Fatima is Fatima

by Dr. Ali Shariati

Introduction By Laleh Bakhtiar

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

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Chapter1
Chapter2
Chapter3
Chapter4
Chapter5
Chapter6
Chapter7
Chapter8
Chapter9
Chapter10
Chapter11
Chapter12
Chapter13
Chapter14

Excerpt (I) from the Introduction to Ali Shariati's Fatima is Fatima by Laleh Bakhtiar

Islam admits to all realities - hunger, ignorance, drug addiction, the need for divorce, the weakening of the weak by the strong, oppression and suppression (realities, according to realists, must be translated into real forms so they have no problem with imgaination, ideology and ideas which they ignore). "But as opposed to realism, Islam does not accept the status quo but changes the realities"Says Ali Shariati, "It changes their essence in a revolutionary way. It carries realities along with its ideals. It uses realities as a means to reach its idealistic goals, its real desires, which are non-existent by themselves. Unlike realists, Islam does not submit to realities, but rather, it causes the realities to submit to it. Islam does not turn away from realities as idealists do. It seeks them out. It tames them. Through this means, Islam uses that which hinders the idealists as a composite for its own ideals." With this apporach, an independence of thinking develops which, in order to succeed as an answer and not to cause deviation, must branch out from the society's historical roots. Face up to your realities. Tame them. Work through them to reach your ideals. ... Shariati develops the concept of Islamic social justice. In Islam it is not sufficient to tell one's self, "Thou shalt not ... this or that." For there is a commitment by which each individual is bound by and that is to be an active participant in society opposing social ills. That is, one should say to one's self, "Thou shalt not be an oppressor," but one is equally obliged to say to one'self, "Thou shalt help the oppressed." ... Shariati takes us to the heart of Shi'ism - Fatima, the beloved daughter of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He describes the woman we could not see, the one we thought we knew but only after his guidance do we become aware of the fact that although we related each day directly to her spirit, she had been lost as a model for our daily lives. That is, we had an emotional attachment to her inner essence but we had removed her form. Shariati takes us to Fatima. He begins with the social customs of the Arabian Peninsula before her birth where according to custom, female children were buried alive at birth in order to save the family from the disgrace of having an unsuitable son-in-law. It was the revolutionary message of Islam which did away with this custom. God reveals through the Quran that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) had been given the abundant river of Paradise and through that river, he shall have abundant progeny although according to Arab beliefs at that time, a man without a son is called 'cut-off'. How could it be? The father of a daughter will have abundant progeny? His wife, over 50 years old, gives birth to a daughter, Fatima. God has kept the promise to the Prophet for through her, the progeny of the Prophet multiplies. Shariati then goes on to further enumerate the honors that Islam has bestowed upon women. There is only one person buried in the Ka'ba, the 'House of God' and that is a woman, a slave, Lady Hajara, the second wife of Prophet Abraham and mother of Prophet Ismail.

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Excerpt (II) from the Introduction to Ali Shariati's Fatima is Fatima by Laleh Bakhtiar

