Swan song
The many reformations of Iranian Islam
May 13, 2004
iranian.com
Some people believe that there is no such thing
as coincidence or chance. Coincidence or not, I had been reading
the article
by Guive Mirfendereski about the sad demise of his father [See:
Rising
sun] and after sending him a brief note of condolence,
returned to an
article from the Encyclopedia Iranica, which had attracted
my curiosity, mainly because it was written by the late Henri
Corbin,
author of the 4-volume En Islam Iranien and many other
works. The article concerned an Azar Kayvan, a Zoroastrian from
Shiraz,
who, in the 17th century, left for India to found a Zoroastrian
version of the celebrated illuminationist theosophic school initiated
by the 12th-century Iranian gnostic, Shehab-al-din Yahya Sohravardi.
The latter's Philosophy of Light had accomplished the feat
of integrating into gnostic Sufism, itself much influenced by neo-Platonism
(including through the works of an Avicenna), some of the Zoroastrian
archangels as well as semi-legendary kings of the Persian national
epic like Kay Khosro. All this within his philosophy of Light which
transcends sectarian divisions, as all gnostic thought inevitably
must do. Back-and-forth movements of motifs and ideas that refuse
to die and the consequent symbiotic relationship between old and
new beliefs have often marked the thought patterns of the Islamic
era, not only of Iran but of Iranian-influenced countries such
as India under the Mughal dynasty. And indeed it was the liberal
religious atmosphere of Emperor Akbar's India and his attempts
at creating a world religion from the many strands of faith present
in India, that was conducive to syncretistic thought.
The Illuminationist or Eshraqi school had a fruitful revival
in the Safavid period, thanks to superior minds like Mir Damad
and
above all, Molla Sadra Shirazi whose metaphysical writings are
arguably unequalled anywhere in the world. Such thinkers were not
just content with rehashing the same old commentaries, but in the
best tradition of the earliest days of the Mutazilites (most of
whom were Persians converted to Islam in caliphal Baghdad), produced
new ideas and took them to summits, beyond which lies only the
thorny path of questioning the existence of God (without excluding
a return to belief, but only by way of rational deduction). This
could not happen in the special atmosphere of Safavid Iran, which
had declared Shiism the national religion and imported theologians
from Bahrain and the Lebanon to consolidate it as a national creed
that eventually was to even condemn the very Sufism to which the
Safavids' ancestors had adhered. It has been said that that
was the beginning of the end, for while Europe followed the Cartesian
school, Iran never ventured beyond the metaphysics of a Molla Sadra,
who himself had to go into concealment to avoid persecution.
That
did not arrest the popularity of his school, nor the proliferation
of disciples who might take inspiration from him, even Zoroastrians,
as is well evident from the singular case of an Azar Kayvan. The
School of Isfahan (later moved to Shiraz) became so well-known
that when the first student from the still unexplored desert of
Najd in present-day Saudi Arabia, who decided to venture into the
world beyond, to improve his knowledge, he proceeded to Shiraz.
That man was the now justifiably maligned Abd-al-Wahhab, who was
shocked to discover that Islam in Shiraz had 'degenerated' into
(to him) incomprehensible philosophical rantings, and returned
home to fulminate against the sin of compounding the teachings
of the Prophet with the philosophy of the heretical Persians. Instead
he preached a literalist Islam which is nowadays, thanks to oil
politics, equated with Moslems everywhere, without much allowance
for local divergences and idiosyncrasies, which have always been
especially strong in Iran.
Azar Kayvan took the teachings of the Illuminationists to India
where he created a Zoroastrian version for his fellow Parsees.
As I read on, I found out that the noted theosophist of the School
of Isfahan, Mir-Fenderesky, had been a disciple of this symbiosis
between Zoroastrianism and the Illuminationists. An interesting
exchange, in which a Zoroastrian turns to novel ideas coming out
of his land in the guise of Islam, and on the other a noted scholar
of Islamic gnosis attracted to the 'nationalized' version
of the gnosticism of his school as conceived among Indian Parsees.
Never mind that a footnote of the same article says that some of
the books attributed by Azar Kayvan and his disciples to pre-Islamic
figures are apocryphal, that the attempt to avoid Arabic words
in the text is too forced and that the texts attributed to this
school are not altogether devoid of opaque 'gibberish'.
What matters most here is the symbiosis itself, the oecumenical
attempt to syncretize the two main religions of Iran at their most
creative instead of stagnating in the tired straitjacket of archaic
beliefs.
This was by no means a novelty in Iran or among Iranians, who
influenced Shia deviationism in the early days of Islam right under
the nose
of the Caliphs in Baghdad. It belies the by now hackneyed repetition,
by superficially informed commentators in the press, that Islam,
contrary to Judaism and Christianity, had never known any reformation.
I had wanted to write an answer to such an inanity, but the subject
is far too complex, difficult, and I felt inadequate for the task.
