The Conclusion carries the book’s arguments forward in time, considering what became of Persianate modernity in the second half of the twentieth century. It is an invitation for scholars of regions and time periods beyond the scope of this book to take up Persianate modernity as a useful framework for analyzing the role of the Persianate heritage in the making of modernity, not only in Iran and South Asia, but in Afghanistan, the erstwhile Ottoman territories, Central Asia, and elsewhere.

The modern history of Saudi–Iranian relations (dating back to the formation of the Saudi state in 1932) can be characterized broadly into five distinct phases. The first is between 1932 and 1979, which is characterized by regional distrust yet a willingness for the two states to engage with each other. The second is the period after the revolution until three years after the end of the Iran–Iraq War – where a catastrophic earthquake provided an opportunity to reset relations – which was driven by existential concerns about the nature of political organization and competition over Islamic legitimacy. The ensuing period from 1991 to 2003 was one in which a burgeoning rapprochement began to unfold, driven by domestic factors across the Gulf. The fourth period ran roughly from 2003 to 2011, in which the bombastic nationalism of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president (2005–13) ran up against the belligerent ‘Axis of Evil’ narrative within the US War on Terror. The fifth period emerged after the Arab Uprisings in 2011, providing the two states with opportunities to exert influence across the Middle East through the provision of support to groups across the region. The events of the Arab Uprisings provided further opportunities to increase their influence, particularly in those states where regime-society relations began to fragment. In this chapter I offer a brief genealogy of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran with a focus on the construction of competing nomoi – visions of regional order – which play out across the transnational field and resonate within states.

This chapter explores efforts to shape Bahrain’s political field and the ways in which its politically charged geographical location as the ‘epicentre’ of the struggle for supremacy between Riyadh and Tehran shapes these efforts. It explores the struggle for Bahrain’s political field and its social reality which has allowed a range of domestic and regional actors to become involved in the contestation over principles of vision and division, deploying economic, political, and religious capital in the process. Central to this is a number of networks and relationships that shape perceptions and behaviour, along tribal, ethnic, and religious lines. As Saudi and Iranian efforts to impose order on the region focused on Bahrain, they intersected with a complex set of intersectional phenomena bringing together tensions between rulers and ruled over social, economic, and political issues, all of which play out in the context of the transnational field.

To understand the way in which Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other groups have become involved in the conflict in Yemen, we must understand the complexities of both political life and the conflict itself. The existence of myriad groups with competing agendas reveals the parabolic pressures working broadly within the context of the Yemeni state. Although largely reduced to either a ‘proxy struggle’ between Saudi Arabia and Iran, or a conflict between the Houthi insurgents and the regime of President Hadi, events on the ground are far more complex. While there are aspects of both narratives that ring true, both require contextualization and must be located within the milieu of Yemeni politics.

The following chapter traces the history of Lebanese politics, reflecting on the structural factors that facilitate the involvement of external powers. It suggests that the structural organization of the state allows for external patronage in support of communal interests and, amid times of crisis, this patronage is seen to be a necessity. Moreover, the geopolitical significance of Lebanon means that external actors also seek local allies as a means of countering rivals who already possess influence across the state while local actors also seek to position themselves within broader regional currents. To understand the competition over Lebanon, we must trace the historical development of the Lebanese state which allows for identification of the structural factors conditioning – or limiting – the deployment of capital and foreign policy activities.

To understand the ways in which Saudi Arabia and Iran have engaged with Iraqi politics and sought to define the principles of vision within Iraq’s political field, one must understand the structural factors conditioning and curtailing the deployment of capital. Here, tracing the evolution of Iraq’s political field is essential as a means of understanding the actions of Riyadh and Tehran. This tracing involves reflecting on identity politics and the interplay between identity groups and the state. The nature of this interplay, in turn, allows for the development of relations with regional powers, on both an individual and a communal level.

In order to understand the ways in which the Saudi–Iranian rivalry plays out in Syria, it is essential to trace the evolution of the political field and its interaction with the transnational field. In doing so, the chapter critically reflects on the evolution of political life in Syria and the position of the state within broader regional currents, with a focus on Ba’athism, the Axis of Resistance, and the Arab Uprisings. Syria’s importance within such movements meant that it became a state of interest for other regional powers, particularly seen in the aftermath of the Arab Uprisings.

