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The third cause of the growth of materialist tendencies was the
inadequacy of certain social and political concepts. In the history of political
philosophy we find that when certain social and political ideas were propounded in the
West and the issue of natural rights, especially the people's right to sovereignty, was
raised, a group advocated despotism. It did not recognize any right for the masses
vis-a-vis the rulers, and the only thing it recognized for the people was their duty and
obligation to the latter. In order to lend justification to their arguments in favour of
despotic rule, they took recourse in theology, claiming that the rulers were not
answerable to the people but only to God, while the people were answerable to the rulers
and owed a duty to them. The people had no right to question the ruler's actions or to
assign him a duty. Only God was entitled to question him and call him to account. Thus the
people had no right over the ruler, although he had rights over them which it was their
duty to fulfill.
As a natural consequence, there arose in the minds a kind of artificial
connection and implication between faith in God on the one hand and belief in the
necessity of submitting to the ruler and forfeiting all rights to question someone whom
God has elected to protect the people and whom He has made answerable only to Himself.
Similarly, there arose a necessary 'mplication between the right of popular sovereignty on
the one hand and atheism on the other.
Dr. Mahmud Sina'i, in the book Azadi-ye fard wa qudrat-e dawlat, ("Individual
Liberty and the Power of the State") writes: "In Europe political absolutism and
the idea that freedom was basically the State's prerogative and not of the individual, was
linked with belief in God."
It came to be thought that if one accepted God, one also had to accept
the tyranny of the State's absolute power, to accept that the individual had no right
vis-a-vis the ruler and the ruler was not responsible to the people, but only to God.
Therefore, people imagined that if they accepted God they would, of
necessity, have to accept social repression as well, and if they wanted social freedom
they would have to negate God. Hence they preferred social freedom.
However, from the viewpoint of the social philosophy of Islam, the
ruler is responsible to the people, and there is not only no necessary implication between
faith in God and recognition of despotic rule of persons, but, on the contrary, it is only
faith in God which makes the ruler responsible to society, bestows rights upon the
individuals, and prescribes restoration of rights as an essential religious obligation.
Amir al-Mu'minin 'Ali ('a), who was a political and social leader as
well as an infallible Imam chosen by God, in a speech delivered during the turmoil of
Siffin, states:
By giving me authority over you, God, the Exalted, has created a right
for me over you, and you too have a right over me, similar to my right over you ... A
right is always reciprocal: it does not accrue to anyone without accruing against him as
well, and it does not accrue against a person unless it accrues in his favour. If there is
anyone who has a right without there being a corresponding right over him, that is only
God, the Exalted, to the exclusion of His creatures, because of His power over His
creatures and His justice which permeates all His decrees.
This implies that rights are reciprocal, and everyone who enjoys a
right will have a responsibility in return.
From the Islamic point of view, religious conceptions have always been
tantamount to freedom, precisely in opposition to Dr. Sana'i observation concerning what
took place in the West, where religious teachings were equated with repression.
Quite clearly, such an approach would have no other consequence except
distancing people from religion and driving them towards materialism and opposition to
religion, God, or anything having a divine hue.
There are three other causes of the tendency towards materialism which
it is necessary to mention. These three causes are common both among us as well as the
Christians. All these three causes relate to the method of preaching or practice which the
adherents of religions have been following in the past or do so at present.
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There are certain issues regarding which people give themselves the
right to express their opinion. This was so in the past concerning health issues. If
someone spoke about some complaint he suffered from, every listener would express his
opinion about its cause, symptoms, and remedy. Everyone believed in his prerogative to
express his opinion, and, at times, if he had the influence or power, or at least the
patient was shy of resisting his suggestions, they would force him to apply the
prescription whose efficacy was a total certainty. It was unheard of for anyone to think
that dealing with health problems required specialized training, that one had to be a
physician, a pharmacologist, with the necessary years of study under a teacher as well as
sufficient experience. But it was as if everybody considered himself a doctor. Even today
the same notion prevails among one group of people.
