Iran's tortuous path toward "Islamic liberalism"

International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society

Volumn 15, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 237-256

  Ashraf, Ahmad ^a   Banuazizi, Ali ^b  

^a Och Spine at New York Presbyterian Hospitals   (United States)

^b BOSTON COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

Intelligentsia; Iran; Islamic fundamentalism; Islamic Republic; Islamic revolution; Liberal Islam; Radical Islam; Shi'ism; Student movements; Women's rights

Indexed keywords

EID: 34247736766     PISSN: 08914486     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1012921001777     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. For different ideological orientations in the revolution, see, e.g., Hamid Dabashi, Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York, 1993);
2. and Ahmad Ashraf and Ali Banuazizi, "The State, Classes and Modes of Mobilization in the Iranian Revolution," in State, Culture, and Society, Vol. 1 (Spring 1985), pp. 3-40.
3. The text of Khomeini's lectures, collected and edited by his students, was published in the mid- 1970s and distributed clandestinely in Iran as: Emam Mousavi Kashef al-Qeta', Hokoumat-e Eslami and Velayat-e Faqih.
4. See also Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, translated and annotated by Hamid Algar, (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1981).
5. For a well-informed and insightful biography of Khomeini, see Baqer Moin, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah (London: I. B. Tauris, 1999).
6. Describing Khomeini's followers as "fundamentalists" requires a brief explanation. Fundamentalism, as it appeared in all major world religions (including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism) in the closing decades of the twentieth century, displays several core ideological and organizational characteristics. Deeply discontented with the secularizing forces in the modern world, the fundamentalists' ultimate goal is "to bring God back in" and establish a divinely ordered society. They are suspicious of and disdainful toward such manifestations of modernity as the secular state, the civil society (with its attitude of acceptance of non-orthodox religious practices and tolerance toward other religions), secular worldviews, and apolitical leadership within their own faith. For a concise analysis of fundamentalism as a universal phenomenon, see Gabriel A. Almond, Emmanuel Sivan, and R. Scott Appleby, "Fundamentalism: Genus and Species," in Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., Accounting for Fundamentalisms (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 403-424. The Shi'ite fundamentalist movement in Iran was started by a young charismatic religious student, Navvab Safavi, in the early 1940s, when he founded the clandestine and militant Devotees of Islam (Feda'iyan-e Eslam). His organization had a hostile attitude toward the then secular Iranian state and the highest ranking Shi'ite leader and "source of emulation," the Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Hosein Boroujerdi, on the grounds of the latter's apolitical stance. At the time, Ayatollah Khomeini was among a tiny group of high-ranking clerics in Iran who showed sympathy for the Devotees of Islam. Nearly two decades later, in the early 1960s, a number of veterans and sympathizers of this group founded the Coalition of Islamic Groups (Jam'iyatha-ye Mo'talefe-ye Eslami) and accepted the charismatic and increasingly militant Khomeini as their source of emulation and played a key leadership role in the 1963 urban riots, the revolutionary movement of 1977-79, and ultimately formed the core of the "fundamentalist" faction in the new Islamic regime.
7. For a concise account of the foundation and development of Fada'iyan-e Islam, their relation with the religious hierarchy and their legacy in the Islamic revolution, see Farhad Kazemi, "Fedaian-e Eslam," in Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. X: 470-74.
8. For two insiders' accounts of the formation and subsequent development of the Devotees of Islam and the Coalition of Islamic Groups by their founders and leaders, see Mehdi Eraqi, Nagoftaha: Khaterat-e Shahid Hajj Mehdi Eraqi [The Untold: Memoirs of the Martyr Hajj Mehdi Eraqi] (Tehran, 1978);
9. and Asadollah Badamchian, Heyatha-ye Motalefe-ye Islami [Coalition of Islamic Groups] (Tehran: Entesharat-e Mowj, 1992).
10. The text of the speech was first published in a pamphlet entitled, Shahidi Digar az Rouhaniyat [Another Martyr from the Clergy] (Najaf, Iraq: November, 1977), pp. 25-58.
11. For a comprehensive treatment of Bazargan's Freedom (=Liberation) Movement of Iran, see H. E. Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990).
