What Is to Be Done: The Enlightened Thinkers and an Islamic Renaissance

I

Where Shall We Begin?

A lecture delivered at the Technical University of Tehran, Āzar 1350/November 1971. The text is found in Collected Works. (Tehran: Daftar-e Āthār-e Shari‘ati, 1360/1981), pp. 249–294.

In the tradition of Abūdhar, who is my mentor, whose thought, whose understanding of Islam and Shī‘īsm, and whose ideals, wants, and rage I emulate, I begin my talk with the name of the God of the oppressed (mustaḍ‘afān).¹ My topic is very specific.

Often people who do not approach issues with scientific method and language criticize me for not including certain issues which they think have direct bearing on the topic of my speech. But you are well aware that once a speaker or an author chooses a particular topic, his sole responsibility lies in his staying within the scope of his topic, and doing his best to provide an accurate analysis or substantiation of the thesis he has put forward. For example, when the topic is Islam with special concentration on the charges brought against it by its enemies or those who are not familiar with it, a speaker or an author who wants to respond to those charges logically and scientifically must limit himself to the subject matter at hand, i.e., those specific issues to which he has raised objections. Such a discussion logically should not be concerned with providing an introduction to Islam in which every conceivable Islamic topic comes within the scope of the discussion. Our imaginary author claims only that, in some specific instances, Islam has been misunderstood, and he sets as his goal to correct those mistakes. Should he succeed in his endeavors, he has performed his responsibility.

With that in mind, the subject of my talk is a very specific subject and aims to answer an explicit and narrow question, one which is ever present in the minds of the masses in general, and the enlightened souls (rūshanfekrān)² in particular. That question is: Where Shall We Begin? This is a universal, pertinent, and fundamental question. It is not a question that I have put forward based on my own understanding or as a result of my own contemplation; rather it is the question of our time, to which I have tried to provide an answer. When one looks at the history of social development in the world, one encounters certain historical epochs during which numerous works were published entitled Where Shall We Begin? or What Is To Be Done? At least five such works immediately come to mind. Most of them have been published at the times when the societies of their origin were in a particular state of social transformation. For example, no book with similar titles appeared during the Middle Ages. Such questions are raised when a society is in the process of evolving from one state to another. The social conscience warrants that certain steps be taken to free the society from the domineering effects of the existing social order and the status quo on the actual, intellectual and religious life of its members, and to replace that order with another. The question of where to begin, then, is a matter of ‘social strategy’ and not of ‘ideology.’ Therefore, I do not need to talk about the nature of a doctrine, a religion or a particular scientific theory. Rather, I want to draw attention to where one should begin in terms of strategy in our society in a given period of time in order to achieve our shared objectives and to protect our values which are at present subject to cultural, intellectual and social onslaughts.

The gravest tragedy in traditional societies in general, and in the Muslim societies in particular, is that there is a lack of communication and a difference of outlook between the masses and the educated class. Due to the broad extension of the mass media, literacy, and education in the industrial countries of the West, the masses and the intellectuals understand each other rather well and share a relatively similar outlook. In Europe, a university professor can easily communicate with the ‘uneducated’ masses. Neither does the professor see himself as of higher stature nor do the masses treat him as an untouchable person wrapped in a piece of cellophane.

Even in the early history of Islamic societies, the present large gap between the intellectuals and the masses did not exist. The great Muslim traditional intelligentsia, the ‘ulamā—including the jurisconsults (fuqahā), the dialectical theologians (mutakallimūn), the interpreters of the Qur’an (mufassirūn), the philosophers, and the literalists (’udabā)—had close bonds with the general public through religion. Despite teaching and studying in their seemingly isolated seminaries (ḥawzah), they successfully avoided losing touch with the people. Such rapport between the ‘ulamā and the people exists even today. The majority of our uneducated masses, who have never even heard of a night class or an adult course, can sit next to the ‘ulamā, who have achieved prominent scholarly stature, and discuss their problems. They feel comfortable enough with the ‘ulamā to discuss their needs, complaints, their personal or family problems, and to settle religious taxes or to ask for bibliomancy³ or legal opinion.

