The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam

One of Majlisi’s chief targets was the school of mystical philosophy developed in Isfahan by Mir Dimad (d. 1631) and his pupil, Mulla Sadra (d. 1640), a thinker who would have a profound influence on future generations of Iranians.47 Mir Dimad and Mulla Sadra were both utterly opposed to the new intransigence of some of the ulema. They saw it as a total perversion of the Shiah, and, indeed, of all religion. In the old days, when the Shiis had searched for hidden meanings in scripture, they had implicitly acknowledged that divine truth was illimitable, fresh insights were always possible, and no single interpretation of the Koran could suffice. For Mir Dimad and Mulla Sadra, true knowledge could never be a matter of intellectual conformity. No sage or religious authority, however eminent, could claim a monopoly of truth.

They also expressed clearly the conservative conviction that mythology and reason were both essential for a full human life: each was diminished unless complemented by the other. Mir Dimad was a natural scientist as well as a theologian. Mulla Sadra criticized both the ulema, for belittling the insights of mystical intuition, and the Sufis, for decrying the importance of rational thought. The true philosopher had to become as rational as Aristotle, but must then go beyond him in an ecstatic, imaginative apprehension of truth. Both thinkers emphasized the role of the unconscious, which they depicted as a state existing between the realm of sense perceptions and that of intellectual abstractions. Previously, Sufi philosophers had called this psychic region the alam al-mithal, the world of pure images. It was a realm of visions, proceeding from what we would call the subconscious, which rise to the conscious level of the mind in dreams and hypnogogic imagery, but which can also be accessed by some of the exercises and intuitive disciplines of the mystics. Mir Dimad and Mulla Sadra both insisted that these visions were not just subjective fantasies but had objective reality, even if they remained impervious to logical analysis.48 Instead of discounting them as “imaginary” and, therefore, unreal, as a modern rationalist might do, we should attend to this dimension of our existence. It lies too deep for conscious formulation but has a profound effect upon our behavior and our perceptions. Our dreams are real; they tell us something; in our dreams we experience what is imaginary. Mythology was an attempt to organize the experiences of the unconscious into imagery which enabled men and women to relate to these fundamental regions of their own being. Today, people resort to psychoanalysis to gain similar insight into the working of the unconscious mind. The mystical school of Isfahan, spearheaded by Mir Dimad and Mulla Sadra, insisted that truth was not simply that which was logically, publicly, and legally perceived, but had an interior dimension that could not be apprehended by our normal waking consciousness.

This inevitably brought them into conflict with the new hard-line Shiism of some of the ulema, who drove Mulla Sadra out of Isfahan. For ten years he was forced to live in a small village near Qum. During this period of solitude, he realized that despite his devotion to mystical philosophy, his approach to religion had still been too cerebral. The study of jurisprudence (fiqh) or extrinsic theology could only give us information about religion; it could not yield the illumination and personal transformation that is the ultimate goal of the religious quest. It was only when he began seriously to practice the mystical techniques of concentration and descended deeply into the alam al-mithal within himself that his heart “caught fire” and “the light of the divine world shone forth upon me … and I was able to unravel mysteries that I had not previously understood,” he explained later in his great work al-Asfar al-Arbaah49 (The Four Journeys of the Soul).

Sadra’s mystical experiences convinced him that human beings could achieve perfection in this world. But, true to the conservative ethos, the perfection that he envisaged was not an evolution to a new and higher state, but a return to the original pure vision of Abraham and the other prophets. It was also a return to God, the Source of all existence. But this did not mean that the mystic abjured the world. In The Four Journeys of the Soul, he described the mystical journey of a charismatic political leader. First, he must journey from man to God. Next he travels in the divine sphere, contemplating each of God’s attributes until he arrives at an intuitive sense of their indissoluble unity. Gazing thus on the face of God, he is transformed and has a new perception of what monotheism really means and an insight that is not unlike that enjoyed by the Imams. In his third journey, the leader travels back to humankind, and finds that he now sees the world quite differently. His fourth and final quest is to preach God’s word in the world and to find new ways to institute the divine law and reorder society in conformity with God’s will.50 It was a vision that linked the perfection of society to a simultaneous spiritual development. The establishment of justice and equity here below could not be achieved without a mystical and religious underpinning. Mulla Sadra’s vision fused politics and spirituality, which had become separate in Twelver Shiism, seeing the rational effort that was essential for the transformation of society in the mundane world as inseparable from the mythical and mystical context that gave it meaning. Mulla Sadra had thus proposed a new model of Shii leadership, which would have a profound impact upon Iranian politics in our own day.

