by Troy Southgate
For some it may come as a surprise to learn that the immense success of Islam in the contemporary world has never had to rely on the characteristically divisive issues of race and ethnicity, and furthermore that Muslims are just as fiercely internationalist as their Capitalist and Marxist adversaries. The rapid growth and expansion of revolutionary Mohammadanism is due to both a widespread sense of intense religiosity and, more importantly, the kind of unique political action which is born of a fanatical heart. Eurasianists can learn a great deal from the way Muslims have perfected this rare quality and then used it to their own devastating advantage. what follows is an examination of the greatest Islamic uprising in history, and although religion undoubtedly played a major role throughout this whole process it is worth remembering that a similar faith can tem from an undying belief in a purely political ethos. Indeed, whilst the Islamic ulema is a religious entity, the role of such a body may be compared to that of the Eurasian Movement Cadre.
The term ‘ulema’ has Arabic and Persian origins and, collectively, is used to describe a group of scholars or religious men of learning. Religious leadership in Muslim society falls into three distinct categories, each of which are fundamentally interdependant and inseparable. Firstly, there are the ulema themselves, epitomised by the mufti, qazi, maulana and maulvi; secondly, the neo-esoteric sufis and, thirdly, the sayyed - who claim to be descended from the Prophet Muhammad. According to Akbar Ahmed, the ulema are the most significant because they ”represent the orthodox, bureaucratic, formal and legalistic tradition in Islam. They interact with the State even at the highest level and advise the kings, captains and commanders of Islam.”[1] Indeed, unlike both their sufi and sayyed counterparts the ulema have often become willingly embroiled in the political, social and economic affairs of their respective nation-states. But the
interference of the ulema in secular government has not always been popular amongst Muslims. In 1514, Fazullah ibn Ruzbihan Khunji strongly attacked his scholastic contemporaries and condemned ”the addiction of the ulema of his time to philosophy and the rational sciences at the expense of religious jurisprudence.”[2] Elsewhere in Sixteenth-Century Iran, there wasa gradual ascendency of the ulema which resulted in its members ”quickly becoming part of the State apparatus. They precided over the Islamic law-courts while State functionaries were appointed to civil customary-law courts.”[3] Several centuries later, between 1918 and 1924, the Indian ulema were at the forefront of governmental affairs when they participated heavily in the Khilafat movement. In fact the ulema fully supported this movement and deliberately ”entered the political arena to defend the last hope of Islam”[4]. M.N. Qureshi quotes one member of the ulema as insisting that ”until the ulema take the reins of politics in their own hands and cross their voices with those in authority, it will be difficult for them to establish their religious supremacy.”[5] Sunni and Shi’ah Muslims, however,differ in their approach to the role of the ulema. Indeed, whilst the former have had very little influence upon governmental affairs, the latter have become actively involved in what may accurately be described as manifestations of theocratic subversion. David Waines points out that ”Sunni mujtahids, as individual
scholars of different schools, lacked the degree of cohesion of the Shi’ah mujtahids, who could act collectively as a counterweight to weak political government, which they regarded as essentially illegitimate. Sunni ulema tended to serve as mediators between the people and govenment rather than as a countervailing force to the latter.”[6] But this had not always been the case. Many Shi’ah have refused to participate in political activity due to the fact that the absence of the Imam totally invalidates all earthly forms of authority. at this point one may be forgiven for wondering just how Khomeini managed to be both administratively successful and remain within the accepted theological guidelines at the same time, but the process of ulema involvement in Iranian politics had stemmed from the events surrounding the Constitutional Revolution of 1906. According to Kalim Siddiqui, ”Once this theological barrier had been passed, it was a short step to the Iranian Revolution.”[7] Very often, however, it has become necessary to reform the ulema and scholars such as Rifa’ah al-Tahtawi and Khayr al-Din have argued that prospective members of the ulema should familiarise
themselves with the affairs of the contemporary world. Whereas formerly the ulema had been viewed as a class of scholars who were to be consulted on strictly religious matters, many believed that the most knowledgeable members of Islamic society should continually seek to expand their intellectual capabilities. At the very root of these reforms lay a determination to create a just society by encouraging ”the active participation of a
politically educated citizenry conscious of its freedoms and responsibilities.”[8] But there is little doubt that the traditional role of the ulema in Iran - with which I am primarily concerned - was greatly enhanced by the fact that it began ”appropriating some of the Imam’s prerogatives without, of course, claiming his essential quality of infallibility.” Such were the preceding conditions of Khomeini’s valiant uprising against a monarchical puppet of International Zionism and the West, but what of the Ayatollah’s own attempts to rule Iran by relying directly upon the leadership of the ulema?
