Reinventing Khomeini

Reinventing Khomeini PDF Author: Daniel Brumberg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226077581
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Reinventing Khomeini offers a new interpretation of the political battles that paved the way for reform in Iran. Brumberg argues that these conflicts did not result from a sudden ideological shift; nor did the election of President Mohammad Khatami in 1997 really defy the core principles of the Islamic Revolution. To the contrary, the struggle for a more democratic Iran can be traced to the revolution itself, and to the contradictory agendas of the revolution's founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. A complex figure, Khomeini was a fervent champion of Islam, but while he sought a Shi'ite vision of clerical rule under one Supreme Leader, he also strove to mesh that vision with an implicitly Western view of mass participatory politics. The intense magnetism and charisma of the ayatollah obscured this paradox. But reformers in Iran today, while rejecting his autocratic vision, are reviving the constitutional notions of government that he considered, and even casting themselves as the bearers of his legacy. In Reinventing Khomeini, Brumberg proves that the ayatollah is as much the author of modern Iran as he is the symbol of its fundamentalist past.

Reinventing Khomeini

Reinventing Khomeini PDF Author: Daniel Brumberg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226077581
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
Reinventing Khomeini offers a new interpretation of the political battles that paved the way for reform in Iran. Brumberg argues that these conflicts did not result from a sudden ideological shift; nor did the election of President Mohammad Khatami in 1997 really defy the core principles of the Islamic Revolution. To the contrary, the struggle for a more democratic Iran can be traced to the revolution itself, and to the contradictory agendas of the revolution's founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. A complex figure, Khomeini was a fervent champion of Islam, but while he sought a Shi'ite vision of clerical rule under one Supreme Leader, he also strove to mesh that vision with an implicitly Western view of mass participatory politics. The intense magnetism and charisma of the ayatollah obscured this paradox. But reformers in Iran today, while rejecting his autocratic vision, are reviving the constitutional notions of government that he considered, and even casting themselves as the bearers of his legacy. In Reinventing Khomeini, Brumberg proves that the ayatollah is as much the author of modern Iran as he is the symbol of its fundamentalist past.

Key Islamic Political Thinkers

Key Islamic Political Thinkers PDF Author: John L. Esposito
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190900377
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
Islam has become a potent political force around the world since it reemerged in the late 1960's and 1970's as a religio-political alternative to failed nationalist ideologies. In countries throughout the world, individuals and movements have attempted to reconstruct the political, economic, and social dimensions of their societies along Islamic lines, taking different approaches to the shari`a and to the questions of whether and how to establish an Islamic state. Key Islamic Political Thinkers offers an examination of some of the leading intellectuals behind the resurgence of political Islam. The essays in this volume cover a selection of thinkers that is representative of the main strands of contemporary Muslim political thought. It starts with the forefathers of contemporary political Islam, Hasan al-Banna and Abu al A`la al-Mawdudi, analyzes the revolutionary ideas of Sayyid Qutb, Ali Shari`ati, and Ayatollah Khomeini, and ends with the "intellectuals" of political Islam, Hassan al-Turabi, Rashid al-Ghannoushi, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Muhammad Khatami, and Abdolkarim Soroush, who exemplify the diversity and complexity of contemporary Muslim political discourse. This volume provides a valuable guide to the most important intellectual architects of the Islamic revival.

Black Wave

Black Wave PDF Author: Kim Ghattas
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1250131219
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 “[A] sweeping and authoritative history" (The New York Times Book Review), Black Wave is an unprecedented and ambitious examination of how the modern Middle East unraveled and why it started with the pivotal year of 1979. Kim Ghattas seamlessly weaves together history, geopolitics, and culture to deliver a gripping read of the largely unexplored story of the rivalry between between Saudi Arabia and Iran, born from the sparks of the 1979 Iranian revolution and fueled by American policy. With vivid story-telling, extensive historical research and on-the-ground reporting, Ghattas dispels accepted truths about a region she calls home. She explores how Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, once allies and twin pillars of US strategy in the region, became mortal enemies after 1979. She shows how they used and distorted religion in a competition that went well beyond geopolitics. Feeding intolerance, suppressing cultural expression, and encouraging sectarian violence from Egypt to Pakistan, the war for cultural supremacy led to Iran’s fatwa against author Salman Rushdie, the assassination of countless intellectuals, the birth of groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the September 11th terrorist attacks, and the rise of ISIS. Ghattas introduces us to a riveting cast of characters whose lives were upended by the geopolitical drama over four decades: from the Pakistani television anchor who defied her country’s dictator, to the Egyptian novelist thrown in jail for indecent writings all the way to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Black Wave is both an intimate and sweeping history of the region and will significantly alter perceptions of the Middle East.

The Persian Puzzle

The Persian Puzzle PDF Author: Kenneth Pollack
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812973364
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 571

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Book Description
In his highly influential book The Threatening Storm, bestselling author Kenneth Pollack both informed and defined the national debate about Iraq. Now, in The Persian Puzzle, published to coincide with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis, he examines the behind-the-scenes story of the tumultuous relationship between Iran and the United States, and weighs options for the future. Here Pollack, a former CIA analyst and National Security Council official, brings his keen analysis and insider perspective to the long and ongoing clash between the United States and Iran, beginning with the fall of the shah and the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran in 1979. Pollack examines all the major events in U.S.-Iran relations–including the hostage crisis, the U.S. tilt toward Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, the Iran-Contra scandal, American-Iranian military tensions in 1987 and 1988, the covert Iranian war against U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf that culminated in the 1996 Khobar Towers terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia, and recent U.S.-Iran skirmishes over Afghanistan and Iraq. He explains the strategies and motives from American and Iranian perspectives and tells how each crisis colored the thinking of both countries’ leadership as they shaped and reshaped their policies over time. Pollack also describes efforts by moderates of various stripes to try to find some way past animosities to create a new dynamic in Iranian-American relations, only to find that when one side was ready for such a step, the other side fell short. With balanced tone and insight, Pollack explains how the United States and Iran reached this impasse; why this relationship is critical to regional, global, and U.S. interests; and what basic political choices are available as we deal with this important but deeply troubled country.

