Okay, so I want you to picture a Venn diagram
in your head. Okay, I'm picturing. Right, so
in the first circle you have hardcore theoretical
physics, and we're talking thermodynamics, quantum
mechanics, the literal laws of the universe.
That is a heavy first circle. Yeah, and then
in the second circle you have secular international
law, you know, constitutions, human rights, the
actual nuts and bolts of how a democracy functions.
Right. And in the third circle, and this is really
where it gets wild, you have high -ranking Islamic
theology. We are talking about the kind of religious
pedigree that makes you essentially royalty in
the Shia world. I mean, honestly, it sounds like
you just described three completely different
people. Sounds like a whole committee, right?
But today, we're gonna dive into the life of
one man who somehow sits right in that tiny sliver
where all three of those circles overlap. We
are unpacking the life and the strategy of Hassan
Shariat Madari. And... If you're someone who
follows Middle Eastern history or Iranian politics,
that name probably rings a bell. He is currently
one of the most prominent opposition figures
in exile today. But his backstory is really what
makes him such an incredibly fascinating case
study for us. It really is. Because usually when
we talk about opposition leaders, they kind of
fit a specific type, don't they? It's the. the
student radical or maybe a defected general or
an activist writer. Exactly. There's a mold.
Right. But Shariaat Madari is the son of a grand
ayatollah who just decided to become a physicist
and then a lawyer and is now actively trying
to engineer a secular democracy for Iran from
his home base in Germany. He really represents
this road not taken for the Iranian revolution
because I think we tend to look back at 1979
and just assume that the theocracy that we see
today was just inevitable. But when you actually
dig into Shariat Madari's career, you see this
completely different vision that was absolutely
present right from the start. He spent the last
40 years trying to bridge this massive gap between
traditional theology and modern democratic values.
And that is exactly our mission for this deep
dive. We are going straight into the biographical
records, the political history of the revolution
and the various charters he's written over the
decades to figure out how does a man born into
religious royalty end up leading the call for
a secular republic? And does his strategy of
non -violent transition actually stand a chance
against a regime that is, well, very clearly
not afraid to use force. Right. But before we
get totally into the weeds here, I do want to
make a quick note for you listening. We are pulling
all of this from historical documents and political
text, and obviously this involves highly charged
political movements. Very charged. Yeah, so just
a reminder that we are simply here to impartially
report on the content provided in these sources.
We aren't endorsing any viewpoints left -wing
or right -wing. We're just trying to convey the
ideas exactly as they exist in the original material.
Absolutely. It's all about unpacking the history
and the strategy objectively. So should we rewind
to the very beginning? Let's do it. Because to
really understand Hassan, you have to understand
the shadow he was born under. He was born in
Tabriz, Iran, in May of 1947. And his father
was not just, you know, a local preacher. No,
far from it. Right. His father was Grand Ayatollah
Muhammad Kazim Shariat Madari. And for anyone
who isn't super deep into the hierarchy of Shia
Islam, A grand ayatollah or a marja is literally
the top of the pyramid. It translates to source
of emulation. So is that like a cardinal in the
Catholic Church? Or is it higher than that? Oh,
it's bigger than that. Think about it this way.
In the Catholic Church, you have one pope, right?
But in Shia Islam, there are a handful of grand
ayatollahs at any given time, and believers actually
choose which one they want to follow. Yeah, and
Hassan's father had millions of followers, particularly
in the Azerbaijan region of Iran. He was an absolute
heavyweight in the religious establishment. OK,
so Hassan is born into this environment. He's
the son of a pope, essentially. You would just
naturally assume his entire path is paid for
him. You go to the seminary, you put on the robes,
you inherit the family influence. And he does
start down that path. He goes to the comm seminary.
He studies theology and philosophy. He learns
the highly specific language of the clergy. Right.
But then he takes this incredibly sharp left
turn. He heads to Ariemer University, which is
now Sharif University, basically the MIT of Iran.
