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Jihad & Shahadat
Dr. Ali Sharitati
A Discussion
of Shahid
The term "martyr," derived from
the (Latin) root "mort, "implies
"death and dying," "Martyr" is
a noun meaning "the one who dies
for God and faith." Thus a martyr
is, in any case, the one who dies.
The only difference between his
death and that of others is to be seen
in the "cause." He dies for the
cause of God, whereas the cause of the
death of another may be cancer.
Otherwise, the essence of the
phenomenon in both cases, that
is to say, death, is one and the same.
As far as death is concerned it
makes no difference whether the
person is killed for God, for
passion, or in an accident. In this sense,
Christ and those killed for Christianity
are "martyrs." In other
words, they were "mortals," because,
in Christendom's the term
"martyr" refers to the person
who has died [as such].
But a shahid is always alive and
present. He is not absent. Thus the
two terms, "shahid "and "martyr."
are antonyms of each other. As it
was said, the meaning of shahid
(pl. shuhada), whether national or
religious, in Eastern religions
or otherwise, embodies the
connotation of sacredness. This
is right. There is no doubt that in
every religion, school of thought,
and national or religious attitude, a
shahid is sacred. [This is true],
even though the school of thought in
question may not be religious,
but materialistic. The attitude and
feeling toward the shahid embodies
a metaphysical sacredness. In my
opinion, the question from whence
the sacredness of a shahid comes
needs hair-splitting scientific
analysis. Even in religions and schools
of thought in which there is no
belief in sacredness and the sacred,
there is however belief concerning
the sanctity of a shahid. This
status originates in the particular
relation of a shahid to his school.
In other words he develops a spring
of value and sanctity. It is because,
at any rate, the relationship
of an individual with his belief is a
sacred relationship. The same
relation develops between a shahid and his
faith. In the same way, yet indirectly,
the same relationship develops
between an adherent to a belief
and its shuhada. Thus the origin of
the sanctity of a shahid is the
feeling of sacredness that all people
have toward their school of thought,
nationality, and religion.
In existentialism, there are discussions
which are very similar, in
some parts, to our discussions
concerning wilayat and its effects.
Man has a primary "essential"
character and a secondary "shaping
character." In respect to the
former, every person is the same.
Anyone who wears clothes exists!
But in the true sense of the term,
what makes one's character, that
is to say, makes him distinct from
other beings, are the spiritual
attributes and dimensions, feelings,
instincts, and particular qualitiesthe
things that, once a person
considers them, he senses (himself)
as a particular "I"." He realizes
himself, saying, "Sum" (I am).
From whence do the particular
characteristics of "I" come? "I," as
a human being, after being born,
developed characteristics,
attributes, and positive and negative
values. Gradually I developed a
knowledge of myself. Where does
this come from. Heidegger says,
"The sum of man's knowledge about
his life's environment makes his
character, that knowledge being
the conscious relation of the
existence of 'I' with an external
'thing', 'person', or 'thought."' When
I establish a mental and existential
relationship with individuals,
movements, phenomena, things,
thoughts, etc., this relationship
finds a reflection in me. This
reflection becomes a part of my essence
and shapes my character. Thus
man's character is the sum of all his
relations with other characters.
Consequently my virtue and vice is
relative to the virtues and vices
of the sum of the individuals,
characters, ideas ... which surround
me and with which I have a
relation.
This relation can be with a historical
entity (if, for example, I read
history). We have not had a [direct]
relationship with Imam Husayn.
But when we intellectually meet
him through a book or words, he
becomes a part of our knowledge,
and then a part of our personal
characteristics. In this sense,
everyone exists relative to his
knowledge and ideals.
Likewise, when we give a part
of our existence for a cause, that part
becomes a part of that cause.
