1. Introduction
We are undergoing a revival of religious politics in the world: “the repoliticization of religions that have rejected the marginalized, privatized status afforded or forced upon them by modernity”.Footnote 1 The Christian and Islamic liberation theologies that I shall investigate in this essay are a testimony to this. Regardless of what may be the causes for this revival, there is reason to be sceptical of the prevailing wisdom that modernity involves the increasing secularisation of politics, and the relegation of religious sentiment into the private sphere.
I intend to make a comparative study to examine the similarities and differences between how Christians and Muslims have created theologies of liberation. It will be my contention throughout that these discourses of radical political struggle are the potential causes of social upheaval in the future and that this has been confirmed by history. When the utopian and millenarian mentalities of certain radical intellectuals become united with the demands of the most oppressed strata in a society, a potentially revolutionary situation is created. Mannheim argues that this can be seen for the first time in the more radical offshoots of the Reformation.Footnote 2 The single best example of this from the twentieth-century is the Islamic revolution of 1979 in Iran. The spread of Christian liberation theology in Latin America and Islamic liberation theology in various Muslim countries creates the potential for similar social upheavals; such a potential will almost certainly remain latent in the near future, as only a critical concurrence of certain conditions could lead to the social upheaval as it occurred in Iran. Thus, although we cannot expect any imminent revolutions soon or predict when they will occur, nevertheless we must understand their causes and that is why I have chosen to study this topic.
2. Literature Review
Following soon after the Second Vatican Council, liberation theology emerged in the Latin American Catholic Church during the late 1960's. Since then there has been a growing scholarly literature on the phenomenon.Footnote 3 It has been criticised on various grounds and many debates have emerged as a result.Footnote 4 On the other hand, the concept of ‘Islamic liberation theology’ has not received quite as much attention. A recent study by Hamid DabashiFootnote 5 is one of the few publications devoted solely to this subject in English-speaking academia. This is particularly surprising because, as my essay will demonstrate, there have been and continue to be sustained efforts by Muslim writers and intellectuals to form an Islamic theology of liberation. The relatively unknown status of many of these writers outside of their own countries and the paucity of scholars with the proficiency in the relevant languages are both undoubtedly important (but not exhaustive) explanations for this lack of attention. As indicative of the post-9/11 situation, there has been instead a significant interest by scholars in Islamic fundamentalism and the compatibility of Islam with democracy and other Western values.Footnote 6
Thus I argue that there has been too little study of the Islamic discourse that fits into neither the category of reformist and Westernised liberal Islam, nor the category of fanatic, intolerant, radical Islam, but which is instead orientated towards the aim of liberation, in common with the emancipatory tradition of secular socialism. Even more rare are comparative studies of Christian and Islamic liberation theologies, which endeavour to compare and contrast the converging and diverging ways that they have been conceived. I have not been able to find any examples of such a comparative study in English-speaking academia, or at least not in any academic journals or scholarly publications. Hence, for such a study, whereof we can only expect findings and conclusions of a preliminary and provisional nature, thereof I proceed with the appropriate caution and tentativeness.
3. Methodology
The approach that I shall use is both analytic and synthetic: analytic, because I shall endeavour to reduce the complexity of my object of study by identifying three key mentalities which unify both Christian and Islamic liberation theologies. I have thus chosen to do a thematic analysis rather than a study of individual authors. This is because it will yield more synthetic results, as we shall be able to outline certain conclusions regarding these religions and how they have been used to pursue liberation and emancipation.
For accuracy and reliability of information, I have tried to use primary sources in their original languages wherever possible. My scope of reference when discussing Christian liberation theology will be mainly restricted to Latin American Catholics, due to the fact that it is generally only within this constituency that Christian liberation theology has become anything more than an academic discourse. With Muslim writers, on the other hand, I have chosen a much broader scope: I will refer to authors from throughout the twentieth-century up to the present day and from several different countries and contexts. I hope this will show that, despite these differences, a unity of intention and approach can be discerned from all of the authors.
