and engaged in misinformation. Arguing that the mission of the Prophet was to educate and enlighten the popular masses, Sangelaji deplored the pulpits used by Shi‘i preachers from which only superstitions were propagated and the audience was deceived.4 Sangelaji accused such preachers of being illiterate and ignorant of the faith and its ways.5 It was the Shi‘i discourse, rooted in Majlesi’s writings which Sangelaji felt obliged to reform. In one of his sermons, Sangelaji referred to a report repeated by preachers, according to which, after the return of the Twelfth Imam, ‘Ayesha, the wife of the Prophet, known among the majority of Muslims as the ‘mother of believers’

1 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 165. 2 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 165. 3 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 37. 4 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 29 Aban 1313. 5 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 29 Aban 1313. 170 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran would also return and be lashed for the wrong she was reported to have committed against Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet.6 This report is found in Majlesi’s works but Sangelaji does not name him.7 Deploring such outrageous contentions, Sangelaji inquired why the preachers were not ashamed of such remarks and allegations. Addressing the ‘gentlemen of the pulpits’, namely the clerics and the preachers, he warned that, ‘you have drawn your swords and are forcing the people out of the Shi‘ite faith’.8 Sangelaji condemned the fact that so many unacceptable reports were attributed to Shi‘i imams by a group of charlatans, who had taken the affairs of the religion into their own hands.9 Sangelaji’s harsh words were a direct assault against the Shi‘i establishment and their followers. Whereas the popular Majlesi discourse wished to glorify Shi‘ism and impress naïve believers by proving that the Prophet and the imams were all capable of miraculous and supernatural feats, Sangelaji extolled and promoted the faith for its roots in what he considered as ‘rational miracles’. Each, Sangelaji and Majlesi, was the product of the conditions and concerns of his own epoch, appealing to a different audience with different sensitivities, educational backgrounds, social consciousness and ultimately dissimilar levels of socio-economic development. Majlesi believed that by convincing his predominantly uneducated public that the Prophet was capable of physically ascending to heaven (me‘raj), splitting the moon into two pieces with his fingers and reviving the dead, he was earning respect and reverence for the faith.10 The more fantastic and far-fetched the attributed miracles of the Prophet and imams, the more unique, powerful and attractive Majlesi believed the faith would become. By converting the idea of the Prophet’s ascent to heaven into an article of the faith and hence a necessity, Majlesi must have believed that he was rendering a real service to Shi‘i Islam.11 Appealing to rational believers, Sangelaji argued that the Prophet did not support his claim to Prophethood by invoking his ascent to heaven (me‘raj) or the splitting of the moon.12 Sangelaji reminded his audience that Muhammad himself claimed that his greatest miracle was the Qur’an. To guarantee the sustained interest, conviction and faith of believers, Majlesi had institutionalized an orthopraxy essentially based on the veneration

