Post by dividavi on Jun 10, 2019 7:42:37 GMT
In an ongoing thread it's been either stated or implied that Jesus of Nazareth was some kind of social/political revolutionary whose ideas were similar to what Karl Marx wrote some eighteen centuries later. It seems like a strained analogy to me but I can understand why people could make the comparison. I'm thinking of the story where Jesus tells a rich man to give his money to the poor and then join his movement. Of course the rich man would be infinitely rewarded later for a finite gift in the present so it can be looked upon as an investment, something very non-Marxist. That all assumes that Jesus existed and was accurately portrayed, two things I very much doubt.
There was a very real religious reformer who preached an economic doctrine that was essentially Marxism without atheism.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Here's another site that compares Mazdakism with Communism: It's told from an Islamic perspective.Additionally, the first communist revolution in Europe was not in 1917 or 1848 but in Germany of the 16th century, Martin Luther's lifetime. See the German Peasants Revolt. Of course there was Wat Tyler in the 1300s, and let's not forget Spartacus.
There was a very real religious reformer who preached an economic doctrine that was essentially Marxism without atheism.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mazdak (Persian: مزدک, Middle Persian: 𐭬𐭦𐭣𐭪, also Mazdak the Younger; died c. 524 or 528) was a Zoroastrian mobad (priest), Iranian reformer, prophet and religious activist who gained influence during the reign of the Sasanian emperor Kavadh I. He claimed to be a prophet of Ahura Mazda and instituted communal possessions and social welfare programs. He has been seen as a proto-socialist.
Mazdakism
Mazdak was the chief representative of a religious and philosophical teaching called Mazdakism, which he viewed as a reformed and purified version of Zoroastrianism, although his teaching has been argued to display influences from Manichaeism as well. Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion of Sassanid Persia, and Mazdak himself was a mobad or Zoroastrian priest, but most of the clergy regarded his teaching as heresy. Information about it is scarce and details are sketchy, but some further details may be inferred from the later doctrine of the Khurramites, which has been seen as a continuation of Mazdakism.
Origins
Some sources claim that the original founders of this sect lived earlier than Mazdak. These were another mobad, Zaradust-e Khuragen (distinct from the founder of Zoroastrianism, Zoroaster, Middle Persian Zardusht) and/or a Zoroastrian philosopher known as Mazdak the Elder, who taught a combination of altruism and hedonism: "he directed his followers to enjoy the pleasures of life and satisfy their appetite in the highest degree with regard to eating and drinking in the spirit of equality, to aim at good deeds; to abstain from shedding blood and inflicting harm on others; and to practise hospitality without reservation". This doctrine was further developed by the much better-known Mazdak the Younger, son of Bāmdād.
At later stages the conservative Zoroastrian opposition accused Mazdak's followers of heresy and with abhorrent practices such as the sharing of women, for which scholars have found no evidence. Mazdak's followers are considered to be the first real socialists in human history by their emphasis on community property and community work with benefits accruing to all.
Mazdakism
Mazdak was the chief representative of a religious and philosophical teaching called Mazdakism, which he viewed as a reformed and purified version of Zoroastrianism, although his teaching has been argued to display influences from Manichaeism as well. Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion of Sassanid Persia, and Mazdak himself was a mobad or Zoroastrian priest, but most of the clergy regarded his teaching as heresy. Information about it is scarce and details are sketchy, but some further details may be inferred from the later doctrine of the Khurramites, which has been seen as a continuation of Mazdakism.
Origins
Some sources claim that the original founders of this sect lived earlier than Mazdak. These were another mobad, Zaradust-e Khuragen (distinct from the founder of Zoroastrianism, Zoroaster, Middle Persian Zardusht) and/or a Zoroastrian philosopher known as Mazdak the Elder, who taught a combination of altruism and hedonism: "he directed his followers to enjoy the pleasures of life and satisfy their appetite in the highest degree with regard to eating and drinking in the spirit of equality, to aim at good deeds; to abstain from shedding blood and inflicting harm on others; and to practise hospitality without reservation". This doctrine was further developed by the much better-known Mazdak the Younger, son of Bāmdād.
At later stages the conservative Zoroastrian opposition accused Mazdak's followers of heresy and with abhorrent practices such as the sharing of women, for which scholars have found no evidence. Mazdak's followers are considered to be the first real socialists in human history by their emphasis on community property and community work with benefits accruing to all.
While the Islamists engaged in violence against the left in Egypt on behalf of the state, the Islamists of the Maghrib launched a new ideological war against the "socialist" states in North Africa. In 1974 Abdellatif al-Soltani published what historian Benjamin Stora called the "first manifesto of the Islamist movement in Algeria." This "virulent critique" of the "Socialism of the Algerian leaders" invoked the name of none other than the 6th century Zoroastrian prophet and Iranian reformer Mazdak. Al-Soltani's polemic was titled "Mazdakism is the Origin of Socialism" [2] and it denounced the moral decay of the "destructive principles imported from abroad." All political action must emanate from "within the framework of the party of God, as opposed to the party of Satan," it proclaimed, implicating that the "socialist" policies of the Algerian state as deriving from the latter. Al-Soltani continued that there must be a "single state with a single leader, founded on Muslim principles."[3] For the Islamists like al-Soltani, socialism was something foreign, a contaminant that could not be reconciled with the all-encompassing totality that was Islam.
