Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives - Islamic Books ...

Shi’ite Islam in Contemporary Iran 9 9in intimate and, for many, frightening terms. Is Islam compatible with themodern world? Are the only answers to the mixing of modernity and Islam apolitical conundrum of a totalitarian theocratic “republic” of enforced extremistIslamic law or a paradoxically secularized democratic Islam, where everybo d y, regardless of religious qualifications, can give a respected opinion aboutlaw? Or is the answer to go back to the de facto check and balance of the separationof state and clergy?Regardless of what the future holds for Islam in Iran, it is clear that due tothe government’s policies, Twelver Shi’ism has for some become a religion ofwrath. As one former prisoner of the regime characterized it, “Islam is a religionof care, compassion, and forgiveness. This regime makes it a religion ofdestruction, death, and torture” (Abrahamian 1999, 140). When I asked peoplein Tehran about the difference in religious practice and inward sincerityand faith before and after the Revolution, one person replied, “Before the revolution,we would go out, drink, not follow the law, and then we would comehome, close all the shades, repent and do our prayers. Nowadays, when we goout, we don’t drink, but are forced to pray, and then when we come home, weclose our shades and then drink.” Or as another said, “Many people stoppeddoing their prayers when the truth of this government came to light.”Nevertheless, the love and devotion that Iranians have for God, his Prophet,and his Imams are still extremely strong and are not likely to diminish anytimesoon. Islam in Iran today is a living, vibrant faith. Whether established througha totalitarian regime, in the heart of a sincere, crying repentant at a t a z i y e h , o rby a postmodern interpreter, the many forms of Shi’ite Islam remain a powerful,deep, and seminal reality in the lives of the people of Iran as they continueto struggle with how to live as sincere Muslims in a secularized contemporaryworld suffused with tremendous social, political, and economic problems.Notes1 . These observations on the Imam Reza complex are based upon research that Icarried out in Iran for five weeks during the summer of 2000.ReferencesAbou El Fadl, Khaled. 2001. Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority, and Wo m e n .Oxford: Oneworld Publications.Abrahamian, Ervand. 1993. Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic. Berkeley and LosAngeles: University of California Press.———. 1999. To rt u red Confessions: Prisons and Public Recantations in Modern Iran.Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.