6 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 29 Aban 1313. 7 Majlesi, Haq ol-Yaqin, p. 347. 8 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 29 Aban 1313. 9 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 1 Day 1313. 10 Majlesi, Haq ol-Yaqin, pp. 25–9. 11 Majlesi, Haq ol-Yaqin, p. 30. 12 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 22 Aban 1313. Sangelaji’s Legacy 171 of imams. Visiting, idolizing and venerating the graves and shrines of imams and their progeny was elevated by Majlesi to an obligation (wajeb) of Shi‘ism.13 The pilgrim who visited Imam Hoseyn’s grave would, according to Majlesi, be exculpated of all his sins.14 The ritual practices that were elevated to the status of religious obligations created a common bond and identity among the participating believers. It allowed Iranian Shi‘i to distinguish themselves from all other Muslims. Intent on maintaining and highlighting the specificity of popular Shi‘ism, the Majlesi discourse defined piety according to the performance of very particular rituals and belief in novel dogmas. The Shi‘i identity propagated by Majlesi and his later proponents became enmeshed with the belief in the dominating and leading role of the clergy. One of those ceremonies singled out by the Majlesi discourse as a salient feature of Shi‘ism and endowed with inexplicable properties, deserving unaccountable rewards, was that of mourning and wailing. This ritual along with pilgrimage to the shrine of imams and their offspring became a conspicuous characteristic of popular Shi‘ism. Drawing from the works of previous compilers of reports, the Majlesi discourse maintained that the act of mourning and shedding tears for the imams, especially Imam Hoseyn, would absolve sinners from all their wrongdoings.15 Mourning and weeping would not only result in the fulfilment of the needs and wishes of the grieving person, but would also save individuals in the hereafter from punishments for wrongful acts committed during their lives.16 Attributing a report to the Prophet, Majlesi proposed that God had promised those who mourned and shed tears a special palace in heaven close to the abode of the prophets.17 Based on compiled reports, Majlesi prompted the Shi‘i to regularly engage in mourning ceremonies, where tears would be shed, even if one was to force oneself to weep.18 Majlesi promised that whoever laments and mourns the martyrdom of Imam Hoseyn, while causing someone else to shed a tear, even if the tear shed was as small as ‘the wing of a fly’, will certainly have a place reserved in heaven.19 To Sangelaji, the causal relation and logical association between the rituals of shedding tears or visiting shrines and the immediate absolution of all sins, guaranteeing the sinner a place in heaven, was illogical and untenable. Sangelaji

13 Majlesi, Hayat al-Qoloub, Vol. 5, pp. 245, 486–7. 14 M.B. Majlesi, Jala’ al- ‘Oyoun, Qom: Entesharat Sorour, 1373, p. 523. 15 Majlesi, Jala’ al ‘Oyoun, p. 525. 16 Majlesi, ‘Ayn al-Hayat, pp. 248–9. 17 Majlesi, ‘Ayn al-Hayat, pp. 366–7. 18 Majlesi, ‘Ayn al-Hayat, p. 249. 19 Majlesi, Jala’ al ‘Oyoun, pp. 522–3. 172 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran sought to replace such reasoning based on ‘causal polytheism’ with rational causal relations. Sangelaji argued that whoever engages in righteous acts would receive his appropriate rewards and whoever does wrong will be punished both in this world and the hereafter. Referring to the Qur’an, Sangelaji posited that individuals were responsible for their acts, being rewarded or punished according to their acts.20 Challenging the discourse which effectively minimized the damage of wrongful acts by preaching that ‘past and future’ sins would be forgiven if tears were shed, even if they were ‘deceitful’ ones, Sangelaji argued that such propositions corrupted society.21 For Sangelaji, the Shi‘i needed to expect material well-being from their rational efforts and productive labour instead of placing their hopes in rituals promising unverifiable material results. They also needed to realize that their position in the hereafter was the outcome of their righteous acts here. By pressing