Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S0020743823000466
M. Zaman
In his learned and stimulating article that helps frame the contributions to this roundtable while also outlining directions for future work in this area, Nile Green notes the striking fact that it has been nearly a hundred years since the last substantial English survey of the field was attempted. That was M. G. Zubaid Ahmad's “Contribution of India to Arabic Literature,” completed as a PhD dissertation under the supervision of the noted Orientalist Sir Thomas Arnold (d. 1930) at the School of Oriental Studies (as it was then known), University of London, in 1929. It was subsequently published with a preface by another distinguished Orientalist, Sir Hamilton Gibb (d. 1971), and retains some scholarly interest to this day.1 That interest lies not only in the descriptions of the many Arabic-language works it lists—going well beyond Carl Brockelmann's classic Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur in this respect—but also, in hindsight, in the assumptions that guide Ahmad's work. Ahmad believed there was little in the Arabic literature surveyed that showed any originality, partly because there was not much remaining to be said in fields like Qur'anic exegesis, the reported teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (hadith), or law by the time Indian scholars began engaging seriously with these subjects. It was also partly to do with an intellectual decline well underway by the time relevant areas of inquiry had reached India. The intellectual landscape remained unrelieved whether one looked at religious or secular literature, or even at writings in Persian for that matter: “… in spite of the abundance of Persian literature produced in India, nothing original is found in these contributions.”2
尼罗·格林在他那篇博学而又令人振奋的文章中，帮助框定了对这次圆桌会议的贡献，同时也概述了该领域未来工作的方向，他指出了一个惊人的事实，即距离最后一次对该领域进行实质性的英国调查已经有近100年的时间了。那就是m·g·祖拜德·艾哈迈德的《印度对阿拉伯文学的贡献》。1929年，他在著名东方学家托马斯·阿诺德爵士(生于1930年)的指导下，在伦敦大学东方研究学院(当时被称为东方研究学院)完成了博士论文。该书随后由另一位杰出的东方学家汉密尔顿·吉布爵士(Sir Hamilton Gibb, 1971年出版)作序出版，至今仍保留着一些学术兴趣这种兴趣不仅在于它所列举的许多阿拉伯语作品的描述——在这方面远远超出了卡尔·布罗克尔曼的经典《阿拉伯文学概论》——而且，事后看来，还在于指导艾哈迈德工作的假设。艾哈迈德认为，在被调查的阿拉伯文学中，几乎没有什么原创性，部分原因是，当印度学者开始认真研究这些学科时，在《古兰经》注释、先知穆罕默德的教义(圣训)或法律等领域，已经没有多少可说的了。这在一定程度上也与当时相关研究领域到达印度时正在进行的智力衰退有关。无论是宗教文学还是世俗文学，甚至是波斯语作品，知识分子的处境都没有得到缓解:“……尽管印度产生了大量的波斯文学，但在这些贡献中却找不到任何原创的东西。
{"title":"Afterword: Reassessing Arabic in South Asia","authors":"M. Zaman","doi":"10.1017/S0020743823000466","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743823000466","url":null,"abstract":"In his learned and stimulating article that helps frame the contributions to this roundtable while also outlining directions for future work in this area, Nile Green notes the striking fact that it has been nearly a hundred years since the last substantial English survey of the field was attempted. That was M. G. Zubaid Ahmad's “Contribution of India to Arabic Literature,” completed as a PhD dissertation under the supervision of the noted Orientalist Sir Thomas Arnold (d. 1930) at the School of Oriental Studies (as it was then known), University of London, in 1929. It was subsequently published with a preface by another distinguished Orientalist, Sir Hamilton Gibb (d. 1971), and retains some scholarly interest to this day.1 That interest lies not only in the descriptions of the many Arabic-language works it lists—going well beyond Carl Brockelmann's classic Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur in this respect—but also, in hindsight, in the assumptions that guide Ahmad's work. Ahmad believed there was little in the Arabic literature surveyed that showed any originality, partly because there was not much remaining to be said in fields like Qur'anic exegesis, the reported teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (hadith), or law by the time Indian scholars began engaging seriously with these subjects. It was also partly to do with an intellectual decline well underway by the time relevant areas of inquiry had reached India. The intellectual landscape remained unrelieved whether one looked at religious or secular literature, or even at writings in Persian for that matter: “… in spite of the abundance of Persian literature produced in India, nothing original is found in these contributions.”2","PeriodicalId":47340,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Middle East Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":"165 - 170"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46051000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S0020743823000478
Mohsin Ali
This essay surveys the Arabic biographical writing of select South Asian Muslim scholars from the late Mughal to the colonial period to argue that, for scholars participating in transregional networks of hadith scholarship, Arabic biographical writing served purposes distinct from Indo-Persianate biographical writing. South Asian scholars chose to write Arabic histories to access pasts and construct communities that centered the ʿulama’ as a distinct class of Muslims who represented the continuity of Islamicate discursive traditions across time and space. Arabic biographical histories indicate a different sense of temporality and geography than Indo-Persianate histories by both marking the passage of time through the transmission of religious knowledge over generations and mapping transregional scholarly networks.1 However, this did not necessarily entail a disavowal of Indo-Persianate histories that placed greater emphasis on saintly miracles, blessings, and shrines.2 This productive tension between Indo-Arabic and Indo-Persianate writing is missed when only Indo-Persianate texts are examined.
