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Loading... The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iranby Hooman Majd
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. A fascinating portrait of modern Iran. Having spent a month travelling around Iran a few weeks before reading this erudite book, it elicited many fond memories of a grossly misunderstood country. For anyone planning a trip to Iran or just wishing to know something about the people of Iran, this book makes an excellent introduction. (  )jaipur1 | May 8, 2009 |   Think about everything you know about Iran, and then forget it all. Majd gives us a unique insight into the life, religion and politics in Iran. An Iranian himself and grandson of a well-known Ayatollah, Majd is given unprecedented access to a country that remains a mystery to most Americans. The Ayatollah Begs to Differ is a journey in two separate worlds: a public world where people don't often speak freely or dress as they wish and the private life, a world behind walls where almost anything goes. It is the juxtaposition of these two worlds that Majd explores, showing us the differences between them -- as well as the differences and similarities between our own cultures. Filled with discussions on both present day Iran (the book was published in 2008) and they history of Iran (once known only as Persia to Westerners), Majd takes care to explain, hold up and dispel many of our (Western) myths about the country. The book is more than just a book about Iran. In some ways, this is a book about travel. Majd, a well-traveled writer, discusses his travel within the country as well as a few outside (he lives mostly in the United States). But it is also a political book. Majd never shies away from addressing conflicts or issues that we (Westerns) feel we know well. He discusses Bush's role in Iranian culture, the nuclear arms issue, terrorism, of course Iraq and Palestine. Of course, the book is also a study on religion, because no book about Iran could be written without talking about Islam. And last, this book, in many ways reminding me of Rob Gifford's book, China Road, is also a study about the people of Iran. Individuals as well as the many different groups that make up the country. Written in first person, Majd's book is an excellent and engaging read. Recommended for anyone with even a casual interest in Iran. (  )callmecayce | Feb 23, 2009 | Interesting perspectives. (  )Mithril | Dec 11, 2008 | The Ayatollah Begs to Differ is in many ways an excellent book: its subject is highly relevant, and the author has a keen understanding of Iranian culture. I rated the book as only mediocre, however, because Hooman Majd's writing style is abysmal. His sentences are long and ragged, with so many parentheses and asides that by the time you get to the end, you can no longer remember how the sentence started. The whole book needed huge amounts of editing. If you can get past the writing, this is a worthwhile book. It undercuts many of the stereotypes and assumptions that Americans have about Iran and Iranians. The author does an excellent job explaining complex facets of Iranian culture, religion, and politics. ( )vastard | Dec 8, 2008 | Americans tend to hate Iran. When I was a kid, I remember the all-encompassing hatred of the country and its leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini. Admittedly, my home town was rather bigoted in these sort of things ("kill a commie for mommy" t-shirts were pretty common), but I don't think sentiments were that much different elsewhere. Iran's prominence in current events hardly makes this image less threatening -- Ahmedinijad and nuclear weapons, Holocaust denial and the like. But Hooman Majd's "The Ayatollah Begs to Differ" presents a much more complex vision of Iran and Iranian society. Books like Reza Aslan's "No god But God" and "The Shia Revival" gave me a much clearer picture of Iran, but Majd's book brings the situation into much clearer focus. Iran is not a hotbed of fundamentalist hatred of the West and yet it is. There are chador-clad women pining to go shopping in New York alongside patriotic pride at the Iranian nuclear program. President Ahmedinijad is unpopular and competing clerics openly disagree with one another over issues like womens' rights. It's hard to describe everything in this book in a few words, but suffice it to say that for everything you've thought about Iran, the exact opposite is simultaneously more-or-less true. One of the more interesting ideas that Majd explores is the concept of "Islamic democracy". It's something Reza Aslan brought up but never really explored in depth. Here, though, Majd gives us a sense that Iran is struggling towards this concept. Iranian democracy is surely overly influenced by its clergy and issues of discrimination certainly exist. But there Majd's account puts a human face on this nation and one comes away with the idea that Iran is not the totalitarian theocracy we might imagine. There are fundamental and real differences between our societies, but there is also a lot that we share in common. This doesn't make our current relations with Iran much easier to navigate, but I do think there's more common ground between us than we realize and Majd's book gives me hope that some long-term good can come out of this tense situation and that war can be avoided. ( )dmcolon | Nov 11, 2008 | 0.035 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0385523343, Hardcover)A revealing look at Iran by an American journalist with an insider’s access behind Persian walls The grandson of an eminent ayatollah and the son of an Iranian diplomat, now an American citizen, Hooman Majd is, in a way, both 100 percent Iranian and 100 percent American, combining an insider’s knowledge of how Iran works with a remarkable ability to explain its history and its quirks to Western readers. In The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, he paints a portrait of a country that is fiercely proud of its Persian heritage, mystified by its outsider status, and scornful of the idea that the United States can dictate how it should interact with the community of nations. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:01 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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