Political Thought of Ayatullah Murtaza Mutahhari: An Iranian Theoretician of the Islamic State, The

Journal of Third World Studies, Spring 2008 by Lapenson, Bruce P

Davari, Mahmood T., The Political Thought of Ayatullah Murtaza Mutahhari: An Iranian Theoretician of the Islamic State. New York: Routledge Curzon, 2005. 201 pp.

A work that attempts to deal comprehensively with the thought of a significant philosopher often leaves out the subject's life events. It can be argued that the work is sufficient and the only material that needs to be addressed. Theory stands on its own, a trust the tale not the tale-teller's approach applies. Mahmood T. Davari's, The Political Thought of Ayatullah Murtaza Mutahhar: An Iranian Theoretician of the Islamic Statei, while an important book, is hurt somewhat by its deviation from the usual structure employed in a work devoted to the thought of a political theorist. Unless a biography of a noted philosopher is meant to be an explication of the work and not so much a biography, Walter Kauffman's Nietzche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist comes to mind, biography limits comprehensive and rigorous treatment. On the other hand, including life events may serve realpolitik. The political struggles which accompany implementing theory into reality are experienced by the reader when she or he can compare a work and its actual political influence. A former student once showed me material which claimed that Marx did not seem to be a socialist in his personal life. Such claims along with the early life of Mutahhari are not so relevant to either's work, but speaking hypothetically, Marx' attempt to create a socialist town would be of keen interest. Davari whets the appetite for the practical extent of Mutahhari's influence by showing his close involvement with the 1970's revolution in Iran, but offers little on the longevity of the subject's influence on Iranian politics. The Western reader would benefit from a comparison of present day Iran and Mutahhari's thoughts, especially as the image of Islamic societies as socially rigid and politically undemocratic, held by many Westerners, is challenged by Davari's analysis of Mutahhari. This point becomes even more crucial to the text when it is learned of Mutahhari's close affiliation with Ayatullah Khomeni.

The other structural difficulty is that the work is weighted down by intellectual history as well as biography. Although the former creates a useful context, it often dwarfs Mutahhari's views and Davari's discussion of them. Discussion of Mutahhari's political and economic views are limited to the final two chapters of a four chapter text.

Still, Davari's effort is timely and important. The work should be of immediate interest to political theorists who wish to explore work which eclipses the Western canon, especially ones that appear or are assumed to be anathema to fundamental truths held by many Westerners. Such readers are compelled to consider the work of a flexible, broadly read and highly contemplative thinker whose political and social guides are religious texts.

A book such as this one can be strictly an explication, though often such works are slanted; the author's sympathies or lack of are implicit. Davari greatly admires his subject: "... no one could have delivered [Islam-i Figahati] from the very depths of the Islamic original texts and rendered it a legitimate historical updating of the Muslim identity except Ayatullah Mutahhari..."1 However, the author is no cheerleader. A strength of the text is that it is not celebratory, but explores contradiction and density in Mutahhari's thought. The text points out a strong re-distributive role for the state in Mutahhari's economic statements in which the fear of a dominant wealthy class can result in confiscation of property as compared with, "...the result of everyone's economic activity must be returned to himself (not to others)" (p. 120) Davari also sees a lack of clarity or conceptual underdevelopment in Mutahhari's political views. He points out that it isn't clear if well-qualified jurists should have ultimate governmental authority or be in a supervisory role.

Mutahhari is not ambiguous on the issue of compatibility as regards popular government and religion. "[Mutahhari believed] that the principles of democracy do not require that the political and social structures of a given society should necessarily be free from ideology and religion." (p. 160) Mutahhari would, it seems, recognize no intellectual contradiction of democracy if regularly elected legislators were strictly guided in lawmaking by religious texts. Regular elections could serve as citizen checks on government or as signals of broad shifts in thinking. Mutahhari's flexibility may, along with the above, surprise the Western reader: "[The] autopsy of a dead Muslim is prohibited by some primary sources... Now how can medicine be improved in Islamic countries with this kind of ruling?"(p.96) He is also a pragmatist on the subject of capitalism. Mutahhari observed that such a pervasive force of modernity could not be ignored as a singular phenomenon by Islamic jurists because it did not exist in pre-modern times and has no references as such in the past. The belief among some Islamic jurists that capitalism is a settled issue is therefore false to Mutahhari. Here is the strength of the text. Preconceived notions of a wholesale rigidity in Islamic societies are eclipsed and the co-existence of religion and democracy can be contemplated, thus a kind of humanizing of a political system based on religious text(s) occurs. The ambiguities mentioned above in Mutahhari's work are not foreign to political theorists. As such, they invite discourse and debate. Mutahhari's flexibility as well as his consideration of Western and non-Western sources indicate that secular liberal democracies cannot exclusively claim a diversity of viewpoints in political argument.