A Socrates in an Age Without Socrates

When we think about prophets, we cannot help but be fascinated by the innovative aspect of their lives. The most important social action of any prophet is the disruption of habitual ways of thinking, traditions of belief, and conventional and familiar modes of living. Prophets have both shifted the intellectual boundaries of their time, elevated the moral boundaries of society, expanded the spiritual boundaries of individuals, and shattered the traditional boundaries of life. In my view, prophets have been, in a sense, the entrepreneurs and intellectuals of the realms of thought, action, and public belief.

An entrepreneur is someone who breaks new ground in their field of activity and shatters familiar and established boundaries and standards. If we consider only the intellectually transformative aspect of prophets, they are the intellectuals of their age; for an intellectual is also an entrepreneur in the realm of thought, shifting our standards of thinking. The intellectual sees today's errors and the transformations and necessities of the future sooner than the general public, and speaks and warns about them. The main difference between prophets and entrepreneurs and intellectuals is that prophets derived the energy, motivation, and content of their movement from divine attraction and revelation, and their temporal horizon extended to the other world; whereas intellectuals and entrepreneurs derive the energy, motivation, and content of their innovation from reason and emotion, and their temporal horizon is this-worldly.

And now that the age of prophetic mission has ended for centuries and the seal of prophethood has been declared, will God allow the religion of His prophets to be contaminated by chance or the will of the self-interested with all kinds of human deviations and errors? Does the Wise God bear no responsibility toward later generations who are afflicted with religions filled and contaminated by fabricated and self-serving human traditions? Does He allow the blessed river of His prophets' religion to continue being polluted in the bed of history by the color of the soil and the taste of the lands through which it passes, without placing any purification station or mechanism along the path of this meaning-creating and life-giving river?

I, who see religion not merely as a set of beliefs but as a living entity that, in the classification of systems, resides at the highest level—that is, the level of symbolic systems—believe that if a religion has come from a Living and Wise Creator, it must be a living religion and a dynamic system; otherwise, I would doubt the divinity of that religion. And for a religion to function as a living system, the factors of dynamism and life must be embedded within it. A living religion is one that, like our body, can both manage its internal transformations and actions to maintain equilibrium, and adapt itself to the changes of the times and the turning of the seasons of society's age in order to endure. Otherwise, that religion is not alive, and its ability to respond to the intellectual, faith-based, and behavioral needs of believers diminishes day by day, making their lives costly. And of course, it is far from Divine Wisdom to create a non-living religion for living human beings—unless that religion is not meant to manage the moral and behavioral patterns of the living human, but is only meant to serve, like a lifeless tool, the human, worldly, and self-interested purposes of the believers. But a religion that is meant to guide and manage the living human must be alive.

And if a divine religion is to be a living religion, then it not only requires tools and factors for staying alive, but also requires tools and factors for both its own continuous purification and transformation, so that it can achieve compatibility and adaptation with the natural developments of the real world and the renewing needs of the community of believers. And it is here that religious intellectuals find their mission and enter into action, playing the role of responsibility for helping the divine religion stay alive.

Although Professor Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari is reluctant for us to call him a "religious intellectual," I believe that from this perspective—that religious intellectualism is a kind of entrepreneurship in religious thought that continues the transformative role of the prophets in the realm of people's heartfelt faith and social action—we must seriously call him a religious intellectual.

A living, dynamic religion, like a living, dynamic human being, lives simultaneously in two realms: emotion and reason. For the continuity of both realms, institutions are needed that perform their duties well. Today, the institution of the traditional clergy in Iran has devoted itself to strengthening the emotional realm of religion and has entirely neglected the expansion of its rational realm; and it was here that religious intellectuals clearly recognized this neglect and took on this important task. Therefore, our religious intellectuals have now, in practice, become the custodians of strengthening the rational realm of religion and aiding the continuation of its life. But the concern is that this blessed movement has not yet become an institution; and of course, it is hoped that with a wave of young religious intellectual thinkers who have now emerged from all corners of the seminary and university, we will soon witness the transformation of the religious intellectualism movement into a powerful social institution in Iran.

Religion, even if its rituals continue to be practiced, will no longer be a living religion if either of its realms of emotion and reason weakens. The weakening of religious intellectualism would be tantamount to the enfeeblement and vulnerability of religion. And this is a point to which, unfortunately, the official custodians of religion pay no attention.

Forty years ago, Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, although unwillingly caught up in the storm of the revolution, willingly and consciously withdrew from the storm and quickly migrated from the realm of politics to the realm of thought, beginning a valuable effort on the path of introducing new theology into the arenas of religious thought in this land. This blessed migration both brought coherence to the religious intellectualism movement in Iran and turned the hermeneutic view of religious texts into a justified rule for the next generation of religious thinkers, and ultimately transformed him into the prominent representative of non-political Iranian Shiism in interfaith dialogue.

Through his personal and intellectual conduct, Shabestari has, in a Socratic manner, become a model for the religious yet reform-seeking youth of this land today, from whom one can learn tranquility in inner life, tolerance in dealing with external adversaries, conversation, dialogue, and forbearance in encountering opposing thoughts, and patience, love, and sacrifice in facing the hardships of personal life. Shabestari's life is an excellent example of the life of a believer who does not sacrifice truth for appearances, and who, while being a master of rational inquiry in the realm of thought, is also a teacher of emotional cultivation in the arena of life.

We are happy that in the twilight of an era when the market of religion-sellers is booming, lone stars like Shabestari have adorned the sorrowful sky of this land with their calm presence, and with their occasional twinkling, they guide the hearts of seekers toward distant horizons.

On the eighty-first birthday of this great master, we wish him a life more glorious and more fruitful than ever before.

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A note by Mohsen Renani on the occasion of the eighty-first birthday of Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari

A Socrates in an Age Without Socrates

Author: Mohsen Renani | September 26, 2017

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