Global Influences on Iranian Religious Doctrine and Practice

This panel was compiled by the Conference Program Team from independently submitted paper proposals


Presentations

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The deepening sectarian rift in the Middle East following the shift of power from Sunnis to Shiʻis in Iraq in 2003 and the emergence of radical Salafi-jihadi organizations, most notably the Islamic State (ISIL), threaten Iran's aspirations to establish itself as a regional leader. As part of the effort to stave off the Salafi challenge the Iranian religious establishment has adopted a two prong strategy on the religious-ideological front. The first is an effort to reach-out to mainstream Sunnis in order to create a common front against the Salafi-Jihadists. A major step in this regard was the religious rulings by leading clerics headed by Supreme Leader Khamenei banning the centuries-old Shiʻi practice of disassociation from (tabarra’iyan) and cursing of the first three Sunni caliphs and the Companions of the Prophet, who are revered by the Sunnis. Another step was the official ban in 2007 on the popular celebrations of the murder of the second Caliph Umar b. al-Khattab popularly known as Umarkeshun. The government also shut down the reputed grave of Umar's assassin in Kashan, which had been a popular site of visitations.
The strategic threat posed by ISIL and the need for all-out mobilization against it, produced a second strategy of declaring the Salafi-Jihadi organizations as apostates, which elevated the fight against them into a defensive jihad. Such declarations stand in sharp contrast to past practices, as Shiʻis had traditionally viewed their opponents as misguided believers or sinners, but not as apostates who deserved death.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the discourse within the Iranian religious milieu on the Salafi-Jihadi challenge, and to assess whether this changing discourse reflects a fundamental ideological and revision regarding the historical and theological divide between Shiʻa and Sunna or it is mainly a political measure designed to advance Iran's regional policy. Close attention will be given to the diversity of opinions on these issues among senior and low-ranking clerics as well as between Iranian and Arab clerics in Iraq and Lebanon in order to assess degrees of pluralism and conformity in present-day Shiʻi discourse. The paper will also seek to examine the effect of the changing discourse on the Sunni Caliphs and Sahaba on popular Iranian religious practices and attitudes and its impact on the broader issue of official and popular religion in Iran.

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Similar to the rest of Ummah, the Shia branch constitutes a minority movement within the Islam practiced throughout Latin America. The majority of the Shiite communities are currently located in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil. The first Shiite Muslims arrived in Latin America at the beginning of the 20th century from countries that are presently known as Lebanon and Syria. However, after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, through its embassies in the region, Iran inspired a process of Da’wah or Islamic summons of missionary nature that, even though it had a limited range, would boost some processes of conversion and activism in countries such as Brazil, Colombia, and in particular Argentina. In the latter country, the most influential and activist-natured Shiite community in Latin America was built around the Al-Tauhid mosque located in Barrio de Flores, Buenos Aires. To date, this process for promoting Shia Islam has not been properly studied. By taking that into consideration, this paper analyzes the efforts aimed at promoting Shia Islam in Latin America that have been carried out by the Iranian government and its network of embassies in the area as well as by educational and non-governmental Shiite missionary organizations, such as the Ahlul Bayt World Assembly and the Fundación Cultural Oriente (Middle Eastern Cultural Foundation), located in Teherán and Qom respectively. These organizations have promoted diverse activities within the last fifteen years that include translating and publishing religious Shiite literature, theological and religious training programs in Iran directed at young people in Latin American, and establishing Iran cultural centers in various Latin American cities, among other activities. This paper describes the modus operandi of these organizations in this region, specifically looking at three particular areas: Central America, Colombia, and Argentina. Furthermore, it analyzes the network of institutions and religious leaders that have formed part of this Da’wah effort, as well as the role of the Iran embassies. Lastly, this paper concludes that, despite an enormous effort from the Iranian government and religious foundations that have operated in Latin America during the last fifteen years, the results have been very limited; there have been few conversions, work from Da’wah organizations has been inconsistent, and the process of coordination between these organizations and the Iran embassies has been inefficient on some occasions. This study is based on research in this field, interviews, text analysis, media reports, and memoirs.

