History of Political Thought in Iran: Safavids to the Present Course Overview:

Transcription

1 Course Overview: History of Political Thought in Iran: Safavids to the Present Instructor: Nura Hossainzadeh Course Meeting Times: Mondays and Wednesdays, 1:00-3:00 p.m. Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5:20-6:20 p.m. This course is a graduate-level seminar in the history of political thought in Shi a Iran; that is, from the Safavid Era to the present. Since it is designed for graduate students, the course will focus on primary sources reading the original works of scholars, activists, ideologues, and government officials, to the extent that the availability of English translations allows rather than on secondary material. We study these authors not simply out of historical interest, but because understanding the questions, concerns, theoretical perspectives, and philosophical and religious influences that have shaped discussion on government in Shi a Iran can help us to understand the debates on the character of just government that continue in Iran today. Throughout the period we study, writers are preoccupied with questions about Islam and government, democracy and freedom, national identity, and socioeconomic justice. The place of Islam and the Shi a clergy in Iranian government and society are often central concerns to political thinkers, whether these thinkers seek to minimize or increase the influence and authority of the clergy. We begin by drawing a comparison between the political roles of religious scholars in the Safavid vs. the Qajar eras. First, we study formulations of and objections to the official state ideology of the Safavid era, which gave scholars a limited role in government, and then we move to the Qajar era, where the clergy had developed an authority that was independent, and increasingly subversive, of state authority. After our discussion of Safavid and Qajar Iran, we study the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, in which Iranians sought to end centuries of absolutist rule by the Safavids and Qajars. To familiarize ourselves with political thought in this era, we examine the writings of clerics and Islamic scholars who both supported and opposed the Revolution, all of them grappling with the question of whether Islam sanctioned parliamentary government. As we move through the 20 th century, we first study different types of Iranian nationalisms, whether authoritarian, anti-islamic, anti-imperial, and/or critical of Western cultural influence. These include the nationalisms of Reza Shah, Ahmad Kasravi, Mohammad Musaddiq, and Jalal Al-e Ahmad. While for these authors, national identity and strength were crucially important, for Iranian leftists, it was socioeconomic justice. We read about Iranian leftist groups, such as the Tudeh party, as well as the writings of Mahmoud Taleqani, a scholar of Islamic economics, and Ali-Shari ati, a thinker with leftist sympathies but who was more broadly concerned with creating, as Foucault called it, an Islamic political spirituality among Iranians. Then, parallel to one another, we learn about the monarchism of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Ruhollah Khomeini s theory of Islamic government. Finally, we end in contemporary Iran, where we analyze conflicting interpretations of Khomeini s thought, conflicting visions of the role of clerics in government, conflicting perspectives on political freedom, and conflicting perceptions of national identity debates, as will have learned, that are centuries-old. 1

2 Course Objectives: By the end of this course, you are expected to: Identify the broad questions that have animated the history of political thought in Iran, and defend and criticize various responses to these questions. Gain knowledge of the ideologies and philosophies of influential political thinkers, ideologues, activists, and government officials in Iran since the Safavid era. Narrate the evolution of the major institutions of Iranian government since the Safavid era. Acquire a familiarity with diverse political ideologies and philosophies in contemporary Iran. Course Requirements: Participation and attendance (25%) Four memos (25%): Your reflections on the thought of an author we read in a given week (due in class on the day we discuss that author). Final research paper (50%) Required Texts: The following texts are recommended for purchase. I will also have copies on reserve at the campus library. Kamrava, Mehran. Iran s Intellectual Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Kasravi, Ahmad. On Islam and Shi ism. Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, Keddie, Nikki. Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution. New Haven: Yale University Press, Musaddiq, Mohammad. Musaddiq s Memoirs, (Ed. and Trans.) Homa Katouzian. London: JEBHE, National Movement of Iran, Pahlavi, Mohammad Reza. Answer to History. New York: Stein and Day Publishers, Taleqani, Sayyed Mahmood. Islam and Ownership, (Trans.) Ahmad Jabbari and Farhang Rajaee. Lexington: Mazda Publishers,

3 Syllabus Key Readings marked with an asterisk (*) are printed in the course reader. All other readings are either posted on the course website (as indicated) or in the texts available at the campus bookstore. Schedule of Seminars Week 1: September 26, 28: Introduction and Safavid, Qajar Iran Ann Lambton, The Safawid Dilemma, from State and Government in Medieval Islam, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981, p * Lambton, Concepts of Authority in Persia, Eleventh to Nineteenth Centuries A.D. Iran 26 (1988): (Course Website) Nikkie Keddie, Chapter 2: Foundations of Nineteenth-Century Iran, and Chapter 3: Continuity and Change under the Qajars: , from Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003, p Abdul-Hadi Ha iri. The Legitimacy of Early Qajar Rule as Viewed by the Shi i Religious Leaders. Middle Eastern Studies 24, no.3 (1988): (Course Website) Hamid Algar, "Religious Forces in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Iran," from Avery, Hambley, and Melville, eds., Cambridge History of Iran, VII: From Nadir Shah to the Islamic Republic, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p * Week 2: October 3, 5: Constitutionalism Abdul-Hadi Ha iri, Ch. 6, The Function of Constitutionalism, from Shi ism and Constitutionalism in Iran, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1977, p * Muhammad Husayn Na ini, Ch. 13, Government in the Islamic Perspective, from Modernist Islam, Kurzman, ed., pp * Hamid Algar, "The Oppositional Role of the ulama in Twentieth Century Iran," from Scholars, Saints, and Sufis, Keddie, ed., Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1972, pp * Said Amir Arjomand, The ulama s Traditionalist Opposition to Parliamentarianism: , Middle Eastern Studies 17, no. 2 (1981): (Course Website) Hamid Dabashi, trans., Two Clerical Tracts on Constitutionalism, from Arjomand, ed., Authority and Political Culture in Shi ism, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988, pp * 3