For example, in our mind, justice has
sacredness. It is one of those
values which has become a part of us
thanks to our relationship and
contact with it. If I donate a thousand
dollars of my own money for the
establishment of justice, that
thousand dollars absorbs the sacredness
of justice. As long as it was
in my pocket, it was merely one
thousand dollars. When I negate it in
the way of justice, it is affirmed
in another form, because it
transforms into the essence of
justice. Or for example, we have some
money and we feed a group of poor
people. If feeding the poor has
the attribute of sacredness, the
amount of money which has come out
of our pocket for the feeding
develops a particular value. In other
words, it develops a non-monetary
value and adopts a spiritual
value. If we had spent the same
amount of money for promulgation
of spiritual food, [for example,
for] the writing, translating, of
publishing of a book, the money
finds a new value depending on how
sacred the act in question is.
In other words, the money negates its
existence in a sense, but obtains
a new existence and value. In fact,
money is an external measure of
energy and power. If it is spent on
"partying," the energy develops
a profane value or, as some may
think, a sacred value! Money is
like kerosene or gasoline, which can
be used to move a machine or to
light a lamp. Once it is spent and
once it is burned, it turns into
a spiritual energy, depending upon the
purpose for which it has vanished.
What is spent does not have an
independent value. The value belongs
to me who has spent it. That
amount of money was a part of
me. Thus the sanctity of the cause for
which the money is spent reflects
on me. Its value comes back to me. I
earn it; because that amount of
money was a portion of my existence.
The hundred dollars that I have
paid for the cause of justice
transforms itself into "the sanctity
of justice." The sanctity of justice
is transformed into "the money,"
that is to say, something absolutely
materialistic and economic. Likewise,
if it is spent for feeding the
poor, the value of such feeding
transports its value to the money
spent. But the same amount of
money, once spent for filthy partying,
does not adopt a value. It rather
becomes less than its materialistic
value. At this point, we reach
a principle: "everything obtains a
similar value to that for which
it has been spent." As it is negated, it
is affirmed. In other words, as
its existence is negated, its value is
affirmed. In self-annihilation,
it reaches the permanence of the
purpose, provided that the purpose
is something permanent, such as
an ideal, a value, freedom, justice,
charity, thought, or knowledge.
Money, once spent for the sake
of knowledge, goes out of one's
pocket and becomes zero; but at
the same time it changes into the
values of knowledge for which
it is spent.
Just as money is a part of my
existence, so my existence, my animal
life, my instinct, and my time
are parts of me. Suppose I spent an
hour of my time to earn money.
Because the earning of money has no
value, the one hour cannot obtain
any value, because I have
sacrificed that hour for the sake
of what does not have value or
sanctity. But if I spent the same
hour teaching someone something or
guiding him without charging him
anything, I have sacrificed that
hour for a value. That hour takes
on the value of the cause for which
that hour was spent.
A Shahid is the one who negates
his whole existence for the sacred
ideal in which we all believe.
It is natural then that all the sacredness
of that ideal and goal transports
itself to his existence. True, that his
existence has suddenly become
non-existent, but he has absorbed the
whole value of the idea for which
he has negated himself. No wonder
then, that he, in the mind of
the people, becomes sacredness itself. In
this way, man becomes absolute
man, because he is no longer a
person, an individual. He is "thought."
He had been an individual
who sacrificed himself for "thought"
Now he is "thought" itself. For
this reason, we do not recognize
Husayn as a particular person who is
the son of Ali. Husayn is a name
for Islam, justice, imamat, and
divine unity. We do not praise
him as an individual in order to
evaluate him and rank him among
shuhada. This issue is not
relevant. When we speak of Husayn,
we do not mean Husayn as a
person. Husayn was that individual
who negated himself with abso-
lute sincerity, with the utmost
magnificence within human power, for
an absolute and sacred value.
From him remains nothing but a name.
His content is no longer an individual,
but is a thought. He has trans-
formed himself into the very school
[for which he has negated him-
self].
