Q. You were one of the first people, after Dr Shariati’s death,
to arrive at the house where he was staying and to see his lifeless
face before he was ultimately laid to rest. It seems that you’d had
an appointment to see him a day later but his death prevented it.
I’d like to ask you to begin by telling us about your plans for the
appointment that never took place.
A. Dr Shariati left Iran for France and we heard that he intended to
travel to Britain although it was still a secret. After a while, we
heard from Mr Minachi, who was a close friend of Dr Shariati and who
was in Britain at the time, that Shariati had arrived and was
staying at a friend’s house. We knew for certain then and, along
with Mr Minachi and another friend, we made plans to go and visit
him. My intention was just to see him and to introduce myself. I had
it in mind to arrange further, longer meetings after that, to
discuss some of the key, revolutionary issues of the time, and to
benefit from his presence in Britain. Unfortunately, the appointment
was deferred to the hereafter and the angel of death didn’t allow it
to take place.
Q. Had you never met Dr Shariati before? Did you not know him
personally?
A. I didn’t know him personally and I don’t think Dr Shariati knew
me or my name. I used to go to his talks and read his works. When I
was in Iran, I used to go to the sessions at the Hosseinieh Ershad
religious-cultural centre, but I’d never had the opportunity to
discuss things with Dr Shariati face-to-face. This is what made me
very eager and enthusiastic at the thought of him coming to Britain,
because it would give me a rare chance to meet him and to talk to
him. In Britain, Muslim and non-Muslim students used to meet
regularly and, at these sessions, Shariati’s books used to be
discussed. His works had become like text books and they were
constantly being discussed. I used to attend these sessions and, in
all truth, despite the great enthusiasm for Dr Shariati’s views and
the many positive points in his works, I also had some critical
views about them. All this made me very eager to see him. But, as I
said, our meeting was deferred to the hereafter.
Q. What was the basis of your critical views about Dr Shariati at
the time? Didn’t your closeness to the Hojjatieh Society and Mr
Halabi himself have a serious impact on your critical views
regarding Shariati? Were your criticisms of him at the time based on
a traditionalist perspective? And were you, for example, of like
mind with Ayatollah Motahhari, who felt that Shariati’s views were
open to criticism from the perspective of religious authenticity and
religious tradition?
A. To answer your question, I have to go back in my mind to about
thirty years ago. At the time, I didn’t know about the late
Motahhari’s criticisms of Shariati. Those parts of Motahhari’s
criticisms that are available in writing were published after the
revolution and they weren’t available to us or to anyone at the time
that we’re speaking about. As for the Hojjatieh, it was some years
since I’d left it and I didn’t see anything in Dr Shariati’s views
that was open to criticism from the perspective of the Hojjatieh
anyway; or, at least, I didn’t have any such criticism.
Q. So, what was the basis of your criticism?
A. At the time, when I was in Britain, my mind was full of Islamic
philosophy and Western philosophy. In Iran, I’d carried out some
studies into Islamic philosophy and I had acquainted myself, as much
as possible, with the views of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and, especially,
Mulla Sadra. And, in Britain, I was busy reading analytical
philosophy and the philosophy of science. If I saw any weakness in
the works of Dr Shariati, it was from this perspective; from the
perspective of Islamic philosophy and analytical philosophy. I
believed that, in his judgments, he sometimes extended and applied
ideas in ways that couldn’t be justified philosophically. Of course,
I had the exact same criticism of some of the views of the
Mojahedin-e Khalq. Don’t judge the Mojahedin then on the basis of
today’s Mojahedin; the Mojahedin then were like an untested
substance that bore an enticing whiff, and they had many supporters
among religious people and Muslims, as well as among the
non-religious and non-Muslims. They were seen as a very respectable
militant group. Some Mojahedin sympathizers were even of the view
that Dr Shariati was favourably disposed towards them and liked
their line, and that some of his talks were delivered with a view to
praising the martyrdom of some Mojahedin members. At the meetings of
student associations in Britain and the European Association of
Students, too, the Mojahedin’s views were being raised and
discussed. I had a critical view of their Epistemology. And a book
of mine, entitled Dialectical Opposition, which was published in
Iran, was a collection of several talks that I’d given in Britain in
which I’d levelled some criticism, directly, at the Mojahedin’s
viewpoint and, indirectly, at Dr Shariati’s views.
