babak rahimi

University of California, San Diego, Program for the Study of Religion, Faculty Member

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Babak Rahimi earned his PhD from the European University Institute, Florence, Italy (2004) and obtained an M.A. in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (1997). In 2000-2001, he was a Visiting Fellows at the Department of Anthropology, the London School of Economics and Political Science. His monograph, Theater-State and Formation of the Early Modern Public Sphere in Iran: Studies on Safavid Muharram Rituals, 1590-1641 C.E. (Brill 2011), traces the origins of the Iranian public sphere in the early-seventeenth century Safavid Empire with a focus on the relationship between state-building, urban space and ritual culture. Rahimi is also the co-editor (David Faris) of Social Media in Iran (SUNY Press 2015), and coeditor (Armando Salvatore and Roberto Tottoli) The of Wiley Blackwell History of Islam (Wiley Blackwell 2018), Muslim Pilgrimage in the Modern World (Peyman Eshaghi, co-editor, the University of North Carolina Press 2019). His articles have appeared in Thesis Eleven: Critical Theory and Historical Sociology, International Political Science Review, International Communication Gazette, International Journal of Middle East Studies, The Middle East Journal, The Communication Review, and Journal of the International Society for Iranian Studies. Rahimi has been an expert guest on various media programs like The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, BBC, and CNN, in addition to NPR and On the Media. He has also been a visiting scholar at the Internet Institute, University of Oxford (2010), and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania (2012). Rahimi was a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, Washington DC (2005-2006). Rahimi’s research interests concern the relationship between culture, religion, and technology. The historical and social contexts that inspire his research range from early modern Islamicate societies to the Global South.
Address: 9500 Gilman Dr. La Jolla, CA

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Papers by babak rahimi

*Rethinking Digital Technologies in the M

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*rahimi 2024 mohammad nakhshab s concept of dialectical tawhid vitalism and the question of monotheism

Critical Research on Religion, 2024

This article examines the philosophical thoughts of Mohammad Nakhshab (1923-1970), the co-founder... more This article examines the philosophical thoughts of Mohammad Nakhshab (1923-1970), the co-founder of the Movement of God-Worshipping Socialists (Nazhat Khoda Parastan-e Sosialist) in Iran. It argues that Nakhshab articulates an innovative reconceptualization of Islam through the critical appropriation of socialism and its political and technoscienti c implications for world progress. Divided into two sections, the paper rst contextualizes Nakhshab’s writings and offers a close analysis of the philosophical aspects of his essays. I argue that Nakhshab’s preoccupation with the
tawhidi (monotheistic) worldview, though in part a critical response to the growing popularity of
materialist philosophy, is based on an inventive reconstruction of the Marxist-Leninist conception of
nature and society as a con ict-ridden historical process oriented toward moral salvation. Against the ontology of dialectical materialism, Nakhshab advances a vitalistic idealism based on the notion of“vitality of will” (nirou-ye eradi), realized through a collective force of movement as praxis in the
world. In his conception of dialectical tawhid, Nakhshab envisages an Iranian society as a thoroughgoing socialist project grounded in the m

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The Crystallization and Expansiveness of Sufi Networks within the Urban-Rural-Nomadic Nexus of the Islamic Ecumene

John Wiley & Sons, Ltd eBooks, May 4, 2018

Quote as: Rahimi, Babak and Armando Salvatore 2018 “The Crystallization and Expansiveness of Sufi... more Quote as: Rahimi, Babak and Armando Salvatore 2018 “The Crystallization and Expansiveness of Sufi Networks within the Urban-Rural-Nomadic Nexus of the Islamic Ecumene,” in The Wiley Blackwell History of Islam, ed. Armando Salvatore, Roberto Tottoli and Babak Rahimi, Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 253-71. The Early Middle Period saw the rise of Sufism as an ensemble of distinct cultural practices marked by rituals, aesthetics, and discourses of spirituality that eventually laid the foundations for the rise of major political institutions in the Late Middle Period and in the early modern era. Although the city played a critical role in the rise and consolidation of these practices, the nexus with rural and nomadic milieus was crucial in determining the emergence of a new type of civility imbued with Sufi spirituality. The study also considers how the organizational dimension of the rise of the tariqa (“order” or “brotherhood,” literally “path”) was entrenched in disciplining practices which helped embed the Muslim self within a variety of social bonds. These practices included master–disciple relations and fraternal bonds, which established powerful norms of propriety and conduct but also alternate public spaces of civility. Sufi ways of organization facilitated an emerging culture of networks as well as performative and symbolic practices highlighting a new reflexivity of being-in-the-world while longing for union with the divine.

