Shariati and Marx: A Critique of an "Islamic" Critique of Marxism
The article critiques one of Shari'atis famous booklets/pamphlets. Posting some excerpts which relate to the points Bji listed above.
First : The Western philosophies — Western liberalism, Existentialism, and Marxism — do possess an humanistic perspective. But their conception of humanism is materialistic. In general, the text, which is a critique of the existing humanist philosophies including Marxism, draws upon a radical Islamic conception of man. On the whole the book consists of four major themes which will be discussed in turn.
According to the text, Western humanism rests firmly upon the mythological perspective of ancient Greece. In this perspective there exists a constant struggle between humanity and the gods who want to maintain man in darkness and ignorance. Here, man is praised and is given a high value in contrast to the gods. This humanism, therefore, establishes a distance between man and god. The text argues that all these great humanists -from Diderot and Voltaire to Feuerbach and Marx - have indeed equated the Greek gods which are tyrannical and anti-human with the spiritual conceptions of God such as Ahurmazda, Rama, the Tao, the Messiah and Allah. Since these philosophers have wrongly generalized the Greek contradistinction of human versus God and spirituality, their humanism is earthly, un-heavenly and in a word materialistic. No wonder the communist societies are not much different from the bourgeois ones in their conception of man. In both, everything culminates in man; both disregard "the spiritual dimension of the human essence". Western humanism is considered atheist in another sense, for it considers man to possess, as his human nature, a moral conscience which determines his moral values and which acts as a substitute for God. The text contends that Western humanist philosophies which postulate a distance between man and God are ignorant of the Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Islam and sufism. These religions are based upon the unity (not distance) between God and man, thus their humanism is heavenly.
Second : Even though, the text goes on, we may concede that the Western humanist and intellectual currehts may possess in their theories a liberating principle, in practice, they have lost this aspect of their reality. Take, for instance, Marxism which promised to liberate man from the inhumanity of capitalism. In reality, it shared quite the same attitudes towards man as capitalism, i.e., adherence to mundane prosperity, materialism, consumerism, etc. On the other hand, religions such as Christianity, Islam and Taoism too declined from the liberating ideologies into the bureaucratic, power-hungry and materialistic church or clericalism, to mass formalities, taboos and superstitions. Similarly, the spirit of the Renaissance (which meant liberation of spirit, of science, and of the intellect) turned into capitalism, scientism and liberalism characterized by egoism, opportunism and consumption, and in which faith, ideas, love, the meaning of existence and man did not get attention.
Third : Since Marxism, unlike other Western ideologies, is a comprehensive ideology, dealing with economics, politics, ethics, history, philosophy, etc. , it is the strongest rival to Islam and must be- dealt with thoroughly. The text, then, takes the major philosophical issues of Marxism to d i s t i n g u i sh it from Islam. To begin with, like other Western humanist schools, the text claims that Marx's critique of religion is based upon the Greek humanist philosophy which sees opposition, rather than u n i t y, between God and man. Islamic understanding, on the contrary, is derived from the conception of tawhid, unity. Religion, in Marx, goes beyond rationality and signifies the helplessness of man. Whereas we in Islam, the author asserts, believe that conceptions
of heaven and hell are rational and scientific. On the other hand, Marx basing his argument on the conceptions of infra-structure and super-structure, views man as a part of the latter reducing
him to the tools, considering religion, ethics, morality, man's virtues as determined by economic forces. Hence, man has no independent and noble reality -- an idea that Islam totally rejects.
In quite the same fashion, the author charges Marx with not giving man any significant place in history. In Marxist theory, the text goes on, man is logically incapable since he is the creation of
his environment. Historical changes are not the outcome of man's role, but of the contradiction between the forces and the relations of production. If that is the case, the text wonders, what about all these martyrs in history, upheavals and revolutions.
Finally, this Marxism which boasts to be the ruthless critique of capitalism has ended up sharing the same values w i th it. Both systems, capitalism and communism, are in practice based upon "productivism", "mechanism","techno-bureaucracy", "acquisitiveness", "economic competition" and "materialism". What is now being criticized as Stalinism is in fact a continuation of Leninism and eventually Marxism itself.
