Ali Eteraz on post-Islamism: (more…)

Alexander Kronemer writes: 

At its peak, it lit the Dark Ages with science and philosophy, poetry, art, and architecture. It was the period remembered as a golden age for European Jews. Breakthroughs in medicine, the introduction of the number zero, the lost philosophy of Aristotle, even the prototype for the guitar all came to Europe through Islamic Spain.

However, his conclusion has the right heart though not the best of analyses:

At its best, the history of Islamic Spain is a model for interfaith cooperation that inspires those who seek an easier relationship among the three Abrahamic faiths. At its worst, it’s a warning of what can occur when political and religious leaders divide the world. It reminds us what really happens when civilizations clash.

The revelation contained in a recent UN report on Afghanistan that “more than 80 per cent” of suicide bombers in Afghanistan are recruited and trained in Pakistan may well be perceived by many as an indictment of Islamabad’s failure to effectively tackle the menace of Taliban insurgents operating in Afghanistan from inside Pakistani territory as well as the issue of safe havens for militants in parts of the tribal areas. The report, based on interviews with attackers who failed to carry out their suicide missions, also said that most of them were poor, young and uneducated and that suicide attacks in that country for the first eight months of 2007 were up 69 per cent compared to the same period last year. This only tends to reinforce the view that the best way — of course it is more long term in nature — to prevent suicide attacks from happening, in or outside Pakistan, is to have in place policies that effectively reduce the incidence of poverty and at the same time seek to achieve universal literacy.

An individual who has to his credit some level of formal schooling has more chances of getting a job and earning a decent livelihood than one who has no such education. Furthermore, the kind of education being imparted in many of the country’s madressahs is so out of tune with the practical demands of the job market that enrolment in such institutions is not a good alternative to a mainstream school. Besides, many madressahs retain links with extremist/banned organisations and tend to provide the kind of environment and ‘teaching’ that allow easy indoctrination and recruitment of would-be suicide bombers. This means that madressah reform, since long a neglected matter in this country, needs to be taken up with some seriousness, so that the potential of these institutions to produce intolerant brainwashed automatons, who are more likely to go on to become suicide attackers, is diminished.

The UN report also correctly notes the role played by Afghan refugee camps and how networks operating inside Afghanistan use their links in the camps to win over young impressionable minds to their cause. Here too, there should be a mechanism that prevents access to the camp population inside Pakistan by members of extremist organisations. Unfortunately, grinding poverty and lack of education can provide an ideal breeding ground for individuals to be brainwashed into believing that the best course of action is one that guarantees them entrance into heaven and what better than to take part in an operation that allows that, while at the same time killing the infidels. One wonders what became of the millions of dollars in US aid as well as domestic funding by the Pakistan government for socio-economic development of FATA.

 Source The News

The current controversy on Rushdie’s knighthood has several dimensions. Amid the knee-jerk reactions alluding to the grand-conspiracy-against-Islam, it brings out various layers and levels of literature’s role and position in societies and now in the globalized world.

I was once a fan of Rushdie and avidly devoured his books with great admiration. From Grimus to The Moor’s Last Sigh, I marveled at his playfulness with the english language and its idiom which undoubtedly he has enriched. The collection of essays titled Imaginary Homelands was a combination of disparate but original writings. Somewhere during this process came the ridiculous Satanic Verses which other than its blasphemous content and brazen disrespect for a vast majority of Muslims was a bad piece of writing!

The decline of Rushdie as a writer, finally, was confirmed by the trashy “Ground Beneath Her Feet“. Thereafter, one read strange, ignorant pieces of his non-fiction in the Western mainstream media that needed his stature to find a rationale for the imperial projects in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Shalimar the Clown, his recent novel was even worse as it proved to be bereft of subtlety and re-invoked all the crappy, soul-destroying images and cliches of our times. In a non-serious piece, published in the Friday Times (Pakistan) in December 2005, I wrote:

Salman Rushdie’s new novel, Shalimar the Clown, is enough to add to one’s misery. I finished browsing it; what else can you do with such stuff posing as quality fiction? As if the name of the central character “Shalimar” was not enough to offend a native reader such as I, the heroine “India Ophuls” changing her name to “Kashmira” was the ultimate illustration of cheap exoticism and a hackneyed dive into passé magical realism. Alas, Rushdie has started believing in his own mantra and the twisting of historical narrative. It simply does not work now. He is more of a bard for the ascendancy of the global tide against Islamism and perhaps he should stick to that. Better if he were to provide some intellectual depth to Fox News, or even better, if he started writing scripts for his young wife’s tele-plays. Shalimar successfully completes the trilogy of Rushdie’s worst novels, the other two being The Ground Beneath Her Feet and Fury . Aijaz Ahmad, a US-based academic, argued a long time ago that Rushdie and Naipul were avatars of ‘oriental’ consciousness. Small wonder that they are reviewed, exalted and globally hyped.

Much to my delight, a friend – an aspiring critic – sent me the review by Theo Tait of the London Review of Books: Noting what Rushdie’s style produces in the novel, Tait writes that it “ .. . is a cross between a piece of magic realism which displays all the worst vices of the style, and the contemporary international thriller. It is passionate, well-informed and sometimes interesting; but also hackneyed, simplistic and often very, very silly…”

Today, I read this brilliant article published in the Guardian written by a noted academic, Priyamvada Gopal that essentially is a lament of all that Rushdie and his new writings stand for:

Sir Salman, on the other hand, is partly the creation of the fatwa that played its role in strengthening the self-fulfilling “clash of civilisations” that both Bush and Osama bin Laden find so handy. Driven underground and into despair by zealotry, Rushdie finally emerged blinking into New York sunshine shortly before the towers came tumbling down. Those formidable literary powers would now be deployed not against, but in the service of, an American regime that had declared its own fundamentalist monopoly on the meanings of “freedom” and “liberation”. The Sir Salman recognised for his services to literature is certainly no neocon but is iconic of a more pernicious trend: liberal literati who have assented to the notion that humane values, tolerance and freedom are fundamentally western ideas that have to be defended as such.

Vociferously supporting the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq on “humane” grounds, condemning criticism of the war on terror as “petulant anti-Americanism” and above all, aligning tyranny and violence solely with Islam, Rushdie has abdicated his own understanding of the novelist’s task as “giving the lie to official facts”. Now he recalls his own creation Baal, the talented poet who becomes a giggling hack coralled into attacking his ruler’s enemies. Denuded of texture and complexity, it is no accident that this fiction since the early 90s has disappeared into a critical wasteland. The mutation of this relevant and stentorian writer into a pallid chorister is a tragic allegory of our benighted times, of the kind he once narrated so vividly.

In any case, Ali Eteraz is right when he states that what’s there is a colonial siege of the minds in this whole issue. 

 And, please also see a sensible editorial by the Pakistani newspaper DAWN here.

This dubious honour is yet another endeavour to reward the constructed clash of civilizations. The fact that Rushdie has accepted it, further confirms his degeneration as another script writer of this “theory”. Meanwhile, the protests in Iran and Pakistan only reinforce this vicious cycle of neo-orientalism .

Shameful indeed.

Lush green vistas and the eclectic Javanese culture, the breathtaking Bali coastline and the curiously composite Islamic identity of the country made up my vague visions of Indonesia. With all these jumbled up figments of consciousness, I was given a bit of a reality check when on my first trip there an airport immigration officer asked me to leave the queue of semi-tanned Westerners and move to another room. The reason for taking me there was completely unknown.

As I waited for the local immigration honcho to arrive, I could not help but notice a letter from the Interior Ministry pasted on the wall directing airport authorities that nationals of illustrious countries such as Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, and Pakistan need security clearance before the issuance of visas.

Good Lord, what a rude shock it was to my cultivated notions of Islamic brotherhood and all those lovey-dovey tales in school textbooks about Pakistani and Indonesian friendship. The official explained in a roundabout way my potential security threat. Momentarily terrified, I thought about the implications for my work; more significantly I was irked that this was happening to me at the Jakarta airport, not JFK or Heathrow. I resisted emotion and an inner fight for patience ensued. Within minutes I was out of the airport in a Blue Bird Taxi. Reminders of Islamic fraternity, my calm critique of the stereotyping that occurs at the hands of Western media bloodhounds, and indeed the work-status cards, worked. (more…)

Mohsin Hamid’s second novel is out. It has made to several bestsellers’ lists and invokes a theme central to our times. I am posting a well written review by Mahi here that in spite of its subjectivity expresses the viewpoint of an intelligent and informed reader. This review was written exclusively for Jahane Rumi and therefore I am grateful to Mahi for this special gesture. Hope he continues to contribute here!

