Political Islam, Iran, and the enlightenment : philosophies of hope and despair

Ali Mirsepassi's book presents a powerful challenge to the dominant media and scholarly construction of radical Islamist politics, and their anti-Western ideology, as a purely Islamic phenomenon derived from insular, traditional and monolithic religious 'foundations'. It argues that the discourse of political Islam has strong connections to important and disturbing currents in Western philosophy and modern Western intellectual trends. The work demonstrates this by establishing links between important contemporary Iranian intellectuals and the central influence of Martin Heidegger's philosophy. We are also introduced to new democratic narratives of modernity linked to diverse intellectual trends in the West and in non-Western societies, notably in India, where the ideas of John Dewey have influenced important democratic social movements. As the first book to make such connections, it promises to be an important contribution to the field and will do much to overturn some pervasive assumptions about the dichotomy between East and West.

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Mirsepassi (New York Univ.) argues compellingly that Islamists in Iran and elsewhere have been influenced by radical counter-Enlightenment ideas from Western intellectual traditions. The author pays particular attention to the influence of Heidegger's philosophy on contemporary Iranian intellectuals' development of "narratives of despair," debates over historicism and positivism, opposition between concepts of "authentic being" and "rootless cosmopolitanism," and strategies for political change. At times, the analysis--which engages thinkers as unique as the Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih, pragmatist philosopher John Dewey, and the practical thought of Gandhi--risks becoming so broad in its sweep that the reader fears the author will fail to impart much about either political Islam or Iran. However, Mirsepassi's elegant prose and gift for humanizing intellectuals renders a complex argument about the political ramifications of discourses of authenticity that aim to "solve" the tensions of modernity accessible to a wider audience. The book not only should be of interest to scholars of Islam and the Middle East, but also raises issues pertinent to wider audiences in philosophy, sociology, and political science. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, and research collections. M. Browers Wake Forest University

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction: Political Islam's Romance with the ôWestö	p. 1
1 Intellectuals and the Politics of Despair	p. 21
2 The Crisis of the Nativist Imagination	p. 44
3 Modernity beyond Nativism and Universalism	p. 67
4 Heidegger and Iran: The Dark Side of Being and Belonging	p. 85
5 Democracy and Religion in the Thought of John Dewey	p. 129
6 Enlightenment and Moral Politics	p. 157
7 Conclusion	p. 199
Notes	p. 209
Index	p. 225

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