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WERNER ENDE From Revolt to Resignation: The Life of Shaykh MuÎsin SharÁra Originalbeitrag erschienen in: Asma Afsaruddin (Hrsg.): Humanism, culture, and language in the Near East : studies in honor of Georg Krotkoff. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1997, S. 61-70

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Humanism, Culture,and

Languagein the

Near EastStudies in Honor of Georg Krotkoff

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Asma Afsaruddinand

A. H. Mathias Zahniser

© Copyright 1997 by EisenbraunsAll rights reserved.

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From Revolt toResignation: The Life

of Shaykh Mutisin Shardra

Werner Ende

One of the most prominent features of the Middle Eastern educational systemin the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was the founding of numerous insti-tutions of higher learning. The founders included governments (for example,those of the Ottoman Empire), Christian missionary societies and orders, as wellas Muslim educational associations and foundations. Almost all of these newcolleges and universities were based on European or American models as far astheir internal organization and the shaping of their curricula were concerned.The tradition of the Islamic madrasa played no role in them at all, or if it did,only a limited and marginal one. The founders of the new schools proceeded onthe assumption that the madrasa was outdated and that it could not be reformed.'

1. For a general survey of this development, see articles "Mac-di-if" and "Madrasa" in E125.902-21 and 1123-54, respectively.

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62 Werner Ende

The relatively broad success of these new places of learning, evidentabove all in the careers in public service of many of their graduates, acted as

a decisive impetus for the development of ideas to reform and for actual at-tempts at reforming—traditional and sometimes highly renowned institutions.One outstanding example is the Azhar in Cairo. Its history after about the year1865 can in part be regarded as a constant—though laborious and sometimes

unsuccessful—process of reform. One of its aims is still to secure its graduatesa place in Egyptian society and the Islamic world under conditions of increas-ing competition from more modern, "secularly" oriented universities.2

Admittedly, there are, or were, centuries-old and well-known centers ofIslamic learning that underwent no significant change in curriculum or teach-

ing activity. Some of them lost their importance or disappeared during thecourse of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; others were swallowed up byreformed or newly established institutions that were happy to be able to makeuse of the one-time fame of the maddris.

One example of a university, or rather a complex of maddris, at whichthere was no fundamental change until the 1970s, is Najaf. In this respect, andwith regard to their history as well as to their political and social functions,Shi ci. Najaf and Sunni Azhar can hardly be compared meaningfully. This isobvious already from the different situations in which they found themselvesat the beginning of the nineteenth century. While al-Azhar was drawn into theconflict between the populace of Cairo and the French occupants, the people

of Najaf had to fear the attacks of Wahhabi Bedouin, that is, anti-Shi c i zealotswho actually succeeded in conquering and plundering Kerbela in 1802.

We may well ask whether the idea of reforming instruction in Najaf was

actually considered in the nineteenth century and if it was, as of what year andby whom. It cannot be ruled out that it was, but there is no clear evidenceavailable to me that such considerations ever took place.

More or less concrete indications of a certain awareness of crisis amongleading theologians at Najaf are noticeable during the early years of the twen-tieth century. They center on Muhammad Kdzim al-Khurdsdni (d. 1911), anIranian mujtahid who was known as "Akhand" to his students and friends. Ina petition addressed to the Persian Shah, Muhammad 'Ali, in 1907, he advo-cated, among other things, the promotion of the modern sciences. He is cred-ited with having founded both traditional religious as well as modern schools.3

2. El l 1.813-21, esp. 817ff.; also Wolf-Dieter Lemke, Mahmad Shaltat (1893-1963) and dieReform der Azhar (Frankfurt, 1980); A. Chris Eccel, Egypt, Islam and Social Change: Al-Azharin Conflict and Accommodation (Berlin, 1984).

