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Terrorism and Political Violence
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ftpv20
Religious Statecraft: The Politics of Islam in Iran
by Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar, New York, Columbia University Press,
2018, 392 pp., $30 (paperback), ISBN: 9780231183673
Peter S. Henne
To cite this article: Peter S. Henne (2020): Religious Statecraft: The Politics of Islam in Iran,
Terrorism and Political Violence, DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2020.1788836
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2020.1788836
Published online: 14 Jul 2020.
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BOOK REVIEW
Religious Statecraft: The Politics of Islam in Iran, by Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar,
New York, Columbia University Press, 2018, 392 pp., $30 (paperback), ISBN: 9780231183673
Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar grapples with two equally important and tricky tasks in Religious
Statecraft: explaining the policies of Iran, and clarifying the relationship between politics and Islam.
Iran is one of the more important states in world affairs, but its complicated political system and the
barriers to conducting research in the country result in many ill-informed takes. At the same time, the
infusion of Islam into politics around the world has captivated and challenged scholars and policy-
makers, who have struggled to explain how political Islam can be both principled and instrumental at
the same time. In this book, Tabaar impressively completes both of these tasks.
This dense but readable book is broken into twelve chapters. Introductory and concluding chapters
present the argument, summarize the findings, and discuss the book’s implications. A relatively short
chapter surveys the relevant literature and gaps therein, before discussing the author’s theoretical
claim: that “religious ideas provide elites with unmatched resources to demonstrate the legitimacy of
a political cause, their ability to deliver, and their commitment to action as well as to instill discipline
in the masses” (29). But the bulk of the book is empirical. Tabaar discusses important points in the
history of Iran, from the development of the Islamic revolution’s political theology to the Iran-Iraq war
and recent debates between reformists and conservatives. Each chapter is light on theory and jargon,
focusing mainly on process tracing the development of the Islamic Republic’s policies.
Religious Statecraft is a trove of in-depth, at times surprising, information about Iranian politics.
The chapter on the hostage crisis discusses the ways that “anti-Americanism became a commodity to
be appropriated for political gain” (113). The chapter on the Iran-Iraq war surveys Khomeini’s shifting
use of religious justifications for Iranian policy, while the chapter on the Green Revolution highlights
reformists “discursive battle” with conservatives over the nature of the Islamic Republic (227). And the
chapter on the domestic politics of Iran’s nuclear program helpfully lines up with broader debates in
international security (more on that below).
But, in my opinion, its bigger contribution is what it says about the nature of religious politics. The
study of religious politics—especially in the international arena—is at a crossroads. Initial studies
demonstrated that, indeed, religion does matter (despite decades of neglect by scholars). But the
current wave of studies struggle with a dilemma over the way religion matters; religious contention
appears to be both principled and strategic, a dilemma I have struggled with in my work.
1
This has led
some to argue that apparent religious influences on the world are “just politics.” This dilemma is at the
core of Tabaar’s book, as he takes on this apparent dichotomy between religious ideas influencing and
being influenced by political calculations. He focuses his argument on the way “elites have constructed
and used religious narratives for political purposes, and changed these narratives in the process” (2). In
addition to elucidating Iranian politics, he also helpfully provides a framework for other scholars of
religion and international relations to follow.
The only thing I would change about the book is the extent of this theoretical discussion. As I noted
above, the book is rather dense. Each chapter is full of detailed analysis of its historical period, with
limited takeaways or theoretical discussions. This may be a conscious choice based on the likely
readers (see below). But I worry that the theoretical developments of this book may be ignored by
many readers focusing instead on its insights into Iran. I admit this is barely a flaw, and is more
a matter of preference.
This book can be of value to a variety of readers. Obviously scholars and students of Iran and
Middle East politics will benefit from its insights, as will those scholars of religion and international
relations to whom the above theoretical insights apply. But the book could easily be used in courses on
TERRORISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE
a variety of topics in international security, from nuclear proliferation to revolutions. Finally, while
I may have preferred more theoretical discussions, the focus on empirics and avoidance of jargon will
make this book accessible for non-academics with an advanced interest in Iran.
Note
1. Peter S. Henne, Islamic Politics, Muslim States and Counterterrorism Tensions (New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press, 2017).
Peter S. Henne
University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, USA
Peter.henne@uvm.edu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0887-2255
© 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2020.1788836
2BOOK REVIEW