4 Week 3: October 10, 12: Nationalism 1: Reza Shah, Ahmad Kasravi Ahmad Kasravi, On Islam and Shi ism, entire, Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, Mehrzad Boroujerdi, The Making of Modern Iran, Triumphs and travails of authoritarian modernization in Iran, The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society under Riza Shah, , Cronin, ed., London: Routledge, 2003, p * Keddie, Modern Iran, Chapter 5: War and Reza Shah: , p Nura Hossainzadeh, Democratic and Constitutionalist Elements in Khomeini s Unveiling of Secrets and Islamic Government, Journal of Political Ideologies (2016). (Course Website) Week 4: October 17, 19: Nationalism II: Musaddiq Mohammad Musaddiq, Book II, from Katouzian, ed. and trans., Musaddiq s Memoirs, London: JEBHE, National Movement of Iran, 1988, p ; and Reply to the Remarks of His Majesty Shah-in-Shah, p Keddie, Modern Iran, Chapter 6: World War II and Mosaddeq: , p Shahrough Akhavi, The role of the clergy in Iranian Politics, , from Musaddiq, Nationalism, and Oil, Bill and Louis, eds., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968, p * Week 5: October 24, 26: Westoxication, Jalal Al-e Ahmad Jalal Al-e Ahmad, Occidentosis: A Plague from the West, entire, trans. R. Campbell, Berkeley: Mizan Press, (Course Website) Week 7: October 31, November 2: Leftism and Islamic Leftism, Taleqani Sayyed Mahmood Taleqani, Islam and Ownership, Chapter 3 Chapter 8, translated by Ahmad Jabbari and Farhang Rajaee, Lexington: Mazda Publishers, Ervand Abrahamian, Chapter 6: The Tudeh Party, from Iran Between Two Revolutions, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982, p * Ali Mirsepassi, The Tragedy of the Iranian Left, in Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left, London: Routledge, 2004, p * 4

5 Week 7: November 7, 9: Ali Shari ati Ali Shari ati, Islamology, entire, Ali Shari ati, What is to be done? entire, Ervand Abrahamian. Ali Shariati: Ideologue of the Iranian Revolution. Middle East Research and Information Project 12 (1982), Week 8: November 14, 16: Ruhollah Khomeini Ruhollah Khomeini, Islamic Government, from Algar, ed., Islam and Revolution, Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1981, pp (Course Website) Ruhollah Khomeini s Political Thought: Elements of Guardianship, Consent, and Representative Government, Journal of Shi a Islamic Studies 7, no. 2 (Winter 2014), p (Course Website) Hamid Enayat, Chapter 9: Iran: Khumayni s Concept of the Guardianship of the Jurisconsult, from Piscatori, ed., Islam in the Political Process, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, p * Week 9: November 21, 23: Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Mohmmad Reza Pahlavi, Answer to History, entire, New York: Stein and Day Publishers, Keddie, Modern Iran, Chapter 7, Royal Dictatorship: , and Chapter 9: The Revolution, pp and Week 10: November 28, 30: Conservatism in Contemporary Iran Mehran Kamrava, Chapter 3: The Conservative Religious Discourse, from Iran s Intellectual Revolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, p Political Thought in Contemporary Iran: Ayatollah Javadi Amoli s Theory of Guardianship, In Proceedings from Afro-Middle East Centre Conference, Political Islam: Conceptualising Power between Islamic States and Muslim Social Movements, January 2015; Pretoria, South Africa. (Course Website) Robin Wright (ed.), Iran s Politics, from The Iran Primer: Power, Politics, and US Policy, Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2012, p * 5

6 Week 11: December 5, 7: Reformism in Contemporary Iran Hossein Ali Montazeri, Democracy and Constitution, (Retrieved 10/6/2014). (Course Website) Mohsen Kadivar, Wilayat al-faqih and democracy, from Afsaruddin (ed.) Islam, the State, and Political Authority: Medieval Issues and Modern Concerns, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Richard Tapper, Chapter 2: Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari: Public and Private, from Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform, London: I.B. Tauris, 2006, p (Pay attention to Yousefi Eshkevari s own writings, republished in this chapter.) (Course Website) Mir-Hosseini Tapper, Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform, Chapter 3: Islamic Democratic Government, p (Pay attention to Yousefi Eshkevari s own writings, republished in this chapter.) (Course Website) Mir-Hosseini and Tapper, Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform Chapter 4: The Seminaries and Government : The Relation between Religious Authority and Political Power, p (Pay attention to Yousefi Eshkevari s own writings, republished in this chapter.) (Course Website) Kamrava, Iran s Intellectual Revolution, Chapter 5: The reformist-religious discourse, p