Since the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1978–79, a large volume of publications on Shi‘i Islam have appeared, focusing mostly on Iran. I have listed some of the classical works, as well as recently published works in English that contain useful bibliographies. These publications have also helped me develop the themes discussed in the prologue. There are many excellent works in Western languages, as well as in Arabic and Persian, not to speak of archival sources, not mentioned here but cited in the notes to the chapters of this book.
General Works on Shi‘ism
There are three primers: Yann Richard, Shi‘ite Islam: Polity, Ideology, and Creed, trans. Antonia Nevill (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1995); Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi‘i Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi‘ism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985); and Heinz Halm, Shi‘a Islam: From Religion to Revolution, trans. Allison Brown (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1997). Juan Cole, Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture, and History of Shi‘ite Islam (London: I. B. Tauris, 2002), and Rainer Brunner and Werner Ende, eds., The Twelver Shi‘a in Modern Times: Religious Culture and Political History (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2001), contain chapters and articles covering a wide range of topics and territories. Recent trends within the Shi‘i religious leadership are discussed in Linda Walbridge, ed., The Most Learned of the Shi‘a: The Institution of the Marja‘ al-Taqlid (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). Abbas Amanat, “In between the Madrasa and the Marketplace: The Designation of Clerical Leadership in Modern Shi‘ism,” in Authority and Political Culture in Shi‘ism, ed. Said Amir Arjomand (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), is an excellent analysis of the factors shaping the relations between clerics and followers in Shi‘i Islam. There are very few comparative studies on Shi‘is in the Arab world. Abbas Kelidar, “The Shi‘i Imami Community and Politics in the Arab East,” Middle Eastern Studies 19 (1983): 3–16, and Graham Fuller and Rend Rahim Francke, The Arab Shi‘a: The Forgotten Muslims (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), are the first such attempts. Two writers have offered tentative assessments of the impact that the U.S. invasion of Iraq could have on Shi‘is, and on Shi‘i-Sunni relations, in the Middle East and in Pakistan: Vali Nasr, “Regional Implications of Shi‘a Revival in Iraq,” Washington Quarterly 27 (Summer 2004): 7–24; and Reuel Marc Gerecht, The Islamic Paradox: Shiite Clerics, Sunni Fundamentalists, and the Coming of Arab Democracy (Washington: AEI Press, 2004).
Iran and the Legacy of the Revolution
Nikki Keddie has dedicated a good part of her life to the study of Iran. Her recently updated Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution, 2d ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), is among the best of this category of books. Roy Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran, 2d ed. (Boston: One World Publications, 2000), is an absorbing book that illuminates the uneasy relations between church and state in Iran, and the uncertainties of clerics about the change spurred by the revolution. Two perceptive journalists have captured the realism that has replaced the revolutionary fervor of the late 1970s and 1980s, along with the strength of the Iranian reform movement despite the recent campaign against it by the hard-line clerical establishment: Robin Wright, The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran (New York: Vintage Books, 2001); and Elaine Sciolino, Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran (New York: Free Press, 2000). Bahman Baktiari, Parliamentary Politics in Revolutionary Iran: The Institutionalization of Factional Politics (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1996), traces the evolution of the national assembly as an institution contributing to sociopolitical stability in the Islamic Republic between the 1980s and the mid-1990s. Detail and analysis on Khomeini’s views of Islamic government as developed between the early 1940s and the late 1970s may be found in Vanessa Martin, Creating an Islamic State: Khomeini and the Making of the New Iran (London: I. B. Tauris, 2000), and Hamid Algar, Islam and Revolution: Writing and Declarations of Imam Khomeini (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1981).
Iraq
A discussion of the Shi‘i learning circles in Najaf and Karbala in late Ottoman Iraq may be found in Meir Litvak, Shi‘i Scholars of Nineteenth-Century Iraq (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Yitzhak Nakash, The Shi‘is of Iraq, 2d ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), highlights the strong Arab tribal identity of Iraqi Shi‘is as well as the distinct religious and organizational forms of Shi‘ism in twentieth-century Iraq and Iran. The unique characteristics of Iraqi Shi‘ism are discussed further in Faleh Jabar, The Shiite Movement in Iraq (London: Saqi Books, 2003). Chibli Mallat, The Renewal of Islamic Law: Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr, Najaf, and the Shi‘i International (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), focuses on this important Iraqi cleric and thinker, who was executed by the Ba‘th in 1980, and discusses Sadr’s views on Islamic constitutionalism and the role of religious leaders. The essays of Talib Aziz in The Most Learned of the Shi‘a, and in Faleh Abdul-Jabar, Ayatollahs, Sufis, and Ideologies: State, Religion, and Social Movements in Iraq (London: Saqi Books, 2002), shed new light on Sadr’s political theory. Sadr’s ideas on Islamic government, and those of Khomeini, may be contrasted with ‘Ali Sistani’s rulings and statements following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, posted on his Web site (http://sistani.org), to underscore their different views regarding clerical participation in politics.
Fouad Ajami, The Vanished Imam: Musa al-Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), is a masterful account of the changing fortunes of the Shi‘i community sparked by Sadr. The role of Sadr as a community leader is discussed further in Majed Halawi, A Lebanon Defied: Musa al-Sadr and the Shi‘a Community (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1992). Augustus Richard Norton, Amal and the Shi‘a: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987), focuses on the Amal movement established by Sadr. Amal’s rival, Hizballah, has attracted a great deal of attention. Martin Kramer, “The Oracle of Hizbullah: Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah,” in Spokesmen for the Despised: Fundamentalist Leaders of the Middle East, ed. R. Scott Appleby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), explores the political ideas as developed through the early-1990s of the cleric who acted as Hizballah’s mentor in its early days. The transformation of Hizballah from a revolutionary movement into a political party is sketched in Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Hizbu’llah: Politics and Religion (London: Pluto Press, 2002); Sami Hajjar, “Hizballah: Terrorism, National Liberation, or Menace?” (Washington, D.C.: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, August, 2002), http://au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ssi/hizbala.pdf; Judith Palmer Harik, Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004); and Ahmad Nizar Hamzeh, In the Path of Hizbullah (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2004). Christoph Reuter, My Life Is a Weapon, trans. Helena Ragg-Kirkby (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), documents the decrease in suicide bombings by Hizballah against Westerners and Israeli targets since the 1990s.
The Persian Gulf
Two helpful articles on the Saudi Shi‘is are Madawi al-Rasheed, “The Shi‘a of Saudi Arabia: A Minority in Search of Cultural Authenticity,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 25 (1998): 121–38, and Madawi al-Rasheed and Loulouwa al-Rasheed, “The Politics of Encapsulation: Saudi Policy towards Tribal and Religious Opposition,” Middle Eastern Studies 32 (1996): 96–119. There is a good anthropological study on Bahrain with useful information on the Shi‘is: Fuad Khuri, Tribe and State in Bahrain: The Transformation of Social and Political Authority in an Arab State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). The role of Shi‘is in the early stages of the 1994–99 uprising in Bahrain is discussed in Munira Fakhro, “The Uprising in Bahrain: An Assessment,” in The Persian Gulf at the Millennium: Essays in Politics, Economy, Security, and Religion, ed. Gary Sick and Lawrence Potter (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 167–88. Shi‘i opposition groups have used the Internet effectively to promote their cause. The Web site of the Bahrain Freedom Movement, http://vob.org, has updated information in English and in Arabic. The Shi‘is of Kuwait are discussed in Fuller and Rahim Francke, The Arab Shi‘a.