Revolutions of the End of Time: Apocalypse, Revolution and Reaction in the Persianate World

Revolutions of the End of Time: Apocalypse, Revolution and Reaction in the Persianate World PDF Author: Saïd Amir Arjomand
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004517154
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
A study of Mahdist movements focusing on abrupt discontinuities, revolutions as apocalyptic breaks, and on the reaction of the ruling authorities as counter-revolution, as reversion to continuity within a single civilizational zone defined by its cultural unity as the Persianate world.

Revolutions of the End of Time: Apocalypse, Revolution and Reaction in the Persianate World

Revolutions of the End of Time: Apocalypse, Revolution and Reaction in the Persianate World PDF Author: Saïd Amir Arjomand
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004517154
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
A study of Mahdist movements focusing on abrupt discontinuities, revolutions as apocalyptic breaks, and on the reaction of the ruling authorities as counter-revolution, as reversion to continuity within a single civilizational zone defined by its cultural unity as the Persianate world.

Messianism and Sociopolitical Revolution in Medieval Islam

Messianism and Sociopolitical Revolution in Medieval Islam PDF Author: Said Amir Arjomand
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520387589
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
The emergence of apocalyptic messianism from the Maccabean Nativist Revolution -- Muhammad's constitutive revolution and its apocalyptic roots -- Civil wars and the emergence of apocalyptic Mahdism -- Self-destruction of the Umayyad Empire -- The process of the Hashemite Revolution -- The Integrative and centralizing consequences of the Abbasid realized Mahdism -- Apocalyptic messianism in the Fatimid Revolution -- The Almohad Revolution of Mahdi Ibn Tumart and the Berbers -- The Islamicate conceptions of revolution.

After Khomeini

After Khomeini PDF Author: Said Amir Arjomand
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199739552
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
For many Americans, Iran is our most dangerous enemy--part of George W. Bush's "axis of evil" even before the appearance of Ahmadinejad. But what is the reality? How did Ahmadinejad rise to power, and how much power does he really have? What are the chances of normalizing relations with Iran? In After Khomeini, Sa?d Amir Arjomand paints a subtle and perceptive portrait of contemporary Iran. This work, a sequel to Arjomand's acclaimed The Turban for the Crown, examines Iran under the successors of Ayatollah Khomeini up to the present day. He begins, as the Islamic Republic did, with Khomeini, offering a brilliant capsule biography of the man who masterminded the revolution that overthrew the Shah. Arjomand draws clear distinctions between the moderates of the initial phrase of the revolution, radicals, pragmatists, and hardliners, the latter best exemplified by Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Taking a chronological and thematic approach, he traces the emergence and consolidation of the present system of collective rule by clerical councils and the peaceful transition to dual leadership by the ayatollah as the supreme guide and the subordinate president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He explains the internal political quarrels among Khomeini's heirs as a struggle over his revolutionary legacy. And he outlines how the ruling clerical elite and the nation's security forces are interdependent politically and economically, speculating on the potential future role of the Revolutionary Guards. Bringing the work up to current political events, Arjomand analyzes Iran's foreign policy as well, including the impact of the fall of Communism on Iran and Ahmadinejad's nuclear policy. Few countries loom larger in American foreign relations than Iran. In this rich and insightful account, an expert on Iranian society and politics untangles the complexities of a nation still riding the turbulent wake of one of history's great revolutions.

Late Colonial Sublime

Late Colonial Sublime PDF Author: G. S. Sahota
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810136503
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Taking cues from Walter Benjamin’s fragmentary writings on literary-historical method, Late Colonial Sublime reconstellates the dialectic of Enlightenment across a wide imperial geography, with special focus on the fashioning of neo-epics in Hindi and Urdu literary cultures in British India. Working through the limits of both Marxism and postcolonial critique, this book forges an innovative approach to the question of late romanticism and grounds categories such as the sublime within the dynamic of commodification. While G. S. Sahota takes canonical European critics such as Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer to the outskirts of empire, he reads Indian writers such as Muhammad Iqbal and Jayashankar Prasad in light of the expansion of instrumental rationality and the neotraditional critiques of the West it spurred at the onset of decolonization. By bringing together distinct literary canons—both metropolitan and colonial, hegemonic and subaltern, Western and Eastern, all of which took shape upon the common realities of imperial capitalism—Late Colonial Sublime takes an original dialectical approach. It experiments with fragments, parallaxes, and constellational form to explore the aporias of modernity as well as the possible futures they may signal in our midst. A bold intervention into contemporary debates that synthesizes a wealth of sources, this book will interest readers and scholars in world literature, critical theory, postcolonial criticism, and South Asian studies.

