International Journal of Shi'i Studies

By Global Scholarly Publications

The International Journal of Shī‘ī Studies publishes research and reviews on virtually every aspect of Shī‘ī studies. Topics that fall within the scope of the journal include:
• Analyses of Shī‘ī origins, doctrines, methodologies. literature; or cosmological and ideological dimensions of the Shī‘ī schools, including mystical, philosophical, theological, social, economic, political, contemporary, and comparative aspects;
• Research and studies on the Ahlulbayt, including from non-Shī‘ī perspectives;
• Shī‘ī contributions to any of the traditional Islamic sciences, both exoteric and esoteric;
• Biographies or studies of the careers of Shī‘ī scholars or even non-Shī‘ī scholars with some positive or negative relation to the Shī‘ī school or the Ahlulbayt;
• Communal, institutional, literary and devotional manifestations of the Shī‘ī school.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312268234

Book preview

International Journal of Shi'i Studies

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL

OF SHĪ‘Ī STUDIES

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL

OF SHĪ‘Ī STUDIES

[Ebook Version of Print Edition]

Editor-in-Chief

PARVIZ MOREWEDGE,

State University of New York, Old Westbury, USA

Technical Foreign Language Editor

Edward Macierowski, Benedictine College, USA

Production Manager

Rohit Verma (GSP)

Editorial Board

Ali Asgari, Mahmoud Ayoub, Hadi `Azimi, Lynda Clarke, Muhammad Reza Dehshiri, Mohsen Eslami, Muhammad-Bagher Khorramshad, Idris S. Hamid, Daniel Peterson, Charles Randall Paul, and Habibeh Rahim

(*in alphabetical order)

Publication Program, Fall 2013: Volume VI.1.

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-312-26823-4

Subscriber Information: Subscription prices year 2013 (Vol. VI.1) including postage and handling: Institutions USD 60.00/EURO 60.00. Private individuals or students may subscribe at the reduced rate of USD 30.00/EURO 30.00. Subscriptions, changes of address, advertisement rates, and other requests should be sent to Parviz Morewedge, Global Scholarly Publications, 220 Madison Avenue Suite 11-G, New York, NY 10016, USA.

Disclaimer: The editorial board, sponsors, and contributors to IJSS are responsible only for the content of essays they have written; the author/s of each essay has (have) sole responsibility for its content

© 2013 by Global Scholarly Publications. Printed in the USA. ISSN: 1544-1326

Cosponsors

Islamic Culture and Relations Organization

&

Foundation for Religious Diplomacy Utah, USA

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL

OF SHĪ‘Ī STUDIES

is published biannually by

Global Scholarly Publications

Executive Committee

Xiaoping Wei (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, PRC), Chun-Fang Yu (Columbia University), Parviz Morewedge (Director of GSP, SUNY Old Westbury), Achim Koeddermann (Associate Director of GSP, SUNY Oneonta), Charles Randall Paul (President, Foundation for Religious Diplomacy [FRD], Utah), Daniel C. Peterson (Brigham Young University), Gerald Snow (the Legal Counsel of GSP), Peimin Ni (Coordinator, GSP PRC Related Projects; President, Society of Asian and Comparative Philosophy, USA; Grand Valley State University), Yihong Liu (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing,

PRC), Rohit Verma (SUNY, OWB), and Xinlu Kong (GSP, Coordinating Manager)

GSP Research, Technology, Marketing and Publication Staff:

Sally Shrady, Alexandra Castellano, Ben Harmatz, Xinlu Kong, Renyuan Cheng, Adrienne Hloderwski, Frederico Martin, Kamilla Molina, Alia Mokaddem, and Sunny Moon Kim.

Global Scholarly Publications

220 Madison Avenue, Suite 11-G

New York, NY 10016 http://gsp-online.org

Phone: [phone]

Fax: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

About the Journal

The International Journal of Shī‘ī Studies publishes research and reviews on virtually every aspect of Shī‘ī studies. Topics that fall within the scope of the journal include

•          Analyses of Shī‘ī origins, doctrines, methodologies. literature; or cosmological and ideological dimensions of the Shī‘ī schools, including mystical, philosophical, theological, social, economic, political, contemporary, and comparative aspects;

•          Research and studies on the Ahlulbayt, including from non-Shī‘ī perspectives;

•          Shī‘ī contributions to any of the traditional Islamic sciences, both exoteric and esoteric;

•          Biographies or studies of the careers of Shī‘ī scholars or even non-Shī‘ī scholars with some positive or negative relation to the Shī‘ī school or the Ahlulbayt;

•          Communal, institutional, literary and devotional manifestations of the Shī‘ī school.

