Hamid Dabashi – författare

Written during a genocide, After Savagery reveals the ethical bankruptcy of “Western philosophy” and how it undergirds the erasure of the colonized.The death toll in Gaza continues to rise―a cold, lifeless number representing entire communities crushed under the weight of settler colonialism.What remains of the theories we use to understand our world? With lyrical and lucid fury, Hamid Dabashi exposes the racist roots of Western philosophy, demanding that readers overcome its pernicious phantom of relevance. Rather than perceiving “the West” as giving carte blanche to Israel, Dabashi insists that Israel must be understood as its quintessence.If Israel is the West and the West is Israel, then Palestine is the world and the world is Palestine. Holding to glimmers from revolutionary works of literature and film, Dabashi argues, in grief and love, that the wretched of the earth need poetry after barbarism—and that Palestine is the site of a liberated imagination.

For a Western world anxious to understand Islam and, in particular, Shi’ism, this book arrives with urgently needed information and critical analysis. Hamid Dabashi exposes the soul of Shi’ism as a religion of protest—successful only when in a warring position, and losing its legitimacy when in power.Dabashi makes his case through a detailed discussion of the Shi’i doctrinal foundations, a panoramic view of its historical unfolding, a varied investigation into its visual and performing arts, and finally a focus on the three major sites of its contemporary contestations: Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. In these states, Shi’ism seems to have ceased to be a sect within the larger context of Islam and has instead emerged to claim global political attention. Here we see Shi’ism in its combative mode—reminiscent of its traumatic birth in early Islamic history. Hezbollah in Lebanon claims Shi’ism, as do the militant insurgents in Iraq, the ruling Ayatollahs in Iran, and the masses of youthful demonstrators rebelling against their reign. All declare their active loyalties to a religion of protest that has defined them and their ancestry for almost fourteen hundred years.Shi’sm: A Religion of Protest attends to the explosive conflicts in the Middle East with an abiding attention to historical facts, cultural forces, religious convictions, literary and artistic nuances, and metaphysical details. This timely book offers readers a bravely intelligent history of a world religion.

The Shahnameh, an epic poem recounting the foundation of Iran across mythical, heroic, and historical ages, is the beating heart of Persian literature and culture. Composed by Abu al-Qasem Ferdowsi over a thirty-year period and completed in the year 1010, the epic has entertained generations of readers and profoundly shaped Persian culture, society, and politics. For a millennium, Iranian and Persian-speaking people around the globe have read, memorized, discussed, performed, adapted, and loved the poem.In this book, Hamid Dabashi brings the Shahnameh to renewed global attention, encapsulating a lifetime of learning and teaching the Persian epic for a new generation of readers. Dabashi insightfully traces the epic’s history, authorship, poetic significance, complicated legacy of political uses and abuses, and enduring significance in colonial and postcolonial contexts. In addition to explaining and celebrating what makes the Shahnameh such a distinctive literary work, he also considers the poem in the context of other epics, such as the Aeneid and the Odyssey, and critical debates about the concept of world literature. Arguing that Ferdowsi’s epic and its reception broached this idea long before nineteenth-century Western literary criticism, Dabashi makes a powerful case that we need to rethink the very notion of “world literature” in light of his reading of the Persian epic.

This book is a radical piece of counter-intuitive rethinking of the clash of civilizations theory and global politics. In this richly detailed criticism of contemporary politics, Hamid Dabashi argues that after 9/11 we have not seen a new phase in a long running confrontation between Islam and the West, but that such categories have in fact collapsed and exhausted themselves. The West is no longer a unified actor and Islam is ideologically depleted in its confrontation with colonialism. Rather we are seeing the emergence of the US as a lone superpower, and a confrontation between a form of imperial globalized capital and the rising need for a new Islamic theodicy. The combination of political salience and theoretical force makes Islamic Liberation Theology a cornerstone of a whole new generation of thinking about political Islamism and a compelling read for anyone interested in contemporary Islam, current affairs and US foreign policy. Dabashi drives his well-supported and thoroughly documented points steadily forward in an earnest and highly readable style.