3. See "AkhUnd" in Encyclopaedia Iranica (ed. E. Yarshater; London, 1985) 1.732-35. Inaddition to the literature mentioned there, see cAbd al-Rahim Muhammad 'Ali, al-Muslih al-mujähid

The Life of Shaykh Muhsin Sharara 63

Among his students were several who were responsible for spreading modern-ist ideas and who stressed the necessity of an open confrontation with the mod-ern sciences. One of them was Hibat al-Din al-Husayni al-Shahrastani, who in1910/11 published a book called al-Hay'a wa-l-islam. 4 Writing in the style of

the Egyptian modernists of the times, he tries to prove the compatibility of theknowledge gained from modern astronomy—which he probably knew from jour-nals like the Muqtataf published in Cairo—with certain sayings in the Qurpdn,the prophetic ljadith and the hadith of the Twelver Shi c i imams. The journalal- cam, which was edited by al-Shahrastdni, 5 was published under the patron-age of Khurdsdni and was the most important voice for his reform ideas and

those of his circle. In 1906, when 'Ali Bazargan, a young Baghdadi, called forthe founding of a school in which Shi c is in particular would be taught modern

sciences and Western languages, he came under heavy attack. But he was sup-ported by Muhammad Said al-HabbUbi, a mujtahid (also known as a poet),who was a member of Khurdsani's circle. The school is said to have beenfounded in 1908 and to have taken up teaching activity in 1909.6

It can be assumed that in Shi c i moderrist circles, consideration was givennot only to the founding of new schools of general education such as those justmentioned, but to the consequences for the traditional madeiris of Najaf aswell. An article written under the pseudonym "Iraqi" on the texts and instruc-tional methods used by the Shi cis, particularly with reference to Najaf, ap-peared in 1911 in the journal Lughat al-`crab, which was edited in Baghdad byFather Anastase-Marie al-Kirmili. In 1913, al-Kirmili published a French ver-

sion signed by "Un Mesopotamien" in the Revue du monde musulman. 7 Nei-ther the original nor the French version contains any outspoken criticism of the

teaching methods in Najaf, but the latter does end with a weighty sentence thathad either been omitted in the Arabic or was added in the French version: "Telest, en résumé, le programme des etudes. fespere qu'il sera modifie tot ou

al-Shaykh Muhammad Keizim al-Khurdsäni (Najaf, 1972); on schools, etc., pp. 135-46. FurthercAbd al-ljusayn Majid Margi dar our (Tehran [1, 1359 h/sh).

4. Reprints and translations of this book are mentioned by Karkis cAwwal, Mu cjam al-al-cirdqiyin (Baghdad, 1969) 3.440ff.

5. On al-Shahrastani's life and activities, see, for example, Agha Buzurg Tabaqäta cidly al-shra (11 vols.; Najaf, 1954ff.) 1/4 (1968) 1413-18; and Ja c far al-Khalili, Häkadhacaraftuhum (Baghdad, 1968) 2.193-212.

6. Wamid Jamal cUmar Nazmi, al-Judhar al-siyäsiya wa-l-fikriya wa-l-ijtima ciya li-l-harakaal-qawmiya al- carabiya al-istiqldliya fi 1-`Iraq (2d ed.; Baghdad, 1985) 123; concerning tlabbabi,see al-Tihrani, Tabaqät, 1/2.814-23.

7. A.-M. al-Kirmili, "Kutub wa-tariqat al-tadris r ind al-shi c a fi 1-`Iraq," Lughat al-`arab 2 (1911) 439-44; "Le programme des etudes chez les chiites et principalement chez ceuxde Nedjef," RMM 23 (1913) 268-79.

64 Werner Ende

tard, pour marcher avec les progres du siècle. Que ce jour arrive au plusvite!" 8 (The question of the authorship of the article signed 'Iraqi" and thecircumstances under which it was published in Lughat al- carat and RMM lieoutside the purview of the present article).

