Videos by Ali Akbar Mahdi
In May 2008, as a faculty of Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU), I was the recipient of the Bishop He... more In May 2008, as a faculty of Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU), I was the recipient of the Bishop Herbert Welch Meritorious Teaching Award. A few months later, Dr. Louise Musser, then associate dean of academic affairs OWU, ask me some questions about my teaching philosophy and experiences. 34 views
Papers by Ali Akbar Mahdi
Journal of Iranian Research and Analysis, 1999
This paper is a featured piece in a collection about the student movement in Iran, published in a... more This paper is a featured piece in a collection about the student movement in Iran, published in a special issue of Journal of Iranian Research and Analysis (Vol. 15, No. 2, November 1999). It briefly reviews the student movement during the Pahlavi Period and then discusses the ebb and flow of student activism which led to the July 1999 protests in Iran. The article discusses the characteristics of the student movement in each period, demonstrates the nature of energy channeled into the July protests, and shows both the engineered and spontaneous phases of these protests.
Iran 1400 Project, 2020
This is a great article that explores the women’s movement in Iran since the 19th Century. The pl... more This is a great article that explores the women’s movement in Iran since the 19th Century. The plight of women in the social-political arenas is discussed in a clear historical and sociological manner. Women’s struggle to gain equality in both the civil rights and the civil liberties’ battlegrounds is discussed with clarity and specificity. The divisions within the feminist movements and the particular issues of concerns for each have been clearly delineated. In addition, both the achievements and the challenges of women’s movements in Iran, to date, are covered in this article.
Middle East Journal, Jul 1, 1998
Islam and Human Ideology, by Samih Atef El-Zein. Tr. by Elsayed M.H. Omran. London and New York: ... more Islam and Human Ideology, by Samih Atef El-Zein. Tr. by Elsayed M.H. Omran. London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1996. xxv + 365 pages. Notes to p. 375. $76.50. There are several ways by which a non-Muslim Westerner who does not know the original language of the Quran may learn about Islam. The easiest and most accessible approach is to pick up a book by a Western expert on Islam. The hardest and most time-consuming approach is to learn Arabic to be able to read the original Islamic texts. Between these two options, there are other ways, including reading good translations of original works and commentaries written by Muslim scholars, such as Samih Atif el-Zein's Islam and Human Ideology. This method has several advantages, including learning about Islam from sources whose knowledge of Islam is not colored by non-Islamic ideologies and biases. If authors such as Gustave Von Grunebaum, H.A.R. Gibb, Alfred Guillaume, W. Montgomery Watt, and Bernard Lewis are depicted as Orientalists and consequently prejudiced, that characterization can hardly be used for a Muslim thinker like El-Zein. On the other hand, reading the works of Muslim experts enables one to discover their biases and prejudices about people of other cultures and religions. For instance, it does not take long for the reader of this book to find the author engaged in `Orientalism-in-reverse,' making numerous generalizations about the West and Western cultures and extending an Islamic monopoly on spirituality. El-Zein is a prominent Lebanese Islamic scholar who has written more than 100 religious commentaries. This book represents his effort to demonstrate the comprehensiveness and superiority of Islam as a human ideology, in contrast to Western secular traditions known as socialism, humanism, democracy and capitalism. In its approach, EI-Zein's work resembles those of Iranian Shi'ite scholar Mahmud Taleqani and Pakistani Sunni scholar Abu al-A'la Mawdudi. In his comprehensiveness and mastery of Islamic jurisprudence, El-Zein is comparable to any of the major Islamic scholars whose works have been translated into English. As for presentation and articulation, however, his work does not compare well with the works of `Ali Shari`ati, Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i, Rashid Ghannuchi, `Abd al-Karim Surush, or Fazlur Rahman. A more realistic and timely approach to Islam can be found in Mohammed Arkoun's Rethinking Islam. ' El-Zein's book is divided into 45 chapters, some of which are long while others are as short as a single paragraph. Each chapter explains the issue under discussion in the light of Islamic law. The book is a smorgasbord of theoretical and practical issues. such as the Islamic view of human needs, education, morality and general principles of government and economy as well as specific issues of pawning, bribes, stock markets and transfer of debt. The only thread that ties these varied topics together is a comparative one that demonstrates the superiority of Islamic solutions. While both capitalism and socialism are limited in their scope and responsiveness to human needs, El-Zein asserts, Islam is a complete ideology responding to all aspects of human existence, material and spiritual, individual and societal, temporal and permanent, sacred and profane, worldly and heavenly. …
The Sociology of Health and Health Care in Israel, edited by Aaron Antonovsky. 378 pages, tables, figures, references. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1990. ISBN 0-878455-369-X - Social Welfare Services for Israel’s Arab Population, by Aziz Haidar. 175 pages, tables, sources, index. Bo... Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Dec 1, 1992
Middle East Journal, 2007