And he gets a master's degree in physics. See,
I have to stop you there. Because physics, I
mean, I totally get wanting a well -rounded education,
but that just seems so incredibly specific. Why
on earth does a potential religious leader need
to understand fluid dynamics or quantum mechanics?
It's a great question, and I really think it
speaks to how his mind works. Theology is heavily
about interpretation, tradition, and morality.
But physics... Physics is about systems. Right,
cause and effect. Exactly. It's about laws that
simply cannot be broken, no matter how much you
might pray for them to be. And that scientific
analytical training is so crucial to understanding
his political strategy later on. Oh, so. Because
he looks at society as a system. If the foundational
structure of a building is unstable, it is going
to collapse. It's essentially an engineering
mindset, but applied to the governance of a country.
That makes a lot of sense. And he doesn't even
stop there with the degrees. He then goes and
gets a master's in law from the University of
Tehran. Right. So now, if you look at his toolkit,
he understands the moral code through theology,
the physical code through science, and the social
code through secular law. It is a combination
that is almost unheard of. It really is. But
there is one other thing on his resume from the
1970s that honestly I found completely baffling
at first glance. The editing job. Yes, between
1973 and 1980, while he's busy accumulating all
these intense high -level degrees, he's working
as an editor. But he isn't editing a prestigious
law review or a theoretical physics journal.
He's the chief editor of two magazines called
Payami Shadi and Nasal Now. Which, for our listeners,
are monthly magazines specifically for children
and youth. Right. I mean, he's the son of Grand
Ayatollah, he's a physicist, a legal scholar,
and he's running a kids magazine. Was this just
a hobby for him? I really don't think so. I think
it was highly strategic, whether he fully realized
it at the time or not. Just think about the unique
challenge of writing for children. You can't
use jargon. Exactly. You absolutely cannot hide
behind complex academic language. You can't use
massive theological words or dense legal terms.
You have to take a really complex moral lesson
or a big idea and distill it down to its absolute
bare essence. And it has to be engaging or they
just won't read it. Right. It taught him how
to communicate incredibly broad structural ideas
to a mass audience in a way that resonates. And
that specific skill became a matter of life and
death very, very quickly. Because we hit 1979
the Iranian Revolution happens the Shah's overthrow
and the monarchy is totally gone and from what
the historical records show Initially, this wasn't
guaranteed to become a theocratic dictatorship.
Was it there was a huge scramble for power It
was a chaotic vacuum different factions everywhere
and Hassan Sharif Madari steps right into the
arena He co -founds the Muslim People's Republic
Party or the NPRP now just based on that name
the Muslim People's Republic It kind of sounds
like he's on the exact same side as the Islamists
who eventually took total control. It sounds
similar on the surface, but the nuance there
is everything. The NPRP was a massive party.
They had the backing of his father's millions
of followers. And their vision was an Islamic
state in terms of its cultural identity, but
a democratic state in terms of its actual political
structure. Oh, I see. Yeah. They wanted a system
where different political parties could actually
compete, where minorities had guaranteed rights,
where the power wasn't centralized. in one unelected
body. So they basically wanted a republic that
just happened to be Muslim rather than a theocracy
that was only pretending to be a republic. That
is a perfect way to put it. And this right here
brings us to the ultimate collision point. This
is the moment the road not taken was violently
blocked off. And it all revolves around one specific
theological and political concept called valayat
-faki. OK, let's unpack valayat -faki because
you see this term thrown around a lot in the
sources, but I really want to know what it actually
meant on the ground back in 1979. Sure. So valayat
-faki translates to guardianship of the Islamic
jurist. Now, traditionally, and this is exactly
how Hassan's father, the Grand Ayatollah, viewed
it, it simply meant that the clergy had a spiritual
role in protecting the faith and looking out
for the most vulnerable people in society. Like
charity work, looking after widows and orphans.
Exactly. It was a spiritual and social guardianship.
