ISLAM AS an IDEAL MODERN SOCIAL SYSTEM (A Study of Ali Shariati’S Thought)

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ISLAM AS an IDEAL MODERN SOCIAL SYSTEM (A Study of Ali Shariati’S Thought) ARTIKEL ISLAM AS AN IDEAL MODERN SOCIAL SYSTEM (A Study of Ali Shariati’s Thought) Abstract This article reexamines Ali Shariati’s thought in formatting ,slamic social order. The discussion is important in lighting discourses on Islamic society which is now being evaporated but has new challenges in new circumstances and time of the Muslim community. By taNing the texts translated from Shariati’s EooNs and articles this study descriEes and analyzes the format of Shariati’s thought, what are being rejected by him, and what is the formulation being proposed by him in order to develop Islamic community. Finally, it also contextualizes Shariati’s thought with what Eeing happened in its time in direction to project to our time. Keywords: Shariati, Islamic Thought, Islamic Resurgence. M. Taufiq Rahman A. Introduction [email protected] The coming back of the West to be politically involved in Muslim Dosen FISIP UIN Sunan Gunung Djati regions such as Tunisia, Syria, Iraq, Bandung Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan has made the pillars of the civil establishment in such Muslim countries shaken. It remains us of the emergences of freedom movements in the early modern time in the Muslim countries which had achieved their freedom life out of the Western occupation. At that time Muslim intellectuals dig their reference to Islam concerning the statecraft. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, Muhammad Iqbal, and Muhammad Asad were the pioneers of this intellectual movement. Followed by Sayyid Qutb and Abu al- ‘Ala al-Maududi, and Ali Shariati among others, this enterprise was strengthened. To this, reopening our intellectual storage of the reconstruction of Islamic order in the modern world is extremely needed today, that is, the time of restructuring Islam as the ideology of the Muslim community (ummah). In this case, referring back to Shariati as a leader of 42 intellectual movement calling for Religions, Existentialism, and going back to Islam in the 20th century Martyrdom.4 in the Iranian context could be a Shariati was a modern Muslim relevant thing to study. thinker. He uttered his own conviction about Islam in modern B. Shariati in Modern Iran terms for the modern audience. And In modern Iran, Shariati is he had his own heroes. The Muslim acknowledged as one who brought modernists being modeled by Shariati young generation to Islam.1 Next to are Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (d. 1897), Khomeini, Shariati was the most the influential ideologue of anti influential figure in Islamic movement Western imperialism; Muhammad carrying Iranian Islamic revolution of Abduh (d. 1905), the force behind the 1979.2 He was even called as the initial religious reformist movement of ideologue.3 Egypt in the early 20th century; and Ali Shariati (1933-1977) was Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938), the great born in Mashad, Iran, from a modern reformer of Indian Muslims standing preacher family. He studied in for activism and creative self- Mashad and Paris, where he got titles realization.5 of B.A., M.A., and doctorate in the fields of Persian literature, sociology, C. Method of Thought and history of religions. He was the To know closer on what founder of The Liberation Movement Shariati persuaded at his time we of Iran Abroad and the main figure of should identify, firstly his way of Husayniyah Irshad Institute in thought. There are some Tehran. He was Mailed Ey Shah’s characteristics in Shariati’s method of regime in 1970s and, then, he moved thinking: Islamic humanism, class to London where he passed away struggle, dialectical, radical, and wise mysteriously with a perception that (hikmah). there was Shah’s secret police Shariati has an idea of Islamic (SA9A.)’s involvement. Among his humanism. Here, Islam should speak writings translated and studied of manNind as a God’s creature living throughout the Muslim world are in order to develop civilization. He What Is To Be Done?, On the Sociology of says that “it was therefore necessary Islam, Man and Islam, Marxism and that religion should speak in images Other Western Fallacies, The History of and symbols that would become comprehensible with the development of human thought and science.”6 1 Bazargan and Ayatullah Mutahhari mentioned it in their letter read after the 4 Shahrough Akhavi, Religion and Politics death of Shariati. Chehabi, H. E., Iranian in Contemporary Iran: Clergy-State Relations Politics and Religious Modernism: The in the Pahlavi Period, Albany, New York: Liberation Movement of Iran Under the Shah 1980, pp. 144-7. and Khomeini, London: I.B. Tauris & Co. 5 Akhavi, op. cit., 146 quoting Shariati, Ltd., 1990, p. 70. Chih Bayad Kard? (What is to be Done?), 2 Ibid., 187. (Tehran: Husayniyah Irshad, n.d.), pp. 32- 3 Ayubi, Nazih, Political Islam: Religion and 42. Politics in the Arab World, London: 6 Shariati, Ali, On the Sociology of Islam, tr. Routledge, 1991, p. 147 quoting by Hamid Algar, Berkeley: Mizan Press, Abrahamian, 1988, 289-97. 