Rereading and interpreting the ideas of leading Muslim thinkers
Abstract
Along with being "Islamic", being "Public" (Márdomi) is among the most important distinctive features of the Islamic Revolution. This study aimed at Ali Sháriati's stance on the notion of People in comparison with Mortáza Motáhari's. These two thinkers had a great deal ...
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Along with being "Islamic", being "Public" (Márdomi) is among the most important distinctive features of the Islamic Revolution. This study aimed at Ali Sháriati's stance on the notion of People in comparison with Mortáza Motáhari's. These two thinkers had a great deal of philosophical and sociological debates on such concepts as "The Individual", "Society", "History", and "Nās" in their works. However, due to practical involvement in revolutionary campaigns, they had to deal with the notion of "People" not as an abstract issue and not as the object of philosophical-sociological theorizations, but as the ordinary common people considering their role in plans for change in the current order or establishment of the new order. Seemingly, Shariati was preoccupied most in the problem of people-intellectual and had a twofold stance toward people: from one hand, he considered people as an absolute standard to assess all the social and the religious issues including God, the Prophet, worship, art, and the like. On the other hand, he selectively distinguished between the "Semi-human" and the "thirsty for faith and the deep desirer for the epoch of human equality" and put the latter at the heart of his plan for social evolution. Instead, Motahari focused most on the problem of people-religion and challenged the application of the notion of "the miserable" (Mostázáf) to ordinary people asserting that the miserable was not the same as the believer (Mômen). He assumed "good deed" (Ámal-e-Sāleh) as the criterion to assess ordinary people instead of miserableness. The study utilized documentary research method as well as reviewing the text of these two thinker's works.