This was because Shariati, too, believed in the dialectics of
dialectical opposition in his analyses of social and historical
events, and he’d said so explicitly in his works. Hence, if you look
at that book, you’ll see that, in my criticism of the theory of
“dialectical opposition”, I’d absolutely not followed the path that
Ayatollah Motahhari had taken. My approach was very different and
based on ideas that I’d taken from the philosophy of science and
analytical epistemology.
Q. Did your entire criticism of Shariati rest on this basis?
A. My criticisms of Dr Shariati were two-pronged: one, from a
philosophical perspective, and the other, from an exegetic
perspective. I could see that, in Dr Shariati’s works, there were
very few references to the Koran and the Nahj al-Balaghah, and to
the ideas of Islamic thinkers as a whole. And I considered this to
be a serious weakness and shortcoming in his work, and the polar
opposite of the late Mehdi Bazargan, whose works were full of
Koranic references and verses. Today, I can say that what Dr
Shariati did was to produce a revolutionary Islam. But, at the time,
I didn’t have this interpretation. At the time, what I could see was
that, first, the role of the Koran and sacred Islamic texts was weak
and faint in his works. And, secondly, that, philosophically
speaking, too, his arguments were not sturdy. And, thirdly, even at
the time, I felt that the element of selectivity was very strong in
Shariati’s works; a ruinous selectivity.
Q. In what sense?
A. Dr Shariati would choose and adopt those elements from the
history of Islam and Islamic thought that were in keeping with his
aim, which was to make Islam revolutionary. I understood this point
more vaguely at the time and more clearly now.
Q. Can you give us an example?
A. Yes, for example, Shariati’s master stroke was to bring to life
the tale of Ashura and Imam Hussain, Zainab’s captivity and the
captivity of Imam Hussain’s kith and kin, and the events of Karbala
as a whole. He was, in all fairness, an expert - with a magical
touch - when it came to cultivating this story and bringing Shi’is’
blood to the boil; no one has been able to surpass him in this. But
the point that I think is open to criticism in all this is that Imam
Hussain’s way was an exception, not the rule, among Shi’i Imams and
Shariati turned this exception into the rule and a principle. If you
look at Imam Ali’s way - and, according to Shi’i belief, Imam Ali
was the direct inheritor of the noble Prophet of Islam’s mantle - he
had a different approach to the events that occurred. In the Nahj
al-Balaghah, we can see that even after the third caliph was killed
and the people went to see Imam Ali, he said: “Go and find someone
else for the job; it’s better if I’m a minister or an adviser than
if I’m the emir or ruler.” This was Imam Ali’s way. As to Imam
Hassan’s way, as you know it ultimately led to peace with Mu’awiyah.
And you can see the other Imams’ ways - none of them opted for war
and fighting. And even Imam Reza, for whatever reason, agreed to
become Ma’mun’s heir apparent. Perhaps from the ranks of the Shi’i
Imams, it was the seventh Imam who had a similar approach to Imam
Hussain to some extent and he spent most of his life in Haroun
al-Rashid’s prison and he ultimately died in that prison. So, from
the eleven Imams on hand - we can’t speak about the Hidden Imam in
this context - Imam Hussain’s way was an exceptional way in the
history of the Shi’i Imams. But Shariati made a blatant selection
and he wrote the history of Shi’ism in a way that no neutral
historian can possibly endorse. The history of Shi’ism mustn’t be
written from the perspective of Imam Hussain’s movement alone; his
movement was an exception in the history of Shi’ism, not the rule.
Of course, Shariati knew what he was doing. In order to construct a
revolutionary Islam or to reconcile Islam with revolution, he had
the utmost need for the events of Karbala; just as he had a similar
need for the figure of Abu-Zarr. From the entire history of Islam,
Shariati liked Abu-Zarr and he liked Imam Hussain. Of course, he
also had great respect for Imam Ali and he used to weep for his
aloneness. Perhaps, in Ali, with whom he shared a name, he saw a
father figure who personified and embodied his feelings. This
approach in Dr Shariati’s thinking made me critical of him.
