Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini
- LAST REVIEWED: 11 May 2017
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 November 2014
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195390155-0126
- LAST REVIEWED: 11 May 2017
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 November 2014
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195390155-0126
Introduction
The Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini (b. 1902–d. 1989) was a senior Shiʿa theologian and the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was a controversial figure credited with reviving the modern wave of Islamism in the world and founding the first modern Shiʿa theocracy. Khomeini combined political activism with religious scholarship. All in all, Khomeini wrote more than sixty books covering wide-ranging issues, such as religion, ethics, Gnosticism, poetry and prose, and government and politics. Khomeini was an uncompromising opponent of Western liberalism and secularism throughout his active life, and he viewed secular nationalists in Iran as corrupt or corruptible and incapable of defending both Islam and Iranian interests against Western encroachments. He was a charismatic figure able to hold together contending forces in the aftermath of the overthrow of the monarchical system in Iran. He sought, for the most part, to remain above the factional infighting that has characterized the Islamic Republic from its inception.
General Overviews
Although Khomeini served as the spiritual and de facto political leader of Iran for only a decade (1979–1989), his legacy continues to divide Iranians in and outside the country. To his detractors, Khomeini and his system of government symbolized religious tyranny, antifeminism, and antimodernism. His supporters have viewed him as a man who rescued Iran from a decadent monarchy and formed a system based on Islamic justice and support of the downtrodden, or mostazafin. Abrahamian 1993, Dabashi 1993, and Rahnema 2006 focus on Khomeini’s skills in combining religious populism with political activism. Algar 1981, Khalili and Manafi Anari 2001, and Moin 1999 rely on Khomeini’s varied original writings and speeches to trace the development of Khomeini’s views on subjects ranging from religion to politics and literature. Whereas Imam Khomeini’s Last Will and Testament (Khomeini 1989) provides an overview of Khomeini’s hopes for the future of the Islamic Republic, Rajaee 2007 places Khomeini’s religious and political thought in the context of the development of Islamic political thought in Iran in the 20th century. In short, Khomeini continues to remain both a polarizing and inspirational figure in Iran and the larger Muslim world, as demonstrated in essays in Adid-Moghaddam 2014.
Abrahamian, Ervand. Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
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NNNGood overview of populist themes in Khomeini’s thinking; a critical analysis of Khomeini’s perceptions of society, state, and personal property.
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Adib-Moghaddam, Arshin. A Crititical Introduction to Khomeini. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
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NNNA series of essays by both established and young scholars that critically examines Khomeini’s life as a political leader, Islamic philosopher, and theologian and spiritual figure.
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Algar, Hamid. Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini. Berkeley, CA: Mizan, 1981.
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NNNAn excellent translation, with commentaries, of Khomeini’s lectures, speeches, and ideas.
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Dabashi, Hamid. Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundations of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. New York: New York University Press, 1993.
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NNNAn excellent overview of the role of theological dissent, including Khomeini’s views, on the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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Khalili, M. J., and Salar Manafi Anari. The Life of Imam Khomeini. Tehran: Institute for Compilation of and Publication of Imam Khomeini’s Works, 2001.
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NNNA detailed and sympathetic review of Khomeini’s religious and intellectual development and life.
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Khomeini, Ruhollah. Imam Khomeini’s Last Will and Testament. Washington, DC: Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1989.
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NNNEnglish translation of Khomeini’s will that contains, among other things, advice on governance and upholding the principles of the Islamic Republic.
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Moin, Baqer. Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah. London: I. B. Tauris, 1999.
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NNNA highly readable and balanced biography of Khomeini. The author relies heavily on Khomeini’s original writings and speeches, and on secondary sources, to develop a nuanced portrait of Khomeini.
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Rahnema, Ali, ed. Pioneers of Islamic Revival. 2d ed. London: Zed, 2006.
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NNNA superb collection of articles on important thinkers in modern Islamic revivalism. A solid work of comparative analysis of Khomeini’s ideas with other major Islamic thinkers.
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Rajaee, Farhang. Islamism and Modernism: The Changing Discourse in Iran. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007.
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NNNA sophisticated and nuanced analysis of the evolution of Islamism and Islamic politics in Iran from the 1920s through the early 21st century.
