Ahmad Kasravi

Ahmad Kasravi (Persian: احمد کسروی‎;‎ 29 September 1890 – 11 March 1946) was a leading Iranian linguist, nationalist, religious reformer, historian and former Shia cleric.[1][2][3] Born in Hokmabad (Hohmavar), Tabriz, Iran, Kasravi was an Iranian Azeri.[4][5] Initially, Kasravi enrolled in a seminary. Later, he joined the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. He experienced a sort of conversion to Western learning when he learned that the comet of 1910 had been identified as a reappearance of Halley's comet. He abandoned his clerical training after this event and enrolled in the American Memorial School of Tabriz. Thenceforward he became, in Roy Mottahedeh's words, "a true anti-cleric."[6]

Ahmad Kasravi
احمد کسروی
Born
Ahmad Kasravī-ye Tabrīzī

(1890-09-29)29 September 1890
Tabriz, Iran
Died11 March 1946(1946-03-11) (aged 55)
Tehran, Iran
NationalityIranian
Known forAncient Languages, history, Politics, religion.
Notable work
The Constitutional History of Iran; The 18 Year History of Azarbaijan; The Forgotten Kings (all in Persian)

Kasravi was associated with the Democrat Party in Iran.[7]

Kasravi was a professor of law at the University of Tehran and also a lawyer in Tehran, Iran. He was the founder of a political-social movement whose goal was to build an Iranian secular identity. The movement was formed during the Pahlavi dynasty.

Kasravi authored more than 70 books, mostly in the Persian language. The most important ones are "History of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution" and "Eighteen Years History of Azerbaijan", which are the among the most important literature works of the Persian Constitutional Revolution.

Life

It was in Tbilisi where he first became acquainted with a wide spectrum of political ideas and movements, and he soon was employed by the government of Iran in various cultural posts.

A prolific writer, Kasravi was very critical of both the Shi'a clergy and of the policies of the central government. His outspoken ways would lead him to have many supporters and critics starting from the Reza Shah period. While Abdolhossein Teymourtash was a strong supporter of his works, Mohammad Ali Foroughi is said to have taken strong exception to his literary theories and banned him from contributing to the Farhangestan or to continue publishing. Moreover, he had liberal views on religion, was a strong supporter of democracy, and expressed them in satirical pamphlets like What Is the Religion of the Hajis with Warehouses? that infuriated many readers. His views earned him many powerful enemies such as Ayatollah Kashani.

His detailed account of the Constitutional Revolution still stands out as one of the most important sources on the events, even though Kasravi was a teenager at the time of the revolution and cannot claim the full authority of a contemporary witness that his writing at times suggests.

Religion

A proponent of reform in Islam,[8] he was respected for his deep knowledge of the religion, as "even his orthodox opponents admit that Kasravi was an able theologian and regard his Shari'ate Ahmadi as the best book on the fundamentals of Islam and Shi'ism of his time",[9] and, like Dr. Ali Shariati some three decades later, Kasravi considered that there were two kinds of Islam:

[O]ne is the religion that that honorable Arab man brought one thousand, three hundred and fifty years ago and was established for centuries. The other is the Islam that there is today and has turned into many colors from Sunnism, Shi'ism, Esmaili, Aliollahi, Sheikhi, and Karimkhani, and the like. They call both Islam, but they are not one. They are completely different and are opposite of one another.... Nothing is left of that Islam. This establishment that the mullas are running not only does not have any benefits but it also causes many harms and results in wretchedness.[10]

Basically, he believed and wrote that " all the present-day representations of Islam have been deviated from the essence and the true concept of its foundation".[11] He was particularly critical of Shia (since its formation since the sixth emam - emam Jafar Sadegh) and Sufism, to which he ascribed many ills, from its supposed promotion of stagnation, "irrationality" or even being a tool of the Orientalists.[12] His main target in that field was the famous E.G. Browne, appreciated by Iranian intellectuals of all tendencies, whom he accused to have favoured Sufi poetry in his history of Persian literature, and thus trying to characterize the Iranian spirit with the errors he thinks belong to Sufis (immorality, irrationality, ...), further promoting idleness and passivity in order to keep Iran subjugated to foreign imperialists.[13] His criticism of Hafez Shirazi followed the same path, considering him "a source of disgrace",[14] saying that his "immorality" was due to the fact that the Mongols were the new rulers in the region, not respectful of Islamic law, thus letting some Sufis (like Hafez) "free to indulge in drinking wine, whereas previously they had to be cautious not to offend the Islamic sentiments of the rulers and the religious authorities."[15] Kasravi was also critical about Bahai faith and considered it as another continuation of the same deviation that started from Shia ( penetration and influence of Old Iranian and Judaism beliefs about " a supposed to come savior" into Islam) to Shekhisem (followers of Shiekh Ahmad Ahsaei) then Babism ( followers of seyed Ali Mohammad, the Bab), then into the Baha'i faith. Abbas Amanat, professor of history at Yale University, believes that Kasravi's work on the Baha'i faith called Bahaigari is "a short polemic of little historical value". He further explains "in his criticism of the Bab, he hardly takes into account the historical circumstances under which the movement first appeared and his pontifical judgements no doubt are influenced by his own vision of pakdini". It should be noted, however, that Amanat himself is of the Bahá'í faith. [16]