Q. You mean to say that you had these criticisms at the time,
when you were in Britain, and you were aware of this aspect of Dr
Shariati’s thinking?
A. Yes, I had this criticism, even at the time, of his selectivity.
Q. In order to go into this in more detail, we can remind
ourselves of the different sets of people who were taking critical
stances towards Shariati at the time. Ayatollah Motahhari had this
same criticism; i.e., selectivity and not being correctly based on
our religious narratives. Then there was the Haqqani School, where
Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi - of course, often much more bluntly - was
describing Shariati’s perspective on religious matters as contrary
to Shi’i beliefs. And these criticisms of his had stirred up some
quarrels at Haqqani School. Then there was someone like Mehdi
Bazargan, who, although he had a different outlook on religion from
Motahhari and Mesbah-Yazdi, was not very optimistic about the
authenticity of Shariati’s religious views. And the fact that he and
Motahhari issued a critical statement about Shariati testified to
this dissatisfaction. Which of these factions did you feel closer to
at the time in your criticism of Shariati? To Mr Mesbah-Yazdi’s
faction? Mr Motahhari’s? Mr Bazargan’s?
A. At the time, I was hearing some things about what Mesbah-Yazdi
and Motahhari were saying, although the reports may not always have
been reliable. I heard that Mehdi Bazargan’s criticism of Shariati
was that he’d fallen under the spell of left-wing ideas. But I think
that Dr Shariati had taken Bazargan’s course to its ultimate
conclusion. But it seems that Bazargan’s course had some
difficulties, which Shariati tried to solve to some extent by making
Islam revolutionary. But the things that Mesbah-Yazdi was reportedly
saying - and I also saw him for a brief period in London - were very
different. Mesbah-Yazdi was very mistrustful and suspicious of
Shariati. And he used to make angry, unsubstantiated allegations
against Shariati, and considered his views to amount, more or less,
to blasphemy. As for Ayatollah Motahhari’s criticisms, as we later
saw plainly and explicitly, they were based on the contention that
Shariati was not knowledgeable enough about Islamic teachings. But
Motahhari later said some things in London that went further than a
scholarly stance against Shariati. He said that Shariati was openly
cooperating with SAVAK and that even his decision to go abroad was
coordinated and endorsed by SAVAK. And that Shariati was weaving
some plots and that, to this end, he intended to travel to other
Islamic countries. These were points that I heard directly from
Motahhari. Later on, I saw that Motahhari had written a letter to Mr
Khomeini - quite some time before Shariati’s death - in which he
said more or less the same thing, i.e., warning of a plot by
Shariati. And he even expressed pleasure over Dr Shariati’s death
and said that it was a kind of blessing from God. It goes without
saying that I didn’t agree with this kind of criticism of Shariati,
which was being made by Motahhari and Mesbah-Yazdi. But, at the
opposite end, Dr Shariati had friends and supporters who did not
allow the slightest criticism of him and indulged in all manner of
exaggerations about him; exaggerations that Shariati himself didn’t
like. And, in the midst of all this devotion and enmity, Shariati’s
position and ideas were not safeguarded and understood as well as
they should have been. Of course, we’re still in the throes of this
predicament, until a time when all the dust has settled and Dr
Shariati’s personality and works can be seen in a new light. I was
and am certain that Motahhari and Mesbah-Yazdi were going too far in
their assessments of Shariati, and that the signatures that they
collected against Shariati among the ulema - which sadly also
included the late Allameh Tabataba’i’s signature - was inappropriate
and improper.
Q. Did you not speak about this to the late Tabataba’i?
A. The impression that Allameh Tabataba’i had of Dr Shariati’s works
was very strange. When I saw Tabataba’i’s signature among the other
signatures, I became very keen to learn exactly what his view of
this whole affair was and why he was rejecting and denouncing
Shariati. Tabataba’i had written that, in the book entitled Kavir,
Shariati had used phrases that suggested that he was trying to stake
a claim to prophethood. I was very surprised by this view. Shariati
had written a poetic book and anyone who reads it understands that
everything he’s saying has a metaphorical, figurative and poetic
aspect. How could those writing be used to accuse Shariati of
staking a false claim to prophethood?