Precisely the same was true of religious topics, and it continues to
remain so, with everybody giving himself the right to advance his opinion. Religious
topics, especially those relating to theology and Divine Unity, are among the most
complicated of scientific issues, on which everyone does not have the ability to express
an opinion. Although the fundamentals of theology—to the extent that people in
general are required to know and believe in—are both simple and innate (fitra),
but when one takes a step further the issues involving God's Attributes, Names, Acts, and
those relating to qada and qadar come to the fore and the problems become
extraordinarily complicated. In the words of Amir al-Mu'minin 'Ali ('a): 'It is a deep
ocean,' whose depths can be fathomed only by whales. The identification and study of
Divine Attributes and Names is not something which lies within the power of everyone; yet
we see that everyone considers himself a specialist in this field and does not hesitate to
argue, express his viewpoint, and advance a proof, at times making ridiculous statements.
It is said that once a priest wished to illustrate the principle of
teleology, to explain that the order of the universe was purposive and that the universe
is moving along a purposive course. Thereby he wished to prove that the Creator possesses
wisdom, knowledge, and will. Although, as we know, that is not a difficult task and the
creation of any existent can be cited as evidence, the priest chose the lines on the
muskmelon to illustrate his point. The reason behind its orderly lines, he said, was that
when we want to divide the muskmelon among the members of one's family, the lines were for
the knife to cut equal slices so that children did not fight amongst themselves and create
a confusion!
Now an example from our society. They say that someone posed the
question as to why God had given wings to the pigeon and not to the camel. The reply he
suggested was: Were the camel to have wings, life would have been a nightmare, as the
camel would fly and wreck our homes of mud and clay.
Another one was asked about the evidence for God's existence. He
replied: "Unless there were an atom of truth in a matter, people wouldn't make a
mountain out of it."
One of the major causes of irreligion and the inclination towards
materialism are the weak reasons often advanced by unqualified people concerning issues
pertaining to Divine wisdom, will, and omnipotence, Divine justice, Divine dispositions (qada'
wa qadar), freewill and determinism, the world's preeternity or its having come
into existence (huduth wa qidam), life after death, the Purgatory (barzakh),
Resurrection '(ma'ad), heaven and hell, the Sirat and the Balance, and so on, which
often makes the listeners mistakenly imagine that what some of these ignorant persons say
are the teachings of religion and that they speak from an in-depth knowledge of these
teachings.
It is a great calamity for scholars, especially in Shi'i circles, when
persons who neither have an understanding of the theist thought nor that of the
materialists, taking advantage the confusion and disorganization prevailing in the system
of religious preaching, write books weaving together a mass of absurdities to refute the
materialist viewpoint, becoming a laughing stock. It is obvious that such preaching is to
the benefit of materialism, and the numerous books of this kind written in our own time
can serve as an example.
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Initially, it is necessary to take note of a certain point in order to
make clear what we intend to discuss.
Man is compelled to obey his instinctive urges. He is endowed with
certain instincts which urge him towards a goal envisaged in his creation. This does not
mean that he should follow his instincts blindly; rather, what is meant is that the
existence of these instincts is not purposeless, and that they may not be ignored. Neither
they may be neglected, nor they are to be totally opposed. The instincts are be refined,
moderated, and guided, and this is a separate issue.
For example, man has an urge to have children. This urge is not a petty
thing, and is a masterpiece of Divine creation. Were it not for this urge, creation would
not have continued However, in the scheme of creation this urge has been placed in every
animal as something attractive and sweet, so that each generation is employed in the
service of the succeeding generation, while also enjoying this service. This attachment
has not been placed just in the preceding generation. In human beings every succeeding
generation has been made to feel attachment towards the preceding generation, though not
with the intensity of the preceding generation's attachment to it. These attachments are
the secret of relationships.
Another instinctive urge in man is his curiosity, his desire to seek
the truth and acquire knowledge. It is possible to hinder people temporarily from
research, quest, and the pursuit of knowledge, but it is not possible to permanently
impede the truth-seeking human spirit and its quest for knowledge.
Among human instincts is the love of wealth. Of course, the love of
wealth is not a primary instinct in man; that is, it is not that man loves wealth for its
own sake. Rather, since it is in his nature and instinct to seek satisfaction of corporal
needs of life, and since the means of satisfying these wants are money and wealth in
certain societies, such as ours, he loves wealth as the key to all his material needs. One
who possesses money seems to have all the keys, while the one without it finds all doors
closed upon him.