This book is a radical piece of counter-intuitive rethinking of the clash of civilizations theory and global politics. In this richly detailed criticism of contemporary politics, Hamid Dabashi argues that after 9/11 we have not seen a new phase in a long running confrontation between Islam and the West, but that such categories have in fact collapsed and exhausted themselves. The West is no longer a unified actor and Islam is ideologically depleted in its confrontation with colonialism. Rather we are seeing the emergence of the US as a lone superpower, and a confrontation between a form of imperial globalized capital and the rising need for a new Islamic theodicy. The combination of political salience and theoretical force makes Islamic Liberation Theology a cornerstone of a whole new generation of thinking about political Islamism and a compelling read for anyone interested in contemporary Islam, current affairs and US foreign policy. Dabashi drives his well-supported and thoroughly documented points steadily forward in an earnest and highly readable style.

Dismantling the myths that divide Islam and the West, this cutting-edge work of critical thinking proposes new ways to reread Islamic and world histories.Extending from the front-page news coverage of our daily lives back into the deepest and most revelatory histories of the last two hundred years and earlier, Hamid Dabashi's The End of Two Illusions is a daring, provocative, and groundbreaking work that dismantles the most dangerous delusions manufactured between two vastly fetishized abstractions: "Islam" and "the West." With this book, Dabashi shows how the civilizational divides imagined between these two cosmic binaries have defined their entanglement—in ways that have nothing to do with the lived experiences of either Muslims or the diverse and changing communities scarcely held together by the myth of "the West."Through detailed historical and contemporary analysis, The End of Two Illusions untangles the motivations that produced this global fiction. Dabashi demonstrates how "the West" was an ideological commodity and civilizational mantra invented during the European Enlightenment, serving as an epicenter for the rise of globalized capitalist modernity. In turn, Orientalist ideologues went around the world manufacturing equally illusory abstractions in the form of inferior civilizations in India, China, Africa, Latin America, and the Islamic world. The result was the projection of "Islam and the West" as the prototype of a civilizational hostility that has given false explanations and flawed prognoses of our contemporary history, with weaponized Islamophobia on one side and militant Islamism on the other as its most palpable manifestations. Dabashi argues it is long past time to dismantle this dangerous liaison, expose and overcome its perilous delusions, and reimagine the world beyond its shimmering mirage. The End of Two Illusions is the most iconoclastic work of critical thought and scholarship to emerge in recent memory, clearing the way toward a far more liberating imaginative geography of the world we share.

When Abbas Kiarostami suddenly passed away in July 2016, he was already an iconic figure in world cinema—and his reputation as a master filmmaker has only grown since. In this book, celebrated scholar Hamid Dabashi offers a new way of looking at Kiarostami's artworld, one that questions the very idea of film philosophy. Dabashi's authoritative account of the philosophical resonances of Kiarostami's oeuvre offers an iconoclastic critique of the field's Eurocentrism and, in vivid prose, makes the case for a new method of appreciating the work of this essential figure. The result is a provocative perspective on the totality of Kiarostami's legacy that, with deep roots in Iranian aesthetic and Persian poetic and philosophical traditions, overcomes film's provincial preoccupation with its Western heritage and charts a new path forward for film-philosophy.

When Abbas Kiarostami suddenly passed away in July 2016, he was already an iconic figure in world cinema—and his reputation as a master filmmaker has only grown since. In this book, celebrated scholar Hamid Dabashi offers a new way of looking at Kiarostami's artworld, one that questions the very idea of film philosophy. Dabashi's authoritative account of the philosophical resonances of Kiarostami's oeuvre offers an iconoclastic critique of the field's Eurocentrism and, in vivid prose, makes the case for a new method of appreciating the work of this essential figure. The result is a provocative perspective on the totality of Kiarostami's legacy that, with deep roots in Iranian aesthetic and Persian poetic and philosophical traditions, overcomes film's provincial preoccupation with its Western heritage and charts a new path forward for film-philosophy.

When Abbas Kiarostami suddenly passed away in July 2016, he was already an iconic figure in world cinema—and his reputation as a master filmmaker has only grown since. In this book, celebrated scholar Hamid Dabashi offers a new way of looking at Kiarostami's artworld, one that questions the very idea of film philosophy. Dabashi's authoritative account of the philosophical resonances of Kiarostami's oeuvre offers an iconoclastic critique of the field's Eurocentrism and, in vivid prose, makes the case for a new method of appreciating the work of this essential figure. The result is a provocative perspective on the totality of Kiarostami's legacy that, with deep roots in Iranian aesthetic and Persian poetic and philosophical traditions, overcomes film's provincial preoccupation with its Western heritage and charts a new path forward for film-philosophy.