What distinguishes socialism from capitalism is that in the latter a (bourgeois) ruling class owns or controls the means of production, whereas in the former, the state takes control.
Fourth : Only Islam, the text contends, possesses true humanism. In Islam, humanism is a collection of the divine values in man that constitute his morals and religious cultural heritage. Drawing on the Islamic concept of tawhid, man is viewed as a contradictory being possessing the dual essence of clay and divine spirit, of dust and God, and the will to choose one over the other. It follows that, first, in Islam man has a nobility not on its own but only in relation to God; secondly, man has a destiny; thirdly, man has a choice. Possession of choice confers upon man a responsibility to elevate himself from being dust towards union with God (this is very similar to the Hegelian concept of absolute idea which evolves from nothingness to becoming everything). This responsibility or mas'uliat for Shariati is a highly critical concept as he tends to extend its implications from the realm of philosophy and theology to that of politics. Thus, he implicitly calls upon the Third World masses in general and the Muslims in particular, to elevate themselves from captivity to become the "regents of God on earth", to deliverance. (This approach is also similar to Marx's Hegelian metaphor of the development of class from being "in itself" to that "for itself).
Responsibility to liberate ourselves, meanwhile, implies self-reliance; more precisely it means cultural, political, and strategic self-reliance which in plain political language manifests the strategy of "neither East nor West", neither capitalism nor communism, but "return to self'.
One of the slogans of the revolution was "la sharghieh la gharbieh, eslamiyeh eslamiyeh" - "Not east, not west, (only) islamic! islamic!" The "neither east nor west" phrase is from one of the most famous ayats of the Qur'an, which describes Allah as a Light, from Surah al-Noor.
So Shariati's views follows the familiar line of Islam = Marxism + God. As well as the positioning of Islam as the perfect balance, containing the virtues of Greek and Hindu civilization, and without either of their faults.
The author of the above article adds his own critique, some excerpts posted below:
Without doubt the text appears to exhibit a powerful critique, from an Islamic vantage point, of the Western humanist philosophies, in particular of Marxism. The text gives the impression that it has been written by an author who, while Alif 10 (1990) deeply involved in his own indigenous intellectual traditions, seems to be well aware of the rival European intellectual currents.
Back in the late 1970s in Tehran, the Husseinieh Center, an uncharacteristically modern "mosque" in an affluent northern part of Tehran (Gholhak) where Shariati delivered his lectures, would be overflowing with people, not just the radical Muslims, but also the leftists. At that time, we could not conceal our admiration for Shariati's knowledge of Marxism. Perhaps his seemingly profound critique, combined with his radical political stand, made Shariati appear to be the most influential revolutionary thinker in recent Iranian history. Marxism and Other Western Fallacies, however, contains some important methodological shortcomings combined with a serious misreading of Marx —the focal point of the text.
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One major argument of the text against Marxism is related to the latter's conception of religion and man. We summarized Shariati's contention above. His critique in this regard appears to me to be methodologically problematic. First, as Shariati acknowledges, Marx's conception of religion was materialistic. According to Marx, certain socio-economic circumstances would shape the religious ideas, structures and their evolution ( Marx indeed was quite critical of Feuerbach whose analysis of Christianity was theological and not social ). But the text does not try to offer an argument to refute the validity of Marx's above mentioned theory.
Secondly, in his critique of religion, Marx generally refers to social implications or social principles of Christianity at the time when, as Ali Shariati would agree, the church's conservative role in relation to the subordinated classes was far from complex. It is true, Marx's knowledge of religion was limited to Christianity and Judaism. He was not very familiar with the 26 Alif 10 (1990)Eastern religions: Islam, Hinduism, Taoism, etc. A tenable criticism of Marx should be based upon his limited knowledge of world religions. Indeed many of the critiques of Marx tend to generalize his conception of religion and then criticize him on this score. This kind of criticism is obviously an invalid one. In addition such a generalization is plainly functionalist and not Marxist, as Marx's methodology is founded upon the idea of contradiction.