Author Submission Guidelines

Contributions of both a scientific and technical nature, as well as of interest to a general audience, are welcome. The Journal accepts relevant small or serialized critical editions and translations of original texts. New books from publishers and authors to be submitted for review are welcome. The Journal will be published in English. However, contributions in Arabic, Persian, French, or German will be considered for possible translation into English, or, very occasionally, for publication in the language of origin. Submissions should generally be between 5,000 and 15,000 words in length. Shorter items including book reviews, book notes, and synopses of manuscript research may be suitable for the Notes and Reviews section.

Please submit your completed article in electronic form as an attachment to an email to Parviz Morewedge (email: pmorewed@gmail. com) and send one hard copy. Manuscripts should be single spaced in Microsoft Word. (Word should also be used for Arabic script.) Use a minimum amount of formatting (i.e., don’t add extra spacing and indentations), employ headings and subheads, and use footnotes for reference citation. To insert a footnote in Word, use the Insert menu, then click on Reference, and then Footnote. If including data in tables, use the Table menu in Word to create tables. Charts, tables, and images must be able to fit within 4 x 6.5 inches when reduced. Remember to italicize the titles of books and journals and non-English terms. For quotations in running text, use double quote marks; for quotations enclosed within another quote in running text, use single-quotation marks.

Use the MLA style for citing references in footnotes. This avoids having to have a bibliography at the end of your essay, although you may include one if you desire. Note that subsequent citations of the same source may be abbreviated and the publishing information in not repeated. For example:

¹ Jacqueline Jones, The Dispossessed: America’s Under-class from the Civil War to the Present (New York: Basic, 1992), p. 291.

² R. Allen Harris, Rhetoric of Science, College English 53 (1991), p. 284.

³ Jones, The Dispossessed, p. 87.

Making Changes after Submission

Only a minimal number of essential changes can be made after submission if absolutely necessary. Do not resubmit your article. Send the editor a list of your changes by underlining or high-lighting the changes you wish to make and include them within the sentences or paragraphs in which they occur. If the number of changes is substantial or your essay needs to be reformatted because you are submitting a new version, you may be asked to pay the publisher for the extra expense incurred.

Transliteration of Arabic and Persian Terms

Please use the U. S. Library of Congress and American Library Association style for the English transliteration of Arabic and Persian words. You can ask the journal editor for a copy of the Times Extended Roman font set, which works well for Romanizing Arabic script in the ALA and LC. style.

The Essence of Unity (Tawḥīd)

Denial of Servitude but To God

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

(The Honorable Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran [IRI])

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

The Prophet of Islam announced a slogan: There is no god but Allah, a pedestal in his profound message towards the emancipation of man. The chieftains and the nobles of the tribes were the prime figures who rose in alarm to confront him. In the beginning only mocking and censuring served them as a primitive tool of animosity, which later turned into so-called effective weapons in line with the progress of the movement of Tawḥīd (Divine Unity). The others under their influence were also goaded into enmity towards the Prophet and his believers. Here, the shameful episodes of history took place stretching a span of the thirteen years that preceded the migration. This historical reality reveals a fact, which deserves a cogent consideration towards an acquaintance of Islam and specially Tawḥīd (an essential word of Islam, its first and its final).

One of the most pitiful events of our days is the distorted concept of Tawḥīd; and this should be regarded as a tragedy by all those who have a say in the emancipation of man, because of the bearing of this distortion on the common and most fundamental concept of all the religions, as there cannot be found any other concept in the expanse of history that could have been so efficacious in the course of emancipation of man besides its being a harbinger of redemption for the oppressed masses.

In history, as far as we have known, the divine prophecies were movements momentous towards the benefit of man-kind, freeing the oppressed from atrocities, discrimination and encroachments.

The moral core of all the great religions according to Erich Fromm includes such ideals as knowledge, brotherly love, minimizing human sufferings, independence and responsibility. (Of course, comprehension of ideals still nobler, can-not be expected from a materialist observer). Indeed all these ideals are epitomized in Tawḥīd. Prophets, while exposing their errand in the slogan, focusing on Tawḥīd, were translating it into reality, following the campaign issued by this slogan. It is, indeed, deplorable for those who believe in Tawḥīd and its outlook upon the universe and those who are after the above ideals that the concept of Tawḥīd should remain unknown or become an enigma or else perverted or if at all conceived should not go beyond a cursory conception that is too merely a mental one at a time when the said ideals are felt more and sought faster than ever.

The earlier confrontations that started with the dawn of Islam reveal an important fact with regards the concepts of Tawḥīd. That fact is this: the slogan, There is no god but Allah, was in the very first place a blow fatal to those who had gritted the teeth of enmity against it when they were the ruling class of the society with due power. The social orientation of a movement or a thought and the effectiveness of such an orientation can well be conceived through the adversary’s reactions to that movement or thought. The very faces of the enemies of a movement will well disclose, upon study, the nature of their affiliations with social strata and thereby the confrontation of that society as a whole in relation to that particular movement or thought. The strength of the enmity is the gauge that determines the strength of the movement. Thus, the study of both the wings, the one of the supporters of the movement and the other of its adversaries, becomes a safe and sane way to gain a true acquaintance with the Divine movements.