The mystical political leader of Mulla Sadra’s vision would have divine insight, but that did not mean that he could impose his own opinions and religious practice on others by force. If he did that, in Sadra’s view, he denied the essence of religious truth. Sadra was vehemently opposed to the growing power of the ulema, and was especially disturbed by a wholly new idea that was gaining ground in Iran during the seventeenth century. Some ulema now believed that most Muslims were incapable of interpreting the fundamentals (usul) of the faith for themselves; because the ulema were the only official spokesmen of the Hidden Imam, ordinary folk must, therefore, select a mujtahid who had been deemed capable of exercising ijtihad (“independent reasoning”) and model their behavior on his legal rulings. Sadra was appalled by these claims of the Usulis, as the proponents of this view were called.51 In his view, any religion that was based on such servile imitation (taqlid) was inherently “polluted.”52 All Shiis were quite capable of understanding the traditions (akhbar) of the Prophets and the Imams, and could work out solutions for themselves, based on reason and the spiritual insights they derived from prayer and ritual.

As the seventeenth century progressed, conflict between the Usulis and their opponents became more heated. Safavid power was beginning to decline, and society starting to fragment. People looked to the ulema as the only authorities capable of restoring order, but they differed among themselves about the nature of their authority. At this stage, most Iranians opposed the Usulis and followed the so-called Akhbaris, who relied on past tradition. The Akhbaris condemned the use of ijtihad and promoted a narrowly literal interpretation of the Koran and the Sunnah. They insisted that all legal decisions must be based on explicit statements of the Koran, the Prophet, or the Imams. If cases arose where there were no inspired rulings, the Muslim jurist must not depend upon his own judgment but should refer the matter to the secular courts.53 The Usulis wanted a more flexible approach. Jurists could use their own reasoning powers to reach valid decisions, based on legal principles hallowed by Islamic tradition. They thought that the Akhbaris would get so enmeshed in the past that Islamic jurisprudence would be unable to meet new challenges. In the absence of the Hidden Imam, they argued, no jurist could have the last word and no precedent could be binding. Indeed, they went so far as to say that the faithful should always follow the rulings of a living mujtahid rather than a revered authority of the past. Both sides were trying to remain true to the conservative spirit at a time of social and political instability, and both were principally concerned with the divine law. Neither the Usulis nor the Akhbaris insisted on intellectual conformity; it was only in matters of behavior or religious practice that the faithful must submit to either a literal reading of scripture or the rulings of a mujtahid. Nevertheless, both sides had lost something. The Akhbaris had confused the primordial divine imperative symbolized by the law with the historical traditions of the past; they had become literalists, and were essentially out of touch with the symbolic religion of the old Shiah. In their vision, the faith had become a series of explicit directives. The Usulis had more confidence in human reason, which was still anchored in the mythos of their religion. But in demanding that the faithful conform to their judgment, they had lost Mulla Sadra’s belief in the sacred freedom of the individual.

By the end of the seventeenth century, it had become crucial to establish a legal authority that could compensate for the weakness of the state. Trade had declined, bringing economic insecurity, and the incompetence of the later shahs made their state vulnerable. When Afghan tribes attacked Isfahan in 1722, the city surrendered ignominiously. Iran entered a period of chaos, and, for a time, it seemed that it might even cease to exist as a separate entity. The Russians invaded from the north, the Ottomans from the west, and the Afghans consolidated their position in the south and east. Tahmasp II, the third son of Sultan-Husain Shah, however, had survived the siege of Isfahan, and, with the help of Nadir Khan, a chieftain of the Iranian Afshar tribe, he succeeded in driving out the invaders. In 1736, Nadir Khan dispensed with Tahmasp Shah and had himself acclaimed as monarch. He ruled the country brutally but effectively until he was assassinated in 1748. A dark anarchic interregnum then ensued, until Aqa Muhammad Khan of the Turcoman Qajar tribe seized control and managed to consolidate his rule in 1794.54 This new Qajar dynasty would remain in power until the early twentieth century.

During these grim years, there were two important religious developments. Nadir Khan had tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Sunnah in Iran; as a result, the leading ulema left Isfahan and took refuge in the holy shrine cities of Najaf and Kerbala in the Ottoman region of Iraq. At first this seemed a setback, but in the long term it proved a gain for the ulema. In Kerbala and Najaf, they achieved still greater autonomy. They were out of the shahs’ reach politically, and financially independent, and gradually they became an alternative establishment, superbly placed to challenge the court.55 The second major change of the period was the victory of the Usulis, achieved by the somewhat violent methods of the eminent scholar Vahid Bihbehani (1705–92), who defined the role of ijtihad with great clarity, and made its use obligatory for jurists. Any Shiis who refused to accept the Usuli position were outlawed as infidels, and opposition was ruthlessly suppressed. There was fighting in Kerbala and Najaf, and some Akhbaris died in the struggle. The mystical philosophy of Isfahan was also banned, and Sufism was suppressed so savagely that Bihbehani’s son, Ali, was known as the Sufi-slayer. But, as we have seen, coercion in religious matters is usually counterproductive; mysticism went underground and would continue to shape the ideas of dissidents and intellectuals who fought the status quo. Bihbehani’s victory was a political victory for the Iranian ulema. The Usuli position was popular with the people during the turbulent years of the interregnum, since it provided them with a source of charismatic authority that brought some measure of order. The mujtahids were able to step into the political vacuum and would never lose their power with the people. But Bihbehani’s victory, achieved by tyrannical means, was a religious defeat of sorts, since it was far removed from the behavior and ideals of the Imams.56