An individual who becomes a shahid
for the sake of a nation, and
thus obtains sacredness, earns
this status. In the opinion of the ones
who do not recognize a nation
as the sum of individuals, but
recognize it as a collective spirit
above the individuals, a shahid is a
spiritual crystallization of that
collective spirit which they call
"nation." Likewise, when an individual
sacrifices himself for the sake
of knowledge, he is no longer
an individual. He becomes knowledge
itself. He becomes the shahid
of knowledge. We praise liberty
through an individual who has
given himself to liberty; we do not
praise "him" because he was a
good person. This is not of course in
contradiction with the fact that,
from God's perspective, he is still an
individual, and in the hereafter,
he will have a separate destiny and
account. But in the society, and
by the criterion of our school, we do
not praise him as an individual;
we praise the thought, the sacred.
At this point, the meaning of
the word "shahid" is all the more
clear. When the belief in a sacred
school of thought is gradually
eroding, is about to vanish or
be forgotten in a new generation due to
a conspiracy, suddenly an individual,
by negating himself, re-
establishes it. In other words,
he calls it back again to the scene of
the world. By sacrificing his
existence, he affirms the thitherto]
vanishing existence of that ideal.
For this reason, he is shahid
(witness, present) and mashhud
(visible). He is always in front of us.
The thought also obtains presence
and permanence through him. It becomes
revived and obtains a soul again.
We have two kinds of shahid, one
symbolized by Hamzah, the
master of martyrs, and the other
symbolized by Husayn.
There is much difference between
Hamzah and Husayn. Hamzah
is a mujahid and a hero who goes
(into battle) to achieve victory and
defeat the enemy. Instead, he
is defeated, is killed, and thus becomes
a shahid. But this represents
an individual shahadat. His name is
registered at the top of the list
of those who died for the cause of
their belief.
Husayn, on the other hand, is
a different type. He does not go (into
battle with the intention of)
succeeding in killing the enemy and
winning victory. Neither is he
accidentally killed by a terroristic act
of someone such as Wahshi. This
is not the case. Husayn, while he
could stay at home and continue
to live, rebels and consciously
welcomes death. Precisely at this
moment. he chooses self-negation.
He takes this dangerous route,
placing himself in the battlefield, in
front of the contemplators of
the world and in front of time, so that
[the consequence of] his act might
be widely spread and the cause for
which he gives his life might
be realized sooner. Husayn chooses
shahadat as an end or as a means
for the affirmation of what is being
negated and mutilated by the political
apparatus.
Conversely, shahadat chooses Hamzah
and the other mujahidin
who go for victory. In the shahadat
of Husayn, the goal is self-
negation for the sanctity [of
that ideal] which is being negated and
gradually is vanishing. At this
point, jihad and shahadat are
completely separate from each
other. Ali speaks of the two concepts
in two different contexts with
two [different] philosophies.
Al- Jihad 'izzun lil Islam ("Jihad
is glory for Islam.") Jihad is an act,
the philosophy of which is different
from that of shahadat. Of course
in jihad, there is shahadat, but
the kind which Hamzah symbolizes,
not the one Husayn symbolizes.
Al-Shahadat istizharan 'alal-mujahadat
("Shahadat is exposing
what is being covered up.") Yes,
such is the goal of shahadat, and
thus it is always different from
jihad. It is discussed in a different
chapter. Jihad is glory for Islam.
But shahadat is exposing what is
being covered up. This is how
I understand the matter. Once upon a
time a truth was an appealing
precept. Everyone followed it and it
was sacred. All powers surrounded
it. But gradually in time, because
that truth did not serve the interests
of a minority and was dangerous
for a group, it was conspired
against in order to erase it from the
minds and lives of the people.
In order to fill its empty place, some
other issue was supplanted. Gradually
the original issue was
completely lost and in its place
other issues were discussed.
In this situation, the shahid,
in order to revive the original issue,
sacrifices his own life, and thus
brings the demode precept back into
attention by repulsion of its
sham substitute. This is the very goal.
At the time of Husayn, the
main issue after the Prophet was that of
leadership. The other issues were
marginal. The main issue was:
"Anyway, who is to rule and supervise
the destiny of the Muslim
nation?" As we know, during the
entire reign of the Umayyads, this
remained the issue. Uprisings,
and thus the major crises of the
Umayyads, all boiled down to this
very issue. People would pour into
the mosques at every event and
would grab the neck of the caliph,
asking him, "On the basis of which
ayah or by what reason do you
hold your position? Do you have
the right or not?" Well, in the midst
of such a situation, one cannot
rule. No wonder then that the period
of the Umayyads was no longer
than a century.