the Shi‘i to reflect on the material and spiritual merits of their inherited rites and rituals as well as the traditional criteria of piety and virtue, passed down to them, Sangelaji sought to make the Shi‘i take responsibility for their condition and station in life. Once the Shi‘i could replace their reliance on irrational rituals and recommendations with rational initiative and enterprise, Sangelaji believed that they would regain their sense of self-reliance and dignity necessary for their material and spiritual development. Rebutting Majlesi’s contention that ‘weeping would result in the realization of demands and wants’, Sangelaji responded that if an ignorant person was to weep a thousand years, God would not grant him knowledge.22 To obtain knowledge one needs to seek it and act on it. In his sermons, Sangelaji criticized the popular Shi‘i tradition of publicly mourning the imams, a custom that had come to represent pious behaviour since the Safavid dynasty.23 Sangelaji argued that grieving was a private and personal matter best conducted in the private sphere. For Sangelaji, only obligatory religious rites could be acted out in the public domain.24 As if responding to all illogical claims of previous Shi‘i jurists including Majlesi, Sangelaji wrote, ‘these ugly teachings robbed the people of their free will and weakened them in front of the charlatans, preventing the human rational faculty (aql) from reflection on, enquiring about and investigating the truths’.25 For Sangelaji, it was the Qur’an, the Book of Life, which liberated human beings

20 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 4 Bahman 1313, 26 Bahman 1313. 21 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 4 Bahman 1313. 22 Majlesi, ‘Ayn al-Hayat, p. 248. Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 26 Bahman 1313. 23 M. Mirahmadi, Din va Mazhab dar Asr Safavi, Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1363, p. 80. 24 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 7 Esfand 1313. 25 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, p. 175. Sangelaji’s Legacy 173 from the bondage of blind obedience and granted them free will, requiring them to employ and apply their reasoning.26 Sangelaji applied his understanding of the Qur’an to issues which he believed needed to be rationally explained. Having grappled with the lengthy occultation of the Twelfth Imam, Sangelaji provided a metaphorical explanation for the return and rule of the Twelfth Imam. Based on the belief that the material world evolved through an upward spiralling motion tending towards perfection, Sangelaji argued that human beings went through different stages of progress until they reached ‘human perfection’. Once the Prophet had completed his mission of imparting spiritual and ethical education to human beings, humanity was left with the task of excelling in the material domains.27 Sangelaji argued that the promised day of the reign of the Twelfth Imam was in effect the day on which humanity was to attain the promised state of ‘perfect rationality’.28 According to Sangelaji, the return of the Twelfth Imam symbolized and signified that historical moment when human progress and welfare had reached its apex. As an insider and a man of the frock, Sangelaji’s caustic criticism of Iranian popular Shi‘ism was somewhat of a novelty in the first decades of twentieth- century Iran. Intent on preventing the newly educated Iranians from deserting their faith, Sangelaji sought to dispel the notion that genuine Shi‘ism was nothing other than Majlesi’s Shi‘ism. To unearth the gem of Shi‘ism as distinct from Majlesi’s Shi‘ism, Sangelaji had to chop off what he thought were the attachments, additions and supplements introduced and woven into the faith throughout its long history. In Majlesi’s widely popularized