hamid algar - review of mystic regimes

8/2/2019 Hamid Algar - Review of Mystic Regimes

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Geneva, and New Yorkand involve British military action in remoteBuraimi and a spell of broken relations. Aldamer attributes responsibilityfor the revival of this vexed issue to Ibn Sauds quest for territorial gain,

reinforced by a bid for additional oil reserves. Given her obligations to

the Gulf sheikhdoms, Britain had little option but to take a firm stand whiletrying every avenue of diplomacy, partly with American help. It was apoisoned ending to an Arab champions relationship with his oldest Western

ally, and would eventually take the statesmanship of King Faisal to undothe damage and restore the close association with Britain by which Ibn Saud

had once set such store.

Alan MunroLondondoi: 10.1093/jis/eti011

Mystic Regimes: Sufism and the State in Iran, from the Late Qajar Erato the Islamic Republic.

By MATTHIJS VAN DEN BOS (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2002), 286 pp.Price HB E73.00. ISBN 9004128158.

Most studies of Islam in Iran over the past two centuries have concentratedon the Sh;6; 6ulam:8justifiably so, in view of the high degree of influencethey have continually exerted. The Sufi orders of Sh;6; obedience active in Iranhave been far less successful in capturing popular allegiance. Mutual opposition

between 6:lim and Sufi has, moreover, been the general order of the day, not thesymbiosis between the two classes that once existed in many Sunn; contexts,above all the Ottoman and the Indian. It is, therefore, perhaps unsurprisingthat the 3ar;qat Sufism of Sh;6; Iran has remained largely unstudied, theonly major exception being Richard Gramlichs exhaustive bio-bibliographicalsurvey (Die schiitischen Derwischorden Persiens, (Wiesbaden, 3 vols., 1965,1976, 1981)). Now, in an excellent and highly original study based onextensive fieldwork and archival research in Iran, Matthijs van den Bos has

presented a detailed history of the orders in the late nineteenth and twentiethcenturies, with emphasis on their manoeuvrings between the state and the

6ulam:8 as competing sources of authority. This is an essay in sociology,as well as an account of one aspect of religion in Iranian society; hencethe somewhat curious title of the book, Mystic Regimes, by which the authormeans modes of domination, as well as the often ponderous theoretical

lucubration.He is concerned primarily with the 4af; 6Al; Sh:h; and Sul3:n 6Al; Sh:h;

(also known as Gun:b:d;) Sufis, preferring to regard each group as an orderin its own right, rather than as branches of the Ni 6matull:hiyya from whichthey are both descended. This is defensible, in that 4af; 6Al; Sh:h;s and Sul3:n6Al; Sh:h;s have little in common except a reciprocal denial of the others

legitimacy. Questionable, however, is the authors exclusion from his studyof a third Ni6matull:h; line, that inaugurated by Dh


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and now headed by Jav:d N


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Sufis fell prey to immediate and comprehensive persecution (see, e.g.

L. Lewisohn, An Introduction to the History of Modern Persian Sufism,

BSOAS, 61: 3 (1998), 43764 and 62: 1 (1999), 3659). This authors morenuanced presentation of the matter makes it clear, however, that adjustment to

the new conditions has enabled organized Sufism to survive. The Sul3:n 6Al;Sh:h;s have been particularly successful in this respect, in part because of their

longstanding reputation as Shar;6a-observant and the distance they generally

kept from the court in the pre-Revolutionary period. Their leader, Ri@: 6Al;

Sh:h, was briefly arrested after the Revolution, but Khomeini ordered him to

be released (p. 153); he even received him publicly, not in 1978, as van den Bos

speculates, but on 1 July 1979 (see anon., MaA@ar-i N


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one which makes an important contribution to understanding the complexitiesof Iranian Islam.

Hamid AlgarUniversity of California, Berkeley

doi: 10.1093/jis/eti012

The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society under Riza Shah,19211941

Edited by STEPHANIE CRONIN (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003),290 pp. Price HB 50.00. ISBN 0451302846.

This excellent collection of essays, on the foundation of the modern Iranianstate under Reza Shah Pahlavi, represents the proceedings of a conference

held in the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1999 (though it shouldbe noted that three of the articles have previously been published elsewhere).As the editor Stephanie Cronin notes, this vital period in the formation ofthe Iranian state remains relatively under-researched, in part (one suspects)

as a result of the continuing passions that the period excites among Iraniansof various political hues, but also, as is noted, because of the relative paucityof sources. The passage of time appears to be addressing both these issues.While, as a number of articles in this collection indicate, passions remain

high, a more balanced assessment of the achievements and failures of RezaShahs reign is facilitated by the increasing historical distance, and as more

archival sources are released for scrutiny. That said, it is worth rememberingthat the very importance of the period in laying the foundations of themodern Iranian state ensures that judgements passed by historians enjoy anunusually sensitive contemporary relevance. Reza Shah, and the drive for

modernization he represents, is not so much part of the Iranian past as of theIranian present.

The volume is divided into a number of distinct sections, looking in turn atspecific aspects of political and social development. The first section deals with theconstruction of the new state, with contributions by Homa Katouzian, StephanieCronin, and Vanessa Martin, casting a critical eye on the limits of modernization.

Cronin in particular lays to rest the general belief that the army created by RezaShah remained implacably loyal to his will, noting his own very patrimonial

anxieties about the potential threat posed by competent senior officers. The resultwas a senior officer corps driven by loyalty rather than military merit, and an armythat was, as a consequence, less effective in the field than parade ground presenta-tion sought to intimate. More interesting was the growth regardless of a distinctly

modern corporate identity among junior officers within the army, in particular the Jahansuz group (named after its erstwhile leader), whomuch like the YoungTurksbecame disaffected with the limitations of modernization. Unlike theirTurkish predecessors, the Jahansuz were routed and their leader shot, but as

Cronin notes, The presence of such a group within the army, the quintessentialinstitution of Pahlavi Iran, showed that even this prized and pampered institution

B O O K R E V I E W S 91

hamid algar - review of mystic regimes

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