Heinz Halms Shia Islam: from Religion to Revolution Essay -- essays

Heinz Halm’s â€Å"Shi’a Islam: From Religion to Revolution†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In his 176-page volume, the leading German Islamist, Heinz Halm is able to trace the roots of the Iranian Revolution back throughout the history of the Shi’ism. Contrary to many western thinkers and Iranian militants, Halm feels as though Shi’i Islam’s character was not inherently revolutionary, but that the transition to revolution marked a milestone and a watershed in the history of Shi’i thought and history. The title of his book, â€Å"Shi’a Islam: From Religion to Revolution† really synopsizes Halm’s point quite adequately. Heinz Halm is currently a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Tubingen and is the author of numerous other works on Sunni Islam, Shi’ism and Isma’ilism. Some of his works include: â€Å"The Empire of the Mahdi†, â€Å"The Rise of the Fatimids†, and â€Å"Shi’ism†.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Shi’a Islam: From Religion to Revolution† is broken up into three sections, which play their respective parts in relaying Halm’s message. Part 1 deals directly with the origins of Shi’ism and is labeled â€Å"The House of Sorrows: The Twelve Imams.† In this section Halm attributes Abu Miknaf’s report of the Campaign of the Penitents or tawwabun to be of the key documents that allows us to understand the emergence of early Shi’ism. Halm went as far as to say that Abu Miknaf’s text and, therefore what is related in it, â€Å"already demonstrated all the essential elements that characterize the Shi’i religion today.† He went on to say that the â€Å"self accusations of the partisans†¦peaked in acknowledgement of their own shame and their desire to atone for this (the massacre at Karbala) with death.† Halm’s thesis in this section is that self-sacrifice characteristic of the Shi’is was exemplified, and even developed in this march of the tawwabun. And, this particular characteristic was politically instrumentalized during the revolution of 1979 and during the war with Iraq. Further, Halm traces the non-political character of the following Imams, especially Ja’far Assadiq. Halm further delves into the roles that the Fourteen Infallible Ones played in Shi’i theology, and as well the significance of the Occultation of the Twelfth Imam. He expresses that with the absence of the Twelfth Imam there was a lapse in the duties of the Imam, which over time had to be taken over by ‘ulama. ... ...ut the monopolistic position of the mujtahids and their claim to be emulated by their followers. Eventually the Akbaris would fade out into the periphery and by the nineteenth century the Usulis managed to gain widespread acceptance throughout the Shi’i world, and Halm claims that it had a key impact in transforming the role of the ‘ulama. The transformation, however, that Halm refers to occurred in the hands of Khumayni and Ali Shari’ati who managed to develop a â€Å"modern revolutionary ideology wrapped in traditional Shi’i images and symbols.† Shari’ati and his fellow idealogues, Halm claims, were guilty of dismissing fourteen hundred years of history and their goals were inherently very ahistoric and utopian. The de-ritualization of the ‘Ashura customs and elimination of the eschatological expectations of the Mahdi were responsible in transforming the Shi’i doctrine into a revolutionary ideology. Halm concludes by saying that revolutions do not develop from religious causes, but have political, economic and social triggers. And, like all modern revolutionary movements, the Iranian Revolution played upon a manipulated re-writing of history to benefit the momentum of the movement.