The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution

by Amir Taheri

Book Overview

This timely and fast-paced book by celebrated Iranian-born journalist Amir Taheri examines the history of the Khomeinist movement in Iran to show how it is genetically programmed for war. It will also show how Khomeinsim can be defeated, enabling Iran to close the chapter of the revolution and return to the global mainstream. This book is mandatory for anyone concerned about the future of Iran, terrorism, and the prospects for middle east peace.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594032408
• ISBN13: 9781594032400
• Release Date: March 2009
• Publisher: Encounter Books
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 1.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

The Art of Biography

This book is one of the best examples of the art of biography that I have come across in years.The writer knows his subject deeply and is also gifted with a flowing prose that is easy to follow.We learn of the ayatollah's sad childhood, when he was known as "badqadam" ( ill-omened) because his father had been killed in a brawl shortly after his birth.Khomeini tried to pattern his life on that of Islam's Prophet Mohammad, who had also been an orphan. Like Mohammad he was forced into exile.And like Mohammad he returned home in triumph to found a new state.But unlike Mohammad, who had shown mercy to his worst enemies, Khomeini decided to take revenge, often against innocent individuals whose only crime had been their position within the Iranian administration.Khomeini seized power in an Iran that, though certainly not free and prosperous by WSestern standards, was the freest and mostpropserous of all Muslim countries. But when he died 10 years later, Iran was one of the poorest and most oppressed nations. By one estimate over 1.2 million Iranians died during Khomeini's reign, including those who fell in the eight-year long war against Iraq.Khomeini is also the father of modern Islamic terrorirsm that later reached its worst manifestations in the Palestinian suicide-bombers and the Saudi- Egyptian Al Qaeda group.This book is an absolute must by all those who wish to understand radical Islam and the threat that it poses, in diddferent forms, to the civilized world.A.Keame, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

The Orphan Who Became a Mass Murderer

As a reader of biographies, I have always been surprised by the ease with which most writers either fall in love with their subject or use their pens to demolish it.Here is one biography in which the writer, an Iranian journalist, manages to stay strictly objective. This does not mean that the author has any sympathy with Khomeini's special brand of Islamic politics. He does not. If anything, Taheri is a Westernized Iranian who would feel more at home in a Western liberal democracy than in any Islamic republic. But , to his credit, he has managed to see the world throgh the eyes of Khomeini.He shows how Khomeini, who became an orphan when his father was killed in a land dispute, nurtured his resentment into a blazing fire of hatred that many decades later produced a bloodbath in Iran.Hatred was also the basic strcture of the system that Khomeini built: hatred of women, hatred of the educated, hatred of the rich, and hatred of anyone who looked and thought differently.Those who wish to understand how religion can be used for the most murdrous of enterprises, had better read this book. The experience is sobering. It is also a good read. W.Vederer

A WORLD SO FAR, AND YET SO NEAR

This scholarly biography of the late Ayatollah Khomeini portrays a world that is both far and near to us in the West.It is far because it is based on values, traditions, practices and common memories that challenge, if not actually violate what we cherish most.It is so near because today there are more than 25 million Muslims in Western Europe and North America who share many of Khomeini's beliefs, sentiments and prejudices.Taheri, an Iranian author and scholar, has not limited his book to telling the story of just one man. For him, Khomeini's biography is an excuse, or an opportunity if you prefer, to depict the traditional Islamic society, warts and all.I see that some reviewers have described the book as " a pleasure to read". In a sense, it may be. But I found it more of a chilling read. PLB. Paris, France

Excellent Historical And Social Reference

When a writer sets out to pen the biography of a well known and controversial figure, maintaining objectivity is of paramount importance. The author, Amir Taheri, remains objective in writing the biography of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,who, more than a decade after his death, continues to provoke strong feelings in millions of people worldwide. Taheri's superb research and his easy flowing writing style captivate the reader's interest from the beginning to the end. This book is a must read for anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of Iran today and where she may be heading in the future.

Khomeini : Saint or Monster?

Ruhollah Khomeini was a mullah born in a poverty-stricken village in the Iranian uplands in the last century. Nothing in his childhood or youth would have indicated that one day he would play a major international role, hold America hostage and fire the first shots in what Samuel Huntington has described as " the war of civilisations." Millions of Americans watched their diplomats held hostage and blindfolded in Tehran and daily threatened with execution. The American television public also became familiar with the dour-faced image of Khomeini, the radical mullah who incited mobs of Iranian fanatics to fever pitch. But few Americans understood why Khomeini was able to practice the medieval policy of holding hostages in the final decades of the Twentieth Century.Or what made him tick? This biography, first published over a decade ago and later re-edited, is the best account I have seen of Khomeini's life and politics. Written in an easy flowing and yet very powerful narrative prose, this biography is consistently fair to Khomeini, letting him tell us his side of the story, without being complacent when it comes to exposing and denouncing the crimes he and his regimes committed against the people of Iran and other peoples. There are moments in this fascinating biography that Khomeini comes almost close to sainthood: for example when he speaks out for the downtrodden against a despotic Shah. But there are other moments when we see the ayatollah as a real-life monster : for example when he visits the bullet-strewn corpses of six military officers who have been shot by his henchmen without trial. The ayatollah caresses his white beard and thanks Allah for alllowing him to witness " This beautiful scene." ( sic.) The writer, basing himself mostly on interviews and other primary sources, brings us the film of Khomeini's life in a way that is both instructive and entertaining. We see young Khomeini courting his bride-to-be and preparing for his wedding with all the gaucherie of a village youth. We see him locked in theological disputes with the religious grandees of his days. We see him sit himself down at an audience with the Shah, thus breaking the protocol which insisted that " commoners" should stand while His Imperial Majesty received them. Then we see Khomeini ordering the assassination of intellectuals with a nod of his turbaned head or putting his seal to a " fatwa" for the despatch of thousands of adolescents to the killing fields of the Iran-Iraq war. As an additional bonus the books offers translations of two of Khomeini's poems. ( Yes, he was a poet, too!) A careful reading of the poems reveals the late ayatollah as a jumble of contradictions, a restless soul which , operating at the extremes, could be both saintly and monstrous. One of the best political books I have read in years. A READER IN KUWAIT