At its simplest, modernity\u2019s wager is that religion can be replaced with rationality and reason. Seligman says the wager has been lost: this transition cannot be made. His proposed solution is to return to a kind of unquestioned religious belief, but a religion characterized by tolerance.<\/p>\n
Shariati, while not articulating the same rationale, presents a similar conclusion. Following in the legacy of Al e Ahmad, who mourned what he saw as Iran\u2019s self-loathing love of the West, Shariati called for \u201ca return to an authentic Islam as an answer to modern problems\u201d (Secor, 13). This solution built upon Al e Ahmad\u2019s ideas by claiming that liberal, \u2018modern\u2019 ideas of the West were authentically Islamic\u2014 because these ideas did not belong to the West, but were born of Islam. Shariati advocated for a \u201climited freedom,\u201d where the \u201cliberated\u201d Iran could \u201csubordinate their will to the will of God.\u201d In this way, Shariati\u2019s claim seems to replicate at least part of Seligman\u2019s: humans are liberated, but with (and even through) constraints placed upon them by a higher authority.<\/p>\n
I think there is, however, a marked difference between Shariati and Seligman. Shariati argues against a need for clerics, taking the stance that there was no need for mediation between God and man. His claim that Islam was \u201copen to multiple, competing orientations\u201d seems at first take to mirror the \u2018tolerance\u2019 prescribed by Seligman. More deeply, though, this undercuts the main basis of Seligman\u2019s proposition– that what is needed is unquestioned belief in a set of basic tenets\u2014 as Shariati\u2019s solution still places man as the ultimate arbiter of right\/ wrong, as each person can interpret the will of God in their own way. For Shariati, then, the problem is one of authenticity; his utilization of Islam allows for modernity to be \u2018claimed\u2019 as Iranian. Shariati\u2019s wager, it seems, would be that without this claim to authenticity, \u2018modernity\u2019 would destroy Iran, leading to a similar consequence as that posed by Seligman\u2014 the people would be left \u2018placeless\u2019 and would become inheritors of an anomic condition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At its simplest, modernity\u2019s wager is that religion can be replaced with rationality and reason. Seligman says the wager has been lost: this transition cannot be made. His proposed solution is to return to a kind of unquestioned religious belief, … Continue reading