In those heated, seditious times, any impression and any occurrence
was possible. Let me add that we should weep over the living, not
over the dead. The late Shariati performed his work and left this
world, and criticism of him is a sign of his stature.
Q. At about the time when Dr Shariati passed away, Ayatollah
Motahhari was apparently visiting London. Did he attend the
ceremonies and services that were held there for Shariati?
A. Ayatollah Motahhari didn’t take part in those ceremonies and
services. Allameh Tabataba’i had come to London for medical
treatment about a month before Shariati died and I was acting as his
interpreter. I used to take him to the doctor and to hospital and
back. And, of course, it was a very happy time for me because it
gave me the chance to discuss some things with him privately and to
raise some questions that I had. Motahhari came to London towards
the end of Allameh Tabataba’i’s stay, which coincided with the days
after Shariati’s demise when a big march was held in London as a
sign of respect. And an empty coffin was carried aloft through the
streets followed by a huge crowd of young people, who had come from
all over Europe and the United States. It was a truly exceptional
and memorable image. At any rate, when Ayatollah Motahhari arrived
in London and was staying at a friend’s house, I spoke to him on the
phone. He told me - using precisely this phrase - “I don’t intend to
surface.” And he truly didn’t surface until all the ceremonies were
over. And Shaykh Shams-al-Din, the head of Lebanese Shi’is’ Supreme
Council, was in London about that time. He took a message, from some
of the Iranian friends who were there, to Hafiz al-Assad and, in
this way, Shariati’s body was taken to Syria for burial and the
commotion died down a bit. It was after that that Motahhari
“surfaced”, as he put it.
Q. How did the young people and the students there receive
Ayatollah Motahhari?
A. Even before he’d surfaced, so to speak, the atmosphere in London
and Europe was so turbulent that it didn’t really allow people to
benefit from Ayatollah Motahhari’s presence much. Far from receiving
him enthusiastically, young people were even disrespectful to him on
occasion. And I think that when Motahhari returned to Iran from that
visit, he was more offended than happy.
Q. At the time - for example, when you spoke to him on the phone
as you said - did you have an argument of any kind? Did you attack
him in any way?
A. No, I didn’t argue with him because there was no room for
argument and it was clear why he didn’t want to “surface”. Of
course, in London, Ayatollah Motahhari had taken part in a gathering
that was not looked on favourably by Islamic and revolutionary
students. After he’d attended that gathering, I said a few words to
him on the phone and I criticized his decision a bit. I complained
to him in a friendly way although it seems that even this friendly
complaint upset him, since, after returning from London, he, in
turn, complained about me to Mr Haddad-Adel. When Mr Haddad-Adel
told me, I responded with the following verse: Tell the tavern
master, if our words have caused offence: / Bring out the goblets
and we’ll be there anon to offer our apologies
Q. Can you tell us about the nature of the gathering that
Ayatollah Motahhari had attended which had upset the students and
led to criticism from them and from you?
A. The late Ayatollah Golpayegani had bought a venue in London which
still exists. And he’d put someone in charge of it who was neither a
religious scholar nor a revolutionary. I won’t mention his name now.
And, of course, this venue was operating as an alternative to the
Islamic association of students. Some of the students tried to
inform Ayatollah Golpayegani’s office and to let him know what was
going on there. I even recall that one of Ayatollah Golpayegani’s
children came to London to look into things but it didn’t solve
anything. So, the members of the Islamic associations of students
were against that venue and didn’t take part in the sessions that
were being held there. The people who did take part were mostly -
for example - retired army personnel from the Shah’s regime or
people for whom religiosity was just a kind of pastime. The
revolutionary youngsters of the time didn’t like sessions of this
kind at all and couldn’t stand them. They saw them as an insult to
religion and religiosity. Bear in mind that those youngsters were
mainly students or even disciples of Shariati. Their view of
religion meant that they considered those sessions to be positively
fraudulent and dangerous. Ayatollah Motahhari’s participation in one
of those sessions was intolerable to them. I criticized him gently
and conveyed the students’ message to him. I told him that they had
not liked his approach. Over the phone, Motahhari replied: “I know.