In the late 1950s Khomeini gradually began to emerge from within a growing national atmosphere of disillusionment with the oppressive Pahlavi Dynasty. Consequently, the ulema began to assume a growing confidence in its own abilities. Reza Shah had established a multitude of schools and colleges which had ended
the monopoly of religious education in Iran. After the abdication of Reza Shah in 1941, however, Khomeini set about portraying him as ”a usurper, the parliaments of the period as lacking in legitimacy, the laws they had approved as harmful, the ministeries as corrupt, the police cruel, and officials as lacking in concern for the poor and downtrodden.”[10] Consequently, although he initially rejected an increased political role for the ulema, once Muhammad Reza Shah had begun to imitate the disastrous economic policies of his father Khomeini started to listen to the more revolutionary opinions of hard-line scholars like Mohammad Beheshti, who, from the 1960s
onwards began to develop a strategy ”designed to shake the ulema awake from ten centuries of slumber to resume their resposibility for leading the Shi’ite community in the real world.”[11] In 1963, the Shah launched a highly unpopular programme of reform (White Revolution) and Khomeini stepped forward to demand that the ulema be allowed to participate more fully in Iranian politics. According to Shaul Bakhash, Khomeini’s ”request for a ‘modest’ share for the ulema in administration was rooted in his belief that the clerical class would set such an exemplary model in their limited sphere that all would recognise the superiority of religious administration.”[12] Indeed, Khomeini even tried to influence the Shah in a personal capacity by appealing to the Pahlavi monarch to ”Listen to my advice, listen to the ulema of Islam. They desire the welfare of the nation, the welfare of the country. Don’t listen to Israel; Israel can’t do anything for you.”[13] Khomeini always believed that the ulema had been chosen to follow upon the sacred heels of the Twelth Iman, and ”have been appointed by the Imam (upon whom be peace) to the positions of ruler and judge, and these positions belong to them in perpetuity.”[14] Elsewhere in his writings Khomeini lamented the fact that the ulema had been deprived of its ”true degree and rank”[15], and his portrayal of the ulema themselves as representing the natural earthly successors to the Imam became something of a contentious issue in the wider Islamic community as a whole. Traditionally, however, the fact that Shi’ites regard the descendants of Ali and his followers as the true heirs of the Imam allowed Khomeini to justify his sudden emergence as the chief spokesman of his fellow Iranian Muslims. By 1964, Khomeini had been exiled to Turkey and the Shah was able to attack religious institutions. Consequently the battle-lines began to take shape and the ”Shah was cast as the evil Yazid, slayer of Imam Husayn, and in the popular imagination, Khomeini became the awaited last Imam.”[16] In 1966 Khomeini moved to Iraq and, one year later, continued to inspire the ulema from without by attacking Muhammad Reza Shah for his ”blind service to the lords of the dollar”[17]. In
1968, as the Iranian ulema became even more politicised, Ni’matollah Salihi Najaf-adabi - a follower of Khmeini - attempted to separate the political tenets of Shi’ism from its purely theological basis by publishing Shahid-e Javid (‘The Immortal Martyr’). This development suggested that some of the ulema were attempting to play down the religious significance of events like the Karbala uprising, to some extent becoming rather alarmed at the militant fervour which had been unleashed in the name of Islam. Ali Shari’ati, however, was a figure who
simply refused to ignore the increasing influence of the ulema and his own interpretation of Shi’ism naturally championed the cause of the people, doubly oppressed by the internal forces of domination, and by the external force of imperialism.”[18] But the real issue which divided Iran was the question of legitimate authority. In 1970, Khomeini published his wilayat al-faqih and exposed the basic incompatibility between Islamic rule and that of constitutional monarchy. Roy Mottahedeh quotes Khomeini as saying that ”whereas the representaives of the people or the monarch in such regimes engage in legislation, in Islam the legislative power and competence to establish laws belongs exclusively to God Almighty.”[19] It was Khomeini’s primary intention to portray the ulema ”as the authoritative interpretors of the sacred law in the absence of the Hidden Imam, to assume the right to rule.”[20] In many ways, this development began to resemble the earlier power struggles between Church and State in Medieval Europe, particularly those involving Henry II and Thomas Beckett, and Henry VIII and Thomas More. In short, the new, increasingly secular Iran began to clash with the
old world of the Mullahs. The ulema now began to look overwhelmingly towards their exiled comrade as being an unflinching opponent of the hated Pahlavi Dynasty, and Khomeini naturally assumed the leadership of the ulema itself. In 1978, on the very eve of the Islamic Revolution, the Ayatollah published his Namih-e Imam Musawi Kashif al-Ghita (‘A Letter From The Imam Musawi, The Dispeller of Obscurity’) in which he sought to redefine the ulema and its relationship towards the whole concept of political leadership, or what he described as the ‘Guardianship of the Jurisconsult’. But whilst Khomeini was making the case for the authoritative superiority of the ulema, he was also careful to ensure that comparisons between himself and the Imam were, at least initially, kept to a minimum: ”This is a heavy and important duty, [but] not something which would create a supernatural status for its holder, elevating him to a position higher than that of an ordinary human being. In other words, the wilaya, of which we are talking, means government and implementation. Contrary to what people might think, it is not a privilege, but a grace responsibility.”[21] But as far as his admirers in the ulema were concerned, however, such words merely served to demonstate the great humility of this long-awaited warrior of the Islamic creed. But how did Khomeini manage to exert such a profound influence upon the ulema from his forced state of exile?
