Ali Shariati and the Future of Social Theory, Religion, Revolution, and the Role of the Intellectual

295 Pages·2017·3.29 MB·English

by  Dustin J. Byrd

Ali Shariati and the Future of Social Theory
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Studies in Critical
Social Sciences
Series Editor
David Fasenfest (Wayne State University)
Editorial Board
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (Duke University)
Chris Chase-Dunn (University of California-Riverside)
William Carroll (University of Victoria)
Raewyn Connell (University of Sydney)
Kimberlé W. Crenshaw (University of California, la, and
Columbia University)
Heidi Gottfried (Wayne State University)
Karin Gottschall (University of Bremen)
Mary Romero (Arizona State University)
Alfredo Saad-Filho (University of London)
Chizuko Ueno (University of Tokyo)
Sylvia Walby (Lancaster University)
VOLUME 115
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/scss
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Ali Shariati and the Future
of Social Theory
Religion, Revolution, and the Role
of the Intellectual
Edited by
Dustin J. Byrd
Seyed Javad Miri
LEIDEN | BOSTON
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Cover illustration: Portrait of Ali Shariati. With thanks to Ehsan Shariati Mazinani and the Dr Ali Shariati
Cultural Foundation.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Byrd, Dustin, editor. | Miri, Seyed Javad, editor.
Title: Ali Shariati and the future of social theory : religion, revolution,
and the role of the intellectual / edited by Dustin J. Byrd, Seyed Javad
Miri.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2018. | Series: Studies in critical
social sciences ; volume 115 | Includes bibliographical references and
index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017032455 (print) | LCCN 2017034420 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004353732 (E-book) | ISBN 9789004351912 | ISBN
9789004351912 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Sharīʻatī, ʻAlī. | Sharīʻatī, ʻAlī--Political and
social views. | Islam--20th century. | Sociology. | Religion and sociology.
Classification: LCC BP80.S517 (ebook) | LCC BP80.S517 A653 2018 (print) | DDC
297.2/7092--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017032455
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 1573-4234
isbn 978-90-04-35191-2 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-35373-2 (e-book)
Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and
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This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
About the Contributors viii
1 Introduction 1
Dustin J. Byrd and Seyed Javad Miri
2 Shariati, Enlightenment and the Return of the
Universal for Comparative Political Thinking 9
Eric Goodfield
3 Ideology by Any Other Name: Social Sciences
and the Humanities as Western Catechism 21
Carimo Mohomed
4 S pokesmen of Intellectual Decolonization: Shariati
in Dialogue with Alatas 64
Esmaeil Zeiny
5 Ali Shariati’s Critique of Durkheim’s Sociology of Religion 85
Seyed Javad Miri
6 Ali Shariati and Critical Theory: From
Black Affirmation to Red Negation 98
Dustin J. Byrd
7 Ali Shariati and Ethical Humanism: Conceiving a
Perspective of Liberative Social Ethics 128
Teo Lee Ken
8 T he Liberties of a Transmitter: Frantz Fanon According to
Shariati 157
Georg Leube
9 Understanding Ali Shariati’s Political Thought 170
Chandra Muzaffar
10 The New Islamism: Remembrance and Liberation 181
Sophia Rose Arjana
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vi contents
11 Ali Shariati on the Question of Palestine: Making a Sacred
Symbol for Uprising against Injustice and Domination 200
Mahdi Ahouie
12 Shariati on Islamic and Western Philosophy of Education 212
Khosrow Bagheri Noaparast
13 Ali Shariati and Anti-Americanism in the Persian Gulf Region 226
Fatemeh Shayan
14 We and Shariati 250
M. Kürşad Atalar
15 Musulman-e Marksisti: The Islamic Modernism of Ali Shariati
in Religion vs. Religion 271
Bader Mousa Al-Saif
Index 277
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Acknowledgements
First, we would like to acknowledge the contributors to this edited volume.
Without their meticulous and important work on Ali Shariati, we would be
impoverished in terms of our knowledge of his revolutionary intellect and
his lasting legacy. Although Shariati is the original repertoire of wisdom from
which we draw, it is with these scholars, from all parts of the world, that Shara-
iti’s work is preserved, elevated and expanded upon for generations to come.
We would also like to thank Jamie Groendyk who helped prepare the manu-
script, as well as the editorial and production staff at Brill, who make academic
publishing an enjoyable experience. Last but not least, we would like to thank
the Institute of Humanities and Cultural Studies in Tehran, Iran, which funded
the First International Seminar on Shariati and the Future of Human Sciences
in December 2015. It, and the insightful discourses we engaged in at the confer-