Okay, that sounds fairly standard for most religious
hierarchies. Right, but Ayatollah Khomeini, who
emerged as the primary leader of the revolution,
completely changed the definition. He argued
that it meant the jurist, which was himself,
should have absolute supreme political authority
over the entire state. Wow. Yeah. He was saying
the top cleric should be the commander in chief
of the armed forces, the absolute head of the
judiciary, and have the final veto power on every
single law. So he basically took a spiritual
pastoral role and turned himself into a king
in clerical robes. Precisely. And Hassan Shariat
Madari and the NPRP looked at this new constitution
that Khomeini was writing. They saw this clause
and they said, absolutely not. They recognized
it immediately for what it was the blueprint
for a dictatorship. And this wasn't just some
polite academic disagreement in a debating society
somewhere, was it? Not at all. And this is a
part of the history that often gets completely
erased. In late 1979 and early 1980, the supporters
of Shariat Madari's father actually rose up.
Yes, in Tabriz, they took over the radio station.
They occupied government buildings. There were
literal tanks in the streets. It was a genuine
massive counterrevolution against this emerging
tyranny. But they didn't win. No, they were crushed.
The new regime sent in the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps and the Basij militia. They didn't
just defeat the NPRP politically, they destroyed
it violently. And then they went after the family
directly. And this is the part of the source
material that is just truly shocking to me, especially
given this strict religious hierarchy we talked
about. They actually placed Hassan's father,
a sitting Grand Ayatollah, under house arrest.
Which was a massive, unthinkable taboo. You just
do not lock up a Marja. But by doing that...
Khomeini sent a chilling, unmistakable message
to everyone else in Iran. Nobody is safe. Exactly.
If he can lock up a grand ayatollah, he can do
anything to anyone. Hassan's father eventually
died while under house arrest. He was intentionally
denied proper medical care. It was a very slow,
very public humiliation. That is brutal. And
what about Hassan? What happens to him at this
point? He had to run. He was forced into exile.
And that is really where the first major chapter
of his life ends. That inclusive democratic vision
of the revolution was dead. So now... You have
a man in his 30s. He has completely lost his
country. His father is a political prisoner.
His political party has been banned and crushed.
He's living in exile in Europe. I feel like most
people in that exact situation would just, you
know, check out. Absolutely. Like just go teach
physics at some quiet university in Germany,
write a bitter memoir and call it a day. But
he doesn't do that. No, he doesn't. He regroups.
And this is where we really start to see that
physicist brain kicking into gear again. He doesn't
just want to sit around and be angry. He wants
to actually solve the structural problem. He
starts asking two questions. Why did we lose?
And how do we build a system that can effectively
replace this regime? So how does his strategy
evolve from there? Because he has been at this
for over 40 years now. Well, in the 1980s, it
was mostly about sheer survival and rallying
the immediate opposition forces. He helped form
the National Republicans of Iran in 1983, trying
to unite secular and nationalist groups. But
the real intellectual shift, his major aha moment,
comes a bit later on. Let's jump ahead to 2004.
OK, 2004. This is when he becomes a founding
member of the United Republicans of Iran. or
the URI. Right. And if you actually read their
platform from that time, there is a very specific,
deliberate pivot in his language. They stop arguing
about interpretations of Islamic law entirely,
and they start arguing for a republic based strictly
on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Why is that shift so important, though? Is it
just a rebranding exercise? It is highly strategic.
Think about it. If you argue with a theocracy
about theology, you're going to lose. Because
they have the power. Right. They hold the microphone.
They control the courts. They can always find
some obscure scripture to justify their power.
But by pivoting to the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, Shariat Madari is purposefully
stacking outside of their framework. He's saying,
we are not playing your game anymore. We are
operating on global universal standards. It also
seems like a really smart way to build a much
bigger team. Because if you base your opposition
movement solely on Islamic reform, you are going
to alienate all the secularists. Exactly. And
if you base it purely on hardline secularism,
you alienate the religious folks. But human rights,
that's a concept that covers everyone. That's
the Big Tent approach. You need everyone. And
he pairs this broad ideology with a very strict
methodology, which is nonviolent civil resistance.