After he had left Iran in 1964, Khomeini had instructed his clerics - among them Motahhari, Beheshti, Musavi-Ardabili and Bahonar - in Teheran, Qom and various other cities to establish a powerful ulema ‘network’ by agitating amongst the nation’s rural elements out in the countryside. These close-knit cells were poised to become the revolutionary bedrock upon which the Ayatollah would forge his new anti-Zionist weltanschauung. Charities (sahm-e imam) were also established in Khomeini’s name and soon ”constituted a source of considerable influence and were used not only to support clerics, mosques, seminary students, and Islamic cultural activities, but also to fund opposition political movements.”[22] But although many clerics were still partly favourable to the existing Pahlavi regime, before long Khomeini’s network became the most powerful force in Iran. Whilst the ulema were able to generate the necessary funds and resources from within, the outspoken Ayatollah was able to avoid the sinister advances of the SAVAK (secret police) by attacking the Shah from the relatively safe confines of his Iraqi nerve centre. There was little doubt, however, that armed struggle was the only effective method of Islamic resistance and, in 1975, Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani visited the PLO in Lebanon and organised the training of Iranian militants. But whilst the cause against Western imperialism and Zionist manipulation was undoubtedly just (as, indeed, it remains to this very day), Rafsanjani and many of his comrades were imprisoned for several years. Nevertheless, the ulema ”exploited the weaknesses of an increasingly vulnerable, wavering, and disorientated administration; and it found in Khomeini a leader who could give the movement leadership, direction and concrete goals.”[23] Needless to say, the ulema played a vital role in Khomeini’s overall vision of an Islamic society free of monarchical control and, on 31st January 1979, the Ayatollah returned to Teheran in triumph. But what was to
be the position of the ulema in post-revolutionary Iran?
In order to secure his revolution and endow it with a sense of longevity, Khomeini made certain that members of the ulema received constant protection from the Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Islami (Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) which, in March 1979, had been formed “as a powerful arm of the Revolutionary Tribunals, in addition to being responsible for maintaining peace and counteracting anti-Revolutionary forces.”[24] Consequently, the ulema began to supersede the outgoing Pahlavi regime, although a more cynical Shaul Bakhash only grudgingly credits them with having replaced the Shah’s men with their own and ensuring that ”the bureaucratic apparatus remained in place.”[25] But what the critics of the Iranian Revolution simply cannot dispute is the massive vote of confidence the Iranian people (both Shi’ite and Sunni) expressed for Khomeini and the ulema in 1983: ”Thus, all the affairs of the
Islamic State are run in accordance wth the teachings of Islam under direct supervision of Islamic experts. It was for the elction of these experts that the Muslim masses voted on December 10th.”[26] at a unity conference in Sri Lanka from 28th December 1982 to 2nd January 1983, the ulema unveiled its desire to export the Iranian Revolution further afield by encouraging Islamic subversion around the world. According to one statement, the ulema deplored ”the destructive activities of some scholars who spread disunity between Muslims and try to split the Islamic Ummah.”[27] Several years earlier, Khomeini himself had even hinted at an internationalist strategy in his own writings: ”I extend the hand of brotherhood to all committed Muslims in the world and ask them to regard the Shi’is as cherished brothers and thereby frustrate the sinister plans of foreigners.”[28] Elsewhere in post-Revolutionary Iran, we discover that the ulema had helped to deepen the spiritual life of the people by regaining ”the religious-political importance they enjoyed in the early years of Islam.”[29]
