Description
Book SynopsisMohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar traces half a century of shifting Islamist doctrines, demonstrating that religious narratives in Iran can change rapidly, frequently, and dramatically in accordance with elites’ threat perceptions.
Religious Statecraft constructs a new picture of Iranian politics in which power drives Islamist ideology.
Trade ReviewContinually changing narratives, based on individual, factional, or regime interests, rather than any consistent or immutable commitment to Islamic teachings and principles, define the ebbs and flows of Iran's postrevolutionary politics. As Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar puts it, 'there is no such thing as political Islam. There is, however, a politics of Islam.' Through meticulous and extensive use of official, semiofficial, independent, and oppositional media, both in Iran and abroad, Religious Statecraft illustrates and persuasively proves this argument. -- Ali Banuazizi, Boston College
Table of ContentsPreface
Introduction: The Politics of Islam
1. The Factional Causes and Religious Consequences of Politics
2. A Shi’a Theory of the State
3. The “Islamic” Revolution
4. Institutionalizing
Velayat-e Faqih5. The Hostage Crisis: The Untold Account of the Communist Threat
6. Religion and Elite Competition in the Iran–Iraq War
7. The Metamorphosis of Islamism After the War
8. The Factional Battle Over Khomeini’s
Velayat-e Faqih9. Media, Religion, and the Green Movement
10. Historical Revisionism and Regional Threats
11. The Domestic Sources of Nuclear Politics
Conclusion
Notes
Index