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Bibliographies
The writings of Khomeini are voluminous and are still being compiled and catalogued by several Iranian institutes. Some of his writings focus exclusively on religious matters. For example, Khomeini 1991 deals with the spiritual importance of prayer, whereas Khomeini 1984 elaborates on the importance of the pilgrimage to Mecca for spiritual and personal growth of Muslims. The most comprehensive of Khomeini’s writings are to be found in the multivolume collection Khomeini 1982. Khomeini 1989 and Khomeini 1981 present two contrasting sides of Khomeini. The former work portrays Khomeini’s mystical side, whereas the latter book presents Khomeini as a pragmatic and somewhat Machiavellian thinker aiming to establish the rule of the clergy in Iran. Some of Khomeini’s writings, such as Khomeini 1948 and Khomeini 1987, are essentially rebuttals to criticisms of Shiʿa doctrine by secular or religious Iranian modernists.
Khomeini, Ruhollah. Kashful Asrar. Tehran: Islamic Bookstore, 1948.
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NNN(Uncovering of secrets). Pamphlet that Khomeini wrote as a young seminary teacher to rebut accusations against the Shiʿa belief system and clerical institutions in the country.
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Khomeini, Ruhollah. Vilayat-e Faqih. Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1981.
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NNN(Governance of the just jurisprudence). Collection of thirteen lectures delivered by Khomeini while in exile in the holy city of Najaf in Iraq. The book has been published in several languages by many publishers. The book’s significance is in its delineation of how an Islamic government should be instituted.
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Khomeini, Ruhollah. Sahifeh-e Nour. Tehran: Ministry of Islamic Guidance, 1982.
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NNN(Book [or page] of light). A sixteen-volume collection of Khomeini’s writings and speeches on a vast array of topics. The collection is an indispensable source for scholars who seek to further their understanding of Khomeini’s views.
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Khomeini, Ruhollah. Hajj Rituals. Tehran: Hafez, 1984.
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NNNEnglish-language translation of a larger volume written in Persian on rituals of the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.
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Khomeini, Ruhollah. Towzihul Masa’il. Tehran: Reja Cultural Publication Center, 1987.
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NNN(Explanation of problems). Sometimes published under the title Manual of Islamic Laws. This is not an original work; it simply includes Khomeini’s annotated explanation of the original book by the late Grand Ayatollah Boroujerdi, under whom Khomeini had received much of his theological training.
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Khomeini, Ruhollah. Badeh-ye ‘Ishq. Tehran: Soroush, 1989.
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NNN(The wine of love). Contains Gnostic poems of Khomeini. Deals with such issues as how to acquire true knowledge and how to purify one’s soul.
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Khomeini, Ruhollah. Adab al-Salat. Tehran: Institute for Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeini’s Works, 1991.
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NNN(The disciplines of prayer). Expounds on Khomeini’s views on the significance of prayer in one’s life and daily existence.
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Early Years and Political Challenges
According to most accounts, Khomeini was born on 24 September 1902 in Khomeini, a small town two hundred miles south of the Iranian capital city of Tehran. At the age of twenty, Khomeini went to Arak in central Iran and became a student of Ayatollah Abdul Karim Haeri Yazdi, a prominent Shiʿa scholar at the Arak Seminary. In 1921 Haeri Yazdi moved to the holy city of Qum, and Khomeini followed him there to continue his studies in Islamic law (Sharia), Shiʿa jurisprudence (fiqh), mysticism (irfan), and philosophy. After Haeri Yazdi’s death in 1924, Khomeini continued his studies in Qum and ultimately became a popular teacher in several Qum theological seminaries. For several years, Khomeini taught courses in political philosophy, logic, ethics, jurisprudence, and Islamic history, and at a relatively early age he established himself as a leading scholar of Islamic theology. Khomeini was not only a prolific scholar but also an innovative teacher who emphasized Gnosticism and philosophy in his classes at a time when the traditional religious scholars of Qum were suspicious of those fields’ usefulness in the study of Islamic theology (Mottahedeh 1985). Historically, Shiʿa Islam had remained wary of political activism, as discussed in Algar 1980 and Arjomand 1984. Prior to the early 1960s, there was little indication of Khomeini’s political activism against the Pahlavi monarchy. Algar 2001 shows, however, that Khomeini’s antisecularism was evident in his speeches and some of his writings as early as the 1940s. Khomeini’s signature act of defiance against the monarchical system in Iran came in 1963, after Reza Shah Pahlavi had announced his White Revolution. Akhavi 1980 studies this six-point program, which called for changes in Iranian society that Khomeini viewed as inimical to Islamic principles. He regarded these changes as pushing Iran toward a Westernization path that would further diminish the power of the Shiʿa clergy over the country’s sociopolitical institutions. After his exile from Iran in 1964, Khomeini spent fifteen years in the holy city of Najaf in Iraq, formulating his plans to overthrow the Pahlavi monarchy. Eventually, he organized a coalition of nationalists and religious forces that managed to overthrow the monarchy in 1979, as covered in Fischer 1980, Keddie 2006, and Rajaee 1983.