As we have already said, it is not possible to oppose a natural and
instinctive urge by permanently neglecting it, though it is possible for a short period to
draw society in that direction, or to draw a limited number of people permanently towards
it. But man and human society cannot be stopped forever from responding to the demands of
any one of these instincts.
For example, it is not possible to convince everyone to forego
everything and to forswear the mysterious magic of the key called 'money' and 'wealth' as
something filthy and detestable.
Now if these instincts are repressed in the name of God or religion,
and celibacy and monasticism are considered holy in the name of faith, and marriage a
defilement; if ignorance be considered as being conducive to salvation in the name faith
and knowledge as the means of perdition; if in the name of religion wealth, power, and
prosperity be considered sources of eternal wretchedness, and poverty, weakness, and
deprivation the causes of bliss and happiness; what will be the consequences? Consider a
person who on the one hand gravitates towards religion and religious teachings and, on the
other, is strongly drawn towards these things. Eventually, he will either opt for one of
these two, or he will, like most people, remain entangled in the conflict between these
two forces, like some of whom it has been said:
The scripture in one hand, and the wine goblet in the other,
Oft within the lawful, and often out of bounds.
This results in a wavering disposition:
Neither with these, nor with those.
(4:143)
In fact such a person becomes a full-fledged psychic case with all its
peculiarities and symptoms. The function of religion and its message is not to wipe out
the natural urges, but to moderate, refine, and guide them and to bring them under one's
control. Since instincts cannot and should not be annihilated, the inevitable outcome, in
societies where they are repressed in the name of God, religion, and faith, and where the
worship of God is considered as incompatible with life, is the defeat of these sublime
ideas and concepts and the prevalence of materialism and other atheistic and
anti-religious trends of thought.
Therefore, it must be categorically said that ignorant ascetics in
every society—and unfortunately there are many of them in our own midst—are a
major cause of the people's inclination towards materialism.
Russell says:
The teachings of the Church put man in the position of having to choose
between two misfortunes: wretchedness in the world and deprivation from its pleasures, or
wretchedness in the hereafter and deprivation from its joys …From the viewpoint of
the Church one must bear either of these two misfortunes. One must either submit to the
world's misery and languish in isolation and wretchedness in return for the pleasures of
paradise, or accept deprivation in the next if one wishes to enjoys this life.
The first and foremost objection and criticism against this kind of
approach arises from the side of the genuine logic of monotheism and theology. Why should
God require that man must compulsorily endure one of the two misfortunes? Why should it
not be possible to combine both the kinds of happiness? Is God a miser?! Will it diminish
the stores of His mercy?! Why shouldn't God desire our happiness in this world as well as
in the Hereafter? If there is a God, an infinite omnipotent being, then He must desire our
complete happiness and well-being. And if He does desire our complete happiness, it
implies that He desires our happiness in this world as well as in the Hereafter.
Bertrand Russell is one of those who are deeply offended by this
teaching of the Church, and perhaps this teaching had a major role in the development of
his anti-God and anti-religious sentiments.
Those who have preached, and continue to preach, such a notion have
imagined that the reason why certain things such as wine, gambling, fornication, injustice
and so on have been proscribed in religion is that these things lead to happiness and
pleasure, while religion is against happiness and pleasure, and God wants man to go
without happiness, bliss, and enjoyment in this world so that he may be happy in the
Hereafter! The reality is precisely the opposite.
These prohibitions and restraints are because of the fact that these
things result in making life miserable and gloomy. If God has made the drinking of wine
unlawful, that does not imply that you will be happy in the world if you drink and that
the happiness of this world is incompatible with the happiness of the Hereafter. Rather it
means that it has been prohibited as it is the cause of wretchedness in this world as well
as the next. All the prohibited things are of this kind, that is, had they not been the
cause of wretchedness they would not have been prohibited.
Similar is the case with religious obligations; that is, since
religious obligations result in felicity and are a source of salutary effects in the
present life, they have been made obligatory. It is not that they have been made
obligatory for partially curtailing the happiness of this world.