The following sections discuss in detail three ‘mentalities’ as I have called them. I use this term to avoid the impression that I am enumerating ideas and theories in the manner of a ‘history of ideas’; that is to say, I am not discussing the theoretical ideas of these individuals in abstraction from their concrete historical situations. Such an approach is the product of a particular form of idealism engendered by the Enlightenment, as Mannheim has written.Footnote 7 By contrast, mentalities are ways of thinking that are influenced by the socio-political issues of the historical conjuncture within which they are formed, and are formulated as responses to those issues. However, these mentalities are not merely epiphenomenal products of social and economic forces either, as some vulgar and reductionist Marxian determinism might suggest.
4. Reinterpretation from the perspective of the poor and oppressed
Writers from both traditions are intending to reinterpret their religions from the perspective of the poor and oppressed; the fact that it is a reinterpretation is important because they are all consciously breaking with traditional ideas. Therefore, they both, intentionally or not, divide their own religions into two: that which has and which continues to “stand for stability rather than change, hierarchy rather than egalitarianism, the rich rather than the poor”Footnote 8 and that which is based on “the suffering, struggle and hope of the poor … [and] a theological critique of society and its ideological underpinnings”.Footnote 9
The Egyptian theorist of the Islamic Left, Hasan Hanafi, divided Islam between right-wing Ash'ariteFootnote 10 and left-wing Mu'taziliteFootnote 11 schools of theology; the latter stressed free will, rationality, scientific thought and social justice; the former led to political passivity by teaching determinism and fatalism, and it also discouraged rational scientific thinking.Footnote 12 Farid Esack writes of the importance to “expose the way traditional interpretation and beliefs about a text [such as the Qur'an] function as ideology in order to legitimize an unjust order”Footnote 13; he has in the past written about how the conservative ulamaFootnote 14 in South Africa collaborated with the Apartheid regime,Footnote 15 and they rebuked young Muslim activists against racial segregation for spreading anarchy and corruption.Footnote 16 Esack proposes an interpretation of the Qur'an that reveals its message of liberation for women, slaves and all those oppressed by the powerful.Footnote 17
Ali Shariati divided Shia Islam between revolutionary Alid Shi'ism, as “identified with the authoritative figure of the first Shi'i Imam [i.e. Imam Ali]”,Footnote 18 and reactionary Safavi Shi'ism, as named after the dynasty which was the first to establish Shia Islam as a state religion. He claims that Alid Shi'ism is based on the revolutionary interpretation of Imamet which, along with the struggle for justice, is central to the true form of Islam:
“For the liberation of humankind, the elimination of class conflict and social division, and the eventual creation of equality and justice for the people and in communal life, this doctrine [of Imamet] seeks to strive for the attainment of true leadership”.Footnote 19
Imamet traditionally meant the divinely-ordained and hereditary leadership of twelve sinless, infallible individuals after the death of the Prophet. By contrast, Shariati interprets this doctrine to mean the necessity of a “committed and revolutionary leadership”Footnote 20 for the revolutionary struggle, which is not unlike the leadership of the proletariat by a revolutionary party, as required by Marxist-Leninism. In addition, the Imams are those exemplars of human excellence that are present in every context.Footnote 21 However, in Safavi Shi'ism, this doctrine is distorted to become merely the worship of twelve quasi-deified figuresFootnote 22 who come to be seen as superhuman, angelic, otherworldly beings. This reactionary Safavi Shi'ism has distorted all other key doctrines and made Islam into an oppressive opium of the masses, instead of being on the side of “those who throughout history have been slaughtered and enslaved by … the ruling classes”.Footnote 23
A key moment in the development of liberation theology in Latin America was the second general conference of bishops in 1968. The conference used the analyses of certain social scientists who argued that the church has supported the hegemony of an
“aristocratic white elite [who] has always controlled wealth and power in Latin America … excluding the vast majority from any real economic, political, or cultural development […] [moreover] priests and bishops find their natural associates in the upper classes; Catholic education serves primarily the same upper classes”.Footnote 24
In a similar manner, the Dominican priest Gustavo Gutiérrez wrote that the church's supposed neutrality and silence on political affairs amounted to an implicit support of injustice and of ruling governments.Footnote 25 He writes elsewhere: “the Church contributes … to giving a kind of sacred character to a situation which is not only alienating but is the worst kind of violence – a situation which pits the powerful against the weak”.Footnote 26 By “casting our lot with the oppressed and the exploited in the struggle for a more just society”,Footnote 27 he argues that the Church must:
“make the prophetic denunciation of every dehumanizing situation, which is contrary to fellowship, justice and liberty. At the same it must criticize every sacralisation of oppressive structures to which the Church itself might have contributed”.Footnote 28
It must, however, be stated that one can discern some distinctions between these approaches. The Latin American theologians cannot be accused of wanting to separate from the Church. This would be to “ignore the care with which liberation theologians have in the main sought to balance utopian enthusiasm with devotion to the Catholic Church”.Footnote 29 Extremist views were almost expressed by the organisation called ‘Christians for Socialism’, which was created after the election of Salvador Allende in Chile by clergy and laity who wanted the Church to support the government instead of remaining neutral. They sharply criticised the Church's social teachings, they treated all opposing Christian views as mere bourgeois morality and, with a generally belligerent and Marxist style, urged for a more “radical, revolutionary Christianity”.Footnote 30 In a similar vein, other Christian activists advocated violent struggle and denounced the hierarchy of the Church “as bourgeois enemies for not supporting revolution”.Footnote 31
However, these views are not representative “as a description or assessment of liberation theology itself”.Footnote 32 When the liberation theologian Leonardo Boff was silenced for two years by the Vatican, he accepted it by saying “I prefer to walk with the church rather than to work alone with my theology”.Footnote 33 It would be reasonable to conclude that the hierarchical and centralised structure of the Catholic Church has generally kept the theoretical expression of liberation theology within certain boundaries. The absence of such an authority in Islam means that there are fewer restrictions on how scripture can be interpreted and which spiritual authorities can be respected or otherwise.
Although it is difficult to say with great certainty, I shall tentatively posit the possibility that Islamic liberation theology may be more susceptible to creating the possibility of social upheaval; lay intellectuals have the freedom to interpret far more freely and there is no official clergy that can act as brake on ultra-leftist enthusiasm as priests sometimes can in Christianity. The closest thing to a clergy in Islam are the authority of the legal scholars (ulama) in Shia Islam; however, in the history of Iran, their financial independence from the state meant that, “on a comparative scale with other Muslim countries, one must note that there is no other country where the ulama have entered into nearly the amount of protest as one finds in Iranian history”Footnote 34; so even where there can be found something approaching a clergy, it has not had the same effect as the Church in Latin America. Therefore, where there may be sufficiently great grievances felt by the most oppressed strata in a society, an Islamic liberation discourse may be more likely to ally with these strata and mobilise them for political action.
5. Action, orthopraxy and the agency of the oppressed
The next mentality I shall examine is comprised of these three interrelated elements. The first is the emphasis on “enabling the poor to become agents of their own destiny”.Footnote 35 In Latin America, this often required the need to overturn the traditional treatment by the Church of the poor as merely objects of compassion, rather than political agents who deserved to act against injustice. For example, George Soares-Prabhu writes that in the Bible the victims of oppression are simultaneously those through whom history will be redeemed; it “presents the poor not as a group of passive victims who can only hope for deliverance … [but who are] bearers of salvation and hope”.Footnote 36
The official theology of liberation endorsed by the Vatican in the ‘Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation’ expresses that “the little ones”Footnote 37 are the “object of a love of preference on the part of the Church”Footnote 38 because of “the poverty, injustice and affliction [that] they endure”.Footnote 39 Despite this, the instruction nevertheless recognises “the need for unjust structures to be changed”Footnote 40 and goes on to acknowledge the legitimacy of action taken by the oppressed to improve their situation, even if it requires armed struggle as a final resort.Footnote 41 Similarly, Pope John II's encyclicals express the legitimacy of “struggle for social justice”Footnote 42 by “workers as ‘subjects’ of their own destiny”,Footnote 43 and exhorts the faithful to struggle against “evil mechanisms and structures of sin”.Footnote 44 For the Vatican itself to approve of such sentiments (albeit with some ambivalence) is indicative of how the Latin American theologians have been able to change the attitude of the Church towards the poor: to recognise them as agents and not merely as objects of compassion.