What does it mean to be human? Humanism has mostly considered this question from a Western perspective. Through a detailed examination of a vast literary tradition, Hamid Dabashi asks that question anew, from a non-European point of view. The answers are fresh, provocative, and deeply transformative. This groundbreaking study of Persian humanism presents the unfolding of a tradition as the creative and subversive subconscious of Islamic civilization.Exploring how 1,400 years of Persian literature have taken up the question of what it means to be human, Dabashi proposes that the literary subconscious of a civilization may also be the undoing of its repressive measures. This could account for the masculinist hostility of the early Arab conquest that accused Persian culture of effeminate delicacy and sexual misconduct, and later of scientific and philosophical inaccuracy. As the designated feminine subconscious of a decidedly masculinist civilization, Persian literary humanism speaks from a hidden and defiant vantage point-and this is what inclines it toward creative subversion.Arising neither despite nor because of Islam, Persian literary humanism was the artistic manifestation of a cosmopolitan urbanism that emerged in the aftermath of the seventh-century Muslim conquest. Removed from the language of scripture and scholasticism, Persian literary humanism occupies a distinct universe of moral obligations in which "a judicious lie," as the thirteenth-century poet Sheykh Mosleh al-Din Sa'di writes, "is better than a seditious truth."

From the Biblical period and Classical Antiquity to the rise of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, aspects of Persian culture have been integral to European history. A diverse constellation of European artists, poets, and thinkers have looked to Persia for inspiration, finding there a rich cultural counterpoint and frame of reference. Interest in all things Persian was no passing fancy but an enduring fascination that has shaped not just Western views but the self-image of Iranians up to the present day. Persophilia maps the changing geography of connections between Persia and the West over the centuries and shows that traffic in ideas about Persia and Persians did not travel on a one-way street.How did Iranians respond when they saw themselves reflected in Western mirrors? Expanding on Jürgen Habermas’s theory of the public sphere, and overcoming the limits of Edward Said, Hamid Dabashi answers this critical question by tracing the formation of a civic discursive space in Iran, seeing it as a prime example of a modern nation-state emerging from an ancient civilization in the context of European colonialism. The modern Iranian public sphere, Dabashi argues, cannot be understood apart from this dynamic interaction.Persophilia takes into its purview works as varied as Xenophon’s Cyropaedia and Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Handel’s Xerxes and Puccini’s Turandot, and Gauguin and Matisse’s fascination with Persian art. The result is a provocative reading of world history that dismantles normative historiography and alters our understanding of postcolonial nations.

A major reassessment of the parable in Persian literature and its contribution to philosophical and creative thinkingIn this book, Hamid Dabashi offers a radical reconsideration of the parable in Persian literature, arguing that parabolic thinking is a mode of philosophical reflection. Dabashi eschews the conventional focus on the supposed moral or political allusions in these parables—the “moral of the story”—to allow the radical surfaces of their poetic disposition to reveal themselves. He turns his attention instead to what Kafka called “the fabulous yonder” as the defining moment of the parable. Focusing on a sustained course of Persian parables through the ages, Dabashi shows that the genre is not limited to masterpieces by such iconic poets as Sa’di, Rumi, Attar, and Sana’i. In fact, he argues, parabolic thinking has a much wider domain in Persian literature and philosophy and plays a distinct role within Persian and Islamic traditions.The cumulative result of these parables spread across Persian prose and poetry is an alam al-mithal, a parabolic world—a world of parables, similitudes, and verisimilitudes. Dabashi points to the moment in these works when life is absorbed into the formal fabric of the stories, erasing the borderline between fact and fantasy, history and story, the living and the dead, the real and the unreal—and life itself, as we live it, becomes a strange and captivating parable. With this circular self-referentiality, parables enable a way of thinking as a philosophical form.

A major reassessment of the parable in Persian literature and its contribution to philosophical and creative thinkingIn this book, Hamid Dabashi offers a radical reconsideration of the parable in Persian literature, arguing that parabolic thinking is a mode of philosophical reflection. Dabashi eschews the conventional focus on the supposed moral or political allusions in these parables—the “moral of the story”—to allow the radical surfaces of their poetic disposition to reveal themselves. He turns his attention instead to what Kafka called “the fabulous yonder” as the defining moment of the parable. Focusing on a sustained course of Persian parables through the ages, Dabashi shows that the genre is not limited to masterpieces by such iconic poets as Sa’di, Rumi, Attar, and Sana’i. In fact, he argues, parabolic thinking has a much wider domain in Persian literature and philosophy and plays a distinct role within Persian and Islamic traditions.The cumulative result of these parables spread across Persian prose and poetry is an alam al-mithal, a parabolic world—a world of parables, similitudes, and verisimilitudes. Dabashi points to the moment in these works when life is absorbed into the formal fabric of the stories, erasing the borderline between fact and fantasy, history and story, the living and the dead, the real and the unreal—and life itself, as we live it, becomes a strange and captivating parable. With this circular self-referentiality, parables enable a way of thinking as a philosophical form.

