Discussion
Dr. Salman: You mentioned the important role of philosophy and mysticism. Could you elaborate on this slightly, specifically in relation to Sufism? I do not know whether in the Shia 'ia school of thought, Sufism is organized as it is in the Sunni world. If so, the question of Ayatullah Khomeini's affiliation would be important.
Professor Algar: The word 'mysticism' is a little problematical. I used it for convenience as an English approximation. Sufism as an organized body has only a peripheral existence in Shi'ia school. We do find Sufi orders, but they are generally rejected by the Shi'ia ulema. What I mean by mysticism with respect to Ayatullah Khomeini is what is known as irfan, which is a different form of mysticism appropriate to the Shi'ia context. This is something that draws upon certain dimensions of the Qur'an, the teaching of Ibn Arabi and also the 12 Imams of Shi'ia school. This is what I mean by mysticism in this context, -a certain form of mystical devotion which gives a certain contour to the spiritual life. It has clearly given Ayatullah Khomeini --I do not like to use the expression, but for want of a better one -a certain otherworldliness. It is a paradox that here one has a man so devoid of worldly ambition who is yet on a worldly plane so eminently successful. Viewing matters at a deeper level, from the viewpoint of Islam, we see that it is not a paradox at all. The rejecting by the self of all forms of attachment to this world makes it possible to be extremely effective and active in this world.
In that sense of the hadith, he who humbles himself before God will be raised by God. This is what I intended by the reference to mysticism in Ayatullah Khomeini.
Question: Will you please explain the concept of the Imam and the concept of the caliph, and the relationship between the two, with particular emphasis on two points -the unity of the ulema and, secondly, in relation to the contemporary situation in Iran?
Professor Algar: This is a very wide question, not directly related to today's talk. I am sure that most of the audience knows what is implied in the terms "Imam" and "caliph". The Imam in Shi'ia school is the divinely appointed leader of the community, the first of whom is Ali and the last of whom is the Twelfth Imam, who is held to be in a state of ghaiba, of occultation, of absence from the physical plane, but nonetheless continues to exercise his authority.
This form of succession is in a sense hereditary. Moreover the prerogatives of the successors of the Prophet go beyond the purely political, administrative, military tasks of the caliph in Sunni thought.
I am not sure beyond that what it is possible to say without embarking on an unnecessarily detailed lecture, what is perhaps of more interest is the second part of your question -the relevance of these differences to the present day state of the Islamic world. I would say that it is minimal, if not non-existent, since we in the Sunni Muslim countries do not have a caliph, not do we have machinery or any conceivable process at present for the selection of a caliph. As far as our Shi'ia brothers are concerned, the Imam is also in a state of ghaiba so it does not pose itself as a problem.
What both Sunni and Shi'ia Muslims should direct their attention towards is collaboration on the far more numerous and important matters on which they are agreed. There is no doubt that the Islamic Revolution can be, and already to some extent has been, an important occasion for the gradual elimination of centuries of prejudice and hostility between Sunni and Shi'ia.
Imam Khomeini himself, when I had the honour of meeting him in Paris, expressed a great sorrow that when the Shi'ia Muslims of Iran were obtaining martyrdom in the streets of Tehran during the last Muharram, for the sake of establishment of an Islamic republic, Shi'ia and Sunni i Muslims in India in the same month of Muharram were engaged in slaughtering each other, because of the details of taziya.
Fortunately, as a result of the Revolution, one sees a large number of encouraging developments. For example, in c Afghanistan, a country where there have been deep and prolonged hostilities between the Sunnis and Shi'ia -probably about seventy per cent of the population are Sunni and thirty" per cent Shi'ia -one sees in the wake of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, and in the course of resistance to the Soviet established Marxist regime, that historic hatreds have been overcome to a remarkable degree. They are fighting together against Soviet imperialism.