Shariati then goes on to furhter enumerate the honors that Islam has bestowed upon women. There is only one person buried in the Ka'ba, the 'House of God' and that is a woman, a slave, Hajar, the second wife of Abraham and mother of Ismail. Fatima spent her life in struggle, resisting poverty and difficulties. Her father was forced to spend three years in a valley with his family when his tribe imposed economic and social sanctions aga inst his message of Islam. After the migration to Medina, her new life as a married woman begins but she continues to face the same hardships and difficulties that she encountered since childhood. We learn of Fatima as a Muslim female child who defends her father against the elders of her tribe. Fatima is the one who, holding her father's hand, accompanies him into the bazaar, listens to his debates and walks with him to her home. Fatima, the Muslim woman, who stands at the door and defends her husband and her home when usurpers try to burn it down. Fatima tells the newly elected Caliph that he has displeased God and God's Prophet by not listening to the Prophet's advice and taking his own interests to heart. Fatima, who when she finds injustice and opprssion speaks out with the totality of her being, not fearing the outcome of her words for she knows she speaks with the tongue of Truth. Let us turn to her last sermon and have her own words tell us what she really believed and practiced. When Fatima was ill with the final sickness which caused her death, the wives of the Emigrants and Companions of the Prophet went out visit her to ask how she was feeling. Abu Bakr had been elected Caliph and Ali was put aside. In reply to them, after asking for the blessings of God for her father, Muhammad, she said: "By God I am alive while I have nothing but contempt for this world. I detest your men. After I tried to show them who their real enemy was and they did not listen, I put them aside.""How ugly are the sharp edges of swords when they are broken and then play with poeple's efforts and struggles which so many have undertaken, destroying the fortifications, breaking spears, making devious decisions and standing on the precipice of material and personal self-desires. What a terrible future they are preparing for by causing the warth of God and thereby brining about permanent torment for themselves." ... "God says, ' If citizens are faithful and avoid wrong deeds, We will give blessings from heaven and earth to them. But they deny the truths so we captivated them for their deeds. From those who oppressed, the results of their actions will be returned to themselves. They cannot change the traditions of history.' ... "It is then that the destroyer of rights will lose and those who will come in the future will find and realize the terrible results of what the ancestors have done. So you should be satified with your daily affairs and live in peace prior to the storm and terrible revolts." For then, the sharp swords of the dominations of the oppressors, anarchy and the rule of tyrants will overcome you. The oppressors will enslave you. No public assets except a small quantity will remain.. They will cultivate with force what you have planted with love. At that time you will only sigh for there will be nothing that you can do because you were blind and could not see the truth. They will oblige you because you have turned your faces from the right way and you did not accept it." Why have many Muslim women been lost to either outdated forms or new imports? Why has she been exploited? Shariati tells us in the words of Hazrat Ali, "two parties are required in order to bring about oppression. One is the oppressor and the other is the one who accepts oppression. Oppression cannot be one sided. An oppressor cannot perform oppression in the air. Opression is like a piece of iorn which is formed by the striking of the hammer of the oppressor upon the anvil of the oppressed." Thus, women themselves participated in the attack upon their values by allowing themselves to be oppressed and by not searching out their roots. With the awarness which Shariati brings to us, our coming to know Fatima brings about a responsiblity and a committment to those who first ask, "Who am I" and then search out the answer in the authen city and geniuneness of their own culture. The responsiblity and commitment grows through love and faith ... With Fatima as our model, we learn to fight injustice and oppression. We turn from ourself to the others. We become actively involved in society's ills because she as she really was, is our sym bol, our model, our heroine. This is not to deny the spiritual presence and essence of Fatima who has inspired thousands of artists, poets, writers and artisans. At one point we learn that the Prophet gave her a prayer instead of the domestic help that she had asked for. She grew from this for this nourised her spirit and strengthened her commitment ot God and the people. But it is rather to complement it for as Rumi te lls us, "The physical form is of great importance; nothing can be done without the consociation of the form and the essence. However often you may sow a seed stripped of its pod, it will not grow; s ow it with the pod, it will become a great tree." And as every artisan knows, it is the clay itself which determines the forms that can be created. Having awoken and become aware to the real Fatima presented by Sharati, the Iranain women were able to arise and play a major role in the Islamic Revolution of Iran. They fought against oppression a nd injustice side by side with the men. Clothed in the modest dress of what Fatima might have worn, they found no impediments to their freedom to act, to fight, to resist.

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Excerpt (III) from the Introduction to Ali Shariati's Fatima is Fatima by Laleh Bakhtiar

With the awarness which Shariati brings to us, our coming to know Fatima brings about a responsiblity and a committment to those who first ask, "Who am I" and then search out the answer in the authen city and geniuneness of their own culture. The responsiblity and commitment grows through love and faith ... With Fatima as our model, we learn to fight injustice and oppression. We turn from ourself to the others. We become actively involved in society's ills because she as she really was, is our symbol, our model, our heroine. This is not to deny the spiritual presence and essence of Fatima who has inspired thousands of artists, poets, writers and artisans. At one point we learn that the Prophet gave her a prayer instead of the domestic help that she had asked for. She grew from this for this nourised her spirit and strengthened her commitment ot God and the people. But it is rather to complement it for as Rumi tells us, "The physical form is of great importance; nothing can be done without the consociation of the form and the essence. However often you may sow a seed stripped of its pod, it will not grow; sow it with the pod, it will become a great tree." And as every artisan knows, it is the clay itself which determines the forms that can be created. Having awoken and become aware to the real Fatima presented by Sharati, the Iranain women were able to arise and play a major role in the Islamic Revolution of Iran. They fought against oppression and injustice side by side with the men. Clothed in the modest dress of what Fatima might have worn, they found no impediments to their freedom to act, to fight, to resist. (Concludes Introduction)

