Undergraduate Course: Iran From the Safavids to the Islamic Republic (IMES10062)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This option introduces students to key events and trends in the political, socio-economic and religious history of Iran from the early sixteenth century through the Iranian Revolution and the establishment of the Islamic Republic.
This course will add to options in Middle Eastern studies generally while encouraging students to consider the importance of kingship, tribes and Islam, and Shi`i Islam in particular, in the history of Iran and the region since the sixteenth century. The course will also consider the processes of 'urbanisation', 'modernisation' and 'development', the rise and importance of oil to these processes and the world economy, and the changing role of the intellectual class in society generally and modern Iran in particular.
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| Course description |
The first meeting will be an introductory one and will be led by the course tutor.
The remaining meetings will involve student presentation of the main topics for discussion and analysis by the class. Individual students will research and prepare papers which address questions posed of assigned readings. Students are encouraged to develop delivery style and also to provide participants with a background reading list and a short written summary of the main points of their presentation.
All students - whether presenting or not - are to complete all readings for each session, and should arrive at class with 2-3 critical questions concerning each week's reading materials and should be prepared for focused discussions of key issues.
Essay topics will be agreed with the Course Organizer by the end of October at the latest. As the essay constitutes a means of revising for the examination, it should ideally be linked to one or more of the seminar topics. The course reading list should therefore be the point of departure in preparing the essay.
This option introduces students to key events and trends in the political, socio-economic and religious history of Iran from the early sixteenth century through the Iranian Revolution and the establishment of the Islamic Republic.
The course can intersect with other departmental courses on modern Middle Eastern Studies, allowing students to explore their particular interests generally. But, it will also intersect in particular with a course in modern Persian literature in translation.
This course will add to options in Middle Eastern studies generally while encouraging students to consider the importance of kingship, tribes and Islam, and Shi`i Islam in particular, in the history of Iran and the region since the sixteenth century. The course will also consider the processes of 'urbanisation', 'modernisation' and 'development', the rise and importance of oil to these processes and the world economy, and the changing role of the intellectual class in society generally and modern Iran in particular.
The course thus assists students in their engagement with those aspects of Middle East studies that are associated with modern Middle Eastern cultural, political and socio-economic. The course adds to those of our longer-standing and recently introduced offerings that broaden our focus on modern Middle Eastern cultural and political developments.
The main objectives of this course will be the understanding of the complex processes of state-formation in the modern Middle East via the consideration of one such country, Iran, from the period when its borders first approximated those which presently obtain through to the formation of the Islamic Republic in the 1980s to today. The course aims also to develop further students' abilities to do secondary-source research and to present oral and written work clearly and effectively while also honing their analytical skills analytical skills and improving their interactive capacities.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | Before enrolling students on this course, you are asked to contact the IMES Secretary to ensure that a place is available (Tel: 504182, e-mail imes@ed.ac.uk). |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 3 courses in a suitable subject area at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- describe and explain the rise of the modern Iranian nation-state as the product of interactions between Iran's domestic social groupings, court and other elites, bazaaris, the Shi`i ulama, tribes, peasants, secular intellectuals and urban non-elites, and changing international actors, the English and Dutch merchant trading companies, the British empire, Russia/the USSR and the US from the 16th century through to the Islamic Republic.
- identify and challenge conventional discussions of the above in the extant secondary literature.
- incorporate translated primary source materials into their analyses.
- present structured arguments in both oral and a variety of written formats.
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Reading List
Selected Bibliography:
1. Likely Required Readings (all works to be made available via WebCT except as noted)
Mongraphs:
E. Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, Cambridge, 2008. ML
Cambridge History of Iran. (8 vols.). Cambridge, 1968-1991). ML
N. Keddie, ed., Religion and politics in Iran : Shi'ism from Quietism to Revolution, New Haven, 1983 ML
N. Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution, New Haven and London, 2003, 2006. CL, ML
A. Newman, Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire, London, 2006. CL, ML
2. Supplemental Bibliography
E. Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions, Princeton, 1982. ML
E. Abrahamian, Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahdein, London, 1989. ML
S. Akhavi, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran, Clergy-State Relations in the Pahlavi Period (Albany: SUNY Press, 1980). ML
S. Akhavi, 'Shariati's Social Thought', in N. Keddie, ed., Religion and Politics in Iran (1983), 125-44.
A. Amanat, Pivot of the Universe : Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831-1896, London, 1997. ML
J. Al-e Ahmad, Gharbzadegi : Weststruckness, Costa Mesa, 1997
H. Algar, Religion and the State in Iran, 1785-1906, the Role of the Ulama in the Qajar Period, Berkeley and London, 1969. (ML, CL)
A.M. Ansari, Iran, Islam and democracy : the politics of managing change, London, 2000. ML
A,M. Ansari, Modern Iran since 1921, 2003. ML
S. A. Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam, Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change in Shi'ite Iran from the Beginning to 1890 (Chicago and London, 1984). (ML)
S, A. Arjomand, ed., Authority and Political Culture in Shi'ism, Albany, NY, 1988. (ML)
S. A. Arjomand, tr., 'Two Decrees of Shah Tahmasp Concerning Statecraft and the Authority of Shaykh Ali al-Karaki', in S. A. Arjomand, ed., Authority and Political Culture in Shi'ism (1988), 250-62.
