Which Does Iranian Society Need More: Religious Reformists or Spiritually-Minded Believers?

Which Does Iranian Society Need More: Religious Reformists/New Thinkers or Spiritually-Minded Believers

Abbasali Mansouri[1]

Religion and religiosity in contemporary Iranian society are in a strange and paradoxical state. On the one hand, statistics and observations indicate a fading of people's commitment to religious rituals and practices, and religiosity is gradually playing a less prominent role in the appearance, behavior, and speech of the Iranian person, while the influence of religious institutions is declining.

On the other hand, religious thought and religiosity still hold an important place in the intellectual sphere of the Iranian person, and the general culture and individual and social morality of the people draw many conscious and unconscious influences from religion. To put it better, one can claim that the undergarment of Iranian society is still religion, and it is not easy to deny the assertion that Iran remains a religious society. Because at least in the realm of convictions and beliefs, the majority of Iran's population believes in the meaningfulness of life, God, the unseen, the transcendent, the afterlife, and so on. This holds true even among the youth and seemingly secular layers of society.

Therefore, on the one hand, religion and religiosity in Iranian society are in a state where, due to their influence and scope, one cannot be indifferent to them or portray them as an insignificant element. And on the other hand, the problems of religiosity (both in theory and in practice) in Iranian society indicate that the project of reforming religious thought in Iranian society is not an outdated or unimportant project.

However, considering the changing circumstances of Iranian society, the history of religious thought reform in the last century, and the critiques leveled at the religious intellectual movement, an important question that requires more thought and writing is: in the current situation of Iran, which group and thought has greater success and possibility for reforming religious thought? The point of this note is not that Iranian society needs only one group or movement and that the efforts and achievements of the other are fruitless. Rather, the discussion concerns their priority and the extent of their impact.

The claim of this writing is that in contemporary Iranian society, spiritually-minded believers have a greater impact on reforming religious thought in Iran because the current needs of Iranian society in religiosity and religious understanding are more readily found in their repository, and contemporary Iranian society, unlike several decades ago, is not ready to hear the voice of religious intellectuals and new thinkers. That is, its lost object and need is no longer what the religious intellectual movement has focused its efforts on.

But before I delve into explaining why spiritually-minded believers have a better chance and greater fortune for reforming religious thought in present-day Iran and why Iranian society is more prepared to hear their words compared to religious new thinkers, I will briefly state what I mean by spiritually-minded believers.

Spiritually-minded believers are those who, while believing in Sharia and rituals, strive to present an ethical-mystical conception of religion. In the view of this current, spirituality is the most important part of religion and religiosity, and they see the social, political, and legislative role of religion as very diminished. (Spiritually-oriented believers cannot be equated with the traditional mystical current in the Islamic world because there are significant differences between these two currents, including: 1- Their pluralistic outlook is more apparent; 2- Their language is free of specialized and complex terminology and is close to the language of the general public; 3- While, like the traditional mystical current, they do not see the world as the destination of religion and religiosity, they pay more attention to the earthly and therapeutic functions of religion for this very world; 4- They place less emphasis on concepts such as asceticism and world-renunciation, and so on...) They believe in revelation and tradition (albeit with a minimalistic reading) as sources of religious knowledge, and Sharia, rituals, and the definitive teachings emphasized by religions are meaningful to them. And the important point is that while they have a mystical and intuitive inclination in religiosity and religious understanding, they are fully informed and familiar with the intellectual discussions and efforts of new thinkers and religious intellectuals. And this very last point gives them the opportunity to become the audience of the youth, elites, and more generally, Iranian citizens. For their audience does not consider them as individuals indifferent to the rational aspects of religion.

But why do spiritually-minded believers take priority?

In the present era and society of Iran, religiosity is not on its natural course, and believers cannot pursue a religious path with peace of mind. Religiosity for us Iranians in our current age faces numerous theoretical obstacles and questions, and the contemporary lifestyle is such that living and acting upon a traditional understanding of religion has become difficult.

In such a situation, the efforts of religious intellectuals helped to reduce the difficulties of living a religious life, and their assistance over the past few decades has been very necessary and a priority. For misunderstandings of religion had initiated a process of weakening religion and religiosity.

But in the present time, when the very foundation of religious life is at risk, and people's problem is not bigotry in religiosity or preoccupation with the superfluities of religion and superstitions, but rather the numerous questions, doubts, and uncertainties descending upon religion and religiosity from every side—questions that pertain more to the foundations and essence of religion and religiosity than to its branches and subsidiary teachings—the efforts of religious intellectuals and new thinkers no longer yield the fruits and results of previous decades, nor do they hold the same priority. For in such a situation that religion faces in our society, if the reform of religious thought remains focused on a critical and negating method, it will contribute more to the fading of religion than to its revival. Their efforts may even inadvertently cause people to turn to alternatives to religiosity.

