Morteza Motahari

 Subject: 

Communication is the solution to many of the problems in the new society, and it is only through communication that the fragile bond between the social components in the mass society is maintained. Human communication is not only influenced by social forces and cultural context, but also the quality of communication and communication systems play a significant role in shaping the cultural and social structure of societies. While the cultural and social context is affected by the quality of communication and the changes in the communication system lead to dynamics and even cultural and social transformation, it also has a major impact on the structuring and organization of communication. Just as modernity and modern culture, with their specific structural order and technologies, have brought about a particular system and organization in the field of communication, with its various levels and dimensions, in Iranian society and the context of Iranian-Islamic culture, there are also institutions and domains that possess different capacities and functions in organizing and shaping human communication. The mosque can be considered as one of the central institutions and domains in the Iranian-Islamic cultural tradition, shaped not only by a theocentric communicative system (Imam and Ummah), but also possessing significant potential in organizing, nurturing, and guiding human communication at various levels, and consequently, in shaping social order. As one of the pivotal centers of communication in the Iranian-Islamic tradition, the mosque has played diverse roles in organizing and expanding communication, exhibiting different forms throughout history according to political and social conditions. In the contemporary century, the most prominent manifestation of the communicative capacities of the mosque can be observed in relation to the Islamic Revolution of Iran that seeks to establish a new social order with a religious approach.

Based on this, and considering the role of the mosque in the social change and social order throughout the history of Muslims, particularly in contemporary Iran, the present research seeks to understand the capacities, dimensions, and levels of human interactions within the mosque from the perspective of the social thought of contemporary Muslim thinkers. These thinkers, who themselves emerged from the mosque as a base, played a decisive role in the mosque-centered leadership of social change and social revolution, especially the Islamic Revolution of Iran and its continuation. Specifically, the ideas and opinion of Imam Khomeini, Ayatollah Khamenei, and Morteza Motahari are studied and analyzed in this research—intellectual and political figures who, more than others, paid attention to the issue of the mosque, its social and communicative dimensions, and reflected this importance in their written works and speeches at different times. The central question of the study is: "What are the capacities and levels of human communication of the mosque from the perspective of Imam Khomeini, Ayatollah Khamenei, and Motahari, and how does this communicative framework shape the social order?"

The study of the ideas and opinion of the selected thinkers was conducted using the method of thematic analysis. This was done by selecting key excerpts from their speeches and writings, and then analyzing them based on the thematic analysis model of Wolcott at three levels: description, analysis, and interpretation.

The organization, arrangement and categorization of the opinions and ideas of these thinkers led to the achievement of 11 central themes in continuous relation with each other, which are: “The blending (or The Interconnection) of The Individual and Social monotheism”, “ The Mosque as a Center for contemplation and Reflection”,“The Intellectual and Communicative Capacity of the Imam of Congregational Prayer”,“Rhetoric, Sermons and Enlightenment in the Mosque”,“The Imam's close and intimate relationship with the people and attention to their well-being”,“The capacity of public communication of the mosque with different groups and strata”, “Dialogue and Exchange of Ideas within Intellectual and Epistemological Circles”, “Center for social gathering and political communication”, “The Mosque as the Core and Stronghold of Resistance and Popular Mobilization”, “The Mosque as a Foundation for the Efficiency and Organization of Various Social Institutions” and “The Media Role of the Mosque Building as a Symbol and Axis of the Islamic Society”. These themes encompass various levels of human communication: the relationship with God, Intrapersonal communication (reflection and contemplation), interpersonal communication (the close relationship between the Imam of Congregational Prayer and the people), group communication (intellectual and epistemological circles), and public communication (Rhetoric and enlightenment), all centered around the concept of monotheism (the oneness of God). The interrelations among these levels illustrate the interconnected and, at times, overlapping nature of the themes, which are deeply influenced by the unique, multi-dimensional communicative essence of the mosque. This essence makes any separation between the different levels of communication challenging. All these forms of communication have monotheism (Tawhid) as their starting and end point. Based on the outlined communication network, the blending of individual and social Tawhid in the mosque can be considered as the central theme, fostering the coherence and interconnectedness of all these themes. Despite the diversity in the levels and dimensions of communication in the mosque, monotheism (Tawhid) serves as the link that unites, aligns, and enhances them.

