Martyr Motahhari and Muslim World Approach to Modern World Issues
This is according to Head of the Imamate International Foundation Hojat-ol-Islam Mohammad Taqi Sobhani, speaking to IQNA about Martyr Motahhari’s efforts to answer questions about religion and the modern world. Here are excerpts from his remarks:
Regarding the issue of religion and religiosity, there are two types of serious questions and scholars like Martyr Motahhari tried to discuss those questions in a serious and profound manner.
Some of these questions were theoretical and included problems and questions raised by atheistic schools such as Marxism, existentialism, humanism, etc. At that time (In the 20th century), they would offer some theoretical concepts to challenge religions and divine schools. Martyr Motahhari pointed out frequently in his speeches and writings that one of his main goals in Islamic studies was to answer such questions that the younger generation faced.
At the beginning, he thought one can provide correct answers to such questions by using theoretical frameworks and foundations of Islamic philosophy.
For example, in the preface to the book “Divine Justice”, he says enthusiastically that we can answer these questions via the old Islamic philosophy.
In his works, we gradually see a kind of attention to different dimensions of Islam’s rational thought. In addition to paying attention to philosophical rationality, he comes to the point that we should have a broader look at this field of rationality. Hence, he incorporates other kinds of rationality such as theological rationality in his thought system and framework and even somehow uses the accomplishments of modern rationality.
I believe that Martyr Motahhari, as a Muslim thinker coming from the Islamic philosophy tradition, managed largely to provide answers and separate the new generation, or at least a group of thinking youths from competing schools and guide their intellectual and spiritual inclinations toward Islam.
He was not alone, of courses, as Allameh Tabatabaei and others had made the same efforts and had a major role in formation of his thought system and he tried to develop and deepen Allameh Tabatabaei’s thinking framework.
A more important point in Martyr Motahhari’s rational thinking is how he faces practical questions of the modern world.
One of the features of the modern world is attention to the practical aspects of man’s life. Martyr Motaharri in a great part of his works emphasizes this kind of practical questions and tries to provide religious and rational answers to what modern rationality gives the Iranian society.
Martyr Motahhari should be regarded among the pioneers in this area as he probably was among the first figures who recognized practical questions and tried to resolve them. Of course we should not think that he provided perfect answers to all of those questions but the importance of what he did was in his creation of a major basis and framework for answering them and offering practical Islamic suggestions.
I consider Martyr Motahhari to be more successful here even than in theoretical area. What he did was introducing principles for practical Islamic questions and even today our young thinkers use those very models of thinking.
