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Iranian Exceptionalism and Twelver Shi‘ism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Mohammad Nafissi
Mohammad Nafissi*
Affiliation:
Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London
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Abstract

Homa Katouzian’s exceptionally perceptive, influential, and wide-ranging scholarship has been marked by three mutually reinforcing characteristics: a profound and detailed mastery of Iran’s multi-civilizational heritage; a comparatively informed focus on the country’s distinct historical trajectory; and an existentially grounded pluralist perspective in examining and evaluating the country’s major political turning points and actors. These features are already fully displayed in his early magnum opus, The Political Economy of Modern Iran (1981), whose historical and political conclusions have been underlined time and again by the subsequent and often shocking national and international turns. In the intervening period, Katouzian has developed the cyclical theory of Iran’s history as an “aridosolatic,” “pickaxe” or “short-termist” society. Of the important questions that his contributions raise or address, this paper examines the long-term continuity of Twelver/Imami Shi‘ism’s trajectory which uniquely in the twentieth century Muslim and other worlds produced the leaders of two great revolutions. The result entails the addition of a still unfolding evolutionary-institutional layer within Katouzian’s research program which may enhance its explanatory power and reinforce its political vision.

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Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 5: Special Issue: Dedicated to Homa Katouzian , September 2016, pp. 753 - 789
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society For Iranian Studies 2016

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