Law, State, and Society in Modern Iran

Using a 'Historical Institutionalist' approach, this book sheds light on a relatively understudied dimension of state-building in early twentieth century Iran, namely the quest for judicial reform and the rule of law from the 1906 Constitutional Revolution to the end of Reza Shah's rule in 1941.

"Law, State, and Society in Modern Iran offers a perceptive examination of the impact of legal reforms on the process of state building and modernization in the first half of twentieth century in Iran. Its use of a wide range of primary source material will be particularly welcomed by historians of the period, and its broad analytical approach should make it indispensable for comparative studies of legal reforms in the wider context of the Middle East and current debates on constitutional development." - Ali Gheissari, University of San Diego, USA

"Legal transformations of codes, institutions, and procedures constituted a crucial motor in the formation of political modernity and the modern state in Iran. This book contains lucid and original accounts and analyses of the events and processes in these transformations, rich in the details of political struggles and ideological contests, not only between the entrenched clerical hierarchy and the modernizing constitutionalists but also within and across both camps. This is key to understanding the subsequent fractured evolution of Iranian state, society, and revolution." - Sami Zubaida, Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology, Birkbeck, University of London, UK

"Enayat has undertaken a theoretically informed and historically grounded exploration of a topic of great significance in modern Iran. His work furnishes cogent explanation along with lucid historical analysis; his observations are pertinent, his judgments sober, and his conclusions persuasive. This book constitutes an important and timely contribution to the understanding of the evolving legal structures and their contextual constraints, not only in Iran but also in the rest of the Middle East." - Fakhreddin Azimi, Professor of History, University of Connecticut, USA

"The Iranian constitutionalists' solution in integrating state law and the sharia, carefully detailed and insightfully analyzed by Enayat, is an achievement well worth noting by students of comparative constitutionalism." - Political Science Quarterly

Hadi Enayat is a lecturer of Politics and Sociology at Richmond American University, London.