activities in France. After his release, he began
teaching at the University of Mashhad. His lectures
there quickly became popular, attracting listeners
from outside the university. The government, seeing
his popularity as a threat, engineered his dismissal
from the university. In 1967 Shariati joined other
religious reformers in Tehran at the Husayniya-yi
Irshad, which offered lectures, discussions, semi-
nars, and publications on religious subjects—the
name commemorates the martyrdom of the Proph-
et’s grandson Husayn ibn Ali, the third imam of
tWelve-imam shiism, at karbala in 680 c.e.
Shariati’s lectures, in which he tried to explain
the problems of Muslim societies in the light of
Islamic principles, soon made him the most popu-
lar instructor at the Husayniya-yi Irshad. Young
people were drawn to his new interpretation of
Islam and its role in society. By 1973 the govern-
ment began to view his classes as a threat. Shariati
was again arrested and jailed. He was released from
jail in March 1975, but his freedom was restricted.
He was prohibited from teaching or publishing,
and he was required to stay in his home town of
Mazinan. After two years of virtual house arrest,
Shariati was given permission to travel to Europe.
In June 1977 he went to England. On June 19 he
was found dead in his brother’s house in South-
ampton, England. The official cause of death was
given as a heart attack. However, many of Sharia-
ti’s supporters suspect involvement by the Iranian
secret police in his death. Shariati was buried in
damascUs, Syria, near the tomb of zaynab bint ali,
the sister of the third imam, Husayn.
In his lectures and writing, Shariati opposed
following tradition simply because it was tra-
dition, and he held that ijtihad (independent
thought) was not just for the experts but for every
individual. In the revolution that toppled the
shah’s regime in 1979, portraits of Shariati were
carried by demonstrators along with portraits of
Ayatollah rUhollah khomeini (d. 1989). In the
aftermath of the revolution, the moderate, inclu-
sive teachings of Shariati were drowned out by the
fundamentalist teachings of Khomeini and other
clerics. However, he is still viewed as an important
contributor to the Islamic revolution in Iran.
See also eUrope; husayniyya; iranian revolU-
tion oF 1978–1979; mUJahidin-i khalq; politics
and islam.
Kate O’HalloranFurther reading: Michael Fischer, Iran: From Religious
Dispute to Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1980); Ali Rahnema, “Ali Shariati: Teacher,
Preacher, Rebel.” In Pioneers of Islamic Revival, edited by
Ali Rahnema, 208–250 (New York: Zed Books, 2005);
Malise Ruthven, Islam in the World (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006); Abulaziz Sachedina, “Ali Shari-
ati: Ideologue of the Iranian Revolution.” In Voices of
Resurgent Islam, edited by John L. Esposito (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1983); Ali Shariati, Man and
Islam. Translated by Ghulam F. Fayez (Mashhad, Iran:
University of Mashhad Press, 1982); ———, Marxism
and Other Western Fallacies: An Islamic Critique. Trans-
lated by R. Campbell (Berkeley, Calif.: Mizan Press,
1980); ———, On the Sociology of Islam. Translated by
Hamid Algar (Berkeley, Calif.: Mizan Press, 1979).shaykh (sheik, sheikh)
Shaykh is an honorific title used for aUthority
figures and holy men in Islamic societies. Origi-
nally applied specifically to older men with gray
hair in kin-based arab tribal societies, it has come
to enjoy wider use in Arab and non-Arab Muslim
cultures. It is a title of respect for members of the
Ulama who have mastered the religious sciences
(qUran, tafsir, hadith, and fiqh) and for admin-
istrators of religious institutions such as mosqUes
and madrasas. It has also been given to masters
in sUFism who have guided their disciples on the
path to spiritual enlightenment and union with
the divine Beloved (God). Sufi shaykhs are also
often deeply venerated and credited with having
miraculous powers. Indeed, mystical writings
and poetry speak of how a shaykh can reflect
the otherworldly light of God and his prophet
mUhammad. Sufi maxims also teach that anyone
following the mystical path without a shaykh to
guide him actually has sata n for a shaykh, which
implies that such a seeker will ultimately be ledK 622 shaykh