Böcker av Said Amir Arjomand

Saïd Amir Arjomand's Kings and Dervishes is a pioneering study of the emergence and development of Sufism during the formation of the Persianate world. Whereas Sufi doctrine was expressed in the New Persian language, its social organization was detached from the civic movement among the urban craftsmen and artisans known as the fotovva(t) and was politically shaped by multiple forces-first by the revival of Persian kingship, and then by the emergence of the Turko-Mongolian empires. The intermingling of Sufism's developmental path with the transformation of the Persianate political regimes resulted in the progressive appropriation of royal symbols by the Sufi shaykhs. The original Sufi world renunciation gave way first to world accommodation and the medieval love mysticism of Jalal al-Din Rumi and Hafez of Shiraz, and then to world domination. This comprehensive work of historical sociology traces these spiritual and political evolutions over the course of some six centuries, showing how the Sufi saints' symbolic sovereignty was eventually made real in the imperial kingship of the Persianate world's early modern empires.

Arjomand categorizes revolutions in two groups: ones that expand the existing body politic and power structure, and ones that aim to erode-but paradoxically augment-their authority.

Dismissing oversimplified and politically-charged views of the politics of Shi'ite Islam, Said Amir Arjomand offers a richly researched sociological and historical study of Shi'ism and the political order of premodern Iran that exposes the roots of what became Khomeini's theocracy.