By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer
Many of the most potent and emotional forms
of nationalism are sustained by religion. Faith reinforces the
feeling that the country and its people have a special
destiny, one that encompasses its past, present, and future.
In his book Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources
of National Identity, the late Anthony D. Smith, professor of
nationalism and ethnicity at the London School of Economics,
argued that sacred belief remains central to national
identity.
Their homelands are more than just
geographic territories, they are part of their very being.
Think of the connection to nationhood of
Roman Catholicism in Poland, Buddhism in Burma, Judaism in
Israel, Sunni Islam in Turkey, Orthodox Christianity in
Russia, and various evangelical Protestant denominations in
the United States – even though America is a more diverse
nation.
One of the most powerful creeds, Shi’a
Islam, has buttressed the strong national identity of the
Persians of Iran for centuries and continues to do so. It is
fundamental to the country’s sense of itself. Past history is
never forgotten, slights from foes rarely forgiven.
Beginning in the 16th century,
the new Safavid dynasty converted most Persians to Shi’a
Islam, establishing it as the official religion of their
empire.
In the 20th century, the
emperors of Iran concocted a more “secular” form of Iranian
nationalism, one centred around the Persian people and their
ancient empires dating back millennia, rather than one
emphasizing Islam. It didn’t work.
The last Shah, Mohammad
Reza Pahlavi, saw his regime fall apart like a house
of cards, overtaken by the fervour that an aging Shi’a cleric,
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was able to inculcate,
long-distance, in 1978-79.
This virtually bloodless regime change only
proved possible thanks to the underlying Shi’a cultural
hegemony that had remained suppressed, but could never be
extinguished through either brute force or political
“modernization.”
As a minority used to centuries of
persecution, many Shias had adopted the tactic of taqiyya,
religious dissimulation, to conceal their true allegiance.
Shi’a Islam has preserved Iranian culture
and nationalism and the two are inseparable. The Islamic
Republic is devoted to both Shiite religious figures and war
martyrs.
This has provided the country with a
powerful defence against the largely Sunni Turkish and Arab
Middle East and provided it with a world-historical sense of
religious destiny.
The origins of Shi‘ism lie in the dispute
that followed the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632. While
the people who came to be known as Sunnis accepted the
succession of three caliphs or deputies who were members of
the Prophet’s tribe, the Quraish, those who became Shia or
partisans of Ali, the Prophet’s first cousin, believe that Ali
was his rightful successor to the caliphate.
Ali’s younger son Hussein, who tried to
claim the succession in 680, became the archetypal martyr
after the battle of Karbala, when he and his companions were
massacred by troops of the Ummayad Sunni caliph Mu‘awiya.
The tragedy of Karbala, celebrated in the
annual ta‘ziya passion plays in the month of Ashura, dwells on
the nobility of Hussein’s conduct, and the cruelty of his
enemies, hence keeping his memory alive.
In his book Iran: From Religious Dispute to
Revolution, anthropologist Michael M. J. Fischer of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology has described “the
emotionally potent theme of corrupt and oppressive tyranny”
that, in Shi’a Islam, must eventually be overcome.
As Matthew Pierce, an assistant Professor
of Religion at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, argues in
Twelve Infallible Men, the majority Sunni theological outlook
springs historically from the victories of the early caliphs
on the field of battle.
Yet, even though by the 10th
century, the Muslim community had expanded exponentially,
Shi’a Muslims felt that it had gone astray because Muslims had
not followed the right leaders – their imams.
So they challenged the dominant narrative
of Islamic success with stories of loss and stressed the
themes of oppression, martyrdom, and the hope of a better
world with the eventual arrival the Twelfth Imam, the Mahdi.
Recently, large anti-government protests
spread throughout the country. Many wondered if this was the
beginning of the end of Iran’s Islamic Republic.
It’s unlikely. Shi’a Islam has provided
Iran with a bulwark against foes foreign and domestic.
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