{"title":"The Growth of Arabic Biographical Writing in South Asia from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century","authors":"Mohsin Ali","doi":"10.1017/S0020743823000478","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743823000478","url":null,"abstract":"This essay surveys the Arabic biographical writing of select South Asian Muslim scholars from the late Mughal to the colonial period to argue that, for scholars participating in transregional networks of hadith scholarship, Arabic biographical writing served purposes distinct from Indo-Persianate biographical writing. South Asian scholars chose to write Arabic histories to access pasts and construct communities that centered the ʿulama’ as a distinct class of Muslims who represented the continuity of Islamicate discursive traditions across time and space. Arabic biographical histories indicate a different sense of temporality and geography than Indo-Persianate histories by both marking the passage of time through the transmission of religious knowledge over generations and mapping transregional scholarly networks.1 However, this did not necessarily entail a disavowal of Indo-Persianate histories that placed greater emphasis on saintly miracles, blessings, and shrines.2 This productive tension between Indo-Arabic and Indo-Persianate writing is missed when only Indo-Persianate texts are examined.","PeriodicalId":47340,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Middle East Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":"134 - 138"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45053687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S0020743823000521
Orçun Can Okan
Abstract This article examines interstate competitions over “Syrians” whose legal status as Ottoman subjects was not yet terminated by a peace treaty at the end of World War I. Focusing mainly on occupied Istanbul, it traces French efforts to protect or bring Syrians back home to a “Syria.” Given that Syria was still in the making, the stakes here were high and determined postwar reconfigurations that connected Istanbul and Beirut. I argue that competition over Syrians in occupied Istanbul—especially the wealthier and those with military experience—proved critical in the construction of new diplomatic and legal significance accorded to the categories of “Syria” and “Syrian” in the early 20th century. In addition to offering new insights into the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, the article historicizes projections of imperial influence after World War I and sheds new light on the foundations of French mandate rule in Syria and Lebanon.
{"title":"Competing to Protect: Repatriation and Legal Protection of Syrians in Istanbul under Allied Occupation (1918–1923)","authors":"Orçun Can Okan","doi":"10.1017/S0020743823000521","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743823000521","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines interstate competitions over “Syrians” whose legal status as Ottoman subjects was not yet terminated by a peace treaty at the end of World War I. Focusing mainly on occupied Istanbul, it traces French efforts to protect or bring Syrians back home to a “Syria.” Given that Syria was still in the making, the stakes here were high and determined postwar reconfigurations that connected Istanbul and Beirut. I argue that competition over Syrians in occupied Istanbul—especially the wealthier and those with military experience—proved critical in the construction of new diplomatic and legal significance accorded to the categories of “Syria” and “Syrian” in the early 20th century. In addition to offering new insights into the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, the article historicizes projections of imperial influence after World War I and sheds new light on the foundations of French mandate rule in Syria and Lebanon.","PeriodicalId":47340,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Middle East Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":"67 - 83"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48398824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S002074382300051X
A. Petiwala
On a Saturday afternoon in January 2017, Shah Rukh Khan—Hindi cinema's reigning star of the last thirty years—arrived at Bollywood Parks Dubai to promote his latest film release, Raees (2017). To the crowd of adoring Arab and South Asian fans and journalists who had flocked to the theme park to catch a glimpse of the “Badshah of Bollywood” and brand ambassador of Dubai, SRK unveiled the much-anticipated Arabic version of “Zaalima” (Cruel One), the film's breakout hit song. Rendered in Darija by Moroccan pop artists Abdelfettah Grini and Jamila El Badaoui, this version of “Zaalima” proved an awkward copy of the original, its unwieldy Arabic lyrics molded to fit as tightly within the blueprint melody as possible. “Dīrī fiya al-thiqa, al-gharām hā howa” (Put your confidence in me, for love is here) did not have quite the same ring or seamlessness as the Hindi-Urdu “Main sau martaba dīwāna hua” (I fell in love a hundred times over), with the Arabic line painstakingly crafted to echo the “hua” ending of the Hindi-Urdu.
