jihad and shahadat

8/14/2019 jihad and shahadat

1/8

11/2/13 Ali Shariati

www.shariati.com/english/jihadand.html

Jihad & Shahadat

A Discussion of Shahid

Dr. Ali Shariati

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 thesacredness 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,

income parts, to our discussions concerning velayat 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


2/8


3/8



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 thathour 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, imam at, 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

absolute 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 transformed himself into the very school [for which he has negated

himself].

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 thesociety, 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 hitherto vanishing existence of that ideal. For this

reason, he is shahid (witness, present) and mash-hood (visible). He is always in front of us.

The thought also obtains presence and permanence through him. It becomes revived and


4/8



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 choose 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 preceptback 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


5/8



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 couldbecome 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 Ommatan 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'Osveh (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 mid-realm 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 nationfor them. It is in this sense that the locution "'Ommatan 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


6/8



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

Ommatan Wasatan is a community that is in the midst of battles; it has a universal mission. Itis 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

as 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, eventhough he was not from Medina. It was with his acceptance of Islam that Muslims

straightened their stature. At the beginning of bi'Sat, Hamzah was recognized among the

Quraysh as a heroic and epic personality. He was the youngest son of Abd al-Muttalib, 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


7/8



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 Sayyidel-

Shuhada (the Master of Shuhada). The same title was later primarily applied to Husayn. Both

are Sayyed 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. InHusayn'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 onewho 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


8/8



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." Suchdeath 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 seethe face of the truth in the darkness of

despotism and estehmar (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.

All R ights are Reserved

Copyright 1997 - 20131
http://www.shariati.com/

Documents

jihad and shahadat