Kasravi's "views threatened both modernist ( blind followers of western culture in materialistic concept) intellectuals (who worked along and gave legitimacy to traditionalists and Shia leaders who oppose progressive needed changes to modernize the country) and the traditionalist cleric class", not only because of his vision of religion (apart from Shi'a faith and Sufism, he was also sceptical of Bahaism), but also due to his critical stance on secularism and the fact that he was "the first Iranian to criticize modernism and Eurocentrism before Al-e Ahmad coined the term “Weststruckness” and made it a genre."[17]


Selected Works

“God is with us” or “Khoda Ba Mast” is book by Ahmad Kasravi, talking about Sufism, published in 1944 and it has eight chapters. In the introduction he illustrates some common believes about Sufism, for example he says that Sufism has many followers and it is very diverse and Sophists are everywhere like Tehran, Mashhad, Shiraz Maragheh and ... Also, he says it is not true that science will destroy Sufism and talks about why European adore Sufism. He talks about the root of Sufism and its origin in Greek philosophy. Like his other books about Shia and Baha’i Ideologies he criticizes Sufism and talks about contradictions and flaws in Sufism in the second chapter, for example the fact that most of Sophist do not have any occupation and they do not get married or they do not care about life before death. In the third chapter is about Islam and Sufism and the bad thing that Sufism followers have done to Islam. The next chapter is about the negative effect of Sufism on its followers because of the nature of the ideology. In the sixth chapter he calls Sufism followers liars and criticize their books and what they say as “Kramat”. The next two chapters are about Mongolians attack to Iran and relationship with Sufism, Kasravi blames Sufism for Iran’s defeat. The last chapter is about a Greek philosopher called “Plotinus”, which Kasravi believes is the founder of Sufism and criticizing his ideas. The book is attacking all the ideologies of Sufism and bring some examples from Sufism books.

Works about the old Azeri language

Kasravi is known for his solid and controversial research work on the ancient Azari language. He showed that the ancient Azari language was an offshoot of Pahlavi language. Due to this discovery, he was granted membership of the London Royal Asiatic Society and American Academy.[18]

Arguing that the ancient Azari language had been closely related to Persian language and the influx of Turkic words began only with the Seljuq invasion, Ahmad Kasravi believed that the true national language of Iranian Azerbaijan was Persian and therefore advocated the linguistic assimilation of Persian in Azarbaijan.[19] In 1927-8 Ahmad Kasravi led the way in establishing the ancestry of the Safavids dynasty with the publication of three influential articles, and disputed the validity of the 'official' Safavid family tree contained in the Safvat al-Safa, and argued convincingly that the ancestors of Shaykh Safi al-Din, who founded the Safavid Order (tariqa), were indigenous inhabitants of Iran. Today, the consensus among Safavid historians is that the Safavid family hailed from Persian Kurdistan.[20]

Assassination

Our words have deep strong roots, and will never be eradicated with a pistol. There will be no better result from using a pistol than bloodshed. Say and write whatever you like, we will never be offended, but your support for thugs has a different meaning.

— Ahmad Kasravi

On 11 March 1946, while being tried on charges of "slander against Islam," Kasravi and one of his assistants named Seyyed Mohammad Taghi Haddadpour, were knifed and killed in open court in Tehran by followers of Navvab Safavi, a Shi'a extremist cleric who had founded an organization called the Fadayan-e Islam (literally Devotees of Islam), lead by two brothers, Hossein and Ali-Mohammad Emami.[21] The same group had failed in assassinating Kasravi earlier in April 1945 in Tehran. Ayatollah Borujerdi and Ayatollah Sadr al-Din al-Sadr had issued fatwas for killing Ahmad Kasravi.[22] The later Supreme Leader of Iran, Ruhollah Khomeini, was also against Kasravi's ideas, and had called for young martyrs for Islam to counter to "this illiterate Tabrizi" a few weeks after the first unsuccessful assassination attempt.[23]

Books

Some of his more famous books are:

  • The 18 Year History of Azarbaijan
  • The Turkish Language in Iran[24]
  • History of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution
  • The Forgotten Kings
  • The 500 Year History of Khuzestan
  • A Brief History of The Lion and Sun
  • Sheikh Safi and His Progeny
  • Azari or the Ancient Language of Azerbaijan
  • varjavand bonyad
  • Šiʿigari (Shiʿism), 1943, revised as "Beḵᵛānid o dāvari konid" or "Beḵᵛānand o dāvari konand" (Read and judge), 1944 http://www.kasravi.info/ketabs/sheigari/davari.pdf
  • Bahaism
  • Sufism