I have to play devil's advocate here for a second.
Nonviolence sounds incredibly noble. It sounds
great when you're giving a seminar in Berlin.
But when you are dealing with a regime that routinely
shoots protesters in the street, isn't strict
nonviolence a little bit naive? That is the number
one criticism he faces constantly. But... Sharia
Menare would argue, and he actually uses a lot
of historical data to back this up, that violent
revolutions almost always just replace one dictatorship
with another dictatorship. Right. It's that physics
concept coming back. Violent energy is inherently
unstable. If you want a stable lasting democracy,
you have to build it through sustained civil
pressure, strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience.
You have to build the democratic institutions
before you actually take power, not after. Speaking
of building those institutions. I absolutely
love this detail from the sources about his work
with Tavana. Oh, yes. So Tavana is an e -learning
institute for Iranian civil society. And in June
of 2013, he's literally conducting online seminars
for them. He is. And do you remember the topic
of the course he taught? Yeah, it was on electoral
integrity and democratic transitions. Right.
It honestly sounds like he is trying to train
an entire generation of bureaucrats and civil
servants for a government that doesn't even exist
yet. But that is exactly what he's doing. He
is treating the revolution like a massive engineering
project. He's teaching young people inside Iran.
How do you actually monitor a ballot box? How
do you officially document voter fraud? How do
you organize a local political coalition without
getting arrested? Wow. He's trying to professionalize
the opposition because his logic is if the regime
does suddenly fall and nobody knows how to actually
run a municipality or count a vote, you just
end up with total chaos. Which brings us to the
modern era, 2019 to the present day. He steps
up to become the Secretary General of the Iran
Transition Council, the ITC. Yes. This is his
current major project. The ITC is explicitly
designed to be a broad coalition, basically a
government in waiting. And looking at their official
platform, there are the usual suspects you'd
expect. Secular democracy, the total separation
of religion and state. Yeah. But there was one
very specific phrase that keeps popping up in
the source material, and I really want to understand
why it's given so much weight. They heavily emphasize
the preservation of Iran's territorial integrity.
That is a massive, massive point. And honestly,
you cannot understand modern Iranian politics
without understanding that phrase. Why is that?
I mean, is there a looming threat of someone
invading Iran? No, it's not about an outside
invasion. The fear is that Iran will break apart
from the inside because Iran isn't just made
up of Persians. It's a vast, multi -ethnic empire,
essentially. You have large populations of Kurds,
Azeris, Baluchis, Arabs. And the current regime
has spent the last 40 years years telling the
Persian majority, listen, if we get overthrown,
the whole country turns into Yugoslavia in the
90s. They say the Kurds will violently break
away. The Baluchis will secede. It'll be a total
bloodbath. So it's the classic us or chaos argument.
Keep us in power or the map dissolve. Exactly.
And it is a very, very effective fear tactic.
So Shariat Madari is actively trying to neutralize
that specific fear. By putting territorial integrity
right at the top of the ITC charter, he is signaling
to the to the majority, we're going to keep the
map together. We are not going to let the country
shatter. Right. But, and this is the Vital Balancing
Act, he's simultaneously promising decentralization
and equal rights for all those ethnic minorities
so they stay in the coalition. And when you think
about his background, he is kind of the perfect
guy to sell that exact message, isn't he? He
really is. Remember, he's an Azeri from Tabriz.
So he's not a Persian nationalist looking down
on the provinces. But he is also the son of a
revered Grand Ayatollah, which gives him this
undeniable traditional credibility with the conservative
center. He is, simply in his own person, a walking
bridge between the minority ethnicities and the
religious establishment. But the big question
from all of this is, does it actually work? I
mean, he is in his late 70s now. He has been
living in Germany for decades. Does a Gen Z protestor
in the streets of Tehran today, you know, a kid
who is listening to underground rap music and
actively fighting the morality police, do they
actually care what a 77 -year -old intellectual
in Hamburg has to say? That is the million dollar
question for the opposition because there is
always going to be a disconnect between the diaspora
in Europe or America and the people actually
bleeding on the street. And the kids on the street
right now are chanting slogans that are often
incredibly anti -religion, not just anti -regime.
