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Faith and Freedom (Karen Armstrong, May 8, 2003, The Guardian)

In 680, the Shias of Kufa in Iraq called for the rule of Ali's son, Husain. Even though the caliph, Yazid, quashed this uprising, Husain set out for Iraq with a small band of relatives, convinced that the spectacle of the Prophet's family, marching to confront the caliph, would remind the regime of its social responsibility. But Yazid dispatched his army, which slaughtered Husain and his followers on the plain of Kerbala. Husain was the last to die, holding his infant son in his arms.

For Shias the tragedy is a symbol of the chronic injustice that pervades human life. To this day, Shias can feel as spiritually violated by cruel or despotic rule as a Christian who hears the Bible insulted or sees the Eucharistic host profaned. This passion informed the Iranian revolution, which many experienced as a re-enactment of Kerbala--with the shah cast as a latter-day Yazid--as well as the Iraqi arba'in to Kerbala.

Shi'ism has always had revolutionary potential, but the Kerbala paradigm also inspired what one might call a religiously motivated secularism. Long before western philosophers called for the separation of church and state, Shias had privatised faith, convinced that it was impossible to integrate the religious imperative with the grim world of politics that seemed murderously antagonistic to it. This insight was borne out by the tragic fate of all the Shia imams, the descendants of Ali: every single one was imprisoned, exiled, or executed by the caliphs, who could not tolerate this principled challenge to their rule. By the eighth century, most Shias held aloof from politics, concentrated on the mystical interpretation of scripture, and regarded any government--even one that was avowedly Islamic--as illegitimate.

The separation of religion and politics remains deeply embedded in the Shia psyche.

This, and what follows in the essay, raises a series of questions though; here are two:

(1) The case of Iran seems to demonstrate the unworkability of an Islamic (even Shi'a) authoritarianism. But can this lesson be learned from the example, or must each predominantly Shi'ite nation experience the failure for itself, as almost the entire West had to try out some variant of socialism/communism/fascism and watch them fail?

(2) Will the Shi'a always feel that whatever government they have is oppressive, because it is not idyllic? The separation of Church and State that developed in Judeo-Christianity does not include such a belief, that government is uniquely corrupt--is the difference destined to be significant? Posted by Orrin Judd at July 24, 2003 7:40 PM