In Turkey, again a country where because of centuries of warfare between the Ottomans and the Safavids there are deep-rooted prejudices towards Shi'ia school, a positive interest has been aroused as a result of the Revolution. In many Islamic periodicals in that country now one can see articles about Sunni-Shi'ia relations, a desire to obtain objective, correct information about Shi'ia school of thought and above all to establish an effective collaboration between the Islamic movement in that country and the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
Therefore, rather than hashing over again the question of Imam and caliph, or whatever differences may have existed, it is far more fruitful for Muslims to spend their energies in establishing closer links of cooperation. After all, we should not forget that the Islamic Revolution has been the only' major setback to the cause of Zionism in the Middle East far more than any military undertaking attempted by any of the Arab states, far more even than the activities of the Palestinians themselves, however heroic these may have been. There can be no doubt that the only major setback suffered by Zionism and American imperialism in the entirety of the Middle East region -or, if you like, the Muslim region -has been the Islamic Revolution of Iran.
It is a Revolution which has potential in the service of all Moslems. It is up to the Muslims of the Sunni countries Arab countries, Turkey, Afghanistan and so on -to align themselves with this Revolution and give it every possible form of support and co-operation.
Question: You mentioned Israel. What was the role of the Jewish minority in Iran in collaboration with Israel, in the light of the execution of one of their leaders?
Professor Algar: We should not make the automatic assumption that the entire Jewish minority in Iran was Zionist in its aspirations or aligned with the previous regime, the Pahlavi regime. Some certainly were. The millionaires like Elghanian, who was put to death, had very close ties with Israel and also with the regime.
But apart from the existence of the Jewish community in Iran, the State of Israel had very close ties with the Pahlavi regime, not necessarily through the Iranian Jewish community. Those ties were established, I think, in 1947, shortly after the establishment of the Zionist State in Palestine, when de facto recognition was accorded to Israel by the Iranian government of the day. That was revoked by Mussadeq.
Then a more thorough-going relationship between Israel and the Iranian Government came into being after the coup d'etat in 1953. Co-operation took place on many levels, but notably in so-called intelligence and security work. After a certain point it appears that the task of staffing and training the Savak was taken over by Mossad, the Israeli security, from the CIA, although the CIA always retained the right of supervising over the operations of Savak. I know of many people who reported having been interrogated and tortured, by Israelis while in the custody of Savak. It was a deep involvement.
In return, the Israelis got a large proportion of their oil -between seventy and ninety per cent from Iran. There was also military co-operation. Iranian officers went for training in Israel. There was a certain amount of penetration of the Iranian economy, partly through Iranian Jews, but not in all cases.
There was the overwhelming similarity between the two of utter dependence on the United States or alignment with the United States. Israel is hardly independent of the United States -or rather matters are the reverse. Israel certainly commands more votes in the Senate than does the White House. There was a very close relationship between Israel and the United States and between the Shah and the United States.
This collaboration did not always go through the Jewish, community. It also went through the Bahai community. If; one is speaking of religious minorities, the most important lone with respect to staffing the Shah's regime, staffing the bureaucracy and the security police, is the Bahais, many oft whom in any case are of Jewish origin. A number of cases could be mentioned, including the former vice-chief of Savak, Sabeti. He was of Jewish origin and received his training in torture techniques in Israel. He and a number of other officers are living in Israel after the Revolution. It is the Bahais rather than the Jews as a community who should be indicated in this respect.
Israel, with its eternal search for immigrants, thought that an ideal situation was developing in Iran with the Revolution. But apart from a certain minority that profited handsomely under the Pahlavi regime, the bulk of Iranian Jewry is not showing an interest in leaving the country to go to Israel. That minority is interesting. There was a piece in the Economist, which one can hardly accuse of being anti-Semitic, describing the arrival in Israel of certain Iranian Jewish immigrants. As they unrolled their carpets at Tel Aviv airport, the gold tumbled out onto the tarmac. This was an interesting demonstration of the way in which this Jewish oligarchy was able to profit under the Pahlavi regime. However, the bulk of Iranian Jews decided to remain behind, much to the displeasures of the Jewish Agency, which, therefore, began to have recourse to the same kind of tactics as it had earlier employed in certain Arab countries, notably Iraq. It went around writing anti-Semitic slogans, throwing bombs into synagogues and so on. These tactics were uncovered and publicized by an organization in Tehran called the Society of Jewish Intellectuals, which warned members of the community against these Zionist tactics.