Akhavi, Shahrough. Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran: Clergy-State Relations in the Pahlavi Era. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1980.
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NNNA nuanced examination of the complexities in clergy-state relations in prerevolutionary Iran, including Khomeini’s significance in this evolving relationship.
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Algar, Hamid. Religion and State in Iran, 1785–1906: The Role of the Ulama in the Qajar Period. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
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NNNWritten by a prominent scholar of Islam many years before the successful Islamic Revolution in Iran. Provides the necessary historical context for understanding the emergence of the “revolutionary Islam” of Khomeini in Iran.
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Algar, Hamid. Roots of the Islamic Revolution in Iran: Four Lectures. North Haledon, NJ: Islamic Publications International, 2001.
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NNNContains four lectures delivered by Hamid Algar at the Muslim Institute in London. Both scholars and informed lay audiences can benefit from Algar’s eloquent explanation of the principal ideas and ideals that formed Khomeini’s religious and sociopolitical views.
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Arjomand, Said Amir. From Nationalism to Revolutionary Islam. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984.
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NNNA scholarly analysis of the interplay of nationalism and revolutionary Islam, with a particular focus on Shiʿism and Iran. Provides a good context for understanding Khomeini’s appeal to a wide spectrum of Iranians prior to the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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Fischer, Michael M. J. Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.
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NNNAn intellectually stimulating analysis of sociocultural forces that led to the growth of religious opposition to the Pahlavi monarchy in Iran.
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Keddie, Nikki R. Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.
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NNNDetailed history of modern Iran by a prominent American historian. Contains a significant explanation of the role of religion in revolutionary upheavals in Iran during and since the mid-19th century.
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Mottahedeh, Roy. The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran. New York: Pantheon, 1985.
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NNNA sophisticated but accessible analysis of the historical forces that shaped the emergence of Khomeini’s religious discourse in Iran.
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Rajaee, Farhang. Islamic Values and World View: Khomeyni on Man, the State, and International Politics. Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1983.
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NNNSeeks to explain the development of Khomeini’s views on the title’s topics through a detailed study of his sermons, speeches, and writings.
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The Islamic Revolution
After months of popular demonstrations, Reza Shah Pahlavi finally left Iran on 16 January 1979, hoping that the provisional government of Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar would be able to restore calm. However, Khomeini adamantly opposed the Bakhtiar government and called for its overthrow. On 1 February 1979 Khomeini returned to Iran after his long exile, and on 11 February 1979 he appointed Mehdi Bazargan, a respected veteran of the anti-shah movement, as the prime minister of a competing government. With the military’s declaration of neutrality and Khomeini’s call for the soldiers to surrender to his newly declared governmental authority, the last remnant of the monarchical regime collapsed, and Bakhtiar fled the country for France. Khomeini then began to implement his long-held vision of establishing an Islamic republic. Kurzman 2004 and Saikal 2009 study how he skillfully and ruthlessly outmaneuvered other forces, such as the nationalists and the Left, that had participated in the revolutionary process to overthrow the monarchy. The first provisional postrevolutionary Iranian constitution did not include the post of vilayat-e faqih, or the supreme leader. However, Khomeini’s allies succeeded in calling for the election of the Assembly of Experts to revise the provisional constitution. The election process for the Assembly of Experts was dominated by Khomeini’s supporters, leading to charges of ballot tampering by those who had preferred a popular and more representative constituent assembly than the clerically dominated Assembly of Experts, as Schirazi 1997 explains. Upon its election, the Assembly of Experts drafted a new constitution that included the post of the supreme leader and a Council of Guardians with the authority to veto “un-Islamic” legislation and approve candidates running for various elected offices in the country. The new constitution was approved in a popular referendum in November 1979, thus finalizing the framework of a new Islamic republic and bestowing upon Khomeini the title of “leader of the revolution.” On 22 October 1979 the exiled shah, who was suffering from cancer, was allowed to enter the United States for treatment. In Iran, both Khomeini’s supporters and many secular groups feared that the United States was planning to stage a similar operation to the one it organized in August 1953, when it staged a coup against the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadeq and brought the shah back to power from exile. It was in this tense atmosphere that on 4 November 1979 a group of Islamist students under the banner of the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and held its employees hostage for 444 days. Ebtekar 2000 provides an insider’s account of this episode. Bakhash 1984, Hiro 1985, Siavoshi 1990, and Stemple 1981 offer further studies of the hostage affair, which received Khomeini’s blessing and helped radicalize the regime and consolidate its hold on the country by further marginalizing liberal religious elements in the government and society.