A major reassessment of the parable in Persian literature and its contribution to philosophical and creative thinkingIn this book, Hamid Dabashi offers a radical reconsideration of the parable in Persian literature, arguing that parabolic thinking is a mode of philosophical reflection. Dabashi eschews the conventional focus on the supposed moral or political allusions in these parablesthe ';moral of the story'to allow the radical surfaces of their poetic disposition to reveal themselves. He turns his attention instead to what Kafka called ';the fabulous yonder' as the defining moment of the parable. Focusing on a sustained course of Persian parables through the ages, Dabashi shows that the genre is not limited to masterpieces by such iconic poets as Sa'di, Rumi, Attar, and Sana'i. In fact, he argues, parabolic thinking has a much wider domain in Persian literature and philosophy and plays a distinct role within Persian and Islamic traditions.The cumulative result of these parables spread across Persian prose and poetry is an alam al-mithal, a parabolic worlda world of parables, similitudes, and verisimilitudes. Dabashi points to the moment in these works when life is absorbed into the formal fabric of the stories, erasing the borderline between fact and fantasy, history and story, the living and the dead, the real and the unrealand life itself, as we live it, becomes a strange and captivating parable. With this circular self-referentiality, parables enable a way of thinking as a philosophical form.

A major reassessment of the parable in Persian literature and its contribution to philosophical and creative thinkingIn this book, Hamid Dabashi offers a radical reconsideration of the parable in Persian literature, arguing that parabolic thinking is a mode of philosophical reflection. Dabashi eschews the conventional focus on the supposed moral or political allusions in these parablesthe ';moral of the story'to allow the radical surfaces of their poetic disposition to reveal themselves. He turns his attention instead to what Kafka called ';the fabulous yonder' as the defining moment of the parable. Focusing on a sustained course of Persian parables through the ages, Dabashi shows that the genre is not limited to masterpieces by such iconic poets as Sa'di, Rumi, Attar, and Sana'i. In fact, he argues, parabolic thinking has a much wider domain in Persian literature and philosophy and plays a distinct role within Persian and Islamic traditions.The cumulative result of these parables spread across Persian prose and poetry is an alam al-mithal, a parabolic worlda world of parables, similitudes, and verisimilitudes. Dabashi points to the moment in these works when life is absorbed into the formal fabric of the stories, erasing the borderline between fact and fantasy, history and story, the living and the dead, the real and the unrealand life itself, as we live it, becomes a strange and captivating parable. With this circular self-referentiality, parables enable a way of thinking as a philosophical form.

'Ayn al-Qudat is one of the great multi-dimensional geniuses of Islamic intellectual history and has even been described as the true father of deconstructionism, yet he remains little known and even less understood in the English speaking world. Hamid Dabashi has filled this gap with a compelling and sophisticated analysis of this seminal 12th century writer and thinker. Prof. Dabashi frees 'Ayn al-Qudat from the static categorizations of mystic, philosopher, theologian, poet or social critic and allows the dynamism and subversive thrust of his life and intellect to emerge. Untimely thoughts provides a clearly written critical introduction to the intellectual, literary, religious and philosophical struggles of the time as expressed by one of Islam's greatest and most radical writers.

This book is a a critical examination of the role that immigrant intellectuals play in facilitating the global domination of American imperialism.In his pioneering book about the relationship between race and colonialism, Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon explored the traumatic consequences of the sense of inferiority that colonised people felt. Brown Skin, White Masks picks up where Fanon left off, and extends Fanon's insights as they apply to today's world.Dabashi shows how intellectuals who migrate to the West are often used by the imperial powers to misrepresent their home countries. Just as many Iraqi exiles were used to justify the invasion of Iraq, Dabashi demonstrates that this is a common phenomenon, and examines why and how so many immigrant intellectuals help to sustain imperialism.