Unfortunately, under the modern culture and educational system, our young people are educated and trained inside invincible and fortified fortresses. Once they reenter the society, they are placed in certain occupational and social positions completely isolated from the masses. In effect, the new intelligentsia live and move alongside the people, but in a closed golden cage of exclusive circles. As a result, on the one hand, the intelligentsia pursue life in an ivory tower without having any understanding of their own society, and, on the other hand, the uneducated masses are deprived of the wisdom and knowledge of the very same intellectuals whom the masses have sponsored (albeit indirectly) and for whose flourishing they have provided.

The greatest responsibility of those who wish to rebuild their society and bring together the unintegrated, and at times, antagonistic elements of the society into a harmonious whole is to bridge the gap between these two poles—the pole of theory and the pole of practice—and to fill this great abyss of alienation between the masses and the intellectuals. For any responsible enlightened soul who wants to achieve something, regardless of his ideological conviction, it is a duty to build a bridge between the beautiful, valuable, and the mysterious (in the mind of the masses) island of the intellectuals and the land of the masses; a bridge across which both the intellectuals and the masses can interact. Regardless of my answer to the question Where shall we begin? and regardless of your agreement with my answer, we cannot help but accept and agree with this fundamental principle: the first step is to build such a bridge.

Implicit in the question Where shall we begin? there is an understanding on the part of the audience and the person who poses such a question that two prior questions—namely, Who should begin? and For what purpose?—have already been answered. Obviously, the question of where to begin is asked by those who have a sense of responsibility with regard to their time and society and wish to do something about it. Undoubtedly, they are the enlightened souls, for only such individuals feel a social responsibility and have a sense of social mission. One who is not enlightened is not responsible either.

Note that I stress enlightened souls and not those who have obtained degrees. Enlightened does not mean intellectual. The latter, which has incorrectly been translated into Persian as enlightened (rushanfekr), refers to a person who does mental (as opposed to manual) work. Such an individual may or may not be an enlightened soul. Conversely, a person may not be an intellectual if he works in a factory for example—but he may nevertheless be an enlightened soul. The relation between the two is not that of two interrelated concepts. Not every intellectual is enlightened but some are and vice versa. Very few are both. For example, Sattār Khān⁴ was an enlightened man but was not an intellectual, while Allāmah Muḥammad Qazvīnī⁵ was an intellectual but not enlightened; (Ali Akbar) Dehkhudā⁶ was both. Many are neither and among these are the honorable and great politicians!

Who is an enlightened soul? In a nutshell, the enlightened soul is a person who is self-conscious of his human condition in his time and historical and social setting, and whose awareness inevitably and necessarily gives him a sense of social responsibility. And if he happens to be educated he may be more effective and if not perhaps less so. But this is not a general rule, for sometimes an uneducated individual may play a much more important role. A study of the societies that have leaped forward from the oppressive colonial state to a very progressive, aware and dynamic state, demonstrates that their leaders and those who assumed leadership in the revolution and the scientific and social movements have often been unintellectual. This principle, which has very few exceptions, is easily proven by the social movements in Africa, Latin America and Asia. One can safely conclude that revolutionary leaders have rarely belonged to the educated classes.

In the modern time, when man has reached a dead end in his evolving society, and when the underdeveloped countries are struggling with numerous difficulties and shortcomings, an enlightened soul is one who can generate responsibility and awareness, and give intellectual and social direction to the masses. Accordingly, an enlightened person is not necessarily one who has inherited and continues the works of Galileo, Copernicus, Socrates, Aristotle, and Ibn Sinā (Avicenna). Modern scientists such as Einstein and Von Braun complement and continue their achievements. In principle, the responsibility and the role of contemporary enlightened souls of the world resembles that of the prophets and the founders of the great religions —revolutionary leaders who promoted fundamental structural changes in the past. Prophets are not in the same category as philosophers, scientists, technicians or artists. The prophets often emerged from among the masses and were able to communicate with the masses to introduce new mottos, project new vision, start new movements, and beget new energies in the conscience of the peoples of their time and places. The great revolutionary, uprooting and yet constructive movements of the prophets caused frozen, static and stagnant societies to change their directions, life-styles, outlooks, cultures and destinies. These prophets, therefore, are neither in the category of the past scientists or philosophers, nor are they in the category of unaware common people. Rather, they belong to a category of their own. They neither belong to the commoners, who are usually the products and also captives of ancient traditions and social molds or structures, nor do they belong to the community of the scientists, philosophers, artists, mystics, monks or clergymen, who are captives of abstract concepts and are overwhelmed with their own scientific or inner explorations and discoveries. Similar to the prophets, the enlightened souls also neither belong to the community of scientists nor to the camp of unaware and stagnant masses. They are aware and responsible individuals whose most important objective and responsibility is to bestow the great God-given gift of self-awareness (khud-āgāhī) to the general public. Only self-awareness transforms static and corrupt masses into a dynamic and creative center which fosters great genius and gives rise to great leaps, which in turn become the springboard for the emergence of civilization, culture and great heroes.