Utilizing historical case studies from Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, and Iraq, Chapter 4 delves into the question of how, why, and when the Islamic supremacy clause entered constitution making in the Muslim world and how it affected the incorporation of human rights in the constitutions of Muslim-majority states. It illustrates that both human rights and Islam are often democratically and popularly demanded by majorities in some Muslim countries; therefore, both represent popular aspirations rather than theocratic imposition. That is, they are often carefully bargained and compromised provisions in constitutions.

This chapter is concerned with Germany’s perspective on the foundations and functions of international law. It is structured in two parts: international law in general and sources of international law. The second part examines Germany’s view of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) that sought to limit Iran’s nuclear programme. It is argued that the political aims of Germany do not justify the twisting of international law. The Federal Government portrayed the document as a binding international treaty. It did so by speaking of an ‘agreement’, from which the US had decided to ‘withdraw’ and by depicting the participants as ‘parties’. Further, Germany argued that Iran is bound by ‘obligations’ under the JCPoA. Germany also spoke of ‘Articles’ in the JCPoA and asserted that the document was ‘signed’. Moreover, Germany argued that the JCPoA became international law through the endorsement of the UN Security Council. However, the UN Security Council never marked its endorsement as a binding decision. Four and half years after the adoption of the JCPoA, Germany admitted that the JCPoA constitutes only a record of mutual political commitments and is therefore ‘soft law’.

In 1979, the nation of Iran underwent an intellectual-cultural-religious-political revolution integrating Islamic law/principles into Iranian healthcare legislation and healthcare delivery. In this chapter, we investigate the domain of patient autonomy in Islamic law and scrutinise Iranian statute law and by-laws, including the Patient Rights Charter (2009). We conclude that advance directives in Iran, at most, function to advise the patient’s legal surrogate decision maker provided they are in keeping with the law. Despite this, advance directives are significantly underutilised in Iranian healthcare. This may be influenced by a lack of legislation clarifying the status of physician liability for respecting advance directives to refuse life-sustaining treatment, controversy in Islamic legal circles over personal autonomy, pressure from relatives to continue futile care, cultural beliefs around divine fate/suffering and a lack of palliative care services. In order to utilise the potential for advance directives to improve the delivery of appropriate healthcare in end-of-life patients, a clear fatwa is required on the matter, followed by clear legislation clarifying patient rights to refuse treatment and physician liability. Hospital and community healthcare services must also be empowered to implement advance directives and improve delivery of palliative care where indicated.

The conclusion synthesizes and reflects upon the case studies and comparative and theoretical contributions in the book. The cases are organized around three categories: first, relatively conventional decentralization initiatives in which reforms were adopted to improve governance; second, contexts in which decentralization has been contemplated as a framework for self-determination for the region’s stateless communities; and finally, decentralization initiatives undertaken in the shadow of conflict and state fragmentation. This concluding chapter develops theoretical insights drawn from the rich terrain for qualitative comparison across these three contexts. It offers reflections on key characteristics of the shared regional context and a typology of factors driving decentralization in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It argues that an important contribution of the volume lies in identifying a broader array of motivations for, and actors driving, decentralization than currently reflected in the scholarly literature and in parsing the implications for the institutional design of decentralized government. The chapter concludes by distilling patterns from the cases to identify distinct trajectories of decentralization that are evidenced in the MENA region and their entailments.

In 1999, the Islamic Republic of Iran established elected local government by holding nationwide elections for city and village councils. Competing actors hoped it would support distinct outcomes: Islamization, administrative efficiency, and democratization. This chapter describes the underlying logic of these motivations and their outcomes over the two decades since: in the main, the triumph of Islamization and technocracy. It explores the regime’s use of local government and administrative law to undercut the democratizing potential of political decentralization through two arenas of local politics. The regime controlled the scope of local political participation through widespread disqualification of opposition individuals and political parties. The regime also severely restricted the autonomy of elected local government in passing legislation. This institutionalized elected local government as a subordinate administrative tier of the regime rather than a local partner in subnational governance. The chapter concludes that political decentralization in Iran is best interpreted through the theory of electoral authoritarianism and is best viewed historically as an integral part of building Iran’s authoritarian Islamic state.