In order to understand Iran's religious revolution of 1978-1979, it is important to look closely at an earlier revolution in the country, the constitutional revolution of 1905-1909. This revolution, which resulted in the establishment of Iran's first parliamentary democracy, was a seminal event in the country's history. The most thorough and comprehensive history of the revolution to date, Bayat's book examines the uneasy alliance of clerical, bureaucratic, landowning, and mercantile elements that won the support of the masses for a more democratic government, especially the clerical dissidents that gave the revolution an aura of religious legitimacy. Bayat argues that the recent religious revival in Iran is much less surprising when one sees how constitutionalists at the beginning of the century had to couch their calls for reform in the language of the Koran, claiming that political reforms constituted a return to Islam.
In order to understand Iran's religious revolution of 1978-1979, it is important to look closely at an earlier revolution in the country, the constitutional revolution of 1905-1909. This revolution, which resulted in the establishment of Iran's first parliamentary democracy, was a seminal event in the country's history. The most thorough and comprehensive history of the revolution to date, Bayat's book examines the uneasy alliance of clerical, bureaucratic, landowning, and mercantile elements that won the support of the masses for a more democratic government, especially the clerical dissidents that gave the revolution an aura of religious legitimacy. Bayat argues that the recent religious revival in Iran is much less surprising when one sees how constitutionalists at the beginning of the century had to couch their calls for reform in the language of the Koran, claiming that political reforms constituted a return to Islam.
"Iran's First Revolution...is a most important work of revisionist
history that deserves careful reading by all students of modern
Iranian history....This is an authoritative contribution to
scholarship."--History: Reviews of New Books
"The book is most welcome. It deserves the attention of all
students of Iranian history."--Iranian Studies
"On its own terms, this well-researched and cogently argued book is
a highly significant addition to the still small corpus of
Western-language scholarship on Qajar Iran."--Journal of
Interdisciplinary History
"The most comprehensive study to date to the religious role in
Iran's Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909."--CHOICE
"Bayat has written a wonderfully rich and textured work. In the
process, she has shown respect for the work of those whose
arguments she is amending. Consequently, she has accomplished
perhaps the most valuable service a scholar can perform--to cause
readers to re-examine their understanding of considered truths and
to advance fresh explanations for anomalies in received
knowledge."--Middle East Journal
"...Bayat's book is a cogent and vigorous contribution to the
historiography of Iran's first revolution."--International Journal
of Middle East studies
"Livre solide et utile, muni d'une documentation importante et
soignee sur l'histoire et l'historiographie de la Perse durant la
Revolution Constitutionnelle de 1905."--Abstracta Iranica
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