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This work is a critically informative study of religious modernism in Iran from 1953 to 2000
in the context of Islam versus democracy. It examines the thoughts and works of seven religious
intellectuals who either shaped or influenced the religious-political developments of contemporary
Iran. According to Jahanbakhsh, although Iranians have failed in understanding the meaning of
democracy, the yearning for democracy was the most enticing goal in both the 1906 and 1979
Iranian revolutions.

In Many Respects, Shiᶜism Constitutes the Most Important Element of Iranian culture since the Safavid rule in the sixteenth century. Shiᶜism not only presents a most divergent sectarian character in Islam, but also introduces a variety of rites and rituals, some of them well penetrated into the festive mode of thought of Iranians. The Encyclopaedia Iranica has dedicated numerous entries to Shiᶜite characters, rites and rituals in the first place, and to Shiᶜah thought and concepts in the second place. Looking at Shiᶜism as a culture, indeed, justifies the prominence of rituals. The community, in Heinz Halm's words, "is created through the process of rituals" more than "the profession of belief in dogma." The Shiᶜite community, since the Safavid period, has been equipped with rituals that ensured a lasting cultural dimension for Shiᶜism. In our survey of Shiᶜism in Iranica, therefore, we deal first with rituals and symbols, second with juristic characters, third with concepts and titles, and finally with some general remarks on the issues.

Nineteenth-century Iran witnessed the advent of a new socioreligious institution. While the theory of a divinely appointed Imam (Imām al-Manṣūb) increasingly became eschatological in nature, a highly centralized religious position came into being whose source of power was not to be found in the classical Shi'i doctrine. The position of marjaᶜ-i taqlīd is a product of several religious developments that characterized the nineteenth-century Shi'i community. The prevalence of the Uṣūlī school and the formulation of two important doctrines, i.e., aᶜlamiyyat (more knowledgeability) and vilāyat-i faqīh (the governance of the jurist) are held as three major juridical impetuses underlying the birth of the institution of marjaᶜiyyat-i taqlīd. Therefore, we will first deal with the Uṣūlī process, then the doctrines of aᶜlamiyyat and vilāyat-i faqīh, then with the qualifications of a marjᶜ, and the question of who the first marjaᶜ of the Twelver-Shi'i community was, and finally the place of marjaᶜ-i taqlīd in the political life of Shi'i Iran.