Islam in Iran

By I. P. Petrushevsky
Translated by Hubert Evans

Subjects: Islam
Series: SUNY series in Near Eastern Studies
Hardcover : 9780887060700, 400 pages, September 1985

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Table of contents

Preface

Introduction. The rise of Islam
I. Iran's obedience to Islam: The warring Sunni, Shi'ite and Kharijite currents
II. Dogma and ritual
III. The Koran
IV. The sources of Muslim law
V. The elaboration of Sunni law
VI. Muslim public law
VII. The criminal and civil law of Islam
VIII. Theological disputes. The Murjites, Qadarites and Mu'tazalites
IX. A scholastic theology (Kalam) The veneration of saints
X. The moderate Shi'ites
XI. Isma'ilis, Carmathians and Extreme Shi'ites
XII. Mysticism in Islam
XIII. The triumph of Shi'ism in Iran

Abbreviations
Chapter notes
Bibliography
Index

Description

A scholarly and authoritative history of the emergence and growth of Islam in Iran during the early and later medieval periods. This book, by I. P. Petrushevsky, the foremost Soviet Iranologist, was originally published in Russia in 1966.

After discussing the Arabian environment in which the faith of Islam arose, and the character—legal, social and doctrinal—of the new message, the author moves on to trace the peculiarly Iranian development of Islamic beliefs, the schisms which arose in its early history, and the eventual creation of a Sunni orthodoxy. Written from the Russian perspective, with Russia's long contact with Iranian and Turkish Muslim neighbors, it provides a stimulating and salutary balance to the study of the Islamic world.

Ilya Pavlovich Petrushevsky (1898–1977) was Professor of History of the Near East at the University of Leningrad for twenty years. Hubert Evans, CMG, Hon. D.Litt, the translator, is a former member of the Diplomatic Service; he was at one time Chairman of the Editorial Board for Asian Affairs.