When we observe that those classes that are powerful in society have been the first to oppose the call of religions and they have done the best they could to do this, we clearly realize that a religion or any religious movement in its nature is against these classes; it opposes their lavishness whether in power or in pelf, and basically to any classification that distinguishes them from others.

To ponder into the very concept of Tawḥīd from this angle, the angle of its opposition to majesty over society, we should necessarily know that Tawḥīd is not a mere philosophic or noetic theory, as is generally but erroneously presumed; but in addition to its being a social, economical and political doc-trine, it is the very foundation whereupon man is edified and the mammoth mansion of the universe .

A term could hardly be found in the terminology of religion or even other terms, so fertile as to enfold so many revolutionary and constructive concepts, besides covering different aspects of man’s social and historical life. It could, there-fore, never be just fortuitous that all the Divine solicitations and Divine movements that are so profuse in history did hint and hit at one point in their proclamations, and that is the Oneness of God: that Divinity is only His and to Him alone.

To describe the rays that a prism of Tawḥīd imparts, we could only epitomize:

1. From the Point of View of its General Outlook upon the Universe:

a) It translates to the effect of a united world and homely uniformity of all its elements.

Since the Creator is one, and everything is originated from one source, since there have not been different gods and creators, creating and then running the world, then all the things are elements of one set, and the whole world is one unit with one pursuit. God the Almighty challenges:

Thou seest not in the creation of the All-merciful any disorder (Al-Mulk, 67:3).

Again, says the Almighty:

What, have they not considered within themselves? God created not the heavens and the earth, and what is between them, but on a just system, and with a stated term (Rūm, 30:8).

From this outlook, the world appears a caravan with a set-up connected to each other like a chain and heading to-wards one direction in unison with a common *conquest so well organized that every item is carefully placed in its due position; or else it might have lost its usefulness. Thus, all are in a journey compact, consistent, constant towards consummation; each a necessity to the other while the rest rests on such a need as a whole thereby avoiding any sluggishness or deviation which, otherwise, would result in an upset of this whole set-up.

b) Tawḥīd can also be *translated to the objectivity of the creation, and the planning and computed order in the world; to the existence of some sort of dynamism and purpose in all and each part of the world. Since the universe has a wise Cre-ator (wise in its most complete sense that could be a deserving description of the word Ḥākim [a name among the names of Allah]) Who has brought it into existence, there is no way but being a wisdom, an ultimate purpose, and a pursuit in the very existence of the world as it is seen and sensed in most of its parts.

We created not the heaven and the earth, and whatsoever is between them, as playing and with no purpose (Anbiyā’, 21:16).

From this outlook, the world seems to be a machine manufactured for a gain and not a thing lost in a wilderness of bewilderment. The very fact as to how it is purports a meaning and portrays a purpose, which is *[not] to be sought in the origin. It is like a verse that can only be understood by probing into its content, but its existence can never be considered as a matter of chance.

c) Tawḥīd, moreover connotes the obedience of all the things and the elements of the world before God. Neither a thing nor a regulation in this galaxy is on its own. The rules that run the world and everything existing under their guidance are all in constant obeisance to the divinity of God. Therefore, the existence of the rules and laws in this whole world cannot be considered as a reason to deny God’s presence, divinity and His constant control over the world. In this respect the Holy Qur’ān says:

None is there in the heavens and the earth but he comes to the All-merciful as a servant (Maryam, 19:93).

But to Him is what in the heavens and (in) the earth; all to Him (are) obedient (Baqarah, 2:l16).

They measured not God with His true measure. The earth altogether shall be His handful on the Day of Res-urrection, and the heavens shall be rolled up in His right hand. Glory be to Him! He (be) exalted above what they associate! (Zumar, 39:67).

2. From the Outlook Consequent upon Studying and Judgment on Man:

a) It is in the sense of the uniformity and equality of human beings in relation to God. He is the Master of all people. Hu-man nature is such that it even rescinds any particularity in his relation with God. No one has any kinship with Him. Hence, all are the same and at parity before God. Also God is not a particular one of a particular nation or a group or a tribe; and, therefore, the absence of superior avoids the notion of an inferior in creation, while leaves open the scope for elevation of the human values, which is attainable only through righteousness, a platform whereon to perform good deeds in line with the Divine’s desire, which is the only safe route or promising method for man to ascend to the heights of perfection and prosperity. To quote from the Qur’ān:

"And they said, ‘God has taken to Him a son’. Glory be to Him! Nay, to Him belongs all