ence, inspired us to pull our resources together and write this book.
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About the Contributors
Mahdi Ahouie
is Assistant Professor of politics in the department of “Iranian Studies,” Faculty
of World Studies, University of Tehran (Iran). He received his Ph.D. in interna-
tional relations from the Graduate Institute of International and Development
Studies, University of Geneva (Switzerland). Dr. Ahouie was a visiting scholar
at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (giga) in 2013, and a post-
doctoral fellow at the Geneva Foundation for interreligious and intercultural
Research and Dialogue through 2009–2010.
Bader Mousa Al-Saif
m.a., m.t.s., Ed.M., is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Georgetown University
with a focus on the history of the Middle East and North Africa, the history
of Islam, Islamic thought, and religious renewal. His article, “Neither Fulul
nor Ikhwan: Abdulrahman Yusuf and the Rise of an Alternative Current in
Post-Morsi Egypt,” was published in Mathal. His co-authored chapter, “Higher
Education and Contestation in Kuwait After the Arab Spring: Identity Con-
struction and Ideologies of Domination in the American University of Kuwait,”
appeared in an edited volume on Education & the Arab Spring. Al-Saif’s two
encyclopedia entries on Islamic renewal and Kuwait and war have appeared
in ABC-Clio’s Islam and The Sage Encyclopedia of War. Al-Saif holds a Master
of Education and a Master of Theology, both with honors from Harvard Uni-
versity, and a Master of Law with distinction from the School of Oriental and
African Studies, University of London. Al-Saif graduated summa cum laude
from Boston College with a double major in political science and history.
Sophia Rose Arjana
is a scholar of religion whose areas of research include Islam, pilgrimage, lib-
eration theology, and popular culture. She has taught at Iliff School of The-
ology, University of Denver, and University of Colorado. Her published work
includes book chapters and articles on Shi’i pilgrimage architecture, liberation
theology, Islamophobia, and Muslims in popular culture. Her first monograph
Muslims in the Western Imagination (Oxford, 2015) was a CHOICE Outstanding
Academic Title of 2015. In 2017, she will publish two books, Pilgrimage in Islam:
Traditional and Modern Practices (Oneworld) and Veiled Superheroes: Islam,
Feminism, and Popular Culture (Lexington Press).
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About the Contributors ix
M. Kürşad Atalar
is a graduate of the Public Administration & Political Science depart-
ment of the Middle East Technical University (metu) (1990). He received
his bachelor of science degree in 1994, and his doctorate in 2002 from the
same University. The title of his master thesis is “Definitions of Politics and
Their Reflections in the Minds of Turkish Voters,” and that of doctoral the-
sis “Radical Islamism in Turkey: The Cases of Gradualism of Ercümend
Özkan and Militanism of Hizbollah.” He has been working as a governmen-
tal officer in General Directorate of Meteorology since 1984. He has written
several books, Düşüncede Devrim (Revolution in Mind), On Tez (Ten Thesis),
Düşüncenin Okullaşması (Systematization of Thought), Düşüncenin Siyas-
eti (The Politics of Thought), Sembol Şahsiyetler (Symbolic Figures of Islamic
Revivalism). He also translated Mark A. Kishlansky’s The Sources of the West,
Albert Hourani’s Islam in the European Thought, Immanuel Wallerstein’s
The Modern World-System and H.A.R. Gibbs’ Modern Trends in Islam into
Turkish.
Dustin J. Byrd
is Associate Professor of Religion, Philosophy and Arabic at Olivet College
in Michigan, usa, where he specializes in the Critical Theory of the Frank-
furt School as well as Contemporary Islamic thought. Along with publishing
numerous articles, he is also the author of the recent book Islam in a Post-
Secular Society: Religion, Secularity and the Antagonism of Recalcitrant Faith
(Brill, 2016), and is the co-editor of the book Malcolm X: From Political Escha-
tology to Religious Revolutionary (Brill, 2016). His latest book, Unfashionable
Objections to Islamophobic Cartoons: L’affaire Charlie Hebdo, will be released
in 2017 (Cambridge Scholars Press). Currently, He is researching the vari-
ous forms of neo-fascism that have arisen in the West in reaction to political
Islam.
Eric Goodfield
is Assistant Professor with the American University of Beirut’s Civilization
Studies Program and the Department of Political Studies and Public Admin-
istration. He is author of Hegel and the Metaphysical Frontiers of Political
Theory, as well as a variety of writings on non-Western/comparative political
thought and modern and contemporary political philosophy. A former Ful-
bright Fellow, Eric has previously lived and worked in Korea, Thailand, Arme-
nia, Kyrgyzstan, Egypt and Germany.
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