Europe has long imagined itself as the centre of the universe, although its precise geographical, cultural and social terrains have always been amorphous. Exploring the fear and fascination associated with the continent as an allegory, Hamid Dabashi considers Europe to be a historically formed barricade against the world.Frantz Fanon’s assessment that 'Europe is literally the creation of the Third World' is still true today; but in more than one sense for the colonial has always been embedded in the capital, and the capital within the colonial. As the condition of coloniality shifts, so have the dividing lines between coloniser and colonised, and this shift calls for a reappraisal of our understanding of nationalism, xenophobia and sectarianism as the dangerous indices of the emerging worlds.As the far-right populists captivate minds across Europe and Brexit upsets the balance of power in the European Union, this book, from a major scholar of postcolonial thought, is a timely and transformative intervention.

Europe has long imagined itself as the centre of the universe, although its precise geographical, cultural and social terrains have always been amorphous. Exploring the fear and fascination associated with the continent as an allegory, Hamid Dabashi considers Europe to be a historically formed barricade against the world.Frantz Fanon’s assessment that 'Europe is literally the creation of the Third World' is still true today; but in more than one sense for the colonial has always been embedded in the capital, and the capital within the colonial. As the condition of coloniality shifts, so have the dividing lines between coloniser and colonised, and this shift calls for a reappraisal of our understanding of nationalism, xenophobia and sectarianism as the dangerous indices of the emerging worlds.As the far-right populists captivate minds across Europe and Brexit upsets the balance of power in the European Union, this book, from a major scholar of postcolonial thought, is a timely and transformative intervention.

From Ferdowsi to Rumi and Hafiz, poetry has played a central role in the historical Iranian cultural imagination. How have contemporary poets contributed to this imagining of a nation, in the context of the twentieth century and its momentous events?In this book, Hamid Dabashi interrogates the oeuvre of six major poets: Nima Yushij (1895-1960), Mehdi Akhavan-e Sales (1929-1990), Ahmad Shamlou (1925-2000) Forough Farrokhzad (1934-1967), Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1980) and finally Esmail Khoi (1938-2021). Reading their works in the context of Iranian political history, from the Constitutional Revolution to the Iranian Revolution and beyond, he interprets their poetry as exercises in imagining an Iran that was still emerging and being contested. Providing an original theoretical and critical interpretation of modern Iran’s most well-known poets, based on his own translations from the Persian originals, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of Persian literature and Iranian studies.

From Ferdowsi to Rumi and Hafiz, poetry has played a central role in the historical Iranian cultural imagination. How have contemporary poets contributed to this imagining of a nation, in the context of the twentieth century and its momentous events?In this book, Hamid Dabashi interrogates the oeuvre of six major poets: Nima Yushij (1895-1960), Mehdi Akhavan-e Sales (1929-1990), Ahmad Shamlou (1925-2000) Forough Farrokhzad (1934-1967), Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1980) and finally Esmail Khoi (1938-2021). Reading their works in the context of Iranian political history, from the Constitutional Revolution to the Iranian Revolution and beyond, he interprets their poetry as exercises in imagining an Iran that was still emerging and being contested. Providing an original theoretical and critical interpretation of modern Iran’s most well-known poets, based on his own translations from the Persian originals, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of Persian literature and Iranian studies.

From Ferdowsi to Rumi and Hafiz, poetry has played a central role in the historical Iranian cultural imagination. How have contemporary poets contributed to this imagining of a nation, in the context of the twentieth century and its momentous events? In this book, Hamid Dabashi interrogates the oeuvre of six major poets: Nima Yushij (1895-1960), Mehdi Akhavan-e Sales (1929-1990), Ahmad Shamlou (1925-2000) Forough Farrokhzad (1934-1967), Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1980) and finally Esmail Khoi (1938-2021). Reading their works in the context of Iranian political history, from the Constitutional Revolution to the Iranian Revolution and beyond, he interprets their poetry as exercises in imagining an Iran that was still emerging and being contested. Providing an original theoretical and critical interpretation of modern Iran's most well-known poets, based on his own translations from the Persian originals, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of Persian literature and Iranian studies.