Book Review By Mahipal Reddy* 

The title, with a play on the word Fundamentalist, is the high point of this book. The protagonist, Changez, earns a living in New York assessing fundamentals of companies, which he is increasingly reluctant to do, compelled by a growing affinity for his homeland Pakistan and under-attack neighbor, Afghanistan, in the aftermath of 9/11. The reluctance eventually prompts a return to Pakistan, where
Changez recounts his adult life to an American visitor.

The style of narration - a monologue - is a clever choice and one with the potential for a novel, satisfying reader experience. But the portrayal of the American man through quick references within the monologue exposes the limitations of this format. Additionally, the man is made visible only though stereo-typical cultural differences and tourist apprehensions, which lends a tone of condescension to the narrative. It may have been intentional, but seemed unnecessary.

The book suffers from an underlying lack of depth. The seminal phases of the story - Changez’s acceptance of American undergraduate life and the American dream, the slipping away of his never-truly-started love life with an American girl, his rapid disenchantment with America and its foreign policy excursions and his choice to move away from that life to Pakistan - take place without triggering a reflective commentary or insight from the author. In other words, the book remains a superficial story, even while the reader is expecting something more fundamental all the while. Is that the reader’s fault? Perhaps not.

Having approached the book with excited expectations, partly due to the title and partly the author’s background, I was disappointed. The title promised an insightful dance on the difficult subject of fundamentalism, with a certain gravitas, but it faltered to achieve this goal. In fact, one felt that the author did not attempt to delve further into the intent of the book’s catchy title. There are many specific instances of disappointment in addition to the overall reaction of one, but the one that qualifies for mention is the ending. Throughout the book, the author builds a theme of some impending finale/disaster, which never materializes. Clearly the author conveyed something in his mind, but it leaves the reader lost and wondering if the author pulled a prank.

To me this actually captures the essence of the book - promising much but delivering a insipid tale.

Language-wise, the book is obviously written in competent English, but one cannot say more. It is not a book you read to enjoy the medium, the skill of expression.

* Mahi set sail in India and is adrift in the US. He has traveled a little, lamented that he isn’t from Japan but hopes to get back to India in the near future. He likes to read but reads little. Enlightenment he waits for, convinced God can move faster than him.

“In a charming personal narrative, Nomani navigates  through a crisis of faith brought upon by the murder of close friend Daniel Pearl by Islamic militants…”

Full entry here >>

The Daily Times Pakistan has published a story on surveys carried out by various organizations. The results are quite revealing not least for Pakistan.

Pakistani liberals would need to change their view that it is a society heading towards extremism and the Jihad-flaunting Islamists would be upset that they are not supported by an overwhelming majority. Most importantly, the global media barons would also be left bewildered as their spin-doctors and experts have been, to a great degree, proven wrong!

Read more >>

Came across the chilling works of Colombian artist Fernando Botero last night. A friend at Berkeley University forwarded me this link that led me to the moving images of the recent paintings by Botero called Abu-Ghraib

Botero, 73, is the modern master of Latin American art. His cheerful magical-realist paintings are well-acclaimed in the West and feature in major museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Read more here >>

There is talk of war again. There is a familiar web of lies, half-truths and deceit. As if the smouldering cities and dying civilians in Iraq were not enough to quench the blood-thirst, the global war machine now wants another victim. Full entry here >>

Ali bin Abi Talib, the fourth Caliph and son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, wrote a long letter of guidance after appointing Maalik al-Ashtar to be Governor of Egypt.

Read entry here >>

10th Moharram is a day of mourning for all Muslims. The tragic incident at Kerbala where the righteous Hussain refused to submit to the autocracy of Yazid is an event laden with deep symbolism. Hazrat Imam Husain and his faithful companions preferred to die on the banks of river Euphrates and upheld the struggle of good against the evil.

