Sa\u00efd Amir Arjomand<\/p>\n
The Sociology of Shi\u2019ite Islam is the collection of scholarly articles by a historical sociologist applying a Weberian sociological framework for the historical analysis of Twelver Shi\u2018i Islam. This book encompasses the comprehensive socio-historical analysis of Twelver Shi\u2018i Islam from its sectarian formation in the eighth century to its establishment as the national religion of the Safavid Empire in the sixteenth century and down to the Islamic revolution and the formation of a Shi\u2018i theocratic state in Iran in the late twentieth century.<\/p>\n
This book is comprised of nineteen essays grouped into four parts. The first part addresses the historical formation of Shi\u2018ite Islam from the eighth to thirteenth centuries CE. Author Sa\u00efd Arjomand builds his sociological framework upon some Weberian ideas\u2014especially the idea that world religions provide solutions to the problem of meaning. More specifically, religions are salvific solutions to the troubling question of how human suffering can be reconciled with the justice of God\/divinity. The unique Twelver Shi\u2018i salvific solution to this problem of meaning is the combination of three main elements: 1) imamate as the constant divine guidance after the death of Prophet Muhammad; 2) occultation of the Twelfth Imam; and 3) a universal redemptive theology of martyrdom based on the tragic death of Prophet\u2019s grandson, Husayn in 680 CE. All of these elements were lacking in mainstream Sunni Islam…….<\/p>\n
The second part of the book, which contains four essays, is concerned with the spread and establishment of Twelver Shi\u2018ism in Iran from the Safavids (1501-1772) to the Islamic revolution of 1979. Twelver Shi\u2018i Islam under the Safavids gradually transformed from a sectarian minority religion into the national religion of the majority of Iranians. Along with this transformation, jurists as the bearer of Twelver Shi\u2018i Islam were also gradually transformed into a hierocratic organization. Under the Qajar period and due to the lapse of the quasi-sacrality of kingship, a transition occurred from \u201cCaesaropapism\u201d to the state-hierocracy dualism. With Ruhollah Khomeini, however, there is a kind of return to the \u201cCaesaropapism\u201d of Safavids, this time in the form of theocratic monarchy.<\/p>\n
The third part of the book, with its four essays, is devoted to the structural changes in the bearers of the Twelver Shi\u2018i Islam. While in the formative period of Twelver Shi\u2018ism\u2014the eighth and ninth centuries\u2014the bearers of Shi\u2018ism were charismatic holy Imams themselves. In the time of the Lesser Occultation they became the emissaries of the Hidden Imam, and in the time of the Occultation this function was first assumed by traditionists (Muhaddithun) such as Muhammad ibn al-Kulayni and ibn Babawayh, and later on by theologians such as al-Mofid and Nasir al-Tusi, and then is finally left to jurists.<\/p>\n
The essays in part 4\u2014the final part of the book\u2014discuss the socio-political back-and-forth movement of Twelver Shi\u2018ism between revolution and constitution. The first Shi\u2018i revolution was the change brought about by the Safavids. The second was the revolutionary changes made by the 1979 Islamic Revolution and these changes had a profound effect on the Shi\u2018i political theology. Focusing on the 1979 revolution, Arjomand argues that the lay and cleric intellectual dissidents, such as Mojtahed Shabestari, Moshen Kadivar, and Abdolkarim Soroush, shake the theoretical foundation built upon by Khomeini and his revolutionary followers.<\/p>\n
Except for chapters 5 and 9, all other chapters had been published elsewhere in the form of book chapters or journal articles. In at least one case, however, the original article seems to be much more meticulously edited than the one included in this book. Chapter 19 concludes that, \u201cthe complicated constitutional politics of Iran under President Kh\u0101tami is the subject of a different paper I presented in Budapest last week\u201d (453). Here, it is not clear to what paper \u201cthe last week\u201d is referring to. The original article, however, was clear enough, \u201cthe complicated constitutional politics of Iran under President Kh\u00e0tami is the subject of a different article.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite Arjomand\u2019s claim that granting the title of \u201cImam\u201d to an ayatollah before Imam Khomeini was \u201ctotally unprecedented in the history of the Twelver Shi\u02bfa who had restricted the title to the holy Imams\u201d (187), it was not totally unprecedented. The author himself reports that around a quarter-century before Khomeini, Muhammad Khalisi was referred to by his followers as Imam (374). One might add to this the case of Musa Sadr who was widely referred to as an Imam before Khomeini. This book also has a number of typos, repeated and randomly underlined words, and punctuation errors.<\/p>\n
Sociology of Shi\u02bfite Islam: Collected Essays is a must-read book full of insights for both specialists as well as those interested in the history of Shi\u2018i Islam.
\nAbout the Reviewer(s):<\/p>\n
Yaser Mirdamadi is a doctoral candidate in Islamic and Middle East studies at the University of Edinburgh.<\/p>\n
About the Author(s)\/Editor(s)\/Translator(s):
\nSa\u00efd Amir Arjomand (Ph.D, University of Chicago, 1980) is Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology and Director of the Stony Brook Institute for Global Studies, President of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies and Editor of the Journal of Persianate Studies.<\/p>\n
Arjomand, Sa\u00efd Amir, Sociology of Shi’ite Islam, Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, August 2016, 498 pages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sa\u00efd Amir Arjomand The Sociology of Shi\u2019ite Islam is the collection of scholarly articles by a historical sociologist applying a Weberian sociological framework for the historical analysis of Twelver Shi\u2018i Islam. This book encompasses the comprehensive socio-historical analysis of Twelver<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n