Encyclopedia of Islam

Shariati, Ali

 

(1933–1977)  Islamic modernist, 

ideologue of the Iranian Revolution of 1978–1979

Ali Shariati is widely considered one of the most 

important social thinkers of 20th-century i

ran

.

Shariati combined ideas from existentialism and 

Marxism with Islamic ideas from the q

Uran

,

hadith

, and Shii tradition. His goal was to trans-

form Islam from a set of rules for the individual 

to follow into a progressive ideology that could 

change society.

Shariati was born in the village of Mazinan in 

northeastern Iran. His father, Muhammad Taqi 

Shariati, was a reformer who worked to bring edu-

cated young Iranians back to Islam by explaining 

how the ideals of Islam were connected to the con-

temporary world. To advance his ideas, he founded 

the Center for the Spread of Islamic Teachings in 

Mashhad. Shariati went to school in Mashhad but 

also studied with his father and was deeply influ-

enced by his teachings. In 1949 Shariati trained to 

become a teacher. After several years as a teacher 

he enrolled in the University of Mashhad, gradu-

ating in 1960 with a B.A. in French and Persian 

literature. He then went to Paris to pursue gradu-

ate studies and received a Ph.D. in 1964 from the 

Sorbonne. One of Shariati’s teachers there was the 

noted French Catholic scholar of Islamic Studies, 

Louis Massignon (d. 1962), whom he credited for 

inspiring his inner transformation in those years.

Shariati had also become an anti-shah activist. 

In 1957 he was arrested for taking part in a rally 

supporting the National Front, a political group 

that opposed the government of m

ohammad

 r

eza

s

hah

  p

ahlavi

 (r. 1941–79). While in Paris, he 

participated in the anti-shah student movement. 

He was named the editor of the newspaper of the 

Congress of the National Front, Iran-i azad (Free 

ban), and he also contributed articles to the Alge-

rian revolutionary newspaper Al-Mujahid.

In France, while he was influenced by think-

ers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, he 

also criticized their rejection of traditional religion. 

Rather than seeing religion as the “opiate of the 

people,” as Karl Marx described it, he believed that 

the only way nations such as Iran could counteract 

Western imperialism was through a strong cultural 

identity that was supported by religious traditions.

In 1964, when Shariati returned to Iran, he was 

arrested and imprisoned for his antigovernment