International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 2, Spring 2020 | Page 47

International Journal on Criminology
infallible (ma’sum), incapable of committing errors. This is the essential distinction
between the Imam and the rest of humanity, aside from the question of the
blood of the prophet. Humans are sinners by nature, or at least are capable of error,
however unfortunate it may be. It is here that the traditional martyr finds its meaning:
incapable of being mistaken, Husayn did not surrender at Karbala, hoping to
defeat Yazid’s men, and he yielded to his symbolic death. His death thus became a
message: a comprehensive expression of the oppression of the righteous and their
devotion, pitted against overwhelming injustice. 18 In this sense, the martyr appears
to be beyond human reach. The remembrance ceremonies of the Passion
of Husayn (on Ashura) are not intended to be an imitation of the martyr, rather
they constitute a yearly homage, or even a way of resurrecting the martyr by proxy,
further endorsing the impossibility of the thing experienced through the other (in
this case Husayn the infallible and the superhuman). Along with the secularization
of the figure of the martyr, Shariati pursued the secularization of Shiism as a
whole. The quietist eschatological dimension of traditional Shiism became revolutionary,
and values were reversed: authentic (quietist) Shiism became inauthentic
and inauthentic (activist) Shiism became authentic. 19
In this context, it must be noted that this distortion also conceals the figure
of the martyr in a striking exotericism, as he is reduced to his biological dimension.
The martyr is traditionally (beyond the original legal meaning of witness 20 ) the
pursued quite a different path, creating tensions within Islamic militancy. Born in Mashhad into
a family of clerics laicized by the anti-religious measures of Reza Shah, he took ‘modern’ studies
at school and university, then studied in Paris on a bursary from 1959 to 1964: he associated with
a number of French intellectuals and academics such as Gurvitch, Jacques Berque, and some militants
for independence in Algeria and the third world, such as Frantz Fanon .... On returning to
Iran, he became a thinker on independence and the Revolution, using Islamic, and especially Shiite,
themes such as the martyrdom of Imam Husayn and his revolt against injustice, the eschatological
expectations of the Imam-leader, ... Shari'ati’s writings, freely published since his death, became a
source of inspiration for political activism and militancy among young intellectuals who rejected
the Western model and the alienating dictatorship subject to the Shah’s West, as well as the traditional
interpretation of Islam given by the ulama”. Yann Richard, 100 mots pour dire l’Iran moderne
(Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2003), 188–90.
18 Husayn ibn Ali was massacred along with his seventy-two companions by Yazid’s thirty thousand
men. Their families were tortured by the Umayyad Caliph.
19 Shariati was an apologist for revolutionary Shiism: “The dust of oblivion simply covered it, and it
had to wait until Europe put it back on the agenda before it could once again reach Iranian intellectuals.
This was about ‘soul-searching’. While you know I rely on religion and on Islam, you must
also know that I mean an open Islam, considered with a fresh, clear eye, and on the basis of the Islamic
intellectual renaissance. I have not come to this vision, after considering the various currents
and the different religions, by finally choosing Islam as the ‘best religion’.” Ali Shariati, Retour à soi
(Paris: Albouraq, 2011), 20. “Fake Shi'ism, called Safavid Shi’ism (tashayyo-è safavi), is denounced
by Shari'ati as the religion of quietism, submission to the oppressive government and apolitical
behavior, whereas genuine Shi'ism, called 'Ali-like Shi'ism (tashayyo-é alavi), is glorified as the
religion of revolutionary and heroic martyrdom.” Khosrokhavar, “Two Types of Secularization: The
Iranian Case,” 125.
20 The original meaning of the term “martyr” is “witness,” in the legal sense, both for the English term
taken from Greek (itself borrowed from Latin) and for the Persian term taken from Arabic; this is
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