ISLAMIC REVOLUTION STUDIES
Year:2009 | Volume:4 | Issue:15|Papers Count:9

Although Imam Hussein's uprising had a political and heroic nature, those aspects have been so weakened or – in other words – deviated throughout history that it turned into a cloistered and unsociable culture. Through Islamic revolution, however, people's general attitude towards Imam Hussein's uprising changed into a political and heroic culture once more. Here, the role of religious thinkers, especially the Shiite clergy was most essential and critical. The present article, therefore, deals with the clerics' and religious thinkers' activities in this change of attitude. It tries to display the degree of influence of religious intelligentsia on the Ashura culture and people's attitude towards Imam Hussein's movement and the philosophy of mourning ceremonies by reviewing the works of cleric-thinkers and religious intelligentsia of the Islamic revolution pertaining to Imam Hussein's movement. Finally, it will briefly mention the effects of this attitude change on people's behaviors and their mottos.From 1340s on, Imam Khomeini, Martyr Mottahari, Dr. Shariati, and many religious scholars and clerics attempted to resist deviancies in Ashura, explaining its heroic and political aspects. Their thoughts and works reflect their attempts to revive political and heroic aspects of Ashura, and thereby explaining the true goals of Imam Hussein's movement, which links politics and religion. Iranian people, therefore, took Imam Hussein's movement as a model for their revolution and, considering the principle of "enjoining good and forbidding evil", identified Shah's regime as a great evil, revolting against evil to eliminate it and establish Islamic government. The mourning ceremonies then were no longer simply dolorous ceremonies, but turned into heroic movements and political demonstrations.To explain this change in attitude, we have attempted to make use of Holland's theory, one of the stimulus-response theories in social psychology.

In Imam Khomeini's political thought, all fields of knowledge and humanism are based on the same knowledge bases; and mysticism, as the most basic knowledge for Imam Khomeini, is the substructure of his thought. Accordingly, the precise understanding of other types of knowledge as well as jurisprudential, philosophical, ethical, political, theological, … types of knowledge are closely linked with Imam's mystical principles. Imam's view on politics, law, ethics, … is influenced by his mystical principles pertaining to existence, human, and the end of creation.Therefore, understanding Imam's political thought depends on understanding his political writings. Thus, among his works, we have selected the book entitled "Mesbah al-Hedaya" which enjoys special feature. It regards human as God's vicegerent, and this forms the basis of Imam's political thought.

The present study includes a two-part question: how is government realized in the Occultation Period and in Imam's presence? To answer this question, thus, we deal with the doctrines current in the community of the Waiters, i.e. the doctrines of no obligation or boycotting the government in Occultation Period and the doctrine of uprising (including the uprising with obligation of forming a government and uprising with authorization of forming a government); as for the period of Imam's presence, we have noted three doctrines as follows: the doctrine of natural uprising, the doctrine of justice based on Imam's knowledge, and the doctrine of social capacity. Accordingly, it can be said that the author is seeking to highlight and reinforce two things: (a) we must not only attempt to preserve the doctrine of uprising in the Waiting Period, but also we must make the society familiar and intimate with the nature and essence of that doctrine; (b) the author believes that in the period of Imam's presence, the doctrine of social capacity is more defendable in the sphere of intellectualism and academic circles.

Ali Abdu-Razzaq Mesri and Imam Khomeini are among the inquirers of the most basic discussion in the political thought, i.e. the relationship between religion and politics. While Abdu-Razzaq tries to derive secularism from religious texts, Imam Khomeini, in contrast, proves the theory of equality of religion and politics.The importance of studying the views of these two thinkers lies in their departing from the contemporary dominant paradigm and their intellectual authority for the proponents and opponents of secularism in the Islamic world. The contention between the proponents of the Abdu-Razzaq's and Imam Khomeini's intellectual traditions, which is nowadays found in visible and invisible layers of scientific circles in the Islamic world, explains the necessity of studying the thoughts of these two thinkers.What is problematic here is not the duality of their thinking but the reason for this duality; that is both Abdu-Razzaq and Imam Khomeini emerged from the traditional clerics of their own age, using religious text to prove their theories; however, they came to different results on a single subject.Therefore, the present study poses the following question: why have Abdu-Razzaq and Imam Khomeini, though religiously educated, come to a theoretical conflict on the relationship between religion and politics from an intra-religious position? Providing an answer this question can seriously influence the contention between Muslim secularists and the proponents of equality of religion and politics, and would answer one of the current questions in the Islamic political thought. One hypothesis for this is the conflict and inconsistency among the religious texts, which is an invalid hypothesis in the author's view, as it displays a shallow reading of the Quranic verses and a severe scientific weakness.The hypothesis of the present study, however, is that the reason for theoretical conflict between Abdu-Razzaq and Imam Khomeini on the relationship of religion and politics lies in the difference between their discourses. The research method here is a comparative-critical one.

Hypocrisy is a phenomenon traceable in various societies as well as ours. One of the study fields pertaining to hypocrisy is the theoretical fields of discussions on it. In this regard, it is advisable to study the factors leading to the emergence of hypocrisy. No doubt, putting forward discussions of this kind from religious point of view can lead to the fortification of the theoretical bases of studies on Islamic Revolution. In the advent of Islam, hypocrisy was a phenomenon caused by "fear"-as some believe-and caused by various factors such as avarice, fear, prejudice, and deviance in the prophets' mission-as some others believe. What follows from the difference between these two views is that in the first view, the emergence of hypocrisy is limited to Medina, while in the second one its emergence can be presumed and proved in Mecca before Hijra as well. Scrutiny in verses pertaining to the hypocrites supports the latter view.

Intellectualism is one of the notions emerged in France in late 19th century following trial of Captain Dreyfus. Four years later, the writer Emile Zola issued a manifesto, resulting in his arrest; other writers denounced his arrest in a manifesto entitled "Intellectuals' Manifesto". The terms "intellectualism" and "intellectuals" prevailed gradually. The notion had a special connotation in the west, which was used in the course of the evolutions in Iran. Some of the westerner educated Iranians introduced themselves as intellectuals-the same meaning – in Iran; in 19th century, they formed modern political and social trends based on western models.Since this mentality was inconsistent with the epistemological structures and political discourse of that age, religious elites (scholars) and grass root confronted these trends. National Iranian identity has long been mixed with Islam and Shiism. Iranians would confront any things which they felt to be an invasion on their religious beliefs and knowledge. Many Islamic movements have emerged throughout Iran's history, many of which rooted in these very internal feelings. The role and effects of the religious elites in these evolutions is much prominent.Here, we have dealt with the reasons for struggles between religious elites and other elites, introducing the views of each group to identify various types of intellectualism in Iran; these types include: anti-tradition; Islamist, and modern western intellectuals.The religious elites and scholars' views have been selected randomly from views presented by Mirza Shirazi and Sheikh Fazl Allah Nuri; these views have then been compared and contrasted to sort out the positive and negative trends of intellectualism.

The present article investigates and explains the theoretical bases of two approaches, i.e. affirmative and negative, to cultural engineering in Iran after revolution; in this regard, theoretical bases of two approaches to cultural engineering have been studied. The results show that these two approaches are basically different as to the definition they present for culture and cultural engineering, human, the role of the state in the sphere of culture, and the consequences of the state's interference in cultural engineering of the society.