12. The relationship between the liberal followers of Bazargan's group and Khatami's reform movement is presented by a clerical member of the group, the theologian Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari (currently in prison for his liberal views on Islam and his participation in the April 2000 Berlin Conference), in Yad-e Ayyam:Rouykardha-ye Siasi dar Jonbesh-e Eslahat [Memory of Those Days: Political Events in the Reform Movement] (Tehran, 2000).
13. For an excellent selection of writings by modern Muslim liberal thinkers, see Charles Kurzman, ed., Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
14. From Aristotle's Politics, in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy; Vols. 3 and 4 (New York: Collier-Macmillan, 1967), p. 299.
15. For an analysis of the social bases of the radical and conservative (fundamentalist) factions, see Ahmad Ashraf, "Charisma, Theocracy, and Men of Power in Postrevolutionary Iran," in Myron Weiner and Ali Banuazizi, eds., The Politics of Social Transformation in Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994), pp. 101-51.
16. For Khomeini's use of the leftist and populist language, see Ervand Abrahamian, "Fundamentalism or Populism?" in Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 13-38.
17. For a first-hand account of the 1977-79 revolution and the political crises of the first year of the Islamic Republic, see Mehdi Bazargan, Enqelab-e Iran dar Dow Harekat [Iran's Revolution in Two Moves] (Tehran, 1982);
18. and Mehdi Bazargan, Idem, Moshkelat va Masael-e Avvalin Sal-e Enqelab [The Difficulties and Problems of the First Year of the Revolution] (Tehran, 1980).
19. See, also, Shaul Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 1984);
20. and Mohsen M. Milani, The Making of Iran's Islamic Revolution, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994).
21. The taking of American hostages and the subsequent mobilization of "anti-imperialist forces" by the radical forces within the regime caused a deep split in the secular-leftist organizations, with one side advocating cooperation with the regime on the ground that it is engaged in an anti-imperialist struggle and the other side arguing that the regime is fundamentally reactionary and, as such, should be rejected and denied any cooperation by progressive forces. The ensuing internal conflicts weakened these groups and made them vulnerable to the final, crushing strikes by the Islamic regime in the early 1980s. For an analysis of the demise of the secular left in this period, see Maziar Behrooz, Rebels with a Cause: The Failure of the Left in Iran (London: I. B. Tauris, 1999), pp. 95-134.
22. The fall of Bani-Sadr began with the clashes between the supporters of the regime and Mojahedin and Fada'iyan organizations during a speech by Bani-Sadr on the campus of Tehran University in March, 1981. This incident led to a serious dispute between Bani Sadr and Ayatollah Khomeni, which led finally to Bani-Sadr's fall from grace and removal from presidency in June of 1981. For a detailed, official account of the episode, see Gha'ele-ye Chahardahom-e Esfand-e 1359: Zohour va Soqout-e Zedd-e Enqelab [The Dissension of the Fourth of March of 1981: The Rise and Fall of Counter-Revolution] (Tehran: Ministey of Justice, 1981[?]).
23. See Ervand Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989).
24. For an official account and biographical sketches of the leaders of the Islamic Republic who were assassinated by Mojahedin, see Islamic Propaganda Organization, Crimes of the MKO Terrorists in Iran: A Study of the Use of Terrorism, Force, Threats and Torture by the MKO Hypocrites (Tehran, 1983).
25. Tehran Times, 13 Feb. 1989 [English translation by the newspaper].
26. For a sympathetic appraisal of Iran's foreign policy in the post-Khomeini period, see R. K. Ramazani, "Reflections on Iran's Foreign Policy: Defining the 'national Interests," in John L. Esposito and R. K. Ramazani, eds., Iran at the Crossroads (New York: Palgrave, 2001);
27. a more comprehensive analysis of Iran's foreign policy since 1989 is presented in David Menashri, Post-Revolutionary Politics in Iran: Religion, Society and Power (London: Frak Cass, 2001), Chs. 6-8.
28. Despite Khomeini's personal qualifications, the creation of the position of supreme jurist was a matter of considerable controversy within the constituent assembly that was charged to draft a new charter for the Islamic Republic in 1979. It was ultimately pushed through after intense maneuvering by Khomeini's powerful clerical allies in the assembly and over the strenuous objections of those who were mindful of the authoritarian potentials of such an arrangement. For an insightful analysis of the dynamics of this process, see Asghar Schirazi, The Constitution of Iran: Politics and the State in the Islamic Republic (London: I. B. Tauris, 1997).