The reform movement in Najaf appears to have gone through a certainperiod of crisis following the death of al-Khurasdni at the end of 1911 and thedefeat of the forces of the constitutional movement in Iran. The succeedingyears, up to the end of the First World War—indeed, up to the establishment ofthe kingdom of Iraq under British mandate in 1921—were not favorable to thediscussion of reform ideas among the Shi c is. After 1921, developments werestrongly influenced by the efforts of Sati n al-Hush; as Director General of Edu-cation, he tried to establish an Arab nationalist, secular educational system. Hismemoirs, in which he also discusses the conflicts between himself and ministersof education of Shi ci origin—among them Hibat al-Din al-Shahrastäni—reveala general aversion to the Shi c i clergy and a lack of understanding for the con-cerns of Shi c i modernists.9

The so-called Nusfili affair of 1927, prompted by a book on the Umayyadsby a Sunni teacher from Lebanon who was working in Baghdad, turned thetensions created by al-Hush's educational policy into a crisis. 10 Under theinfluence of this crisis, the majority of the Twelver Shi c is in Iraq formed a de-fensive front, and it would have seemed most likely that the resulting atmo-

sphere would not be conducive to the expression of internal, Shi c i criticism orself-criticism. However, what we find is that the most radical and detailed criti-

cism of the teaching methods and the cultural climate in Najaf ever written bya Shi c i appeared in 1928, that is, just a year after the Nustili affair. (It seemsthat since then there has never again been such a vehement attack by a Shicitheologian.) The article bore the title "Bayn al-fawcid wa-l-tac lim al-sahih." Itsfirst part was published in the journal al- clrfan in Sidon (Lebanon) in Septem-ber 1928. " The author was Muhsin Shardra, who described himself as a Shici

from the Jabal cAmil in southern Lebanon but who was living in Najaf.

8. Ibid., 279.9. S. al-Hush, Mudhakkiräti fi l- cIraq (2 vols.; Beirut, 1967-69).

10.Werner Ende, Arabische Nation and islamische Geschichte (Beirut and Wiesbaden,1977) 132-45; Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq(Princeton, N.J., 1978) 398-99.

11.M. Shardra, "Bayn al-fawcId wa-l-tac lim al-sahih," al- clrfän 16 (1928) 201-7. Concern-ing the second installment, see p. 67 (n. 19) below. On al- clrfan and its importance for modernShi ci thought, especially in Lebanon, see Tarif Khalidi, "Shaykh Ahmad cArif al-Zayn and Al-cIrfan," in Intellectual Life in the Arab East, 1890-1939 (ed. Marwan R. Buheiry; Beirut, 1981)110-24.

The Life of Shaykh Muhsin Shardra 65

Shortly after it appeared, the article became known in Najaf, where it re-ceived a great deal of attention. It begins with a few comments on the ethnicbackground of the students and teachers at the educational institutions in Najaf

and with remarks on the number of buildings devoted to education and theirarchitectural style. This is followed by an affectionate and proud description ofNajaf, dedicated by the poet and subsequent politician 'Ali al-Sharqi, a contem-porary of Shardra's, to his hometown.12

Shardra's criticism sets in quite unexpectedly: the summers in Najaf aremarked by an extremely dry heat; the houses there are built in an unhealthyfashion. This is especially true of the basement apartments beneath the houses(saradib), which are filled with standing and ill-smelling air. The city's entire

supply of drinking water, which reaches Najaf over very salty terrain, is full ofimpurities and the urine of animals. This represents a constant danger to thestudents' health, and many a scholar (faclil) has fallen victim to these condi-tions and died, thus being torn away much too early from the Islamic commu-nity. Shardra then writes: "The present situation of Najaf is therefore not at allsuited to the presence of a university (madrasa jamica) where a large numberof foreigners from distant regions gather." In addition, the author says, there isan economic consideration: Prices in Najaf are in general too high, particularlythose of vegetables during the summer months. In light of these conditions, thegreat reform theologian Mirza tlasan Shirdzi had already considered transfer-ring all teaching activities (haraka cilmiya) to a more favorable location, andhe took the first step himself by moving from Najaf to Sämarrd, which is bettersituated and has pure air and sweet, clean water. After Shirdzi's death, how-ever, the madrasa he established in Sämarrä was closed.13

