In preparing the way for the unparalleled surge of Islamic revival in Iran, many factors have been at work. One of the most important is the legacy of Dr. Ali Shari'ati (1933-1977). A teacher, scholar and writer, Shari'ati and a dynamic influence on the young people of Iran with his classes, discussions, free lectures and articles during the 1960's and 1970's.

Shari'ati was a sociologist, educated in Mashhad and Paris, as well as a student of history and philosophy. He subjected contemporary society to careful examination, using the terms, experiences and concepts found in Islamic philosophy and culture for his analysis. He formulated and presented to his students and readers a coherent Islamic world-view and an ideology of social, political and economic change. His views have contributed much to the Iranian Islamic revolution.

Shari'ati works are constantly reprinted and eagerly studies through-out Iran. This anthology is the first systematic presentation in English of some of his major ideas.

THIS IS THE PERSIAN LANGUAGE EDITION OF THE PERSIAN SPHINX Who lost Iran? How and why did a country, never richer, never more educated, its women never more liberated erupt in a fundamentalist revolution? the answer can be found in the enthralling life and tragic death of one man. Amir Abbas Hoveyda was a central figure in the historic struggle between modernity and tradition in Iran -- a struggle pitting Western cosmopolitanism against Persian isolationism, secularism against religious fundamentalism, and ultimately civil society and democracy against authoritarianism. Born in Tehran in 1919 to a family of solid middle class comforts and faded aristocratic roots, Hoveyda was an elegant, cultivated, well-read, and witty man, educated in Beirut, London, and Brussels. After entering the Iranian foreign service in 1942, he served in France, Germany, and Turkey, then returned to Iran in 1956 to join the National Iranian Oil Company. In 1965, the shah appointed him the country's prime minister. Hoveyda would serve faithfully in that post for thirteen years. Amir Abbas Hoveyda embodied the aspirations, the accomplishments and also the failures of a whole generation of Iranian technocrats -- mostly Western-trained -- who sought to free Iran from the travails of poverty and repression and guide it into the modern age. Hoveyda would be both a leader and a victim of that effort. On the eve of the Islamic Revolution, the shah, attempting to turn the rising tide of revolt by offering a scapegoat, ordered the prime minister's arrest. When the Pahlavi regime fell, Hoveyda chose not to flee, voluntarily surrendering to the new Islamic authorities. His hope was for a public trial; instead the infamous "Hanging Judge" presided over a secret and summary trial. In telling the story of Hoveyda's life, the author has not only laid bare the development of Iranian society during a pivotal period (1919 1978) but has also unearthed important new material on U.S.-Iranian relations. From 1957 onward, Amir Abbas Hoveyda played critical roles in dealing with U.S. foreign policy and fundamentalist Islamic opposition in Iran. Through careful use of hitherto-unexamined archival materials, unpublished letters, and personal journals, along with extensive interviews with more than a hundred of Hoveyda's relatives, friends, and foes, the author has brilliantly caught the pathos and passion of Hoveyda's life and times. The Persian Sphinx is biography at its most powerful and will reward the scholar and the general reader alike.

Religion vs Religion consists of two lectures Ali Shariati gave at the Husayniyah Center in Tehran on August 12 and 13, 1970. In them he puts forth a most remarkable thesis, that throughout history, religion has fought against religion and not a non-religion as we have come to believe. That is, monotheism, the religion of the belief that God is One, that religion brought by Prophet Abraham which is called din al-hanif, 'the rightful religion,' has continuously, throughout history, had to struggle against the religion of denying that there is One God or believing that there is no God (kufr, disbelief, infidelity, atheism) or against the religion of believing that there are multiple gods (shirk, polytheism, multitheism), the latter of which has branched into idolatry.

Religion vs Religion, translated here for the first time in English, awakened religious and prophetic-like consciousness, bringing literally thousands of young people back to faith and belief in God. Shariati, in his inimitable way, clearly marks the lines and points out the signs that distinguish a divinely-imitative religion manifested throughout history in a 'priestly-function' of, right or wrong, celebrating a nation and a divinely-originated religion and its 'prophetic-function' of distinguishing between right and wrong and then calling a nation into action.

