S1E5: What Is Political Islam? And Why Would the Books of A Prominent Shia Muslim Philosopher Be Banned in the Islamic Republic of Iran?

Does history have a meaning? Christianity demands a meaning - because human life is not in vain. And Islam is similar. But our perception of history has changed in the last 300 years. It has become more secularized. Interestingly, political Islam is a product of that process.

After you have listened to this episode, please share your thoughts regarding the following questions:

• Do you think that people in the non-western world are not yet ready to exercise their democratic rights, and that they need guided democracy?
• Does this proposition makes sense for our time - the 2020s - as it may have back in the 1950s, 1960s or the 70s?

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This question form expires on Wed., Feb. 14, 2024.

My guest for this episode is Dr. Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi of Princeton University. He is professor and chair of Near Eastern Studies. He is the Director of Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies.

He has written many books, including Islam and Dissent in Post-Revolutionary Iran. He has coedited a special issue of Radical History Review, and has written extensively on the topics of social theory and Islamist political thought in different journals and book chapters. Currently, he is working on a project on Mystical Modernity, a comparative study of philosophy of history and political theory of Walter Benjamin and Ali Shariati.

To learn more about Dr. Ghamari-Tabrizi, you can visit his academic homepage.

Listen to my prior conversation with Dr. Ghamari-Tabrizi: https://bit.ly/HbN-S2E42s

I hope you enjoy these episodes.

Adel Aali

Host, ⁠⁠⁠Unravelling the Middle East⁠⁠⁠

Host, ⁠⁠⁠History Behind News Podcast ⁠⁠⁠

Unravelling the Middle East podcast is a production of the History Behind News program.

Image:

1980 Iranian Stamp honoring Dr. Ali Shariati. (Public Domain)

Music attributions:

1. Opening and closing music of the program:

Santur: Peyman Heydarian playing on the Santur some Iranian music. Recorded with a Sony PCM-D50 at the School of Oriental and African Studies of London on April 7th 2011.

Music available on at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://freesound.org/people/xserra/sounds/125654/⁠⁠⁠⁠

Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0 DEED)

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This music has been cut in shorter pieces and its volume has been adjusted in different portions of our program.

2. Background music to guest introduction:

The Desert | The Grand Score

⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.free-stock-music.com/alexander-nakarada-the-desert.html⁠⁠⁠⁠

The Desert | The Grand Score by Alexander Nakarada (CreatorChords) | ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://creatorchords.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

Music promoted by ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.free-stock-music.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

⁠⁠⁠⁠https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/⁠⁠⁠ The volume and lengths of this piece have been modified.

3. Background music to promoting History Behind News episodes:

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IMAGE: Middle East map by ⁠MapChart.net:⁠ ⁠https://www.mapchart.net/world.html⁠. License is CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED ⁠https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/⁠.