Clearly then, it is the enlightened soul who should begin. Now we should turn to the question of for what purpose? This question deserves an independent inquiry. Here, I will look only at one interpretation of it and let the audience, which is familiar with this topic, ponder about it on its own. Although not a prophet, an enlightened soul should play the role of the prophet for his society. He should preach the call for awareness, freedom and salvation to the deaf and unhearing ears of the people, inflame the fire of a new faith in their hearts, and show them the social direction in their stagnant society. This is not a job for the scientists, because they have a clear-cut responsibility: understanding the status quo and discovering and employing the forces of nature and of man for the betterment of the material life of the people. Scientists, technicians, and artists provide scientific assistance to their nations, or to the human race, in order to help them to improve their lot and be better at what they are. Enlightened souls, on the other hand, teach their society how to change and toward what direction. They foster a mission of becoming and pave the way by providing an answer to the question, What should we become?

A scientist justifies, explains, and creates the conditions for producing as affluent, comfortable, strong, and leisurely life as possible. At most, he discovers the facts, whereas an enlightened person identifies the truth. A scientist produces light, which may be utilized either for right or wrong objectives; an enlightened person, analogous to a tribal guide, (rā’id)⁷ and as the vanguard of the caravan of humanity, shows us the right path, invites us to initiate a journey, and leads us to our final destination. Since science is power and enlightenment light , from time to time, the scientist serves the interests of oppression and ignorance; but the enlightened person, of necessity and by definition, opposes tyranny and darkness.

The word ḥikmat (wisdom)⁸, which is used in the Qur’an and within the Islamic cultural milieu, conveys the same meaning we have attributed to enlightenment. Even when there is discussion of knowledge (‘ilm), it does not refer to technical, scientific or philosophical learnings. It means neither religious knowledge (those disciplines which a religious student studies, i.e., jurisprudence, tradition, life of the Prophet, the Qur’anic interpretation, ethics, theology, etc.) nor temporal knowledge (those disciplines which are pursued by a social or natural science student, i.e., physics, medicine, sociology, literature, psychology, history, etc.). These are collections of specialized information and cultural knowledge which are taught as particular courses in a specific educational system. While religious and secular knowledge can be helpful for enlightened awareness (āgāhī-e-rūshanfekrī), and may serve as valuable tools at the disposal of the enlightened individuals, they are not in and of themselves the desired light or awareness. That kind of knowledge (‘ilm) which is emphasized in Islam is an awareness unique to man, a divine light and a source of consciousness of the social conscience. As the famous tradition puts it, Knowledge is a light which God shines in the heart of whomever He desires. It is this awakening, illuminating, guiding and responsibility-generating knowledge which we call the divine light, not the teachings of physics, chemistry, literature, jurisprudence, etc. The former begets faith and responsibility of the kind the uneducated Abūdhar possessed but Ibn Sinā (Avicenna) and Mullā Ṣadrā did not. That is why sometimes an uneducated person emerges and energizes life in a static society and leads it toward an objective, while numerous scientists do not even take the first step toward generating changes, self-awareness and the formation of a common ideal, a new faith and love in the conscience of their society. On the contrary, by utilizing their scientific power, the scientists may act as forces hindering the progress of their own national societies as well as that of humanity.⁹ Therefore, the goal of the enlightened souls is to bestow upon their contemporary fellow men a common and dynamic faith and to help acquire self-awareness and formulate their ideals.