The Qur'an expressly proclaims the benefits and advantages of the
obligatory duties and the harms and evils of prohibited things. For example, it explains
in these verses the vital quality of prayer and fasting and the strength they lend to
human character:
Seek assistance in patience and prayer, and they are indeed
difficult save for the humble. (2:45)
It observes concerning fasting:
O believers, prescribed for you is the fast, as it was prescribed
for those that were before you, that you may be Godwary.
(2:183)
This implies that one should pray and fast so that one's spirit is
strengthened and so that one is purged of bad qualities. Prayer and fasting are a kind of
exercise and training which restrain one from perpetrating evil and abominable acts.
These teachings not only do not consider worldly and spiritual matters
as contradictory, but, on the contrary, spiritual matters are presented as a means of
attaining harmony with an environment conducive to a happy life.
The false teachings of some preachers caused people to flee from
religion and led them to imagine that belief in God necessarily involves the acceptance of
poverty and enduring hardship and disgrace in this world.
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Another cause of the growth of the materialist tendency is the
disharmony between a person's inner spiritual and moral ethos and the thoughts relating to
faith in God and His worship. Faith in God and devotion to Him naturally require a special
kind of sublimity in the spirit. It is a seed which grows in a wholesome soil and is
ruined in polluted and saltish soils. If man falls victim to the pursuit of corporal
appetites, becoming materialistic and a prisoner of his base desires, gradually his
thoughts begin to conform with his spiritual and moral ethos, in accordance with the
principle of conformity with environment. The sublime thoughts relating to faith, worship,
and the love of God give way to degenerate materialistic ideas and to nihilism and a sense
of the futility of life, and the feeling that there is no moral principle governing the
world and that all that matters is transitory pleasures of the moment, and the like.
Every thought requires a conducive spiritual climate for its survival
and growth, and how well this has been alluded to in religious traditions where it is
observed that:
Angels do not enter a house where there is a dog or a canine form.
This was in relation to one's inner spiritual environs. Here a question
may be asked: What about one's social environment? The answer is that we have mentioned
the proximate cause, and there is no doubt that the social environment also needs to be
favourable. But the impact of the social environment is not direct on one's beliefs. A
corrupt social environment initially spoils one's spiritual ethos, and a corrupt spiritual
state weakens the basis for the growth of sublime thoughts and strengthens the basis for
the growth of base ideas. This is why great attention has been paid in Islam to the reform
of social environment, and it is again for the same reason that the forces pursuing the
policy of eradicating higher thoughts from the people's minds prepare the ground for moral
and behavioural corruption, and for doing so corrupt the social environment with the means
at their disposal.
In order to elucidate the effects of an unfavourable spiritual
environment upon materialist leanings, there is no alternative to explaining what we have
alluded to earlier.
Earlier we said that materialism is, at times, doctrinal, and at
others, moral. Moral materialism means that although a person may doctrinally believe in
the supranatural, he is a materialist morally and behaviourally. Moral materialism, as
mentioned earlier, is one of the causes of doctrinal materialism. In other words, an
unrestrained pursuit of sensual appetites and lusts and wallowing in the quagmire of
hedonism are one of the causes of the growth of an intellectual leaning towards
materialism.
Moral materialism implies a state in which one's life is devoid of any
kind of moral and spiritual ideal.
Is it possible that one should be a theist in respect of belief while
his acts do not reflect his faith, being, in practice, a materialist? Further, is it
possible that a person be doctrinally a materialist, without being a materialist in
practice, i.e. with a life free from and uncorrupted by excesses, transgression, and
tyrannical behaviour? Finally, is it possible for moral materialism to exist in isolation
from doctrinal materialism? The answer is: Yes, it is possible, and occurs often, though
it is not something which may last for long, or which can be counted upon. That is because
it is an unnatural condition and that which is against nature and the natural order of
cause and effect cannot survive for long. Further, wherever this separation exists, either
behaviour influences belief and alters it, or belief and ideals make their impact and
alter the mode of behaviour. As a result either faith gives in to behaviour or behaviour
subdues faith.
It is hard to believe that someone can remain a theist all his life
doctrinally and intellectually, while being a materialist in practice. Eventually one of
the two sides will subdue the other and he will perforce incline towards one of them.