Khawaja Muinuddin Chisty’s powerful verses epitomise the reverence and devotion of Muslims towards Imam Hussain:

Shah ast Hussain, Badshah ast Hussain
Deen ast Hussain, Deen Panah ast Hussain
Sardad na dad dast, dar dast-e-yazeed,
Haqaa key binaey La ila ast Hussain

Loosely translated

Ruler is Hussain, Emperor is Hussain,
Faith is Hussain , guardian of faith is Hussain .
Offered his head and not the hand to Yazid.
Truly, the mirror of faith is Hussain

As Adil Najam writes on All Things Pakistan:

Growing up in Pakistan, the night of Ashura was always defined for me by the Majlis i Shaam i Gharibaan (often by Allama Naseer ul Ijtihaadi) on PTV on the night of dasveenMuharram, which was followed immediately - and at right about midnight - by Syed Nasir Jahan’s soulful recitation of Salam-i-Akhir.

Bachay to aglay baras hum hain aur yeh gham phir hai
Jo chal basay tou yeh appna salam-i-akhir hai

His soulful voice, so pregnant with a deep and heartfelt pain, always echoes in my head when I read of continuing sectarian violence and the instigation of sectarian hatred.

 However, the ugly face of sectarianism is now haunting the entire Islamic world. There have been deaths in Pakistan recently and I have forgotten the number of people dying each day in Iraq. Forgotten? Yes, it sadly increases by the day..

And the true spirit of this sacrifice by Prophet’s family gets clouded by politics and imperial projects.

And for the poor Iraqis, Kerbala is not an event from their distant past.

Image credit here

Saira Wasim is a prominent Pakistani miniaturist. I found a link to her website hidden in my unread emails. Some of her recent paintings are terrific. The image on the left is borrowed from here.

Anna Sloan, art historian, writes:

“Teeming with figures captured in mid-action, paintings by Saira Wasim present grand narratives. If it weren’t for their petite size and two-dimensionality, they might be mistaken for Greek mythology, Baroque opera, epic film, or other monumental genres. Yet, these small paintings represent a singular creation, one that transcends any individual medium or genre. In Wasim’s hands, the centuries-old format of the miniature painting has been transformed into a stage for human drama, a jam-packed cinematic space that approaches the grandeur of Cecil B. DeMille and the glamour of Bollywood. Like the protagonists of such grand genres, Wasim’s characters gesticulate, prance, shoot, and fly in majestic style. They laugh and boast in hideous fashion, and morph into grotesque hybrid creatures that hint at transcendent themes of good and evil.”

For instance see this powerful representation displayed on her website with the lyrical title, Lamentation of Innocence (Genocide),2005

One of the paintings -  Buzkashi - narrates a tale of contemporary Pakistan. The depiction of political and social undercurrents may be “subjective” but her work surely adds a new dimension to political art from Pakistan. Wasim’s websites states: “Buzkashi (literally means “goat-grabbing”) is an ancient game, national sports of Afghanistan and also played in many parts of North West Pakistan. It’s also called wildest game on earth. Here ‘Buzkashi’ is a metaphor of Pakistani politics, where every leader grabs for control of the country and every stronger wants to rule the weaker …”

The image on the left - Friendship After 11 September 1, (2001) found here - contextualizes and comments on the close relationship between Pakistan’s President General Musharraf and the US President after 9/11. There is an eclectic mix of realism, comedy and circus - there is movement and drama alive in the miniature format.

And this one is my favourite:  Mission Accomplished showing George Bush riding a cow with Tony Blair and the Pakistani President. South Asian motifs blended with strains of Western art, this painting cleverly sums up a myriad of perceptions and reactions to this tripartite alliance on the global scene. The image has been reproduced from the BBC website.

Wasim is expanding the frontiers of the traditional genre of miniature painting. It is a tremendous service to keep this art form alive and relevant.

Hindustan Times published this piece by Sadia Dehlvi yesterday.

Two weeks ago, an Afghan woman carrying a baby in her arms and wearing a headscarf was shot in the head by an American Latino while walking on a street in Fremont, California. She died leaving six small children behind. Next week, the women of Fremont, irrespective of religious faiths, will observe a ‘Wear a Hijab to Work Day’ as a mark of protest against the shooting.