Tehran Blues: Youth Culture in Iran, by Kaveh Basmenji, London, UK: Saqi Books, 2005. 272 pages. ... more Tehran Blues: Youth Culture in Iran, by Kaveh Basmenji, London, UK: Saqi Books, 2005. 272 pages. $22.50. Warring Souls; Youth, Media, and Martyrdom in Post-Revolution Iran, by Roxanne Varzi. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006. xiv + 217 pages. Notes to p. 262. Works cited to p. 268. Index to p. 290. $21.95 paper. Reviewed by AIi Akbar Mahdi Since the election of Mohammad Khatami as the seventh president of Iran in 1997, Iranian youth and women are perceived as two major sources of social change in Iran. It is believed that these two groups were largely responsible for Khatami's 1997 presidential victory, as well as his re-election in 2001. Young students also were involved in protests and riots following the forced shutdown of the Salaam newspaper in July 1999, resulting in a confrontation between government forces and students in several major Iranian cities. Ever since these events, however, the Western media has generated reports describing the disenfranchisement of the Iranian youth in the Islamic Republic and its political implications. Most of these reports anticipated another political upheaval. Reform was deemed inevitable, and the clerics were regarded, and still are, to be on their way out of power.1 The conclusion drawn from these reports by Western governments, especially by the US government, was that Iranian youth are the most likely agents either for forcing the Iranian regime to change its behavior or changing the regime itself. This conclusion led the US government to revamp its Persian radio and television programs produced for Iranian audiences. Radio Liberty's politically-focused discussion forums were transformed into a youth-oriented program renamed Radio Farda (Tomorrow's Radio), which is headed by the author of Tehran Blues. Voice of America was also transformed by the addition of numerous programs designed for Iranian youth and operated by younger Iranian-Americans. The objective behind these changes was to reinforce the Iranian youth's affinity for American culture and resentment of the Islamic Republic. Youth access to satellite TV and the internet was believed to be the primary reason for the waning influence of the religious elite. It was assumed that young people were ready to change the face of the country by initiating another revolution.2 As the Iranian government succeeded in clamping down on the political protests of the late 1990s, and Khatami's disappointing second term ended with the election of conservative Mahmud Ahmadinejad in 2005, the content of these Western reports changed: the politically active Iranian youth now became less idealistic, less proactive, and more interested in their immediate pleasures and gains. Drugs and addiction among youth became rampant, prostitution spread widely, and alienation characterized urban youth. New reports from Iran are filled with discussions of a new youth culture of indifference, indulgence, and self-annihilation. The two books under review are the latest publications in this genre. In Tehran Blues, Basmenji seeks to offer "a factual, objective, impartial, and fair picture of 'the youth movement in Iran.'" The book is a journalistic account of youths' deeds and thoughts regarding post-revolutionary Iran. In 11 chapters, Basmenji discusses the historical contradictions in which Iranian youths have found themselves - the ups and downs of the student movement, the emergence and transformations of the Islamic Republic, the ironies and fallacies of the Islamic Republic and its ideology, the Pahlavi regime and its downfall, the reformist movement and its constituencies, the Iranian economy and its effect on the political developments on domestic and international relationships, the suppression of dissent and lack of political freedom, the generation gap and youths' newly developed underground culture, the problems of drugs and prostitution, and the election of Ahmadinejad as president. While full of lively vignettes, stories, cases, and quotations, the chapters in Tehran Blues are disconnected, and they do not follow a logical order. …
Iranian Studies, Jan 25, 2022
correspondence to great effect. Al-e Ahmad was cognizant of his considerable debt to Daneshvar an... more correspondence to great effect. Al-e Ahmad was cognizant of his considerable debt to Daneshvar and readily acknowledged that from 1950 onward he did not publish anything without first having her read and comment on it (with the exception of On the Service and the Treachery of the Intellectuals). In an interview some years after her husband’s untimely death, Daneshvar told us that if it were not for her Al-e Ahmad would not have become Al-e Ahmad. In this regard, Dabashi’s crucial intervention has been a long time coming; up to now it has remained palpably absent from how scholars have approached and read Al-e Ahmad. Yet as Dabashi contends, “we have always (though unbeknownst to ourselves) read them together rather than against each other. . . . Together they did not just become complete but transcended the fictive binaries of gender” (p. 106). One possible area for further research relates to Al-e Ahmad’s time in the Tudeh Party, when he edited Nameh-ye Mardom, and specifically how the party, with which nearly every significant intellectual of the period was associated in one way or another, shaped and informed his subsequent trajectory. Although some scholars have touched upon this, more attention has been given to his close relationship with the Socialist League (see, for example, Negin Nabavi’s Intellectuals and the State in Iran). That said, Dabashi’s reading of Al-e Ahmad as a dialogical interrogator and thinker who unsettles the line between certitude and doubt, conviction and ambivalence, masculine and feminine, secular and religious, liberation and mastery, and nonidentity and difference allows us to read him anew and with fresh eyes, in ways that continue to illuminate our own crisis-ridden condition.