In such an era, when the main problem is not the endangerment of rationality or people's preoccupation with peripheral matters and religious superstitions, but rather an extreme pessimism toward religion and religiosity, priority belongs to a method that seeks, by demonstrating the positive and largely irreplaceable functions of religiosity, to be both an aid to religion and aligned and in harmony with the project of combating superstition and striving for the integration of faith and rationality. That is, their effort and approach should not be such as to sow seeds of irrationality and jeopardize the efforts and achievements of religious intellectuals. On the contrary, their method should in fact be a continuation of the approach of religious new thinkers.

In my opinion, the group closest to this method is the approach of spiritually-minded believers.

Instead of trying to reform jurisprudential and theological beliefs, they seek to affirmatively demonstrate the strengths and functions of religion for the human being of our time. They try to present religion and religiosity in such a way that people view religion as a pleasurable element and a source of beauty in life, rather than as a duty and an ideology incompatible with the understanding and lifestyle of the age. The religiosity of spiritually-minded believers is a religiosity that does not burden people in their daily lives and interactions, and makes their religiosity and spiritual conduct more inward and internal than outward and ritual-centered.

Now, the ground for accepting this type of view toward religiosity in Iran is more fertile than ever, because it is both more compatible with the psyche and thought of contemporary human beings, and the efforts of religious intellectuals over recent decades have paved the way for modern, tolerant, and goal-oriented mystical interpretations.

The considerable reception among the elite class for Rumi recitations, Eastern mysticisms, translations of Christian spirituality-oriented books, and even positive psychology books, and the public and youth's reception of clerics such as (Shahab Moradi, Nasser Taghavi, Mohammad Reza Zaeri, Hassan Aghamiri, etc.) and non-clerics like Elahi Ghomshei, Seddiq Qotbi, are part of the evidence of this reception and acceptance.

The problem of the majority of people with religion and religiosity is less about fundamental, epistemological, and serious issues; rather, it could perhaps be said that the greatest epistemological-psychological problem people have with religion and religiosity is religious strictness and the reduction of religion to legalistic precepts. Their problem with religion is that they encounter a type of propagation and understanding of religion that is a kind of deferred religiosity, which does not let them taste the pleasure and flavor of faith and religiosity, and religion has become more of a burden and duty for them than a path-opening, calming, and healing matter for their pains and psychological yearnings.

The method and teachings emphasized by spiritually-minded believers are the remedy for the pain and suffering that the majority of people face in religiosity. They demonstrate that religiosity fundamentally does not mean acting upon divine decrees, conforming one's behavior to the Sharia, or holding a few propositions about God, the afterlife, and so on. Religiosity is not even merely living ethically; they wipe the slate clean of the problem of entanglement with jurisprudence and the effort to constantly refine it theoretically, and they throw the ball into the believers' court. That is, they trace the source of weaknesses and deficiencies back to the individual believer and their perspective. Unlike religious intellectuals who try to teach us theology, spiritually-minded believers try to show us the method of religiosity and its necessity and benefits. They do not see the entire path of reform, or the most important path of reform for our time, as planting the tree of faith and religiosity; rather, they see the path as changing the window and angle of view towards religion.

In fact, in the reformist perspective of spiritually-minded believers, the solution is not to address the theoretical aspects of religiosity, but to highlight and bring out of concealment those hadiths, teachings, and parts of religion that affirm and encourage choices that are correct and appropriate for the people of the time. When people experience the inner essence of religion and its ethical and spiritual dimensions, the customary matters, secondary issues, and time-and-space-bound teachings of religion—which pose the greatest challenge to reason and modern science—will automatically fall into their proper place. There will be no need to constantly theorize to resolve the challenges between religion, science, and philosophy, nor to push people towards an undesirable dichotomy by increasingly highlighting the prohibitive and critical aspects of religion. That is, the dichotomy of either causing people to become pessimistic about the essence of religion, or causing them to become pessimistic about the efforts and concerns of religious intellectuals, thereby leading to the failure of the religious reform movement and the dominance of an Akhbari-style understanding of religion.

Fundamentally, the method of the prophets was also to show how much living faithfully and religiously makes life more enjoyable and meaningful, and social life more peaceful and harmonious. They were, in practice and theory, mirrors and manifestations of the virtues of religiosity, rather than teachers of logic and correctors of epistemological errors.

But an important point that I feel it is necessary to mention at the end is that spirituality-oriented believers should not be viewed as people who make us feel good for a while. Rather, they should be seen as religious reformers who strive to make people aware of the purposes of religion, the inner essence of religiosity, and its sweetness, necessity, and indispensability.

However, this article might create the misunderstanding that its main concern and purpose is not fundamentally the reform of religious thought, but rather the primary concern is maximizing the number of people who are religious, and that the author fears people going astray or becoming irreligious. And because the author sees the method of spiritually-minded believers as the cause of the maximum public embrace of religion, they therefore consider their work to take precedence over that of religious intellectuals in terms of priority and effectiveness.