The incident illustrates what the hijab has come to mean today. In a world where Muslims are associated with terrorism and are the victims of hate crimes, more and more young Muslim women are adopting the hijab as an expression of defiance and an assertion of Islamic identity.

Hijab is usually discussed in the context of women. However, the Quran clearly states in Surah Noor: “Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that we will make for greater purity for them: and Allah is well acquainted with all that they do.” (Quran 24:30)

The next verse says: “…and say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband’s fathers, their sons…” (Quran 24:31)

The Quran also clearly states: “Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from error.” (Quran 22:56)

There is a tradition of the Prophet where he asked the men to tell their women to cover their heads. Islam is based on the love of God and the Prophet Mohammad. Clearly, there can be no compulsion in love. Everything in Islam is based on intent. If one starves all day and does not intend to fast, the starvation does not give you the reward of a fast observed in the name of God.

Similarly, if a woman is forced into hijab or one wears a designer turban and coat to make a fashion statement, that does not mean that she is adopting the hijab.

The Prophet was gentle, polite, and never used force with any man or woman. He was often asked by his companions to define a perfect Muslim and each time he replied, “He amongst you who has the best moral character”. The essence of the Prophet’s teachings is a constant strive for inner perfection.

A woman must have the right to choose her dress code. The banning of headscarves for students in France is as oppressive as the Taliban forcing women into purdah. Last year, seven states in Germany banned the hijab for teachers. In an attempt to be part of the European Union, Turkey has banned hijab for women in public institutions who are on the government payroll. In each case, it is the woman who is being used and has become the symbol of those who want to purify Islam or demonise it.

Some European states have openly called the hijab a symbol of fundamentalism and extremism. Muslims around the world see the attack on hijab as a continuation of the onslaught against the Muslim world.

In Muslim societies — from Egypt to Iran to Indonesia — many skilled professional women wear the hijab as a matter of choice and should not be necessarily viewed as being repressive. The hijab is often a matter of culture and tradition. In rural and traditional India, women, irrespective of their religions, cover their heads. In the Muslim ghettos of India, they have little or no access to education or jobs, their faith is all they have and they cling to its symbols.

The metro mindset now used to seeing almost obscene levels of fashion on film and television confuses modernity with Westernisation. My grandmothers wore the burqa and yet they were very progressive. I have many cousins who are work as architects, doctors and lawyers while donning the headscarf and none of them are remotely oppressed.

What I find rather appalling is Indians accepting the Western notions of modernity while forgetting our own cultural legacy and notions of morality. Skimpily clad women on the ramp seem to prove that India has arrived on the world map. We have begun to view women who wish to cover their bodies as signs of obscurantism.

Sadly, Indian media is importing Western vocabulary, expressions and biases towards the Muslims. It is following the Western media pattern of keeping the Muslims engaged in irrelevant issues. Sound-bite hungry journos rush to procure sensational statements from self-proclaimed heads of the community who present opportunities for dialogues on the primitiveness of Muslim women.

This deflects attention from the educational, structural and economic issues that millions of Indian Muslims face as a whole. The debate that should be taking up media space is where

India has failed its Muslims and why is there gross under-representation of the community in every field. The only place where Muslims are over represented are the jails. We need to focus our energies on corrective measures.

Contributed by G.S. Qureshi

Does verbal criticism of Islam or Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) justify setting churches afire in the West Bank or killing an Italian nun in Somalia? Why do we have such fragile egos?  Do I love Allah and Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) any less than before the Pope made those remarks?

No! I am completely secure within my faith despite these troubled times for Muslims and no matter what the Pope theorizes about Islam. The acts of our Prophet himself teach tolerance. According to the traditions, a lady used to throw garbage at him daily and since he did not have a fragile ego he did not choose to react at all. He was secure about his mission and could not have cared less. Should not we, his followers start to act and behave in the same manner? As long as I am comfortable about my faith does it matter what opinions the Pope holds about my faith. Yes probably the Pope should offer a deep apology but the demands should be made via a dialogue not with violence. And that is when we need rational Muslims (I find many bloggers in this category) to pen down their sentiments to prove to the West that Muslims are a reasonable, peace loving community wherever we are. The violent outrage only reinforces the stereotypes about Islam in today’s world.