Right. They're just totally done with the clergy
entirely. Many of them are. So Sharia Madari's
deeply nuanced message of, hey, let's have a
secular republic, but one that still culturally
respects our religious heritage, that might feel
way too soft or out of touch for someone who
just had their friend beaten by the morality
police. Yeah, they might just want to burn the
whole system down entirely. They might. Shariat
Madari's counter -argument, rooted in his sociological
and historical study, is that you simply cannot
delete religion from Iranian society by force.
It is too deeply embedded. If you try to enforce
aggressive, militant secularism from the top
down, you don't achieve peace. You just create
a brand new conflict. So he's arguing for a middle
ground. He argues that the only political container
big enough to safely hold both the radical skater
kid in Caron and the deeply conservative grandmother
in Coombe is a secular democracy that genuinely
respects both of their rights to exist. It's
the physicist looking for equilibrium again,
balancing the pressure in the system so it doesn't
explode. Precisely. And Honestly, despite his
age, the sources show he is working harder than
ever right now. He's constantly building coalitions.
He's holding high level meetings with European
parliaments. He's basically trying to force the
international community to legitimately prepare
for a post Islamic Republic Iran. It's an incredible
testament to his patience. He has been systematically
grinding away at this exact problem for over
four decades. It really makes you rethink the
entire nature of what leadership in exile actually
looks like. It's not always about, you know,
leading the charge on a white horse with a sword.
No, rarely. Sometimes it's just about doing the
quiet homework. It's about writing the legal
charters, running the online seminars, doing
the tedious organizing so that when that window
of opportunity finally opens, the people aren't
starting from scratch. Absolutely. It's all about
being structurally ready for the moment. So as
we wrap this up, when we look at this whole complex
picture, the physics, the high theology, the
secular law, the 40 years of exile, what is the
really big takeaway for you from Hassan Sharia
Vardari's life? I think the biggest takeaway
is the sheer power of synthesis. You know, we
live in a global political climate that is incredibly
stubbornly polarized. We're constantly told that
you have to be one thing or the other. You are
either deeply religious or you are strictly secular.
You're a nationalist or a globalist. You represent
tradition or you represent modernity. Pick a
side and fight the other side. And he just totally
refuses to pick. Exactly. He says, I am all of
these things. He is a man of hard science who
fundamentally respects faith. He is a legal scholar
who believes in the necessity of revolution.
He's an exile who is completely obsessed with
fixing his homeland. He represents the very rare
idea that you don't actually have to burn down
your entire history to build a modern future.
That your heritage can actually be the bridge
rather than the barrier. Right. And that maybe,
just maybe, the cold, systems -level thinking
of a physicist is exactly the kind of mind you
need to untangle a mess as deeply complex as
a 40 -year theocracy. It's a completely fascinating
way to look at it. And it actually leaves us
with a provocative thought for you listening
to them all over today. Let's hear it. We so
often assume that to defeat a deeply entrenched
religious dictatorship, you need the exact opposite
force, right? Like an aggressive, uncompromising
secularism that just sweeps it all away. But
looking closely at Sherriette Madari's approach,
is it possible that the only person who can truly
dismantle the master's house is someone who actually
knows exactly how it was built? Can only a man
who fluently speaks the very specific language
of the Ayatollahs effectively convince a nation
to finally leave them behind? That is a great
question. It's really the question of whether
a successful democratic transition needs a demolition
expert or an architect. A demolition expert or
an architect. I really like that. Well, thank
you for joining us on this deep dive into the
records and life of Hasan Sharat Madari. It was
a pleasure to unpack it all. Keep questioning
the systems around you, and we'll catch you on
the next deep dive.