The Beginning of the Revolution Part 1 (The Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Awakening)

This article has been written to find out the impacts of the Islamic Revolution and the Republic of Iran on the formation of the present Islamic Awakening and lay the foundation for the new Islamic culture. In a documentary study using the descriptive and analytical method, this article has attained the following conclusions. The starting point of every transition is the awakening and the Islamic Revolution is the perpetuation of the Islamic Awakening and its second wave. From the fact that the Islamic Revolution has developed and sustained a civilization, the perspective of the political system derived from it in the fourth decade of its life is civilization. Due to the steps taken in the matters of civilization and achieving success in the individual, internal, regional and global aspect, the Islamic Republic has provided the basis for the perpetuation of the Islamic Awakening in the third wave.

Therefore, there is a tripartite relationship between the civilization of the Islamic Revolution, the system derived from that and the Islamic Awakening thanks to its brilliance and stratagem and the perpetuity of the Islamic Revolution. In the present time and global condition, the Islamic Awakening which has been inspired by the awakening of the Islamic Revolution of Iran can strengthen, secure and consolidate the increasing demand and desire that exist in the Islamic world toward the new Islamic civilization. This can be achieved by relying on the capacities of the civilization of the fourth decade of the life of the Islamic Republic.

1. The Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Awakening

The main question in this part of the discussion is; what is the relationship between the Islamic Revolution of Iran and the Islamic Awakening? Even though there are different answers to this question and even at the time, contradicting ones, a reasonable answer that can be given is that the Islamic Revolution is both the initiator of the Islamic Awakening and its beginning.

The Islamic Revolution of Iran was the beginning of the Islamic Awakening. This is because, after almost one hundred years, it managed to achieve all the proposed desires, wishes and aims through the first pioneer and enlightener of Islam of the new era – Sayyid Jamal al-Din Asadabadi. After determining the problem (economic retardation) in the Muslim world, Sayyid Jamal al-Din endeavoured through awakening the rulers, the kings and sultans in the first place and the religious and local leaders, the elites and the masses of people in the next step. This was to overcome this economic retardation by presenting the Islamic-fundamentalist approaches. Sayyid Jamal al-Din found out that the reason the Muslims were caught up in this problem was their distance from the real and genuine Islam and the great solution for overcoming it was returning to genuine Islam.

It is due to this reason that he is referred to as the pioneer of contemporary Islam. (Hakimi, 1384). This is because he was seeking to awaken the Muslims in the name and for the sake of Islam. He proposed eight practical strategies for the sake of achieving this great master plan, whereby in case the Muslims adhered to them, they would have managed to overcome their undesirable status and attain the proper and desired Islamic status for mankind and Muslims. The eight strategies proposed by Sayyid Jamal al-Din are as follows:

1. Fighting against despotism and tyranny of the dictators ruling the Muslim communities in the name of Islam and by relying on Islam. He believed that it is only the power of people that can overcome the power of the Muslim autocratic and oppressive rulers. And the only time that the people were prepared to participate in this arena broadly and fearlessly, was when the subject of Islam and the religious duty was the matter of concern. Owing to this fact, he had to do something to awaken the people and recognize the fight against despotism and dictators as a religious duty.
2. Getting acquainted with the new sciences and techniques and being equipped with them.
3. Returning to the real and genuine Islam; Islam without superstition, innovation and far away from social classification.
4. Firm faith and a strong belief in Islam as the only religion which has the necessary capability for saving and liberating the Muslims from their current undesirable status. This is because Islam is a rational religion. It is based on human dignity and his innate magnificence. It is a religion of knowledge, jihad, work, struggle and diligence, reformation, enjoining good and forbidding evil, responsibility, seeking dignity and rejecting abjection. It is also a religion that has the power for man to reach the boundary of prophecy (Nearer than two bows or even nearer)[1].
5. Fighting against foreign imperialism including political, economic, cultural imperialism and so on. Here too, Sayyid Jamal al-Din believed that only one power can stand against imperialism and neutralize their pressures and that is nothing other than the people.
6. The necessity of the unity of the Muslim world.
7. Reviving the issue of jihad in the Muslim communities and blowing the spirit of resistance amongst the Muslims.
8. Fighting the lack of self-esteem (in Muslims) against the West. (refer to Motahhari, 1998)

 

The Islamic Revolution of Iran managed to carry out these eight strategies that were theoretically proposed by Sayyid Jamal al-Din in the best way possible. It was in this manner that through the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the first wave of the Islamic Awakening that was pioneered by Sayyid Jamal al-Din Asadābadi which was mostly theoretical, intellectual and ideological that led to the second wave which was mostly pragmatic, practical and advancing. With the inception of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the second wave in the course of the Islamic Awakening started whereby “a revolution in the name of God” at the end of the twentieth century, made the materialists open up new horizons for the Muslims and the other people. (refer to Khorramshad, 2005)

With the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the Islamic Awakening was able to have both a theory for the revolution and a model for the government. It was a theory for the Islamic Revolution and an epitome for religious democracy.