I am not discounting the exercise of grievance at all. Yes we should react but with a peaceful dialogue. No matter how deeply one feels about any issue, civilized (yes we are) people should behave in a civilized and a peaceful manner.

Also a large majority of Muslims remain isolated from people belonging to other faiths. During these times of a distinct divide between Islam and the West that is the worst thing that we can do. Muslims should interact with people of other faiths. Interaction and dialogue inculcates tolerance in one’s self. Isolation will deprive the world from getting to know the true spirit of Islam and thus all the stereotypes will keep getting reinforced. Let us not wage a war of religion rather one of reason and tolerance. Let us engage in a dialogue. Let us prove all those who link Islam with violence wrong.

Photo credits from 

here, here and here

Contributed by G.S. Qureshi

Does verbal criticism of Islam or Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) justify setting churches afire in the West Bank or killing an Italian nun in Somalia? Why do we have such fragile egos?  Do I love Allah and Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) any less than before the Pope made those remarks?

No! I am completely secure within my faith despite these troubled times for Muslims and no matter what the Pope theorizes about Islam. The acts of our Prophet himself teach tolerance. According to the traditions, a lady used to throw garbage at him daily and since he did not have a fragile ego he did not choose to react at all. He was secure about his mission and could not have cared less. Should not we, his followers start to act and behave in the same manner? As long as I am comfortable about my faith does it matter what opinions the Pope holds about my faith. Yes probably the Pope should offer a deep apology but the demands should be made via a dialogue not with violence. And that is when we need rational Muslims (I find many bloggers in this category) to pen down their sentiments to prove to the West that Muslims are a reasonable, peace loving community wherever we are. The violent outrage only reinforces the stereotypes about Islam in today’s world.

I am not discounting the exercise of grievance at all. Yes we should react but with a peaceful dialogue. No matter how deeply one feels about any issue, civilized (yes we are) people should behave in a civilized and a peaceful manner.

Also a large majority of Muslims remain isolated from people belonging to other faiths. During these times of a distinct divide between Islam and the West that is the worst thing that we can do. Muslims should interact with people of other faiths. Interaction and dialogue inculcates tolerance in one’s self. Isolation will deprive the world from getting to know the true spirit of Islam and thus all the stereotypes will keep getting reinforced. Let us not wage a war of religion rather one of reason and tolerance. Let us engage in a dialogue. Let us prove all those who link Islam with violence wrong.

Photo credits from 

here, here and here

By Ammar Ali Qureshi

In the West, experts on Iran can be divided into two broad categories: academics/scholars and journalists. Nikki Keddie (academic) and Robin Wright (journalist) in the United States, Giles Kepel and Olivier Roy (both research scholars) in France, and Fred Halliday (academic) and Dilip Hiro (journalist) in London are the most prominent and highly regarded specialists on Iran.
After Keddie, Hiro is the most prolific writer on the subject - his recent book The Iranian Labyrinth: Journeys through Theocratic Iran and its Furies being the fifth on Iran, 14th on Middle East history (including a popular trilogy on Iraq after 9/11), and 28th (five fiction and 23 non-fiction) overall.
Born in Larkana before partition, Hiro was educated in New Delhi and the United States, before settling down as a journalist in Britain in the mid-1960s. Two of his previous books on Iran, Iran Under the Ayatollahs and The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict, were widely read - the latter regarded as the definitive history of an under-reported war. Drawing heavily on his previous works, Hiro’s The Iranian Labyrinth is an important contribution to informed and dispassionate analysis on Iran, something in short supply in today’s politically polarised and emotionally charged environment.
Divided into 10 chapters, this concise book, a mixture of ‘travelogue, history, and socio-political analysis’, covers the essential episodes in Iran’s turbulent and tumultuous history since early 1900s. (The book was published last year before President Ahmednijad’s surprise election). A frequent traveller to Iran, Hiro navigates the labyrinth: hijab-wearing women are the majority at the universities, Iranian films win prizes at international festivals, and human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi is a Nobel peace laureate, a rising number of intellectuals, women, youth and journalists protest the socio-political restrictions imposed by the Islamic regime.
Iran, Hiro asserts, is probably the most strategically important country in the world, with a uniquely distinctive history. It was the first country in the Middle East to find oil in commercial quantities; to experience a constitutional revolution (1905-11) resulting in the first parliament (called Majlis) in the region in 1907; to evolve into a constitutional monarchy with a multiparty system in 1941 - till 1953 when a coup masterminded by the CIA of US re-imposed royal dictatorship; to challenge Western economic imperialism (well before Nasser’s nationalisation of Suez) by nationalising Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951; to become a victim of CIA’s machinations against a legitimate democratic government (headed by charismatic and nationalist prime minister Mossadegh) in 1953; and to experience a genuine revolution, in which millions participated, but which was primarily inspired by religion and spearheaded by religious figures, an unprecedented phenomenon in modern history.