Muslims have also needed to face traditionalist attitudes when affirming the agency of the oppressed. Rahman describes an argument used by “the vast majority of Muslims, and indeed primarily by the majority of Muslim religious leaders”,Footnote 45 wherein the obligatory duty of alms-giving for the rich (zakatFootnote 46) necessitates that “some people must remain poor in order for the rich to earn merit in the sight of God”.Footnote 47 It was for the purpose of rejecting such beliefs that Shariati used Sartrean existentialism to argue for the absolute and unqualified responsibility of every person for his or her own fate.Footnote 48 With reference to the Qur'an (which for all Muslims writers is the most authoritative means to verify the authenticity of one's beliefs), Shariati writes that it “holds men responsible for their histories, for their collective destinies and lifestyles, and for the system by which they are governed”.Footnote 49
To this end he reinterprets the traditional Shia doctrines of Intizar and Gaybet. Traditionally they meant that, due to the occultation (Gaybet) of the twelfth Imam Mahdi in 941AD, we must anticipate (Intizar) for his messianic return or parousia at the end of the world, whereupon he will establish perfect peace and justice in the world.Footnote 50 While implicitly rendering all extant governments illegitimate, it generally had the effect of “removing any strong motivations for political activism”.Footnote 51 However, Shariati's interpretation was that these doctrines radically restore agency to humanity; they mean that, in the absence of the twelfth Imam, the people must now bear the responsibility of choosing their own leaders and of controlling their own destiny; they must prepare themselves whilst anticipating the arrival of the opportune moment to enact their inevitably-victorious revolution.Footnote 52
Alongside the desire to restore agency to the oppressed, the second element is the greater importance given to orthopraxis (correct action or practice) over orthodoxy (correct belief). As Dominique Barbé writes, “only action can verify whether or not prayer is authentic”.Footnote 53 For the Latin American theologians, this can be seen in their interpretations of Christology. Instead of a soteriological focus on how to achieve salvation through correct belief,Footnote 54 they focus more on the establishment of the reign of God by Jesus and its message of hope for the poor and marginalised.Footnote 55 Leonardo Boff claims that the church has concentrated on the “theological-philosophical systematization … correct thinking … [and] intellectual comprehension”Footnote 56 of Christ or about Christ. Instead, we must emphasise:
“an ethic … correct acting … [and] in creating new habits of acting and living in the world. This praxiological moment of the message of Christ is especially perceptible in Latin American theological reflection”.Footnote 57
Similar sentiments are expressed by Muslims writers, although often with the intention of reducing the importance of rituals and ritualistic thinking. This is probably indicative of the difference between Christianity, as a religion that places greater importance on correct beliefs as they are expressed in a creed, whereas Islam places greater importance on correct actions as performed in accordance with a sacred Law.Footnote 58
Eliaçık writes that “it does not matter what religion you may be from, you can be a Christian, or Buddhist, or Jewish, or Zoroastrian, or Muslim, or you can even worship an onion [sic]”Footnote 59 because: “I believe that this measure [of piety and religiosity] emerges not from beliefs or the performance of those rituals particular to a religion, but from actions”.Footnote 60 Elsewhere he claims that an aphorism often-attributed to the Prophet (‘Ritual worship [namaz] is the pillar of religion’) is fabricated; instead he argues “the pillar of religion is dürüstlük”Footnote 61 which can be translated as honesty, righteousness, integrity, upright-conduct, etc. He claims that Islam is not “a monastery or temple religion; it's a religion of real life!”.Footnote 62 On the basis of different words being used for each in the Qur'an, he distinguishes between ritual (nusuk) and worship (ibadet); the five daily prayers, pilgrimage to Mecca, fasting during the month of Ramadan, etc, are all rituals; many of them were already practised by the pre-Islamic Arab pagans.Footnote 63 The word for worship, however, encompasses many different kinds of actions that are performed in the midst of life and which are most importance for the religious lifeFootnote 64; he gives the examples of the struggle for justice on behalf of the oppressed, the keeping of promises, creating reconciliation where there is dispute, helping neighbours, etc.Footnote 65