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Excerpts from Fatima is Fatima (I) by Ali Shariati.

Who is Responsible? Scholars! It is they who do not perform their responsibilities in respect to the people. They should give awareness, consciousness and direction to the people and they do not do so. All our geniuses and great talents occupy themselves with philosophy, theology, Sufism, jurisprudence, principles, literature, meanings, expression, novelties, conjugation and syntax. Through all the years of research, thought and their own scholarly anguish, they write nothing other than 'practical treatises' on how to achieve cleanliness for the ritual prayer, types of uncleanness, the rules of menstruation, and the doubts which arise in ritual prayer. They leave aside writing treatises on how to speak with people, treatises on how to communicate the religious truths and the philosophy of the pillars of the religion, treatises on how to communicate consciousness and awareness to people, treatises on the understanding of the traditions of the Prophet and the personalities of the Imams, treatises on the revolutionary purpose behind Karbala, introductory treatises on the family of the prophet and the Shi'ite movement, treatises on the expression of thoughts and treatises on the faith of the people. All of these treatises are written, but all of them are written without responsibility, without the role of a commander. They pass their responsibilities on to the ordinary speakers in the mosques, not to the mujtahids (religious leaders whose directions for the practice of the faith are followed). A country which is full of faith and love, a nation which as the Quran and the Nahjal blageh of Ali, a people who have Ali, Fatima, Hasan, Hosein, and Zainab, have a red history but a black fate. They have a culture and the religion of martyrdom, but it is dead. We see a dream appeared to Joan of Arc, a sensitive and imaginative girl, for her to fight in order to have the king returned. For centuries, her dream has given the inspiration of freedom, sacrifice, and the sense of revolution and the courage to the enlightened, aware and progressive French people. Whereas Zainab, the sister of Imam Hosein, who takes a heavier mandate, the mandate of Hosein in her Ali-like hands, continues the movement of Karbala, which opposed murders, lying, terror, and hysterics. She continues the movement at a time when all of the heroes of the revolution are dead and the breath of the forerunners of Islam has ceased in the midst of our people, when commanders of the Islam of Muhammad and Shi'ism of Ali are gone. But she has been turned into 'a sister who mourns'.

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Excerpts from Ali Shariati's Fatima is Fatima (part V)

Our people, who spend their lives in love with the Shi'ite saints and cry over the difficulties they faced, who serve them for months and years, who glorify their name, spend money, give their sincerity and their patience to them, deserve to know the real lives of each one of their Imams. Their lives should serve as examples for each one of them. Their lives, thoughts, words, silences, freedoms, their imprisonment, punishments, martrydoms, should give awareness, life, chastity and humanness to people. But people know them only by their number, (that is, the 6th Imam, the 8th Imam, etc.). If an ordinary person mourns for Imam Hosein and on the anniversary of his death (ashura) strikes his head with his dagger and bears the pain even with pleasure, and still knows Hosein in an oblique way and misunderstands Karbala, who is responsible? If a woman cries with her whole being, if the recollection of the name of Fatima and Zainab burns her to her bones and if knowing it is worthwhile, who would, with complete love, giver her life for them, and yet, if she does not thoroughly know Fatima and Zainab, who is responsible? Neither this man nor this woman know one line of their words. None of them have read one line about their lives. They can only recall Fatima beside her house at the moment when her side was struck and they only know Zainab from the moment when she leaves the tents to go gather the bodies of the martyrs. They only know her from the morning of the day of Ashura up until noon, from then on they lose her. Their awareness of Zainab ends the day when her work and great mandate, the legacy of Hosein, just begins. Their knowledge of Zainab ends here. Then, who is responsible? And, thus, educated and open minded boys and girls judge the situation and say, "What is the use of this religion of crying and lamentation? What can such a religion do?" What knots do all this excitement, love, lamentation and cries for Hosein, Fatima and Zainab untie for a backwards, imprisoned nation which needs awareness and commitment to negate oppression in order to seek freedom.