Bakhash, Shaul. The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution. New York: Basic Books, 1984.
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NNNInteresting and informative book on the collapse of the monarchical order and the events that followed the overthrow of the Pahlavi monarchy and the establishment of the Islamic Republic by Khomeini.
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Ebtekar, Massoumeh. Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture. Vancouver, Canada: Talonbooks, 2000.
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NNNA revealing story of the hostage crisis as told to Fred Reed by one of the most visible public faces of the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line. In this book, Ebtekar (known as “Mary”), the English-speaking public face of the students who took over the US Embassy in 1979, recalls the trials and tribulations of the hostage episode.
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Hiro, Dilip. Iran under the Ayatollahs. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985.
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NNNA lively history of the Iranian Revolution of 1978–1979 and Khomeini’s ascendance to power. Written by a veteran journalist and keen observer of contemporary Iran.
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Kurzman, Charles. The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
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NNNA theoretically sound analysis of causes of the Islamic Revolution of 1978–1979 in Iran.
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Saikal, Amin. The Rise and Fall of the Shah: Iran from Autocracy to Religious Rule. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.
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NNNA balanced scholarly analysis of major deficiencies in the shah’s rule and how Khomeini exploited these weaknesses to mobilize popular resistance and an uprising against the shah.
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Schirazi, Asghar. The Constitution of Iran: Politics and State in the Islamic Republic. Translated by John O’Kane. London: I. B. Tauris, 1997.
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NNNOne of the best books on the events and legal issues surrounding the draft of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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Siavoshi, Sussan. Liberal Nationalism in Iran: The Failure of a Movement. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1990.
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NNNAn excellent analysis of the rise and demise of secular nationalism in Iran, which allows one to understand some of the reasons for the victory of the Islamic Revolution under Khomeini.
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Stemple, John D. Inside the Iranian Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981.
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NNNWritten by a US Embassy official in Tehran, this is a firsthand account of the Iranian Revolution.
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The Iran-Iraq War
The overthrow of the shah’s regime and the subsequent disintegration of his military created a vacuum that afforded Saddam Hussein, the president of neighboring Iraq and a foe of Iran, to launch a preemptive attack on Iran in September 1980. Khomeini’s exhortations to the Muslims to launch their own Islamic revolutions gave further impetus to the Iraqi government and other Arab regimes in the Persian Gulf to attack Iran, as studied in Chubin and Tripp 1988 and Cordesman 1987. Entessar 2004 and Rajaee 1997 show that Iraq’s full-scale invasion was supported by most Arab regimes, especially Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and was later aided logistically by the United States. Notwithstanding Iraq’s superiority in both military manpower and advanced weaponry, Hiro 1991 and Parsadoost 2006 show that Iran’s fierce resistance resulted in Iraq’s forced withdrawal from occupied Iranian territories by early 1982. The war continued for several more years and came to an end in August 1988, when Khomeini, despite his opposition to ending the war with Saddam Hussein in power, accepted a cease-fire. The Iran-Iraq War cost Iran over $300 billion in damages and over 550,000 dead and severely injured (see Potter and Sick 2004). Nonetheless, the war allowed the newly established Islamic Republic to consolidate its hold on the country by mobilizing the country in the war effort. It pained Khomeini immensely to, in his words, “drink the cup of poison” and accept a United Nations–mediated truce that ended the war while leaving Saddam Hussein in power. As argued in Amirahmadi and Entessar 1992, after the end of the war Khomeini gave his blessing to the Iranian government’s programs to rebuild the country’s devastated economic infrastructure and its pulverized social fabric.
Amirahmadi, Hooshang, and Nader Entessar, eds. Reconstruction and Regional Diplomacy in the Persian Gulf. New York: Routledge, 1992.
DOI: 10.4324/9780203315088Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNContains a collection of articles on issues of the reconstruction and diplomacy in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq War.
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Chubin, Shahram, and Charles Tripp. Iran and Iraq at War. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1988.
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NNNA solid scholarly study of the genesis and development of Iran-Iraq conflict. One of the best books in English about this conflict.
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Cordesman, Anthony H. The Iran-Iraq War and Western Security 1984–1987: Strategic Implications and Policy Options. London: Jane’s, 1987.
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NNNA blow-by-blow account of the military battles of the Iran-Iraq War from the perspective of a well-known American military analyst and commentator.
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Entessar, Nader. “Iran’s Security Challenges.” Muslim World 94.4 (October 2004): 537–554.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-1913.2004.00073.xSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNIran’s conventional military weakness and its implications for the country’s security are discussed in this article. Special attention is paid to security challenges during, and in the immediate aftermath of, the Iran-Iraq War.