The person referred to is the Shi c i scholar of Iranian origin who issued thefamous fetwa that played such an important role in the so-called tobacco pro-test in Iran in 1891-1892. For reasons more complex than those given here byShardra, he had moved to Samarra with his pupils and followers in 1875. Hedied in 1895 in Sämarra but was buried in Najaf.14

Shardra's negative opinion of the fundamental suitability of Najaf as thelocation for a center of Islamic learning, based on climatic, geographical, andeconomic reasons, would have sufficed to turn the people of Najaf against him.

Their very existence depended to a considerable degree on Najaf's role as a cen-ter of Shi c i scholarly tradition. And although Shardra does not express himself

12.On al-Sharqi, a Shi'i dissident who may have had some influence on Shardra, see cAbdal-Husayn Mandi cAwwdd, al-Shaykh 'Ali al-Shargi: 1:layatuhu wa-adabuhu (Baghdad, 1981).

13.Shardra "Bayn al-fawcld," 202.14.Al-Tihrdni, Tabaqät, 1/1 (1954) 436-41; Nikki R. Keddie, Religion and Rebellion in

Iran: The Iranian Tobacco Protest of 1891-1892 (London, 1966); for Shirdzi's role, see index, 162.

66 Werner Ende

anywhere in his article in a way that could be understood as an attack on thesanctity of Najaf or its importance as a place of pilgrimage, his ill-disguised

proposal that consideration should again be given to transferring teachingactivity to a more favorable location would have involved a considerable loss

as far as the functions and prestige of Najaf were concerned.15But Sharara goes even further: there is, he continues, scarcely any intel-

lectual life in Najaf, and this applies to both theology and literature. As far astheologians are concerned, if it were not for the well-known mujtahids Mirzä

Husayn NaPini, Sayyid Abu 1-Hasan Isfandni, Shaykh Muhammad I-Jusayn K5.-shif al-GhitV, and Shaykh Agha piydp al- cIrdqi (all of them his teachers!), 16 aswell as a few others of equal standing, the entire faculty would have disbanded

long since and everyone (teachers and students) would have gone home. In what

follows, Shardra speaks more directly about the reasons for this situation.As far as literary life is concerned, he argues that there are indeed some

teachers and writers who have emphasized the necessity for reform in theirworks, and here he names the theologian already mentioned—Käshif al-Ghitd p

-as well as (Hibat al-Din) al-Shahrastani, (Muhammad Said) al-Habblibi, (CAli)al-Sharqi, (Muhammad Ricla?) al-Shabibi, and "the (two?) Jawdhiris", but theyrepresent only a minority, and most of the scholars in Najaf remain silent. 17

After lamenting the widespread lack of intellectual activity in Najaf, thelethargy of the educated, the fear of reform (for example, in the form of a con-

frontation with modern science), Shardra, in another section of his article,

turns to the conditions under which students and teachers live in Najaf: every(modern) university both near and far operates according to fixed statutes andrules that establish the rank of professors and students in accordance with their

educational level. In Najaf, however, there are—in addition to some outstand-ing scholars (not the least those from Jabal c Amil)—a large number of turban-

bearers who cause harm to the umma and the reputation of the sharica throughtheir lack of knowledge and their inactivity. So much so, he writes, that stu-

dents from Najaf travel to other places in Iraq for instruction. The declining

15. It should be noted that already in 1910 a student of al-Khurdsanrs, Shaykh AsadullahMdmaq -ani, in a book published in Istanbul, is said to have proposed "that the Shiite centers oflearning be moved from the Ottoman Iraq to one of Iran's holy cities . . . and the Shiite educa-tional system be thoroughly reformed on the model of cAbduh's reform of al-Azhar in Egypt"(Said Amir Arjomand, "Ideological Revolution in Shi c ism," in Authority and Political Culture inShicism [ed. Said Amir Arjomand; Albany, N.Y., 1988] 183).

