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What is your source? http://www.amazon.com/Islam-Without-Allah-Religious-Externalism/dp/1138010677 http://www.amazon.com/Islam-Without-Allah-Religious-External
by 616c 11y ago
What is your source?
http://www.amazon.com/Islam-Without-Allah-Religious-Externalism/dp/1138010677 http://www.amazon.com/Islam-Without-Allah-Religious-External...
This "Iran has been this way" bullshit is the same nonsense I called out in a previous article about how Hezbollah is some Iranian cleric + Syrian Asad backdoor meeting became a movement BS.
Iran's history is more complex than that.
TL;DR Iran was not Shi'a, it became Shi'a, for political and politicized reasons, and was racheted up and down over the last few centuries and the authoritarian isolationism is a product of that now.
So maybe I am wrong, but what do you base this on?
(There are many books on this topic, not just this one, I just know even this one was translated to Arabic by a reputable publisher; more factual academic works exist and this is the modern Western analysis of Iran coming from when I was in school 5-10 years back in these BS Arab/regional courses, and Iran is lumped in.)
- dmix 11y agoI recently read a book on the history of the middle east [1]. Pretty much every reference to Iran in the last thousand years was to how they are still isolationist and clung onto their religious leaders while other parts of the middle east made progress (politically, economic, and otherwise). There were moments of greatness in Persian history no doubt, and even Afghanistan became a Persian cultural center. But the later history, post middle ages set a pretty strong pattern that hasnt seemed to have changed. I'm planning to read more on the subject, particularily a book about the history of Shia [2]. I'm not calling myself a total expert on the subject. I'm open to be convinced otherwise... [1] http://www.amazon.com/History-Middle-East-Fourth/dp/0143121901 http://www.amazon.com/History-Middle-East-Fourth/dp/01431219... [2] http://www.amazon.com/Shia-Revival-Conflicts-within-Future-ebook/dp/B000U0O9FC/ http://www.amazon.com/Shia-Revival-Conflicts-within-Future-e...
- 616c 11y agoI avoid the journo turns historian books like [1], but I will have to check out [2]. When I took a clas in Shi'a history, Vali Nasr wrote a lot of material cited in it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vali_Nasr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vali_Nasr I am never quite sure if I like him, because of his seemingly packaged for Western consumption views of Iran in his books. But then again, I am hardly an expert, and hardly Iranian. I just think Iran transitioned in and out of phases, and its interaction culturally with the Abbasid Empire at one point and wars fought in the region makes me see them differently. My interpretation is probably just biased.