From Nationalism to Revolutionary Islam

From Nationalism to Revolutionary Islam PDF Author: Saïd Amir Arjomand
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791495248
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
This study of dominant social movements in the Middle and Near East by a group of social scientists and historians is the first attempt to bring nationalism and the contemporary Islamic movements into a unified thematic perspective. The process of national economic and political integration supplies the unifying context for the analyses of the various social movements to which it gives rise. The examination of nationalism in general, and of the rise of the Arab nationalist movement in Greater Syria in the early decades of the century in particular, is followed by a close analysis of the interplay of ethnic identity and Islam in the local politics of the tribal North-Western Frontier Province of Pakistan. The politicization of Islam in Algeria, Turkey and Egypt is then explored and explained, together with the characteristics of the emergent Islamic movements. The last three essays cover Shiite Islam in Iran since the opening decade of the century, focusing on various components and aspects of the Islamic movement which culminated in the revolution of 1979. The case-studies thus chart the recent upsurge of revolutionary Islam and the concomitant decline of nationalist movements in the contemporary Middle and Near East. The introduction offers an analytical perspective for the integration of this major theme which is forcefully suggested by the juxtaposition of the essays.

Iran in the 20th Century

Iran in the 20th Century PDF Author: Touraj Atabaki
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 085771368X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Political upheaval has marked Iran's history throughout the twentieth century. Wars, revolutions, coups and the impact of modernism have shaped Iran's historiography, as they have the country's history. Originally based on oral and written sources, which underpinned traditional genealogical and dynastic history, Iran's historiography was transformed in the early 20th century with the development of a 'new' school of presenting history. Here emphasis shifted from the anecdotal story-telling genre to social, political, economic, cultural and religious history-writing. A new understanding of the nation state and the importance of identity and foreign relations in defining Iran's place in the modern world all served to transform the perspective of Iranian historiography. Touraj Atabaki here brings together a range of rich contributions from international scholars who cover the leading themes of the historiography of 20th-century Iran, including constitutional reform and revolution, literature and architecture, identity, women and gender, nationalism, modernism, Orientalism, Marxism and Islamism.

Sociology of Shiʿite Islam

Sociology of Shiʿite Islam PDF Author: Saïd Amir Arjomand
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004326278
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
Sociology of Shiʿite Islam is a comprehensive study of the development of Shiʿism from its sectarian formation in the eighth century through its establishment as Iran’s national religion in the sixteenth to the Islamic revolution Iran in the twentieth century.

Apocalyptic Islam and Iranian Shi'ism

Apocalyptic Islam and Iranian Shi'ism PDF Author: Abbas Amanat
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857710443
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Interest in Shi'i Islam is running at unprecedented levels. International tensions over Iran, where the largest number of Shi'i Muslims live, as well as the political resurgence of the Shi'i in Iraq and Lebanon, have created an urgent need to understand the background, beliefs and motivations of this dynamic vision of Islam. Abbas Amanat is one of the leading scholars of Shi'ism. And in this powerful book, a showcase for some of his most influential writing in the field, he addresses the colourful and diverse history of Shi' Islam in both premodern and contemporary times.Focusing specifically on the importance of apocalypticism in the development of modern Shi'i theology, he shows how an immersion in messianic ideas has shaped the conservative character of much Shi'i thinking, and has prevented it from taking a more progressive course. Tracing the continuity of apocalyptic trends from the Middle Ages to the present, Amanat addresses such topics as the early influence on Shi'ism of Zoroastrianism; manifestations of apocalyptic ideology during the Iranian Revolution of 1979; and the rise of the Shi'i clerical establishment during the 19th and 20th centuries. His book will be an essential resource for students and scholars of both religious studies and Middle Eastern history.

Minorities in Iran

Minorities in Iran PDF Author: R. Elling
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137047801
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Book Description
Based on the premise that nationalism is a dominant factor in Iranian identity politics despite the significant changes brought about by the Islamic Revolution, this cross-disciplinary work investigates the languages of nationalism in contemporary Iran through the prism of the minority issue.

The Political Dimensions of Religion

The Political Dimensions of Religion PDF Author: Saïd Amir Arjomand
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791495256
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
This volume explores the relationship between religion and politics. It brings a varied sample of richly detailed comparative and case studies together with a set of analytical paradigms in an integrated framework. It is a major statement on a timely subject, and a plea for the acknowledgment of normative pluralism as firmly rooted in the history of religion. The editor shows that the fact of political diversity in the history of world religions compels the acceptance of pluralism as a normative principle.