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Hiro, Dilip. The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict. New York: Routledge, 1991.
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NNNA highly readable account of political, social, and military issues in the Iran-Iraq War from a seasoned journalist intimately familiar with the subject.
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Parsadoost, Manochehr. Ma va Araq: Az Gozashteh-e Dur ta Emruz. Tehran: Enteshar, 2006.
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NNN(We and Iraq: From the distant past to the present). A detailed historical analysis of territorial, religious, and political disputes between Iran and what later became modern Iraq. The book has excellent coverage of the Iran-Iraq War.
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Potter, Lawrence, and Gary G. Sick, eds. Iran, Iraq, and the Legacies of War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
DOI: 10.1057/9781403980427Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNCollection of articles about the Iran-Iraq War and its legacies from different perspectives.
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Rajaee, Farhang, ed. Iranian Perspectives on the Iran-Iraq War. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997.
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NNNCollection of articles written by scholars from Iranian universities. Provides perspectives seldom heard in the West.
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Khomeini’s Legacy
Khomeini’s legacy has endured long after his death. In Iran both Muslim conservatives (or “principalists,” as they call themselves) and the reformers claim to be the true heirs of Khomeini. Despite his pervasive symbolic presence in revolutionary Iran, Khomeini created a system of government that created numerous problems that continue to threaten his legacy and the Islamic Republic. Some of these problems have to do with the issue of political succession and factionalism, as studied in Arjomand 2009, while others deal with foreign policy challenges facing the country, as covered in Ehteshami 1995. Azimi 2008, Gheissari and Nasr 2006, and Mirsepasi 2010 argue that one of the most vexing and enduring issues in post-Khomeini Iran has to do with establishing democracy, accountability, and the rule of law. Kamrava 2008 ponders whether clerical institutions are capable of running a modern nation-state. Can dissent, including religious dissent, be tolerated in an Islamic state? These and similar questions have preoccupied Khomeini’s heirs; secular intellectuals; clerical reformists, such as Mohsen Kadivar (Kadivar 1997); and eminent religious authorities, such as the late Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, an erstwhile Khomeini heir designate who became a critic of the Islamic state in Iran (see Montazeri 2001).
Arjomand, Said Amir. After Khomeini: Iran under His Successors. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
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NNNA detailed analysis of structural, ideological, and leadership problems that have befuddled Iran’s leaders in the post-Khomeini period.
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Azimi, Fakhreddin. The Quest for Democracy in Iran: A Century of Struggle against Authoritarian Rule. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.
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NNNPlaces Iran’s struggle for democracy, in both the monarchical and the postrevolutionary periods, in the context of social movements whose origins go back to the beginning of the 20th century.
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Ehteshami, Anoushiravan. After Khomeini: The Iranian Second Republic. New York: Routledge, 1995.
DOI: 10.4324/9780203200179Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNAn analysis of problems and achievements of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s government as the first post-Khomeini administration in Iran.
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Gheissari, Ali, and Vali Nasr. Democracy in Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
DOI: 10.1093/0195189671.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNAn erudite treatment of obstacles to and struggles for democracy in pre- and post-Khomeini Iran.
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Kadivar, Mohsen. Nazariyehaye Dowlat dar Fiqh-e Shiʿa. Tehran: Ney, 1997.
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NNN(Perspectives on government in Shiʿa jurisprudence). Written by a prominent Shiʿa reformist dissident who argues for, among other things, separation of government and religious institutions and clergy.
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Kamrava, Mehran. Iran’s Intellectual Revolution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511756146Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNAn excellent analysis of three competing trends in Iran’s intellectual revolution in the late 20th and early 21st centuries: religious conservative, religious reformist, and secular nationalist.
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Mirsepasi, Ali. Democracy in Modern Iran: Islam, Culture, and Political Change. New York: New York University Press, 2010.
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NNNA challenging look at both Islamic and democratic discourse. The author seeks to explain how democratic challenges in early-21st-century Iran can be debated in the context of both religious and secular democracy.
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Montazeri, Hussein Ali. Matn-e Kamel-e Khaterat-e Ayatollah Montazeri. Essen, Germany: Union of Iranian Editors in Europe, 2001.
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NNN(The complete text of Ayatollah Montazeri’s memoirs). The most complete version of the memoirs of Khomeini’s first designated successor. It is a must-read for understanding intraclerical divisions and disputes and challenges to Khomeini. Written by a major ayatollah and a respected Shiʿa authority.
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- Ijtihad
- 'Ilm al-Khilāf / Legal Controversy
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- On the History of the Book in Islamic Studies
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