My Babbling Brain

*Shias had failed to dominate the Islamic world theologically or politically and had faced the pains and perils of marginality. The modern state showed a path forward that was free of baggage of their religious identity. In Iran nationalism did not have these connotations , because Shias were a majority but where Shias were a minority or ruled by Sunnis, nationalism appealed to them in the same way that inclusive ideologies attract minorities. The promise however proved to be illusory as the modern states grew increasingly authoritarian. The promise of the modern state has eluded them as secular nationalism has been colonized from within by Sunni hegemony.

Ibn Taymiya (d. 1328) saw the Shia as the enemy within, guilty of polluting Islam… The surge of extremist Sunnism that troubles the Muslim world and hence the globe today is unimaginable without this one long-dead jurist. He saw worldly success as the most obvious measure of God’s favor.

The depth of Shia anger at Palestinians and Arab nationalism became evident in 1982, when the Shia greeted the invading Israeli army as liberators, with flowers and open arms. “Palestinians had been expanding in disturbing ways” and it was time for the Lebanese scene to free itself from the burden of the Palestinian program,” argued Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.

Abol-Gasem al-Khoi saw velayat-e-faqih as an innovation with no support in Shia theology or law. He showed his disdain by sending the shah an agate ring along with a special prayer at the height of the Iranian revolution in late 1978.

No other country in the Muslim world is so rife with intellectual fervor and cultural experimentation at all levels of society and in no place in the Muslim world is modernity and its various cultural, political and economic instruments examined as seriously and thoroughly as in Iran. The cultural dynamism of the country will also be a force that will define the Shia revival.

For Mesbah-Yazd, Qom’s mission is no longer just to produce Shia men of learning but to produce the country’s political and bureaucratic elite-the guardians of the revolution.

*The Shia Revival by Vali Nasr