The Islamic Notion of Conviviality

This article examines the argument on the women of ʿAlī Sharīʿatī who was the most prominent modern ideological thinker of the Islamic Revolution of Iran. He exhorted not only Iranian women but also all Muslim women to return and follow the method of the Prophet Muḥammad. Specifically, he recommended that they model themselves on the example of Muḥammad’s beloved daughter Fāteme. According to Sharīʿatī, we should understand the meaning of her role through symbolic interpretations and learn her feelings of “responsibility” and “autonomy.” As an example of Fāteme, Muslim women should choose and determine things by herself with a firm feeling of “responsibility” for the society. He stressed the importance of these two abilities, because he believed the very root of the modern world’s problems was disparity between various social classes. To efface the disparity between people, Sharīʿatī showed an innovative interpretation of tawḥīd. According to his tawḥīd’s view of the world, there are no original distinctions between all existences, and the triad of God-Human-Nature exists as a horizontal system that harmonizes across the universe. In other words, all existence is the same and is one, including God. His notion about tawḥīd seems to be elaborated by the traditional interpretation of tawḥīd and the waḥda al-wūjūd theory of Ibn al-ʿArabī although Sharīʿatī’s oneness is more radical as he tried to remove all disparity in existence. Yet, as I mentioned above, this view of the world had already been indicated to us through the Prophet Muḥammad and the Qurʾān. All we have to do is to return to the way of Muḥammad and see the world with this tawḥīd’s view of the world that has already been revealed to us. To realize the tawḥīd’s view of the world, women have to conduct themselves with feelings of “responsibility” and “autonomy.”

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