From Ferdowsi to Rumi and Hafiz, poetry has played a central role in the historical Iranian cultural imagination. How have contemporary poets contributed to this imagining of a nation, in the context of the twentieth century and its momentous events? In this book, Hamid Dabashi interrogates the oeuvre of six major poets: Nima Yushij (1895-1960), Mehdi Akhavan-e Sales (1929-1990), Ahmad Shamlou (1925-2000) Forough Farrokhzad (1934-1967), Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1980) and finally Esmail Khoi (1938-2021). Reading their works in the context of Iranian political history, from the Constitutional Revolution to the Iranian Revolution and beyond, he interprets their poetry as exercises in imagining an Iran that was still emerging and being contested. Providing an original theoretical and critical interpretation of modern Iran's most well-known poets, based on his own translations from the Persian originals, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of Persian literature and Iranian studies.

Born in Tehran in 1957, filmmaker Mohsen Ostad Ali Makhmalbaf grew up in the religious and politically charged atmosphere of the 1960s, and the June 1963 uprising of Ayatollah Khomeini constitutes one of his earliest memories. In 1972, Makhmalbaf formed his own urban guerrilla group and two years later attacked a police officer, for which he was arrested and jailed. He remained incarcerated until 1978, when the revolutionary wave led by Ayatollah Khomeini freed him and launched his career as a writer and self-taught filmmaker. Since then, Makhmalbaf has gone on to make such highly admired films as Gabbeh and The Silence.The three lengthy conversations collected here, between Makhmalbaf and leading Iranian film critic and scholar Hamid Dabashi, traverse the filmmaker’s experiences as a young radical, his critical stance regarding the current Islamic regime, and his fascination with films—both as product and as process. In this in-depth view of one of the most significant Middle Eastern filmmakers of our time, Makhmalbaf reflects on the relationship between cinema and violence, tolerance, and social change, as well as the political and artistic importance of the autonomy of the filmmaker.

The name of Mohsen Makhmalbaf is almost synonymous with the dramatic rise of Iranian cinema in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution, and over the last quarter of a century, his career as filmmaker and writer has reflected the tumultuous history of his homeland and the fate of its neighbours. Hamid Dabashi draws from his friendship with Makhmalbaf, as well as his direct involvement with Makhmalbaf's films and thought, to give us this deeply engaging book on the tumultuous life and spectacular career of a great filmmaker. This is also the account of Makhmalbaf's transformation, from committed Muslim revolutionary, who was jailed for his part in the revolution, into an artistic humanist of great energy and elegance. His films, including 'The Peddler' and 'The Time for Love', 'Salaam Cinema', 'Gabbeh', 'Silence' and 'Kandahar', confound conventional genres and are always surprising. They represent his own journey and take part in it, in ways that Dabashi explores with great insight. Makhmalbaf's cinematic career started in Iran and has since expanded into Turkey, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and into Europe. Dabashi uncovers how, moving across boundaries, Makhmalbaf's creative genius can illuminate our contemporary world.And this book is in part the story of a friendship. As Mohsen Makhmalbaf writes in its Preface: 'Hamid Dabashi - this pious atheist friend of mine, the man who loves cinema and hates art, this political activist who abhors politics, this thinking, pondering, critical intellect… I have learned much from him. Perhaps he too, has learned from me. The times he and I have spent together have been occasions of discovery and illumination.'

This is an anthology on the history, politics, and social aspects of Shi'ism including translations of original sources. It examines the historical development of Shi'ism, Shi'i political thought, the status of Shi'i minority communities in the Muslim world, and the life and works of prominent social and political thinkers. The book assesses the extent of the politicization process in Shi'ism in recent years and addresses that important question of the Shi'i attitude towards authority.

Exploring the furthest reaches of the globe, Persian travelers from Iran and India travelled across Russian and Ottoman territories, to Asia, Africa, North and South America, Europe and beyond. Remapping the world through their travelogues, Reversing the Colonial Gaze offers a comprehensive and transformative analysis of the journeys of over a dozen of these nineteenth-century Persian travelers. By moving beyond the dominant Eurocentric perspectives on travel narratives, Hamid Dabashi works to reverse the colonial gaze which has thus far been cast upon these rich body of travelogues. His lyrical and engaging re-evaluation of these journeys, complimented by close-readings of seminal travelogues, challenges the systematic neglect of these narratives in scholarly literature. Opening up the entirety of these overlooked or abused travelogues, Dabashi reveals not a mere repetition of cliché accounts of Iranian or Muslim encounters with the West, but a path-breaking introduction to a constellation of revelatory travel narratives that re-imagine and reclaim the world beyond colonial borders.