Communication in the mosque is formed from self-improvement and monotheistic community around the relationship with God and extends to the order of social institutions. The result is a social order—an order whose core is monotheism and servitude to God, manifested in the effectiveness of various organizations and the realization of security, order, and social justice in all aspects. Organizational communications arising from the mosque essentially replace instrumental and material rationality with monotheistic rationality. "In this context, the imam of the mosque is at the center of the mosque's communications. The role of him becomes significant in the communication dynamics of the mosque, in relation to monotheism and the relation with God as a unifying existence; This is why thinkers in the field have emphasized the scientific and communicative capacity of the Imam of Congregational Prayer, as he must be actively engaged in all forms of interpersonal, group, public, and even external communications between the mosque and different social groups. He should serve as a guide, leader, and facilitator for people in their pursuit of divine knowledge and its extension to different social arenas. This, in a sense, reflects the model of the Imam and the Ummah in Shia culture, which is also reflected in the structure and tradition of mosques.

"Social Revolutions" have been studied and analyzed in several areas of human-social studies, including in "historical sociology", “political sociology”, “social psychology”, and "social history". One of the major topics in the studies of "revolution" is the crises on the threshold of every revolution. As regards the crises, related to the Islamic Revolution of Iran, this issue has been studied and researched mainly with objectivist-positivist, or structuralist, and sometimes cultural approaches and methods. But there is no research on contextual crises from a "discursive" perspective. Research findings show that this was done by relying on Gadamer's dialectical approach to bring closer the intellectual horizon of the characters in question. Based on this, it can be said that the thoughts of all the evaluated thinkers in this research have identified the crisis of legitimacy, the crisis of inefficiency and the cultural-identity crisis in addition to the economic crises in the Iranian society. In addition to the heavy shadow of foreign colonialism and domestic tyranny, these thinkers have very cleverly reflected it in the form of books or films to examine the effectiveness of internal exploitation imposed by the social powerful, without the obvious anti-government political activity. and depict directness in their works. And in fact, each of them was somehow able to explain the current situation through the underlying crises of the past.

Max Weber's approach as a sociologist is classified in the category of sociological micro-approaches, and his explanation of various phenomena is an objective co-explanation. Paying attention to the individual and explaining based on considering the position of the individual in the society has shown itself even in his opinion about the development of religion in the society. This article is written with the aim of understanding the criticisms obtained from the point of view of Morteza Motahari about Max Weber's views on the issue of the development of religion. It is written in an exploratory, descriptive and critical method, has reached this finding that religion is not a phenomenon with the origin in atheism, humanism or society, so that due to the changes and transformations of conditions and time, it needs to evolve and conform to the conditions. Comprehensiveness and compatibility of religion with reality are two basic elements for religion that prove it doesn't confront substantive changes. Also, the nature of religion has not changed in the course of history so that religion needs to be completed. The elements of all divine religions are the same, and no change has been made in these elements, so as to create the suspicion of change, transformation and evolution in religion. The Qur'an's point of view regarding the development of religion is an integrated point of view. That is, from the beginning of the creation of the first man to the last creature, this religion has been accompanied by Allah almighty with the aim of ensuring the happiness of the this world and the afterlife world with man and human society, and since the goal is the same, religion has also been comprehensive of this goal from the beginning until now.

The concept of freedom came from the constitutional era in the Iranian intellectual arena, but the philosophical reflection on it among Iranian thinkers is a more recent phenomenon. Among recent Iranian thinkers, Morteza Motahari and Abd al – Kareem Soroush, there have been deeper intellectual conflicts with the phenomenon of freedom. What are the similarities and differences between the two thinkers in terms of freedom? And what does Motahari and Soroush define in terms of freedom? From the perspective of these two thinkers, which dimensions and limits of freedom are they? The findings of this article suggest that Motahari is confronted with the phenomenological phenomenon of freedom with theological assumptions, and therefore he considers freedom as the existence of freedom and will in the human being, which is necessary for his spiritual excellence. While Soroush confronts modern liberal assumptions (and in particular the positivist methodology and pluralistic ontology), Freud considers freedom as the highest human value. At the same time, both thinkers, under the influence of Islamic and mystical beliefs, have two dimensions for freedom: internal freedom and outer freedom. Of course, Motahari emphasizes more on freedom of innocence and more emphasis on external freedom. Meanwhile, both thinkers of sharia and morality are considered red lines (circles) of freedom. The method of this paper is comparative

