Fundamentalism in Comparative Perspective (28 page)

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Authors: Lawrence Kaplan

Tags: #Religion, #General, #Fundamentalism, #Comparative Religion, #Philosophy, #test

BOOK: Fundamentalism in Comparative Perspective
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Page 115
throw the monarchy, and repeatedly reaffirmed his allegiance to monarchies in general and to "good monarchs" in particular. He argued that the clergy had never opposed the state, even when the state issued anti-Islamic orders, for a "bad order was better than no order at all." He emphasized that no faqih had ever claimed the right to rule; that many, including Majlisi, had supported their rulers, participated in governing the country, and encouraged the faithful to pay taxes and cooperate with government functionaries. If, on rare occasions, they had criticized their rulers it was because they opposed individual monarchs, not because they questioned the "principal foundations of monarchy (
saltanat
)." He also reminded his readers that Imam Ali had accepted "even the worst of the early caliphs."
1
The most Khomeini asked in
Kashf Asrar
was that the monarch should show more respect for the clergy, recruit more of them into parliament, and heed their advice to make sure state laws conformed with the shari'a. For the shari'a, he argued, had prescriptions for all social ills; and the ulama, particularly the fuqaha, being specialists on the shari'a, were like highly trained doctors who knew how to cure these ills.
2
In concluding
Kashf Asrar,
Khomeini reiterated the mainstream Shia tenet against their more "fundamentalist" Akhbari rivals of earlier centuries, who had argued that any descendant of the Prophet could understand the Word of God, especially the shari'a, by going directly to the main sourcesthe Koran and the Hadiths. Khomeini countered that some features of God's Word were beyond most people's comprehension and that even Archangel Gabriel had not been able to understand everything he conveyed in the Koran.
3
One should not even attempt to understand the "inner meanings" of the Koran and the Hadiths unless one was familiar with Arabic, knew the teachings of the Twelve Imams, had studied the works of the preceding generations of Shia scholars, and, most nebulous of all, could grasp the "language of
irfan
" (gnostics). Khomeini continued through his life to argue that the Koran and the Hadiths had many different layers. Some could be understood by the average man, some by the ulama who had spent a lifetime studying them, and some by the select fewnamely the Imams and those who had in some mysterious way received from them gnostic knowledge.
4
This stress on
 
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gnosticismtogether with the fact that Khomeini began his teaching career at the Fayzieh Seminary lecturing on mysticism, and throughout his life had high regard for the Naqshbandi Sufi Orderhave led some to suspect that Khomeini harbored mystic tendencies. If so, he could hardly be described as a fundamentalist. Besides, Khomeini certainly did not share with Protestant fundamentalists the democratic notion that any true believer could understand the Word of God by going directly to the Scriptures.
Khomeini's attitude toward the state remained conventional even during the 1963 uprising. As a sixty-one-year-old ayatollah, Khomeini raised the banner of opposition to Mohammad Reza Shah from 1962 to 1964, and thereby attained for the first time national prominence recognized by some as their marja'-e taqlid. But even in this bloody confrontation, he called neither for a revolution nor for the overthrow of the monarchy. Instead he castigated the shah for a series of secular and national transgressions: for permitting women to vote in local elections and citizens to take vows on ''any sacred book"; for encouraging clerics to stay out of politics and smearing them as "black reactionaries"; and for trampling over the constitutional laws, especially the clause that gave the senior clerics supervisory power over all legislation. He also castigated the shah for supposedly giving high offices to the Bahais; for siding with Israel against the Arabs and thus causing "our Sunni brothers to think that we Shias are really Jews"; and, most sensitive of all, for "capitulating" to the almighty dollar by exempting American personnel from Iranian laws.
5
"An American cook,'' Khomeini declared, "can now assassinate a maraja'-e taqlid or run over the shah without having to fear our laws."
These castigations, however, were still made in the manner of warning the shah to mend his ways. He again reminded his audience that Imam Ali had accepted the caliphs. He expressed "deep sorrow" that the shah continued to maltreat the ulama who were "the true guardians of Islam." He stressed that he wanted the young shah to reform so he would not go the same way as his fatherinto exile.
6
And even in 1965after his own deportationhe continued to accept monarchies as legitimate, for he exhorted Muslim monarchs to work together with Muslim republics against Israel.
7
Khomeini did not develop a new notion of the state, or of society,
 
