The ideological engine behind the Iranian Revolution is setting Europe on fire

Throughout the Western world, many are becoming increasingly concerned at the burgeoning “Red-Green Alliance”.  For the uninitiated, the “Red” refers to the radical left—those who are Marxist in ideology and practice.  The “Green” refers to political Islamists.  At first glance, the two ideologies are entirely incompatible.  However, there is one distinct area of symmetry between the two: the remaking or, in many cases, the destruction of, society. 

At present, the US and Israel are attempting to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the apocalyptic Iranian regime.  Since the revolution in 1979, the Iranians have been a constant concern for Western nations.  But little did political analysts know that the ideological engine behind the revolution also represented a warning as to what was to come, particularly in the area of Marxist-Islamist ideology.

Although the name Ali Shariati would not be familiar to most people, he was in many ways the ideological architect of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran.  Shariati was born in Iran but studied in Paris during the 1960s.  It was during this time in a Western institution that Shariati developed a new theoretical approach to the combination of Marxism, existentialism (the philosophical belief we are each responsible for creating purpose or meaning in our own lives) and Islam.  Though he did not live to see the 1979 Revolution (he died in 1977), his writings mobilised a generation of revolutionaries. 

Inspired by the works of anti-colonialist scholars, Shariati became convinced that only a revolutionary ideology could oust Iran’s Pahlavi monarchy and liberate Iranians from the evils of Western imperialism.  In many ways, the Iranian Revolution was the first test of this new political and religious ideology which would come to be known as Revolutionary Shiism.  It transformed traditional Shia Islam from passive faith to mass-mobilising force aimed at overthrowing unjust regimes and installing an Islamic state in its place.  Because it was developed as an active revolutionary ideology, it would focus its energy on the development of Shia warriors and martyrdom rather than scholarly debates and mysticism. 

As part of the ideological framework developed by Shariati, he categorised Shia Islam into “Red Shiism” and “Black Shiism”.  According to Shariati, Black Shiism is static, ritualistic and readily compliant with unjust rulers whereas Red Shiism is centred on sacrifice, resistance against tyranny, and social justice.  For Shariati, Islam was not an “opiate” that pacified society; it was a force capable of igniting social transformation.  Therefore, Shariati rejected Black Shiism because he believed it was too preoccupied with spirituality, individual piety and scholarly squabbles, rather than social justice against oppression.  Even though Shariati faced backlash from Shia clergy, Shariati’s message resonated with thousands of Iranian university students prior to the revolution, many of whom were middle-income left-wing Muslims.  By encouraging them to view the Pahlavi monarchy through a colonial lens, the principles of Red Shiism were invoked, leading them to rise up against the so-called oppression.

Despite being criticised for his views, Shariati found favour with Ayatollah Khomeini who believed that humanity was divided into categories: mustazafeen (oppressed) and mustakbareen (oppressors or arrogant ones).  In Islamic teaching, although the term mustazafeen can refer to those who are naturally weak, politically it is used to describe those who have been systematically weakened or made a victim of tyranny by powerful oppressors.  Not surprisingly, the Ayatollah believed that Jews were mustakbareen and that those belonging to Islam were mustazafeen. Leading up to 1979, Khomeini framed the Iranian Revolution as a movement of the Mustazafeen (the oppressed masses) rising up against the Mustakbareen (oppressive domestic and international powers, such as the Shah and Western influence).  Shariati even reinterpreted the story of Cain and Abel through the lens of class struggle, believing the oppressors/exploiters to be represented by Cain and the oppressed/exploited symbolised by Abel.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that Iranian foreign policy, particularly since 1979, has been built around oppressor/oppressed principles.  Even prior to his death, Shariati advocated for a new foreign relations paradigm in which the Palestinians would serve as a symbol of Israeli-Western colonialism and domination. As one of his interpreters put it, Shariati wanted to make Palestinians a “sacred symbol of uprising against injustice and domination.”  In fact, he claimed that “…Jerusalem has now fallen to the hands of [Zionist] Jews and that the Muslims have become defenseless victims of a Jewish-Christian [alliance] and are being expelled from that sacred land in the most brutal way…”

What becomes evident from Shariati’s writings is that he saw the issue of Palestine as not just a regional conflict but as a crucial litmus test for anti-colonial resistance.  To Shariati (and the countless others who are dogmatically aligned with him) the principles of Red Shiism emerge as a fundamental pillar that enhances liberation from the perceived social and political roots of oppression and injustice. It is this undercurrent of liberation psychology that draws Marxism and Islam together in their shared vision to overthrow the world’s “oppressors”.    

The world bore witness to the dangerous results of Shariati’s “Red Shiism” in 1979.  While rejecting its materialistic and atheistic foundations, Shariati soon discovered that Marx’s analytical tools such as class struggle, economic exploitation and anti-imperialism were useful in his quest to reinterpret Shia Islam as a revolutionary ideology of the oppressed.  Shariati believed that orthodox Marxism failed because it ignored the spiritual dimensions of meaning which, in the eyes of Shariati, could only be provided by a monotheistic faith grounded in similar principles of liberation: Islam.  Despite Marxism missing the faith element, Shariati’s assessment of the suitability of ideological frameworks was not whether those forces were religious or non-religious, but how revolutionary they were.  That’s why he praised the revolutionary left.  Between the faith of Islam and the revolutionary mindset of the radical left, Shariati believed he had found the perfected combination.

Shariati may have died almost 50 years ago but the world is now suffering immeasurably under the weight of his Marxist-Islamist ideology.  How ironic that the very place where Shariati had come under the spell of Marxism (Paris) is the very place which is now suffering immeasurably as a result of his revolutionary ideology.