The youngsters are radical and make extremist judgments. In Iran,
too, if I hold a meeting with Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Khansari, they
object because they don’t consider him revolutionary, whereas every
figure and every venue has its own place.” At any rate, I conveyed
Motahhari’s response to the students, although they didn’t find it
convincing. And, as I said, Ayatollah Motahhari was, in turn, upset
by my friendly complaint.
Q. Moving on to the time after Shariati had passed away and after
the Islamic revolution, to the 1980s, when speaking about Shariati
and praising him were not all that easy and trouble free, you used
to praise him and keep his memory alive in your talks on various
occasions, on the anniversary of his death and his departure from
Iran. But, later, your talks and views about Shariati took on a
critical flavour and you started criticizing Shariati in his
capacity as an ideological thinker. This was in circumstances in
which earlier - for example, in your book entitled Satanic Ideology
- you’d spoken about Islamic ideology in your rejection of Marxism
and you’d set out to defend and explain Islamic ideology. I wanted
to ask you how this change came about? How did it come about that
you distanced yourself from ideological thinking and also started
criticizing Shariati?
A. It would take quite some time to explain it all. I’ve always had
and do have great respect for Shariati. In my first public talk
about Dr Shariati - which, as you said, went against the grain at
the time - I said at Mashhad University that he had possessed the
three qualities of courage, compassion and artistry, and that these
qualities had been the key to his success. I stand by that verdict
to this day and my view hasn’t changed at all. But Dr Shariati, like
any other human being, can be criticized and should be criticized.
We always have a duty to break idols. As to why I became critical
later on, there were two reasons for this. First, I arrived at this
later stance through a gradual process and anyone who is a thinker
has periods and stages of development in their thinking. So, in one
of the stages of my thinking, I gradually came across the question
of ideology. I want to say, here and now, that, at the time, I was
absolutely not aware of the things that had been written in the
world against ideology; I mean the things that had been said in the
world specifically under the banner of “the end of ideology”. Later
on, some people said: That fellow’s remarks coincided with the
thesis of “the end of ideology” in the world. Maybe so, but I was
absolutely not aware of that stuff. In much the same way,
immediately after I wrote my theory of contraction and expansion and
published it, some people said: That fellow’s theories are like
Gadamer’s theories or were derived from him. Whereas, I didn’t know
about Gadamer’s views at the time.
Q. Along the same lines, there are of course people who say that,
after the revolution, it was first Mr Dariush Shayegan who wrote a
book in French, which hasn’t been translated into Persian of course,
criticizing the ideological perspective and he devoted a part of his
book to criticizing Shariati and his ideological perspective. These
people suggest that you may well have been influenced by that book
in your criticism of Shariati. Although it has to be said that that
book is hardly ever mentioned these days and Mr Shayegan’s book
isn’t well known among Persian-speaking academics, even though it
was the first of its kind.
A. I don’t see much point in discussing this issue at all. I’m not
trying to prove that I was the first person or the last person to
make this criticism. I have no such claims to being the first or the
last. You can assume that dozens of people had raised this notion
before me. What difference does it make whether I was the first or
the second? But, in order to clarify things, let me say that, in all
earnest, if anyone was influenced by the global discussion about
“the end of ideology”, it was likely to have been Mr Shayegan who
wrote his book in Europe and was aware of those views. Secondly, I
absolutely didn’t know about Mr Shayegan’s views at the time. Most
importantly, Mr Shayegan uses “ideology” in one sense and I use it
in another sense. I’ve explained in my book what I mean by ideology.
There may well be common points, but, at any rate, I wasn’t
following the thesis of “the end of ideology” and was setting out my
own views. My tale isn’t a tale of trying to prove that I’m superior
or that I was the first. In the course of my thinking, I arrived at
the view that what Dr Shariati was talking about was a bid to make
religion ideological. And I believe that the main point, when you’re
making religion ideological, is not to search for truth, but to
instigate movement. And I said that, if Shariati bypasses Ibn Sina
and turns his back on him and chooses to turn to Abu-Zarr, this is
precisely a turning away from truth and a turning towards movement.
