Ali Shariati<\/a>, whose ideas were influential among the left-wing People\u2019s Mujahedin Organization of Iran. Others followed this approach for tactical reasons, hoping to win the hearts of the masses. After the so-called White Revolution of 1962\u201363, a program of liberalizing social and economic reforms launched by the shah\u2019s pro-Western dictatorship, others still attempted to form religious alliances in opposition to his rule.<\/p>\nHowever, they had all overlooked the social position and ideology of Iran\u2019s religious leadership, who were close to the mainly commercial bazaar bourgeoisie. By the 1970s, Ruhollah Khomeini had won the mullahs over to his conception of an \u201cIslamic government\u201d that would be subject to the unquestionable authority of a supreme guide.<\/p>\nBy the 1970s, Ruhollah Khomeini had won the mullahs over to his conception of an Islamic government that would be subject to the unquestionable authority of a supreme guide.<\/q><\/aside>\nFor Rodinson, there was no question of trying to prevent Muslims from seeking their future in some version of Islam, \u201cwhose new face they would have to form with their own hands.\u201d In the Iranian case, it was not the term \u201cIslamic\u201d in Khomeini\u2019s formulation that should have caught the attention of observers, but rather the word \u201cgovernment,\u201d which Khomeini had firmly invested with an autocratic content in his speeches and writings.<\/p>\n
Rodinson saw Islamic fundamentalism as a product of the impasses of modernity in its various forms \u2014 colonial, neocolonial, national, or even \u201csocialist\u201d \u2014 whether in the Arab region, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, or sub-Saharan Africa. In 1986, he warned that it would remain a feature of the political scene in Muslim countries for a long time:<\/p>\n
\nIslamic fundamentalism is a temporary, transitory movement, but it can last another thirty or fifty years \u2014 I don\u2019t know how long. Where fundamentalism isn\u2019t in power it will continue to be an ideal, so long as the basic frustration and discontent that lead people to take extreme positions persist. You need long experience with clericalism to finally get fed up with it \u2014 look how much time it took in Europe! Islamic fundamentalists will continue to dominate the period for a long time to come. If an Islamic fundamentalist regime failed very visibly and ushered in an obvious tyranny, an abjectly hierarchical society, and also experienced setbacks in nationalist terms, that could lead many people to turn to an alternative that denounces these failings. But that would require a credible alternative that enthuses and mobilizes people. It won\u2019t be easy.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In this, of course, he was right.<\/p>\n\n \n \n
\n \u201cDoubt everything!\u201d<\/h2>\n \n Rodinson\u2019s life and intellectual trajectory were marked by a constant search for truth within the framework of a belief in collective emancipation. Without hesitation, he would have taken up Marx\u2019s celebrated injunction: doubt everything! He was distrustful of abstract theories that lacked a concrete foundation and always strove to base his own conceptions on tireless empirical research. Nor did he accept the idea that critical thinking about a particular subject could be the prerogative of one group of people because only they had experienced that form of exploitation or oppression.<\/p>\nRodinson firmly rejected the idea of Marxism as a finished body of doctrine that already contained all the answers to important political questions.<\/q><\/aside>\nRodinson firmly rejected the idea of Marxism as a finished body of doctrine that already contained all the answers to important political questions, \u201crather like one of those electronic boards in Paris Metro stations, which indicate the correct route from one point to another.\u201d In his understanding, there was \u201cnot just one <\/i>Marxism, but several <\/i>Marxisms, all with a common core, it is true, but also with many divergences, each version being as legitimate as any other.\u201d<\/p>\n
From his own Stalinist phase, he drew the lesson that high political ideals were \u201cno guarantee against the traps of self-satisfaction and collective narcissism, nor against the ideological delirium and moral lapses to which even the most admirable of commitments can lead.\u201d However, Rodinson\u2019s skepticism about ideological dogmas did not lead him toward political quietism. As he wrote in the introduction to Marxism and the Muslim World<\/i>:<\/p>\n\nWhen it is patently obvious that unacceptable calamities are the direct result of fundamental oppressive and exploitative structures, then the remedy must be radical; it must, as Marx put it, go to the root of things. And in that case there is but one valid stance for those unable to resign themselves to accepting humanity\u2019s avoidable suffering: to be a rebel.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n \n \n \n\n \n
\n \n\n\nThis post was originally published on Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maxime Rodinson was one of the foremost international specialists on the Middle East, the Arab world, and Islam, with a worldwide reputation among scholars in this field. Born in Paris in 1915, he died in Marseille at the age of eighty-nine in 2004. The French historian left behind a bibliography of more than a thousand [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1651,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1651"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22113,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22112\/revisions\/22113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}