Muslim World, Oct 1, 2004
Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Dec 1, 1992
Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, Sep 1, 1999
... from movies, and literary and educational materials19—a sad reality which finally has prompte... more ... from movies, and literary and educational materials19—a sad reality which finally has prompted President Mohammad Khatami's Minister of ... 64 * Mahdi ... For a religiously conservative view, seeSeyed Javad Mostafavi, Behesht-e Khaanevaadeh; Ham'ahangi-ye Aql va Fetrat baa ...
Iranian Studies, 1998
For Second-Generation Iranians in the Untied States the question of identity is not as easily set... more For Second-Generation Iranians in the Untied States the question of identity is not as easily settled as it is for their parents. Their parents claim they are genuine Iranians because they were born and raised in Iran, they relate to Iranian culture more than to American culture, they were active members of the Iranian society for decades, they might still have immediate family members in Iran, and they still hope to go back there someday. Are second-generation Iranian youths able to make these claims? Do they think of themselves as Iranians? Apart from the fact that some were born in Iran, might still know the Persian language, and are familiar with some aspects of Iranian culture, what else about these young people makes them distinctly Iranian?Sociological studies of immigrants indicate that the first generation's pattern of adaptation is quite different from that of the second and third.'
Sociological focus, Aug 1, 1996
Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, Mar 1, 1996
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and The Middle East, 2008
... complete academic translit-eration and original excerpts from key Persian and Arabic ... Maki... more ... complete academic translit-eration and original excerpts from key Persian and Arabic ... Making a number of connections to contemporary political situations ranging from farmer ... Gerasim Stepanovich Lebedev attempting the first Indian dramaan adaptation and interpretation ...
The Historian, Mar 1, 2011
International Journal of Middle East Studies, Feb 1, 2003
Page 1. Int. J. Middle East Stud. 35 (2003), 141209. Printed in the United States of America BOO... more Page 1. Int. J. Middle East Stud. 35 (2003), 141209. Printed in the United States of America BOOK REVIEWS DOI: 10.1017.S0020743803210072 PAUL M. COBB, White Banners: Contention in Abbasid Syria, 750880 (Albany: State Univer-sity of New York Press, 2001). Pp. ...
Series Foreword Introduction: Teens, Islam, and the Middle East Iran by Malihe Maghazei Iraq by N... more Series Foreword Introduction: Teens, Islam, and the Middle East Iran by Malihe Maghazei Iraq by Nadje Al-Ali and Yasmin Hussein Israel by Rebecca Torstrick Jordan by Musa Shteiwi and Nahed Emaish Kuwait by Taghreed Alqudsi-Ghabra Lebanon by Ali Akbar Mahdi Palestinian Territories by Rawan Damen and Dima Damen Saudi Arabia by M. A. Nezami Syria by Ali Akbar Mahdi and Laila Hourani Turkey by Meral Kaya United Arab Emirates by Judith Caesar and Fatima Badry Yemen by Reuben Ahroni Index
Middle East Journal, Apr 1, 1998
ABSTRACT
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Videos by Ali Akbar Mahdi
Papers by Ali Akbar Mahdi
نقد و بررسی متن انگلیسی کتاب روشنفکران ایرانی و غرب، نوشته دکتر مهرزاد بروجردی، انتشارات دانشگاه سیراکوز، ۱۹۹۶ میلادی
Reviewed by Ali Akbar Mahdi, Department of Sociology, Northridge, CA. e-mail: aliakbar.mahdi@csun.edu
Published in International Journal of Middle East Studies, 51 (2019).
Published by Peyam Publication in Tehran in 1975.
"Women's Movement in Iran: Collective Action without Actors," (In Persian) Zanan Magazine (Tehran, Iran), No. 92, 1381 (2002).