Modern Capitalism and Islamic Ideology in Iran PDF Download

Author: Cyrus Bina
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Beginning with an historical perspective, the text moves to examine dimensions of "Islamic Revolution" and ideology, oil, economic crisis and Islamic banking, and post-war political and infrastructural reconstruction in Iran.

Author: Cyrus Bina
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781349125968
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
Beginning with an historical perspective, the text moves to examine dimensions of "Islamic Revolution" and ideology, oil, economic crisis and Islamic banking, and post-war political and infrastructural reconstruction in Iran.

Author: Anoushiravan Ehteshami
Publisher: Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research
ISBN: 9948143604
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 15

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Book Description
Iran’s 1979 revolution has stood out as one of the 20th century’s most intriguing and unusual social uprisings. This revolution defied the socialist radicalism of its day, which had been making in-roads as the “non-capitalist path to development” in several African and Asian countries, and had created social change without reliance on the East or in the name of socialism. It had, by the same token, rejected the Western premises of liberalism and individualism as its guiding principles. Its leader, an aging cleric, even used an apparently alien discourse as he chastised the “great Satan” (United States) for its socio-cultural sins and for its crimes against humanity. In speaking of the plight of the “downtrodden,” and in condemning the alien and morally corrupt values of the uptown living Iranian taghutis, he accused the reigning monarch, a Western-educated urbane man, for taking the country down the “path of Satan”. How could an aging mullah, with little international experience, be challenging the survival of a modern, powerful and internationally well-connected monarchy? How could a cleric, whose views of an Islamic state were arguably abstract at best, proceed to establish a revolutionary Islamic theocracy where there had previously been, apparently, entrenched Western-style modernity? The answers could be sought in a number of places: In the deep-rooted struggle of the Iranian people for freedom which dated back to before the Bolshevik revolution in Russia; the ruling Pahlavi establishment’s inability to manage the economic and cultural crisis that engulfed Iran in the 1970s; the disenchantment of the monarchy’s potential middle class and bourgeois allies; the critical role of a radicalized clerical group which emerged to provide a legitimate alternative to the Pahlavi order; and finally in the nature of the modern Iranian state itself. Prospects for change are historically good but change is likely to take time. Nor can the direction of change be easily predicted despite the country’s choices increasingly narrowing between that of a naked military regime on the one hand and a pluralistic republic on the other. However, given the country’s vibrant and defiant civil movement and their progressive social democratic program for change, Iran again could become a trendsetter for the rest of the region, were these forces to return to the corridors of power. Having been the first country in the world to have marched political Islam into power in the 20th century, Iran’s people could again be in the long process of trading political Islam for a truly open and democratic system in the 21st century.

Author: Hamid Dabashi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351472356
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 678

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Book Description
Scores of books and articles have been published, addressing one or another aspect of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Missing from this body of scholarship, however, has been a comprehensive analysis of the intellectual and ideological cornerstones of one of the most dramatic revolutions in our time. In this remarkable volume, Hamid Dabashi brings together, in a sustained and engagingly written narrative, the leading revolutionaries who have shaped the ideological disposition of this cataclysmic event. Dabashi has spent over ten years studying the writings, in their original Persian and Arabic, of the most influential Iranian clerics and thinkers.Examining the revolutionary sentiments and ideas of such figures as Jalal Al-e Ahmad, Ali Sharicati, Morteza Motahhari, Sayyad Abolhasan Bani-Sadr, and finally the Ayatollah Khomeini, the work also analyzes the larger historical and theoretical implications of any construction of the Islamic Ideology. Carefully located in the social and intellectual context of the four decades preceding the 1979 revolution, Theology of Discontent is the definitive treatment of the ideological foundations of the Islamic Revolution, with particular attention to the larger, more enduring ramifications of this revolution for radical Islamic revivalism in the entire Muslim world.This volume will be of interest to Islamicists, Middle East historians and specialists, as well as scholars and students of liberation theologies, comparative religious revolutions, and mass collective behavior. Bruce Lawrence of Duke University calls this volume a superb and unprecedented study.... In brilliant figural strokes, he arrays EuroAmerican sociological theory as the crucial backdrop of a deeper understanding of contemporary Iranian history.