16. Muhsin al-Amin, Acyän al-shra (56 vols.; Beirut, 1958) 43.180-81.17. For general information about the persons mentioned here, see, for example, Pierre-Jean

Luizard, La formation de l'Irak contemporain: Le role des oulemas chiites a la fin de la domina-tion ottomane et au moment de la creation de l'Etat (Paris, 1991); and Yitzhak Nakash, The Shicisof Iraq (Princeton, N.J., 1994).

The Life of Shaykh Muhsin Shardra 67

reputation of the culamei' has even led to a decrease in the size of the yieldfrom endowed property directed towards the Shi d i holy places. There is in fact

no such institution, as is the case elsewhere, that registers income and expen-ditures, distributes to each what is rightfully his, accepts those who are suited

and turns away the unsuited, and sends out missionaries to the whole worldafter the conclusion of their studies. Where, Sharara asks, is the reformer who

is willing to place his own reputation at the service of the public good, whodoes not fear for his name—where is such a man in this center of learning

where proposing an organized system of financial administration is regardedby many of the culameP as contrary to the sharica?

Sharara then lists the Islamic sciences and the subordinate disciplines that

have to be studied in order to attain the standing of mujtahid. They includegrammar, tafsir, 'dm al-rijeil, and 'dm al-hadith. And actually, he writes, aknowledge of the sciences of astronomy, medicine, geography, geometry, Is-

lamic history, and other fields must be included—all subjects to which Islamicscholars of earlier generations devoted their attention and through mastery ofwhich they became the teachers of other nations as well. In this context, Shararadoes not fail to refer to the direct application of those sciences in the fulfillmentof a Muslim's duties, for example, in determining the direction of the qibla orthe duty to fast. In addition to these sciences, the subjects of philosophy andkaleim are extremely important at present, not least in the evaluation and proper

uses of modern sciences, such as sociology, psychology, comparative historyof religions, and foreign languages.

Sharara adds: If we ask what is really taught in Najaf, 18 we find only thefollowing subjects: nahw and sarf, dilm al-mantiq, balagha, usal al filth, andFilm al filth. In the next issue of the cIrfan Sharara discusses the method bywhich these subjects are taught.19

Sharara then refers to the achievements of Shi c i scholars of the past inthese areas: Baba ? al-Din al- cAmili, al- cAlläma Sayyid [Muhammad]Mandi Bahr al- cUltim, al-Shahid al-Awwal, and al-Shahid al-Thäni. The work

18. For a good survey of the curriculum and the methods of teaching, see Peter Heine, "Tra-ditionelle Formen und Institutionen schiitischer Erziehung in der Gegenwart am Beispiel der StadtNadjaf/Iraq," Zeitschrift fur Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 74/3 (1990) 204-18,and the literature mentioned there; see also Seyyed Hossein Nasr, "The Traditional Texts Used inthe Persian Madrasahs," Traditional Islam in the Modern World (London, 1987) 165-82, and Sa-brina Mervin, "La gate du savoir a Nagaf. Les etudes religieuses chez les chi c ites imdmites dela fin du XIXe siècle a 1969," Studio Islamica 81 (1995) 165-85.

19. "Bayn al-fawcId wa-l-tae lim al-sahib," 331-37. It should be noted here that Shaykh Mubsinhad published, in August 1928, an article in al- cIrfiin (pp. 95-100) concerning the necessity ofreforms in general and at al-Azhar in particular (98ff., an article taken over from the journal Al-Muqtataf). Obviously he did this in preparation for his attack on the system prevailing in Najaf.

