Converting Persia

Author : Rula Abisaab
Publisher : I.B. Tauris
ISBN 13 : 9781860649707
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.0X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Converting Persia written by Rula Abisaab and published by I.B. Tauris. This book was released on 2004-02-26 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Converting Persia' explains how Iran was to acquire one of its defining characteristics: its Shi'ism. Under the Safavids (1501-1736 CE), Persia adopted Shi'ism as its official religion. Rula Abisaab explains how and why this specific brand of Shi'ism - urban and legally-based - was brought to the region by leading Arab 'Ulama from Ottoman Syria, and changed the face of the region till this day. These emigre scholars furnished distinct sources of legitimacy for the Safavid monarchs, and an ideological defense against the Ottomans. Just as important at the time was a conscious and vivid process of Persianization both at the state level and in society. Converting Persia is vital reading for anthropologists, historians and scholars of religion, and any interested in Safavid Persia, in Shi'ism, and in the wider history of the Middle East."Rula Abisaab has provided us with a remarkable study of Safavid Iran. Her work throws new light on the interplay of religion and society and will be a crucial work for all interested in the making of modern Iran." -Abbas Amanat, Professor of History, Yale University.

Author : Rula Jurdi Abisaab
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 243 pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Converting Persia written by Rula Jurdi Abisaab and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Rula Abisaab
Publisher : I.B. Tauris
ISBN 13 : 9781780767789
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Converting Persia written by Rula Abisaab and published by I.B. Tauris. This book was released on 2015-10-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Converting Persia' explains how Iran was to acquire one of its defining characteristics: its Shi'ism. Under the Safavids (1501-1736 CE), Persia adopted Shi'ism as its official religion. Rula Abisaab explains how and why this specific brand of Shi'ism - urban and legally-based - was brought to the region by leading Arab 'Ulama from Ottoman Syria, and changed the face of the region till this day. These emigre scholars furnished distinct sources of legitimacy for the Safavid monarchs, and an ideological defense against the Ottomans. Just as important at the time was a conscious and vivid process of Persianization both at the state level and in society. Converting Persia is vital reading for anthropologists, historians and scholars of religion, and any interested in Safavid Persia, in Shi'ism, and in the wider history of the Middle East.

Author : Colin P. Mitchell
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0857715887
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran written by Colin P. Mitchell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2009-08-30 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Safavid dynasty originated as a fledgling apocalyptic mystical movement based in Iranian Azarbaijan, and grew into a large, cosmopolitan Irano-Islamic empire stretching from Baghdad to Herat. Here, Colin P. Mitchell examines how the Safavid state introduced and moulded a unique and vibrant political discourse, reflecting the social and religious heterogeneity of sixteenth-century Iran. Beginning with the millenarian-minded Shah Isma'il and concluding with the autocrat par excellence, Shah Abbas, Mitchell explores the phenomenon of state-sponsored rhetoric. A thorough investigation of the Safavid state and the significance of rhetoric, power and religion in its functioning, The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran is indispensable for all those interested in Iranian history and politics and Middle East studies.

Author : Sussan Babaie
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0857734776
Total Pages : 567 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Persian Kingship and Architecture written by Sussan Babaie and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 567 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the Shah went into exile and the Islamic Republic was established in 1979 in the wake of the Iranian Revolution, the very idea of monarchy in Iran has been contentious. Yet, as Persian Kingship and Architecture argues, the institution of kingship has historically played a pivotal role in articulating the abstract notion of 'Iran' since antiquity. These ideas surrounding kingship and nation have, in turn, served as a unifying cultural force despite shifting political and religious allegiances. Through analyses of palaces, mausolea, art, architectural decoration and urban design the authors show how architecture was appropriated by different rulers as an integral part of their strategies of legitimising power. They refer to a variety of examples, from the monuments of Persepolis under the Achamenids, the Sassanian palaces at Kish, the Safavid public squares of Isfahan, the Qajar palaces at Shiraz and to the modernisation and urban agendas of the Pahlavis. Drawing on archaeology, ancient, medieval, early and modern architectural history, both Islamic and secular, this book is indispensable for all those interested in Iranian studies and visual culture.

Author : Charles Melville
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0755633792
Total Pages : 496 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Safavid Persia in the Age of Empires written by Charles Melville and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-02-25 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw the establishment of the new Safavid regime in Iran. Along with reuniting the Persian lands under one rule, the Safavids initiated the radical transformation of the religious landscape by introducing Imami Shi'ism as the official state faith and in this as in other ways, laying the foundations of Iran's modern identity. In this book, leading scholars of Iranian history, culture and politics examine the meaning of the idea of Iran in the Safavid period by examining contemporary experiences of both insiders and outsiders, asking how modern scholarship defines the distinctive features of the age. While sometimes viewed as a period of decline from the high points of classical Persian literature and the visual arts of preceding centuries, the chapters of this book demonstrate that the Safavid era was nevertheless a period of great literary and artistic activity in the realms of both secular and theological endeavour. With the establishment of comparable polities across western, southern and central Asia at broadly the same time, the book explores some of the literary and political interactions with Iran's Ottoman, Mughal and Uzbek neighbours. As the volume and frequency of European merchants and diplomats visiting Safavid Persia increased, especially in the seventeenth century, and as more Iranians recorded their own travel experiences to surrounding Muslim lands, the Safavid period is the first in which we can document and explore the contours of Iran's place in an expanding world, and gain insights into how Iranians saw themselves and others saw them.