The United States, for the first time, developed a taste for ‘regime change’ in 1953: Far from spreading the gospel of democracy, CIA orchestrated a coup against Iran’s most popular, secular and democratically-elected prime minister Mossadegh and brought back the Shah - a corrupt, inept, and autocratic megalomaniac - to the Peacock Throne.
In return, the Shah leased the rights and management of Iranian oil, for the next 25 years, to Western oil giants, who exported 24 billion barrels of oil during the next 20 years for just $1.80 per barrel. (At the time of Shah’s departure, oil prices spiked up to $31 per barrel). The most successful/lucrative operation in its history, CIA developed it into a “template for overthrowing progressive, nationalist regimes throughout the Third Word”.
Iranians termed it as the “biggest heist in history” and later regarded President Carter’s electoral defeat in 1980, due to the Iran hostage crisis, as an instance of ‘poetic justice’ - Ayatollah Khomeini became the first foreign leader to determine a US presidential election outcome.
Iran’s landmark Islamic revolution in 1979, post-revolutionary xenophobia, and anti-imperialism are all firmly rooted in its historical experience during the last century. Other important factors that determined the course of the revolution and its post-revolutionary behaviour include the critical nexus between bazaar merchants and clergy, economics of oil, the peculiar characteristics of Shia Islam (special emphasis on opposition to tyranny), and the cardinal role of Ayatollahs/senior clerics in Shia Islam.

Senior clerics (Mujtahids/Ayatollahs or Grand Ayatollahs) in the Shia world have always commanded the reverence of their followers for three primary reasons: superior religious knowledge based on a strong tradition of ijtihad, personal piety and moral leadership. From 1964-1979, Ayatollah Khomeini, in exile, assumed the leading role and mobilised the masses against the Shah, from abroad, through the network of mosques and seminaries and coupled with the active participation of intellectuals, merchants, and students.
Recently this phenomenon of extreme influence exercised by a senior Shia cleric has been demonstrated in Iraq, where Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, an Iranian national who speaks Arabic with a Persian accent and is ineligible to vote in Iraq’s elections, is the most important man determining the destiny of that nation.
Hiro’s knowledge of Iran’s political system is very impressive. Contrary to the prevalent view in the West of an authoritarian regime in Tehran, the Iranian constitution has more checks and balances than many of its Western counterparts. He discusses the five primary centres of power (leader, president, Majlis, assembly of experts, and judiciary) and two secondary ones (Council of Guardians and Expediency Council) and asserts that Iran, given the multiple centres of power, resembles more the United States than China.
The opponents of Iran’s Islamic democracy find Islam and democracy incompatible and argue that the present system is authoritarian and beyond redemption. Proponents believe that the conservative-reformist struggle is the dynamic of Islamic democracy, the first attempt of its kind, which can serve as a working model (left-right political divide or two party system) for the rest of the Muslim world.

In 1991, Graham Fuller, an American scholar at the prestigious RAND and author of The Future of Political Islam, titled his book on Iran as Centre of the Universe (translation of one of Shah’s many titles!). Given the current brinkmanship and standoff over its nuclear program, Iran is likely to be the centre of the world’s attention, if not the universe, at least for the next few years. Hiro’s informative and illuminating book is a must read for all those who want to understand this important, unique, and complex country.
 
 
First Published in Daily Times in February 2006