Indeed, Marxists who adhere to historical materialism, such as E.P. Thompson, George Thomson, Paul Sweezy and Paul Baran '° do not hesitate to acknowledge that every religious movement has both a progressive and reactionary trust. Thus, George Thomson as early as 1949 declares that "there are two Christs, one of the rulers, and one of the toilers" ' '. Certainly, Ali Shariati's categorization of Safavid shiite (the establishment shiite) and Alavid shiite (combatant and mass's shiite) is not so dissimilar to Thomson's view of Christianity.
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It is because of understanding of such a contradiction, and of the dual character of religious movements that such Marxists as Klugmann in Britain, Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy in the U.S.A. have now started a dialogue with progressive Christianity.
In dealing with Marx's notion of man and religion, the book concentrates its critique heavily on Marx's conception of infra-structure and super-structure. I find the text's interpretation of these concepts highly simplistic. The text almost exclusively draws on one of Marx's often quoted and short (some two pages) texts, namely, the Preface to the Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy , in which Marx formulated, but by no means elaborated, his theory of historical materialism. Shariati appears to have failed to understand that all the elements of "super-structure" including religion, ethics, politics, culture, morality, etc. are not so much determined as conditioned by the economic base of the mode of production, by the means of production.
Thus, Shariati contends, religion, culture and humanity are supposedly reduced to tools. However, this does not seem to be what Marx states. A reading of Marx in his totality suggests that t h is "super-structure" is conditioned (not determined) by the economic base. Besides, this relationship between "super-structure" and "base" is by no means one way, but dialectical, that is , the ideas , religion, culture, etc. have diverse effects on the "economic base" too '. Interestingly, the author does acknowledge in some parts of the text that Marx recognizes the role of ideology, awareness, and human ethics. However, failing to locate these in the general Marxist scheme, Shariati claims that Marx is inconsistent. The same argument holds true in relation to the role of man versus history, and I shall not elaborate on that.
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It must be stated that the kinds of criticism briefly discussed above of Marxism — namely, the one relating to concepts of "super-" and "infra-structure", the occurrence of revolutions, the role of man in history, the conception of man, the practice of socialism, etc.-- are not new. The big names of Western academia, non-Marxist and Marxist alike such as Karl Popper, Ralph Dahrendorf, Daniel Bell, Herbert Marcuse, to mention only a few, have already settled accounts with Marx. What is original in Shariati's approach is his attempt to counterpose Islam as a comprehensive religion, philosophy and an intellectual current to Marxism. He attempts to offer an alternative Islamic conception of man defined and operational in an alternative Islamic society; that is, Islamic humanism conceives the nobility of man not in relation to himself, but in relation to God. This original contention, however, continues throughout the book to remain an assertion; it is not discussed, nor elaborated, nor substantiated.
So basically Shariati was proposing that Islam offers a process - a process by which man can follow a gradient path to realize the self, a path from oneself to Oneself, as they say in Persian Sufism. This path, he says, begins with man acquiring nobility based not on his material self, but on his relationship with God. He criticizes the material dialectics and the base-superstructure paradigm of Marx, even though he acknowledges that man does posses that infrastructural component, which must immediately be hitched to obedience to God. How exactly that is to be done, he does not explain. Who or what determines that nobility in society? What measurable "infrastructural" unit can be used to measure Islamic nobility? Moreover, at least contemporary Iranian thinkers like Al-e-Ahmad were honest enough to become admirers of the Shi'ite priesthood, who would logically be the ones to decide the relative nobility of people in society, as per the Islamic process. But Shari'ati was supposedly a reformist, against the traditional clergy. Perhaps that was only taqiyyah, because he criticized them for being in the pocket of the shahs and bazargan, and not revolutionary enough.
In effect, Shari'ati was saying that Islam offers a process whereas Marxism did not. But it was based on a wrong understanding of some of Marx's concepts, and no explanation of how this Islamic process was supposed to practically work. He only harked back to the days of Ali and his companions like Abu Dharr Ghifari, whom he called the First God-worshipping Socialist.
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