P. Avery, Modern Iran, London, 1965. ML
M. Boroujerdi, Iranian Intellectuals and the West, the Tormented Triumph of Nativism (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1996). ML
W. Chittck, tr., 'Two Seventeenth-Century Persian Tracts on Kingship and Rulers', in S. A. Arjomand, ed., Authority and Political Culture in Shi'ism (1988), 267-304.
J.R.I Cole, Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shi'ite Islam (London, 2002). (ML)
J. R. I. Cole and N. Keddie, eds., Shi`ism and Social Protest, New Haven and London. 1986. (ML)
J.R.I. Cole,'Shi`i Clerics in Iraq and Iran, 1722-1780: The Akhbari-Usuli Conflict Reconsidered' Iranian Studies XVIII/i (1985), 3-34.
R. Cottam, Nationalism in Iran: updated through 1978, Pittsburgh, PA., 1979. ML
W. Floor, 'The Revolutionary Character of the Ulama: Wishful Thinking or Reality?' in Keddie, ed., Religion and Politics in Iran (1983), 73-97.
G. R. Garthwaite, Khans and Shahs: a documentary analysis of the Bakhtiyari in Iran, Cambridge, 1983. ML
G. R. Garthwaite, The Persians. Oxford, 2004. ML
M. Kamrava, Iran's Intellectual Revolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. ML
N. Keddie, ed., Scholars, Saints and Sufis, Muslim Religious Institutions since 1500, Berkeley and London, 1972, 1978. CL, ML
Imam Khomeini, Writings and Declarations, H. Algar, transl., (Mizan Press, 1981; London: KPI, 1985). (ML)
M. Momen, An Introduction to Sh`i Islam, New Haven and London, 1985. CL, ML
Yann Richard, Shi'ite Islam, Polity, Ideology and Creed, Antonia Nevill, transl., Oxford, 1995. CL, ML
Savory, R. M., Iran under the Safavids, Cambridge, 1980. ML
Students are expected to conduct their own research and develop reading lists for seminar discussion and the paper, seeking additional sources independently especially, for example, in the references and bibliographies given in the articles and books cited herein and in consultation with the course organiser, and to become acquainted with key bibliographical materials in the field.
The best of these include Index Islamicus, in which one can find references to articles and books on all aspects of Middle Eastern history and culture. Devoted solely to Iranian history and culture is Abstracta Iranica (Paris). Both are available in the Main Library and Index Islamicus is available on-line in electronic form via the 'databases' section on the Resources pages of the Main Library's website.
There are two multi-volume encyclopedias which are also useful. The Encyclopedia of Islam, second edition (EI2) has many useful entries on things Iranian; the transliteration system is a bear, however. Encyclopedia Iranica (New York) is devoted entirely to Iranian history and culture. Referred to as EIr, there is as yet no index to its entries and - of course - its transliteration differs to that of EI2. Both are in the Main Library: the former is also available via the Library's electronic resources pages while EIr is also available for free on-line.
The multi-volume Cambridge History of Iran, esp. volumes 5, 6 and 7, contains chapters on Iran for the historical time-period covered in each of the volumes. Chapters in these volumes cover the basic political and socio-economic history, art and architecture, literature, philosophical inquiry, etc. of the periods concerned.
Journals
On Iranian studies generally, there is the US-based journal Iranian Studies. The ML has an incomplete run of this journal. The UK-based journal Iran is useful as is the US-based International Journal of Middle East Studies. Middle East Studies and The British Journal of Middle East Studies (BRISMES) also cover contemporary Iran. Abstracta Iranica (available on line) will index articles under relevant subject headings.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
The course aims also to develop further students' abilities to do secondary-source research and to present oral and written work clearly and effectively while also honing their analytical skills analytical skills and improving their interactive capacities. |
| Keywords | IMES IranfrmSaravids |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Andrew Newman
Tel: (0131 6)50 4178
Email: |
Course secretary | Mrs Vivien MacNish Porter
Tel: (0131 6)50 3528
Email: |
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