Thursday, June 30, 2022

2022: Sharaf - Shari'ati

 




Sharaf al-Din, ‘Ali Yazdi
Sharaf al-Din, ‘Ali Yazdi (‘Ali Yazdi Sharaf al-Din) (Sharaf ad-Din Ali Yazdi) (d.1454). Persian poet and historian.  He was the companion of the Timurid Shahrukh and his son Mirza Sultan Muhammad, who summoned him to Qum.  Sharaf al-Din wrote the history of Timur.

Sharaf ad-Din Ali Yazdi was a Persian historian, one of the greatest of 15th-century Persia. Little about his early life is known. As a young man he was a teacher in his native Yazd and a close companion of the Timurid ruler Shah Rokh (1405–47) and his son Mirza Ibrahim Sultan. In 1442/43 he became the close adviser of the governor of Iraq, Mirza Sultan Muhammad, who lived in the city of Qom.

Sharaf al-Din is the author of the Persian Zafar-Nama.

Little about his early life is known. As a young man he was a teacher in his native Yazd and a close companion of the Timurid ruler Shāh Rokh (1405–47) and his son Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Sulṭān. In 1442/43 he became the close adviser of the governor of Iraq, Mīrzā Sulṭān Muḥammad, who lived in the city of Qom. His patron, however, attempted a revolt against the reigning Shāh Rokh, and Sharaf ad-Dīn was fortunate enough to be cleared of any complicity. He was granted permission to return to his native city, where he lived until his death. The work for which he is best known is the Ẓafernāmeh (1424/25; The Book of Victory). It is a history of the world conqueror Timur (Tamerlane; 1370–1405) and was probably based on the history of the same name by Nizam ad-Dīn Shami, a work written at Timur’s request.

‘Ali Yazdi Sharaf al-Din see Sharaf al-Din, ‘Ali Yazdi
Sharaf ad-Din Ali Yazdi see Sharaf al-Din, ‘Ali Yazdi


Sha‘rani, al-
Sha‘rani, al-.  Name carried by several individuals.  The best-known among them is Abu’l-Mawahib ‘Abd al-Wahhab.  A Sufi of the Shadhiliyya order, he was a very prolific author, whose works have been quite popular because of his easy style.  He exaggerated his own value, but was a champion of justice. 

ʿAbdul Wahhab Shaʿrani (1492-1565), full name ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Aḥmad aš-Šhaʿrānī, was an Egyptian Hanafi scholar and mystic, founder of an Egyptian order of Sufism known as Šaʿrawiyyah. Besides voluminous mystic writings, he also composed an epitome of a 13th-century treatise on medical substances, Muẖtaṣar taḏkirat as-Suwaydī fī l-ṭibb.

The Šaʿrawiyyah order gradually declined after Shaʿrani's death, although it remained active until the 19th century.
 Abu’l-Mawahib ‘Abd al-Wahhab see Sha‘rani, al-.
ʿAbdul Wahhab Shaʿrani  see Sha‘rani, al-.
ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Aḥmad aš-Šhaʿrānī see Sha‘rani, al-.


Sha‘rawi, Huda
Sha‘rawi, Huda (Hoda Shaarawi) (Huda Shaarawi) (b. June 23, 1879 - d. December 12, 1947).  Egyptian feminist leader.  Born in Minya in Upper Egypt to Sultan Pasha, a wealthy landowner and provincial administrator, and Iqbal Hanim, a young woman of Circassian origin, Nur al-Huda Sultan (known after her marriage as Huda Sha‘rawi) was raised in Cairo.  Following her father’s death when she was four, Huda was raised in a household headed by both her mother and a co-wife.  Tutored at home, Huda became proficient in French (the language of the elite) but, despite efforts to acquire fluency in Arabic, was permitted only enough instruction to memorize the Qur’an.  Through comparisons with her younger brother, Huda became acutely aware of gender difference, the privileging of males, and the restrictions placed upon females.  At thirteen, she reluctantly acquiesced to marriage with her paternal cousin, ‘Ali Sha‘rawi, her legal guardian and the executor of her father’s estate.  At fourteen, she began a seven year separation from her husband.  During this time, (the 1890s), she attended a women’s salon, where through discussions with other members, Huda became aware that veiling the face and female confinement in the home were not Islamic requirements, as women had been led to believe.  (Such critical examination of customary practice vis-a-vis religious prescription was part of the Islamic modernist movement initiated by Shaykh Muhammad ‘Abduh in the nineteenth century.) 

