Shia Islam: From Religion to Revolution

"Hardly anyone took note of the Shi'ites prior to the Iranian revolution in 1979." How true. But we've all been catching up since then. Halm, an authority on Shi'i religion and history at the University of Tübingen, has prepared a short, authoritative account of his subject, a primer for those, specialist and generalist alike, who need information on this subject. Part one tells the ancient story of the twelve imams, two explains some of the Shi'i religious customs, and three recounts the history since the last imam was occulted in A.D. 873.

As befits a survey, Shia Islam does not hold any surprises, though it does contain insights about recent history. Halm sees in conflicts with the West "the seeds of the intensely anti-Western attitudes of the Islamic revolution of 1979. These attitudes cannot be explained on the basis of traditional Islam in general nor Shi'i tradition in particular." He shows how Khomeini and his adepts grafted a Western-style ideology to their old learning and concludes that he "revolutionized not only the Iranian state but traditional Shi'ism as well."

One cavil: though titled Shia Islam, the book in fact covers only the Twelvers of Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. The Assassins of Iran, the Zaydis of Yemen, the Bohras of India, and many other groups are absent (though, in fairness, the author did cover them in a 1991 study Shiism, from Edinburgh University Press).

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