Page 117
until the very late 1960s. It is not clear where the new notions came from. Khomeini refused to admit that he had ever formulated new concepts. He was not in the habit of footnoting his works and giving credit where credit was due, especially if these sources were somewhat "suspect." And in the crucial period of 196570, when he was developing his ideas, he was conspicuously silent, rarely giving interviews, sermons, and pronouncements. One can only speculate the source of these new ideas. They may have come from Shia theologians in Iraq where Khomeini resided after 1964. These theologians had been deeply influenced by the local communist party, which had for years played an important role both in Iraqi politics and in the Shia community. They may have come from Khomeini's younger Iranian students, more and more of whom originated in the lower middle class. They may have come from the Iranian intelligentsiaespecially Shariati, the Mojahedin, and the Confederation of Iranian Students in Exile, all of whom had been influenced by contemporary Marxism, especially by Maoism and Castroism.
What caused Khomeini to change his ideas is debatable, but the actual changes are undeniable. He broke his long silence in early 1970 by giving in Najaf a series of lectures attackingwithout naming namessenior clerics who, he claimed, used the seminaries to escape from political realities. These lectures, originally given in Arabic, were soon published in Persian under the title
Velayat-e Faqih: Hokumat-e Islami
(
The Jurist's Trusteeship: Islamic Government
).
8
In these lectures, Khomeini declared in no uncertain terms that Islam and monarchies (
saltanatha
) were incompatible; that the latter were pre-Islamic institutions which the "despotic" Sunnis, especially the Ummayids, had adopted from the pagan Roman and Iranian empires; that the ancient prophets, particularly Moses, had opposed the pharaohs because they judged such titles to be unlawful; that Imam Hosayn had raised the banner of revolt in Karbala because he had on principle opposed hereditary kingship; that monarchies were tantamount to
taqhut
(false gods),
shirk
(idolatry), and
fasadefi al-arazi
(sowing corruption on earth); and that the Prophet Mohammad had declared "
mulk al-mulk
to be the most hated of all titles in the eyes of God"; Khomeini interpreted this title to be the same as ''Shah of Shahs."
 
Page 118
Muslims, Khomeini insisted, have the divine duty to rise up (
qiyam
) against their monarchs. They must not collaborate with them, have recourse to their institutions, subsidize their bureaucracies, and practice dissimulation to conceal their true beliefs. Most kings, he concluded, had been crooks, oppressors, and mass murderers. In later years, he went further to argue that all kings throughout historyincluding Shah Abbas, the founder of the Shia Safavid dynasty, and Anushirevan, the ancient monarch whom Iranians referred to as the Justhad been without exception thoroughly unjust.
9
Velayat-e Faqih
not only denounced all monarchies but also put forth reasons why the clergy had the divine right to rule.
10
It interpreted the well-known Koranic commandment, "Obey those among you who hold authority," to mean that Muslims had to place themselves under the guidance of the fuqaha. For the Prophet had handed down to the Imams all-encompassing authoritythe right to lead and supervise the community as well as to interpret and implement the shari'a. And the Twelfth Imam, in going into occultation, had handed down this encompassing authority to the fuqaha. Had not Imam Ali ordered "all believers to obey his successors"? Had he not explained that by "successors'' he meant "those who transmit my statements and my traditions, and teach them to the people"? Had not Imam Musa praised the fuqaha as ''the fortress of Islam"? Had not the Twelfth Imam instructed future generations to obey those who knew his teaching, since they were his representatives among believers in the same way he was God's representative among all believers? Had not the Prophet himself said that knowledge led to paradise and that "men of knowledge" had as much superiority over ordinary humans as the full moon had over the stars?
Khomeini also argued that the senior clerics, especially the fuqaha, were the only group with the legitimate expertise to rule. For God had designed the shari'a to guide the community and the state to implement the same shari'a. And since the fuqaha were the only real experts on the shari'a, one had to conclude that they should control the state. The fuqaha, Khomeini insisted, have the "same powers" as the Prophet and the Imams; and the term
velayat-e faqeh
meant jurisdiction not only over minors, widows, and the mentally incompetent, but also over all subjects, in that everyone was in dire need of
 