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Ali Shariati Excerpts Fatima is Fatima (part VI)

If this imamate and sanctity of Ali, which has for centuries had the strength of a movment desiring justice, seeking freedom and a fighting spirit opposed to oppression and despotic institutions, and if this movement can free awakened and aware and people and give them liberty, justice, chastity, independence and motion and if it could change them both socially and individually and if the movement could bring about an itellectual revolutionary leadership which fights against classes and gives life and consciousness to a society and they have not shown this, who is responsible? If the value, influence and effect of following Ali, Fatima and the Imams are transferred from this world to another world and its effect is only measured after death, then who is responsible? If the promises and covenants of our fathers to this family have had no effect upon their thoughts, their time, their lives and society and if their sons, seeing this ineffectiveness, remain cut-off from their promises and links with this religion and this family, then, who is responsible?

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Excerpts from Ali Shariati's Fatima is Fatima (part VII) Chapter three What did they miss? Is it that this familly is without effect, or is it that our young generation and intellectuals are in error? Or have our mothers and fathers failed in their responsibilities? Ali is the most manifest of truths and represents the most progressive school of thought which has ever taken human form. It is not a myth. It is a human reality... And his wife, Fatima, is a perfect example of an ideal woman, of what a woman could be and no one has become. Hosein and Zainab, the sister and the brother, who brought such a deep revolution in the history of mankind, give a sense of honor to freedom, and disgrace to despotism and oppression. ... From another point of view, in the difficult and confused space of history, among the palaces, with the Caesars, as history always breathes from them, culture, civilization, religion, thought, discipline and art are turned around. Our intelligent, loyal, lovers of virtue who have known this household, luckless and quiet, have always been sacrificed through oppression and deceitfulness. Our people have tied eternal links to them. All their faith, longing, thought and feelings have been devoted to them. Now, even their language admires them and their means of proof say this. Their hearts beat for them. Their eyes cry with their sorrow. They sacrifice themselves and their possessions upon the way. They withold nothing. ... If we pay atttention, in particular, to the great differences in classes which exist in Islamic societies, we see that half of the capital of the country is in the hands of a few thousand people. We see that two-thirds of whatever there is, is, at the disposal of only 10% of the population. We see that, as opposed to the past, capital has been taken from the former landlords and former merchants of the bazaar and has been put into the hands of new capitalists, new industrialists, modern bourgeois companies and middle men who sell foreign goods or produce new products themselves.

