The Role of Taqiya in Islamic Movements

Taqiya (religious reservation) is a natural reaction and conforms to the individual’s discretion or that of the minority, which is done on the basis of expediency and aims at rejecting the corruption or attracting the others’ affection. This rule is often used in interaction with opponents and in the form of two types of “apprehensive taqiya” and “tolerating taqiya”. This article aims at revealing the positive roles of taqiya in movements and seeks to prove that in the opposition between taqiya and the factors creating a movement, there is not just a negative role for taqiya, i.e. stagnation and standstill. Rather, on the contrary, the positive roles of mobilizing, converging, immunizing, and the like – which create movements and lead to interaction with movements – are to be considered as well. These positive roles are studied through an analytical-descriptive method. Indeed, taqiya as the strategy of contention is a rational and timely subject, playing various roles in movements depending on the demands of the time. Of course, sometimes it gives up the expediency due to the priorities.