Reviews for The Iranian Revolution and the Resurgence of Islam

The average rating for The Iranian Revolution and the Resurgence of Islam based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-08-19 00:00:00 Chadwick Walter According to the introduction, this is among the first books studying the role of populism in Iranian revolutionary history. Something interesting about the Iranian Islamic revolution is that it breached several established theories of why populist revolutions occur. Although in both the Occident and Orient the urban migration of peasantry diminished the power of religion and tradition, in Iran is accentuated it. Looking through Iran's long history, the clerics have traditionally taken a passive role in politics. A catalyst of Shi'ite Islam, Imam Jafar al-Sadiq, spurned political life and advised against it. The Iranian revolution of the mullahs was an abberation in Shi'ite Islamic history, whose very long history is based on losing from its very outset, rather than an expression of it. The book is rather brief and devotes chapters to different sectors of Iranian society, including the Western-minded intelligentsia, modernist Islamists of the early 20th century who themselves warned against despotic mullahism, culminating in a chapter on the established ulema who of course eventually seized all power and continue to do so. By starting from the age of Zarathustra and chronologically passing to the events of 1979, the revolution is viewed from a broad context. Written in 1990, it pays no attention to events post-1979. Written from the pre-revolution perspective, it is interesting to today transpose the thoughts of the pre-revolutionary Iranians to what they think today. But that's a whole other book.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-04-16 00:00:00 Waymond Jung Excellent, and important given how misunderstood is Saudi.