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Ali Shariati's Fatima is Fatima (part VIII) We see that money has escaped from their hands and has changed its place from the village storage areas, from the shops of the old merchants under the old roofs of the bazaar, from the hands of local handicrafts and traditonal jobs and workers, from thehands of money exchangers and indigenous professional guilds, from traditional industries and classical professions to the banks, stock exchange, foreign companies, agencies, distributors, contractors and factories. This new class, a newly created group, are characterized by foreignness and modernization. They breathe at the door of the We st. They are not religious. If any of them had a memory of our inclination toward religion, it has long since been iorned out. Luxury, ceremony, seasonal things, pretntiousness and foreignness pre vail in their work. All of this plus their Islam, in the words of Seyyid Qutb, is an American Islam. People who follow religion without responsiblity, without expending, without effort, most often give their opinion and present their objections without acting or investing anything. Intellectuals are brought nto being who expend no money. Young girls and boys have for years had 'plage' parties, dancing parties in Switzerland, Paris, England, America, and Austria upon their lips. They have bee n most generous to these things. They and their wives go abroad once or twice a year with their money bags overflowing with money. In the stores and Moulin Rouges, they put money into the pockets of the capitalists,clever people an d milkers of money. They are no more than domesticated cows, seen by deceiving dealers as donkeys as money, coming out of the backward countries. They place their wealth into the cleft of expensive dancers. The wealthy go slumming, and then they return to their country, until once again they gather up enough money to go there once again and be milked. They do all this very naturally and wit hout any mistake or error, even holding their heads high. With lies, they turn people in circles. They also put people under obligation. They call this progress, modern living and a sign of civili zation. At the same time, a small merchant or villager, gets ready for his pilgrimage to Mecca or Karbala after a lifetime of work and anguish and production. He goes on the principle that this is the only thing in his life which will be both a time of rest as well as pleasure, a journey, a 'tour', travelling abroad and coming to know other countries. He will be seeing the world and renewing his faith , his beliefs and his union with his history. He unites with his culture. He makes the pilgrimage to his beloved people. He comes to know the remains of his civilization. He sees art which relate s to himself. Because of the truth of his love, his desires and longing of his spirit, his feelings and needs, and finally, the duty of his religious faith, once in a lifetime, he intends to make th e pilgirmage. He takes $700 ('71 $ ). He has to pay $400 for his plane ticket and the rest he uses for his expenses there and to buy gifts which he takes back home. That which he spends there is th e money he pays to rent a tent or a bus and buy a few days of food supplies. The total of all this does not reach the cost of one night of Mr. and Mrs. .... champagne in the Lido or one of their ca viar breakfasts in the George V Hotel. It is even cheaper!

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Ali Shariati Fatima is Fatima (part IX) We see with the changes in this particular class, side by side with general economic poverty, that town dwellers and village dwellers have become poorer, entangled with affliction and hunger and the class of minor landowners and merchants has become weak and dispersed in face of the growth of new classes. The majority of them have remained in the same class. A minority of people change classes and move to a new one. We see only two groups, modern types and traditonal types, those loyal to their beliefs and religours rites in a sense are part of these two groups. Because of these identical and perceptible socio- economic changes, the loyal ones remain quietly in the same class with few economic changes, or else they are forced into weakness. The strength of religion which they participated in, and the great expenses which are incurred in respect to rites and the inagurating of places for gatherings or buildings for religious purposes, all are a sign that the binding of our people's spirit with the Prop het and Ali's family is unbelievably deep and strong. It shows to what extent their faith and sincerity is strong and pure. It is after considering these things that the question, "Who is Responsible?" suddenly drops upon your head like a sledge hammer. A person who has until now followed the problem and with precise study, logically and clearly uncovered all sides of the issue, studied it and phase by phase has seen that all is correct, takes a good look at Islam and Shiism. Islam: Islam, the last historical, religious school of thought and the most perfect, Muhammad, the Quran, the Companions and their histories are models of life, chastity and civilization. They bring law, pr ogress, strength and culture to society.

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Excerpts from Fatima is Fatima (part X) Shiism The religion of imamate and justice, followers of Ali and his children, Shiism has had a history full of jihad. Its believers show preseverance. They are inspired by freedom and justice. They are a n unacceptable fire for despots and for the prejudiced. They have submitted to the way. Linked to the anger of Truth, its followers are enemies of anything which conceals the Truth. They are enemie s of a politics which reduces one to slavery. They are enemies of economic exploitiation and spiritual despotism. ... Our enlightened thinkers are sensitive people, awakened, aware of the fate of the world and the fate of their society. They are familiar with the spirit and movement of time. Their timely demands a re in need of a boiling faith. They seek out revolutionary thought. They think about freedom, equality and awareness of people. They attempt to bring about feelings, movement, responsiblility and self awareness among their people. They see their people and the religion of Hosein, Zainab, justice, imamate, strength, theology, jihad, torture, martyrdom, Karbala... and they wonder... Why are there no vestiges when each one of these could give life, awraeness, enthusiasm and encouragement to those who are faithful to these ideas which overflow with life and liberty? Why do the se loyal forms, whose origins lie in the majesty of humanity, not bear fruit? Then who is responsible? In one word, the scholars. It is they who should have made Ali understandable. It is they who should have taught the thoughts of Ali.