2017年1月的一个周六下午，印度电影界三十年来的当红明星Shah Rukh Khan抵达迪拜宝莱坞公园，宣传他的最新电影《Raees》（2017）。SRK推出了备受期待的阿拉伯语版《残酷的一个》，这是该片的突破性热门歌曲。摩洛哥流行艺术家Abdelfettah Grini和Jamila El Badaoui用Darija绘制了这一版本的《Zaalima》，事实证明它是原版的笨拙复制品，其笨拙的阿拉伯语歌词被塑造成尽可能紧密地融入蓝图旋律。“Dīrīfiya al-thiqa，al-gharām hāhowa”（相信我，因为爱就在这里）不像印地语-乌尔都语“Main sau martaba Dīwāna hua”（我爱了一百次）那样有戒指或无缝，阿拉伯语的台词是为了呼应印地语-乌尔都语的“hua”结尾而精心制作的。
{"title":"Of Echoes and Utterances: A Brief Sketch of Arabic Hauntings in Hindi Cinema and Song","authors":"A. Petiwala","doi":"10.1017/S002074382300051X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S002074382300051X","url":null,"abstract":"On a Saturday afternoon in January 2017, Shah Rukh Khan—Hindi cinema's reigning star of the last thirty years—arrived at Bollywood Parks Dubai to promote his latest film release, Raees (2017). To the crowd of adoring Arab and South Asian fans and journalists who had flocked to the theme park to catch a glimpse of the “Badshah of Bollywood” and brand ambassador of Dubai, SRK unveiled the much-anticipated Arabic version of “Zaalima” (Cruel One), the film's breakout hit song. Rendered in Darija by Moroccan pop artists Abdelfettah Grini and Jamila El Badaoui, this version of “Zaalima” proved an awkward copy of the original, its unwieldy Arabic lyrics molded to fit as tightly within the blueprint melody as possible. “Dīrī fiya al-thiqa, al-gharām hā howa” (Put your confidence in me, for love is here) did not have quite the same ring or seamlessness as the Hindi-Urdu “Main sau martaba dīwāna hua” (I fell in love a hundred times over), with the Arabic line painstakingly crafted to echo the “hua” ending of the Hindi-Urdu.","PeriodicalId":47340,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Middle East Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":"159 - 164"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41825724","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S0020743823000028
Tamara Maatouk
Abstract Many scholars have addressed the 1967 war in their studies, exploring its origins and aftermath, mostly in the context of diplomacy, the military, or regional and Cold War politics. Studies dealing with the war's repercussions on social, intellectual, and cultural life in Egypt are substantial as well. Yet the scholarship dedicated primarily to the study of emotions on the heels of the war remains scarce and disproportionate to the magnitude of the defeat. By juxtaposing films such as al-Ard (The Land, 1970), al-Ikhtiyar (The Choice, 1971), and al-ʿUsfur (The Sparrow, 1974), all directed by Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine, with contemporaneous essays, films, songs, interviews, and the press, I examine the different emotional responses of Chahine and, by extension and association, Egyptian cineasts and critics on the heels of the defeat, tracing their change between June 1967 and October 1973, when Egypt retaliated by launching an attack on Israeli positions in the Sinai Peninsula, and their possible connection to the existing understandings of the defeat at the time.
