The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future - Softcover

Nasr, Vali

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393329682 ISBN 13: 9780393329681

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2007

Synopsis

A New York Times Bestseller

"Historically incisive, geographically broad-reaching, and brimming with illuminating anecdotes."―Max Rodenbeck, New York Review of Books

Iranian-born scholar Vali Nasr has become one of America's leading commentators on current events in the Middle East, admired and welcomed by both media and government for his "concise and coherent" analysis (Wall Street Journal, front-page profile). In this "remarkable work" (Anderson Cooper), Nasr brilliantly dissects the political and theological antagonisms within Islam, providing a unique and objective understanding of the 1,400-year bitter struggle between Shias and Sunnis and shedding crucial light on its modern-day consequences.

About this title

About the Author:

Vali Nasr is Dean and Professor of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* About 15 percent of Muslims worldwide are Shia. In Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Bahrain, Shia constitute a majority or plurality of the populace, and areas of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (in the latter, the oil fields) host Shia majorities. Iran's Islamic Revolution under Ayatollah Khomeini, which rushed Islam to the forefront of non-Islamic consciousness internationally, was a Shia phenomenon. Iranian Middle East researcher Nasr, who teaches, consults, and writes in the U.S., says that Khomeini was rather a maverick who discountenanced the quietism, ritualism, and celebratoriness of mainstream Shia. If that is a revelation to Westerners, so, probably, are Nasr's arguments that the Shia have been persecuted and oppressed by the Sunni majority ever since the divergence of the two Islamic strains more than 1,300 years ago, and that Islamic terrorism from well before 9/11 to the current insurgency in post-Saddam Iraq is a tactic of intransigent Sunnism. Nasr never pontificates or accuses, always choosing to show both sides' reasons for even the most heinous actions. He never so much as hints at what many readers must infer from his presentation--that the U.S. should think again and again and again before attacking Iran. So enlightening and perspective altering that no one concerned about the Middle East should miss reading it. Ray Olson
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About this edition

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0393329682
• ISBN 13: 9780393329681
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 310