29. On the circumstances leading to the regime's erosion of legitimacy, see Ali Banuazizi, "Faltering Legitimacy: The Ruling Clerics and Civil Society in Contemporary Iran," International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, Vol. 8 (1995), pp. 563-578.
30. The resistance and activism of the poor, the rural migrants, and squatters during a period stretching from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s in the large urban have been chronicled and analyzed in Asef Bayat, Street Politics: Poor People's Movement in Iran (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
31. See Mehrdad Mashayekhi's "The Revival of the Student Movement in Post-Revolutionary Iran" in this issue.
32. Mehrdad Mashayekhi's "The Revival of the Student Movement in Post-Revolutionary Iran" in this issue. Ibid.
33. See Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Islam and Gender: The Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999).
34. For an overview of the situation of women since the revolution, see Nikki R. Keddie, "Women in Iran since 1979," Social Research, Vol. 67 (Summer 2000), pp. 405-438.
35. See Farideh Farhi's "Religious Intellectuals, the 'Woman Question' and the Struggle for the Creation of a Democratic Public Sphere in Iran" in this issue.
36. See Elaine Sciolino, Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran (New York: Free Press, 2000), pp. 249-260.
37. Morad Saghafi, Crossing the Deserts: Iranian Intellectuals After the Islamic Revolution," Critique: Journal for Critical Studies of the Middle East, No. 18 (Spring 2001), p. 44-45.
38. Jalal Al-e Ahmad, Plagued by the West (Gharbzadegi), translated by Paul Sprachman (New York: Caravan Books, 1982).
39. Negin Nabavi's recent essay on "The Changing Concept of the 'Intellectual' in Iran of the 1960's," Iranian Studies, Vol. 32 (Summer 1999), pp. 333-350, locates Al-e Ahmad's brand of intellectualism in the changing political context of the 1960s Iran.
40. See, also, Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996), pp. 52-76.
41. For a political and intellectual biography of Shari'ati, see Ali Rahnema, An Islamic Utopian: A Political Biography of AU Shari'ati (London: I. B. Tauris, 2000).
42. See Mahmoud Sadri's "Sacred Defense of Secularism: The Political Theologies of Soroush, Shabestari, and Kadivar" in this issue.
43. Also noteworthy are the essays by Farzin Vahdat, "Post-Revolutionary Discourses of Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari and Mohsen Kadivar: Reconciling the Terms of Mediated Subjectivity," Critique: Journal for Critical Studies of the Middle East, No. 16 (Spring 2000), pp. 31-54,
44. and Farzin Vahdat, Critique: Journal for Critical Studies of the Middle East, No. 17 (Fall 2000), pp. 135-157.
45. For a selection of Soroush's essays in English, see Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush., translated and edited by Mahmoud Sadri and Ahmad Sadri (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
46. For an analysis of the contributions of the reformed radical religious intellectuals, see Ahmad Sadri's "The Varieties of Religious Reform: Public Intelligentsia in Iran" in this issue.
47. For a carefully documented account of the 1997 presidential elections, see Ebrahim Ansari Lari, ed., Entekhab-e Haftom: Rouzshemar-e Haftomin Dowre-ye Entakhab-e Riasat-e Jomhouri-ye Eslami-ye Iran: Khordad-e 1375 ta Khordad-e 1376 [The Seventh Election: Daily Diary of the Seventh Presidential Elections of the Islamic Republic of Iran, June 1996-June 1997] (Tehran: Hamshahri Publications, 1997).
48. For an analysis of the post-1997 politics of factionalism, Sussan Siavoshi, "Authoritarian or Democratic: The Uncertain Future of Iran," Iranian Studies, Vol. 32 (Summer 1999), pp. 313-331.
49. For views of an influential conservative theoretician in the present factional debate, see Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, Jame-eh va Tarikh az Didgah-e Qo'ran [Society and History from the Perspective of the Qur'an] (Tehran: Sazman-e Tablighat-e Eslami, 1989).
50. For an analysis of the political roles of these foundations in the Islamic Republic, see Suzanne Maloney, Politics, Patronage, and Social Justice: Parastatal Foundations and Post-Revolutionary Iran (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 2000).
51. Iran Times [Washington], 20 July 2001, p. 1.
52. For an account of the various recent violations of human rights and other repressive measures by the Iranian government, see Human Rights Watch, Stifling Dissent: The Human Rights Consequences of Inter-Factional Struggle in Iran (New York: Human Rights Watch, May 2001).