God and Man in Tehran: Contending Visions of the Divine from the Qajars to the Islamic Republic by Hossein Kamaly (review)

God and Man in Tehran, by Hossein Kamaly, Associate Professor at the Hartford Seminary, surveys the shifting and often tumultuous interactions between the religious, political, social and ideological components of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Tehran, providing a useful introduction for those who may not be familiar with the details of this particular historical period in Iran. At the same time, the book has a personal touch to it, written almost in a journalistic, conversational style and offering the author’s own views on the various personalities that he presents to the audience. It is divided into seven chapters: ‘O God, O Heaven, O Nature’; ‘Mediatory Theology and Its Discontents’; ‘God with Us’; ‘The Law: God’s and Man’s’; ‘Falsafeh and the Madraseh’; ‘Sufism Returns, and with a Vengeance’ and ‘Varieties of Skeptical Expression’. The book has an encyclopaedic quality, packed full of detail, but at the same time – at least for about the first three chapters – lacks a degree of focus and depth.

One of the first points that a reader looks out for when they pick up a book is why the author has written it; Kamaly’s actual reason for writing the book is not entirely clear, apart from the statement ‘At best, this book can serve as an introduction to the making, unmaking, and remaking of historically contested views on God in Tehran, observing how some humans have treated each other and made a mark on the world, all in the name of God’ (xiii); and also the fact that Richard Bulliet suggested that he write it (xv). If one doesn’t know who Richard Bulliet is, then it will not be completely obvious as to why it is significant that he suggested that Kamaly write the book; why did he suggest it? What are Kamaly’s other reasons for writing it? Does the statement ‘how some humans have treated each other […] all in the name of God’ imply that they have treated each other badly? Is this a moral concern for Kamaly? If so, by what ethical criteria is he assessing how humans have treated each other? Is this a call for humans to be kind? An indictment of what he sees as hypocrisy? How do the author’s own views inform the writing of the book? Furthermore: why select this time period? Why select Tehran? No reasons for these choices are given.

The first three chapters are perhaps the trickiest to follow. In Chapter One, ‘O God, O Heaven, O Nature’, Kamaly sets out to explore the changing view of nature (or Nature) in Tehrani society: ‘This chapter explores how a deep-rooted negative and derogatory conception of nature gradually gave way to a positive and celebratory one based on modern science’ (1). Again, the question is: why choose to explore this? How does this particular trope help us to understand Tehrani society? And if the view of nature changed, then what are we supposed to conclude from that? If there was a deep-rooted and negative conception of nature, for how long had this existed? Among whom? What about the positive views of nature that are evident in Persian literature, going back at least to the medieval period, such as in the work of Manuchehri Damghani (d. 11^th C), or Hafez (d. 1390)? Kamaly says that, ‘The emergence and evolution of the modern notion of Nature deserves a more thorough examination’ (9), but again, why? It could be argued that examining the view of nature/Nature in Tehrani society can help the reader to understand the ways in which Tehrani culture changed during the nineteenth century, in the pursuit of the same ‘modernity’ and ‘progress’ that the Europeans and the Russians seemed to be chasing, but it would be interesting to know why the author considers this particular subject worth...