It was at this point that both my philosophical understanding and my
practical experience were telling me that making religion
ideological is not a good thing to do. My practical experience
consisted of what I had learnt, since the Islamic revolution, about
the track record of an ideological religion in society. Two elements
have had a direct impact on my thinking and approach, especially
after the revolution: one is the track record of a revolutionary
religion in Iranian society and, the second, my philosophical
reserves, including Islamic philosophy and Western and analytical
philosophy. In my treatment of Shariati, too, these two elements -
practical experience and my theoretical reserves - helped me see the
fissure and crack in the castle of his thinking.
Q. A while back, in a talk entitled “The Tradition of Religious
Intellectualism”, you enumerated some of the characteristics of
religious intellectuals which suggested a specific, structured view
of a concept known as “religious intellectual”. For example, you
said that religious intellectuals must not place too big a burden on
religion’s shoulders, that they have to take into account that there
are numerous readings of religion, that they no longer seek to
extract modern ideas from religious texts today. I was wondering
whether, in view of the definition that you presented in that talk,
you still consider Shariati to be a religious intellectual or not?
A. Why shouldn’t we consider Shariati a religious intellectual? Of
course, religious intellectuals may have different projects or opt
for different routes. They may present different answers to a single
question. But this doesn’t mean that they no longer fall under the
umbrella and banner of religious intellectualism. Shariati cared
about religion and he had an understanding of religion. He wanted to
live as a Muslim in the contemporary world. And he had courage. He
was not only an intellectual [rowshanfekr] but also an enlightener
[rowshangar]. He was, without a doubt, a religious intellectual.
But, in his day, a religious intellectual sought to reconcile Islam
with revolution, and, in our day, a religious intellectual seeks to
reconcile Islam with democracy. And reconciling Islam with democracy
means showing how one can live as a Muslim in a democratic state and
explaining the theoretical foundations for this.
Dr Shariati did not spend much time on explaining theoretical
foundations. As I said, he was more interested in creating movement.
Of course, you mustn’t forget that, when we criticize Dr Shariati,
we don’t mean to undermine or disparage him. He was, after all, only
44 when he passed away and he did most of his work when he was under
40. It would be utterly unfair if we were to disparage his efforts.
But, if we’re to find our own way, we have to have a good
understanding of the routes that people were taking before us and
also recognize their wrong turnings.
Q. You referred to Shariati’s age and his youth. Some of
Shariati’s supporters say that his critics do not take into account
the changes in his ideas over time and that they fail to consider,
for example, to what stage in this process of development a
particular remark by Shariati belongs. Based on this view, in the
final stage of his life, for example, i.e., the period after he was
last released from prison, Shariati’s ideas had undergone some
changes, which are rarely taken into account. They say, for example,
that, at this stage, Shariati was against intellectuals becoming
involved in guerrilla activities, described revolution as premature
and seriously dissociated himself from the Mojahedin-e Khalq and
groups that believed in armed struggle. Whereas, Shariati’s critics
ignore this change and continue to base their criticism on
Shariati’s ideas before the time he spent in prison and even on his
ideas when he was very young.
A. I’ve never criticized Shariati in this
way myself and I have taken these things into account. The things
that I’ve said have never been related to him moving closer to or
further away from the Mojahedin-e Khalq anyway. It isn’t very
difficult to find the main headings of Shariati’s ideas. Even if
there was some opportunity for changes in his ideas, he didn’t have
much success to this end, because he didn’t live very long. He was
young when he died and he had little opportunity for change. In his
youth, he became acquainted with our society’s ills. Then, he went
to France, where, in view of the openness there, he became
acquainted with Algerian militants and was influenced by Sartre’s
existentialist ideas and left-wing views. Moreover, he had also been
influenced as a child by his father and his family’s religious views
and had become acquainted with Islam and the history of Islam. These
were his mental reserves and experiences, and the changes in his
ideas can be assessed within this framework. He didn’t go beyond
this framework. Yes, of course, Shariati, like others - and he was
much more intelligent than others - knew his environment well and
learnt lessons from his experiences. It goes without saying that he
did not hold fast to a particular stance in a reactionary way. But
my criticism of Shariati was unrelated to these changes. Shariati’s
selectivity and, for example, his treatment of Ashura and the
Karbala uprising was an unchanging element of his thinking and his
work. Shariati never changed his view about making religion
ideological and never withdrew it. I’ve said before and will say it
again: We should pursue Shariati’s path, but we shouldn’t be mere
followers. We have to understand the logic of what he was doing;
both its weakness and its strength. Pursuing distinguished people’s
path doesn’t mean following their weaknesses.
