Hawzah News Agency- Speaking at a scientific panel during the First International Conference on Resistance Theology at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Farid Ishaq, a professor at the University of Johannesburg, examined the relationship between theology and revolutionary praxis, highlighting how religious discourse can move from interpretation to mobilization.
Ishaq said the South African experience demonstrates that Islamic revolutionary thought—particularly since the 1970s and 1980s—helped reshape Muslim resistance to apartheid. He noted that concepts influenced by intellectual developments in the Islamic world and the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran gradually entered anti-apartheid movements among South African Muslims.
“These ideas introduced a new way of rereading the Qur’an in a social and political context,” Ishaq said, pointing to concepts such as the oppressed versus the arrogant, resistance to domination, and the slogan “Neither East nor West” grounded in divine monotheism. He added that such language opened new horizons for understanding religion as a catalyst for justice-oriented action.
According to Ishaq, many of these concepts first emerged as protest slogans but later functioned as “conceptual bridges,” reorienting traditional Quranic terms toward a revolutionary and emancipatory reading. “This process played a decisive role in the formation of Islamic liberation theology in South Africa and other parts of the world after 1979,” he said, noting that these ideas continue to shape contemporary liberation discourse.
The professor also contrasted the slogan “For every Pharaoh, there is a Moses”, popularized in Iran ahead of the Islamic Revolution, with the more widely cited Sunni maxim “Al-Sultan Zill Allah fi al-Arz” (The ruler is the shadow of God on Earth).
“While the latter has appeared in hadith sources with varying degrees of credibility and is widespread in many Sunni societies, in practice it has often been used to legitimize dominant political power,” Ishaq explained. “By contrast, ‘For every Pharaoh, there is a Moses,’ despite its weaker historical attribution, proved far more effective in stimulating resistance.”
He stressed that the power of such slogans lies not in their textual authenticity but in their capacity to inspire and mobilize. “This is a language that moves theology from abstract interpretation into the realm of social struggle,” Ishaq said, “placing religion firmly at the service of justice, resistance to oppression, and the rejection of domination.”
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