Religious Minorities in Iran By Eliz Sansarian, Camhridge: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Middle East Series, n.d., 228 pp.

Abstract

The author is an associate professor of political science at the University of
Southern California. Her previous publications include a 1982 Praeger publication,
"The Women's Rights Movement in Iran: Mutiny, Appeasement, and
Repression from I 900 co Khomeini."
Religious Minorities in Iran is of interest to political scientists, particularly
those focused on the Middle East; Iran experts; Islamic studies experts concerned
with modem-day politics and governance; those in the field of religious
studies or comparative religion; and also lawyers, academics, and those working
in Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the human rights field who
are interested in issues related to minority rights, freedom of religion or belief,
and human rights in the Middle East.
The book focuses on those identified as the main ethnoreligious components
of the non-Muslim religious communities in Iran: Armenians, Assyrians,
Chaldeans, Jews, Zorascrians, Baha'fs, and Iranian Christian converts. The
main period of study is the first decade of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, 1979
to 1989. The author gives three reasons for focusing on this period; she argues
that this was the most ideologically charged moment of the revolution, that the
position of recognized non-Muslim minorities was largely routinized by the
late 1980s, and because she wants to avoid the nuances that emerge and complicate
the political scene after the end of the cold war and the formation of
post-Soviet states. Later periods are mainly considered only when they bear
direct relevance to the points being made and in the concluding chapter ...