The Crystallization and Expansiveness of Sufi Networks within the Urban-Rural-Nomadic Nexus of the Islamic Ecumene

The Wiley Blackwell History of Islam

Mohammad Nakhshab’s concept of dialectical Tawhid: Vitalism and the question of monotheism

Critical research on religion, May 24, 2024

Democracy in Iran: Why it Failed and How It Might Succeed

Contemporary Sociology, Nov 1, 2018

as ‘‘forever foreigners’’ or lumped into a panethnic identity—mistaken for some other national-et... more as ‘‘forever foreigners’’ or lumped into a panethnic identity—mistaken for some other national-ethnic group or asked ‘‘where are you really from’’—earlier in life. Many attended highly selective colleges, which suggests that they likely spent a lot of time around white peers. One can only cover so much in one book, but this seemed like an opportunity to further highlight the important role that Pan posits for graduate education and professionalization—the crucial context of her study—as compared to other institutional venues. If nothing else, it was a question I kept returning to in my mind. Readers focused on institutional effects may also wish for more meaningful analysis of the two campuses her respondents attend. Pan includes some discussion of differences, but highlighting them more systematically could have added another useful dimension. Pan sometimes uses the comparison to illuminate particular factors, like background, life course stage, or pathway into the profession, opening the analysis up even further. However, the comparisons were inconsistent, sometimes highlighting differences between the campuses and their populations and sometimes treating the whole sample as undifferentiated. Overall, the book makes a strong contribution to longstanding sociological discussions about professionalization, racialization, and identity. It’s also an important addition to contemporary conversations about how people make it to the proverbial top of the ladder—or, just as importantly, how they seek out ways of supporting their communities by using the tool kits that come with a high-status credential. As we see legal challenges and corporate responses to the continued dearth of people of color and women at the highest levels of white-collar jobs, Pan’s book helps us understand the perspectives of students who may be on their way into that world, their choices to enter or leave the profession, and what may await them. Democracy in Iran: Why it Failed and How It Might Succeed, by Misagh Parsa. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. 406 pp. $45.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780674 545045.

The politics of informal communication: conspiracy theories and rumors in the 2009 (post-)electoral Iranian public sphere

Routledge eBooks, Jul 18, 2013

Digital Javanmardi

The Gingko Library eBooks, Oct 25, 2018

Sky Blue Stone: The Turquoise Trade in World History by Arash Khazeni, and: Constantinopolis/Istanbul: Cultural Encounter, Imperial Vision, and the Construction of the Ottoman Capital by Çiğdem Kafescioğlu

Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, 2018

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Introduction: Early Modern Islamic Cities

Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, 2018

C onceptions of the city, and of the complex socio-cultural practices embodied in cities, have be... more C onceptions of the city, and of the complex socio-cultural practices embodied in cities, have been at the forefront of historical inquiry. Th e debate has been marked by diverse claims about the nature of cities, including the notion that "the city" is an incoherent concept that has been universalized based on urban patterns in the global North.  Th e concept of the "Western city" can be traced back to Max Weber's nineteenth-century notion of the medieval European city as a self-governing ideal type, with an independent collective identity. Early modern studies have traditionally emphasized the signifi cance of cities during the heyday of European dynastic states and empires. Cities played signifi cant roles in the midst of the new commercial and political networks that spanned the globe, and within the socio-spatial complexes that emerged across the Atlantic and beyond.  Th e city thus occupies a central place in studies of how western European societies produced new and unique urban experiences in connection with complex regional and global processes. Pioneering works such as Jan de Vries's

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Spaces of Misrule

BRILL eBooks, 2012

Reseña de "Hosay Trinidad: Muharram performancesin an Indo-Caribbean diaspora" de Frank J. Korom

Caribbean Studies, 2004

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Mateo Mohammad Farzaneh , The Iranian Constitutional Revolution and the Clerical Leadership of Khurasani (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2015). Pp. 329. $45.94 cloth. ISBN: 9780815633884

