Sociology of Shi'ite Islam
Subtitle: collected essays
By: by Said Amir Arjomand
Publisher: Brill
Published: 2016
Place of publication: Leiden; Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 486
ISBN-13: 9789004312258; 9789004326279; 9789004380479
Subjects: Schiiten; Shīʻah; History
Description: Sociology of Shi'ite Islam is a comprehensive study of the development of Shi'ism. Its bearers first emerged as a sectarian elite, then a hierocracy and finally a theocracy. Imamate, Occultation and the theodicy of martyrdom are identified as the main components of the Shi'ism as a world religion. In these collected essays Arjomand has persistenly developed a Weberian theoretical framework for the analysis of Shi'ism, from its sectarian formation in the eighth century through the establishment of the Safavid empire in the sixteenth century, to the Islamic revolution in Iran in the twentieth century. These studies highlight revolutionary impulses embedded in the belief in the advent of the hidden Imam, and the impact of Shiʻite political ethics on the authority structure of pre-modern Iran and the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Shi'ite Islam as a World Religion, its Social Forms, Bearers and Impact on Social Action; title: Part 1. Formation of Shi'ite Islam as a World Religion of Salvation : Imamate, Occultation and Theodicy; title: Origins and Development of Apocalyptic Messianism in Early Islam; title: The Crisis of the Imamate and the Institution of Occultation in Twelver Shi'ism; title: Imam Absconditus and the Beginnings of a Theology of Occultation; title: The Consolation of Theology : Absence of the Imam and Transition from Chiliasm to Law in Shi'ism; title: Shi'ite Theodicy : Martyrdom and the Meaning of Suffering; title: Part 2. Shi'ite Religion and the Structure of Domination in Iran; title: Hierocratic Authority in Shi'ism and the Transition from Sectarian to National Religion in Iran; title: Three Decrees of Shah Tahmasp on Clerical Authority and Public Law in Shi'ite Iran; title: Political Ethic and Public Law in the First half of the Nineteenth Century; title: Imam Khomeini and the Constitution of the Rule of God in Contemporary Iran; title: Part 3. The Bearers of Shi'ite Islam and its Institutional Organization; title: Hosayn b. Ruh al-Nawbakhti, the Third Emissary of the Hidden Imam; title: The Clerical Estate and the Emergence of a Shi'ite Hierocracy in Safavid Iran; title: The Office of Mulla-Bashi in Shi'ite Iran; title: Shi'ite Jurists and Iran's Law and Constitutional Order in the Twentieth Century; title: Part 4. Shi'ite Islam and the Motivation of Sociopolitical Action: Revolution and Constitution The Rise of Shah Esmail as a Mahdist Revolution; title: Religious Extremism (Ghuluww), Sufism and Sunnism in Safavid Iran: 1501-1722; title: Ideological Revolution in Shi'ism; title: Shi'ite Islam and the Revolution in Iran; title: Shi'ite Conceptions of Authority and Constitutional Developments in the Islamic Republic of Iran; title: Shi'ite Dissent in Iran before and after the Islamic Revolution.