Present paper devote to explores the epistemology of view of Pierre Bourdieu and Morteza Motahari. This two thinkers with respect to their intellectual context and background, Each viewed with particular look at the issue of recognition, One with an Islamic philosophy insight and another In terms of Western Sociology, As everywhere in their thinking can be observed the difference between Islamic epistemology and Western epistemology. From Bourdieu perspective, Action intercede between The objective structures of society and actors subjective structures because their deeds are the main form of recognition. In contrast, Motahari calls,of society and nature, as internal and external sources of s knowledge which in a real organic relationship causes the production and transformation of knowledge. In this regard, in this article we are going to intend with a comparative study of opinions of both thinkers realized commonalities and differences in their thought and consider the issue of knowledge of their views

"The reasons for the decline of the Islamic Civilization" is a topic which has attracted many intellectuals and a lot of theorists have asserted various views to elaborate the subject. Morteza Motahari, one of the Iranian thinkers, had been preoccupied with the issue for years and had depicted a thorough roadmap to study the subject. He believed that reforming an attitude is prior to reforming an action, hence to improve the function of people in society, it is essential to transform their attitudes. Furthermore, the beginning of this reformation depends on people, because any reformation originates from the public and then moves towards the ruling class and the elites. Accordingly, Motahari wrote Dastan Rastan[1] to address the youth to the reformation of their views. The present study, through the method of qualitative-content analysis is seeking to extract the concepts that the philosopher was conveying to his young audience. Moreover, this study is trying to scrutinize the amount of conformity between the mentioned concepts of the work and the idea of the roadmap which Motahari illustrated for the revival of the Islamic Civilization. The findings of this study prove the issues achieved by the content analysis of the book are intensely in agreement with the philosopher's theory about the reasons of the decline of the Islamic Civilization.

Before the coronation of the Second Pahlavi, religious literature rarely noted the concept of Fitrah. After coronation of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in September 1941, however, the term and its theorizations found wider recognition in those magazines and newspapers aimed at promoting religious ideas. Gradually, Fitrah became a key concept in two significant ways: making a case for religion against criticisms raised by Marxists and secular critics of religion on one hand, and criticizing reactionary and superstitious interpretations of the religion on the other. Hence, Fitrah became so significant a tool in socio-religious struggles that it was called “the mother of all problems” of Islam by Morteza Motahari right before the Islamic Revolution. After the revolution, however, its moment was gone and the functions it had in pre-revolution era went obsolete. Thus, again, the concept was marginalized altogether. This paper investigates the socio-religious functions of Fitrah in the Second Pahlavi era.

AsadAbadi and Motahari contened that Believing in Ghada and Ghadar affects destiny of societies. The problem in this article is inspired by thoughts of Jamal-Aldin Asad Abadi and Morteza Motahari. Social theories of both thinkers about Ghada and Ghadar are studied by comparative method. Asad Abadi’s theory about Ghada and Ghadar is more historical-experimental, during the history of before and after Islam and its spatial domain is world history. On the other hand, social theory of Morteza Motahari is more historical- philosophical, about after the appearance of Islam and its domain is Islamic history and Islamic nations. Both thinkers believe that understanding of Orientals about Ghada and Ghadar is false. This false understanding is intentional and biased according to Asad Abadi’s view but unintentional and unconscious as a result of less information and excessive focus on Quran and less focus on thoughts of the prophet and Imams in Motahari’s viewpoint. Both thinkers believe in the positive role of unbiased Ghada and Ghadar understanding on development of Islamic nations. Nowadays biased understanding about Ghada and Ghadar in Islamic nations is a barrier to development and results in sloth and indolence.