{"title":"On the Heels of 1967: Chahine, Cinema, and Emotional Response(s) to the Defeat","authors":"Tamara Maatouk","doi":"10.1017/S0020743823000028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743823000028","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Many scholars have addressed the 1967 war in their studies, exploring its origins and aftermath, mostly in the context of diplomacy, the military, or regional and Cold War politics. Studies dealing with the war's repercussions on social, intellectual, and cultural life in Egypt are substantial as well. Yet the scholarship dedicated primarily to the study of emotions on the heels of the war remains scarce and disproportionate to the magnitude of the defeat. By juxtaposing films such as al-Ard (The Land, 1970), al-Ikhtiyar (The Choice, 1971), and al-ʿUsfur (The Sparrow, 1974), all directed by Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine, with contemporaneous essays, films, songs, interviews, and the press, I examine the different emotional responses of Chahine and, by extension and association, Egyptian cineasts and critics on the heels of the defeat, tracing their change between June 1967 and October 1973, when Egypt retaliated by launching an attack on Israeli positions in the Sinai Peninsula, and their possible connection to the existing understandings of the defeat at the time.","PeriodicalId":47340,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Middle East Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":"25 - 42"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43111710","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/s0020743823000326
Maryam Alemzadeh
IRGC differ from other revolutionary militias in how it combined faith and firepower? Were the Revolutionary Guards able to reach a balanced fusion, one that propelled them to the heights of power in Iran ’ s political system? Or did they follow the historically tested path of taming revolutionary passion — tied to Shi ʿ i faith, in this case — in the service of pro-fessionalization? I believe that the IRGC is a rich case for studying this dilemma, and Tracy Samuel ’ s book provides invaluable material for anyone thinking about it
{"title":"The Unfinished History of the Iran-Iraq War: Faith, Firepower, and Iran's Revolutionary Guards Annie Tracy Samuel (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2022). Pp. 320. £75.00 hardback. ISBN: 9781108478427","authors":"Maryam Alemzadeh","doi":"10.1017/s0020743823000326","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0020743823000326","url":null,"abstract":"IRGC differ from other revolutionary militias in how it combined faith and firepower? Were the Revolutionary Guards able to reach a balanced fusion, one that propelled them to the heights of power in Iran ’ s political system? Or did they follow the historically tested path of taming revolutionary passion — tied to Shi ʿ i faith, in this case — in the service of pro-fessionalization? I believe that the IRGC is a rich case for studying this dilemma, and Tracy Samuel ’ s book provides invaluable material for anyone thinking about it","PeriodicalId":47340,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Middle East Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":"194 - 196"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45174847","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S0020743823000545
Talha Köseoğlu
Abstract This paper introduces mukaddesatçılık as a Cold War ideological position that reconciles Turkish nationalism, religious conservatism, and Islamist revivalism. Mukaddesatçılık channels senses of disempowerment and alienation among people with Islamic and nationalistic sensibilities to a sense of ressentiment against the Turkish modernization process. The paper analyzes mukaddesatçılık's ideational and emotional components based on the writings of Necip Fazıl Kısakürek. In addition to being the name-father of the concept, Kısakürek was distinguished from other Islam-inspired conservative intellectuals by his appeal to popular mobilization around mukaddesatçı ideology through his eloquent and powerful speeches and poems. The paper argues that Kısakürek's mukaddesatçılık reconstructed Muslimness as the political identity of the popular masses, who are the supposed victims of the Turkish modernization process, to mobilize them against the so-called Western-minded modernizing elite. Mukaddesatçılık informs the current populist policies of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government that seek to maintain the divisive polarization between religious and secular identities.
