The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change in Shi’ite Iran from the Beginning to 1890

367 Pages·2010·13.644 MB·English

by  Said Amir Arjomand

THE SHADOW OF GOD
AND THE HIDDEN IMAM
Publications of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies
Number 17
Richard L. Chambers, General Editor
1. Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East: The Nineteenth Century
Edited by William R. Polk and Richard L. Chambers
2. The Mosque in Early Ottoman Architecture
By Aptullah Kuran
3. Economic Development and Regional Cooperation: Kuwait
By Ragaei El Mallakh
4. Studies in the Social History of Modem Egypt
By Gabriel Baer
5. Conflicts and Tensions in Islamic Jurisprudence
By Noel J. Coulson
6. The Modem Arabic Literary Language
By Jaroslav Stetkevych
7. Iran: Economic Development under Dualistic Conditions
By Jahangir Amuzegar and M. Ali Fekrat
8. The Economic History of Iran, 1800-1914
By Charles Issawi
9. The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture
By Nader Ardalan and Laleh Bakhtiar
10. The Forgotten Frontier: A History of the Sixteenth-Century Ibero-African Frontier
By Andrew C. Hess
11. Muslim* National Communism in the Soviet Union:
A Revolutionary Strategy for the Colonial World
By Alexandre A. Bennigsen and S. Enders Wimbush
12. Karim Khan Zand: A History of Iran, 1747-1779
By John R. Perry
13. The Economic History of Turkey, 1800-1914
By Charles Issawi
14. Tribe and State in Bahrain
By Fuad /. Khuri
15. Islam and Modernity
Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition
By Fazlur Rahman
16. Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutadgu Bilig):
A Turko-Islamic Mirror for Princes by Yusuf Kha$$ Hajib
Translated with an Introduction and Notes, by Robert Dankoff
17. The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam:
Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change in Shicite Iran from the Beginning to 1890
By Said Amir Arjomand
SAID AMIR ARJOMAND
The Shadow o f God
and the Hidden Imam
Religion, Political Order, and
Societal Change in Shicite Iran
from the Beginning to 1890
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 1984 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 1984
Paperback edition 1987
Printed in the United States of America
96 95 94 93 92 91 90 89 88 87 5 4 3 2
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Arjomand, Said Amir.
The shadow of God and the hidden imam.
(Publications of the Center for Middle Eastern
Studies: no. 17)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Iran—Politics and government. 2. Shiah—Iran—
History. 3. Islam and politics—Iran. I. Title.
II. Series.
DS292.A75 1984 955 83-27196
ISBN 0-226-02782-1 (cloth)
ISBN 0-226-02784-8 (paper)
To the Happy Few
The declaration of Shicism as the state religion of Iran in 1501. The caption reads: “On Friday, the
exalted king went to the congregational mosque of Tabriz and ordered its preacher, who was one of
the Shi'ite dignitaries, to mount the pulpit. The king himself proceeded to the front of the pulpit,
unsheathed the sword of the Lord of Time, may peace be upon him, and stood there like the shin­
ing sun.”
From the History of Shah Ismacil, British Library MS. Or 3248 (Ross Anonymous), fol. 74a. Pho­
tograph courtesy of the British Library.
Contents
Acknowledgments xi
General Introduction 1
An Interpretive Perspective on Religion, Politics, and Soci­
etal Change, 1 Criticism of Some Current Views on the
Political Implications of Shicism, 21
PART one: the historical and cultural background of the
EMERGENCE OF A SHICITE POLITY IN IRAN
Introduction to Part 1 27
1 Sectarian ShiHsm within the Islamic Body Politic; Eighth/Second
to the Thirteenth!Seventh Century 32
The Differentiation of Religion from Government in Islam
and in Early Imam! Shicism, 32 The Cessation of Histori­
cal Imamate and the Formulation of the Doctrine of Occul-
tation (Ghaybat), 39 The Value-Rationalism of Islamic
Jurisprudence and Its Axiological Bases, 45 The Social
Position and Cultural Outlook of the Imamiyya and Their
Relations with the Rulers, 56 The World-embracing Ten­
dency in ImamI Shicism and the Political Ethic of the Sec­
tarian Phase, 58
2 Millenarian Religio-Political Movements in the Fourteenth!Eighth
and Fifteenth/Ninth Centuries 66
Sufism and the Elective Affinity of the Masses for Certain
“Extremist” Shicite Beliefs, 66 The Politicization of Su­
fism: The Case of the Marcashl Shicite Order, 67 Militant
Vll

Acknowledgments
The original version of the present work was defended as a doctoral thesis at
the University of Chicago in August 1978, that is, before the Shadow of God on
Earth as the King of Kings took flight from Iran and disappeared, and the Hidden
Imam all but reappeared in the form of an omnipotent deputy, the Sovereign
Jurist. It is most fortunate that the bulk of the research had been undertaken and
completed before the onset of the Islamic revolution. This has meant, I hope,
that the work is unaffected by the type of present-oriented and anachronistic in­
terpretation of the development of Shicism that mars most of the publications on
Shicite Islam and politics appearing since the revolution.
In the intervening years, a research grant from the Joint Committee on the
Middle East of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council
of Learned Societies in 1979-80 and a Visiting Fellowship to St. Antony’s Col­
lege, Oxford, in 1981-82, offered me the necessary leisure and opportunity to
carry out two extensive revisions, and to incorporate new materials.
Of the teachers, colleagues, and friends who have given me kind and invalu­
able intellectual guidance and scholarly advice in connection with this book, I am
especially grateful to Professor Edward Shils, and to Professors Joseph Ben-
David, Morris Janowitz, Donald Levine, Fazlur Rahman, John Woods, and Mar­
vin Zonis of the University of Chicago, Professor Wilfred Madelung of Oxford
University, Professor Ernest Gellner of the London School of Economics, and
Dr. Husayn Modarresi TabatabaH of the Hawza-ye cIlmiyya of Qum. I am also
indebted to Professors cAbdulhusayn Zarrinkoob and Ismacil Rizvani of the Uni­
versity of Tehran for drawing my attention to important sources. Many thanks
are due to Kathryn Arjomand for inspiring me to write chapters 1 and 3 and for
her editorial help with the entire manuscript. Needless to say, errors and short­
comings are entirely mine.
xi