1979, p. 72. 43 JISPO VOL. 6 No. 1 Edisi: Januari-Juni Tahun 2016 A dyadic view of society is stage.”9 Shariati admits his dialectics also Shariati’s method of thinNing. His as “a comparison in the differences view is social, historical and class between the truth and the reality of struggle.7 For instance, he the faith.”10 Conflict between Can and characterizes class struggle as human Abil will always exist in society. destiny and human history, which can However, in the end, Abel will win. It be symbolized in Cain (Qabil) and is explained by the intizar (waiting for Abel (Habil). Cain represents the messiah), as the synthesis.11 agriculturist and all exploiting class in In his theological thought, general, and Abel stands for Shariati tends to interpret Islam in “primitive communism” of pastoralist liberal-radical style.12 Everyone can and all exploited class in general. As interpret Islamic texts. And he has the he says, reason: some of the commentators of The story of Cain and Abel the 4ur’an are Cain’s descendants. So, depicts the first day in the life in order to avoid it, we “should read of the sons of Adam on this the text itself and comprehend what it earth…as Eeing identical with says because it is the only document the beginning of contradiction, which has been saved from their conflict and ultimately warfare emEezzlement.”13 and fratricide. This confirms Finally, Shariati believes that the scientific fact that life, the true thought is not only based on society and history are based knowledge, but more importantly on contradiction and struggle, based on consciousness (hikmah). As and that contrary to the belief he says, “hikmah is the type of of the idealists, the knowledge or acute insight that was fundamental factors in all brought to mankind by prophets and three are economics and sexuality, which come to 9 Shariati, Az Kuja Aghaz Kunim?, p. 38 as predominate over religious quoted by Akhavi, op. cit., 152. faith, brotherly ties, truth and 10 Shariati, Ali, The Hajj, tr. by Ali A. 8 morality. Behzadnia and Najla Denny, (1977), Shariati’s social thought and Petaling Jaya, Malaysia: Islamic Book his theories are dialectical. He says Trust, 2003, p. xi. that the structure [matn] of society 11 “Our faith is true, is Must, is redeeming. consists in a dialectical contradiction. Our Book, our Prophet, our Way, the And that “this factor of contradiction Eest…. But Reality shows the opposite: and struggle between thesis and the people of Truth are defeated…. Intizar antithesis implies society to solves this discrepancy. By expecting the final triumph of Truth over Reality.” movement and draws it to revolution Intizar, 36-8 as quoted by Bayat-Philipp, and moves it forward, frees it and, 0angol, “Shi‘ism in Contemporary ultimately, enters it into a new ,ranian 3olitics: The Case of Ali Shari‘ati” in Kedourie, Elie and Haim, Sylvia G. (eds.), Towards A Modern Iran: Studies in Thought, Politics and Society, London: 7 Akhavi, op. cit., 152 quoting Shariati, Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1980, p. 162. Intizar-i Madhhab-i I‘tiraz (Tehran: 12 Ayubi, op. cit., 60 quoting Bezirgan, Husayniyah Irshad, 1971), p. 25. 1979. 8 On the Sociology of Islam, p. 104. 13 The Hajj, 158-9. 44 not by scientists or philosophers. This art and beauty (romanticism), is the type of knowledge and self- love for nothing consciousness that Islam talks about. (existentialism), love for land It not only trains scientists, but and blood (racism), love for conscious and responsible heroes and central government intellectuals.”14 And the conscious one (fascism), love for individuals is called as the Raushanfikr (the (individualism), love for all torchbearer, the scout).15 (socialism), love for economy (communism), love for D. Opposition wisdom (philosophy), love for Before proposing his own feeling (gnosticism), love for thinking about social order, Shariati heaven (spiritualism), love for was doing denial first. The things to existence (realism), love for be denied by him are: polytheism, history (fatalism), love for destructive Europe, blind-democracy, God’s will (determinism), love and quiet-ulama (religious scholars). for sex (freudism), love for Shariati refuses all kinds of instincts (biologism), love for polytheism whether it is old or new; the hereafter (faith), in a form of thought, feeling, action, superstitiousness of idealism, or culture. Here is his statement, as gluttony of economics … addressed to the common Muslims: These are the idols of the new Your enemy is not always polytheism. The new armed or an army. It is not civilization is like Lat, ‘8zza, necessarily a known outsider. Asaf and Na’ilah of the new It may be a system or a feeling, Quraysh!16 a thought or a possession, a way of life or a type of work, a Shariati blatantly refuses way of thinking or a working Europe with its destructive behavior, tool, a type of production or a for it “always speaks of humanity, Eut way of consumption, culture, destroys human beings wherever it colonisation, religious finds them.”17 Comprehensively, he brainwashing, exploitation, a describes Europe as a structure of social relation or propaganda.
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