Page 119
the shari'a. In other words, disobedience to the fuqaha was the same as disobedience to God. If contemporary Muslims find these obvious conclusions to be "strange," Khomeini repeatedly emphasized, it was because "Jews," "imperialists," and ''defective seminaries'' had for years spread false propaganda about Islam.
11
Khomeini's View of Society
Khomeini's view of society developed along parallel lines. His pre-1970 writings reflect the traditional notions of society as sketched out in the
Nahj al-Balaqhah,
in the teachings of the Shia ulama, and in the "Mirror for Princes" literature produced by the Safavid and Qajar courts. He accepted much of his predecessors' conservative and paternalistic presumptions: that God had created both private property and society; that society was formed of multilayered and mutually dependent classes (
tabaqat
); that the poor should accept their poverty and not envy the rich; that the rich should thank God, avoid conspicuous consumption, and give generous alms to the unfortunate; that class hatred was sinful, for it led directly to
enqelab
(revolution), a term he lumped together with chaos and social anarchy; that the shari'a protected wealth as a "divine gift"; and that the state had the duty to maintain a healthy balance among the various classes and to guarantee that no one group transgressed on the rights of others. Some commentators on the
Nahj al-Balaghah
liked to point out that the Prophet Mohammad had been one of the rich merchants in Mecca.
12
Khomeini's post-1970 writings, however, depict society as sharply divided between two antagonistic forces: the
mostazafin
(oppressed) against the
mostakberin
(oppressors); the
fegra
(poor) against the
sarvatmandan
(rich); the
mellat-e mostazaf
(nation of oppressed) against the
hokumat-e shaytan
(government of satan); the
zakhneshinha
(shantytown-dwellers) against the
kaghneshinha
(palace-dwellers); and the
tabaqeh-e payin
(lower class) against the
tabaqeh-e bala
(upper class). The key term
mostazafin
sums up the transformation. This term had been used in the early Islamic texts, including the Koran, to signify the "weak," the "feeble," the "meek," i.e., orphans, widows, and mental incompetents. Although it had not appeared in
 
Page 120
Khomeini's early works, the same word cropped up in almost all of Khomeini's later speeches to describe the broad masses including the small, propertied middle class. In fact, Khomeini's use of the term was reminiscent not only of Fanon's book
Wretched of the Earth
(whose Persian translation employed the word
mostazafin
), but also of the Jacobin concept
sans culottes
and Péron's slogan
descamisados
(shirtless ones).
In depicting society as divided into two warring forces, Khomeini denounced Mohammad Reza Shah on a number of highly sensitive socioeconomic issues. He accused the shah of widening the gap between rich and poor; lining the pockets of relatives, cronies, and senior officials; wasting precious oil resources on the ever-expanding army and bureaucracy; wallowing in luxury while many starved; setting up phoney assembly plants instead of real industrial factories; depriving the countryside of essential services, especially public baths, electricity, schools, and medical clinics; failing to distribute land to the landless peasantry; condemning the working class to a life of poverty, misery, and drudgery; creating huge shantytowns by neglecting to construct low-income housing; bankrupting the bazaars by refusing to protect them against foreign competition and superrich entrepreneurs; and compounding social problems by taking no serious action against prostitution, crime, alcoholism, and drug addiction.
13
Of course, he continued to accuse the shah of allying Iran with the United States; of siding with Israel against the Arab world; of trampling over political liberties, especially the constitution; and of undermining both Islam and Iran with secularism and cultural imperialism.
In these denunciations Khomeini often resorted to populist rhetoric, which, like most populist rhetoric, sounded highly radical. But he silently and intentionally avoided questioning the sanctity of middle-class property. He declared: "Islam belongs to the mostazafin"; "Islam is for equity and social justice"; "a country that has shantytowns is not Islamic''; "we are for Islam, not for Capitalism and Feudalism''; "in a truly Islamic society, there will be no landless peasants"; "Islam will eliminate class differences"; "Islam represents the shantytown-dwellers, not the palace-dwellers"; "the duty of the ulama is to liberate the hungry and the oppressed from the clutches

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