I am indebted to a number of my colleagues and friends who read the draft of this book and made useful comments for its improvement. Albert Hourani and John Gurney read the whole of the draft, and spent considerable time discussing its content with me. I particularly benefited from stimulating conversations with Professor Madelung, and my compatriot, Husayn Mudarresī Ṭabāṭabā’ī, who commented on the Introduction, and the chapters of Shī‘īsm. Michael Cook and Roger Owen made helpful criticisms respectively on Sunnī–Shī‘ī polemics and the chapter on ‘Nationalism, Democracy and Socialism’. So did Nikki Keddie on the section dealing with Constitutionalism in Chapter 5. However, responsibility for any controversial opinions or inaccuracies in the text is entirely mine. Mrs Angela Turnbull, of Macmillan Press editorial staff, gave me valuable help in making the transliterations and the dates consistent.
I must thank the Tahereh Research Centre for Contemporary Iranian History for their support from October 1979 to March 1980, when I was working on this book. I am also grateful to the staffs of the Libraries of the Middle East Centre of St Antony’s College, Oxford, the Oriental Room of the Bodleian Library, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, for their patient and unfailing services.
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The original idea of this book would never have been conceived were it not for my friendship with the late Murtaḍā Muṭahharī, Professor of Islamic Philosophy at Tehran University, a most original and creative thinker, a dedicated Muslim, and a humanist.
On the System of Transcription, Dates, etc.
For the sake of consistency, Arabic and Persian words have been transliterated both according to the same system, except that the vowel of the Arabic definite article has been given the value ‘u’ in Persian names and words (hence Faḍlullāh instead of Faḍl Allāh), and the consonantal vāv has been rendered as ‘v’ for Persian and ‘w’ for Arabic words. The main consideration throughout has been to convey exact phonetic structure. Some inconsistencies have, however, inevitably occurred either because of the necessity of observing the common usage, or in quotations, or owing to the different systems of transliterating Turkish words.
Most years before the sixteenth century have been given according to both the lunar Islamic calendar and the Christian calendar, separated by a stroke. The years after that have been given in the text only according to the Christian calendar.
Translations of the Qur’ānic verses are from J. M. Rodwell, The Koran (London, 1861), unless they are paraphrased.
H.E.