See also

Notes
  1. Ridgeon 2018.
  2. Multiple Authors 2012, p. 87.
  3. Jahanbakhsh, Forough (2001). "Opposition Groups". Islam, Democracy and Religious Modernism in Iran, 1953-2000: From Bāzargān to Soroush. Islamic History and Civilization. 77. Brill Publishers. p. 52. ISBN 9004119825.
  4. V. Minorsky. Mongol Place-Names in Mukri Kurdistan (Mongolica, 4), Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 58-81 (1957), p. 66. JSTOR
  5. Iran and Its Place Among Nations, Alidad Mafinezam, Aria Mehrabi, 2008, p.57
  6. Mottahedeh, Roy (2009). The mantle of the prophet : religion and politics in Iran (Rev. ed.). Oxford [England]: Oneworld Publications. p. 104. ISBN 9781851686162.
  7. Lloyd Ridgeon (2005). Religion and Politics in Modern Iran: A Reader. I.B.Tauris. p. 55. ISBN 978-1-84511-073-4.
  8. Charles D. Fletcher, "The Methodology of Abdolkarim Soroush: A Preliminary Study" in Islamic Studies, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Winter 2005), p. 531
  9. Sohrab Behdad, "Utopia of Assassins: Nawab Safavi and the Fada'ian-e Eslamin Prerevolutionary Iran" in Ramin Jahanbegloo, Iran: Between Tradition and Modernity, Lexington Books (2004), p. 73
  10. Ahmad Kasravi, Dar Piramoun-e Eslam (Tehran: Payedar, fifth printing, 1969), p.4 quoted by Sohrab Behdad, "Utopia of Assassins: Nawab Safavi and the Fada'ian-e Eslamin Prerevolutionary Iran" in Ramin Jahanbegloo, Iran: Between Tradition and Modernity, Lexington Books (2004), p. 73
  11. Lloyd Ridgeon, Sufi Castigator: Ahmad Kasravi and the Iranian Mystical Tradition, Routledge (2006), p. 47
  12. Lloyd Ridgeon, Sufi Castigator: Ahmad Kasravi and the Iranian Mystical Tradition, Routledge (2006), pp. 50-57
  13. Lloyd Ridgeon, Sufi Castigator: Ahmad Kasravi and the Iranian Mystical Tradition, Routledge (2006), pp. 121-135
  14. Lloyd Ridgeon, Sufi Castigator: Ahmad Kasravi and the Iranian Mystical Tradition, Routledge (2006) p. 141
  15. Lloyd Ridgeon, Sufi Castigator: Ahmad Kasravi and the Iranian Mystical Tradition, Routledge (2006), p. 148
  16. Amanat, Abbas. Resurrection and Renewal: The Making of the Babi Movement in Iran. Cornell University Press, 1989. 348-9
  17. Farhang Rajaee, Islamism and Modernism: The Changing Discourse in Iran, University of Texas Press (2010), pp. 50-51
  18. احمد کسروی؛ پژوهشگری،سرکشی و خرده نگری Khosro Naghed Archived February 9, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  19. Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russia and a Borderland in Transition Azerbaijan, 122-289 p. (Columbia University Press, 1995). ISBN 0-231-07068-3
  20. Savory, Roger M. (1995-03-16). "Iran Chamber Society: History of Iran: Is there an ultimate use for historians? Reflections on Safavid history and historiography". Iranchamber.com. Retrieved 2013-09-26.
  21. Amini, Mohammad. KASRAVI, AḤMAD ii. ASSASSINATION. Encyclopædia Iranica. pp. Vol. XVI, Fasc. 1, p. 92-94.
  22. "IICHS موسسه مطالعات تاريخ معاصر ايران". Iichs.org. Retrieved 2013-09-26.
  23. Amini, Mohammad. KASRAVI, AḤMAD ii. ASSASSINATION. Encyclopædia Iranica. pp. Vol. XVI, Fasc. 1, p. 92-94.
  24. al-`Irfan, Roy (1922). "اللغة التركیة فی ایران". Journal of Azerbaijani Studies. 8 (2): 121–123.

References
  • Roy Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran, 416 p. (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1985), Ch. 3. ISBN 0-671-55197-3
  • Ali Rahnema, An Islamic Utopian' 7-10p. (I.B Tauris Publishers, New York, 2000), The Political and Religious Setting. ISBN 978-1-86064-552-5
  • Ahmad Kasravi, Tārikh-e Mashruteh-ye Iran (History of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution), in Persian, 951 p. (Negāh Publications, Tehran, 2003), ISBN 964-351-138-3. Note: This book is also available in two volumes, published by Amir Kabir Publications in 1984. Amir Kabir's 1961 edition is in one volume, 934 pages.
  • Ahmad Kasravi, History of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution: Tārikh-e Mashrute-ye Iran, Volume I, translated into English by Evan Siegel, 347 p. (Mazda Publications, Costa Mesa, California, 2006). ISBN 1-56859-197-7
  • Multiple Authors (2012). "Aḥmad Kasravi". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. XVI, Fasc. 1. p. 87.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Ridgeon, Lloyd (2018). "Aḥmad Kasravī". In Kate Fleet; Gudrun Krämer; Denis Matringe; John Nawas; Everett Rowson (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Islam, Third Edition. Brill Online.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)


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