The Role of Clergy and Religious Intelligentsia in Changing General Attitude of Iranian People towards Imam Hussein's Uprising during Islamic Revolution

Although Imam Hussein's uprising had a political and heroic nature, those aspects have been so weakened or – in other words – deviated throughout history that it turned into a cloistered and unsociable culture. Through Islamic revolution, however, people's general attitude towards Imam Hussein's uprising changed into a political and heroic culture once more. Here, the role of religious thinkers, especially the Shiite clergy was most essential and critical. The present article, therefore, deals with the cleric's and religious thinker's activities in this change of attitude. It tries to display the degree of influence of religious intelligentsia on the Ashura culture and people's attitude towards Imam Hussein's movement and the philosophy of mourning ceremonies by reviewing the works of cleric-thinkers and religious intelligentsia of the Islamic revolution pertaining to Imam Hussein's movement. Finally, it will briefly mention the effects of this attitude change on people's behaviors and their mottos. From 1340s on, Imam Khomeini, Martyr Mottahari, Dr. Shariati, and many religious scholars and clerics attempted to resist deviancies in Ashura, explaining its heroic and political aspects. Their thoughts and works reflect their attempts to revive political and heroic aspects of Ashura, and thereby explaining the true goals of Imam Hussein's movement, which links politics and religion. Iranian people, therefore, took Imam Hussein's movement as a model for their revolution and, considering the principle of "enjoining good and forbidding evil", identified Shah's regime as a great evil, revolting against evil to eliminate it and establish Islamic government. The mourning ceremonies then were no longer simply dolorous ceremonies, but turned into heroic movements and political demonstrations. To explain this change in attitude, we have attempted to make use of Holland's theory, one of the stimulus-response theories in social psychology.