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The Emergence of Modern Shi'ism

Islamic Reform in Iraq and Iran

Zackery M. Heern

$73.95   $62.73

Hardback

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English
One World
01 September 2015
This book takes a fresh look at the foundations of modern Islam. Scholars often locate the origins of the modern Islamic world in European colonialism or Islamic reactions to European modernity. However, this study focuses on the rise of Islamic movements indigenous to the Middle East, which developed in direct response to the collapse and decentralization of the Islamic gunpowder empires. In other words, the book argues that the Usuli movement as well as Wahhabism and neo-Sufism emerged in reaction to the disintegration and political decentralization of the Safavid, Ottoman, and Mughal empires.

The book specifically highlights the emergence of Usuli Shi‘ism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The long-term impact of the Usuli revival was that Shi‘i clerics gained unprecedented social, political, and economic power in Iran and southern Iraq. Usuli clerics claimed authority to issue binding legal judgments, which, they argue, must be observed by all Shi‘is. By the early nineteenth century, Usulism emerged as a popular, fiercely independent, transnational Islamic movement. The Usuli clerics have often operated at the heart of social and political developments in modern Iraq and Iran and today dominate the politics of the region.
By:  
Imprint:   One World
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 234mm,  Width: 156mm,  Spine: 19mm
Weight:   431g
ISBN:   9781780744964
ISBN 10:   178074496X
Pages:   240
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Out of Print

Zackery M. Heern is a professor of Middle East and Islamic studies at Murray State University. His research and teaching interests include Shi'ism, Iraq, Iran, Islamic Movements, and Global History. He lives in Murray, America.

Reviews for The Emergence of Modern Shi'ism: Islamic Reform in Iraq and Iran

'Heern...is primarily concerned with the Shias, Islam's second-largest denomination after the Sunnis. But he refreshingly teases out the parallels between the three movements, rather than their differences as most other commentators have done.' The Economist


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