The spark that triggered my decision was the coincidence that led
me to the ancestor of the Mir Fendereskis by way of Azar Kayvan
just after reading of the demise of his distinguished descendant,
Ahmad Mir Fenderski, who belonged to a now defunct class of superior
statesmen. To come across the name of his celebrated ancestor in
an article devoted to syncretism in the history of Iranian religions
seemed to me almost like a signal of fate. I just had to respond,
no matter how amateurishly I might express my views. As with the
school of Azar Kayvan among the Parsees of India, it is not the
quality of what is said, but the purport of what is said that matters
the most.
Indeed, to say that Islam has known no reformation is to ignore
the history of Shiite thought from the earliest days. I do not
mean the habitual explanation that Iranians were drawn to Shiism
because they were used to hereditary kingship and were therefore
in favour of Imams descended directly from the line of the Prophet
Mohammad. Much more important was the messianic idea, unknown in
Sunnism, as incorporated in the idea of an Occult Imam and his
promised return at the end of time. The messianic idea goes back
to before Zoroaster, to Mithra who represented the ultimately regenerative
and purifying power of the sun and its emanations.
The messianic aspect was taken up in a more elaborate form by
Zoroaster, whose seed deposited in a lake (generally taken to be
the now mostly
dry Lake Hamun in the province of Sistan) would, according to Zoroastrian
eschatology, impregnate three virgins who, in turn, would give
birth to a succession of three messengers, the last of whom would
be the agent of the Final Resurrection of Good and the total elimination
of Evil forces. If it sounds familiar, it's no coincidence,
for thanks to meticulous study, we now know that the whole messianic
idea ( as well as many more) was transmitted by the agency of the
Zoroastrian Magi to Judaism and through it, to Christianity too.
To Buddhism it infiltrated directly from Mithraism which continued
to be practiced in eastern Iranian lands before the adoption of
Buddhism under the Kushan dynasty. The very name of the Maitreya,
Buddha of the future, is revealing enough.
As with Judaism, Christianity
and Buddhism, so with Shiite Islam, and through it also to its
many offshoots, including Ismaelism
and more recently, Shaikhism and Babism. That such a powerful idea,
the very expression of hope, having penetrated every major religion,
should not influence Iranian Islam (either directly or through
the agency of Iranian-influenced non-Iranians in Iraq), would have
been surprising. Indeed, the figure of the Occult Imam came to
represent the essence of Shiism, even though the person of the
occulted one varied according to schools, from the offspring of
the fourth Imam in Zaidism, to that aof the Seventh in Ismailism
and of the eleventh in Twelver or Duodeciman Shiism of the majority
trend. As though this were not already enough of a deviation from
what the 'last of the prophets' had taught, extremist
Shiites began to develop ideas about the 'hidden' or
esoteric meaning of the Word, thus leaving the door wide open to
change.
This did not remain a dead letter, and a host of different schools
of thought developed not only within gnostic groups, but within
the mainstream, the latest of whose interpretations, as expressed
by the Usulis of the 18th century led to the present political
rule by Shiite clerics, pending the coming of the occult Imam of
the Age. As with any freedom, leaving the door open to reformation,
does not always lead to the desired results, but at least the possibility
of change is alive, unlike in Sunnism which only believes in the
apparent meaning of the Word as transmitted to the Prophet of Islam.
That such a trend did not come to a stop, that it was not discouraged
by the rigid orthodoxy of recently converted Turkic invaders who
took the reins of power, shows just how strong the urge for reinterpretation
has been within the framework of Iranian Islam. This is not the
place to go into the labyrinthine details of the many ideas developed
over fifteen centuries, nor am I qualified to undertake such a
task. But this does give me a chance to remind of at least one
or two of the most innovative schools that developed within Shiite
Islam to show that Islam has known reformations much bolder than
any among the Christians. Nowhere more so than within the Ismaelism
of Alamut in the middle of the 12th century. Yes, as early as that,
when Europe was still struggling with the Dark Ages of medieval
papists. Not even the Bahais dared to venture that far.
To the messianic idea of a returning imam, the Ismaelis added
that of a cyclical return that would eventually culminate in the
final
event, the Great Resurrection, when all prophetic eras and their
laws would be superseded by the fact that religion had been interiorized
within members of the community, who therefore no longer needed
the Sharia.
The promise of the day, when that would occur, had been included
in Ismaili doctrine, but circumstances had not allowed it to happen
until one day in the 12th century when the heretofore persecuted
Ismailis of Alamut, feeling somewhat relieved by the weakening
of the Saljuk monarchs and therefore from the persecution to which
they had responded with targeted assassinations of specific enemies,
including that of the great statesman, Nizam-al-molk (which earned
them unfairly the name of Assassins, wrongly associated with the
use of hashish), proclaimed with pomp and ceremony on the plain
below Alamut that the Resurrection had come and their Imam, Mohammad
III, was the one who would declare the end of all prophecies as
well as dispensation from the Law.