Now, we turn to the question of the how. First, an important explanation is in order. Lack of a precise definition of enlightened, coupled with the ambiguity of the ensuing responsibilities, have cost the human race in general, and the Easterners, in particular, dearly. To begin with, unless there is a universal man, there cannot exist a universal enlightened prototype with common values and characteristics. Man is far from the age when the earth will be one human society or one nation with common language, culture, ideals and common problems. As a corollary, whereas one can speak of the universal scientists with common characteristics and fixed values, there is no group of enlightened individuals in some universal mold with a common trait. After studying in a university, whether he has studied engineering, medicine, or astronomy, an educated person acquires the stature of a scientist, regardless of whether he is from an African tribe, the Islamic world or a Buddhist country; whether he is from the white, whether yellow, or the red race, whether he is a member of a capitalist society or a socialist one, whether a member of the old merchant class or the new bourgeoisie; in short, regardless of whatever background he comes from. The reason is that science is based on general laws which govern man as well as nature, and whoever learns these can be useful and effective in any setting or environment. In short, a scientist learns a set of fixed principles which are applicable in all cases irrespective of time, place or political regime. The same cannot be said about the enlightened person.

An enlightened person is not a man who has gone to Europe, has studied a specific school of thought, has passed a specific course, or obtained a diploma. The fact is that our assumption that the enlightened, scientist, and intellectual, are synonymous has confused us so that we are not able to understand who is enlightened. Nor do the enlightened individuals know to what category they belong. The virtues of being enlightened cannot be learned in a prestigious university. If there is an exception in which an enlightened individual is also an educated one, his enlightenment is not due to the university education; rather, the individual was an enlightened soul even before his university education.

Another misunderstanding stems from the fact that, more often than not, people think that if a person has gone abroad and studied various social, political, ideological and philosophical schools of thought, he has become enlightened. This is not the case. Granted that he has studied Marx, Sartre, Rousseau, St. Simon, etc. (i.e., the founders of the social theories and the ideologies that have played a constructive and revolutionary roles in European societies, and the source of inspiration for European enlightened individuals of the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries), this only makes him a specialist, analogous to his counterparts in medicine and natural sciences. He is a social scientist who can teach these schools of thought and ideologies at the universities. It does not follow that merely because one has studied these ideologies, he is capable of playing the role as accepting the responsibility of being an enlightened person in his society. The university education of such an individual makes him a scientist and enables him to teach wherever he goes. But it does not necessarily enlighten him to the point of understanding the inner pains of his society or enabling him to generate self-awareness in the people or help the masses fashion their common objectives and ideals.

In short, there is no universal prototype for being enlightened. There are different types of the enlightened. One may be an enlightened soul in Black Africa, but the same person is not one in an Islamic community. Or one may be considered enlightened in France or in post-war industrial Europe, a genuine and honest enlightened person who has made a difference in his own society, but the same person in India will not be enlightened and may be unable to perform the role of an enlightened one there. More concretely, take Jean Paul Sartre, whose philosophy and personality I have great respect for and would never condemn based on my ideological convictions. In industrial Europe with its advanced capitalist system and its peculiar social stratification, and where there has been for several hundreds of years a turning away from its religious history of the Middle Ages, Sartre can be called an enlightened soul. Would a person who emulates Sartre’s philosophy and practices his world-view of existentialism or methods of social and economic analysis—in short, who is a carbon copy of Sartre—still be considered enlightened if he went to a different country? It would depend on where such an individual went. In France, Germany, England or the United States he would be enlightened because the problems, attitudes, ideals, people, political system, and the historical conditions are similar. The Western societies in general are in need of a Sartrean revolution.¹⁰ Thus, Sartre or those who emulate his philosophy are enlightened only in the West where man has become the victim of consumerism and where all human dimensions and potentials have become restricted and limited by the production of goods, excess in consumption and the freedom of sex. It is thus in need of a savior who will free it from this hedonistic lust of consumerism: Sartre is such an enlightened savior.

Having a Sartre-like savior in Asia, Africa or Latin America, where people are struggling to eradicate poverty, hunger, ignorance and other shortages, and where they suffer from lack of industrialization, would simply be a catastrophe. In these societies, a Sartrologist or a follower of Sartre’s philosophy would not be enlightened. In practice, his well-intentioned sacrifice would translate into disservice. Only the contemporary