In 1900, Sha‘rawi resumed married life.  She gave birth to a daughter, Bathna, in 1903 and a son, Muhammad, in 1905.  In 1909, Sha‘rawi helped found the secular women’s philanthropy, the Mabarrat Muhammad ‘Ali, bringing together Muslim and Christian women to operate a medical dispensary for poor women and children.  That same year she helped organize the first “public” lectures for and by women, held at the new Egyptian University and in the offices of the liberal newspaper, Al-jaridah.  In 1914, she participated in forming the Women’s Refinement Union (al-Ittihad al-Nisa’i al-Tahdibi) and the Ladies Literary Improvement Society (Jam‘iyat al-Raqy al-Adabiyah lil-Sayyidat al-Misriyat).  Sha‘rawi was active in the movement for national independence from 1919 to 1922.  An organizer of the first women’s demonstration in 1919, she became the president of the Women’s Central Committee (Lainat al-Wafd al-Markaziyah lil-Sayyidat) of the (male) nationalist Wafd party.  Sha‘rawi led militant nationalist women in broadening the popular base of the party, organizing boycotts of British goods and services, and assuming central leadership roles when nationalist men were exiled.

In 1923, the year after independence, Sha‘rawi spearheaded the creation of the Egyptian Feminist Union (al-Ittihad al-Nisa’i al-Misri -- EFU) and, as president, led the first organized feminist movement in Egypt (and in the Arab world).  That same year, while returning from the Rome Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (which she attended as an EFU delegate), she removed her face veil in public in an act of political protest.  Sha‘rawi generously donated her personal wealth to the work of the Egyptian Feminist Union, while also supporting other organizations and individuals.  She opened the House of Cooperative Reform (Dar al-Ta‘awun al-Islahi), a medical dispensary for poor women and children and a center for crafts training for girls, in 1924 under the aegis of the EFU, and the following yera founded L’Egyptienne, a monthly journal serving the feminist movement.  Several years later, in 1937, she established the Arabic bi-monthly Al-misriyah (The Egyptian Woman).

The feminist movement of which Sha‘rawi was a leader brought together Muslim and Christian women of the upper and middle classes who identified as Egyptians.  Although a secular movement, its agenda was articulated within the framework of modernist Islam.  The feminist movement supported women’s right to all levels of education and forms of work, called for full political rights for women, advocated reform of the Personal Status Code, pressured the government to provide basic health and social services to poor women, and demanded an end to state-licensed prostitution.  Along with these woman-centered reforms, Sha‘rawi stressed the nationalist goals of the feminist movement, calling for Egyptian sovereignty, including an end to British military occupation and the termination of the capitulations, which extended privileges and immunities to foreigners.  In 1937, she created three dispensaries, a girls’ school, and a boys’ school in villages in the province of Minya, and later a short-lived branch of the Egyptian Feminist Union in the city of Minya.  As a nationalist feminist, Sha‘rawi was active in the international women’s movement, serving on the executive board of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (later called the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship) from 1926 until her death.  In 1938, she hosted the Women’s Conference for the Defense of Palestine.  Sha‘rawi played a key role in consolidating Pan-Arab feminism, which grew out of Arab women’s collective national activism on behalf of Palestine, organizing the Arab Feminist Conference in Cairo in 1944. She was elected president of the Arab Feminist Union (al-Ittihad al-Nisa‘i al-‘Arabi), created in 1945.  Shortly before her death in 1947, the Egyptian state awarded Sha‘rawi its highest decoration.




Huda Sha'rawi see Sha‘rawi, Huda
Hoda Shaarawi see Sha‘rawi, Huda
Huda Shaarawi see Sha‘rawi, Huda
Shaarawi, Huda see Sha‘rawi, Huda
Shaarawi, Hoda see Sha‘rawi, Huda

Shari’ati, Ali
Shari’ati, Ali (b. November 23, 1933, Mazinan, Rezavi Khorasan Province, Iran -  June 19, 1977, Southampton, England).  Iranian social and religious critic.  Shari’ati’s writings were extremely popular and influential among Iranian students of the seventies, including political groups such as the Mujahidin-i Khalq.

Shari’ati was born in Sabzevar, in the province of Khurasan.  His father was an expert in Qur’anic exegesis (tafsir), but Shari’ati did not pursue a formal Muslim education, choosing instead to work on a doctorate in sociology and religion at the Sorbonne.  He was imprisoned briefly upon his return from Paris in 1964, and his return from Paris in 1964, and again from mid-1973 until 1975.