68 Werner Ende

of the last two, al-Rawda, still forms the basis of fiqh studies. (Sharara isreferring here to al-Rawda al-bahiya, a commentary by al-Shahid al-Thani[Zayn al- cAbidin al- cAmili] on the Lumca dimashqiya by the first Shahid, Mu-hammad ibn Makki.) In Shardra's day, however, when the fuqaha' get to thechapter on the qibla in their teachings, they skip over some of the pages be-cause they do not want to have to deal with questions of astronomy, aboutwhich they understand nothing. Similarly, there are some problems of arith-metic in questions of inheritance law that are ignored by them for lack ofknowledge. The excuse given is that, in cases of need, one could turn to a mer-chant (God willing that one could be found at the right moment), who couldcarry out the computation on behalf of the faqih.

Present-day scholars, Sharara continues, would not pass the test in any ofthe sciences that were once cultivated by Muslims; in fact, they seek pretextsfor avoiding them, raise pointless objections, or counter with the argument thattrue scholarship has nothing to do with these disciplines, although they arehighly regarded by some contemporaries. He does not deny, says Sharara as heconcludes his argument, that in some of the zawiyas in Najaf there are indi-viduals who understand a great deal about these sciences. They received theirknowledge from scholars of the preceding generation; but few of them are pass-ing on this knowledge, and they have few students. This is the case because thedisciplines have a 'modern' (Casriya) tinge and, therefore, appear to be sinful tomore than just a few people in Najaf. Such a mistaken judgment, Sharara saysin the end, should arouse the indignation of all free-thinking men.

Muhsin Shardra's article contains many points that had already been ex-pressed by Muslim modernists, such as Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Muhammad

cAbduh, and others, several decades earlier. But Sharara was a young theolo-gian at the beginning of his career, and besides, he raised his voice from withina center of traditional Islamic learning, namely Najaf. There, his critical com-ments and suggestions for reform, influenced in part by earlier Sunni and Shidi

modernists and in effect not very original, were a provocation. Threats on hislife forced him into hiding for some time.20

The nature of the situation in which Sharara found himself resulted, atleast in part, from his biography. Muhsin Sharara was born in safar 1319(May–June, 1901) in Bint Jbayl in the Jabal c Amil in southern Lebanon anddied there in 1946. 21 When his critical article on Najaf appeared, he was 27

20. Muhammad Jawal Mughniya, al-Islam ma c al-hayah (2d ed.; Beirut, 1961) 288.21. The most important Arabic sources available to me are the following: Ja c far al-Khalili,

Halcadha caraftuhum (Baghdad, 1963) 1.121-28; al-Amin, A cyan al-shra, 43.179-86; Muham-mad Jawdd Mughniya, "al-Shaykh Muhsin Sharara," al-7,Jan 33 (1947) 82-86; and idem, al-Islam ma d al-hayah, 288-89; cAli al-Khacidni, Shu cara' al-ghariy (Najaf, 1955) 7.279-94.

The Life of Shaykh Muhsin Shardra 69

years old. He was a member of an important family of scholars that had re-sided in Bint Jbayl for a long time, 22 and he had been sent to Najaf in 1919.There he gave early evidence of his literary talent and his interest in areas of

knowledge such as mathematics and philosophy that received little attention atthe madciris in Najaf. In addition, he sought contact with Lebanese and Syrianteachers who were employed at a state-run secondary school in Najaf. He tookprivate instruction in English from them, a fact that was criticized by some ofhis fellow students and his teachers.23

In poems that he published in Iraqi newspapers and journals as well as inthe Lebanese cIrfan, Sharara spoke out about cultural and social problems and

ridiculed the backwardness, passivity, and false piety of many culamei-).Shortly after the publication of his attack on teaching in Najaf, he made

himself unpopular with the people of the city once again: Shardra took an activepart in the inner-Shi c i controversy over the permissibility of self-flagellationand passion plays during Muharram. The debate had been initiated during theearly twenties by the polemical writings of Sayyid Muhsin al-Amin. It reachedits culmination at the end of 1928 and the beginning of 1929. Shardra was oneof a small group in Najaf who openly supported Muhsin al-Amin's call for thesuppression of these practices. 24 He and others of like mind were reviled as"Umayyads" by the far more numerous defenders of self-flagellation and thepassion plays, who called themselves 'the partisans of 'Ali' (calawiyan). MuhsinShardra once again had to fear for his life and went into hiding. It would appear,

however, that in both of these critical situations, some of his teachers and a fewother influential people in Najaf extended him their protection, perhaps in con-sideration of his grandfather's and his father's reputation as prominent Shicischolars.

