The regime’s main principle, velayat-i faqih, that is, “the guardianship of the jurisconsult,” is explained by Schirazi as being a “hierocracy,” that is, an oligarchy of clergymen. The ideal of Islam, according to Syed Hosein Nasr, was never a “theocracy” (since God does not rule directly in society), but rather a “nomocracy,” a state in which divinely revealed laws would rule. Islamic law, the Shari’ah, consists of ordinances found in the Koran, the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, consensual decisions by his immediate followers, and in ejtehad, that is, scholarly deductions from these primary sources made by religious jurists. Khomeini sought to establish the Shari’ah as the main source of legislation and policy in his government. Islamists believe the Shari’ah was revealed by God for all needs of an eternally unchanging human nature. Hence it is universal in scope, perfect and immutable, comprehensive in solving all human concerns, and it is organic—that is, complete and in need of no internal amendment or external additions. The intellectual discipline of adapting these laws to society, known as feqh, can only be done by the qualified scholar, the faqih (also known as a mujtahed), who therefore should rule the state. Schirazi, through his exposition of primary sources within the Islamic Republic, including Khomeini’s speeches, minutes of the Constituent Assembly that drafted the final Constitution, and the speeches and writings of members of Parliament and other quasi-governmental authorities, builds his case that velayat-i faqih actually means a dictatorship of the Islamic clergymen who claim their authority as a mandate from God in no way dependent on the consent of the people. Thus the Islamic regime is not a “republic” in Madison’s sense of a government “in which the scheme of representation takes place.”

Although this clerical dictatorship tried to institute the Shari’ah as the fundamental principle of government in Iran, Schirazi demonstrates that Khomeini and his successors failed utterly to create a model Islamic polity and explains why they failed. In order to control a contemporary modernizing nation-state sheer necessity and “reasons of state” required initially delaying implementing the Shari’ah and finally setting it aside altogether. Its prescriptions, formulated for static nomadic and agrarian societies surviving at a subsistence level, could not provide the Islamists with guidance for running an industrializing state dependent on international trade, a credit economy, and an educated population holding secular notions of democracy, individual autonomy, and nationalism. After denouncing all of the laws from the Pahlavi period as “un-Islamic,” Khomeini let most of that legislation stand for want of ready alternatives. To appease populist demands for social justice, and to deprive internal leftist rivals of a potential platform, the Islamists authorized wholesale confiscations of properties left by émigré enemies of the regime, the holdings of absentee landlords, and nationalized foreign-owned assets and firms, which were redistributed to tenant farmers, and other groups supporting the Islamists. While politically popular this directly contradicted the Shari’ah principles upholding private property rights. This is only one example cited by Schirazi of legislation in the Islamic Republic that contradicted the Shari’ah. He cites numerous others, including laws authorizing interest payments, protecting renters and workers, allowing covert arms deals with the “arch-enemy” Israel, and even laws permitting women to serve as judicial officials, all of which ignored the supposed fundamental religious ordinances. Finally, Schirazi concludes that the clerical oligarchy failed on a personal level as well. Not only did they fail to create an Islamic state but they themselves were secularized by the demands of running a modern nation-state. As evidence he cites the inability of the leading clerics to continue teaching theology students, the decreasing percentage of clerics elected to Parliament, and the open avarice of the ruling clerics, many of whom abuse their positions to extract bribes the same way as did their counterparts in the Shah’s regime.

Although Khomeini failed to create an Islamic state, Schirazi documents how he did succeed in establishing the rule of the clerics and perpetuating his charismatic rule through “revolutionary foundations,” the Revolutionary Committees and their adjunct vigilante “Hezbollah” enforcer gangs, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, the systematic purging of secularists from government offices, the propaganda of the Friday Prayers and mass media, and the cellular “Islamic associations” lurking in every public office and major private firm. Although Khomeini the Mujathed failed to create an Islamic state, Khomeini the Machiavellian succeeded in creating a state run for, by, and of, the clergymen.

Schirazi cites such scholars of Middle East studies as Edward Abrahamian, Ann Lambton, and Shaul Bakhash, but his research is based primarily on original Persian-language materials from eyewitnesses, and on the speeches and writings of principal actors in the Islamic regime, as well as the fatwas of Khomeini and other sources mentioned before. While this scholarship is original and sound, it is addressed to only a very narrow readership of Islamic and Iranian affairs experts. It does not meet the needs of most teachers of comparative politics who are not already Middle East specialists, and only students enrolled in a Middle East Studies program may benefit from it. While this is a compelling study of the failure of Islamization in Iran, the author missed an opportunity to cite Iran’s experience in illuminating other Islamist movements afoot in the world. Currently Algeria is torn apart by civil war between its Islamists and their secular nationalist opponents. Many Arab regimes face possible insurgency or revolution by their own Islamists. Even outside the Muslim world many of the post–Cold War conflicts involve not only irredentist nationalist movements but also politicized fundamentalist movements, as in India, Sri Lanka, and even the United States. The failure of Islamization in Iran, even with its more homogenous Shi’ite Muslim composition and the strong charisma of its leader, suggests that similar movements among more religiously diverse populations and led by less charismatic leaders hold even less prospect for success.