The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran - Softcover

Mottahedeh, Roy P.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1851686169 ISBN 13: 9781851686162

Publisher: Oneworld Publications, 2008

Synopsis

Drawn from the first-hand accounts of eyewitnesses, Roy Mottahedeh's absorbing tale of Islam and Politics in revolutionary Iran is widely regarded as one of the best records of that turbulent time ever written. Now including a section considering the seminal work in light of Ahmadinejad's controversial regime, this new edition promises to offer new levels of understanding into Iran's past, present and future.

About this title

Review:

"Mottahedeh has drawn on a massive amount of learning, but he has got the scholarly apparatus out of the way and made his book accessible to a wide audience." (New York Times Book Review)

"He has a sharp feeling for the sensous aspects of the traditional Iranian town - the texture of bricks and tiles, the movement of breezes, the sound of the side alley, the precious burst of greenery and of trees." (The Times Literary Supplement)

"A remarkable treasure." (The Wall Street Journal)

"The beauty of [Mottahedeh’s] book is in his ability to explain sophisticated ideas and difficult subjects in a way which is widely accessible... an extraordinary book." (London Review of Books)

"One of the top 75 books of the twentieth century" (Foreign Affairs)

"The graceful prose and factual command... make [this book] a fascinating read." (San Francisco Chronicle)

Even with news breaking daily in Iran, the first book I send myself and other readers back to has to be Roy Mottahedeh’s “The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran,” which was first published in 1985. A professor at Harvard, Mottahedeh has written an intellectual history as stirring and graceful as any novel. He sets the intimate biography of a young cleric against the vast epic of Iranian thought from Zoroaster to Avicenna, Kasravi to Khomeini. “The Mantle of the Prophet” is literary, learned, and deeply felt; the writing is splendid, and the story is an education for the Western reader unaware of the powerful tides of Shi’ite and Persian thought over a period of centuries. (The New Yorker)

From the Author:

Roy Mottahedeh is Gurney Professor of Middle Eastern History at Harvard University and a leading expert on the pre-modern social and intellectual history of the Islamic Middle East. He is the recipient of numerous academic awards including a Guggenheim and a MacArthur Prize Fellowship. His publications include Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society (Princeton, 1980).

About this edition

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1851686169
• ISBN 13: 9781851686162
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 432