works, Sangelaji found an encapsulation and crystallization of unjustifiable and irrational attachments and additions. Focusing on the proper tools to arrive at belief, Sangelaji maintained that a rational understanding of the Qur’an along with a commitment to performing righteous acts beneficial to society were more tangible signs of belief than orthopraxy and imitation. Sangelaji’s modern Shi‘i discourse aimed at retaining the interest of educated urban Iranians in the creed. Uninterested in founding or forming an organization around his ideas, Sangelaji’s subversive religious discourse remained popular only among his close circle of disciples and did not permeate the Iranian society. It could be argued that his counter- current religious propositions were too controversial and unconventional for the sensibilities of the Iranian masses as well as the clerical establishment who were still predominantly influenced by a Shi‘ism which Sangelaji considered not only

26 Sangelaji, Kelid Fahm Qur’an, pp. 3, 175, 179, 239. 27 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 6 Azar 1313. 28 Nameh Kanoun Sho‘ara, 6 Azar 1313. 174 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran as deviationist but spiritually and materially unconducive to the development of the modern believer. After his death, his distinctly modernist and rational religious ideas were neither properly developed nor systematically presented. Sangelaji’s approach to voicing his criticisms as well as the content of his formulations did, however, leave a significant imprint on those later modernists who followed his suit in seeking to reform Shi‘ism. Sangelaji neither transgressed the clear boundaries of Islam nor undermined the unquestionable Shi‘i pillars of Justice and Imamate. He took issue with mainstream Shi‘ism not over the concept of Imamate, but over what he believed to be an over exaggeration of the personality and status of imams, leading to imam worshipping, an act which the imams themselves had reportedly condemned repeatedly. Sangelaji’s writings attempted to demonstrate that the Majlesi propagated veneration and adulation of imams, sometimes putting them on par with the Prophet Mohammad, sometimes rising them above the station of other Prophets and at times implicitly elevating them to a status partially resembling that of the Creator, was not part and parcel of Shi‘ism. To Sangelaji, the superstitious, far-fetched and bizarre literature generated and popularized among the popular masses, around the whole theme of super-human imams and their supernatural way of life, blunted the wits of the people, occupying their minds with irrationalities neither useful for their worldly welfare nor for their salvation in the hereafter. To Sangelaji, the religious education and moulding of an obedient, blunt-witted public, enabled the interpreters of the words and acts of imams, to maintain their religio-political supremacy and advance their social and economic interests. To disassociate the imams from the irrationality and superstition that was in Sangelaji’s opinion falsely attributed to them in the form of reports, he identified the source of the problem as the plethora of Shi‘i reports and challenged their validity wherever and whenever he could. By separating the imams from the reports attributed to them, he sought to assure his educated audience that the superstitious and fantastical accounts which were reproduced over and over again in hadith compilations as the exact words of the imams were in fact mostly fabrication ascribed to them. Undermining the pivotal role of reports, Sangelaji argued for a return to the Qur’an and the application of reason. His mission, viewed by mainstream clerics as a treacherous act of ‘back-stabbing against Shi‘ism and the clergy’ could also be interpreted as a self-sacrificing act to make a solid bridge between Shi‘ism and Iran’s growing educated city-dwellers.29 To save the faith of the educated, Sangelaji the cleric felt the need to highlight