The present work is basically an authentic account of historical events in Iran and the inside story of the Shah's regime. It concentrates on the underlying consideration which paved the way for the rise to power of Reza Shah and the untold reasons for the collapse of the Pahlavi dynasty. It also gives an account of a movement which overthrew the Shah under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini. It also aims at providing a comprehensive and objective consideration of the major contemporary issues.

In these two essays, the late Muslimscholar Murtaza Mutahhari examines society and history. His discussion demonstrates clearly his wide-ranging knowledge of Western as well as Eastern thought through the ages.

One of Mutahhari's principal aims is to refute historical materialism. To his mind, the theory is both invalid and incompatible with Islam, despite published views of some Muslim intellectuals who cite sacred texts to support it. Mutahhari explains exactly where they misread the Qur'an and refers to numerous other verses as he argues the Marxism, dialectical materialism, and historical materialism are Western theories totally at odds with vitually every facet of Islamic thought.

The life of Taj al-Saltana, daughter of the ruler of Iran, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, epitomized the predicaments of her changing era. Overcoming her limited education within the harem walls, Taj chronicled a thirty-year span in the life of a generation that witnessed a shift from traditional order to revolutionary flux. It is as though she had chosen this moment to recall her personal history--a tale filled with "wonder and anguish"--in order to record a cultural and political leap, symbolic of her time, from the indulgent, sheltered, and often petty world of her father's harem to the puzzling and exposed, yet emotionally and intellectually challenging world of a new Iran.

Now almost one hundred years later Taj's memoirs are relevant and qualify her not only as a feminist by her society's standards but also in comparison with feminists of her generation in Europe and America. Beyond her fascination for the material glamour of the West at the turn of the twentieth century--fashion, architecture, furniture, the motorcar--she was also influenced by Western culture's painting, music, history, literature and language. And yet throughout this time she kept her bond with her own literary and cultural heritage and what she calls her "Persianness."

Despite her troubled life of agony--an unloving and harsh mother; a benevolent but self-indulgent father; an adolescent, bisexual husband; separation from her children; financial difficulties; the stigma of leading a libertine lifestyle and the infamy of removing her veil--Taj's is a genuine voice for women's social grievances in late 20th-century Iran, and one that reveals a remarkable woman in her own right.

"A Thousand and One Nights meets Raise the Red Lantern in this tale of growing up among royal wives and concubines in what is now Iran. . . . Taj saw and recorded a changing society, dissected the role of women in it, and questioned its conventions." (Booklist)

"In this startlingly frank account of life in a Qajar harem, Taj al-Saltana exposes herself and the royal Persian court to public scrutiny. . . . This she does candidly, not only revealing her innermost thoughts and feelings, but also expressing often uncomplimentary views on her country and countrymen. Her account reveals exceptional political awareness among the women in the harem. . . . A treasure-trove of photos of a now bygone era embellish, enhance, and round out this portrait of a fascinating moment in Iran's long and troubled history." (Middle East Journal)

"Taj's account of her childhood in the royal harem is the only account so far by an insider." (Los Angeles Times)

"While the feminist sentiments of the young woman appear modern, it is the simplicity and directness of Taj's personality that makes the work memorable." (Library Journal)

"Taj al-Saltana's memoirs bring home the intense conflicts of a life straddling the harem and modernism. The publishers have succeeded in producing a handsome volume, well stocked with plates and illustrations. Amanat's useful historical sketch enables the book to be appreciated by the general reader as well as the student, reminding us yet again, of the inevitable need to make one well-known, aspect of a Middle Eastern culture familiar to the West." (Times Literary Supplement)

Ardeshir Zahedi is a descendant of two families that have shaped the history of modern Iran. His father, Fazlollah Zahedi (1897–1963), served as prime minister and was an important political and military figure of the Pahlavi period. His maternal grandfather, Nasrollah Khan Moshir od-Dowleh, served as the first prime minister of Iran after the establishment of the constitution in 1907.