Eren Erdem writes that “A worship that does not frighten capitalism and imperialism is not the worship of God's Messenger”.Footnote 66 He interprets the gestures and prayers that constitute the ritual worship (namaz) to be declarations of war against oppression and exploitation.Footnote 67 In a similar manner, Hanafi “brands all forms of outward, ritualistic … religion as ‘capitalist religion’”Footnote 68 and “redefines the pillars of Islam with an activist meaning”.Footnote 69
The third element of this mentality, which is intimately linked to the previous two elements, is the latent or explicit millenarian demand for immediate action. Millenarianism (or utopianism, as I shall use the two as synonyms) is the type of outlook which sees the present as “one of critical significance … in which action is necessary, as it is … pregnant with opportunity for fulfilling the destiny of humankind”.Footnote 70 The Kairos has arrived and hence the millenarian “is not preoccupied … with optimistic hopes for the future or romantic reminiscences”,Footnote 71 because “absolute perfection … ceases to be a matter of speculation and becomes a pressing necessity for active implementation”.Footnote 72 Ernst Bloch claims that this outlook imagines a utopia which is neither wholly present, nor wholly in the distant future: its fragmentary but palpable presence gives a sense that its complete achievement is close at hand and gives encouragement to action; but equally the lack of its full presence reveals the inadequacy of the present state of affairs, and how its limitations must be overcome for the utopia to be fully realised.Footnote 73
Utopianism for Mannheim is something that “breaks the bonds of the existing order”Footnote 74 because it inevitably involves the recognition that it cannot be achieved within the existing order. For this reason Rowland claims that Latin American liberation theology also fits into this definition of utopianism because, through its notion of praxis, it is “engaged in change in the present [sic] and is not merely dreaming about a better world”.Footnote 75 As Araujo writes, “liberation theologians hope not only in a future of salvation”Footnote 76 but strive for “the fashioning or the realizing of the values of the reign of God here and now in this world”.Footnote 77 Jon Sobrino writes that in the “praxis of love and justice one knows that the kingdom is at hand, is becoming present”.Footnote 78
Erdem writes that there is an other-worldly and this-worldly conception of heaven in the Qur'an; the former is a matter of belief, whereas the latter is something that must immediately be establish by political struggle: wherever on earth there is peace, security, food and drink, then heaven has been establish thereat.Footnote 79 Shariati was similarly convinced of the crucial need for immediate action. His propagation of a revolutionary interpretation of Islam had “a sense of urgency because he believed his was the last generation with any hope of salvation. ‘If this generation is lost,’ Shari'ati feared, ‘then all [the rest] would be type-cast and [brain]washed’”.Footnote 80 This sense that now was the time for vital action no doubt gave him the impetus to write and teach with “such forceful determination, such unparalleled conviction and drive”Footnote 81 that it is unsurprising that he “did the most to prepare the Iranian youth for revolutionary upheaval”.Footnote 82 His interpretation of Intizar during the period of Gaybet, as explained above, corresponds with the millenarian attitude of “expectantly awaiting the propitious moment … the critical juncture of events”Footnote 83 which could arrive “at any moment”.Footnote 84
The Iranian revolution is the only example from modern history of the complete manifestation of this millenarian mentality, which has elsewhere remained latent and implicit. A symbolic sign of this can be seen by the fact that, at the very height of the revolutionary fervour, some people addressed Ayatullah Khomeini (the only Shia cleric to receive this title) as the ‘Imam’Footnote 85; this is a title ordinarily reserved only for the twelve infallible Imams, including the hidden twelfth Imam, whose return was believed to herald the eschaton and “the reign of prophetic justice and everlasting peace”Footnote 86 on behalf of the oppressed. Thus the use of a title charged with such an apocalyptic and eschatological meaning is an index of how the Iranian revolution fully manifested the agency of the oppressed, the importance of political action and the millenarian demand for immediate action. I shall conclude this section by arguing that what this event made manifest is also latent in the other liberation theologies. It is my hypothesis that it requires a particular concurrence or concatenation of critical factors in a conjuncture to render active and operative these latent tendencies. As for what these critical factors may be, a social, political and economic analysis of the Iranian revolution would be necessary which is evidently outside of this project's scope.
