Ali Shariati - Ali Shariati: Who is he?

Ali Shariati
Ali Shariati: Who is he?
Laleh Bakhtiar

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Ali Shariati, this is the real artist for he or she is committed to the promise given that day and creates in anticipation of Gods promise. His point of view serves as an awakening to those who have not comprehended all of the criteria of art, to those who are not aware of the relationship between art and society and to those who think that society is beyond the realm of assistance by an artist. In this school of thought, the artist is bound to the promise and serves as a vehicle for its expression for it is through this expression that humanity continues to remember and recall. It is only artists, in his view, who, like the prophets of old, takes the sins of others upon themselves because a real artist is attentive, engaged in social action and responsible. Their very attentiveness weighs down the sorrow they bear and builds artists into the form of messengers who, as prophecy was sealed with Muhammad, must remain unfulfilled. At the same time that they themselves remain unfulfilled, their art continues to be expressed and to ennoble for one of the major roles that art plays is to ennoble matter.

The matter of Shariati is humanity, people, the masses. With this in view, the real art of any society is faith and struggle upon this way. Anything less than this is to forget the covenant. Islam is centered on Unity and is expressed in art through what has been called unity in multiplicity, multiplicity in unity. Can one find a more appropriate symbol of multiplicity than humanity itself, created in the image of the One God, struggling and full of faith as it recalls the covenant by which it bound itself to God?
Laleh Bakhtiar Editor Preface
ALI SHARIATI (1933-1977), a contemporary Muslim social activist, devoted his life to paving the way for the return to what he and those who followed him believed to be a non-distorted Islam. Ali Shariati left over 15,000 pages of lectures, letters, books and journals which were gathered together, divided into subjects and published from 1976-1986 in Persian in thirty-five volumes called The Collected Works.

As comparatively few pages of his works have been translated into English, the almost fifty page English Guide and Indices to the Collected Works, appearing at the end of the present lecture in the Appendices, addresses this need in order to give those interested in Shariatis ideas and his place in history an understanding of the extent and breadth of his work as well as an insight into his creative abilities which were so strong that the titles themselves call out to be heard. The Index gives all information heretofore unavailable on each of the titles including date, place where the lecture was given, and the surrounding circumstances, where known. Page numbers are given showing where a lecture can be found in the Persian Collected Works and indication of English translation where relevant. There are five additional indices given in the appendices of the Index in order to facilitate access to (1) the translated titles and (2) transliterated titles of the 35 volumes. In the third and fourth indices, every title that appears within the Collected Works (CW) is listed (3) alphabetically in translation and (4) transliteration followed by the number assigned to the work in the Guide to Shariatis Collected Works. The fifth (5) is a list of the Dated Works According to Dates produced during his most prolific period of 1968-1972.

Through this one can follow, day by day, the blossoming of the creative energies of this son of Islam and Iran, a man about whom Jean Paul Sartre said, I have no religion, but if I were to choose one, it would be that of Shariatis.
It is hoped that this work will be viewed as an attempt to give wider scope to Shariatis ideas and that interested readers will contact the publisher with any information or criticism that they may have. This then can be passed on to other readers. Inshallah.
Laleh Bakhtiar Who was Ali Shariati? Final Migration

ON THE DAWN of Ali Shariatis last day in Iran, May 16, 1977, just before his final migration to Europe, he wrote to his beloved father Muhammad Taqi Shariati saying: Presently I am preparing for a journey.... I will be gone for one or two months to study and seek treatment. With the Will of God, I shall return.

The reason why I did not say good-bye to you was because I knew how you were feeling and how you would worry. Now in these last few minutes in my home and in my country, I kiss your hand. I will await you.... ....Now that it is near dawn on Monday, after the morning prayer and two or three hours before we leave (turning to the Holy Quran) I asked for guidance from Him in regard to this journey. The top of the page said bad. Shaken, I read the verse and cried in happiness.

I will record it from a few verses before: Those who believed and emigrated and struggled in the way of God with their wealth and their lives are sublime in their degree with God. And those, they are the ones who are victorious. [9:20]. And then the verses that first appeared: O those who believed! What was it with you when was said to you: Move forward in the way of God, you inclined heavily downwards to the earth? Were you so well-pleased with this present life instead of the world to come? But the enjoyment of this present life is not but little compared to the world to come. Unless you move forward, He will punish you with a painful punishment and will have in exchange for you a folk other than you. And you will not injure Him at all.

And God is Powerful over everything. If you help him not, then, surely, God helped him when those who were ungrateful drove him out. The second of two, when they were both in the cavern, he says to his companion: Feel no remorse. Truly, God is with us. Then, God caused His tranquility to descend on him and confirmed him with armies that you see not and made the word of those who were ungrateful the lowest. And the Word of God is Lofty.

God is Almighty, Wise.Move forward light and heavy and struggle with your wealth and your lives in the way of God. That is better for you if you had been knowing. [9:38-41].
A little over a month later, on June 19, 1977, Ali Shariati died. According to popular belief, his death was directly and/or indirectly connected to SAVAK. Mourning ceremonies were held for him throughout the world as his body was flown to Damascus to be buried beside his beloved Zaynab, whose role he described as greater than martyrdom for it was she who carried the message of Imam Husayn to the world and without her, Karbala would have been an event lost in history. To many, he played the same role in contemporary history.