Author: Mansoor Moaddel
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231078665
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Thirteen years after the Shah of Iran was swept away in a tide of revolutionary fervor, the cruelty and brutality of the new regime remains shocking. In Class, Politics, and Ideology in the Iranian Revolution, Mansoor Moaddel provides the theoretical underpinnings for a richer and clearer understanding of Iran's tumultuous recent history. Analyzing the causes and processes of the revolution through the prisms of class, politics, and ideology, Moaddel argues that the currently dominant theories of revolution insufficiently address the requisite question of ideology: "Ideology is not simply another factor that adds an increment to the causes of revolution. Ideology is the constitutive feature of revolution." Moaddel explains how revolutionary conditions in Iran were created by a combination of state economic policies favoring international capital - which enraged segments of the powerful bourgeoisie - and fluctuations in the world economy that financially weakened Iran. But the central element of the revolutionary crisis of the late 1970s was the development of Shi'i revolutionary discourse as the dominant ideology. As liberalism and communism declined, the potent discourse of revolutionary Islam - with its martyrdom, its religious rituals, its symbolic structures - formed a powerful conduit for popular mobilization. Karl Marx likened the French Revolution to a gigantic broom which swept away all the "medieval rubbish." Drawing from his abundant theoretical, historical, and sociological knowledge, Moaddel illuminates the process by which the gigantic broom of the Iranian Revolution "swept all the medieval rubbish back in."

Author: Gholam Khiabany
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135894906
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
This book provides an overview of the expansion of the Iranian communication system, examining the political economy of this process and arguing that the nature of Iranian media in general and the press in particular, cannot be understood simply in terms of "Islamic ideology" or the false dichotomy of "modernity" versus "tradition."

Author: Magdalena C. Delgado
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351351737
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 98

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Book Description
Hamid Dabashi’s 1997 work Theology of Discontent reveals a creative thinker capable not only of understanding how an argument is built, but also of redefining old issues in new ways. The Iranian Revolution of 1978–9 was front-page news in the West, and in some ways remains so today. Though it was an uprising against authoritarian royal rule, with a coalition of modernisers and Islamists, the revolution saw the birth of a new Islamic Republic that seemed to reject pro-Western democracy. Dabashi wanted to analyze the real reasons for this change, while examining how Islamic ideologies contributed to the revolution and the republic that followed. Theology of Discontent examines different Islamic thinkers, analyzing how views with seemingly little in common contributed to the modern Iranian belief system. Beyond its insightful analytical dissection of these eight thinkers, Theology of Discontent also shows Dabashi’s creative thinking skills. Reframing the debates about Iran’s relationship with the West, he traced the ways in which Iranian identity formed in reactive opposition to Western ideas. In many ways, Dabashi suggested, Iran was trapped in a cycle of deliberately asserting its difference from the West, a process that was fundamental to the development of its own unique brand of revolutionary Islamism.

Author: Mahmood T. Davari
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134294883
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Ayatollah Murtaza Mutahhari was a significant figure in the movement which brought the Islamic Republic of Iran into being. Mutahhari, a student of Ayatollah Khomeini and particularly close to his mentor, had broad theoretical concerns regarding religion, society and economy. He is generally considered as a prominent contemporary intellectual figure among the Iranian and Shi'ite scholars of the time. This book describes the life and works of this philosopher, jurist, preacher and writer, who was educated in the Qum Seminary and worked in Tehran.