{"title":"Mukaddesatçılık: A Cold War Ideology of Muslim Turkish Ressentiment","authors":"Talha Köseoğlu","doi":"10.1017/S0020743823000545","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743823000545","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper introduces mukaddesatçılık as a Cold War ideological position that reconciles Turkish nationalism, religious conservatism, and Islamist revivalism. Mukaddesatçılık channels senses of disempowerment and alienation among people with Islamic and nationalistic sensibilities to a sense of ressentiment against the Turkish modernization process. The paper analyzes mukaddesatçılık's ideational and emotional components based on the writings of Necip Fazıl Kısakürek. In addition to being the name-father of the concept, Kısakürek was distinguished from other Islam-inspired conservative intellectuals by his appeal to popular mobilization around mukaddesatçı ideology through his eloquent and powerful speeches and poems. The paper argues that Kısakürek's mukaddesatçılık reconstructed Muslimness as the political identity of the popular masses, who are the supposed victims of the Turkish modernization process, to mobilize them against the so-called Western-minded modernizing elite. Mukaddesatçılık informs the current populist policies of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government that seek to maintain the divisive polarization between religious and secular identities.","PeriodicalId":47340,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Middle East Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":"84 - 105"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41957173","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S002074382300034X
Gregory Brew
The Islamic Revolution of 1978–79 is often characterized by scholars as a sudden and violent break, the moment when Iran’s political development took an abrupt turn in a new and revolutionary direction, away from the Westernized modernism of the Pahlavi era toward Khomeini’s brand of political Islamism and vilāyat-i faqīh, or “Guardianship of the Jurist,” the system of government adopted by Iran in the wake of the revolution. In Iran’s Quiet Revolution: The Downfall of the Pahlavi State, Ali Mirsepassi argues that this break was not quite as sudden as we might believe, and that the apparent raison d’être of the shah’s regime was thoroughly, and, in many cases, deliberately, undermined by Pahlavi elites who embraced forms and discourses of gharbzadegi, or “Westoxification,” and antimodernism in the years prior to the Islamic Revolution. Mirsepassi illustrates how a “cultural and discursive shift in Iranian political culture” occurred over the course of the 1960s and 1970s (p. 4). This “Quiet Revolution” was grounded in Heideggerian anxieties surrounding Iran’s encounter with modernity. It drew from distinct currents of Iranian social and political thought, as well as the general antimodernism spreading through Western intellectual circles. Versions of gharbzadegi were adopted by Pahlavi elites, and even the shah himself, to delegitimize liberalism and undermine the regime’s opponents on the Left and among moderates. Although some of the elites Mirsepassi examines seem to have held sincere doubts regarding modernity’s viability, he generally characterizes their efforts in cynical terms, as attempts “to foster national hegemony for one’s own cause and destroy opposing nationmaking ventures” (p. 4). Embracing mysticism and a vision of national identity grounded in pastoral mythology was, as Mirsepassi sees it, an expression of insecurity and a massive gamble by a regime that lacked a fundamental source of legitimacy. This gamble ended in failure and the “violent annihilation” of both the Pahlavi state and its governing elite (p. 5). Mirsepassi structures his book as a series of thematic chapters, often organized around a specific primary source that speaks to a distinct feature of Iran’s Quiet Revolution. Chapter 2, for example, examines Bonyad Monthly, a journal published in 1977–78 with support from Ashraf Pahlavi, the shah’s sister, that was outwardly antimodern and engaged with gharbzadegi. Chapter 3 turns the focus to Ehsan Naraghi, a high-living member of the Pahlavi elite with ties to Queen Farah, whose published work flirted with antimodernism. The chief inspiration for the rise of antimodernism in the late Pahlavi period was the work of Ahmad Fardid, an early Pahlavi era intellectual and the subject of a separate monograph by Mirsepassi. It was Fardid who first formulated gharbzadegi, characterizing it as a cultural, and even spiritual, phenomenon. This contrasted with Jamal Al-e Ahmad’s more famous formulation from the 1960s, which was dire
{"title":"Iran's Quiet Revolution: The Downfall of the Pahlavi State Ali Mirsepassi (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2022). Pp. 242. $99.99 hardcover, $29.99 paper. ISBN: 9781108725323","authors":"Gregory Brew","doi":"10.1017/S002074382300034X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S002074382300034X","url":null,"abstract":"The Islamic Revolution of 1978–79 is often characterized by scholars as a sudden and violent break, the moment when Iran’s political development took an abrupt turn in a new and revolutionary direction, away from the Westernized modernism of the Pahlavi era toward Khomeini’s brand of political Islamism and vilāyat-i faqīh, or “Guardianship of the Jurist,” the system of government adopted by Iran in the wake of the revolution. In Iran’s Quiet Revolution: The Downfall of the Pahlavi State, Ali Mirsepassi argues that this break was not quite as sudden as we might believe, and that the apparent raison