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Iran: Change in Islam; Islam and Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Nikki R. Keddie
Nikki R. Keddie
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Extract

In discussing the intellectual and religious history of the modern Muslim world, the attention of both Western and Middle Eastern scholars has hitherto focused on those who were, directly or indirectly, heavily influenced by Western thought and practices. For Egypt, the center of Arab intellectual life, we have studies of at-Tahtawi, Abduh, Rida, Mustafa Kamil, Lutfi as-Sayyid, and those close to them; for Turkey studies of the Young Ottomans, the Young Turks, Zia Gökalp, and those influenced by Ataturk's Turkish nationalism; and for Iran of Malkum Khan, Afghani, various Babis, Al-e Ahmad, Shariati, and other Western-influenced thinkers. Naturally, there are large differences in the thought of those qualified here as Western-influenced; even the most traditional aiim usually reflects Western influence in a mediated way. The point is, however, that there has been little analysis of thinkers and leaders who appear to be primarily traditional, whether they be ulama educated entirely in madrasas and carrying out primarily traditional functions, or heads of Sufi orders operating mainly within their own traditions. This concentration by Western and Middle Eastern intellectuals on leaders who were able to a large degree secularized and Westernized has been based on certain generally unspoken assumptions about progress and development. The assumptions are that progress and development include Westernized, secularized educational systems and an increasingly Western lifestyle with a decreased role for both ulama and Sufis, whom it is not particularly important for one concentrating on trends with a viable future to study or understand. Even those who did study “traditionalist” movements such as the Egyptian Muslim Brethren tended to see them as a trend with no future.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , July 1980 , pp. 527 - 542
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

NOTES

1 Among the numerous works on westernized thinkers and trends are Binder, L., The Ideological Revolution in the Middle East (New York, 1964);Google ScholarHaim, S., Arab Nationalism (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962);Google ScholarHeyd, U., Foundations of Turkish Nationalism (London, 1950);Google ScholarKarpat, K., Political and Social Thought in the Middle East (New York, 1968);Google ScholarKerr, M., Islamic Reform (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966);Google ScholarMardin, S., The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought (Princeton, 1962);Google ScholarRamsauer, E. E., The Young Turks (Princeton, 1969);Google ScholarSafran, N., Egypt in Search of Political Community (Cambridge, Mass., 1961);Google Scholar and Sharabi, H., Nationalism and Revolution in the Arab World (Princeton, 1966)Google Scholar, and Hourani, A., Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (London, 1967).Google Scholar

2 See Mitchell, Richard P., The Society of the Muslim Brothers (London, 1969), p. viii “Our feeling, for some time now shared by others, is that the essentially secular reform nationalism now in vogue in the Arab world will continue to operate to end the earlier appeal of this organization.” Similar beliefs about the growth of secularism were expressed about the same time by others, including this author, and although they might prove true in the long run, for the present they are not.Google Scholar

3 Browne, E. G., The Persian Revolution of 1905–1909 (Cambridge, 1910);Google ScholarKermani, Nazem al-Islam, Tarikh-e bidari-ye Iraniyan (Tehran, nd.).Google Scholar

4 This is not a criticism, as recent social and anthropological studies of such groups have presented very important new material, as is seen in the studies in Keddie, Nikki R., ed., Scholars, Saints, and Sufis (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1972), and in a variety of studies by anthropologists such as Ernest Gellner, Michael Gilsenan, Vincent Crapanzano, Gustave Thaiss, and Clifford Geertz. Only recently, however, have intellectual aspects of modern ulama and Sufi life begun to be seriously studied against their social background.Google Scholar

5 See Keddie, Nikki R., Sayyid Jamal ad-Din ”al-Afghani:” A Political Biography (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1972);Google Scholaridem, An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal ad-Din “al-Afghani” (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968). On pre-nineteenth century teaching of philosophy in Egypt see Cole, Juan, “Ri1ā'a at-Tahtawi and the Revival of Practical Philosophy” (unpublished M.A. thesis, American University in Cairo, 1978).Google Scholar

6 A more detailed discussion of socioeconomic and cultural changes in Iran which encouraged the rise of a religious-led opposition is in Keddie, Nikki R., “Oil, Economic Policy, and Social Change,” in Keddie, Nikki R., Iran: Politics, Religion, and Society (London: Frank Cass, 1980).Google Scholar

7 On the Iranian ulama see especially Algar, Hamid, Religion and State in Iran 1785–1906 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969)Google Scholar, and various articles by Nikki R. Keddie (some of them reprinted Iran: Politics, Religion and Society), by Lambton, A. K. S., and Akhavi, S., Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran (Albany, 1980), which appeared too late for use in this essay.Google Scholar