With two ija-zas that, incidentally, he apparently made little effort to re-ceive, Shaykh Muhsin returned home in 1936 in order to attend to the needs ofthe community of his village. It may be that he regarded this as a kind of retreat

after it became clear to him that, given what had happened, he had no futureamong the clergy in Najaf.

For a time, he was successful in gathering about him a large part of theyouth of Bint Jbayl and in arousing their enthusiasm for his ideas of a modern,

22. See Muhammad Hach al-Amini, Rijeil al-fikr wa-l-adah fi 1-Najaf (Najaf, 1964) 245, andthe literature mentioned there.

23. Years later, Shardra planned a full translation of Dwight M. Donaldson's The Shicite Re-ligion (London, 1933); see his article "Kitab madhhab al-shi c a aw al-islam fi Iran wa-l- c Iraq," al-cIrfan 31 (1945) 354-59.

24. Werner Ende, "The Flagellations of Muharram and the Shi c ite c Ulamd-," Der Islam 55(1978) 19-36.

70 Werner Ende

socially committed Islam. It was such young people who one day drove out ofBint Jbayl, under a hail of stones, two Shi c i scholars from Tyre, who had beenamong the opponents of Shardra's modernist activities in Najaf. (One of the

two was Sayyid cAbd al-Husayn Sharaf al-Din, an uncle of Imam Musa

Sadr). 25 The general atmosphere in Jabal cAmil, however, which was deter-mined by the dominant Shi ci zu camcV in consort with conservative cu/ama',was not favorable to Shaykh Muhsin's modernist efforts. During the last yearsof his life, he was increasingly overcome by a sense of failure. In addition, hecontracted tuberculosis, which was eventually the cause of his death in 1946.26

With the exception of the excitement he caused in Najaf in 1928-29, Muh-sin Shardra's life was relatively undramatic. His attempt to cast off the shackles

of traditional education is not a complete exception within the world of Shicicenters of learning in the twentieth century. But very few expressed themselveswith the same kind of clarity, and of those few, there were only a handful, for

example, Sharara's compatriot Husayn Muruwwa 27 or the Iranian 'Ali Dashti,28

who were able to free themselves early on from the influence of their familiesand from the careers as religious scholars that had been marked out for them.

This was not the case with Muhsin Sharara. A better understanding of thedilemma of the Shi c i modernists up to the present would be well served, I think,by a more detailed study of the biography, writings—still unedited—and so-cial activities of Muhsin Sharara, both in Iraq and in southern Lebanon.

25. Khalili, Häkadhd, 1.127.26. Ibid., 128.27. Both Sharara and Muruwwa were members of a modernist group in Najaf called "al-

shabiba al- cdmiliya al-najafiya." See cAbbas Baydun (ed.), Husayn Muruwwa: Wulidtu shaykhanwa-amatu tiflan (Beirut, 1990) 39 (and photograph p. [741); on Muruwwa, see also Peter Gran, "Is-lamic Marxism in Comparative History: The Case of Lebanon, Reflections on the Recent Book ofHusayn Muruwah," in The Islamic Impulse (ed. Barbara Freyer Stowasser; London, 1987) 106-20.

28. F. R. C. Bagley, "Note on the Author," in Dashti: Twenty Three Years (trans. Bagley;London, 1985) ix—xiv. For a rather critical assessment of Dashti's career as a writer, see BozorgAlavi, Geschichte and Entwicklung der modernen persischen Literatur (Berlin, 1964) 222ff.