A wonderful quote from Hamid Dabashi’s ISLAMIC LIBERATION THEOLOGY: Resisting the Empire, p. 68. Brackets are mine.
Shi’ism
is predicated on a paradox. It fails upon [political] success [just]
like the myth of Sisyphus. Shi’ism is a religion of protest. It can
never succeed [politically in the spatio-temporal mundane – ed.]. As
soon as it succeeds [politically, exoterically], it negates itself
metaphysically. Its material success is its moral failure. — Hamid Dabashi [or Henry Corbin?]