By the end of the eighteenth century, both the Ottoman and Iranian empires were in disarray. They had succumbed to the inevitable fate of an agrarian civilization that had outrun its resources. Ever since the Axial Age, the conservative spirit had helped men and women to accept the limitations of such a society at a profound level. This did not mean that conservative societies were static and fatalistic. This spirituality had inspired great cultural and political achievements in the Islamic world. Until the seventeenth century, Islamdom was the greatest world power. But this political, intellectual, and artistic endeavor had been conducted within a mythological context which would be alien to the values of the new Western culture that had been developing in Europe. Many of the ideals of modern Europe would be congenial to Muslims. We have seen that their faith had encouraged them to form attitudes that would be similar to those promoted by the modern West: social justice, egalitarianism, the freedom of the individual, a humanly based spirituality, a secular polity, a privatized faith, and the cultivation of rational thought. But other aspects of the new Europe would be difficult for people shaped by the conservative ethos to accept. By the end of the eighteenth century, Muslims had fallen behind the West intellectually, and, because the Islamic empires were also politically weak at this date, they would be vulnerable to the European states which were about to make their bid for world hegemony. The British had already established themselves in India, and France was determined to create its own empire. On May 19, 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte set sail for the Middle East from Toulon with 38,000 men and 400 ships to challenge British power in the Orient. The French fleet crossed the Mediterranean and on July 1 Napoleon landed 4300 troops on the beach at Alexandria and took the city shortly after dawn the following day.57 He thus achieved a base in Egypt. Napoleon had brought with him a corps of scholars, a library of modern European literature, a scientific laboratory, and a printing press with Arabic type. The new scientific, secularist culture of the West had invaded the Muslim world, and it would never be the same again.

3. Christians: Brave New World

(1492–1870)

AT THE SAME TIME as Jews were struggling with the traumatic consequences of their expulsion from Spain and Muslims were establishing their three great empires, the Christians in the West were embarking on a course that would take them far from the certainties and sanctities of the old world. This was an exciting period, but it was also disturbing. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Black Death had killed one-third of the population of Christendom, and countries of Europe had been ravaged by such interminable strife as the Hundred Years War between England and France and the internecine Italian wars. Europeans had endured the shock of the Ottoman conquest of Christian Byzantium in 1453, and the papal scandals of the Avignon Captivity and the Great Schism—when as many as three pontiffs had claimed to be the successor of St. Peter at the same time—had caused many to lose faith in the institutional church. People felt obscurely afraid, and found that they could not be religious in the old way. Yet it was also a time of liberation and empowerment. The Iberian explorers had discovered a new world; the astronomers were opening up the heavens, and a new technical efficiency was giving Europeans greater control over their environment than anybody had achieved before. Where the conservative spirit had taught men and women to remain within carefully defined limits, the new culture of Western Christendom showed that it was possible to venture beyond the confines of the known world and not only to survive but to prosper. This would ultimately make the old mythological religion impossible, and it would seem that Western modernity was inherently hostile to faith.

Yet during the early stages of this transformation of Western society this was not the case. Many of the explorers, scientists, and thinkers at the cutting edge of change believed that they were finding new ways of being religious rather than abolishing religion altogether. We shall examine some of their solutions in this chapter and consider their deeper implications. But it is important to be clear that the men who became the spokesmen of the modern spirit did not themselves create it. By the sixteenth century, a complex process was at work in Europe and, later, in its American colonies which was transforming the way that people thought and experienced the world. Change would occur gradually and often unobtrusively. Inventions and innovations, none of which seemed particularly decisive at the time, were occurring simultaneously in many different fields, but their cumulative effect would be conclusive. All these discoveries were characterized by a pragmatic, scientific spirit that slowly undermined the old conservative, mythical ethos and made an increasing number of people receptive to new ideas about God, religion, the state, the individual, and society. Europe and the American colonies would need to accommodate these changes in different political arrangements. Like any other period of far-reaching social change, this was a violent era. There were destructive wars and revolutions, violent uprooting, the despoliation of the countryside, and hideous religious strife. In the course of three hundred years, Europeans and Americans had to employ ruthless methods to modernize their society. There was bloodshed, persecution, inquisition, massacre, exploitation, enslavement, and cruelty. We are witnessing the same bloody upheavals in countries in the developing world which are going through the painful modernizing process today.

