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This took forever to read! But wow, the research. I almost wish I had read it backward to see the trends unfold in reverse.

origin of 'barbarian' = person who mumbles >> alien

"She cautioned Karim Kahn about the transitory nature of power and the egalitarian nature of death."

"It was as if these elaborations were to impress jurist counterparts and rivals in the madrasa rather than having any useful purpose even for jurist's own students and training as Mojahed. Yet despite rising rivalries and bickering among the jurists, at moments of crisis the Ulama felt it their duty to defend the survival of the sharia, what they call the Kernel of Islam."

“As much as the Shah's journals were masterful in describing novelty, they were devoid of depth, let alone critical reflection. As if meant to see but not observe.�

“One cannot rule out his wide-eyed rush for a wholesale purchase of modernity.�

“Unlike technology and industrialization, which were hard to import, material culture and luxury commodities traveled well.�

“It would still be another half century though before the western notion of the urban grid would ruin the fabric of the old city.�

“Such fanciful persionizing of Europe as a hostile yet seductive realm may be read as symptomatic of Iran’s conflicting aspirations.�

“Themes of civilization and reform, the need for constitutional recourse, the heritage of the ancient past vs decline in the present, and the critique of conservatives� obstacles to modernity all laid the foundations of the constitutional discourse. They simply had been woken from their dormancy when the economic crisis at the turn of the twentieth century needed a language of protest.�

“It is even more condescending to expect that all revolutions would have a standard interpretation of modernity.�

�...firmly believed in exporting revolution by covert or overt assistance to the indigeneous nationalist movements.�

“They saw how the neighboring Ottoman Empire in its death throes had birthed competing nationalist entities.�

“They all knew their opposition to the bill was merely symbolic. It was as if they were delivering a eulogy for the constitutional revolution just two decades after its birth.�

“The Pathavi dress code was a powerful tool to transform Iranaian society into a bland and featureless mass, amnesic of its diversity and ready to be recast in a westernized mold.�

Standard oil of CA >> chevron
NJ >> exxon
NY >> mobile
texaco >> chevron
Gulf oil >> chevron

“In effect, by returning to the Jurists� fold, Khamenei reinvented juris prudence. No longer was it a mere obsession with pollution and intricate points of ritual cleansing, the rudiments of Shi'i juris prudence. Rather it aimed at cleaning the polluting politics and morals of secular modernity.�

“For him, Iran increasingly turned into a utopian object to be desired, a mechanical contraption to be assembled, and an edifice to be embellished rather than a complex society, often in disarray, deprived of a voice and deeply skeptical of his enterprise. If the best of intentions were to be assigned to him, the Shah demanded obedience and gratitude in exchange for an imagined fairytale land that he believed was within his grasp.�

“The magic of cinema fascinated Iranians not merely as a form of entertainment but also as a point of reference to measure the realities of their own society and culture and those of the others. A world of imagination that could be admired or despised, sought-after or avoided, and many times mixed feelings of desire and rejection were intertwined. It is not without reason that from the mid-1970s movie theaters became chief targets of militant Islamic attacks.�

“The unwritten code of conduct behind erratic judgements, if there was one, consisted of the judge’s own interpretations of crane and uncodified Shi’i penal injunctions.�

“As much as they employed means of modernity, first to shape and then to convey the revolutionary message, they also utilized the constitution and other democratic trappings to give the illusion of an Islamic utopia. as if it were impossible to cast off a political culture that had long honored authority by means of control and coercion. A leap from the Shah's great civilization to the Islamic Republic could be achieved only through an even stronger State now adorned with the new veneer of sanctity.�

�...often sneered at such bourgeois values as human and civil rights unless they were in their favor.�

�...so grew western support for Saddam as a tactical ally against Iran’s export of its Islamic revolution. That was despite the Iraqi regime’s dark record of human rights abuses, expansionist drive, and near psychopathic behavior of the men at the top.�

“The humiliating end to the war added an almost psychopathic urgency for another round of purges� The systematic execution in secret of at least 4500 political prisoners through the latter part of 1988 was one manifestation of the resume’s insecurity and its unexhausted reservoirs of violence.�

�...contrary to usual practice in the Islamic Republic overturning slaughtered bodies [to families] in exchange for the price of bullets.�

“The outpouring of emotion carried an underlying message. It was as if the public were not only mourning the loss of the Imam, but also burying with Khamenei’s remains the revolutionary passions that had motivated a generation, brought people into the streets and forever transformed Iranian society. It was a subtle message from exhausted public to leave behind protest rallies and sacrifice in the battlefield and move ahead toward grace and normalcy.�

“The byproduct of Iran’s demographic revolution were, to the regime, more of a potential liability than a precious workforce necessary to build Iran’s future. It was as if the boundary lines between the self and the other in the Isalmic Republic were drawn in such a fashion as to protect an elite minority loyal to the regime but inferior in education and skills, at the expense of repelling a far larger segment of the population who was educated and skilled but ideologically uncommitted to the emerging islamic order. Commitment (taahaad) over expertise (tahasos) was a popular slogan that cost the Iranian economy dearly.