Ardeshir Zahedi has led a very eventful life. During World War II, when Ardeshir was twelve, his father, who was the commander of the Isfahan division, was arrested by the occupying allied forces and imprisoned in Palestine.

After completing his college education at Utah State University, Ardeshir returned to Iran to become deputy director of the Point Four Program. During the tumultuous events of the summer of 1953, he was at his father’s side and during General Zahedi’s premiership (1953-1955) he was the liason between the prime minister and the Shah Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi.

In 1957 he married the Shah’s firstborn, Princess Shahnaz. Princess Mahnaz, the Shah’s first grandaughter was born a year later. Although the couple separated in 1964, Ardeshir still remained a close confidant and friend of the Shah until the monarch’s death in 1980.

In the last two decades of the Pahlavi dynasty, Ardeshir Zahedi served as ambassador to the United States, to the Court of Saint James and five years as foreign minister of Iran. During his diplomatic career he took an active role in the United Nations discussions after the Arab-Israeli war in 1967 and in the preparation of the first Islamic Conference Summit. As the head of the Iranian Delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, he signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 1977 Zahedi played a key role in the release of more than 165 hostages during the Hanafi hostage incident in Washington DC.

The Memoirs of Ardeshir Zahedi are the chronicles of an eventful life and at the same time relate over sixty years of Iranian history.

He presently resides in Switzerland.

Translated from the original Persian by Riaz Masrour

Here is the long-awaited translation of Khatirát-i-Nuh-Saliy-i- Akká, the memoirs of Dr.Yúnis Afrukhtih who served Abdu l-Bahá as His trusted secretary and interpreter from 1900-1909. These were difficult years when the Master was imprisoned in the city of Akká, His every move subject to misrepresentation by the Arch-breaker of the Covenant and his associates, and even His life in danger. At the same time the period saw the victories of the construction of the Shrine of the Báb and the House of Worship in Ishqábád, and the rise of the Cause of Bahá u lláh in the West.
This important historical record, published in 1952 on the instructions of Shoghi Effendi, has been described as pre-eminent among those works dealing with the history of Covenant-breaking . At the same time it chronicles the daily life in Akká of Abdu l-Bahá and of the little band of devoted believers whose chief joy in life was to be of service to Him; it also describes the pilgrimages to Akká of many eminent early Western Bahá ís including Thomas Breakwell, Hippolyte Dreyfus, Lua Getsinger and Laura Barney, the compiler of Some Answered Questions.

Over those nine years Jináb-i-Khán (the title by which Dr. Yúnis Afrukhtih was honoured by Abdu l-Bahá) served the Master in Akká as secretary, translator, envoy and physician. His account of some of the most significant events of the period, his graphic and stirring pen-portraits of Abdu l-Bahá, and the description of his own emotions - all expressed in a lively and at times mischievous language of humour and wit - make this volume uniquely memorable.

Volume Six covers the period from Spring of 1976 to September of 1977 when Alam is close to death. Among issues covered in this volume are the celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of the Pahlavi dynasty; Iran s relations with the United States; Iran s image in the United States; the campaign and election of Jimmy Carter; the beginnings of what would become the revolution and the Shah s illness.


In 1966 ex-prime minister Assadollah Alam was appointed Minister of Court. He was to hold this position for eleven years almost until his death. Seeing the Shah on a daily basis and being of the same age, Alam became as close to being a friend to the Shah as anyone. At about the same time he started a personal diary which he willed to be published after his passing.


Being a good aide and companion, he internalized the Shah s mind. In these diaries a window is opened into the Shah s thoughts, opinions and motivations. Sometimes through the Shah s own words to Alam and sometimes through Alam himself who anticipated and predicted what the Shah felt or wanted. The Shah s method of information gathering, analysis and decision is seen in detail. We also see the day to day activities of the Shah. On the personal side, we see the Shah s relationship with his family and the court. On the very intimate side, the Shah and Alam s frequent relationship with other women is narrated.


The publisher has not changed in any way the text prepared by the editor, Alinaghi Alikhani.