DANIEL BRUMBERG, Reinventing Khomeini: The Struggle for Reform in Iran (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2001). Pp. 317. $55 cloth, $21 paper.

Extract

Daniel Brumberg challenges what he terms “the fire-breathing fundamentalist vision of Khomeini” and takes up the view that Khomeini's vision was eclectic. He argues that the period since Khomeini's death has seen the emergence of contending ideals on both clerical rule and popular sovereignty that had their basis in his ideology. Thus, Khatami's struggle for pluralism, reform, and constitutional rights has its origin in Khomeini's ideological vision. The contradictory elements in Khomeini's worldview have made it next to impossible for any one faction of his followers to claim that their understanding of Islamic government is any more authentic than another. Brumberg traces the emergence and evolution of what he calls “a system of contending authorities,” which demonstrates how Khomeini's efforts to include in the new state various conflicting views of authority prepared the way for the ideological conflict over his legacy.