d’être of the shah’s regime was thoroughly, and, in many cases, deliberately, undermined by Pahlavi elites who embraced forms and discourses of gharbzadegi, or “Westoxification,” and antimodernism in the years prior to the Islamic Revolution. Mirsepassi illustrates how a “cultural and discursive shift in Iranian political culture” occurred over the course of the 1960s and 1970s (p. 4). This “Quiet Revolution” was grounded in Heideggerian anxieties surrounding Iran’s encounter with modernity. It drew from distinct currents of Iranian social and political thought, as well as the general antimodernism spreading through Western intellectual circles. Versions of gharbzadegi were adopted by Pahlavi elites, and even the shah himself, to delegitimize liberalism and undermine the regime’s opponents on the Left and among moderates. Although some of the elites Mirsepassi examines seem to have held sincere doubts regarding modernity’s viability, he generally characterizes their efforts in cynical terms, as attempts “to foster national hegemony for one’s own cause and destroy opposing nationmaking ventures” (p. 4). Embracing mysticism and a vision of national identity grounded in pastoral mythology was, as Mirsepassi sees it, an expression of insecurity and a massive gamble by a regime that lacked a fundamental source of legitimacy. This gamble ended in failure and the “violent annihilation” of both the Pahlavi state and its governing elite (p. 5). Mirsepassi structures his book as a series of thematic chapters, often organized around a specific primary source that speaks to a distinct feature of Iran’s Quiet Revolution. Chapter 2, for example, examines Bonyad Monthly, a journal published in 1977–78 with support from Ashraf Pahlavi, the shah’s sister, that was outwardly antimodern and engaged with gharbzadegi. Chapter 3 turns the focus to Ehsan Naraghi, a high-living member of the Pahlavi elite with ties to Queen Farah, whose published work flirted with antimodernism. The chief inspiration for the rise of antimodernism in the late Pahlavi period was the work of Ahmad Fardid, an early Pahlavi era intellectual and the subject of a separate monograph by Mirsepassi. It was Fardid who first formulated gharbzadegi, characterizing it as a cultural, and even spiritual, phenomenon. This contrasted with Jamal Al-e Ahmad’s more famous formulation from the 1960s, which was dire","PeriodicalId":47340,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Middle East Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":"193 - 194"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47863380","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S0020743823000314
S. Homayun
Abstract Rabiʿa Balkhi was a princess and poet who, according to medieval accounts, flourished in 10th-century Balkh. She gained wide popularity in 20th-century Afghanistan, where she has been the subject of books, poems, and movies. This article recounts the story of her grave's discovery in the center of Balkh's town park in the 1960s, the emergence of a shrine around it, and its integration with Balkh's landscape of antiquity. Drawing on parallels from across the Muslim world, I argue that Rabiʿa's shrine emerged through a dialogue between state officials and local forms of placemaking. But although initially motivated by nationalist sentiment, the Afghan state lost its ability to define Rabiʿa's life on nationalist terms. As Afghanistan fragmented through war, her shrine survived as a space where her life was constantly reinterpreted and where disputed visions over the nation's past and future played out.
{"title":"Unearthing Rabiʿa's Grave: Placemaking, Shrines, and Contested Traditions in Balkh, Afghanistan","authors":"S. Homayun","doi":"10.1017/S0020743823000314","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743823000314","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Rabiʿa Balkhi was a princess and poet who, according to medieval accounts, flourished in 10th-century Balkh. She gained wide popularity in 20th-century Afghanistan, where she has been the subject of books, poems, and movies. This article recounts the story of her grave's discovery in the center of Balkh's town park in the 1960s, the emergence of a shrine around it, and its integration with Balkh's landscape of antiquity. Drawing on parallels from across the Muslim world, I argue that Rabiʿa's shrine emerged through a dialogue between state officials and local forms of placemaking. But although initially motivated by nationalist sentiment, the Afghan state lost its ability to define Rabiʿa's life on nationalist terms. As Afghanistan fragmented through war, her shrine survived as a space where her life was constantly reinterpreted and where disputed visions over the nation's past and future played out.","PeriodicalId":47340,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Middle East Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":"1 - 24"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41326221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S0020743823000296
R. Crews
