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The Intellectual Best-sellers of Post-Revolutionary Iran: On Backwardness, Elite-killing, and Western Rationality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Afshin Matin-Asgari
Afshin Matin-Asgari*
Affiliation:
California State University-Los Angeles
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Iranian Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , March 2004 , pp. 73 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 The International Society for Iranian Studies

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Footnotes

1

I would like to thank Jasamin Rostam-Kolayi, Nikki R. Keddie and Rudi Matthee for helping me improve this article, although I alone am responsible for its content.

References

2 These data are for the years 1998–2000. See “Sisad-hizar nafar dar musabiqa-yi kitab-khani,” Kitab-i haftih 80 (August 2002): 20–21.

3 Enjoying government patronage, religious books occupied an exceptional place. For example, the Qur'an had fifty-four Arabic editions and 195 different Persian translations, some of which reached 500,000 copies. In addition, there were 318 titles on Qur'anic exegesis and 930 titles on Shi'i Imams. See Karnama-yi nashr (Tehran, 2001).

4 Darnton, Robert, The Forbidden Best-sellers of Pre-revolutionary France (New York, 1995)Google Scholar.

5 These were Alijinab-i surkhpush va alijinaban-i khakistari (1998), with thirty printings in two years; Tarikkhana-yi ashbah (1999), going through twenty-four printings in less than two years; and Tallaqi-yi fashisti az din va hukumat (1999), with eight printings in two years.

6 Afshari, Reza, Human Rights in Iran: The Abuse of Cultural Relativism (Philadelphia, 2001), 212–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Yaddashtha-yi ruzana-yi zindan, by Ibrahim Nabavi, Iran's popular satirist, was in its fifth printing in 2002. Similarly, while Abdullah Nuri was in prison after being sacked from his post as Khatami's interior minister, his Shukaran-i islah (1999) saw eleven printings in its first year.

8 Examples of post-revolutionary Iranian historiography are found in the quarterly Tarikh-i mu‘asir-i Iran, published in Tehran since 1997. The popularity of earlier “canonical” histories continued in the post-revolutionary period. For example, Ahmad Kasravi, Tarikh-i Mashruta-yi Iran was in its twentieth printing in 2002. A political history of the mid-twentieth century based on primary sources, JAMI, Guzashtih chiragh-i rah-i ayandih ast appeared in wide release around 1980 and was in its seventh printing in 2002.

9 Bamdad-i khumar has set the phenomenal record of thirty-seven printings since 1995. Even an unauthorized “sequel” to this book, Nahid A. Pazhvak, Shab-i Sarab, went through thirteen printings between 1998 and 2001.

10 Mas‘ud Bihnud's In sih zan had nine printings from 1995 to 2000; his Aminah and Az Siyyid Zia ta Bakhtiyar were in fifth and ninth printings respectively by 2002.

11 The translation of Cirus Ghani's Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah had four printings from 1998 to 2001. Faridah Diba, Dukhtaram Farah, an alleged biography of Iran's last queen, was in its ninth printing by 2002. William Shawcross, Akharin safar-i Shah (The Shah's Last Ride) was in its twelfth printing in 2002. Mohammad Mosaddegh, Khatirat va Ta'alimat-i duktur Musaddiq was in its tenth printing in 2002.

12 Riza-Quli, Ali, Jami'ih-shinasi-yi nukhbih-kushi (Tehran, 1999)Google Scholar; Alamdari, Kazim, Chira Iran aqab mand va Gharb pish raft? (Tehran, 2000)Google Scholar; Sayf, Ahmad, Pishdaramadi bar istibdad-salari dar Iran (Tehran, 2000)Google Scholar.

13 Ali Riza-Quli, The Sociology of Elite-Killing, 227.

14 It went through ten printings between 1995 and 2000. For a review of this book see Matin-Asgari, Afshin, “The Causes of Iran's Backwardness,” Critique 13 (Fall 1998): 103–07Google Scholar. In a follow-up work, Sunnat va mudirnitih (Tehran, 1998) Zibakalam argued the same points focusing on a detailed study of nineteenth century Iran.