Q. If you wanted to enumerate your differences with Shariati,
what general points would you list?
A. This is a long story. I’ve said plainly and briefly somewhere
that Dr Shariati was making religion corpulent, whereas I’m making
it slim. Making religion corpulent was to make it ideological and
raise people’s expectations of religion. But I truly try to lower
people’s expectations of religion. Dr Shariati was making religion
very this-worldly. He used to say that if religion doesn’t serve any
purpose in this world, it won’t serve any purpose in the other world
either. But I’m of the view that religion is, basically and
fundamentally, for ameliorating our hereafter. If human beings faced
no afterlife, they wouldn’t have a religion and God wouldn’t send
them prophets. Religion’s main teachings prepare people for the
afterlife. Dr Shariati wanted to put religion in the position of a
constituent assembly or founding father; in other words, to extract
a new ruling system out of religion. Dr Shariati, like Sayyid Qutb,
equated the entire world with the system of the age of ignorance and
he wanted to extract a counter-system out of Islam. I truly don’t
hold such a view. I believe that we can live with religion but that
we can’t use religion as a source and a reservoir for life. We can
simply obtain an outlook from religion and lend life “a spirit” with
the outlook; I don’t think we can lend life “a shape” with the
outlook. Of course, there are other differences too. Dr Shariati
didn’t care about religion’s theological and philosophical
foundations; he even mocked philosophy. Of course, this may have
been related to the early stages of his thought. Shariati wasn’t
even particularly acquainted with Islamic mysticism, as we can see
from his works. I know that he liked Rumi and he even said once: Had
it not been for Rumi, there were several occasions when I would have
committed suicide. He seems to have been fond of Rumi and held him
in high esteem, but I can’t see Rumi’s traces in Shariati’s work.
Conversely, I’m very heedful of these foundations and very sensitive
to them. Let me underline again that no blame or reprimand attaches
to Shariati. Neither his theoretical reserves, nor the ills of his
time nor his short life allowed him to be heedful of these things.
Q. Can we not add to these differences Shariati’s socialist
perspective and your liberal one?
A. Yes, you can. Of course, I don’t consider liberalism and
socialism to be opposites. And this isn’t the place to discuss this
issue. Liberalism is a kind of negative freedom and socialism is a
kind of positive freedom. And, as you know, negative freedom isn’t
at odds with positive freedom in any way. Liberalism wants to leave
us free and to remove obstacles. But socialism says: Now that you’ve
left us free and removed the obstacles, we want to use our freedom
to build a socialist society. In a way, socialism means using
negative freedom to build a system which is a kind of embodiment of
positive freedom. I don’t want to offer any good advice now on
whether socialism is a good system or not. Both capitalism and
socialism have more or less shown what they are made of. Socialism
has shown that it leads to a heartless and criminal centralism. And
combining socialism with democracy is so difficult that, not just
me, but almost no one knows how to achieve it. Once, when I was
taking part in a seminar on democracy in Czechoslovakia about 15
years ago, I met Ernest Gellner, the famous British anthropologist.
He is acquainted with Islam to some extent, as well as with
analytical philosophy and sociology. We spoke together about
socialism and democracy. He said some good things. First, he said: I
like Mr Khomeini a great deal and I like his personality and
courage, although I may not necessarily like his theories. Secondly,
about socialism and democracy, he said: I like both of them but I
absolutely don’t know how they can be combined and there’s no such
theory yet.
I, too, have been unable to find any clear way of combining the two.
