Since its first codification in the early twentieth century, Iranian family law has followed the Shiʿi (Jaʿfarī) school of jurisprudence. In other parts of the Shiʿi world, the question of codifying Shiʿi family law has emerged more recently. This chapter argues that codification enhances the formal rule of law. In the past, family law codification was considered to conflict with a fundamental element of Shiʿi legal thought and religious practice, namely ijtihād, independent legal reasoning by qualified scholars, which makes for a living law. Based on a comparative analysis of Iranian family law and recent Shiʿi (draft) laws put forward in Afghanistan, Bahrain, and Iraq, this chapter discusses where modern Shiʿi family law is located between the “opposite” poles of the formal rule of law (where law is general, prospective, clear, and certain) and ijtihād. The findings indicate that, today, the two are not viewed as contradicting each other. Yet, while Iranian family law only serves as a limited model for other parts of the Shiʿi world, the comparison shows that Iran subjects Shiʿi family law to the formal rule of law more comprehensively than is the case in the other three analyzed countries.

Workers’ rights and conditions have not been at the core of the Islamic Republic’s main policies, especially from the 1990s onward. The existent labor law offers far-reaching exemptions and loopholes that make it possible to circumvent workers’ rights, while prohibitions on independent unions deprive workers of the legal tools to claim their rights. This chapter gives a detailed analysis of the evolution of labor regulation and reform in postrevolutionary Iran, building on primary research and interviews with industrial workers, scholars, and legal experts, conducted in Iran. In particular, the chapter demonstrates how, from Rafsanjani’s neoliberal turn to Rouhani’s presidency, labor casualization and job insecurity have gradually – and systematically – undermined working conditions, exposing workers to severe exploitation and limiting their legal protection. The presidents’ policies have not been equally detrimental, as the values behind every administration, as well as the general economic contexts, influenced their choices: from Rafsanjani’s market-oriented rhetoric to Khatami’s participatory narrative of civil society, Ahmadinejad’s conservative populism to Rouhani’s business-friendly pragmatism.

This chapter traces the development of Iranian Shi’ite revolutionary Ali Shariati in his conception of a nonviolent Islam encompassing humanist, existentialist, and socialist ethics in pursuit of an egalitarian ‘System of Abel’. This is in turn placed in tension with his valorisation of ‘alter-inflicted violence’ as a means to altruistic self-transcendence.

The first chapter sets out the historical context of Arabic learning across the early modern western Indian Ocean by discussing people, practices, and places that constituted this field from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries and how scholarship has engaged with this transregional formation so far. It explores Arabic and Persian narrative texts, such as collective biographies, from different regions of the western Indian Ocean to show how learned groups increasingly traversed the western Indian Ocean for scholarly pursuits during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the centres of learning and text transmission that emerged and shifted over time, as well as the incentives such as patronage, career progression, and scholarly sociability that generated these mobilities. Contemporaries reflected on the transoceanic cultural connections that brought communities of the different regions together. From the sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries those transoceanic entanglements continued to shape this world, but changing political landscapes had an impact on the conditions of a transoceanic field of Arabic learning.

For over 400 years, Sassanid Persia was the greatest state in Asia. To the east, the Kushan Empire was already in decline. The only strong opponent of Iran was the Roman Empire in the west. Military competition for influence in northern Mesopotamia, Armenia and the Caucasus region dominated Iranian–Roman relations, orienting the strategic activities of the early Sassanids to the western fringes of the empire. The breakthrough came in the mid-fourth century, with the emergence of the Kidara Huns in the east. Iran faced a ‘strategic dilemma’: it was crucial to avoid wars on multiple fronts. The Hephthalites or White Huns, became the most important enemy of the Sassanians until the end of the following century; the adoption of such a strategic paradigm enforced the maintenance of peace with the Roman Empire in the west. However, the Sassanian ruler, having secured the eastern territories, was able to move against Iran’s age-old enemy, Rome, this way beginning a period of wars in the west that, with few interruptions, lasted almost until the collapse of the Persian state. Defending such an enormous area was a challenge, as was preventing it from centrifugal tendencies, typical for multi-ethnic states. Despite these factors, the Iranian state managed to assure the territorial integrity of its core areas for four centuries. The tool to achieve this was the army – mobile, efficient, disciplined and motivated.