During their reign, the Abbasids,
who were more experienced
(than the Umayyads), de-politicized
the people; that is to say, they
made the people less sensitive
to the issue of imamat (leadership) and
the destiny of the society. By
what means?! By clinging to the most
sacred issues: worship, exegesis
of the Qur'an, kalam (theology),
philosophy, translation of foreign
books, promulgation of
knowledge, cultivation, expansion
of civilizationso that Baghdad
could be an heir to all great
cities and civilizations of the world and
so that Muslims could become the
most advanced of peoples. [But to
what real end.] So that one issue
should become negated and no one
talk about it.
For the purpose of reviving the
very issue, the shahid arises.
Having nothing else to sacrifice,
he sacrifices his own life. Because he
sacrifices his life for that purpose,
he transmits the sacredness of that
cause to himself.
To God belong both
the East and the West. He guides
whom He will to a
straight path. Thus we have made you
an ummatan wasatan
(middle community) so that you
may be shuhada (witnesses)
over mankind, and the
Apostle may be a shahid
(witness) over you. (2:142-143).
In this ayah, shahadat does not
mean "to be killed." It implies that
something has been covered and
is about to leave the realm of
memory, being gradually forgotten
by people. The shahid witnesses
for this innocent, silent, and
oppressed victim. We know that shahid
is a term of a different kind
from others. The Apostle is a shahid
without being killed. without
being killed, the Islamic community
established by the Qur'an has
the status and responsibility of a
shahid. God says, " ... so that
you may be shuhada over mankind ...",
just as the Apostle is shahid
over you. Thus the role of shahadat is
more general and more important
than that of being murdered.
Nevertheless the one who gives
his life has performed the most
sublime shahadat. Every Muslim
should make a shahid community
for others, just as the Apostle
is an 'uswah (pattern) on the basis of
which we make ourselves.
He is our shahid and we are the shuhada
of humanity.
We have determined that shahid
connotes a "pattern, prototype,
or example" on the basis of whom
one rebuilds oneself. It means we
should situate our Prophet in
the midrealm of culture, faith,
knowledge, thought, and society,
and make all these to accord with
him. Once you have done so, and
thus have situated yourself in the
midst of time and earth, all other
nations and masses should rebuild
themselves to accord with you.
In this way you [as a nation] become
their shahid. In other words,
the same role that the Apostle has
played for you, you will play
for others. You will play the role of the
Prophet as a human and as a nation
for them. It is in this sense that
the locution "'ummatan wasatan"
(a community justly balanced)
appears quite relevant to the
word shahid. We usually think that
'ummatan wasatan refers to a moderate
society, that is to say, a
society in which there is not
extravagance or pettiness, which has not
drowned itself in materialism
at the expense of sacrificing its
spirituality. It is a society
in which there is both spirit and matter.
It is "moderate"; whereas,
considering the issue of the mission of this
'ummat, this is not essentially
the meaning of wasatan in this
locution. Its meaning is far superior.
It means that we, as an 'ummat,
we must be the axis of time; that
is to say, we must not be a group
cowering in a corner of the Middle
East or turning around ourselves,
rather than becoming involved
in crucial and vital issues, which form
everything and make the present
day of humanity and tomorrow's
history. We should not neglect
this responsibility by engaging in self-
indulgent repetition. We must
be in the middle of the field.
We should not be a society which
is ghaib ' (absent. the opposite of
shahid), isolated, and pseudo-Mutazilite,
but we should be an
'ummat in the middle of the East
and the West, between Right and
Left, between the two poles, and
in short, in the middle of the field.
The shahid is such a person. He
is present in all fields. An ummatan
wasatan is a community that is
in the midst of battles; it has a
universal mission. It is not a
self-isolated. closed, and distant
community. It is a shahid community.