6. Rejection of excessive other-worldliness
The final mentality that I will examine is orientated by the rejection of an excessive emphasis on other-worldliness.
Latin American theologians have exhibited this tendency in their emphasis on the humanity of the historical Jesus. While maintaining a belief in his divinity, they tend to view him as “a lot less self-consciously messianic”Footnote 87 and instead regard “Jesus’ consciousness of his mission and of his person as developing gradually and humanly”.Footnote 88 This is part of a trend in modern Christology to reinterpret Christ's consciousness and foreknowledge,Footnote 89 in which his perfection does not consist in knowing everything, but rather in perfect fidelity and devotion to his mission.Footnote 90 This “human dimension of Jesus’ faith comes as truly good news for the poor”Footnote 91 because they are able to identify fully with his suffering and his struggles to maintain hope. Moreover, they argue that “Christianity is not simply a religion of otherworldly salvation”Footnote 92 but they instead draw attention to the “material, this-worldly character”Footnote 93 of the kingdom of God as a “historical reality”Footnote 94 rather than being a “heaven beyond”Footnote 95 time and space.
By comparison, the growing Protestant churches in Latin America show the politically problematic consequences of an excessively other-worldly understanding. Rowland writes that Pentecostalism gives “hope to those who are otherwise without hope”Footnote 96 but “[m]iraculous interventions and escapism offered by tongues of ecstasy cannot change the social fabric which is so deleterious to the poor”.Footnote 97 Research into Pentecostalism by Margaret Poloma has led to the conclusion that its conception of God “ultimately fosters privatization and political passivity”.Footnote 98 Also, the various fundamentalist Protestant churches that have begun to grow in Nicaragua all tend to express “strongly anti-Marxist [sentiments] … in the form of otherworldly religious indoctrination”.Footnote 99
A similar disdain for other-worldliness can be seen in the Muslims writers. At the end of his four-volume thematic study of the Qur'an, Ghulam Parwez does not discuss eschatology, as would be expected:
“This is a highly typical trait of Muslim modernity. Instead of it comes as closing chapter – and that is equally significant – an excurses on the New World, to be brought about by the revolutionary views of the Koran. So the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ is not be regarded as a divine surprise at the end of time, but it is a mission to men, capable of realization if only the Koranic principles are carried out in full”.Footnote 100
Inayatullah Khan ridicules the idea that the heaven presented in the Qur'an is a celestial pleasure-garden; the heaven that is described, and for which we must strive, “is world-dominion and is unrelated to a hereafter!”.Footnote 101 Hanafi regards “the message of Islam as thoroughly belonging to this world”Footnote 102 and believes in worldly salvation: the only possible afterlife is “the effects of one's actions and the memory one leaves in the collective mind of fellow men”.Footnote 103 Mazhar Siddiqi argues that there is a hereafter in this world also and it is the legacy bequeathed to history by those who “work and live for higher things and disregard immediate difficulties”.Footnote 104 Rahman has a similarly ethical interpretation when he argues that “the essence of the ‘hereafter’ consists in the ‘ends’ of life … or the long-range results of man's endeavors on earth”.Footnote 105
Morteza Motahhari reinterprets Islamic asceticism away from its traditional attitude of antisocial and quietist detachment from worldly affairs, on the basis that “this world is merely a vale of tears and all is to be expected from the hereafter”.Footnote 106 Instead, to change asceticism into an attitude that encourages political activism, he interprets it as a way of freeing oneself from slavery to one's passions for the purposes of thereby being able to participate more vigorously in political struggle; to do this, he distinguished between the activist asceticism of Imam Ali and the quietist other-worldly asceticism of Christian monasticism.Footnote 107
