Search results for ""Author Ali M. Ansari""

Current developments in Iran are forcing a fundamentalreassessment of the relationship between Islam and democracyand the processes of democratization in the Muslim world.While some scholars have argued that 'Islam' and 'democracy'are essentially incompatible, others have sought to portraythe advent of political Islam as a transitional phenomenonto be overcome before democratization can take root. Ansari,in tracing the historical roots of political development inIran, argues that what is in fact taking place is an intellectualsynthesis of ideas drawing from both Western and traditionalIranian norms. The author analyzes the origins and dynamicof this development, and discusses the possible consequencesfor Iran and the region, as well as Iran's relationship with thewider world. This new edition includes political developmentsin Iran since 2016. It looks at the increasing polarity of viewsand the changing nature of 'reformism' in light of successivesetbacks and growing international tensions.

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Carole and Robert Hillenbrand are acclaimed academics who have made immense contributions to the fields of Islamic history and art history. The respect and affection of the academic community towards them is legendary. For these two volumes, editors Ali Ansari and Melanie Gibson have gathered a wide-ranging selection of scholarly essays by some of their longstanding colleagues as well as by recent students who now occupy academic positions across the world. The volume dedicated to Carole Hillenbrand includes eleven articles on subjects which include the elusive Fatimid caliph al-Zafr, a Crusader raid on Mecca, and the Persian bureaucrat Mirza Saleh Shirazi’s History of England.

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Both revolutionary and reactionary, the Islamic Republic of Iran has long been a conundrum for Western observers. A theocracy that aspires to a popular mandate; an anti-colonial state with imperial pretensions of its own: modern Iran is in many ways a reflection of its struggle to reconcile its traditions with the challenges of modernity. In this book, Ali Ansari takes readers on a journey through Iran’s turbulent history. Beginning with the country’s fall from grace as a Great Power in the nineteenth century, he explores its repeated attempts to modernize in a series of revolutionary movements from the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 to the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the civil unrest that is breaking out today. In so doing, he reveals how the experience of history and Iran’s encounter with ‘modernity’ have come to define it – and set it on an authoritarian path in confrontation with the West and, often, its own people.

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A quarter of a century on from the revolution of 1979 there is an ongoing political struggle within Iran between traditionalists and modernists, with the ever-younger average age of the population playing a dynamic role. And on the international stage, the big issues remain Iranâs hostility towards Israel and the development of nuclear power in the face of US and international opposition. This is all in addition to the oil question and the strategic interest of Russia, an issue which harks back to the nineteenth century but remains unresolved, as well as Iranâs concern about the proper stewardship of the holy places of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem.This four-volume collection brings together for the first time the very best and most influential scholarship on the politics of modern Iran. It is an invaluable source of reference for both scholars and students alike, and will allow those developing an interest in Iran quickly and easily to access the highest quality scholarship i

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The Islamic Republic of Iran's ongoing nuclear programme has provoked a major and menacing crisis in its relations with the US and other Western powers. Ali Ansari, a Briton of Iranian origin, argues that the crisis is a symptom of broader, long-term fissures in US-Iranian relations, and in Confronting Iran he seeks to disentangle the myths that are at the bottom of this gulf in understanding which is compounded by the nature of the two states, their foreign policy establishments and the fraught history of their relations since the 1979 revolution. Ansari reviews the historical antecedents of the crisis, in particular US-Iranian relations since 9/11 and attempts by the EU to broker a settlement acceptable to all parties. He argues that the European position has been dictated as much by its relations with the US in the wake of the invasion of Iraq as by domestic politics in Iran, and he concludes by assessing the election of Mahmud Ahmadinejad as President and its likely impact on the view from Tehran and Washington. This account of a potential flashpoint in relations between the Muslim world and the West could not be more timely.

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Both revolutionary and reactionary, the Islamic Republic of Iran has long been a conundrum for Western observers. A theocracy that aspires to a popular mandate; an anti-colonial state with imperial pretensions of its own: modern Iran is in many ways a reflection of its struggle to reconcile its traditions with the challenges of modernity. In this book, Ali Ansari takes readers on a journey through Iran’s turbulent history. Beginning with the country’s fall from grace as a Great Power in the nineteenth century, he explores its repeated attempts to modernize in a series of revolutionary movements from the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 to the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the civil unrest that is breaking out today. In so doing, he reveals how the experience of history and Iran’s encounter with ‘modernity’ have come to define it – and set it on an authoritarian path in confrontation with the West and, often, its own people.

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Collected essays honoring the work of British professors Carole and Robert Hillenbrand. Carole and Robert Hillenbrand are legendary British professors, both of whom have made immense contributions to the fields of Islamic history and art history, and they are highly respected and beloved by the academic community. For these two volumes, editors Melanie Gibson and Ali Ansari have gathered an eclectic mix of scholarly contributions by colleagues and by some of their most recent students who now occupy positions in universities worldwide. The eleven articles in the volume dedicated to Carole Hillenbrand include research on a range of topics, including the elusive Fatimid caliph al-Zafir, a crusader raid on Mecca, and the Persian bureaucrat Mirza Saleh Shirazi's history of England. In Robert Hillenbrand's volume, the thirteen articles include studies of a rare eighth-century metal dish with Nilotic scenes, Chinese Qur'ans, the process of image-making in both theory and practice, and a shrine in Mosul destroyed by ISIS.

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Robert Grant Watson was a British diplomat attached to the British Legation in Persia. His A History of Persia, published in 1866, is a detailed account of events in the country in the first half of the nineteenth century, when the foundations of the Qajar dynasty were being laid. Watson uses both European and Persian sources to detail the circumstances of the Qajar rise to rule and recount the tumultuous events of Persia affairs – both foreign and domestic – between 1800 and 1860. This was one of the first books to be written on this specific period and details Persia’s entanglements with European powers, including the war between Persia and Russia, her internal ructions, and the complex dealings of the various treaties and their upsets. The hard-to-find volume is now re-published with a new introduction by the leading scholar of Iranian History, Ali Ansari, who is Professor at St Andrews University in the U.K.

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