When I was in Paris in December and early January, visiting Ayatullah Khomeini, a delegation of Iranian Jews came to visit him, and on that occasion he assured them not merely that Iranian Jews should remain in the country but that those w had been deceived by Zionism and had migrated to Palestine -where they were receiving treatment as second-class citizens because of their Asiatic and non-East European origins -should return to Iran, where as citizens of the Islamic Republic they would enjoy rights superior to those they had in the Jewish state of Israel.
Question: What position was held by Ayatullah Khomeini after he graduated from the institute of Qum? Did he introduce changes in the curriculum and methodology? I should also like to know whether his open criticism of the Shah's regime was on behalf of the ulema or of a particular group which he founded.
Professor Algar: As regards the methodology of teaching, I think it is true to say that in effect Ayatullah Khomeini brought about a reform in that he established a close link between the subjects he was teaching and the practical concerns of the day. For this reason, he attracted a far larger audience than many of the other teachers in Qum.
One thing of interest in the aftermath of the Revolution is that after his return to Qum for the first time the systematic teaching of the four madhhabs of Sunni school in Islam has been introduced into the curriculum, both in order to further awareness among Shi'ia Muslims of the potentialities of the Sunni traditions and to draw, if it appears appropriate and necessary, on those potentialities for the solution of particular problems in Iran.
There are a number of individuals who have attained importance in Qum in reforming, in strengthening, the teaching institution. Both Khomeini and Ayatullah Shariatmadari performed great services in this respect in making the teaching syllabus of greater applicability to present-day problems.
As for your second question, I do not think that Ayatullah Khomeini in 1963 or subsequently was speaking either on behalf of the ulema or on behalf of a more narrow group. On the contrary, he saw it to be his duty, as a scholar of Islam and a citizen of Iran, to speak out on these problems. One of the constant themes of all his proclamations is that the ulema have a great importance and dignity in Islam that they cannot fulfill simply by the reading and teaching of texts, that they have a far more comprehensive duty, indicated in the tradition, and that they are the heirs of the Prophet and cannot effectively transmit the legacy of the Prophets simply by retreating into a corner of a madrasa and reading and commenting on texts. They have a far more comprehensive duty of guidance. He was speaking as an alim, conscious of the comprehensive nature of h responsibility, but this is different from speaking on behalf of the ulema as a class. On the contrary, he addressed himself to the entirety of the Iranian nation and beyond that to Muslims at large.
Question: You referred to doubts about the role of Ayatullah Borujerdi, and you mentioned Ayatullah Kashani. It seems to me that you are taking a unidirectional view of the Iranian ulema. You must have pointed this out in your last lecture -that the difficulty stems from the fact that there are various possible interpretations of the role of ulema during the ghaiba. As is evident from Ayatullah Naini's (1860-1936) work, one is faced with the question of either leaving the political field altogether and waiting for the reappearance of the Imam on the physical plane or with devising a system which is the least imperfect.
If you take the two extremes, you can see that the various ulema have taken their stance somewhere between these, and, therefore, fashioned their own activities on the political plane in accordance with their interpretation of the ghaiba. It seems to me that Ayatullah Borujerdi was very much in favour of a quiet attitude towards not taking action, although in present-day circumstances apparently that attitude may seem indefensible. But if it is viewed in the context of the responsibility of the ulema during the ghaiba of Imam it may become more explicable. I should like your comments.
Professor Algar: It is not my intention to criticize Ayatullah Borujerdi or Kashani for the roles they played. I merely wished to point out in the historical context the effect of their attitudes, or at least the perception of their attitudes. It is true that there have been differences of opinion among Shi'ia ulema as to the political implications of the ghaiba. But the general belief that has acquired increasing force since the days of Ayatullah Borujerdi is what Ayatullah Khomeini describes in his book as the vilayat of the scholar, as devolving upon him the duty of leading and guiding the community.