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Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari (b. 1936) has publicly called for the acceptance of critical hermeneutic methodologies to the study of Qur'an and Sunna, and has started to re-read and analyze the Qur'an with tools developed in linguistic philosophy. The application of such an approach to the study of the religious sources, their evolution and redaction, Shabestari suggests, would not harm the appeal of revelation, but to the contrary, strengthen religious belief. The article examines the secular hermeneutic Shabestari has most forcefully developed in his 2006 text Qara'at-e Nabavi-e az Jahan [The Prophetic Reading of the World] and the implications of this reading of the Qur'an for the nature of social order and political power. It also discusses the radical re-orientation Shabestari has undertaken with this view compared to earlier epistemological views, expressed in Naqdi bar Qara'at-e Rasmi-e Din [A Critique of the Official Reading of Religion] and Ta'amulati dar Qara'at-e Ensan-e az Din [Reflections on the Human Reading of Religion]. The paper closes with a comparative reflection on how Shabestari's hermeneutic turn differs from that undertaken by Malekian and Soroush.

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The religious reformists in Iran are an influential group in Iran’s political system, especially since the 1979 revolution. However, their influence has suffered since the last presidency of a reformist, Mohammad Khatami, which ended in 2005. Their intellectual leaders such as Abdolkarim Soroush or Mohsen Kadivar are in exile and have lost the possibility to participate in the political discourse. Their political figures are imprisoned or did not have enough support to run for president in the elections of 2013.
The paper will discuss the decline of the religious reformist movement in Iran and its reasons. Along political respectively strategic factors for the loss of power, it will focus on the theoretical background of the religious reformists in Iran and take a closer look on the philosophical work of religious reformist thinkers, mainly Abdolkarim Soroush, Mohamad Mojtahed Shabestari, Mohsen Kadivar and Hasan Yusefi Eshkevari. The paper will zoom in to the Human Rights and democracy discourse of these thinkers, where they discuss whether a certain interpretation of Islam is compatible with Human Rights and democracy.
The paper will argued that argumentative and structural weaknesses in the work of these religious reformist thinkers are directly linked to political setbacks for the reformist movement.

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Among the various transnational factions within contemporary Twelver Shiism, the so-called Shiraziyyin constitute a loose network of clerical families, their followers and political groups who adhere to the religious and socio-political teachings of Mohammad Shirazi and his younger brothers. Stemming from a prominent clerical family of Iranian descent, based in Karbala, Shirazi challenged the pre-eminence and political quietism of the clerical establishment in Najaf in the 1960s. Initially with close ideological ties to Khomeini, Shirazi settled in Qom in 1979. After the Islamic Revolution, the Shiraziyyin played a significant role in exporting Khomeini’s ideology and in mobilising Shia communities in the Gulf. However, Shirazi grew increasingly disillusioned by the Iranian regime and was one of the few Qom-based clerics who rejected the Islamic Republic’s autocratic tendencies openly in the 1980s.
This paper discusses Shirazi’s socio-political views in the context of late 20th century Shii political thought and in relation to Khomeini’s velāyat-e faqīh. Already in the early 1960s, Shirazi advanced a collective and consultative leadership role for jurisconsults in an Islamic state in his notion of shawrā-ye foqahā’. Shirazi concluded from the collective deputyship of the ‘olamā’ during the occultation of the Hidden Imam that they should also exercise collective and consultative executive power in an Islamic state. Shirazi’s notion of the collective leaderships role of jurisconsults influenced Khomeini’s own conception of clerical political authority in the latter’s Ḥokūmat-e Eslāmī and found its manifestation in the 1979 Constitution of the Islamic Republic. However, from the late 1980s onwards, Shirazi presented his understanding of the socio-political authority of the jurisconsults as an alternative to Khomeini’s velāyat-e faqīh in order to voice his increasing opposition to the Iranian regime.