Shi'i Islam in Iranian Cinema: Religion and Spirituality in Film (review)

Nacim Pak-Shiraz's book, Shi'i Islam in Iranian Cinema, focusses on issues related to religion and spirituality in Iranian films and explores the multiple facets of the expression of Shi'ism in both its worldly and spiritual approaches. This work is the product of the author's research in Film and Media at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, where she obtained her PhD. Focussing on the post Iran-Iraq war period, Pak-Shiraz seeks to analyse how the cinema of 'the only theocracy in the world' (2) engages with religion and spirituality. To this end she first examines the multiple Western approaches to the issues of religion and spirituality in cinema, endeavouring to define Iranian Shi'ism and its specificities through its history and contemporary expression. On top of this, Pak-Shiraz analyses her filmic corpus studying how it deals with the described context and how it is part of the expression of Shi'i Islam.

Introducing her research field, Pak-Shiraz first exposes an overview of various scholars' approaches to the study of religion and spirituality in Western cinema. She defines her own approach of these issues, choosing to explore Iranian cinema not through a predefined methodology but rather upholding a flexible methodology that allows her to adapt to the film's specificities.

Before presenting the methodological approach used for this work, the author narrates her arrival experience in Europe and explains how she became aware of the power of Western media and cinema in shaping the image of the other. She informs what had aroused her interest for the reverse angle of these Western images and pushed her to explore how the 'others', that she was a part of, shape the image of themselves through cinema. In the first chapter, the author draws an overview of the history of Shi'ism in Iran which plays, as she states, an important role in the understanding of the specificities of the Iranian Shi'i expression of Islam. Her insight and her effective writing style allow the reader to catch the fundamental issues of a particularly complex history and to understand the framework of the contemporary socio-cultural context. She relates the founding events of Karbala and the rise of Shi'ism before detailing the jolts of its development in Iran and its consolidation during the Safavid period until it became the official religion of Iran. Referring to Daftary, Berkey and a number of established scholars' works, Pak-Shiraz remarks the influence of the Iranian element on the construction of Shi'i identity, and relates the appeal of Shi'ism in Iran. To explain the development and consolidation of Shi'ism in Iran, the author refers to the issue of the congruence between the pre-Islamic imperial Iranian leadership model and the Shi'i conception of power and authority. Referring to Gutas, she also underlines the issue of a 'national sentiment' (22), considering the appeal of Shi'ism as being partially an answer to Sunni Arab dominance. Although these issues have been long debated, Pak-Shiraz doesn't expose the scholars' divergences of opinions, what would have better situated her account in a contemporary debate. Nevertheless, through a synthetic historiography, the reader can comprehend the course of Shi'i Iranian identity as it relates to the political, cultural and spiritual history since pre-Islamic Iran until today. In the subsequent chapters, the author reminds us of these historical influences and confluences in order to better appreciate the singularity of the expression of Iranian Shi'ism in the field of arts, particularly through the analysis of her filmic corpus.

In the second chapter, Pak-Shiraz examines contemporary Iranian discourse on religion and spirituality in cinema. She interprets and criticizes the main points of view of Iranian intellectuals, theologians, and journalists (e.g. Rezadad, Moravveji, Azar-Qomi, Maddadpur...