I feel unhappy that in the course of these lectures I am obliged to generalize and over-simplify. This is in the nature of the subject, but it should be pointed out at least that Ayatullah Khomeini's position has evolved over the years. Although he has certain very distinct characteristics from the very beginning, I would say that his political -I would not like to use the word 'philosophy' -attitude has changed and evolved.
After all in 1963 he was calling not for the institution of an Islamic Republic in Iran, but for the implementation of the existing constitution, which provided for a monarchy, however limited in its exercise of power. He was calling upon the Shah in effect to observe and fulfill the oath that he had taken to observe the constitution and to be loyal to Islam. I would say that a progressive radicalization took place of Ayatullah Khomeini's position in his years of exile, and more particularly in the course of the Revolution.
There are many things to be said here, and I would like to have had more time. But as you have raised this question of political theory, which is of importance, I think it is permissible to say that in the usage of Ayatullah Khomeini there is a difference, at least implied, between an Islamic Republic and an Islamic state. On the one hand, an Islamic Republic is intended to be a transitional form of government in which the policies of the state will be geared in a general fashion towards the objectives of Islam and the administration of the affairs of the state will be entrusted to committed Moslems. But there will not be a total implementation of Islamic law in every area of life.
At the same time as this provisional form of government, which will bear the name of republic, is in existence, a process of education and enlightenment will take place, with respect both to those who have been alienated from Islam and those whose Islam is of a narrowly traditional type -that is, based on prayer, fasting and so on, without much awareness of political and social issues.
When that process has been completed, the Islamic Republic will be succeeded by the Islamic state, there is no explicit statement to this effect by Ayatullah Khomeini, but it is an impression that can be gained from careful reading of his proclamations during the year of the Revolution and after his return. That impression is strengthened by reading of the draft of the constitution. One of the interesting things about it is that it does not have any explicit statement that the laws of the state are to be the laws of Islam. Of course, it is a draft constitution, and it may be revised before it is finally ratified, but as it stand there is no explicit stipulation that the laws of the state should be the laws of Islam. Instead, there is a provision that we find in the constitution of a number of other Muslim countries that no legislation shall be enacted that is contrary to Islam, which is quite different.
It seems to me that in the context of Iran this is intended as a transitional stage, a stage at which what is repugnant to Islam will be gradually uprooted and an effort will be made to move in the direction of a truly integral Islamic state. Where, things to that effect are to be found in other constitutions notably, that of Pakistan. It is a piece of demagoguery. But in the case of Iran -I hope I am right, only events will tell -the inclusion of this clause should be seen as a provisional measure. It would be easy to make an overnight declaration that now everything will be according to the sharia and go around spectacularly chopping off hands and so on. But I think that this is one measure of the seriousness of the Revolution and the authenticity of the liberal process of gradualness that is being embarked upon. We can sum up this gradualness as being within the concept of an Islamic Republic which will be the prelude to an Islamic state.
Question: May I ask a supplementary question? In this evolution of Ayatullah Khomeini's thought, from pure implementation of the constitution to an Islamic state, do you think he has moved to a position which was taken up by Ayatullah Nuri way back during the constitutional revolution at the turn of the century, and broken line with the constitutionalists altogether?
Professor Algar: I do not think one can equate the position of Ayatullah Khomeini with that of Shaykh Fazlullah Nuri, who was the chief among the ulema during the constitutional revolution in Iran in the first decade of the present century. Unlike his colleagues, he opposed the constitution, probably on religious grounds. He put forward certain telling arguments in a number of theoretical writings against the constitution. His slogan was 'We want Mashro'a (Sharia government), not mashru'ta (constitutional government)' Although for many years it was customary in Iran in Islamic circles to deride Nuri and to regard him as a traitor, a reactionary and so on, it is true that a certain reappraisal of him has taken place, giving him a more creditable position.
However, it is not helpful to suggest a parallel between him and Ayatullah Khomeini, for many reasons. The most obvious and most important is that he was content to see the monarchy continue and even tried to find a place for it, which is obviously not the case with Ayatullah Khomeini.
Mr. Jamil Sharif: Nothing has been mentioned about the role of women in the Revolution. What was his view of the role of women in the Islamic struggle?