To dispel this misunderstanding, and indeed for the main purpose this article pursues to be better understood, I must point out that although someone might, for the very reason stated, consider the method and effort of spiritually-minded believers to take precedence over the work of religious intellectuals in terms of priority and effectiveness, this view is not the aim of this article. Rather, this article still has in mind the concern and project of reforming religious thought. Moreover, the work of religious intellectuals and new thinkers is also, at its core and foundation, concerned with and striving for the preservation of religion and proper religiosity. That is, the very essence of reform movements is the preservation of religion and religiosity in the contemporary world. And the difference between religious new thinkers and intellectuals and non-religious intellectuals is precisely that, for the former, in addition to the importance of development and rationality, religion itself is also important.

اما توضیح این مطلب که چگونه این نوشتار در راستای بحث اصلاح فکر دینی است این است که از نظر این نوشتار علت اولویت داشتن کار دینداران معنویت اندیش  این است که  از یک طرف بخاطر وضعیتی که به اجمالا به آن اشاره شد جامعه کنونی ایران گوشش به اندیشه ها و سخنان دیندران معنویت اندیش بازتر است  و از طرف دیگر روش و تعالیم ایشان همان مقاصدی که روشنفکران دینی طلب میکنند را برآورده می کند. یعنی نوع دین فهمی و دینداری مورد تاکید و تعلیم ایشان به گونه ای است که هم بخش اخلاقی دین بر بخش فقهی آن غلبه دارد، هم مانع افراط در منسک گرایی و ظاهر پرستی می شود، هم عقلانیت را پاس داشته و از ورود حداکثری دین در عرفیات نهی می کند وهم مدرا و تسامح را به ثمر می آورد. که توضیح مفصل آن نوشتار مستقلی را می طلبد.

ضمن اینکه عنصر قدسیت در فهم و رویکرد دینداران معنویت اندیش بیشتر حفظ می شود و دین شناسی ایشان از تفسیر های سکولارمآبانه و کارکرد گرایانه از دین فاصله بیشتری دارد. و به لحاظ فرهنگی و هویتی پیوند بیتری با سنت دارد.

اما با توجه به تجربه تاریخی ایران و دست آوردهای منفی که دینداری های صوفیانه برای پیشرفت جامعه ایران داشته است، ممکن است در باب این نوع دینداری و اصلاح دینی این واهمه مطرح شود که غلبه این نوع دینداری در ایران سبب فرد گرایی، مسولیت گریزی اجتماعی و دنیاگریزی می شود و آغازی برای انحطاط اقتصادی و بالتبع فرهنگی- فکری در آینده نه چندان دور خواهد شد.

این سوء برداشت برخواسته از مساوی پنداری دینداری معنویت اندیش و دینداری صوفیانه و خانقاهی است. همچنانکه قبلا به اختصار اشاره شد مقصود از دینداری معنویت اندیش دینداری عارفانه و صوفیانه به معنای سنتی و متداول کلمه نیست و اتفاقا معلمان و پیروان دینداری معنویت اندیش از حیث مناسبات ظاهری و سبک زندگی تمایزی از بدنه عمومی جامعه ندارند و دینداری معنویت اندیشانه با هر طبقه و سلیقه و صنف و..... سازگار بوده و مانع هیچ خلاقیت و سلیقه ای نمی شود و این نوع دینداری و دین فهمی میلی به سوق دادن همه به یک سبک زندگی یا مسیر واحد ندارد.  چه آنکه قبول تکثر و  اختلاف سرشت ها و منش ها از بنیادهای این نوع دینداری است. و همین قبول تکثر سلایق و استعداد ها سبب می شود  این نوع دینداری مانع پیشرفت های اقتصادی و فرهنگی نشود. اتفاقا این نوع دینداری آموزه دینی قرابت کفر و فقر را بیشتر مد نظر دارد و فقر و اشتغال های ناشی از آن را مانع از سلوک درونی می داند و کمتر به گشایش اقتصادی و مالی داشتن همچون امری غیر دینی می نگرد.

ممکن است گفته شود که اتفاقا مدعای اصلی روشنفکران دینی هم تاکید بر معنویت و مخالفت با تاکید و گسترش ظاهرگرایی در دینداری است و از این جهت تفاوتی بین ایشان و دیندران معنویت اندیش نیست.گرچه به نظرم نوع دینداری مورد تاکید این دو گروه به لحاظ محتوا و ماهیت اختلاف هایی دارد( از جمله در میزان اهمیت و اولیت به عقلانیت یا معنویت، مهم بودن دغدغه توسعه،.....) اما آنچه سبب می شود که دیندران معنویت اندیش را بر روشنفکران دینی تقدوم و اولویت بخشد آن وجوه مفارق بین ایشان نیست بلکه روش دینداری و دین فهمی ایشان است تا محتوا و فرآورده ها

. عضو هیات علمی دانشگاه رازی[1]