29 For a critique of Sangelaji after the Iranian revolution, see Abolhasani (Manzar), Shahid Motahhari Efshagar Tote’eh, p. 174. Sangelaji’s Legacy 175 the rationality of the faith while undermining the irrationalities that had he argued was injected into it. Instead of tackling each so-called necessity added on to Shi‘ism by compilers of reports, Sangelaji chose the examination of raj‘at or the Return of the Dead as an example of a well-established Shi‘i necessity among the popular masses. Based on his examination of the reports presented by Majlesi in support of raj‘at, Sangelaji demonstrated that a case did not exist for considering raj‘at as a necessity of Shi‘ism. Sangelaji was well aware of the fact that his controversial discourse would anger a good number of mainstream clerics. He was not only challenging what had become a popular Shi‘i orthodoxy but was also questioning the religious knowledge, opinion and status of those mainstream clerics who claimed a consensus on the issue of the unassailability of raj‘at as a necessity of the faith. The position of Ayatollah Ha’eri, the highest religious authority of the land at the time, in effect demonstrated the gulf within the Shi‘i clerical establishment. Ha’eri’s bold decision to break with religious quietism by supporting Sangelaji’s right as a Shi‘i Muslim to question and even reject raj‘at, made an important dent in dismantling the secondary layer of religious obligations. Ha’eri’s ruling broke the straightjacket which the Majlesi discourse had long imposed over Shi‘i orthodoxy and orthopraxy. By permitting Sangelaji to differ and diverge on legal opinions in the non-fundamentals of the faith and refusing to censure his opinion as heretical, Ha’eri rejected a monolithic reading of the faith and upheld the right of divergence, criticism and dissent (ekhtelaf ). Ha’eri’s fatwa, a landmark, demonstrated that contrary to the prevalent Shi‘i discourse, which often repressed dissent with the threat of excommunication and unbelief, learned Shi‘ism was tolerant of criticism. In the tradition of reformers, Sangelaji believed that by identifying and eradicating the irrationalities and aberrations that had come to shape the popular belief system of the people, he could rectify and revive Shi‘ism as what it was supposed to be. Firmly believing in his own view and perception of the faith, Sangelaji was not willing to leave the ground to those whom he believed had corrupted it. Sangelaji had to defy, debate and rebut those who rejected the faith, such as Kasravi, as well as those who believed that he himself had transgressed the barriers of being a Shi‘i. The great challenge for Sangelaji was to remain within the faith which he believed in and make his arguments through reliance on the higher authority of the Qur’an. Sangelaji’s position as a dissident and heterodox Shi‘i as well as a defender of Shi‘ism, complicated the task of the official custodians of the faith. The clerical establishment could deal with greater ease and severity with those whom they could categorize as rejecters of the faith than a clerical contestant who remained faithful yet challenged the actually existing Shi‘ism from within. This page has been left blank intentionally Bibliography

Works in Persian