The opinion I expressed last year
concerning shahadat meant that,
fundamentally in Islam, shahadat
is an independent issue, as are
prayer, fasting, and jihad. Whereas,
in the common opinion,
shahadat for a mujahid of a religion
is a state or destiny in which he is
murdered by the enemy in jihad.
Such is also correct. But what I have
expressed as a principle adjacent
to jihadnot as an extension of
jihad and not as a degree that
the mujahid obtains in God's view or in
relation to his destiny in the
Hereafterrelates to a particular
shahadat, symbolized by Husayn.
We in Islam have great shuhada,
such as our Imams, the first and
foremost of whom is Ali, who is the
greatest Imam and the greatest
man made by Islam. Even though Ali
is a shahid, we take Hamzah and
Husayn as ideal manifestations of
shahadat.
Hamzah is the greatest hero of
Islam in the most crucial battle,
Uhud (in 627). The Prophet of
Islam never expressed so much
sadness as he did for Hamzah,
even when his own son, Abraham,
died, or when some of his greatest
companions were martyred. In the
battle of Uhud, Hamzah became
a shahid due to an inhuman
conspiracy contrived by Hind (Abu
Sufyan's wife and Muawiyah's
mother) and carried out by her
slave, Wahshi. The reaction of the
Apostle was severe. The people
of Medina praise Hamzah so much as
a hero that the Saudis have accused
them of worshipping him. It
shows how much he is glorified,
even though he was not from
Medina. It was with his acceptance
of Islam that Muslims
straightened their stature. At
the beginning of bi'that, Hamzah was
recognized among the Quraysh as
a heroic and epic personality. He
was the youngest son of Abd al-M
uttalib, a great hunter and warrior.
After the episode in which the
Quraysh insulted the Apostle and he
defended the Apostle, Hamzah became
inclined toward Islam. As he
became Muslim, Muslims no longer
remained a weak and persecuted
group. Indeed, they manifested
themselves as a group ready for a
showdown. Afterwards, as long
as there was the sword and
personality of Hamzah, other personalities
were eclipsed. Even the
most sparkling epochal personality
of Islam, that is to say, Ali, was
under his influence. It is quite
obvious that in the battle of Uhud, the
spearhead was Hamzah, followed
by Ali.
You know that when Hamzah was
killed due to that filthy and
womanly conspiracy, the Apostle
became very angry and sad. When
he attended the body of Hamzah,
the ears, eyes, and nose of the latter
had already been cut off. Hind
had made frightening ornaments of
these for herself A man who had
taken an oath to drink the blood of
Hamzah fulfilled his vow in Uhud.
Muhammad, near the corpse of
this great hero, this young and
beloved son of Abdul Muttalib, and
his own young uncle, spoke so
angrily and vengefully that he
immediately felt sorry and God
warned him. Muhammad vowed that
at the first chance he would burn
thirty of the enemy as a blood
reprisal for Hamzah. But the heavens
immediately shouted at him
that no one except God, Who is
the Lord of fire, has the right to burn
a human being for a crime. Thus
the Apostle broke his vow. Since
God took this sense of vengeance
from him, he tried to console
himself by reciting a eulogy for
Hamzah.
On his return to Medina, the families
were mourning their beloved
ones; but no one was crying for
Hamzah, because he had no relatives
or home in Medina. He was a lonely
immigrant. The Apostle, with
such tender feelings, unexpected
from a heroic man like him, waged a
wailing complaint as to why no
one cried for Hamzah, the son of
Abdul Muttalib, "the hero of our
family." And behold this tender
feeling, that a Medinan family
came to the Apostle and gave him
condolences, saying, "We will
cry for Hamzah's death and the
Apostle will eulogize ours." And
he thanked them.
