Religion, Political Action and Legitimate Domination in Shiʿite Iran: fourteenth to eighteenth centuries a.d.

The power and prestige of the Persian religious élite, the ‘ulamā’, during the Qājār period (1795–1926), and their political importance, in contrast to the relative political feebleness of the ‘ulamā’ of Sunni Islam in modern times, has attracted the attention of students of Persian history and politics.