The Radicality of Love

The Radicality of Love PDF Author: Srećko Horvat
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 074569117X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
What would happen if we could stroll through the revolutionary history of the 20th century and, without any fear of the possible responses, ask the main protagonists - from Lenin to Che Guevara, from Alexandra Kollontai to Ulrike Meinhof - seemingly naïve questions about love? Although all important political and social changes of the 20th century included heated debates on the role of love, it seems that in the 21st century of new technologies of the self (Grindr, Tinder, online dating, etc.) we are faced with a hyperinflation of sex, not love. By going back to the sexual revolution of the October Revolution and its subsequent repression, to Che's dilemma between love and revolutionary commitment and to the period of '68 (from communes to terrorism) and its commodification in late capitalism, the Croatian philosopher Srecko Horvat gives a possible answer to the question of why it is that the most radical revolutionaries like Lenin or Che were scared of the radicality of love. What is so radical about a seemingly conservative notion of love and why is it anything but conservative? This short book is a modest contribution to the current upheavals around the world - from Tahrir to Taksim, from Occupy Wall Street to Hong Kong, from Athens to Sarajevo - in which the question of love is curiously, surprisingly, absent.

The Dissident Mullah

The Dissident Mullah PDF Author: Ulrich von Schwerin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 178673947X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
The Iranian cleric Ayatollah Montazeri (1922-2009) played an integral role in the founding of the Islamic Republic in the wake of the Iranian Revolution of 1978/9. Yet at the time of his death, Montazeri was considered one of the Islamic Republic's fiercest critics. What made this man, who was once considered the leading advocate of the state doctrine of the 'Guardianship of the Jurist' (velayat-e faqih) and the designated successor to the supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini, change his views? How did his political theory incorporate issues such as civil rights, pluralism and popular participation? And what influence did his ideas have on others? Ulrich von Schwerin's book answers these questions by examining the evolution of Montazeri's political thought over the course of five decades, and studies his role in the discourse on religion and politics in Iran. In doing so, he sheds a new light on some of the most crucial events and vital protagonists of recent Iranian history.

The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics

The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics PDF Author: John L. Esposito
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190631937
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 701

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics, with contributions from prominent scholars and specialists, provides a comprehensive analysis of what we know and where we are in the study of political Islam.

Power and Change in Iran

Power and Change in Iran PDF Author: Daniel Brumberg
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780253020765
Category : Iran
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
This volume provides an unparalleled and timely look at political, social, economic, and ideological dynamics in contemporary Iran. Through chapters on social welfare and privatization, university education, the role and authority of the Supreme Leader, the rule of law, the evolving electoral system, and the intense debate over human rights within and outside the regime, the contributors offer a comprehensive overview of Iranian politics. Their case studies reveal a society whose multiple vectors of contestation, negotiation, and competition are creating possibilities for transformation that are yet to be realized but whose outcome will affect the Islamic Republic, the region, and relations with the United States.

Khomeini

Khomeini PDF Author: Baqer Moin
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1466893060
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 469

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Book Description
The Ayatollah Khomeini was the most radical Muslim leader of this age. In transforming himself from a traditional Muslim theologian into the charismatic Iranian ruler who took on the world, Khomeini launched an Islamic revival movement that, with the collapse of communism, quickly evolved for some as the centre-piece in the pantheon of western demonology, and for others as the inspiration for spiritual and political rebirth. Whether viewed as a hero by his supporters or as a villain by his enemies, Khomeini was undoubtedly one of the seminal figures of the twentieth century, whose influence will extend some way into the new millennium. Baqer Moin here explores how and why this frail octogenarian, dressed in the traditional robes of a Muslim cleric, overthrew the secular Shah of Iran and became the spiritual leader of a new and militant Islamic regime. Still an enigma in the West, Khomeini transformed the Middle East and the world. But where did the man come from? What was his childhood and family background? What lay behind his implacable opposition to the Shah? What role did the turbulent events in Iran during his youth play in shaping Khomeini's political perceptions? What changed him from an obscure traditional theologian with mystical and poetic inclinations into a combative and highly vengeful radical? How will his vision of an international community of Muslims, a kind of Islamic Internationale, affect the Middle East? Drawing on many exclusive personal interviews with Khomeini's associates, on unpublished new materials and on the author's firsthand experience in Islamic seminaries, this biography provides a fascinating, well-documented and highly accessible analysis of the life and thought of one of the most controversial leaders of the late twentieth century.

A Critical Introduction to Khomeini

A Critical Introduction to Khomeini PDF Author: Arshin Adib-Moghaddam
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107729068
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
As the architect of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini remains one of the most inspirational and enigmatic figures of the twentieth century. The revolution placed Iran at the forefront of Middle East politics and the Islamic revival. Twenty years after his death, Khomeini is revered as a spiritual and political figurehead in Iran and in large swathes of the Islamic world, while in the West he is remembered by many as a dictator and the instigator of Islamist confrontation. Arshin Adib-Moghaddam brings together distinguished and emerging scholars in this comprehensive volume, which covers all aspects of Khomeini's life and critically examines Khomeini the politician, the philosopher, and the spiritual leader, while considering his legacy in Iran and further afield in other parts of the Islamic world and the West. Written by scholars from varying disciplines, the book will prove invaluable to students and general readers interested in the life and times of Khomeini and the politics that he inspired.