Similarly, a person who is a materialist in mind and belief, will
either become a theist, sooner or later, or his moral rectitude will give way to moral
materialism. These two types of materialism, doctrinal and moral, are cause and effect of
each other and belong to the category of reciprocal causes and effects, that is, each one
of them happens to be the cause of the other as well as its effect.
When one's mind arrives at the conclusion that the world is
purposeless, that there is no sense, intelligence, and consciousness in it, that mankind
are a creature of chance, without purpose, and that one's file is closed forever after
death, such a person will naturally start thinking that he should enjoy every moment at
his disposal instead of worrying about good and evil and wasting one's life. A nihilistic
mode of thought in which existence, life and creation are considered useless, will
naturally result in moral materialism, especially because this mode of thought is
extraordinarily painful and exhausting. Generally, those who have such ideas become
escapists, flying from themselves, trying to run away from their own tormenting thoughts.
They are always after something which can keep these noxious thoughts, which torment them
like scorpions, at bay. They seek diversions, or take refuge in narcotics and intoxicants.
At the least, they turn to such parties and gatherings which provide amusements, that they
may forget themselves and their thoughts, gradually sinking in moral materialism.
Thus the reason that materialism in belief leads to moral materialism
is not solely that the logical basis of a morality based upon chastity and piety is shaken
and there remain no grounds for foregoing corporal pleasures. It is not just that sensual
appetites do their work in the absence of a spiritual restraint provided by divine
thoughts. Rather, there is another reason. Materialist ideas concerning the world, life,
and creation cause a person great anguish and pain and create in him a state in which he
develops an inclination to escape these thoughts and seek refuge in diversions, which
include among other things the quest of pleasures and use of intoxicants and drugs. The
repellent impact of these frightful thoughts is not less than the attraction of material
pleasures.
The converse of this condition is also possible. In the same manner in
which doctrinal materialism leads to moral materialism, moral materialism also eventually
leads to doctrinal materialism. That is, in the same way that thought influences moral
behaviour, moral behaviour, too, influences thought and belief. The main purpose of
raising this issue in our discussion of the causes of materialist tendencies, which has
led up to the issue of unfavourable spiritual and moral social environs, lies here.
A question may possibly be raised here: what is the relationship
between conduct and thought? Isn't thought separate from action? Isn't it possible that a
person might think in a particular manner and his pattern of thinking might persist
without his actions and moral conduct conforming to it and that they might take a
different direction?
The answer is that faith and belief are not just abstract ideas which
occupy a part of the brain, having nothing to do with the other parts of man's being.
There are many such ideas which have no connection with human behaviour, such as
mathematical knowledge and concepts and information and most of the information relating
to nature and geography.
But there are thoughts which, due to their links with one's destiny,
dominate one's entire being and establish their sway over everything. When such thoughts
appear, they give rise to a chain of other thoughts and alter man's course in life. It is
like the story of the little pupil who remained reticent despite being repeatedly told by
the teacher to say "A." When he remained tongue-tied after much insistence, the
teacher asked him, "What harm would it do you were you to say 'A'?" He replied,
"If I say 'A,' the matter won't end there. Then I will have to say 'B,' and then a
long chain will follow. If I don't say 'A,' it will be good riddance to the end".
Sa'di says:
The heart said, occult knowledge do I seek,
Teach me some, should it be in your reach.'Alpha,' said I.
'Then what?' it said. 'Nothing!'
Said I, 'A letter is enough, if anyone be there!'
The matter of God is just like the 'alpha' of the child's first lesson,
which once said will immediately be followed by a 'beta' and then the rest of the alphabet
of the knowledge of the Divine. Man, when he accepts God, will have to accept that God is
the knower of all secrets and hidden things, is omnipotent and all-wise, and that there is
nothing purposeless in anything that He does. This would imply that man's creation too has
a purpose and aim. Inevitably the question will arise: Is man's life limited to this
present life, or he has some duties as well? Has the One who created man assigned him any
duty to perform, or is it that He has not done so? And if there is some duty, what is it
and how is it to be performed?
This is an alpha which does not let one alone unless one surrenders all
his life to it. This is the path which the Divine alpha traces out for man.