Abolhasani (Manzar), A., Shahid Motahhari, Efshagar Towte’eh (Tehran: Daftare Entesharat Eslami, 1362). Al-Ahmad, S., Az Cheshm Baradar (Qom: Entesharat Ketab Sa‘adi, 1369). Amin, M., Wahhabiha, translated by Seyyed Alawi (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1376). Bastani Parizi, M.-E., Aftab Zareen Fereshtegan (Qom: Entesharat Khorram, 1377). Bigdeli, A., Be monasebat Yekomin Sal Rehlat Shari‘at (Tehran: Taban, n.d.). Bodala, H., Haftad sal Khatereh az Ayatollah Seyyed Hosein Bodala (Tehran: Markaz Asnad Enqelab Eslami, 1378). Chahardehi, N., Vahhabiyat va rishehhay an (Tehran: Entesharat Fathi, 1363). Enayat, H., Seyri dar Andisheh Siyassi Arab (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1370). Eslami, Q., Ashk va Khoon (n.p., n.p., n.d.). ―― Rowhaniyat (n.p., n.p., n.d.). Faiz-ol-eslam, Rahbar Gomshodegan (n.p., n.p., n.d.). Farid, A., Eslam va Raj‘at (Tehran: Danesh, 1318). Kasravi, A., Varjavand bonyad (n.p., n.p., 1322). ―― Zendegi Man (Piedmont, CA: Jahan Books, 1990). ―― Dar Piramoun Eslam (n.p., n.p., 1322) [online], available at: Kasravi.info/ ketabs/piramoneslam/peslam.htm/. ―― Goft o Shenid (Tehran: Chapkhaneh Peyman, 1323). ―― Dar Pasokh Bad Khahan (Tehran: Chapkhaneh Peyman, 1323). ―― Ma cheh mikhahim (Tehran: Ketabforoushiy Paydar, 1339). Khan-Mohammadi, Y., Tafsir Siyasiy-e Qur’an dar Iran Moaser (Qom: Pajouheshgah Oloume va Farhang Eslami, 1392). Khomeyni, R., Kashf-al-Asrar (n.p., Nashr-e Zafar, n.d.). Koleyni, Usul Kafi, translated by Haj Seyyed Javad Mostafavi, Vols 3 and 4 (Tehran: Entesharat Golgasht, 1375). Mahdavi, M.B., Zendeginameh ‘Allameh Majlesi, Vol. 1 (Tehran: Vezarate Farhang va Ershad Eslami, 1378). 178 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran

Majlesi, M.B., ‘Ayn al-Hayat (Tehran: Eslamiyeh, n.d.). ―― Ekhtiyarat (Tehran: Eslamiyeh, n.d.). ―― Haq al-Yaqin (Tehran: Entesharat Rashidi, n.d.). ―― Molhemeh (Tehran: Eslamiyeh, n.d.). ―― Bahar al-Anwar, translated by Mousavi Khosravi, Vol. 7 (Imamat) Part Five (Tehran: Eslamiyeh, 1364). ―― Heliyat al-Mottaqin (Tehran: Ketab forushiye Eslamiyeh, 1373). ―― Jala’ al-‘Oyoun (Qom: Entesharat Sorour, 1373). ―― Hayat al-Qolub, Vol. 2 (Qom: Entesharat Sorour, 1375). ―― Hayat al-Qoloub, Vol. 5 (Qom: Entesharat Sorour, 1376). ―― Majmou‘eh Rasael E‘teqadai (Mashhad: Astan Qods Razavi, 1376). ―― Bahar al-Anwar, Vol. 13 (Tehran: Eslami, 1377). Mashkour, M.J., Farhang Feraq Eslami (Mashhad: Entesharat Astan Qods Razavi, 1368). Mehrizi, M. and Rabbani, H., Shenakhtnameh ‘Allameh Majlesi, Vol. 1 (Tehran: Entesharat Vezarate Farhang va Ershad Eslami, 1378). Mirahmadi, M., Din va Mazhab dar Asr Safavi (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1363). Modaressi, M., Simaye Bozorgan (Tehran: Sharq, 2535). Modaressi Chahardehi, M., Seyyed Jamal-eddin va Andishehhaye Ou (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1381). Moussavi Ghazvini, H., Naqdi Bar Andisheh Vahhabiyan (Tehran: Sazeman Chap va Entesharat Vezarat Farhangh va Ershad Eslami, 1374). Nabavi Razavi, S.M., Tarikh Makhtum (Tehran: Pardise Danesh, 1393). Najmabadi, M., Tahrir al-‘Oqala (Tehran: Armaghan, 1312). Nashriyeh Shomareh Panj (Darotabliq Eslami, Tehran: Chapkhaneh Taban, n.d.). Qomi, A., Montahi ol-Amaal (n.p., Hellal, 1376). ―― Mafatih al-Jinan, translated by Moussavi Kalantari Damghani (Tehran: Simin, 1376). Qorbani, Z., ‘Elm Hadith (Qom: Entesharat Ansarian, 1370). Rezvani, A.A., Salafigari va pasokh be Shobahat (Qom: Entesharat Masjed Moqadas Jamkaran, 1387). Safari Foroushani, N., Ghallian (Mashhad: Astan Qods Razavi, 1378). Sangelaji, S., Kelid Fahm Qur’an (Tehran: Entesharat Danesh, n.d.). ―― Eslam va Mousiqi (Tehran: Entesharat Danesh, 2535). ―― Towhid Ebadat ‘Yekta Parasti’ (Tehran: Chapkhaneh Danesh, 2535). ―― Mahv-ol-Mohoum (Tehran: Chapkhaneh Taban, 1323). Saraj Ansari, M., Shi‘i cheh Migouyad (Tabriz: Ketabforoushi Banihashem, Ramazan 1385). Bibliography 179

Soroush, A., Qabz o Bast Teorik Shari‘at (Tehran: Sarat, 1370). Tabataba’ie, M.H., Tafsir Al-Mizan, Vols 1, 3 and 8 (Tehran: Reja’ va Amir Kabir, 1376). Tahajom be Rohaniyat va Hozehaye ‘Elmiyeh, Vol. 1, n.a. (Tehran: Ghadr Velayat, 1379). Taleqani, M., Partovi az Qur’an, jeld sevom (Tehran: Sherkat Sahami Enteshar, 1358).