It is at this stage that the Islamic Revolution becomes the initiator of the Islamic Awakening. With the inception of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the second wave of the Islamic Awakening arises in the world which has the following characteristics:

1. It presents the epitome of a revolution based on Islam.
2. It presents the epitome of Islamic government based on Islam.
3. In its constitution, Iran introduces its implications as part of the community (ummah) of the Islamic world.
4. It presents an epitome of independent foreign policy (neither of the West nor East) and severely fights against foreign intervention in their internal politics. It also fights with all its might and on a wide scale against imperialism and neo-imperialism.
5. It provides a principled and religiously oriented internal policy model and establishes Islam as the means of solving problems in all aspects like culture and civilization.
6. It has opted for the slogan and policy of self-sufficiency and self-reliance in the economy and stands against reliance and dependence on others.
7. By laying its own foundation, it has ventured into the field of modern sciences and techniques and in various nuclear fields, nanotechnology, biotechnology, medicine, stem cell technology, air and space technology.
8. It has revived jihad and has practically provided the epitomes of martyrdom.
9. It has created a widespread resistant front against the imperialists and has assumed its leadership.
10. It fights against “Global Zionism” and has greatly defeated them with the help of the Islamic resistance fronts and the Islamic resistance groups.

At the present moment, with the revolutions taking place in the Arab world, the Islamic Awakening has begun the third wave of its course of the transition. (Khorramshad and Kiyani, 2012)

The recent revolutions are neither similar to the classical revolutions of France and Russia nor the leftist revolutions of China and Cuba nor the right-wing revolutions of Ukraine and Georgia. By relying on several pieces of evidence, it seems that these revolutions are very close to the Islamic Revolution. The strategies and plans implemented in these revolutions are the same strategies of Sayyid Jamal al-Din and the other pioneers and enlighteners of Islam. During this short period that has elapsed since the inception of these revolutions, the efforts being made to implement the eight strategies of Sayyid Jamal al-Din are evident in these revolutions:

1. Fighting against despotism and autocratic rulers are talked about during the Friday congregational prayers.
2. Emphasis is made on the real and genuine Islam and the slogan of “Islam is the solution” is chanted by people.
3. Emphasis is made on jihad and martyrdom.
4. There is an evident opposition against Zionism.
5. There are talks in regards to the Islamic society with the intellectual titles such as Social Islam, Cultural Islam, Political Islam and Islamic civilization.
6. The epitomes of socialist (leftist), liberalists (right-wing capitalism), nationalists (Arab nationalism or any other of its type) lifestyle and governance have all been sidelined. Contrary to that, the Islamic epitomes of lifestyle and governance based on the native Islamic culture and civilization have been emphasized upon.
7. The lost identity, dignity and glory are being searched in the native Islamic culture and civilization.
8. The epitome of the progress of the native – Islamic Republic of Iran in the field of science and technology is being given serious consideration.
9. It talks about a united Muslim community (ummah) and avoiding any form of disagreement and ethnic and religious differences, especially from the moderate Islamists.
10. In the model of government successorship, instead of the ancient monarchial and presidents for life systems, the secular model is being rejected and the Islamic and legal (shari’ah) model is being taken into consideration.
11. In all the free and fair elections that are being conducted, the Islamists are the ones who emerge as winners.

In this way and practice, the twenty-first century has started with a new wave of Islamic revolutions and the correct answer to the question that had been posed in regards to the future of the victory of the Islamic Revolution in the last quarter of the twentieth century is still under research. That question was; after the victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, in which country will the next Islamic revolution take place? During those days, the fairly consensual answer to this question was Iraq and Egypt. Of course, great powers and countries affiliated and dependent upon the Arabs thought of ways and means of thwarting such a thing whereby one of those measures was the imposition of the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq War by the Ba’thist regime of Iraq against the recently established Islamic Republic of Iran.

Nonetheless, now, after more than thirty years from the victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, after the fall of Saddam, Iraq is under the rule of the Islamists as well. Likewise, it also enjoys a decisive weight in the whole of the Islamic political region. The conversation of the Islamic Awakening is the dominant conversation of the contemporary Muslim world. It seems that the twenty-first century is the century of the Islamic Awakening, Islamic revolutions and Islamic politics. (Khorramshad, 2008)

 

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