On this basis, the knowledge of God requires a favourable spiritual and
social clime. And in the event the spiritual and social clime is not favourable, the roots
of spirituality dry up, destroyed like a seed which is sown in the soil but does not get
the proper environment to grow.
Faith in God demands a ready spiritual ground for its growth. It seeks
spiritual edification and the sublimity of the spirit. It seeks to bring the spirit into
harmony with the purpose of life and creation. This is the reason why the Noble Qur'an
throughout speaks of receptivity, purity, and receptive capability. It says:
A guidance
for the Godwary; and in order that one who is alive may be warned;
(36:70).
On the other hand, moral sins and vices degrade the spirit from its
state of sanctity. Consequently, this kind of thought and that kind of conduct are two
contradictory forces.
This is not so only with respect to the sacred ideas of religion;
rather, all sublime thoughts, whether they belong to religion or not, are of this type.
Nobility, courage, and boldness of the spirit do not grow in everyone. The notions of
honour, freedom, justice and concern for the welfare of the people do not flourish in all
kinds of people. They decline and undergo erosion in a person given to sensual appetites
and amusements, while they grow in a selfless person and one who has freed himself from
corporal attachments. Therefore, whenever people incline towards sensual lusts, appetites,
comforts, and amusements, all these human excellences die and men wallow in the quagmire
of moral vices, and that is how societies and individuals degenerate.
A historical example of this is the downfall of Islamic Spain. Despite
every effort to wrest it from the Muslims, the Church was unable to do so until it devised
a cunning plan and deprived them of their spiritual eminence, making them addicted to wine
and sensual pleasures and robbing them of their sense of honour and dignity. Thereby it
was able at first to destroy their supremacy and sovereignty and then their religion and
beliefs.
The awliya' and saints used to abstain even from many
permissible pleasures and were cautious of being captivated by them, because once one gets
addicted to pleasures, his soul is deprived of its sublimity, to say nothing of those who
get accustomed to sin.
In Islamic texts this idea has been presented in the form of the notion
that sin blackens the heart and a blackened heart breeds faithlessness. In other words,
black deeds make a black heart and a black heart gives rise to mental darkness.
Then the end of those who committed vices was that they repudiated
the signs of God .... (30:10)
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The causes and factors dealt with earlier, under such titles as,
'inadequacies in the religious ideas of the Church,' 'the inadequacy of the philosophical
concepts,' 'the inadequacy of the social-and political ideas,' defective methods of
religious preaching, and 'unfavourable moral and social environment,' are either related
to past history and do not play any role in the materialist tendencies of our times, or
are causes which are common to all ages and are not exclusive to our own.
Now we would like to study the peculiar materialist tendencies of our
own times. In our age materialism has more or less an attraction, though this attraction
is not of the kind it possessed two centuries ago from the point of view of Enlightenment
and its links with the growth of science. In the 18th and 19th centuries, due
to inadequacies in the religious ideas of the Church and the philosophical concepts, there
arose a wave based on the idea that one had to choose between science and knowledge on the
one hand and God and religion on the other. But it did not take long for this false wave
to subside, and it became clear how baseless it was.
The attraction of materialism in our age is from another angle, from
the angle of its revolutionary character and its quality of political dissent and
confrontation, for which it has become well-known.
Today, to a certain extent, this idea has gone into the minds of the
youth that one must either be a believer in God, and therefore a pacifist and an
indifferent quietist, or a materialist, and, consequently, an activist, a nonconformist
and an enemy of imperialism, exploitation, and despotism.
Why is it that such an idea has found its way into the minds of the
youth? Why is materialism identified with these characteristics, and the Divine school of
thought with those? What is it that leads to infer these qualities from materialism and
those from theist thought?
The reply to these questions is clear. It is not at all necessary that
this be logically deducible from materialism and its opposite from the school of Divine
thought, because the youth are not bothered about formal logical inference. A youth sees
something and that is sufficient for him to arrive at a conclusion. The young people see
that uprisings, revolutions, struggle and confrontations are staged by materialists, while
believers are generally found in the camp of the inactive and the indifferent. For a youth
this is sufficient for pronouncing a negative judgement on the school of Divine thought,
and a favourable judgement about materialism.