International Journal of Middle East Studies, Sep 30, 2016

(subject of her second book) was powered mostly by those who did not find Islam incompatible with... more (subject of her second book) was powered mostly by those who did not find Islam incompatible with modernity (principal thesis of the earlier one). Taking a close look at the politics of the provinces, Martin makes a compelling case that not all who campaigned for reform, nor all those who opposed it, were necessarily committed to either cause from any ideological conviction. Frequently, local factional preoccupations at the level of elite politics propelled individuals or groups to move toward or away from the direction of reform (particularly if their rival was not in that camp to start with), as it seems to have been the case in Shiraz or Esfahan; there were even occasions, as in Bushehr, where serious engagements with the reform agenda began only after the drift of developments in Tehran became clear in the provinces. There were still others, such as the more radical elements in Tabriz, who joined the fray in order to capitalize on opportunities that had suddenly become available in pressing the demands of the city’s underclass. The question that is left tantalizingly open by the author is no less important than the ones she chooses to address: What made the “Islamic” agenda of reform (or politics) “Islamic”? Is it simply the involvement and the agency of the ulama that made some concerns of 1906 “Islamic”? Clearly not, for, as Martin herself shows, there were as many ulama who made their peace with the mashruta option as those who clamored for mashru a. Should that not qualify even the secularist mashruta agenda as an Islamic option? Similarly there were many outside the ranks of the ulama who solicited for mashru a—how does one categorize them? Or is it merely the use of Islamic terms of references (i.e., the notion of instrumental use of religion) for mobilization of popular support—even when protagonists of such Islamic agenda might be involved in local elite power struggles that are patently unrelated with the cause of the faith, such as Haji Mirza Hasan in Tabriz, Haj Aqa Nurullah in Esfahan, and Mu tamid-i Divan in and around 1906? Is it both of these considerations together—the agency and the language—or maybe something altogether different? Towards the beginning of her book, Martin is quite emphatic that contrary to what Ahmed Kasravi and others like him used to believe, the secular agenda was neither clearly formulated nor clearly understood at the time of the Mashruta revolution. Perhaps it is time to acknowledge that neither was the “Islamic” agenda clearly formulated or understood, except in an instrumental way.

Jamkaran

University of North Carolina Press eBooks, Jun 10, 2019

The author of this article discusses the experiences of Iranian Shiite pilgrims to a mosque where... more The author of this article discusses the experiences of Iranian Shiite pilgrims to a mosque where a special connection to Mahdi is expected. In this article, he focuses mostly on the representations of this pilgrimage in the Iranian social media. He shows how social media, in the case of Jamkaran mosque, contributed to the networking of pilgrimage and how this digitized pilgrimage is embodied in different digital scopes. Therefore, a strong relationship between digital technology and pilgrimage appears as a set of individual and social experiences.

Tehran Blues: Youth Culture in Iran, Kaveh Basmenji, London: Saqi, 2005, ISBN 0-86356-582-4, 349 pp

Iranian Studies, Sep 1, 2008

Taʿziyeh Close-Up: A Conversation with Moslem Nadalizadeh

Ecumenica, May 1, 2022

Deafening Modernism: Embodied Language and Visual Poetics in American Literature

Comparative Literature Studies, Feb 1, 2022

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The Instagram Cleric

Multiple Modernities, Civil Society and Islam: The Case of Iran and Turkey, Masoud Kamali, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-85323-089-7, v+293 pp

Iranian Studies, Dec 1, 2008

Social media in Iran: politics and society after 2009

Choice Reviews Online, Mar 21, 2016

"Social Media in Iran" is the first book to tell the complex story of how and why the I... more "Social Media in Iran" is the first book to tell the complex story of how and why the Iranian people including women, homosexuals, dissidents, artists, and even state actors use social media technology, and in doing so create a contentious environment wherein new identities and realities are constructed. Drawing together emerging and established scholars in communication, culture, and media studies, this volume considers the role of social media in Iranian society, particularly the time during and after the controversial 2009 presidential election, a watershed moment in the postrevolutionary history of Iran. While regional specialists may find studies on specific themes useful, the aim of this volume is to provide broad narratives of actor-based conceptions of media technology, an approach that focuses on the experiential and social networking processes of digital practices in the information era extended beyond cultural specificities. Students and scholars of regional and media studies will find this volume rich with empirical and theoretical insights on the subject of how technologies shape political and everyday life."