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Richard, Y., ‘Shari‘at Sangelaji: A Reformist Theologian of the Rida Shah Period’, in S. Amir Arjomand (ed.), Authority and Political Culture in Shi‘ism (New York: State University of New York Press, 1988). Schacht, J., An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991). Siddiqi, M.Z., Hadith Literature (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1993). Index

Abduh, Muhammad, 3, 43, 47 Europeanization, 19, 20 Akhbari, 36, 152, 155, 156 Faiz-ol-esalm Esfahani, Ali-Naqi, 35–6 Al-Ahmad, Jalal, 53, 54 Faramarzi, Abdolrahman, 52 allegorical verses, 112, 113 farangestan (monthly journal), 19, 20 Allen, George, 55 Fardid, Ahmad, 52 Ansari, Sheykh Morteza, 15, 138 fatalism, 65, 66, 131 aql (reason), 5, 19, 25, 28, 29, 51, 73, 75, five basic necessities of the faith, 27, 83 76, 85, 87, 95, 104, 109–22, 126, five solas, 4 130, 138, 151, 152, 154–6, 165, 169, 172, 174 Ghazali, Mohammad, 27, 28, 83 Asadabadi, Seyyed Jamal-eddin, 11–16, ghollat (exaggerators), 99, 100, 102, 103, 25, 47, 73 127, 135, 137, 159 ascetics, 63, 65, 87, 131, 164 Graham-Cook, Neola, 54

Bazargan, Mehdi, 11, 52 hadith (report), viii, 4, 5, 19, 20, 51, bed‘at (innovation), 100, 119, 146, 147, 68–70, 78–80, 91, 94–107, 111, 149, 154–7 112, 137, 149, 151–6, 159, 165, 174 Christians, 2, 3, 6, 7, 63, 87, 152, 153 Ha’eri, Ayatollah Sheykh Abdolkarim, 33–5, 38, 139, 175 darotabliq (centre or abode of haj (pilgrimage to Mecca), 22, 27, 29, 40, propagation), 17, 24, 25, 30, 36, 105, 118 52, 54 Hakamizadeh, Ali-Akbar, 37, 38, 52 Day of Judgement, 67, 120, 133, 134, 136, hava (whim), 118, 122 138 human reasoning, 5, 25, 36, 72, 73, 95, disease of imitation, 118–20 110, 120, 121, 151, 154, 155 ejtehad/ijtihad (application of independent ibn Abdul-Wahhab, Muhammad, 57, thought), 15, 16, 25, 82–5, 94, 95, 143–65 152, 156, 157 interpretation, 4, 23, 41, 53, 59, 66, ‘elm (knowledge), 75, 120 68–70, 73, 81–4, 94–6, 98, 99, Entezam, Abdollah, 52 104, 112, 115–17, 135, 137, 138, Eslami, Sheykh Qasem, 37 146, 151–3, 157, 158, 165 eta‘at (compliance/obedience), 5, 75, 81, Iranshahr (monthly journal), 20 84, 86, 118, 120, 121, 173 Islamic law, 61, 97, 152, 163 182 Shi‘i Reformation in Iran jahilliya (ignorance), 9, 57, 157, 160, 164 moqaled (lay follower), 84, 88 Jews, 14, 87, 100, 101, 102, 152, 153 Mosahab, Gholam-Hoseyn, 52 mosleh (reformist), 2, 36, 47 kafar (unbeliever), 148, 160, 161, 162 Mosta‘an, Hoseynqoli, 29, 52, 140 Kasravi, Ahmad, 11, 37–9, 43–50, 92, moteshabehat (allegorical/analogous 106, 150, 175 verses), 112, 113, 159 Kaveh (the journal), 18–20 music, 59–62 Kazemzadeh, Hoseyn (Iranshahr), 20–22, mutawatir (indubitable reports), 104–6, 121 137, 138 Khajehnourie, Ebrahim, 52 Khareqani, Asadollah, 23 Najaf, 12, 15–17, 33, 54, 55 Khomeyni, Ayatollah Ruhollah, 11, 29, Najmabadi, Hadi, 12–16, 25 34, 37–42, 50, 52 nationalist-nativist modernists, 20, 22 kofr (disbelief ), 14, 145, 146, 148, 160 Koleyni, Mohammad ibn Ya‘qub, 78, 97, occultation, 53, 136, 140, 141, 173 103 ‘olama/ulema (Islamic jurists), 21, 31, 50, 61, 76, 88, 132 Lankarani, Mostafa, 23, 24 Luther, Martin, 1, 2, 6, 7, 85 Pahlavi, Reza Shah, 15, 16, 18, 20, 23, 27, 29, 30, 33, 34, 35, 41, 42, 50, 52, Majlesi, Mohammad-Baqir, 36, 37, 40, 41, 53, 61 51, 66, 69, 77–80, 91, 102–4, 107, pakdini (clean faith), 44–7 111, 112, 114, 115, 125–9, 133, parasitic class, 62–4 134, 136–8, 140–42, 144, 156, piety, 24, 40, 41, 65, 67, 71, 77, 89, 101, 161, 164, 169–75 131, 171, 172 Majlesi School, 169, 83, 104, 107, 111, priests, 8, 9, 58, 85, 87, 89, 101, 102, 109, 112, 125, 128, 129, 137, 161 119, 120, 121, 133, 135, 148, 164 Makki-Nejad, Taqi, 53–4 Protestant, 2–8, 10 maslahat (expediency), 28, 72 pseudo-clerics, 31, 63, 101 modernists, 20, 22, 35, 43, 49, 82, 109, 111, 112, 117, 174 Qajar, Ahmad Shah, 34, 35 modernization, 3, 18–21 Qajar, Mozaffar-eddin Shah, 11, 12, mofsed (corruptor), 36, 164 Qajar, Nasser-eddin Shah, 12, 14 mohkamat (definitive/indisputable verses), Qomi, Sheykh Abbas, 104, 126, 127 113, 159 Qutb, Seyyed, 11, 57 Mohtadi, Fazlollah (Sobhi), 52 mojtahed/mujtahid (Islamic jurist), 14, 16, rahbaniyat (asceticism), 63 69, 84, 88 raj‘at (return of the dead), 36, 53, 68, 69, monafeq (hypocrite), 36, 91, 99, 100 100, 123, 135–9, 141, 154, 175 monotheism, viii, 8, 10, 39, 46, 48, 52, 55, Rashid Rida, Muhammad, 3 58, 65, 67, 68, 71, 77, 86, 87, 89, rationalists, 51, 116 96, 101, 109, 123, 124, 127, 128, ra’y (personal opinion), 82, 94, 151, 156, 130, 135, 143–5, 148, 149, 150, 157 159, 160, 162 reason and revelation, 110 Index 183 reba/riba (usury), 59, 62–4 Sunna (Tradition of the Prophet), 4, 5, reformist, viii, 2–5, 12, 13, 16, 23, 37, 42, 92–4, 98, 104, 107, 111, 112, 141, 47, 48, 62, 64, 68, 111, 122, 137, 151–3, 155, 156 143, 168 superstitious ideas, 68, 72, 85, 96, 99, 100, return to the Qur’an, 5, 71, 72, 132, 135, 111, 140 174 revolutionary, viii, 1, 15, 62, 64 Tabataba’ie, Seyyed Mohammad-Hoseyn, righteous acts, 6, 7, 30, 41, 52, 65–7, 123, 66 126, 130, 131, 133, 164, 172, 173 Tagore, Rabindranath, 29, 30 riya (false pretention), 131 takfir (excommunication), 13, 57, 139, rowhaniyat (clerical establishment), 18, 21, 143, 145, 164, 175 22, 25, 33–5, 37–9, 50, 63 Taleqani, Ayatollah Mahmud, 52, 54, 67 Sahabi, Yadollah, 52 Taqizadeh, Hasan, 19, 20 Saleh, Ali Pasha, 52 taqlid (imitation), 68, 84, 118–20, 156, Sangelaji, Hasan (Sheykh Hasan), 11, 12, 157 14, 15, 16, 19 tashbih (anthropomorphism), 100, 103, Sangelaji, Mohammad, 14 116, 158, 159 Sangelaji, Mohammad-Mehdi, 30 torbat (piece of clay), 39 shahadah (give witness), 145, 157 shafa‘at (intercession), 6, 9, 36, 41, 65, 68, velayat/Al-Wilayah (clerical guardianship/ 101, 123, 125, 132–6, 143, 148, rule), 85, 96 149, 160, 161 Shari‘ati, Ali, vii, viii, 37 Wahhabi, 35, 36, 39, 41, 107, 143, 144, shedding tears, 68, 104, 160, 171 146, 150, 152, 153–6, 162, 164 shirk (polytheism) Westernization, 22 causal, 132, 172 greater, 124, 125, 160, 164 Zaryab Khoie, Abbas, 52 lesser, 124, 125–31, 134, 160