Unlike most twentieth-century social revolutions religion played a central role in both the Iranian and Nicaraguan revolutions. In the Iranian case Twelver Shi’ism, a branch of Islam which emphasizes martyrdom, justice, and the authority of the twelve imams, inspired many Iranians to mobilize against the Pahlavi dynasty. In Nicaragua many Nicaraguans were inspired by liberation theology, a prophetic expression of Christianity, to take arms against the Somoza regime. Both Iranians and Nicaraguans re-articulated the meaning of their respective religions in prefigurative free spaces, relatively autonomous settings where participants crafted alternative religious claims/understandings and prefigured a politically freer future based on these. As the socio-political climate worsened in their respective countries in the late 1970s both Iranians and Nicaraguans increasingly found justification in their religions to confront the state of things in their societies. Being exposed to and employing sacred stories –stories from the Bible and Qur’an– during discussion or participation in prefigurative free-space settings was key to these confrontations that eventually toppled their respective governments.
What types of sacred stories inspired Iranians and Nicaraguans to take action against unjust conditions? What was the impact of these sacred stories on their revolutionary outlooks? In what specific ways did sacred stories motivate them to take action, and ultimately helped them define themselves as revolutionary actors? To answer these research questions, we build on the religious discourse approach, centered on literatures that focus on stories and storytelling, to examine the role sacred stories played, respectively, in the revolutionary mobilization of Shi’a Muslims in Iran and Catholic Christians in Nicaragua.
Our comparative case study is based on historical records of religious discussions. For the Iranian case, we mainly used recently published books based on reports from SAVAK infiltrators who tracked and assessed weekly Qur’an-study sessions and speech events during religious festivals. For the Nicaraguan case, we relied on The Gospel in Solentiname, a four-volume set of transcribed religious discussions that took place in an isolated campesino community. Although class and regional differences exist between religious participants from each country we found they shared in common sacred stories centered on prophecy, religious virtue, miracles, and the challenges associated with demanding social justice. Making sense of their impact entails considering the importance of stories as a conceptual point of departure, given how story as “narrative is a way of” gaining access “into the particularities of historical experience [and] the very meaning of [being] human” (Scott 2011, 203-04). For now, we focus on some preliminary findings of our ongoing project.
Our analysis of religious discourse based on sacred stories focused on prophecy, religious virtue, miracles, and the challenges associated with demanding social justice shows discussants and participants in the aforementioned prefigurative free-space settings as capable religious agents. Using sacred stories facilitated their revolutionary mobilization. At the general level, they were able to assert, explore, and promote models of action and moral orientation consistent with revolutionary outlooks. At a more specific level, however, some differences surfaced. In a Christian context, storytelling / contemplation based on prophecy stories primarily worked as a discursive opportunity for interlocutors to come to terms with the goals, legacy, and mission of prophetic Christianity. In an Islamic context, prophetic stories, in contrast, are less about how revolution was an inherent feature of faith calling on the faithful to commit themselves to it and more about the need for Muslims to destroy idols –e.g., pride, power, and wealth, among others– as a matter of religious integrity. This act of idol destruction –in much the same way Prophet Ibrahim refused to submit to idols– is a significant first step to take towards truth, righteousness, and sacredness; an important measure to move away from falsehood, wrongdoing, and profaneness. Interlocutors who engaged with these stories, as such, came to understand that they needed to destroy such idols as monarchical rule and foreign sponsored modernization as these stood for false power as well as injustice (zulm) and wrongdoing (fassad).
In a Christian context, storytelling / contemplation based on stories of religious virtue, provided a moral opportunity for interlocutors to define their commitment to revolution according to justice, brotherhood, and egalitarian principles. These sacred stories similarly made it possible for them to identify, in much the same way prophetic stories do in an Islamic context, the enemies of righteousness, e.g., corrupt politicians. In an Islamic context, religious virtue stories, while sharing similar themes in common with their Christian counterpart differed from these in that participants’ growing oppositional understanding of reality was primarily achieved in monological terms, unlike their Christian counterparts, whose growing oppositional understanding of reality was defined in a dialogical dynamic. In this storied context Imams –as religious leaders with lineage to the Messiah and exemplars of Islamic virtue– conveyed to listeners that they had to courageously oppose the usurpation of power by the Pahlavi dynasty, resist the injustices this dynastic system produced, and face oppression on moral grounds in much the same way, for example, Imams Abi Talib and Husayn had done in the sixth century.
Storytelling / contemplation focused on miracle stories and stories of challenges associated with demanding justice, in essence presented themselves as discursive opportunities for interlocutors in both Christian and Islamic contexts to reflect on their faith and their revolutionary involvement. In both religious contexts interlocutors / participants discovered that they needed to remain steadfast in their struggle and assured that their struggle, despite present and future hardships, would in the end be victorious.
Notwithstanding some differences in the way the four sacred stories in question were interpreted across religious contexts they all ultimately converged on critiques of the political system and governmental corruption. Our comparative exploration showcases the power of religion in revolutionary contexts. It similarly provides an opportunity to theorize the connections between socio-political and religious contexts and the impact these connections have on how sacred stories are employed.
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References
Scott, J. W. (2011). “STORYTELLING.” History and Theory 50: 2, 203-209.
Unlike most twentieth-century social revolutions religion played a central role in both the Iranian and Nicaraguan revolutions. Both Iranians and Nicaraguans re-articulated the meaning of their respective religions in prefigurative free spaces. As the socio-political climate worsened in their respective countries in the late 1970s they employed stories from the Bible and Qur’an to mobilize against their respective governments.
Although class and regional differences exist between religious participants from each country our comparative case study reveals that they shared in common sacred stories centered on prophecy, religious virtue, miracles, and the challenges associated with demanding social justice. Building on the religious discourse approach, centered on literatures that focus on stories and storytelling, we set out to examine the specific ways these sacred stories motivated them to take action and facilitated their transformation as revolutionary actors.