From 1967 until the summer of 1973 Shari’ati was active in the Husainiyya Irshad, a pious, scholarly institution that became a popular center of Islamic debate, especially along non-traditional lines.  It was in his lectures at the Husainiyya Irshad that Shari’ati developed and elaborated his major ideological themes, using a blend of Western sociological and Islamic terms.

Shari’ati lashed out at the Shi‘ite clergy (ulama) in Iran for shunning roles of leadership in social and political reforms.  He further antagonized many ulama by arguing that one should study Islam outside of the madrasas, in a forum like the Husainiyya Irshad.  Shi‘ite Islam, Shari‘ati said, was a religion of protest and purification and had been corrupted by the traditional ulama in conjunction with the state.

Two years after he was released from his last term in jail, Shari’ati went to England.  In 1977, he was found dead there, in his brother’s home.  He is widely believed to have been killed by members of the Iranian secret police, SAVAK.

Shari'ati was an Iranian intellectual and critic of the regime of the Shah (Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, 1919–80), ʿAli Shariʿati developed a new perspective on the history and sociology of Islam and gave highly charged lectures in Tehran that laid the foundation for the Iranian revolution of 1979.

Shariʿati received early training in religion from his father before attending a teachers college. He later studied at the University of Mashhad where he earned a degree in Arabic and French. He became active in politics while a student and was imprisoned for eight months. He received a Ph.D. in sociology from the Sorbonne in Paris, and while there he met Jean-Paul Sartre, French sociologists, and Iranian student dissidents. Profoundly influenced by his experience in Paris, Shariʿati returned to Iran and was jailed for six months in 1964. After his release, he taught at the University of Mashhad until his lectures and popularity were deemed threatening by the administration. He then went to Tehran where he helped establish the Husayniya-yi Irshad (a center for religious education) in 1969. In the following years Shariʿati wrote and lectured on the history and sociology of Islam and criticized the Pahlavi regime, Marxism, Iranian intellectuals, and conservative religious leaders. His teachings brought him great popularity with the youth of Iran but also trouble from the clerics and government. He was imprisoned again in 1972 for 18 months and then placed under house arrest. He was released and left Iran for England in 1977. Shortly after he arrived Shariʿati died of an apparent heart attack but his supporters blame the SAVAK, the Iranian security service, for his death.

Shariʿati’s teachings may be said to have laid the foundation for the Iranian revolution because of their great influence on the Iranian youth. His teachings attacked the tyranny of the Shah and his policy of Westernization and modernization that, Shariʿati believed, damaged Iranian religion and culture and left the people without their traditional social and religious moorings. Shariʿati called for a return to true, revolutionary Shiʿism. He believed that Shiʿite Islam itself was a force for social justice and progress but also that it had been corrupted in Iran by its institutionalization by political leaders.

Ali Shariati is held as one of the most influential Iranian intellectuals of the 20th century and has been called the 'ideologue of the Iranian Revolution'. Shariati's most important books and speeches include:

   1. Hajj (The Pilgrimage)
   2. Marxism and Other Western Fallacies : An Islamic Critique
   3. Where Shall We Begin?
   4. Mission of a Free Thinker
   5. The Free Man and Freedom of the Man
   6. Extraction and Refinement of Cultural Resources
   7. Martyrdom (book)
   8. Ali
   9. An approach to Understanding Islam PART1- PART2-
  10. A Visage of Prophet Muhammad
  11. A Glance of Tomorrow's History
  12. Reflections of Humanity
  13. A Manifestation of Self-Reconstruction and Reformation
  14. Selection and/or Election
  15. Norouz, Declaration of Iranian's Livelihood, Eternity
  16. Expectations from the Muslim Woman
  17. Horr (Battle of Karbala)
  18. Abu-Dahr
  19. Islamology
  20. Red Shi'ism vs. Black Shi'ism
  21. Jihad and Shahadat
  22. Reflections of a Concerned Muslim on the Plight of Oppressed People
  23. A Message to the Enlightened Thinkers
  24. Art Awaiting the Saviour
  25. Fatemeh is Fatemeh
  26. The Philosophy of Supplication
  27. Religion versus Religion
  28. Man and Islam - see chapter "Modern Man and His Prisons"
  29. Arise and Bear Witness



Ali Shari'ati see Shari’ati, Ali
The Ideologue of the Iranian Revolution see Shari’ati, Ali

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