Shariati and contemporary history of Iran

Student Movement and Shariati’s Thoughts from the Perspective of Naqi Lotfi

Reza Azari
Translated by: Zahra Hosseinian

2015-10-27

The book of Shariati and contemporary history of Iran: student movement and Shariati’s thoughts from the perspective of Naqi Lotfi, is a compilation of oral history interviews in which its compilers are seeking to collect and deliver student movement and Shariati’s thoughts from the perspective of one of his students. This book has been published with efforts of Gholamhossein Noee and Gholamreza Azari Khakestar, by Beinolnahrein publishing in thousands copies and at a price of 200,000 Rials.

This book has been developed in 200 pages and 5 chapters under the following headings:

1) Shariati, a thinker we should know him anew; 2) The necessity of recognizing Dr. Shariati’s thoughts; 3) Dr. Shariati in the eye of professor Lotfi; 4) Ideological provisions of Revolution; 5) Student movements from speech to act; and annexes which is dedicated to documents and photographs related to the theme of the book.

Oral history of Literature faculty of Mashhad Ferdowsi University is an important project whose achievement in addition to hundreds hours of interviews with professors and students of the college, was the preparation of five thousand documents and photos. The present book was the first attempt to record the oral history at Ferdowsi University in which interested people pursued these activities without any expectation.

Although the history of researching student movement in Mashhad had been addressed on oral history interviews for a while, but the reality is that the city of Mashhad still has not been addressed befittingly. Why Mashhad, which was one of the major centers in the revolutionary struggle, and even the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution and a lot of characters have raised there, has not been addressed worthily in the books about the revolution? Certainly, contemporary historians will learn that they need to look at the events of this city seriously to develop Islamic Revolution History. Mashhad has the same role in the Islamic Revolution which Tabriz has played in the constitutional Revolution, in the words of professor Lotfi.

Late Dr. Ali Shariati was one of the prominent professors of Literature faculty of Ferdowsi University whose students were not confined to their classrooms. His word- influence, developing new basics and his attractive works made several generations to search his intellectual views. He suggested the discourse of revolution and fighting when Pahlavi government was imposed security conditions on universities. Raising a new perspective on the basics expression of Islamology, Shariati would influence on a generation, whose most important component thought was summarized in the fight. The presence of Dr. Shariati and other scientific figures at Ferdowsi University causes that this place is in the limelight as the center of revolutionary fighters. Reviewing the guiding role of this educated figure in the eyes of his students is an important issue on the contemporary history of Iran.

Naqi Lotfi is a professor at the history department of Literature faculty of Mashhad Ferdowsi University, who was born in 1327 in the city of Sari. He has passed primary to secondary education in Ansori School, Daqiqi guidance school and Iran high school in Sari. Then, he was accepted at the Literature Faculty of Mashhad in 1346, to study history field. He traveled to Italy in 1352 and studied two years in the fields of Italian language and history of the Renaissance and modern age at the Universities of Perugia and Padua. Then, he won the Georgetown University Scholarship, as a distinguished graduate, and continued and finished his studies successfully at this university at MA, in the field of Christian West History; and defended his academic theses, “The origin of the First Crusade”. Translation of books, The history of Sicily in the Islamic period, History of Islamic Thought in India, From Sarajevo to Potsdam; and writing of books Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, History developments in Europe in the new century, are of his works. He is a personality whose character, speech, actions and behavior has a special place among students. He is among those who have attended at the classrooms of Late Dr. Ali Shariati and had been his student several terms.

In the chapter ‘Shariati, a thinker we should know him anew’, Mr. Lotfi has addressed the judgment of students about Shariati and believed: “It is very difficult to speak about Dr. Shariati for his students. Primarily, because interest to Dr. Shariati makes his students to put him in a very high place and not tolerate oppositions. The other reason is that Dr. Shariati himself was a complex and multidimensional character, so discussion about such a person is not free of concerns.”[1]

In another part, he has stated Shariati’s character in teaching as: “The main thing in his teaching was his power of speech and the ability to cohere the material, despite their extensive. Two things are important in the lecturing, one speaking and the other, having good materials to say; and Dr. Shariati had both. He tended more to speak than to write, therefore didn’t look to historical research which was written by so-called Ulama method; and even was careless about references in writing. As a result, the greatest objection to him was that he lectured without any references and his materials are not on the documentation basis.”[2]

“About dissenting opinions, Dr. Shariati believed that there has been a conspiracy of silence around him; and that meant that he welcomed critics and being happy that his works was subjected to review. “The conspiracy of silence was annoyed me”, in his own words.

