Volume 33, Number 1 · January 30, 1986
To the Tehran Station
By Edward Mortimer
The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran
by Roy Mottahedeh
Simon and Schuster, 416 pp., $17.95
Discussing Avicenna, Roy Mottahedeh refers to the 'tradition of so many premodern writers who saw intellectual modesty as appropriate only for the intellectually modest.' Had he himself belonged to that tradition he might well have described his own work as an attempt to do for Iran's Islamic revolution what Edmund Wilson did in To The Finland Station for the Bolshevik revolution: to trace its intellectual pedigree, and to do so in a way that makes it not only accessible but exciting for the general reader.
Review, 2874 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |