Representing the Unpresentable Historical Images of National Reform from the Qajars to the Islamic Republic of Iran by Negar Mottahedeh (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2008. 237 pages.)

Abstract

Negar Mottahedeh’s book contains an important analysis of the relationship
between Babism and modernity in Iran. The author argues that in order to
understand “the historical conditions for Iranian perceptions of modernity”
(p. 236), scholars need to break away from traditional disciplinary systems,
just as Babism itself went against traditional understandings of Shi`ism in
Iran. It is a complex, highly reflexive, and ambitious proposal. The book’s
detailed historical account of the emergence of the Bab and the critical lens
through which the author analyzes the impact of Qurrat al-Ayn Tahirih’s figure
on the Iranian perceptions of the modern woman are bound to inspire
any serious student of Iranian modernity. The figures of the Bab and Qurrat
al-Ayn Tahirih are analyzed against the backdrop of the deeply ingrained images of the ta`ziyeh, Fatimah, and Joseph, as well as Qur’anic images of
Paradise and houris in Iranian culture. I have come away with a deeper
understanding of the Iranian psyche and cultural attitudes toward modernity
with their unfathomable embrace of traditional and religious motifs.
The book’s underlying questions are “Why are modern acts, often articulated
in terms of dress or veiling, associated with the dissent of the Babi?
And why does this image of ‘the Babi’ appear as a dialectic of modernity,
fluctuating between images ofWestern secularism and unveiling on the one
hand, and as unpresentable images of Shi`ite antiquity, on the other?” (p.
236). The reader does not get an answer addressing either the “why,” identifying
the causes for this phenomenon, or an ethnographic account of how
modern Iranian society grapples with the antique elements of Shi`ite Islamic
thought. Instead, the author sets out to map the influences of the ta`ziyeh on
Iranian cultural modernity in an “anti-disciplinary” fashion – just as Babism
should be understood in relation to Shi`ite thought infused with Iranian
nationalism ...