Shariati similarly criticises an attitude of turning away from this world in the hope of the hereafter; instead, he argues that an authentic understanding would see the afterlife as the reward of active engagement in this world.Footnote 108 Erdem interprets the day of judgement and resurrection to be both something for the afterlife, which is a matter of faith, but also a symbolic picture of political revolution, for which we must strive in this world to accomplishFootnote 109; “The Qur'an is comprised of both [i.e. worldly and other-worldly conceptions]. But the Kıyam [i.e. the day of judgement] of this world is seen as absolutely indispensable”.Footnote 110
One can see that the reaction against other-worldliness can have the tendency with Muslim writers to result in the full subordination of religion to politics, and can lead to such a one-sided interpretation that all sense of the supernatural and transcendental can become lost. Hanafi's blunt denial of the afterlife is the point that is reached when this logic is carried to its very end. It cannot be said that all radical Muslim writers have, to some extent, this disdain for other-worldliness.Footnote 111 Nevertheless, I conclude that, because the Latin American theologians are subject to the doctrinal authority of the Church, on the whole they maintain a union between their political commitments and their faith, without the one eliminating the other,Footnote 112 despite what some of their critics have claimed.Footnote 113
7. Conclusion
To summarise my analysis: the liberation theologies of both religious traditions seek firstly to reinterpret their traditions from the perspective of the oppressed or poor, and they hence divide their own religions into that which does the same and that which instead stands on the side of the oppressors or the rich; secondly they seek to affirm the agency of the oppressed, to give greater importance to action over faith or rituals and to demand (often only implicitly or latently) immediate millenarian action to achieve utopia in the present; and thirdly they both manifest a disdain for excessively other-worldly ways of thinking.
To summarise my synthetic conclusions: firstly, without the structure of the Church to maintain certain boundaries, I put forward the hypothesis that Islamic liberation discourses may be more potent than Christian discourses for creating social upheaval; this is because intellectuals are more free to develop their ideas in ways that can galvanise a situation by expressing sentiments that become conjoined with the demands of the most oppressed strata; due once again to the lack of the Church's authority, I put forth the hypothesis that the attenuation of religious feeling by the needs of more worldly political demands is more likely to occur with Islamic thinkers than with Christians. Lastly, I claimed that all theologies of liberation contain in latent form a millenarianism which only became fully apparent in the Iranian revolution, due to the unique and critical set of circumstances present in that country at that particular time.
Finally I wish to make a point about how we ought to understand these explicitly-political forms of theology. I reject firmly the view that sees these as merely fanatical threats to secularism and democracy, and which regards the intersection of politics and religion as being inherently pre-modern and undesirable. Our understanding of the recent revival of religious politics (to which this project is a meagre contribution) should not be pursued out of fear of the object of study. On the contrary. After the collapse of Marxist-Leninism, as Roberts writes, “is the only effective source for structural critiques of the unchallenged (and seemingly unchallengeable) power of global capitalism to be found in the discourses of theology and religion[?]”.Footnote 114 I would answer in the affirmative. But, as Doja writes, religions can be either “a justification for liberationist movements or as an ideology justifying domination”.Footnote 115 An examination of Islam alone will suffice. As Binder writes, “the resurgence of Islam is both a threat and a promise”.Footnote 116 He is correct, although he and Hakan Yavuz see it as an opportunity to be seized by the bourgeoisie.Footnote 117 But as Doja writesFootnote 118 (2000, pp678–679), Engels perceived better than Marx that all secular ideologies of revolution, including scientific socialism, relied on a utopian impulse inherited from millenarian and apocalyptic religious movements, an impulse which it had negated and yet preserved in a dialectical movement of sublation.Footnote 119 This utopian impulse could once again be mobilised in the future. Thus I argue that this religious revival is an opportunity for the oppressed, not the oppressors.