Presently the majority of struggles against despotism and exploitation
are being staged under the leadership of individuals more or less inclined towards
materialism. There is no doubt that the bastion of heroism is to a large extent in their
occupation. Activism and revolution have been relatively monopolized by them. We must
accept that religious ideas in our times are devoid of any kind of heroism. On the other
hand, taking into consideration the reaction which injustice and oppression produce on the
minds of the dispossessed and oppressed, and in view of the spirit of hero-worship which
is present in all people, it is sufficient that the positive value of this work be
credited to the account of materialism, while the negative value of the practical approach
which the believers have adopted these days be put to the account of God and religion.
This situation appears strange, because, in principle, it should have
been the opposite. It is faith in God and His worship which link man to objectives
transcending material things and endow him with the spirit of sacrifice on the path of
these objectives, contrary to materialism which naturally links man to matter and material
things and personal life as an individual, and that too a life lived within the narrow
confines of corporal existence.
Moreover, history shows that it were always the prophets and their
followers who revolted against the tyrants, pharaohs and nimrods, and shattered the forces
of evil. It were the prophets who, with the power of faith, mobilized the dispossessed and
oppressed masses into a great force against the mala' (the corrupt elite) and the mutrifin
(the affluent class). The Noble Qur'an, in the Surat al-Qasas, states
And We desire to be gracious to those that were weakened in the
earth, that We may make them leaders, and that We make them the inheritors, and that We
may establish them in the earth, and that We may show Pharaoh and Haman, and their hosts,
what they used to dread from them. (28:5-6)
At another place it says:
How many a prophet there has been, alongside of whom many godly men
have fought, and they slackened not neither weakened for what smote them in God's way, nor
did they abase themselves; and God loves the patient. And what they said was nothing but,
'Lord, forgive us our sins, and our excesses in our affair, and make firm our feet, and
help us against the faithless folk. And God give them the reward of this world and the
fairest reward of the Hereafter; and God loves the good-doers. (3:146-8)
In the verses of the Surat al-Qasas it has been said: 'We desire to
establish them in the earth.' Now we will mention a Qur'anic verse which highlights the
conduct of the followers of the prophets when their power is established in the land. In
the Surat al-Haj; it says:
Those who, when We establish them in the earth, maintain the prayer
and pay the alms bid to what s right and forbid what is wrong; and unto God belongs the
final issue of affairs. (22:41)
This implies that they always strive to fulfill their duty, and as to
its being fruitful or fruitless, that is something which depends upon a set of factors and
circumstances which lie in the hands of God.
It is also stated in the same verses ot the Surat
al-Qasas that: 'We
intend to make them leaders". Now we will mention a verse from the Qur'an which
clearly explains what kind of people have the capacity for leadership in the Divine scheme
of things. God says in the Surat Alif Lam
Mim Sajdah:
And We made from among them leaders guiding by Our command, whenthey
endured patiently, and had convinced faith in Our signs. (32:24)
The Noble Qur'an mentions at another place:
God has graced with a mighty wage those who struggle over the ones
who ones who sit. (4:95)
At another place it says:
God surely loves those who fight in His way in ranks, as though they
were a building well-compacted. (61:4)
At yet another place the Noble Qur'an mirrors their heroic and valiant
aspirations in this manners:
'Our Lord, pour out upon us patience, and make firm our feet, and
aid us against the faithless folk!' (2:250)
These are not the only pertinent verses and there are many of them. Can
one find a greater and better instance of epical enthusiasm. The Qur'an is replete with
references to combat and jihad, to commanding what is right and good and forbidding what
is wrong and evil.
Such being the case, how is it that the platform of revolution and
confrontation was taken away from the followers of God and how come the materialists
occupied it? That which is really surprising is that even the followers of the Qur'an have
abandoned this platform. It is not amazing if the Church did so, because for centuries it
has been sneering at the Qur'an, Islam, and its Prophet (s) for having violated the codes
of monasticism and cloistral seclusion, for rising against tyrants, and revolting against
worldly powers, for not leaving to Caesar that which belonged to Caesar and to God what
belonged to God
But it is really surprising for those who claim to be followers of the
Qur'an. We believe that the abandoning of this platform by the worshippers of God, and
similarly its occupation by the followers of materialist thought, have each a separate
cause of their own.