This situation lasted for about fifty years within their community,
after which, isolation having weighed too much on the young, their
leaders had to compromise with mainstream Moslems (mostly still
officially Sunni at that time) and come out of their mountain fastnesses
to live a more fruitful life. That compromise engendered greater
success. Soon the number of Ismailis was on the rise, and thanks
to their involvement in overland trade, they became extremely powerful,
so much so that the future of Iranian Islam looked like it would
take the Ismaili path, and 'free' itself partly from
the shackles imposed by the rigidly institutionalized religion
of the Saljuks. It was not to be though. The Mongols were coming,
and when Hulaku was appointed to be the Ilkhan, he realized where
competition was strong, and went for the jugular of Ismaelism.
The story of how it resurfaced from hiding under the guidance
of
the family of the Agha Khans is irrelevant to the point I am trying
to make. This had been the boldest deviation in Islam, but it was
not to be the last, since Shiism had yet to be declared the official
religion of a recreated Iran, and a Bab was to show up in 19th-century
Shiraz to claim the mantle of the promised Imam. The Azar Kayvan
attempt at symbiosis was a marginal one, but along the same lines.
Had it not been for the fact that Ahmad Mir-Fendereski had just
passed away, I may not have noticed the name of his illustrious
ancestor as one of those who, although trained as a theologian,
was most drawn to the idea of syncretism with links not only to
our own past, but with the greater world beyond.
With such a diversity at their disposal to study and ruminate,
one can hardly conceive that the assiduous youth at work in the
sophisticated computerized idea factories in Qom will not eventually
produce something new. Something more akin to what the Kasravis
and the Akhundzadehs had said. All of the progressive minds, secularists
and even atheists of Iran's 20th-century history arose from
clerical ranks, later to depart radically from their likes to propose
new avenues. The movement initiated by them has not yet run its
full course. Apart from the rich and diverse traditions to which
their predecessors were exposed, the future breed of potential
reformers has access to a range of cultures and ideas that their
elder peers did not have. It would be atypical if such a training
does not bring about a wealth of new thought, once the last breed
of populist nominees, so visibly devoid of the merits required
for the lofty positions they now occupy, has gone into retirement
- to everyone's relief.
There are signs to behold. On a recent trip to Iran after an
absence of 25 years, I did not see one turban on the streets except
those
on gigantic billboards, nor did I hear a loudspeaker blare out
the call to prayer until I landed in Istanbul. Ashura had gone
by and friends told me that this year, the whole program had been
choreographed to new rhythmic beats in order to attract more people
to the martyrdom ceremonies, irreverently called 'Hossein-parties'
by some of the youth. One of the out-of-favour ayatollahs has written
a book about Iranian Islam being different from the Islam of orthodox
Sunnism and has thus given rise to a lively debate. 'Sinful' reng
music can be heard on the radio, as well as outspoken satire at
the expense of the mollas and their failures. Archeologists, including
foreign ones, told me that there is more money available for the
excavation of pre-Islamic sites than for Islamic-era ones. A young
man from Ahvaz, visiting the Iran Bastan Museum, said in loud and
clear words, that 'religion as a solution to our problems
has clearly failed its mission'. Nor was he the only one
to be fearlessly outspoken. There is altogether a sense of vibrancy
in Iran that one cannot ignore as something that will have no morrow.
Still, one must not read too much into these signs either. Despite
curiousity for other religions, including Buddhism, and definie
interest in a secular state, as a way out of ou present predicament,
at least half the people of the country are still attached to their
rituals and beliefs, though, of course, in their own Iranian idiosyncratic
way. That does not prevent them from advocating the separtion of
state and religion and a democratically elected government. Some
claim that the religiosity of these people is skin-deep and a radical
change of direction might be acceptable to many more than meets
the eye at present, but only if it comes from a trusted quarter
which, elusive for now, may be in the making.This would have the
advantage of putting the well-oiled mechanisms of clerical insitutions
at the disposal of progressive reforms.
Utopia, perhaps? I am no soothsayer. There are many unknowns
on the path of future salvation and many problems, not least serious
environmental ones, that must be solved before one can be optimistic.
I have only tried to shed light on the past as a guide to potential
future trends in Iran and to keep hope alive as the immortal legacy
of both Zoroaster and Shiite Islam. As for the people of Iran,
their unprecedented level of awareness and critical judgment are
an added promise. The lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan are not lost
on them, notwithstanding the impression of naïve journalists
who mistake Iranian hospitality for approval of Bush and a will
to submit to foreign intervention, the last thing Iranians of any
political tendency would want. Nor does anyone harbour any illusions
about the mollarchy, but for now, the majority prefer to put up
with that which they know, as it shows signs of relenting on some
of its rigours, rather than risk the unknown, or worse, violence
and civil war. Most hope that the recent success of the conservatives
will be their swan song. The invisibility of the latter may even
point to the fact that they know it too well. Author
Fatema Soudavar Farmanfarmaian was born in Tehran in 1940 and
studied in Iran and Switzerland. In Iran she was on the committe
of a number of organizations, including the Museum of Modern Art
and the Women's University. She also did volunteer work for the
Deparment of the Environment, where she planned education for schools
and TV on environmental subjects. Since the Revolution she has been
focusing on research and writing. Her latest appeared in The
Journal of the Society for Iranian Studies (Summer/Fall 2000)
called "Haft Qalam Arayish: Cosmetics int he Iranian World".
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