Although, as an ideal, many people prefer social democracy to
capitalist systems. Of course, you mustn’t forget that Dr Shariati’s
writings really gave a sense of disparaging democracy. I know that
some of his students don’t like it when I say this. But let me say
that what we really need today, especially in Iran, is an
unqualified democracy. The moment you add a qualification to it,
regardless of your reason and consideration, you’ll ultimately make
it ineffective. So, I absolutely don’t approve of Dr Shariati’s
unkindness to democracy and I believe that we have to replace it
with a serious commitment to democracy. We must defend it and we
must not in any way qualify it or make it conditional. We should
recognize that, with democracy, human rights and justice will also
follow.
Q. But, a few years ago, you spoke about “minimal democracy” and
“maximal democracy”, and you defended minimal democracy for Iran in
the current circumstances. Do you mean to say that you’ve now come
to the conclusion that this distinction wasn’t useful?
A. No, this distinction was something else. What I said was that, at
the present time, in our society, we can talk about minimal
democracy; that is to say, a democracy that isn’t accompanied by all
the aspects of liberalism, but at least contains the possibility of
installing and removing officials, and which allows opposition to
tyranny, satisfies human rights and is even very compatible with
Islamic ideas, so that it needn’t frighten any religious people. I
said that we should begin with this in terms of a practical tactic
and, of course, we could then take further steps.
Q. I’d like to conclude by returning to the subject we started
with: Dr Ali Shariati’s death. I’d be grateful if you could tell us
about your observations on that day when you saw his body.
A. I’ve spoken about this elsewhere and I’ll explain it briefly now:
On the morning when we headed from London to Southampton to see
Shariati, we were accompanied by Mr Minachi and another friend. We
arrived in Southampton and the house at which Shariati had been
staying. We saw the late Shariati’s daughters, who were dressed in
black and had their backs pressed to the wall like frightened
sparrows. The owner of the house was a Mr Fakouhi. I think he is
related to the sociologist by the same name who lives in Iran. We
went to the hospital with Mr Fakouhi. Mr Minachi and I entered the
cold room and I saw Dr Shariati’s body lying in one of the many
drawers that they had there. He looked very serene and there weren’t
any signs of injury on his face or body. He had long hair, down to
his shoulders. I had never seen Shariati looking so imposing. He
looked very serene. I controlled myself but Mr Minachi was unable to
hold back his tears. We left the cold room together and went back to
London. Dr Shariati’s body was brought to London after the autopsy.
Mr Mojtahed-Shabestari, who was the congregational prayer leader of
the mosque in Hamburg, had come to London, unaware of Shariati’s
demise. Once he learnt about it in London, it was decided that we
would wash the late Shariati’s body together. They had laid out his
body in one of London’s mosques. Mr Shabestari and I went there.
Messrs Yazdi and Qotbzadeh joined us. All four of us washed the body
and wrapped it in a shroud. It was placed in a coffin and we joined
the crowd of mourners at the Kanoon-e Towhid.
Q. You didn’t see any suspicious markings on Shariati’s body?
A. There was no sign of a suspicious death whatsoever. Of course,
our view can’t serve as evidence. They had carried out a full
autopsy and it was declared in the hospital’s report that there were
no signs of anything suspicious. Of course, heart attacks usually
don’t leave any marks. There hadn’t been anything suspicious during
the short time that Shariati had spent in Southampton either; no
suspicious phone calls, no suspicious visitors, no incident that
would suggest that someone had identified the house he was staying
at and had some evil intention. This was why I said later that,
regarding Shariati’s death, like that of Samad Behrangi and Jalal
Al-e Ahmad and Mr Mostafa Khomeini, rumours abounded which were a
product of the revolutionary climate before the Islamic revolution.
Everyone wished to blame any big or small mistake on the Shah’s
regime and what could be better and more auspicious than blaming
Shariati’s death or Mostafa Khomeini’s death on SAVAK. As I recall,
Ayatollah Khomeini himself said at the time that he hadn’t heard
anything that would make him doubt that Mostafa had died a natural
death. I imagine that Dr Shariati, too, died a natural death. He’d
suffered a great deal and he smoked a lot. His secret departure from
Iran was accompanied by a great deal of stress. All of this combined
may well have led to him having a heart attack. God knows. At any
rate, the this-worldly file of a historical individual was closed
and, in the words of Iqbal of Lahore: There’s many a poet who after
death / closes their eyes and opens ours
Translated from the Persian by Nilou Mobasser
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