Heinz Halm's "Shi'A Islam: From Religion To Revolution"

Heinz Halm's "Shi'a Islam: From Religion to Revolution"

In his 176-page volume, the leading German Islamist, Heinz Halm is able to trace the roots of the Iranian Revolution back throughout the history of the Shi'ism. Contrary to many western thinkers and Iranian militants, Halm feels as though Shi'i Islam's character was not inherently revolutionary, but that the transition to revolution marked a milestone and a watershed in the history of Shi'i thought and history. The title of his book, "Shi'a Islam: From Religion to Revolution" really synopsizes Halm's point quite adequately. Heinz Halm is currently a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Tubingen and is the author of numerous other works on Sunni Islam, Shi'ism and Isma'ilism. Some of his works include: "The Empire of the Mahdi", "The Rise of the Fatimids", and "Shi'ism".

"Shi'a Islam: From Religion to Revolution" is broken up into three sections, which play their respective parts in relaying Halm's message. Part 1 deals directly with the origins of Shi'ism and is labeled "The House of Sorrows: The Twelve Imams." In this section Halm attributes Abu Miknaf's report of the Campaign of the Penitents or tawwabun to be of the key documents that allows us to understand the emergence of early Shi'ism. Halm went as far as to say that Abu Miknaf's text and, therefore what is related in it, "already demonstrated all the essential elements that characterize the Shi'i religion today." He went on to say that the "self accusations of the partisans...peaked in acknowledgement of their own shame and their desire to atone for this (the massacre at Karbala) with death." Halm's thesis in this section is that self-sacrifice characteristic of the Shi'is was exemplified, and even developed in this march of the tawwabun. And, this particular characteristic was politically instrumentalized during the revolution of 1979 and during the war with Iraq. Further, Halm traces the non-political character of the following Imams, especially Ja'far Assadiq. Halm further delves into the roles that the Fourteen Infallible Ones played in Shi'i theology, and as well the significance of the Occultation of the Twelfth Imam. He expresses that with the absence of the Twelfth Imam there was a lapse in the duties of the Imam, which over time had to be taken over by 'ulama.

Part 2 of Halm's book is devoted solely to the "historical ethnography of the passion plays and rituals" of self-flagellation that commemorate the tragedy of Karbala during the first ten days of Muharram. The reason that Halm focuses upon this aspect of the Shi'i tradition is because, in his own words: "At the true core of any true religion are the rituals carried out collectively by the believers, and not the ideological web that theologians build around them in retrospect." Halm uses this opportunity to reemphasize the centrality of atonement and mourning in the Shi'i doctrine by delving into the intricacies of the public displays of guilt and lamenting over one's sins, climaxing on the tenth of Muharram, the anniversary of Husayn's martyrdom. In this section, Halm would analogize the Shi'i mourning and indebtedness to the Christian's "original sin", however, making key distinctions by saying that the Shi'i's failure is that of an entire party in the context of a concrete situation. In these central rituals of lamentation, which he also likens to the ancient oriental lamentations of slain Greek god of spring, Adonis and the mythical Iranian hero, Siyawush Halm shows the reader that this readiness to seek repentance and passion are inextricably linked and make up the actual core of Shi'i piety. Halm used European accounts on from the times of the Safavid dynasty as well as after that time. He accounts the development of the ta'ziya or the passion plays, which are dramatized reenactments of the events that transpired at Karbala as well as the flagellations, which serve to ritualize the self-sacrifice that is due.

The third part of the book, entitled, "The Government of the Expert - the Islam