8 This attitude is found in the otherwise very valuable articles by Elisha, Joseph, “Misconceptions Regarding the Juridical Status of the Iranian ‘Ulama’, “International Journal of Middle East Studies, 10, 1 (1979), 9–25;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Arjomand, Said Amir, “Political Action and Legitimate Domination in Shi'ite Iran: Fourteenth to Eighteenth Centuries A.D.,” Archives Européenes de Sociologie, 20, 1 (1979), 59–109. Eliash seems to think that only the law and doctrine of the first post-occulation centuries are true Shi'ism, and says, “The establishment of the Safavid state … was too late to modify any of the politico-theological doctrines of the Imamate” (p. 24).Google Scholar

9 See Algar, , Religion and State, and Keddie, Nikki R., Religion and Rebellion in Iran: The Tobacco Protest of 1891–1892 (London, 1966).Google Scholar

10 Even in works hostile to the Pahlavis prior to the 1960s Khomaini himself does not argue that monarchy is un-Islamic. See the discussion of Khomaini in Keddie, Nikki R. and Richard, Yann, Iran: Roots of Revolution (New Haven, 1981), and the close analysis of Khomaini's 1943 book, Kashf al-Asrar (The Exposure of Secrets), which criticizes monarchy but does not call for its abolition, in William Millward's “The Islamic Political Theory and Vocabulary of Ayatullah Khumayni, 1941–1963,” paper delivered at Middle East Studies Association conference, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1979, in preparation for publication. Millward shows that until 1963 Khomayni defended constitutional monarchy (as many of his colleagues did until 1978).Google Scholar

11 See especially Watt, W. Montgomery, “The Reappraisal of “Abbasid Shi'ism,” in Makdisi, G., ed., Arabic and Islamic Studies in Honour of Hamilton A. R. Gibb (Leiden, 1966).Google Scholar

12 See Keddie, Nikki R., “The Roots of the Ulama's Power in Modern Iran,” in Keddie, , ed., Scholars, Saints, and Sufis, pp. 211–229Google Scholar, and the sources cited therein; also Mazzaoui, M., The Origins of the Safawids: Si'ism, Sufism, and the Gulat (Weisbaden, 1972).Google Scholar

13 See Algar, Religion and State and, for an overview, Keddie, “Religion, Society, and Politics in Iran: A Sociohistorical Approach,” in Keddie, , Iran: Politics, Religion, and Society.Google Scholar

14 In addition to the works by Millward and Keddie and Richard in note 10, above, see Richard, Yann, Le Shi'isme en Iran (Paris, 1980)Google Scholar and Algar, Hamid, On the Sociology of Islam: Lectures by Ali Shari'ati (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1979).Google Scholar Mangol Bayat-Philipp has an important forthcoming article on Shariati, and also a comprehensive article on the reform tradition within modern Iranian Islam in Bonine, M. and Keddie, N., eds., Modern Iran (Albany, in press). I have also made use of a fine seminar paper by Brad Hanson on Al-e Ahmad and Shariati.Google Scholar

15 Na'ini, Shaikh Mohammad Hosain, Tanbih al-ommeh va tanzih al-melleh ya Hokumat az nazar-e Eslam, ed., intro., notes by Taleqani, M. (Tehran, 1374 h.1./1954–1955).Google ScholarBahsi dar bareh-y ruhaniyat va marja'iyat is the jointly authored book, of which the contents are analyzed in Lambton, A. K. S., “A Reconsideration of the Position of the Marja'al-Taqlid and the Religious Institution,” Studia lslamica, 20 (1964), 115–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Interview with Shariatmadari, Ayatollah Kazem, Qom, September, 1979.Google Scholar

17 Tillion, Germaine, Le harem et les cousins (Paris, 1966);Google Scholar this is supported by the introduction and tribal, rural, and urban studies in Beck, Lois and Keddie, Nikki, eds., Women in the Muslim World (Cambridge, Mass., 1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 See especially Tomiche, Nada, “The Situation of Egyptian Women in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century,” Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East, Polk, W. R. and Chambers, R. L., eds. (Chicago, 1966).Google Scholar

19 For a strong attack on the 1967 Family Protection Law see Tauzih al-Masā'el (Najaf: Chapkhaneh Adab, n.d.). This work was published with Khomaini's name on the title page and it is usually attributed entirely to him, but Yann Richard in Le Monde Diplomatique, February, 1980, and forthcoming writings show that it is mainly by Ayatollah Borujerdi. As the latter died in 1961, the part on the Family Law is Khomaini's. Out-of-context quotations, mainly from Borujerdi's part of this work, have been translated into French and English to try to make Khomaini seem ridiculous in Western eyes.Google Scholar

20 Good reports on women are found in the short-lived Tehran journal The Iranian: “Professional Women on the Wane,” I, 3 (July 11, 1979); “Divorce Islamic Style,” 1, 21 (November 24, 1979); and “Islamic Family Planning,” I, 29 (January 26, 1980). Adele Ferdows is studying Iranian efforts to produce textbooks and other material that presents an Islamic and relatively egalitarian image of women. As in many matters concerning the Iranian revolution, however, it is hard to find balanced works about women, as most tend to be either hostile or apologetic. Clearly, in terms of dominant Western-style liberal or leftist values, the position of women is one of the most problematic points about the current Islamic revival.Google Scholar