15 According to Zibakalam, “our past failures have been rooted in our own ignorance, and weakness, and internal conditions, rather than in foreign schemes and ‘conspiracies.’” Sunnat va mudirnitih, 89. On his thesis linking despotism to religion see Sunnat va mudirnitih, 194; on his neo-liberal views see the publisher's introduction.

16 Riza-Quli, Jami'ih-shinasi, 8. In passing, he refers to Rocher, Guy, Introduction à la sociologie générale (Paris, 1968)Google Scholar and Duverger, Maurice, Institutions Politiques et Droits Constitutionels (Paris, 1975)Google Scholar. The rest of the book's citations are to a number of translations and Persian works, none of which propose a thesis similar to Riza-Quli's.

17 Riza-Quli, Jami'ih-shinasi, 41, 64.

18 Riza-Quli, Jami'ih-shinasi,103–05, 174.

19 Riza-Quli, quoted on 109; See also Riza-Quli 136, 153. He adds Musaddiq to the list of those killed by the people: “The science of cultural analysis …clearly shows the nation's sullied hand in abandoning and killing these three prime ministers …” (227).

20 Riza-Quli, Jami'ih-shinasi, 160.

21 Riza-Quli, Jami'ih-shinasi, 154. Riza-Quli's homage to Mouaddiq is somewhat inconsistent. At one stage he says that Musaddiq himself believed that Iranians did not understand constitutional government. But a few pages later he quotes Musaddiq's declaration of confidence in the people's astuteness. See Riza-Quli, Jami‘ih-shinasi, 205, 211–12.

22 See the interview with Riza-Quli in Rah-i naw 15 (August 1998): 28–30. Riza-Quli quoted on 30.

23 On politics as management see Riza-Quli, Jami‘ih-shinasi, 97. Typically, he equates laissez faire economics with the parliamentary system, liberalism, and popular sovereignty. For his view of “progress,” see Riza-Quli, Jami'ih-shinasi, 146.

24 On Rafsanjani as Iran's Richelieu see Ganji, Tarik-khanih, 436–37. On Iranian political factions see Buchta, Wilfred, Who Rules Iran? The Structure of Power in the Islamic Republic (Washington, 2000)Google Scholar.

25 Matin-asgari, Afshin, “Sacred City Profaned: Utopianism and Despair in Early Modernist Persian Literature,” in Matthee, Rudi and Baron, Beth, eds., Iran and Beyond: Essaysin Middle Eastern History in Honor of Nikki R. Keddie (Costa Mesa, CA, 2000), 186–211Google Scholar.

26 The Sociology of Elite-killing quickly generated imitators. For example, Hasan Naraqi, Chira dar mandihim? Jami‘ih-shinasi-yi khudiman, was published in 2001 and reached its fourth printing in a year.

27 Sayf, Preface to Despotism, 7–8.

28 Sayf, Preface to Despotism, 33, 50.

29 Sayf, Preface to Despotism, 46–47; Sayf, Preface to Despotism, 86–88.

30 Sayf, Preface to Despotism, 63–75.

31 Sayf, Preface to Despotism, 99–101.

32 Sayf, Preface to Despotism, 102–11.

33 On the misogyny of Iran's “religious intellectuals” see Kar, Mihrangiz, “Rushanfikri-yi dini va mas'alih-yi zanan,” Rah-i naw 1:16 (1998): 32–33Google Scholar.

34 Alamdari, Why Iran Lagged Behind while the West Moved Forward, 96–7.

35 Alamdari, Why Iran Lagged Behind while the West Moved Forward, 26–7, 30.

36 Brenner, Robert, “The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism,” New Left Review 104 (1977): 25–92Google Scholar.

37 Alamdari, Why Iran Lagged Behind, 45–46.

38 Alamdari, Why Iran Lagged Behind, 47–48.

39 See Zibakalm, Sunnat va mudirnitih, 194; Riza-Quli, The Sociology of Elite-Killing, 9–10.

40 For example Ibrahim, Mahmoud, Merchant Capital and Islam (Austin, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Rodinson, Maxime, Islam and Capitalism (New York, 1974)Google Scholar.