From the sixth to fourth centuries BCE, the Persian empire under the Teispid and Achaemenid dynasties ruled most of western Asia and neighbouring regions, from the Indus river to Egypt and the coasts of the Aegean Sea. Despite the sources’ disproportionate emphasis on the failures of military expeditions against the overseas Greeks, the Persians enjoyed a lengthy period of military success and overall stability due in part to their rulers’ skill in the formulation of strategy. In the initial conquests, Persia absorbed peer competitors such as Babylon and Egypt; most subsequent conflicts pitted the empire’s superior forces against localised rebellions. Persia’s control stretched to vital subject communities in frontier zones and they also projected influence over external allies and clients. Persian kings rarely campaigned in person after the early expansionist phase, but relied on an exemplary communication system to manage satraps and other delegates tasked with provincial and frontier operations. To carry out military objectives, they relied on networks of provincial recruitment, supported as necessary by elements of a standing army associated with the royal court. Persian military activities were augmented by diplomatic outreach, most notably in Persia’s Greek relations after the failed invasion of mainland Greece. Persia’s strategic capabilities remained formidable until they were caught off guard by the tactical superiority of Alexander’s Macedonian invaders.

Secondary sanctions are unique in their audacity. Their application in an interdependent global context raises the specter of an uncontrolled burn, with consequences stretching beyond even their broadest scope. Such consequences reshape markets and, at times, create new ones. This chapter uses Iran as a lens through which to examine the relationship between the informal economy and US secondary sanctions and the potential disruption provided by the proliferation of cryptocurrencies. The chapter ultimately concludes that despite much-heralded potential, cryptocurrency’s disruption to the US financial system’s supremacy, as well as the sanctions regimes reliant on such supremacy, remains, for now, limited. This incomplete disruption means that any blunting effect provided by cryptocurrency on secondary sanctions cannot fully protect the informal economies and the participants therein from the effects of such sanctions, particularly in more protracted sanctions regimes. Indeed, cryptocurrency’s likeliest role in US sanctions is not to upend the secondary sanctions regime but rather to complicate the enforcement process. Given its rapid proliferation and built-in cryptography, cryptocurrency is likely to continue to make enforcement of sanctions more difficult, more expensive, and, perhaps, less appealing to pursue all potential evaders.

The effects of sanctions have been extensively studied in both the political science and economic literature, but with little appreciation of their consequences for third countries and the firms in these countries. This is an important oversight, given that secondary sanctions have the stated objective of holding third countries not party to the original sanctions regime to account for their actions. This chapter surveys the economic theory behind the possible effects of sanctions on firms in third countries and then extends this to the specific case of secondary sanctions. Looking at the US sanctions regimes on Cuba and Iran, and using the scarce empirical evidence available, this chapter concludes that secondary sanctions are likely to amplify the effect of sanctions. However, their effects will depend on the particular firm, the overall trading relationship between the third party and the sanctioned party, and the relationship between the firm and the sanctioning country.

This chapter situates the communist victory in the Second Indochina War in the broader context of Third World revolution during the 1970s. It argues that 1975 represented a high-water mark of secular revolutionary activity in the global Cold War, and that the following years witnessed the retreat of left-wing revolutionary politics in the Global South. The period that followed saw the rise of a new model of political organization among Third World revolutionaries that largely abandoned secular progressive ideologies in favor of appeals to ethnic and sectarian identities as the basis of armed revolution. If Vietnamese communist fighters represented the archetype of Third World Revolutionaries in the long 1960s, the Afghan Mujahideen would come to symbolize the revolutionaries of the 1980s.

Chapter 9 looks comparatively within monarchies to assess whether the theory contributes to understanding why some monarchies survived and others were overthrown in the past two centuries. It begins by analyzing two datasets of ruling monarchies from the 1800s to the 1900s, showing that monarchies that shared more power with parliaments were less likely to fall to revolutions. It then uses case studies of the Iranian and Nepali monarchies to illustrate how centralizing monarchs made themselves vulnerable to blame and attracted mass opposition, ultimately leading to their downfalls. The chapter suggests that the theory has implications for understanding historical transitions from monarchy, and it underscores that kings who forego their delegation advantage and monopolize power are also vulnerable to being blamed and facing mass opposition when they govern poorly.

Investigation of the Bee-nymphs of Mt. Parnassus and the ancestral Indo-European strain and Anatolian strains of divination introduced into European Hellas by migrant pre-Aeolian communities.

This chapter analyzes the history of preventive attacks against nuclear programs. It identifies when nuclear latency invites military conflict. It includes four detailed case studies: US-considered use of military force against Iran, the North Korea Nuclear Crisis, Israel’s preventive strike against Syria, and the US-considered use of force against Syria.

This chapter presents case studies from ten countries: Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, India, Iran, Japan, Pakistan, South Africa, South Korea, and Spain. These cases show that many world leaders believe that nuclear latency provides greater international influence.