At any rate, in the history of
Islam, for the first time, Hamzah was
given the title Sayyidal-Shuhada
(the Master of Shuhada). The same
title was later primarily applied
to Husayn. Both are Sayyid al-
Shuhada, but there is a fundamental
difference between their
shahadat. They are of two different
kinds which can hardly be
compared. Hamzah is a mujahid
who is killed in the midst of jihad
but Husayn is a shahid who attains
shahadat before he is killed. He is
a shahid, not only at the place
of his shahadat, but also in his own
house. From the moment that Walid,
the governor of Medina, asks
him to swear allegiance [to Yazid]
and he says, "NO !"the negation
by which he accepts his own deathHusayn
is a shahid, because
shahid in this sense is not necessarily
the title of the one killed as
such, but it is precisely
the very witnessing aimed at negating an
[innovative] affair. A shahid
is a person who, from the beginning of
his decision, chooses his own
shahadat, even though, between his
decision-making and his death,
months or even years may pass. If we
want to explain the fundamental
difference between the two kinds of
shahadat, we must say that, in
Hamzah's case, it is the death which
chooses him. In other words, it
is a kind of shahadat that chooses the
shahid. In Husayn's case, it is
quite the contrary. The shahid chooses
his own shahadat. Husayn has chosen
shahadat, but Hamzah has
been chosen by shahadat.
The philosophy of the rise of
the mujahid is not the same as that of
the shahid. The mujahid is a sincere
warrior who, for the sake of
defending his belief and community
or spreading and glorifying his
faith and community, rises so
that he may break, devastate, and
conquer the enemy who blocks or
endangers his path; thus the
difference between attack and
defense is jihad. He may be killed in
this way. Since he dies in this
way, we entitle him "shahid. "The kind
of shahadat symbolized by Hamzah
is a tragedy suffered by a
mujahid in his attempt to conquer
and kill the enemy. Thus the type
of shahid symbolized by Hamzah
refers to the one who gets killed as
a man who had decided to kill
the enemy. He is a mujahid. The type
of shahid symbolized by Husayn
is a man who arises for his own
death. In the first case, shahadat
is a negative incident. In the latter
case, it is a decisive goal, chosen
consciously. In the former, shahadat
is an accident along the way;
in the latter, it is the destination. There
death is a tragedy; here death
is an ideal. It is an ideology. There the
mujahid, who had decided to kill
the enemy, gets killed. He is to
wailed and eulogized. Here there
is no grief, for shahadat is a sublime
degree, a final stage of human
evolution. It is reaching the absolute
by one's own death. Death, in
this case, is not a sinister event. It is a
weapon in the hands of the friend
who with it hits the head of the
enemy. In the event that Husayn
is completely powerless in
defending the truth, he hits the
head of the attacking enemy with his
own death.
Shahadat has such a unique radiance;
it creates light and heat in
the world and in the cold and
dark hearts. In the paralyzed wills and
thought, immersed in stagnation
and darkness, and in the memories
which have forgotten all the truths
and reminiscences, it creates
movement, vision, and hope and
provides will, mission, and
commitment. The thought, "Nothing
can be done," changes into,
"Something can be done," or even,
"Something must be done." Such
death brings about the death of
the enemy at the hands of the ones
who are educated by the blood
of a shahid. By shedding his own
blood, the shahid is not in the
position to cause the fall of the enemy,
[for he can't do so]. He wants
to humiliate the enemy, and he does so.
By his death, he does not choose
to flee the hard and uncomfortable
environment. He does not choose
shame. Instead of a negative flight,
he commits a positive attack.
By his death, he condemns the
oppressor and provides commitment
for the oppressed. He exposes
aggression and revives what has
hitherto been negated. He reminds
the people of what has already
been forgotten. In the icy hearts of a
people, he bestows the blood of
life, resurrection, and movement.
For those who have become accustomed
to captivity and thus think
of captivity as a permanent state,
the blood of a shahid is a rescue
vessel. For the eyes which can
no longer read the truth and cannot see
the face of the truth in the darkness
of despotism and istihmar
(stupification), all they see
being nothing but pollution, the blood of
the shahid is a candle light which
gives vision and [serves as] the
radiant light of guidance for
the misguided who wander amidst the
homeless caravan, on mountains,
in deserts, along by-ways, and in
ditches.