The rationalization of agriculture was just one small part of the process, but the increased productivity and healthier livestock affected everybody’s life. There were other, more specialized improvements. People started to make precise instruments: the compass, the telescope, the magnifying lens all revealed new worlds and made for better maps, charts, and navigational techniques. The seventeenth-century Dutch microscopist Antony van Leeuwenhoek for the first time observed bacteria, spermatozoa, and other microorganisms, and his observations would one day cast new light on the processes of generation and corruption. This would not only have the pragmatic effect of eliminating disease; it would also divest these basic areas of life and death of much of their mythical content. Medicine began to improve; even though therapy remained a hit-and-miss affair until well into the nineteenth century, there was, during the seventeenth century, a growing concern for sanitation, and some diseases were identified properly for the first time. The earth sciences began to develop, and discussion of such phenomena as earthquakes and volcanoes would push mythological considerations of such events into the background. Mechanical devices improved. Clocks and watches became more reliable and this development would lead to the secularization of time. The application of mathematical and statistical techniques gave people an entirely new sense of the future: in the 1650s and 1660s, the word “probable” began to change its meaning. It would no longer mean that something was “supported by the authorities,” as in the conservative period, but “likely in view of all the evidence.” This independent attitude and confidence in the future would lead to a new drive for scientific proof and bureaucratic rationalization. The British statisticians William Perry and John Graunt were especially interested in life expectancy, and by the early eighteenth century, people in Europe had begun to insure their lives.1 All this was potentially subversive to the conservative ethos.

None of these developments seemed conclusive in itself, but, taken together, their effect was radical. By 1600, innovations were occurring on such a scale in Europe that progress seemed irreversible. A discovery in one field would often spark findings in another. The process acquired an unstoppable momentum. Instead of seeing the world as governed by fundamental and unalterable laws, Europeans were discovering that they could explore and manipulate nature to staggering effect. They could manage their environment and satisfy their material wants as never before. But as people became accustomed to this rationalization of their lives, logos became ascendant and myth was discredited. People felt more assured about the future. They could institutionalize change without fearful consequences. The wealthy were, for example, now prepared systematically to reinvest capital on the basis of continuing innovation and in the firm expectation that trade would continue to improve. This capitalist economy enabled the West to replace its resources indefinitely, so that it became impervious to the limitations of the old agrarian-based societies. By the time this rationalization and technicalization of society had resulted in the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century, Westerners were so confident of ceaseless progress that they no longer looked back to the past for inspiration, but saw life as a fearless march forward to ever-greater achievement in the future.

The process involved social change. It needed an increasing number of people to take part in the modernization process at quite a humble level. Ordinary folk became printers, machinists, and factory workers, and they too had to acquire, to a degree, modern standards of efficiency. A modicum of education would be required of more and more people. An increasing number of workers became literate, and once that happened they would inevitably demand a greater share in the decision-making processes of their society. A more democratic form of government would be essential. If a nation wanted to use all its human resources to modernize and enhance its productivity, it would be necessary to bring hitherto segregated and marginalized groups, such as the Jews, into mainstream culture. The newly educated working classes would no longer submit to the old hierarchies. The ideals of democracy, toleration, and universal human rights, which have become sacred values in Western secular culture, emerged as part of the intricate modernizing process. They were not simply beautiful ideals dreamed up by statesmen and political scientists, but were, at least in part, dictated by the needs of the modern state. In early modern Europe, social, political, economic, and intellectual change were part of an interlocking process; each element depended upon the others.2 Democracy was found to be the most efficient and productive way of organizing a modernized society, as became evident when the eastern European states, which did not adopt democratic norms and employed more draconian methods of bringing out-groups into the mainstream, fell behind in the march of progress.3

This was an enthralling period, therefore, but also one of wrenching political change, which people tried to absorb religiously. The old medieval forms of faith no longer brought comfort, since they could not function clearly in these altered circumstances. Religion had to be made more efficient and streamlined too, as in the Catholic reformation of the sixteenth century. But the reformations of the early modern period showed that, despite the fact that the modernizing process was well under way in the sixteenth century, Europeans still subscribed to the conservative spirit. The Protestant reformers, like the great Muslim reformers we have considered, were trying to find a new solution during a period of change by going back to the past. Martin Luther (1483–1556), John Calvin (1509–64), and Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) all looked back ad fontes, to the wellsprings of the Christian tradition. Where Ibn Taymiyyah had rejected medieval theology and fiqh in order to return to the pure Islam of the Koran and the Sunnah, Luther likewise attacked the medieval scholastic theologians and sought to return to the pure Christianity of the Bible and the Fathers of the Church. Like the conservative Muslim reformers, therefore, the Protestant reformers were both revolutionary and reactionary. They did not yet belong to the new world that was coming, but were still rooted in the old.