Professor Algar: There are two reasons why the role of women has not been mentioned. The first is that I have been talking about the ulema and Ayatullah Khomeini. Secondly, 'the role of women' is a phrase that I think Muslims should not use. It is a phrase that has been coined by the enemies of Islam to distract us and waste our mental energies.
Once you speak about the role of women you have the role of men, as if there were a great divide in Islam with women and men existing on the two sides of the divide, doing totally different things. All that you can say with respect to the Islamic Revolution is that Islamic women together with Iranian men played a very important role in furthering the aims of the Revolution. They participated massively in all the important demonstrations. They suffered torture, imprisonment and abuse. Since the triumph of the Revolution they have continued to play an important role.
It is interesting that a Revolution which, according to the popular image in the western press, is designed to reduce women to a status of total inferiority should see this unique picture of Muslim women in their Muslim dress on the streets participating and guarding demonstrations, holding machine guns.
It is enough to say that on Black Friday, 8 September 1978, when more than 4,000 people were slaughtered in Tehran to the applause of President Carter, among those slaughtered were a minimum of 600 women.
The Chairman: Those who write books on women in Islam should be asked: 'Where were women outside Islam?'
Question: In your course outline, you put a heading 'The Ayatullah as Ruler'. Would you like to expand on that?
Professor Algar: On reflection, I am not sure that the word 'ruler' is appropriate in the context. What he has done in the aftermath of the Revolution is to continue in the same role as he predicted before the triumph of the Revolution -that of the guide who speaks out whenever he feels it necessary on matters of policy. Since his guidance is of the nature that it will be immediately followed, he comes in effect to be the final arbiter in almost all matters that he ch0oses to speak on.
The nature of the guidance given by Ayatullah Khomeini since the triumph of the Revolution in February (1979) has been of a nature to ensure that its fundamental aims are kept intact and no major deviation takes place. Of course, the frequent complaint of the Iranian leftists and their allies, the rightist press of Britain and the United States, is that the old dictatorship has been replaced by a new one. There are a large number of fallacies in this comparison. We should point out that the authority of Ayatullah Khomeini derives entirely from the popular will and the popular choice. If he 'interferes' with the government's workings or issues directives, this should not be construed as illegitimate interference. On the contrary, the government of Bazargan derives its authority because it was nominated by Ayatullah Khomeini. The Muslim masses of Iran demanded the institution of an Islamic Republic under the leadership of Ayatullah Khomeini. Therefore, his authority is precisely the authority brought into being by the will of the people. This is an exceptional and transitional situation. It is not something that one can say will be institutionalized in the future.
Therefore, I do not think that the word 'ruler' in the synopsis that I prepared in haste is appropriate. He continues to be the leader. I know that this is a word that has unfortunate connotations from different contexts, but one has little choice. He continues to be the leader of the Revolution in all senses.
Question: It is in that context that you use the word 'Imam' when you talk about him?
Professor Algar: Yes. In designating him as 'Imam' we should not imagine that the word is applied to him in the same sense as the Twelve Imams of Shi'ia tradition. I am not aware of the precise time when the term came to be applied to him by the Iranian people. Maybe some of our Iranian brothers here could enlighten us on that. I think that the title was given to him in the course of the Revolution. It has come to be applied to him increasingly after the Revolution and to supplant the title which has by now become familiar to the western press -namely, "Ayatullah".
This usage of the word 'Imam' is, after all, justified on the condition that we do not confuse it with the Shi'ia concept of Imam, and because his authority, his leadership, has gone far beyond that which has been traditionally exercised by an ayatollah. One of the things that I did not give myself a chance to mention is that, of course, Ayatullah Khomeini is from one point of view a mujtahid. People have been following him because he is a mujtahid. But his authority has gone far beyond the traditional bounds of marja-i taqlid or mujtahid. He has been followed not merely in the traditional sense or taqlid, but in a far more comprehensive sense. This comprehensiveness of his leadership, which is indeed based on the whole concept of taqlid but has gone beyond it, is reflected in the use of the word "Imam".
I should be interested to know precisely what our Iranian brothers understand by the word when they apply it to him.