Ali Shariati: The revolutionary thinker whose ideas changed Iran | Al Jazeera World Documentary

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 14:28:01 +0000

This is the untold story of Ali Shariati, an influential Iranian scholar whose revolutionary ideas helped shape the ideological basis of the 1979 Islamic revolution. This documentary explores how Shariati’s radical interpretation of religious thought in the Shah’s Iran recast Islam as a revolutionary force against authoritarianism and repression – and inspired a generation that increasingly demanded change.

Shariati studied in Paris in the 1960s, where he was exposed to new ideas – Marxism, existentialism and anticolonial movements, including Algeria’s fight for independence from France. He was labelled subversive by the Shah’s secret police and imprisoned several times.

In 1977, he was allowed to leave Iran for the United Kingdom, but his sudden death triggered the suspicion among his supporters of assassination by SAVAK agents. Shariati never lived to see the Iranian revolution, but his legacy is still felt in Iran as elsewhere in the Arab world.

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