41 Alamdari, Chira Iran, 49–50.

42 Alamdari, Chira Iran, 57–8, 173.

43 On Iranian history as a set of “absences” see Tavakoli-Tarqi, Mohammad, “Modernity, Heterotopia, and Homeless Texts,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 18:2 (1998): 2–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 Alamdari overlooks the long debate on the transition from feudalism by historians from Bloch, Marc, Feudal Society (Chicago, 1961)Google Scholar to Hobsbawm, Eric et al. The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism (London, 1976)Google Scholar to Aston, T.H. and Philpin, C.H., eds., The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe (Cambridge, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Overlooked also are important theoretical studies of pre-modern Iran, e.g., Foran, John, Fragile Resistance: Social Transformations in Iran from 1500 to the Revolution (Boulder, 1993)Google Scholar and Vali, Abbas, Pre-capitalist Iran: A Theoretical History (New York, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which do not accept the Asiatic Mode of Production model.

45 Lewis, Bernard, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (Oxford, 2002)Google Scholar; Huntington, Samuel, Clash of Civilizations: Remaking of World Order (New York, 1996)Google Scholar.

46 Bernal, Martin, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilizations, 2 vols. (New York, 1991))Google Scholar; Aubert, Maria Eugenia, The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies, and Trade, trans. Turton, M. (Cambridge, 1993)Google Scholar.

47 Almadari, Chira Iran, 66.

48 Almadari, Chira Iran, 96–97.

49 Almadari, Chira Iran, 101, 104. Other Iranian intellectuals hold similar views on “East-West” dichotomies. See for example, Farhadpur, Murad, Aql-i afsurdih (Tehran, 1999), 256–58Google Scholar.

50 Turner, Bryan, Weber and Islam: A Critical Study (New York, 1982)Google Scholar; Blaut, J.M., Eight Eurocentric Historians (New York, 2000)Google Scholar; and Huff, Toby E. and Schluchter, Wolfgang, Max Weber and Islam (New Brunswick NJ, 1999)Google Scholar.

51 Nissen, Hans J., The Early History of the Ancient Near East, 9000–2000 B.C., trans. Lutzeier, E. (Chicago, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chaudhuri, K.N., Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Duplessis, Robert S., Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1997)Google Scholar.

52 Almadari, Chira Iran, 222–26, 233, 236; Marx, Karl, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations (New York, 1965)Google Scholar.

53 Alamdari, Chira Iran, 249–447.

54 By March 2003, the total value of US stocks had suffered its longest and deepest decline since the Great Depression of the 1930s; see Los Angeles Times (16 March 2003).

55 Alamdari, Chira Iran, 287–8.

56 Alamdari, Chira Iran, 298, 303.

57 Alamdari, Chira Iran, 333–6; 371.

58 Alamdari, Chira Iran, 342, 364–5, 416.

59 Examples of the former are Shuja' al-Din Shafa, Tavalludi digar: Iran-i kuhan dar hizara-yi naw (1n.p., 1999) and Dustar, Aramish, Dirakhshish-ha-yi tirah (Paris, 1999)Google Scholar, while Ali Shari'ati espoused the Islamist point of view. See Almadari, Chira Iran, 352–4; 369–71.

60 Alamdari, Chira Iran, 404; see also Alamdari, Chira Iran, 408–9.

61 See Jacob, Margaret, The Cultural Meaning of the Scientific Revolution (Philadelphia: 1989)Google Scholar; Lindberg, David C. and Numbers, Ronald L., eds., Historical Essays on the Encounter Between Christianity and Science (Berkeley, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gay, Peter, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, 2 vols. (New York: 1966–69)Google Scholar.

62 See Vahdat, Farzin, God and Juggernaut: Iran's Intellectual Encounter with Modernity (Syracuse, 2002)Google Scholar.

63 For Iranian intellectual responses to the September 2001 events see Abazari, Yusuf and Farhadpur, Murad, Niuyork, Kabul: nishanih-shinasi-i yazdah-i siptambr (Tehran, 2002)Google Scholar; and Alamadri, Kazim, Buhran-i jahani va naqdi bar nazariya-yi barkhurd-i tamaddunha va nazari-yi guftugu-yi tamaddunha (Tehran, 2002)Google Scholar.