“Shariati should be considered as the forward-looking thinkers, like Seyyed Jalal and Allama Iqba Lahori, and also architects of renewing Islamic thought. There was majesty in his eyes that gave him mythical state, and joined to the history as a myth and became part of it. Shariati is a thinker that must be recognized anew. There are many thinkers and scholars whose status was not well understood in the course of their lifetime, and only after death it is cleared that how prodigy they have been and how they have gone beyond their time and space.”[3]

“The necessity of recognizing Dr. Shariati’s thoughts” is another chapter of Shariati and contemporary history of Iran. “Revolution and its roaring movement didn’t provide enough time for reviewing the intellectual and cultural issues;” Mr. Lotfi said in this regard, “and most figures that were at the scene and acted during the revolution were subjected at the focus of attention, not thinkers who could manage the field of Revolution. But now that time has passed and a particular political system has been shaped, the time of examining revolution as a historical category has come. Thinkers who were involved in the development of the Iranian revolution are very limited. It’s in this way that Dr. Shariati become more prominent. Shariati was one of the most influential and prominent thinkers of the revolution, and the revolution thought has been reflected in his thinking astonishingly. This means that the ideological provisions burden of revolution was on the Dr. Shariati’s shoulders to a large extent. This has one virtue and one defect; the good thing about it is that the most burdens were on his shoulders, and its defect was that the diversity of intellectual currents in the revolution was very few.”

It seems that recognition and making recognized of a social thinker or scientific, political and religious character is possible when being studied in their historical process. Typically, it requires the use of scientific methods and techniques. In the light of these efforts we can both relatively well recognize social figures and to be immune from suffering personality worshiping.

“Dr. Shariati in the eyes of professor Lotfi” is the title of an oral history interview that Muhammad Nazarzadeh, responsible of oral history archive and director of Press and Documents of Astan Qods Razavi, has addressed it in detail. The most important topics of this interview are: individual character and teaching methods of Dr. Shariati, The bond between Dr. Shariati and university, the role of Dr. Shariati in the emergence of developments in contemporary history, and the emergence of revolutionary ideas.

“Ideological provisions of revolution” is another issue in this book. Subjects such as, the Second World War; Iran's occupation and its aftermath; The critical role of religion and religious leaders; Westernization; Shia doctrine; equality wish; brotherhood, an integral part of Muslim beliefs in Iran; exploiting religious insights for fulfillment of ideas; back to the self; revolution and utopia, shaking the foundations of the monarchy by nation’s concentrated pressure on the leadership’s hand; recognition of revolution by Shah and others have been compiled in this argument.

In the part of the article Mr. Lotfi said: “Dr. Ali Shariati, a committed and knowledgeable intellectual, realized what the problem is. He shouldered the heavy burden of human responsibility and God trustworthiness with stunning and great effort. Dr. Shariati’s confrontation with the West and its culture and his return to religion is a very important issue in how the ideology of religious liberation movement has shaped. That means that he has a different interpretation of religion, different from what the others have.

He believes that the West - as it is seen - has reached to a stage that it cannot be followed. Because the West has reached to an impasse, not only following and imitating it is no longer worth, but also it is dangerous to follow and imitate it. The other thing is that West has been caught on the decline and reached an impasse by abandonment of religion and putting it away, i.e. escaping from religion. Basically, the West has failed to make human happy as it should be; that is, the culture began in the Renaissance with humanism, and freed the men from the shackles of church and made him as criterion of everything, failed in providing happiness for men.”[4]

“Student movements from speech to act (A review of students’ campaign at literature faculty of Mashhad Ferdowsi University)” is another oral history interview which is addressed the role of students and Dr. Shariati in the student movements, in detail. The interview was conducted in two sessions at Mordad, 1386.

The final pages of the book are devoted to appendices, including documents and photos. Documents include invitations from different universities for Dr. Shariati to lecture, and part of his academic records at the University of Mashhad. In total, 38 documents and 18 photographs have been published.

All efforts of the editors of this book are in this regard to address the role of Dr. Shariati in the eyes of one of his students. However, this alone cannot be an appropriate response to the questions of researchers for studying the position of Dr. Shariati at Mashhad University, but doing oral history interviews with other students and analyzing different subjects can clear the subject partly; and with the publication of documents we can discuss the role of Shariati in modern history.

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[1] - Noee, Gholam Hossein and Azari Khakestar, Gholamreza (1394), Shariati and contemporary history of Iran: student movement and Shariati’s thoughts from the perspective of Naqi Lotfi, Mashhad, Beynolnahrain Press, P. 12.

[2] - ibid, P. 13

[3] - ibid, P. 15

[4] - ibid, P. 79