Author: Ziba Mir-Hosseini
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857713752
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
In today's world all eyes are on Iran, which has grappled with an experiment that has had a massive global impact. For some, the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79 was the triumph of a modern, political Islam, heralding Muslim justice and economic prosperity. Others, including many of the original revolutionaries, saw religious fanatics attempting to roll back time by creating a despotic theocracy. Either way, the Iranian Revolution changed the Muslim world. It not only inspired the Muslim masses but also reinvigorated intellectual debates on the nature and possibilities of an Islamic state. The new 'Islamic Republic of Iran' combined not just religion and the state, but theocracy and democracy. Yet the revolution's heirs were soon engaged in a protracted struggle over its legacy. Dissident thinkers, from within an Islamic framework, sought a rights-based political order that could accept dissent, tolerance, pluralism, women's rights and civil liberties. Their ideas led directly to the presidency of Mohammad Khatami and, despite their political failure, they did leave a permanent legacy by demystifying Iranian religious politics, and condemning the use of the Shariah to justify autocratic rule. This book tells the story of the reformist movement through the world of Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari. An active supporter of the revolution who became one of the most outspoken critics of theocracy, Eshkevari developed ideas of 'Islamic democratic government', which have attracted considerable attention in Iran and elsewhere. In presenting a selection of Eshkevari's writings, this book reveals the intellectual and political trajectory of a Muslim thinker and his attempts to reconcile Islam with reform and democracy. As such it makes a highly original contribution to our understanding of the difficult social and political issues confronting the Islamic world today.

Author: Charles River Editors
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781500657642
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description
*Includes pictures *Profiles Ayatollah Khomeini and his ideology and leadership before, during, and after the Revolution *Highlights the causes, key events, and effects of the Revolution *Includes footnotes and a bibliography for further reading The Iranian Revolution of 1979 has been described as an epochal event, called the peak of 20th century Islamic revivalism and revitalization, and analyzed as the one key incident that continues to impact politics across Iran, the Middle East, and the even the world as a whole. As a phenomenon that led to the creation of the first modern Islamic Republic in the world, the revolution marked the victory of Islam over secular politics, and Iran quickly became the aspiring model for Islamic fundamentalists and revivalists across the globe, regardless of nationality, culture, or religious sect. When Ayatollah Khomeini was declared ruler in December 1979 and the judicial system originally modeled on that of the West was swiftly replaced by one purely based on Islamic law, much of the world was in shock that such a religiously driven revolution could succeed so quickly, especially when it had such sweeping consequences beyond the realm of religion. Revolutions are nothing new, but most revolutions, especially those in the West, have tended to remain secular. Even when religious ideology and themes were present, as in the English Civil War of the 1640s, these were not dominant driving forces behind the revolution, nor were they a significant factor in its immediate results. Even outside the West, this has mostly proven to be true; the nationalist revolution and war for independence in Turkey, led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was a battle for separation of church and state that called for democratic principles of equality, and the result was the formation of a modern and secular Turkey. However, the revolution that swept across Iran proved to be starkly different from past revolutions of the world. Its most influential leaders came from the orthodox clergy, and its most pronounced important goals were the ouster of the monarch, who was deemed anti-Islam and blasphemous, and the complete return of Iranian government and society to fundamental Islamic principles. As one of the leading scholars on Iran, Nikki R. Keddie, wrote, this revolution was "aberrant," refusing to fit into the theoretical and academic ideas of what modern revolutions should be like. Yet, there is no doubt that the Iranian Revolution ultimately led to a complete overhaul and restructuring of the age-old political, economic, social, religious, and ideological orders in Iran. Former Iranian Finance Minister Jahangir Amuzegar put it aptly, "The historical oddity, if not uniqueness, of the Iranian revolution can be seen in its four salient features: its unforeseen rapid rise; its wide base of urban support; its vague ideological character; and, above all, its ultimate singular objective, to oust the Shah." Furthermore, while the focus of the revolution was primarily about Islam, the revolution was also colored by disdain for the West, distaste for autocracy, and a yearning for religious and cultural identity. Though these are features of many other revolutions, the Iranian one was particularly unprecedented in the suddenness and rapidity of its occurrence, as well as the sheer amount of mass popular support it gained. Much of the world, including the U.S. and its Western allies, were initially caught off guard by the sudden occurrence and unanticipated strength of the revolution. The Islamic Revolution That Reshaped the Middle East explores the events leading up to the Iranian Revolution, as well as the political, economic, social, and religious characteristics of Iran before 1979. It also looks at the revolution and the lasting influence it has had both domestically and globally.