posal, which included both faith ... and firepower” (p. 191). Although I do not necessarily disagree with this conclusion, I believe other sources need to be consulted as well for it to have sufficient support. This is my main qualm with an otherwise praiseworthy book. For the book to provide not just an analysis of the IRGC’s historiography but also, as stated early on, a factual report of “[its] roles in the Iran-Iraq War and that conflict as a whole” (p. 5), an analysis of the IRGC’s highly ideological self-productions is a great first step, yet insufficient. Other IRGC productions that have not been used in this volume, for instance, include many documents that scholars can use independently of the producers’ interpretations. Iran’s regular army has also been prolific in publishing and making available original documents as well as military analyses that complement and sometimes correct the IRGC’s selective representation of battlefield realities. Consulting such complementary sources would help us better assess the IRGC’s retrospective self-image as a passionate yet professionally minded military by, for instance, revealing how they sometimes actively avoided professionalism and insisted on the alleged revolutionary way of fighting, or how they sometimes downplay the Iranian army’s role in providing the required professional planning, equipment, and backup while the IRGC lacked it. Regardless, Tracy Samuel’s book will be an undeniable resource for future research in this direction, as the source it meticulously explores is still one of the major published historiographies in Farsi. In addition to laying the grounds for an engaged study of sources produced in Iran, The Unfinished History of the Iran-Iraq War offers an important analytical path forward, as well. Tracey Samuel demonstrates in great detail that in the Revolutionary Guards’ selfperception, religious ideological motivation and material concerns about the conduct of war are complementary assets. Faith fuels motivation and provides meaning, while firepower propels the actual battle. Using other sources to document the actuality of this balance could also reveal how it worked in practice, addressing the age-old contradiction between revolutionary passion and professionalism, between loyalty and competence. Did the IRGC differ from other revolutionary militias in how it combined faith and firepower? Were the Revolutionary Guards able to reach a balanced fusion, one that propelled them to the heights of power in Iran’s political system? Or did they follow the historically tested path of taming revolutionary passion—tied to Shiʿi faith, in this case—in the service of professionalization? I believe that the IRGC is a rich case for studying this dilemma, and Tracy Samuel’s book provides invaluable material for anyone thinking about it.
{"title":"Spiritual Subjects: Central Asian Pilgrims and the Ottoman Hajj at the End of Empire. Lâle Can (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020). Pp. 272. $85.00 cloth, $25.00 paper. ISBN: 9781503610170","authors":"R. Crews","doi":"10.1017/S0020743823000296","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743823000296","url":null,"abstract":"posal, which included both faith ... and firepower” (p. 191). Although I do not necessarily disagree with this conclusion, I believe other sources need to be consulted as well for it to have sufficient support. This is my main qualm with an otherwise praiseworthy book. For the book to provide not just an analysis of the IRGC’s historiography but also, as stated early on, a factual report of “[its] roles in the Iran-Iraq War and that conflict as a whole” (p. 5), an analysis of the IRGC’s highly ideological self-productions is a great first step, yet insufficient. Other IRGC productions that have not been used in this volume, for instance, include many documents that scholars can use independently of the producers’ interpretations. Iran’s regular army has also been prolific in publishing and making available original documents as well as military analyses that complement and sometimes correct the IRGC’s selective representation of battlefield realities. Consulting such complementary sources would help us better assess the IRGC’s retrospective self-image as a passionate yet professionally minded military by, for instance, revealing how they sometimes actively avoided professionalism and insisted on the alleged revolutionary way of fighting, or how they sometimes downplay the Iranian army’s role in providing the required professional planning, equipment, and backup while the IRGC lacked it. Regardless, Tracy Samuel’s book will be an undeniable resource for future research in this direction, as the source it meticulously explores is still one of the major published historiographies in Farsi. In addition to laying the grounds for an engaged study of sources produced in Iran, The Unfinished History of the Iran-Iraq War offers an important analytical path forward, as well. Tracey Samuel demonstrates in great detail that in the Revolutionary Guards’ selfperception, religious ideological motivation and material concerns about the conduct of war are complementary assets. Faith fuels motivation and provides meaning, while firepower propels the actual battle. Using other sources to document the actuality of this balance could also reveal how it worked in practice, addressing the age-old contradiction between revolutionary passion and professionalism, between loyalty and competence. Did the IRGC differ from other revolutionary militias in how it combined faith and firepower? Were the Revolutionary Guards able to reach a balanced fusion, one that propelled them to the heights of power in Iran’s political system? Or did they follow the historically tested path of taming revolutionary passion—tied to Shiʿi faith, in this case—in the service of professionalization? I believe that the IRGC is a rich case for studying this dilemma, and Tracy Samuel’s book provides invaluable material for anyone thinking about it.","PeriodicalId":47340,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Middle East Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":"196 - 199"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48575277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：