Justice and Liberation - Shari’ati and Murad on liberation
Compare Ali Shari’ati's mobilisation against oppression with Abdal Hakim Murad's return to spiritual discipline, and judge how inward formation and social transformation might support or frustrate one another.
Shari’ati and revolutionary liberation
Ali Shari’ati (1933–1977) presents Islam as a source of committed resistance to domination. His project responds to inequality, authoritarian power and the danger that religion legitimises an unjust social order. Liberation is therefore not exhausted by private devotional comfort; it requires changing relationships that keep people powerless.
Marxist influence appears in his attention to class, exploitation and the relationship between ideas and material power. An institution may teach obedience to rulers because doing so protects its privileged position. Religious language can then conceal inequality rather than challenge it. Shari’ati asks whether religion functions as an ideology of domination or as a resource for awakening and struggle.
Influence does not mean simple identity. He does not adopt an orthodox atheistic Marxism in which religion must disappear. Instead, he rereads Islamic memory and belief as resources for an emancipatory consciousness. Tawhid can have social force: ultimate allegiance to God challenges the elevation of rulers and classes into unquestionable authorities. This is Shari’ati's interpretation of Islam's implications, not a proof that every social equality follows from one theological proposition without further argument.
His ideas helped shape revolutionary opposition in Iran and influenced the movement culminating in 1979. He died in 1977, so he did not personally participate in the revolution's 1979 events or design its eventual institutions. Intellectual involvement through lectures, writings and mobilising influence must be distinguished from physical involvement in later events.
A strength is that religious commitment becomes a demand to confront exploitation. A difficulty is that revolutionary rhetoric can simplify who oppresses whom and give a movement excessive moral certainty. A claim to resist unjust power does not establish that the replacement power will be just. Evaluating Shari’ati therefore requires examining both his diagnosis of domination and the safeguards needed when resistance acquires authority.
Red and Black Shi’ism
Shari’ati's Red Shi’ism names a religion of resistance, while Black Shi’ism names religion turned into accommodation with power. These are polemical categories in his essay Red Shi’ism—Black Shi’ism, paraphrased here; they are not neutral labels for every Shi’a community.
His preferred memory of Husayn and Karbala connects devotion to costly resistance against injustice. The death of a revered figure should awaken responsibility rather than become only passive mourning. In his critical account, state-supported religious institutions can transform that challenging memory into rituals that leave present rulers secure. The crucial contrast concerns what memory does to conduct.
His criticism also targets Sunnism when it supplies religious support for established rulers. It is inaccurate to turn this into the historical claim that every Sunni has always defended oppression. Sunni traditions contain diverse accounts of justice and limits on authority. Likewise, his attack on apolitical Shi’ism does not establish that all inherited mourning or scholarship is politically passive. Ritual may preserve solidarity and moral memory even when its form differs from Shari’ati's revolutionary programme.
The argument can be reconstructed: true religious allegiance condemns oppression; institutions sometimes domesticate that allegiance; therefore Muslims should recover a challenging religious consciousness capable of transforming society. Its force depends on the evidence that an institution actually protects oppression and on the justice of the proposed alternative. A ritual's existence alone cannot prove that it pacifies people.
An objection is that he judges a religion only by its immediate political usefulness. Prayer, grief, learning and care can matter without producing a revolution. A reply is that he challenges their separation from responsibility, rather than denying all inward value. The best assessment credits his warning about religion serving power while resisting the assumption that only revolutionary participation counts as authentic faith.
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