Reddit reviews The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran
We found 5 Reddit comments about The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
ONEWorld Publications
Unfortunately, the most efficient way to become knowledgable about the Middle East is to read. A lot. The Middle East is a far more complex place than most people imagine and understanding the region requires a great deal of knowledge. I have been studying the Middle East for nearly a decade and I still feel like there is so much that I do not know. I would start by reading reputable news sources every day. Places like The Economist, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC, Financial Times, are the Los Angeles Times are good English language news sources that you should look at. Additionally, I have written up a suggested reading list for learning about the Middle East, though it is a bit more security-related since that's my area of expertise. I hope it helps. And feel free to ask any questions if you have them.
Books - General History of the Middle East
Books - Middle East Military History
Books - Middle East Terrorism and Substate Violence
Books - U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East
Think Tanks
Below is a list of several different think tanks, which frequently publish everything from extension research and analysis to quick and succinct blog posts about the issues in the Middle East. Some of these think tanks specifically focus on the Middle East, while for others it is only one area of their research.
Journals, Blogs, Podcasts, and other Publications
This is correct in terms of both contemporary Sunni and Shi'i Islam. Scholars are generally recognized by their erudition and contributions to the theory and/or application of Islamic (as well as other areas such as theology, Qur'anic exegesis, spiritual practice, etc.).
I can comment more on the situation in Twelver Shi'ism, as I am a Twelver Shi'i Muslim myself. Twelver Shi'ism will appear to have more of a hierarchical structure or at least exhibit more centrality than what is seen in the Sunni world, but it's still very far form the central hierachy of the Catholic clergly. While often finds comparisons between the Shi'i scholars and the catholic clergy in the media and even in the academic literature, these comparisons are often misguided, and at the very least reductive. Basically, within Twelver Shi'ism since the late eighteenth (or perhaps more accurately/practically, the mid-nineteenth century), the common practice has been for the laity to follow the rulings of the most learned scholar that has the authority to exercise independent legal judgements (although these are still, at least nominally, only derivations made from the source material, the Qur'an and ahadith, rather than original legislation); they would also pay the khums tax to this scholar if applicable, which among other things, funds the seminaries. At various points in time one figure would be seen by the vast majority as the most learned, but at other points in time (such as the current era), there would be multiple figures with large followings. Virtually anyone could announce themselves as a learned scholar, but to be taken seriously by much of the population, and indeed by ones peers, one would typically need to study in one of several seminaries (which today would primarily be those in Qum, Iran and to a lesser extent in Najafi, Iraq) under well-known teachers (generally, the most recognized scholars of the previous generation). Things have become more complicated since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, where the lines between scholarship and public service (i.e., holding positions of political power) are becoming blurred.
The situation within contemporary Sunni Islam is even more decentralized. For one things, there are four major legal schools within Sunni Islam, and then there's also the Salafi movement that exists outside of those legal schools. Moreover, scholarship even within the same legal school can be quite different based on geography. For example, the Hanafi school is the primary school followed in both Asia Minor (e.g., Turkey) and Central/South Asia, but as I've heard there's quite a difference between the practice of the religion, even in its more legal dimensions, between say Turkey and Pakistan; in fact even within South Asia, there are multiple approaches taken by Hanafi Sunni Musilms that lead to quite different expressions of religion, and each will have their own scholars.
Moreover, the prestige of centers of learning within Sunni Islam have also been in flux lately. One of the issues in Sunni scholarship today is that whereas in Shi'i Islam centers of learning are primarily funded through khums, in Sunni Islam they've historically relied mainly on awqaf (charitable endowments, the singular form is waqf), and these were regulated if not outright taken by modern nation states in the contemporary era. In fact, modern (often secular) nation states in the Islamic world began to increasingly oversee and regulate the formal practice of religion and its scholarship within their borders. Therefore, scholars became increasingly dependent on the state for support, so you have something like national hierarchies forming, with say, a grand mufti at the head. This in term led to the prestige of centers of learning such as Al-Azhar university in Cairo, Egypt to fall in the eyes of many, as they were seen as being co-opted by the state (although the relationship between scholars and temporal power has always been tenuous and tricky in both the Sunni and Shi'i traditions). Simultaneously, we've seen increasing prestige associated with the Salafi expression of Islam (with centers of learning in Saudi Arabia), which ostensibly eschews all hierarchy even more rigorously than what's seen in other expressions of Islam, by rejecting the legal schools. However, some would contend that effectively, much of Salafi practice comes from treating a small number of contemporary scholars as authorities.
Of course there are other Muslim groups, so we can briefly cover them. Zaydi Shi'ism also has a rich history of scholarship, based primarily in Yemen, but I'm less familiar with that to comment (and at various times throughout history the lines between Zaydi scholarship and Sunni scholarship have become blended), and I know virtually nothing about Ibadi scholarship (which is a school of thought that is neither Shi'i nor Sunni, largely based in Oman), and ditto for Zahiri scholarship (sometimes considered a fifth school in Sunni Islam). I should add that the Nizari Ismaili Shi'i community does feature a type of hierarchy, in that they have a present living Imam who carries the charismatic authority of the Prophet (saws), as opposed to the hidden Imam of the Twelver Shi'is; this Imam can act as an infallible. But really this is one charismatic figure, who essentially acts like a head of state without a territory in the modern world, surrounded by a bureaucracy. For more information, you can look up the Agha Khan Development Network (AKDN). I should add though that Nizari Isma'ilis today resemble something that is basically unrecognizable when compared to normative Sunni, Twelver/Zaidi/Shi'i, and Ibadi Islam.
There are also Sufi groups, most of which fall within Sunni Islam legally speaking, but some of which are not strictly speaking Sunni (and might actually be affiliated with Twelver Shi'ism, even though Sufism is generally viewed upon negatively in that tradition). Here you might have some hierarchy within a tariqa but that's different. There are also antinomian Sufi groups, which do their own thing and don't really follow Islamic law. These may exhibit some cult-like tendencies, where you have a charismatic community built around one or a small group of leaders, but here I'm just speculating as this is pretty far from the areas I'm knowledgeable about.
In short, aside from these mystical/antinomian persuasions, in theory, a scholar in Islam is really no different than a member of the laity in religious/theological terms, except for their ability to issue rulings on religious law. Although I don't know much about Catholicism (so take this with a grain or few of salt), I guess you can think of Muslim scholars as something in between a lay theologian and a canon lawyer I guess. In practice, of course, they serve in a distinct social/cultural role, and do things like leading prayers, officiating marriages, handling burial rites, counseling people and giving them advice, etc., although a qualified lay individual can fulfill all these functions too.
For further reading on Sunni scholarship, see Jonathan A.C. Brown's Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy, and for further reading on Shi'i scholarship, see Roy Mottahedeh's The Mantle of the Prophet.
It's definitely something you see across the literature. Many aspiring Imams and Mullahs would head to places like Karbala, Najaf, and Qom, and study from the various teachers there. Then, many would head off to various localities, often acting as a community leader with religious legitimacy. You can see some of this happening here:
Roy Mottahedeh - The Mantle of the Prophet: https://www.amazon.com/Mantle-Prophet-Roy-Mottahedeh/dp/1851686169
So it's clear to me that you don't really know all that much about Iran or the Iranian people, but I can suggest some reading material so that you can further educate yourself if you so choose to. I found these books to be quite informative.
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A couple to get you started...
Nikki Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (updated 2006)
Roy Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet (2nd edition, 2008)