Some people, I expect, will be surprised to see that some areas of Iran \u2014 not all! \u2014 look like this.
(Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
What follows is the ninth (and penultimate) installment of an article that I originally wrote for\u00a0Richard C. Martin, et al., eds., \u00a0Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World<\/em>, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), on the subject of \u201cMuslim Identity\u201d:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Iran, the ancient Persia, resembled Egypt in its long and distinguished history and relatively clear borders.\u00a0 It spoke a distinct language rooted deep in antiquity.\u00a0 Perhaps most importantly, it was distinguished from the Sunni Ottomans to the west and the Sunni Uzbeks and Mughals to the east by the Shi\u2018i form of Islam that it had adopted after the founding of the Safavid dynasty in 1501. When the Shi\u2018i-leaning Safavids assumed power, Iran was mostly Sunni, but descendants of \u2018Ali and the Shi\u2018i \u2018ulama\u2019 enjoyed prestige and privileged status among ordinary people.\u00a0 The Safavids themselves were originally Turkic speaking, possibly even of Kurdish extraction, so Persian nationalism as such was not acceptable to them as a basis for fostering unity within their domain and between themselves and their subjects.\u00a0 A national transition from Sunni to Shi\u2018i suggested itself to them, therefore, as both desirable and reasonably easy, and, thus, within the first century of Safavid rule, an orthodox form of Twelver Shi\u2018ism was established as the state religion.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nIn the sixteenth century, accordingly, Iran was already far along the path to becoming what we would today recognize as a national state.\u00a0 There has been relatively little tension between Iranian patriotism and Islamism as foci of national identity, since the two are so closely related.\u00a0 Despite strong interest in Persia\u2019s ancient past (as reflected, for example, in Firdawsi\u2019s epic Shahnameh<\/i>) and with some fluctuations of emphasis, Islam has maintained its primacy in Iranian self-identification,.\u00a0 The late shah, for instance, launched a campaign to glorify pre-Islamic Iran.\u00a0 Leaders of the Islamic Revolution denounced the effort as a return to paganism and even spoke of destroying the ruins of Persepolis (as, more recently, the Afghan Taliban obliterated the Buddhas of Bamiyan).\u00a0 But an unmistakably Iranian patriotism thrives even amidst the explicitly religious rhetoric favored by leaders of the Islamic Republic.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cStreet attacks on Muslims rocket in UK as perpetrators \u2019emboldened\u2019 by terror attacks and political rhetoric, report finds: \u00a0\u2018Anti-Muslim rhetoric is bleeding into the political landscape \u2013 it emboldens people\u2019\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from New York City<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 What follows is the ninth (and penultimate) installment of an article that I originally wrote for\u00a0Richard C. Martin, et al., eds., \u00a0Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), on the subject of \u201cMuslim Identity\u201d: \u00a0 Iran, the ancient Persia, resembled Egypt in its long and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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