Authority and Political Culture in Shiism.

AuthorMazzaoui, Michel M.

If the reader is anxious to know what is intended by the terms "authority" and "political culture" as used in the title of this work, the book's editor provides him with a short discussion of the subject in the early pages of the introductory chapter. Mr. Arjomand explains such Quranic terms as mulk, sultan, and ulu 'l-amr, as well as the more familiar din and dawlat. He has previously dealt with aspects of this topic in his The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam (Chicago, 1984).

Aside from the introductory chapter, part I of the present work is comprised of seven essays, two of which are contributions by Arjomand himself: chapter 4 on the mujtahid and the mulla-bashi in which, among other things, he corrects some of Minorsky's assertions in Tadhkirat al-Muluk; and chapter 8, on ideological revolution in Shiism, where he discusses the rise of religious authority in Iran in modern times, and concludes that "to establish and propagate their new conception of authority, the clerical rulers of Iran have incessantly insisted on the sacred character of all authority and thus the ongoing sacralization of the political order".

In chapter 2, the well-known authority on Shiism, Etan Kohlberg, discusses the relation between the Imam and the Shii community before the occultation of the Twelfth Imam. As usual, Mr. Kohlberg has demonstrated a consummate and impressive knowledge of the early Shii sources, on which he has based many of his scholarly writings on the subject. In this article, he sums up his views as follows: "... the believers were beset, in the pre-Ghayba period, by two major problems: persecution from without and splits from within. With the onset of the Ghayba, a major crisis was added; the sudden loss of the supreme spiritual leader must have caused profound disquiet and raised some agonizing questions among ordinary Imamis".

Mohammad-Djafar Mahdjoub, in chapter 3, deals with popular Shiism--a topic of extreme usefulness if one is to properly understand and appreciate the tremendous impact which this tradition has on the feelings and soul of the believers. John R. Perry who "translated and adapted" this article is to be congratulated for the way it reads, smoothly.

Chapter 5, on clerical leadership in modern Shiism, by Abbas Amanat, perhaps the most profound essay in the book, attempts to make order out of the inherent disorder of the "clerical community." At a certain level it reminded me of a statement (a hadith?) communicated to me by...

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