From my understanding, it goes back to the Iran-Iraq war, when the Soviet Union supplied weapons to Iraq. But the Iranian government has always had a complicated relationship with Marxism-Leninism. Marxist parties have been (often violently) surpressed, and the government officially condemns Marxism as atheistic and incompatible with Islam. However, Marx and Lenin are studied in Iranian universites as anti-colonial political thinkers, and the Iranian government’s understanding of imperialism is Leninist. The state ideology of Iran, in other words, is not Marxist, but it incorporates many elements of Marxism.
To understand Islam as a political movement in today’s world, we need to recognize that there are three main political currents in contemporary Islam: Shia as represented by Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood or “westernizers,” and Wahhabism. Shia is generally anti-imperialist in the Leninist sense, and tends to be allied with Russia and AES states. The Muslim Brotherhood (think Turkey, Qatar, and Al-Jazeera magazine) hold a position similar to that of many Protestants in the US: namely, capitalism is in itself morally neutral, and bad only when unguided by religious principles. Wahhabism, heavily promoted by Saudi Arabia, is anti-capitalist and opposed to western colonialism, but believes that the solution is reestablishing both the caliphate and the entire medieval social order; it can probably be fairly considered a form of fascism.
Your explanation of the three tendencies is generally correct but it is dangerous and misleading to identify the first, the anti-imperialist one, with Shia Islam alone. Indeed there are plenty of non-Shia Muslims, such as the majority Sunni Syrians, who also belong to this category. Conversely, there are some groups, albeit small and fringe, who though nominally Shia have more in common with the Wahabbist tendency.
It is a mistake to attempt to make one-to-one correlations between religious denominations and political-ideological inclinations. The theological and doctrinal differences are more subtle than what this simplified picture would suggest, and frankly such religious debates do not concern us as Marxists.
We are interested in the real world political side. And the idea that Sunni and Shia Islam are irreconcilably politically at odds with each other is an invention of the imperialists that serves their divisive purposes.
From my understanding, it goes back to the Iran-Iraq war, when the Soviet Union supplied weapons to Iraq. But the Iranian government has always had a complicated relationship with Marxism-Leninism. Marxist parties have been (often violently) surpressed, and the government officially condemns Marxism as atheistic and incompatible with Islam. However, Marx and Lenin are studied in Iranian universites as anti-colonial political thinkers, and the Iranian government’s understanding of imperialism is Leninist. The state ideology of Iran, in other words, is not Marxist, but it incorporates many elements of Marxism.
To understand Islam as a political movement in today’s world, we need to recognize that there are three main political currents in contemporary Islam: Shia as represented by Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood or “westernizers,” and Wahhabism. Shia is generally anti-imperialist in the Leninist sense, and tends to be allied with Russia and AES states. The Muslim Brotherhood (think Turkey, Qatar, and Al-Jazeera magazine) hold a position similar to that of many Protestants in the US: namely, capitalism is in itself morally neutral, and bad only when unguided by religious principles. Wahhabism, heavily promoted by Saudi Arabia, is anti-capitalist and opposed to western colonialism, but believes that the solution is reestablishing both the caliphate and the entire medieval social order; it can probably be fairly considered a form of fascism.
Your explanation of the three tendencies is generally correct but it is dangerous and misleading to identify the first, the anti-imperialist one, with Shia Islam alone. Indeed there are plenty of non-Shia Muslims, such as the majority Sunni Syrians, who also belong to this category. Conversely, there are some groups, albeit small and fringe, who though nominally Shia have more in common with the Wahabbist tendency.
It is a mistake to attempt to make one-to-one correlations between religious denominations and political-ideological inclinations. The theological and doctrinal differences are more subtle than what this simplified picture would suggest, and frankly such religious debates do not concern us as Marxists.
We are interested in the real world political side. And the idea that Sunni and Shia Islam are irreconcilably politically at odds with each other is an invention of the imperialists that serves their divisive purposes.
Point taken – thanks for the constructive critique.