To conclude, perhaps it is worth reflecting upon the actual legacy of Khomeini’s leadership of the ulema? Some critics have suggested that the Ayatollah broke with Islamic tradition, and that ”By allowing himself to be described as Imam he has initiated what could prove to be a major schism in Shi’ism after he has gone.”[30] These words, written by notorious liberal Amir Taheri, have thus far proved totally unfounded. On the other hand, Shaykh Ansari - one of Khomeini’s predecessors - would have agreed with Taheri’s claims. For him, a leaderless ulema must not become embroiled in political matters because ”no individual, except the Prophet and the Imam, has the authority to exert wiliya over others.”[31] It remains a fact, however, that to the great frustration of liberals everywhere Khomeini’s Revolution did not wither and die and in fact still persists until this very day. Under Khomeini’s leadership the ulema was intelligently transformed ”from one of the two organs of pre-modern government into publicists, ideologues, and finally revolutionaries.”[32] But even more important, perhaps, is the actual nature of the Revolution itself: ”Rather than creating a new substitute for religion, as did the Communists and the Nazis, the Islamic militants have fortified an already vigorous religion with the ideological armour necessary for battle in the arena of mass politics. In doing so they have made their distinct contribution to world history.”[33] Indeed, whereas the old ulema had often sided with those regimes firmly under the control of the Zionist heel, by 1962 the revitalised ulema was in a position to agitate in the cities, streets and mosques of Iran. Inevitably, therefore, Ayatollah Khomeini’s highly inspirational leadership soon consolidated the position of the ulema at the very forefront of
Iranian politics by embracing both the language and pageantry of Revolution. Theirs was a victory not only of the Word, but also of the Deed. Furthermore, in this case Islamic insurrection became the very ‘Tradition’ so often alluded to by philosophers like Julius Evola, with the black-clad militants of the Revolutionary Guard assuming the role of ksatriya: the true Warrior-Caste.
Notes
1. Akbar Ahmed, Emergent Trends In Moslem Tribal Society in Said Amir Arjoman (ed.) From Nationalism To Revolutionary Islam, (Macmillan, 1984), p. 83.
2. Said Amir Arjoman, Traditionalism In Twentieth-Century Iran, ibid, pp. 195-6.
3. Juan R. Cole, Imami Jurisprudence in Nikkie R. Keddie (ed.) Religion and Politics In Iran: Shi’ism From Quietism To Revolution, (Yale University Press, 1983), p. 38.
4. Said Amir Arjoman, op.cit., p. 198.
5. M.N Qureshi, The Indian Khilafat Movement: 1918-1924 in the Journal of Asian History, (1978), Volume 2, p. 152.
6. David Waines, An Introduction To Islam, (Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 206-7.
7. Kalim Siddiqui, Issues On the Islamic Movement: 1982-3, (The Open Press, 1984), p. 12.
8. David Waines, op.cit., p. 219.
9. Ibid., p. 248.
10. Shaul Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution, (Counterpoint,
1986), p. 23.
11. Said Amir Arjoman, op.cit., p. 211.
12. Shaul Bakhash, op.cit., pp. 32-3.
13. Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations, (KPI, 1985), p. 179.
14. Ibid., p. 98.
15. Ibid., p. 111.
16. David Waines, op.cit., p. 251.
17. Iman Ruhollah Khomeini, op.cit., p. 192.
18. Said Amir Arjoman, op.cit., p. 212.
19. Iman Ruhollah Khomeini, quoted in Roy Mottahedeh’s The Mantle of the Prophet: Learning and Power In Modern Iran, (Chatto & Windus, 1986), p. 381.
20. David Waines, op.cit., p. 251.
21. Iman Ruhollah Khomeini, quoted in Hamid Enayat’s Iran: Khumayni’s Concept of the ‘Guardianship of the Jurisconsult’ in James P. Piscatori (ed.) Islam In the Political Process, (Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 163.
22. Shaul Bakhash, op.cit., p. 40.
23. Ibid., p. 44.
24. M. Ghayasuddin, The Ideological Training of the Sepah in Kalim Siddiqui (ed.), op.cit., p. 177.
25.Shaul Bakhash, op.cit., p. 243.
26. Abdorreza Rafiee, Massive Vote of Confidence In Islamic Iran in Kalim Siddiqui (ed.), op.cit., p. 177.
27. Muslimedia, (February 1983), quoted in Kalim Siddiqui (ed.), op.cit., p. 226.
28. Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, op.cit., p. 302.
29. Zafarul-Islam Khan, Humility and Gratitude To Allah On the Forth Anniversary in Kalim Siddiqui (ed.), op.cit., p. 233.
30. Amir Taheri, The Spirit of Allah: Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution, (Hutchinson, 1985), p. 172.
31. Hamid Enayat, op.cit., p. 162.
32. Said Amir Arjoman, op.cit., p. 228.
33. Said Amir Arjoman, The Turban For the Crown: The Islamic Revolution In Iran, (Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 210.