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

Heinz halms Shia Islam From righteousness to gyrationIn his 176-page volume, the leading German Islamist, Heinz haulm is able to trace the roots of the Iranian Revolution back end-to-end the accounting of the Shiism. Contrary to many western thinkers and Iranian militants, halm feels as though Shii Islams character was not inherently revolutionary, entirely that the transition to revolution marked a milestone and a landmark in the history of Shii thought and history. The title of his book, Shia Islam From Religion to Revolution really synopsizes Halms point quite adequately. Heinz Halm is currently a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Tubingen and is the author of many other works on Sunni Islam, Shiism and Ismailism. Some of his works accommodate The Empire of the Mahdi, The Rise of the Fatimids, and Shiism. Shia Islam From Religion to Revolution is worried up into three shares, which play their respective parts in relaying Halms message. Part 1 deals dire ctly with the origins of Shiism and is labeled The contribute of Sorrows The Twelve Imams. In this section Halm attributes Abu Miknafs report of the drift of the Penitents or tawwabun to be of the key documents that allows us to understand the emergence of primeval Shiism. Halm went as far as to say that Abu Miknafs school text and, therefore what is related in it, already demonstrated all the indwelling elements that characterize the Shii religion today. He went on to say that the self-importance accusations of the partisanspeaked in acknowledgement of their own shame and their desire to abye for this (the massacre at Karbala) with death. Halms thesis in this section is that self-sacrifice characteristic of the Shiis was exemplified, and even developed in this march of the tawwabun. And, this incident characteristic was politically instrumentalized during the revolution of 1979 and during the war with Iraq. Further, Halm traces the non-political character of the spare-time activity Imams, especially Jafar Assadiq. Halm further delves into the roles that the Fourteen Infallible Ones compete in Shii theology, and as well the significance of the Occultation of the 12th Imam. He expresses that with the absence of the Twelfth Imam there was a go by 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 travel by out into the periphery and by the nineteenth century the Usulis managed to gain widespread acceptance throughout the Shii world, and Halm claims that it had a key strike in transforming the role of the ulama. The transformation, however, that Halm refers to occurred in the hands of Khumayni and Ali Shariati who managed to develop a modern revolutionary ideology wrapped in traditional Shii images and symbols. Shariati and his fellow idealogues, Halm claims, were guilty of dismissing fourteen h undred 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 Shii doctrine into a revolutionary ideology. Halm concludes by formulation 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.