This platform was abandoned by the worshippers of God when those who
claimed to be religious leaders developed the spirit of seeking a life of ease and
comfort. To put it more precisely, this phenomenon occurred when self-seeking people and
those who sought the mundane ends of life, or, in the words of the scripture, 'worldly
people' occupied the seat of the prophets and genuine religious leaders. The people too
mistook them for their representatives and successors, though spirit was totally opposed
to that of the prophets, the Imams, and their true disciples, and if there was at all any
resemblance, it was confined to appearance and dress.
Obviously these people interpreted, and still interpret, religious
teachings in a manner which does not burden them with any duty and does not contradict
their easy-going ways in the least. Knowingly or unwittingly they distorted certain
religious concepts, employing them against religion itself.
There exists among the Shi'ah a sane and wise concept that is endorsed
by the Qur'an as well as reason. This concept is called taqiyyah (dissimulation). Taqiyyah
consists of employing sensible tactics in combat for safeguarding one's forces in a better
manner. It is obvious that every individual is an element of vital force and his life,
economic resources and social status constitute an asset for the battlefront. Utmost
effort should be made to safeguard this asset and force. Why should the forces be
needlessly wasted? Why should the sources of strength be weakened? The front should remain
strong and powerful to the greatest extent possible.
Taqiyyah is like using a shield in battle. This word is from the
root waqa, meaning shielding. The duty of a combatant in combat is not just attack to the
enemy. Self-protection, to the extent possible, is also his duty. Taqiyyah implies
the maximum of striking power with minimum losses. At any rate, taqiyyah is a reasonable
and wise tactic in the course of struggle.
But today we see that this word has been totally divested of its real
meaning, being imbued in the process with a meaning totally noncombative. From the
viewpoint of self-seekers, taqiyyah means abandoning the battlefield, leaving it
for the enemy, and devoting oneself to inconsequent debates and pointless polemics.
As to how the materialists came to take over this bastion, it may
possibly be said that the reason behind their occupation of this front was its abandonment
by the theists. But this observation is not correct. There is another reason for it.
In this regard the Church is more to blame than anyone else. In the
West, as mentioned earlier, there were presented certain illogical concepts concerning
God, the Hereafter, and Jesus Christ, which were unacceptable to free thinking and
enlightened individuals. That which was presented in the name of theology, affiliated to
the Church, was of a similar nature. In addition, there developed, on the one hand, an
artificial connection between faith in God and belief in the legitimacy of despotism and
repression, and, on the other, between godlessness and the people's right to
self-determination and struggle the for civil liberties.
These factors led some social reformers and activists to straight away
reject God—and, for that matter, every idea originating from the concept of
God—for the sake of freeing themselves totally from these restraints in their social
struggles, and turn to materialism.
Their followers, who were fascinated by their social teachings,
gradually started thinking that perhaps materialism had a miraculous quality and was
capable of giving birth to such combative individuals. But the fact was that these
individuals had not acquired this strength from materialism; rather, it was materialism
which gained strength from these people and consequently acquired some respectability. The
inclination of these individuals towards materialism was not in any way due to its merits;
rather, it was result of the evils that afflicted the so-called religious establishment on
the intellectual, moral, scientific, and social sides.
Now we see that some short-sighted people fancy that there is some kind
of a relation between materialism and socialism, which concerns itself with the economic,
social and political conditions of society, while in reality there exists no such
relationship. In fact, much of the respectability and credibility of materialism in the
present age is due to the pseudo-connection it has developed with socialism.
To be sure we do not intend to exaggerate and claim that at present
materialism has been able to capture from the theists all the bastions of revolutionary
initiative, reconstruction, and combativeness. Such a general statement especially does
not at all hold true of the Islamic world. The history of the last half a century of
anti-colonial struggles in the Islamic countries is the best proof of this claim. It is
predicted that enlightened Muslims will gradually capture this bastion which rightfully
belongs to them. It is even said that, that which is taking place in South-East Asia and
has amazed the world, is, contrary to some propaganda, accompanied by a kind of
spirituality and anti-materialist dimensions.
But we should neither deny that such has been the case in recent past,
and even today atheists are considered the real champions of these platforms.
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