Ali Shariati

Ali Shariati was an Iranian sociologist and revolutionary Islamic thinker. After doctoral study in Paris, where he met anti-colonial writers, he lectured in Mashhad and at the Hosseiniyeh Ershad in Tehran, drawing huge audiences of young Iranians. He presented Shiʿi Islam as an ideology of liberation and social justice, contrasting a revolutionary 'Red Shiʿism' of martyrdom with a quietist 'Black Shiʿism' allied to rulers. Imprisoned and harassed by the Shah's government, he left for England in 1977 and died in Southampton weeks later. His ideas helped shape the climate of the 1979 revolution.

Key ideas

• Tawhid, the unity of God, is a worldview that rejects divisions of class, race and power among people.
• Islam should be understood as a revolutionary ideology for the oppressed rather than a set of rituals.
• Colonised peoples must 'return to the self', recovering their own culture instead of imitating the West.
• Intellectuals have a responsibility to awaken the people and lead social change.

Major works

• On the Sociology of Islam (1979)
• Return to the Self (1970s)
• Hajj (1970s)
• Red Shiʿism (1970s)
• Fatima Is Fatima (1970s)

In the Book corner

• On the Sociology of Islam lectures late 1960s–1970s; English collection 1979 · Intermediate
  A collection of lectures by the Iranian sociologist and activist ʿAlī Sharīʿatī, translated from Persian by Hamid Algar and published in English…

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