Twenty Years Of Islamic Revolution

The works gathered here are based on recent intensive fieldwork in Iran by leading scholars of Iranian culture. The contributors cover a multitude of important topics such as civil society, foreign relations, Islamism, religious-secular debates, and women's issues. These essays challenge stereotypes that have developed about modern-day Iran and will stimulate debate and discussion among scholars and students of the Middle East.

The Iranian Revelution of 1979 shook the world and changed the strategic balance in the region. In the build up to the Revolution there was a unity of purpose that was summed up by Ayatollah Khomenini: 'The monarchy must go. The Shah is corrupt. His hands are dripping with blood. He is a foreign agent. He is the Yazid of age.' In the perception of most Iranians, a tyrant has usurped the state; its retrieval was therefore essential. Beyond that, however, there was a little by way of an agreed agenda for social reconstruction. This became evident in the years that followed. Revolutionary passion first gave way to revolutionary reason and then reawakened desire for reforms.A quarter of a century later, demography, education and urbanization have become the agents of change. One generation has power while the other has demands. The purpose of the Observer Research Foundation's New Delhi conference was to explore the evolving perceptions and to ascertain the direction and pace of the change.

Iranian women tell in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. The Islamic revolution of 1979 transformed all areas of Iranian life. For women, the consequences were extensive and profound, as the state set out to reverse legal and social rights women had won and to dictate many aspects of women's lives, including what they could study and how they must dress and relate to men. Reconstructed Lives presents Iranian women telling in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. Through a series of interviews with professional and working women in Iran—doctors, lawyers, writers, professors, secretaries, businesswomen—Haleh Esfandiari gathers dramatic accounts of what has happened to their lives as women in an Islamic society. She and her informants describe the strategies by which women try to and sometimes succeed in subverting the state's agenda. Esfandiari also provides historical background on the women's movement in Iran. She finds evidence in Iran's experience that even women from "traditional" and working classes do not easily surrender rights or access they have gained to education, career opportunities, and a public role.

"The Last Great Revolution is written with clarity and insight about Iran's tumultuous twenty-year Islamic revolution. Robin Wright speaks authoritatively about the Iranian republic's evolution, from the convulsive, vindictive early years of he revolution to the current uncertainties over experimentation with Islamic democracy. Her book is a valuable contribtion to our understanding of contemporary Iranian society and the possible directions this very important country make take in the future." -- Senator Richard G. Lugar, Foreign Relations Committee Robin Wright, the acclaimed Mideast expert and foreign correspondent, returns to Iran, which she has visited more frequently than has any other American since the fall of the shah, to give us a portrait of the revolution -- a generation after Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile to end 2,500 years of monarchy. She shows us how the Iranian revolution has taken on even greater importance since Khomeini's death, and how it transformed Iranian society as well as Islam. She describes the revolutions within the revolution that have resulted in a movement as radical in the world of Islam as Luther's Reformation was in the Christian world -- empowering women, modernizing social traditions, creating a fiesty, independent cinema and arts industry and giving birth to a new generation that is redefining Iran's political agenda. Wright makes abundantly clear why she believes the Iranian revolution will stand along with the French and the Russian as one of the three innovative revolutions -- and the last great revolution -- of the Modern Era.

As the architect of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini remains one of the most inspirational and enigmatic figures of the twentieth century. The revolution placed Iran at the forefront of Middle East politics and the Islamic revival. Twenty years after his death, Khomeini is revered as a spiritual and political figurehead in Iran and in large swathes of the Islamic world, while in the West he is remembered by many as a dictator and the instigator of Islamist confrontation. Arshin Adib-Moghaddam brings together distinguished and emerging scholars in this comprehensive volume, which covers all aspects of Khomeini's life and critically examines Khomeini the politician, the philosopher, and the spiritual leader, while considering his legacy in Iran and further afield in other parts of the Islamic world and the West. Written by scholars from varying disciplines, the book will prove invaluable to students and general readers interested in the life and times of Khomeini and the politics that he inspired.

“Riveting . . . a side of Iran that is often misrepresented by the world’s media—[an] insightful, captivating book.” —San Francisco Chronicle Taking the reader inside Iran’s key institutions, Geneive Abdo and Jonathan Lyons argue that the 1979 Iranian revolution, long viewed in the West as the pursuit of an imagined medieval Utopia, was in fact a political movement designed to modernize Islam. Twenty years later, a power struggle between conservative and reform elements provoked a clash that has destabilized the country and limited Iran’s ability to integrate with the world community. Answering Only to God challenges the prevailing Western belief that the Islamic world is an undifferentiated mass of disaffected and dangerous fanatics or that a Western-style democracy will soon transform this ancient land of Shi’ite and Sufi tradition. Instead, the authors explore the controversial view that beyond their quarrel with the West, stemming from decades of exploitive foreign policies, the real struggle in Iran is between reformers and conservative mullahs.

Examines how the Iranian Revolution became a showdown between the ideas and values of Islam and those of the West and how it recast the face of the Middle East.

In 1978, as the protests against the Shah of Iran reached their zenith, philosopher Michel Foucault was working as a special correspondent for Corriere della Sera and le Nouvel Observateur. During his little-known stint as a journalist, Foucault traveled to Iran, met with leaders like Ayatollah Khomeini, and wrote a series of articles on the revolution. Foucault and the Iranian Revolution is the first book-length analysis of these essays on Iran, the majority of which have never before appeared in English. Accompanying the analysis are annotated translations of the Iran writings in their entirety and the at times blistering responses from such contemporaneous critics as Middle East scholar Maxime Rodinson as well as comments on the revolution by feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. In this important and controversial account, Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson illuminate Foucault's support of the Islamist movement. They also show how Foucault's experiences in Iran contributed to a turning point in his thought, influencing his ideas on the Enlightenment, homosexuality, and his search for political spirituality. Foucault and the Iranian Revolution informs current discussion on the divisions that have reemerged among Western intellectuals over the response to radical Islamism after September 11. Foucault's provocative writings are thus essential for understanding the history and the future of the West's relationship with Iran and, more generally, to political Islam. In their examination of these journalistic pieces, Afary and Anderson offer a surprising glimpse into the mind of a celebrated thinker.