Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• Mohammad Samiei ¹
• elahe farahi ²

¹ Associate Professor of Iranian Studies, University of Tehran, tehran, iran.

² Ph.D. Candidate of Iranian Studies

Abstract

Since the Safavid Dynasty the reactions of the Shia clerics divided, some cooperated with the government and became depended on it, while others stayed independent. We may call the two the Isfahan school of thought and the Atabat school of thought respectively. The main question is how the clerics belonging to the two schools employed their social capital during the crises of the Fall of Isfahan and the Russo-Iranian Wars? And why? This research is concentrated on the clergy’s mobilization power and does not go further to assess positive or negative impacts of such mobilizations. Structuration method suggested by Giddens is applied as the research method. The findings show that during the Fall of Isfahan, the clerics could not use their social capital and their reaction was silence and stayed inactive. This outcome was a result of some religious and political structural factors hand in hand with some agents’ reactions who based on their political affiliations did not issue a fatwa for jihad. However, the clerics of Atabat employed their social capital during the Russo-Iranian Wars and issued fatwa for jihad because of both religious and political structures and also agents’ preferences, and their mass mobilization became astonishingly successful.

Keywords

• The Shia Clergy
• Dependence on the State
• Independence from the State
• Social Capital
• the Fall of Isfahan

Main Subjects

• Social history