Author : David Morgan
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317415671
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.71/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Medieval Persia 1040-1797 written by David Morgan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-06-26 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medieval Persia 1040-1797 charts the remarkable history of Persia from its conquest by the Muslim Arabs in the seventh century AD to the modern period at the end of the eighteenth century, when the impact of the west became pervasive. David Morgan argues that understanding this complex period of Persia’s history is integral to understanding modern Iran and its significant role on the international scene. The book begins with a geographical introduction and briefly summarises Persian history during the early Islamic centuries to place the country’s Middle Ages in their historical context. It then charts the arrival of the Saljūq Turks in the eleventh century and discusses in turn the major political powers of the period: Mongols, Timurids, Türkmen and Safawids. The chronological narrative enables students to identify change and consistencies under each ruling dynasty, while Persia’s rich social, cultural, religious and economic history is also woven throughout to present a complete picture of life in Medieval Persia. Despite the turbulent backdrop, which saw Persia ruled by a succession of groups who had seized power by military force, arts, painting, poetry, literature and architecture all flourished in the period. This new edition contains a new epilogue which discusses the significant literature of the last 28 years to provide students with a comprehensive overview of the latest historiographical trends in Persian history. Concise and clear, this book is the perfect introduction for students of medieval Persia and the medieval Middle East.

Author : Andrew J. Newman
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0857716611
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.13/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Safavid Iran written by Andrew J. Newman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-04-11 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Safavid dynasty, which reigned from the late fifteenth to the eighteenth century, links medieval with modern Iran. The Safavids witnessed wide-ranging developments in politics, warfare, science, philosophy, religion, art and architecture. But how did this dynasty manage to produce the longest lasting and most glorious of Iran's Islamic-period eras?Andrew Newman offers a complete re-evaluation of the Safavid place in history as they presided over these extraordinary developments and the wondrous flowering of Iranian culture. In the process, he dissects the Safavid story, from before the 1501 capture of Tabriz by Shah Ismail (1488-1524), the point at which Shiism became the realm's established faith; on to the sixteenth and early seventeenth century dominated by Shah Abbas (1587-1629), whose patronage of art and architecture from his capital of Isfahan embodied the Safavid spirit; and culminating with the reign of Sultan Husayn (reg. 1694-1722).Based on meticulous scholarship, Newman offers a valuable new interpretation of the rise of the Safavids and their eventual demise in the eighteenth century. "Safavid Iran," with its fresh insights and new research, is the definitive single volume work on the subject.

Author : Christian Windler
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0755649389
Total Pages : 409 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Missionaries in Persia written by Christian Windler and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-01-25 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Isfahan, the capital of the Safavid Empire, hosted Catholic missionaries of more diverse affiliations than most other cities in Asia. Attracted by the hope of converting the Shah, the missionaries acted as diplomatic agents for Catholic rulers, hosts to Protestant merchants, and healers of Armenians and Muslims. Through such niche activities they gained social acceptance locally. This book examines the activities of Discalced Carmelites and other missionaries, revealing the flexibility they demonstrated in dealing with cultural diversity, a common feature of missionary activity throughout emerging global Catholicism. While missions all over the world were central to the self-fashioning of the Counter-Reformation Church, clerics who set out to win over souls for the “true religion” turned into local actors who built reputations by defining their social roles in accordance with the expectations of their host society. Such practices fed controversies that were fought out in newly emerging public spaces. Responding to the threat this posed to its authority, the Roman Curia initiated a process of doctrinal disambiguation and centralization which culminated in the nineteenth century. Using the missions to Safavid Iran as a case study for “a global history on a small scale,” the book creates a new paradigm for the study of global Catholicism.

Author : Rudi Matthee
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0857720945
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Persia in Crisis written by Rudi Matthee and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-11-30 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I.B.Tauris in association with the Iran Heritage Foundation The decline and fall of Safavid Iran is traditionally seen as the natural outcome of the unrelieved political stagnation and moral degeneration which characterised late Safavid Iran. "Persia in Crisis" challenges this view. In this ground-breaking new book, Rudi Matthee revisits traditional sources and introduces new ones to take a fresh look at Safavid Iran in the century preceding the fall of Isfahan in 1722, which brought down the dynasty and ushered in a long period of turbulence in Iranian history. Inherently vulnerable because of the country's physical environment, its tribal makeup and a small economic base, the Safavid state was fatally weakened over the course of the seventeenth century. Matthee views Safavid Iran as a network of precarious alliances subject to perpetual negotiation and the society they ruled as an uneasy balance between conflicting forces. In the later seventeenth century this delicate balance shifted from cohesion to fragmentation. An increasingly detached, palace-bound shah; a weakening link between the capital and the outlying provinces; the regime's neglect of the military and its shortsighted monetary policies combined to exacerbate rather than redress existing problems, leaving the country with a ruler too feeble to hold factionalism and corruption in check and a military unable to defend its borders against outside attack by Ottomans and Afghans. The scene was set for the Crisis of 1722. This book makes a major contribution to our understanding of Iranian history and the period that led to two hundred years of decline and eclipse for Iran.