Book excerpt: Preface Contributors 1 Introduction: Shi’ism, Authority, and Political Culture Said Amir Arjomand Part I Essays 2 Imam and Community in the Pre-Ghayba Period Etan Kohlberg 3 The Evolution of Popular Eulogy of the Imams among the Shi’a Mohammad-Dja’far Mahdjoub and John R. Perry 4 The Mujtahid of the Age and the Mulla-bashi: An Intermediate Stage in the Institutionalization of Religious Authority in Shi’ite Iran Said Amir Arjomand 5 In Between the Madrasa and the Marketplace: The Designation of Clerical Leadership in Modern Shi’ism Abbas Amanat 6 Constitutionalism and Clerical Authority Abdol Karim Lahidji 7 Shari’at Sangalaji: A Reformist Theologian of the Rida Shah Period Yann Richard and Kathryn Arjomand 8 Ideological Revolution in Shi’ism Said Amir Arjomand Part II Selected Sources 9 An Annotated Bibliography on Government and Statecraft Mohammad-Taqi Danishpazhouh and Andrew Newman 10 ‘Allama al-Hilli on the Imamate and Ijtihad John Cooper 11 Two Decrees of Shah Tahmasp Concerning Statecraft and the Authority of Shaykh ‘All al-Karaki Said Amir Arjomand 12 The Muqaddas al-Ardabili on Taqlid John Cooper 13 Two Seventeenth-Century Persian Tracts on Kingship and Rulers William C. Chittick 14 Lives of Prominent Nineteenth-Century ‘Ulama’ from Tunika-buni’s Qisas al-’Ulama’ Hamid Dabashi 15 An Exchange between a Mujtahid and a Qajar Official Hamid Dabashi 16 Two Clerical Tracts on Constitutionalism Hamid Dabashi 17 Clerical Authority in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran Index