The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran
Rural Revolt and Local Zoroastrianism

This learned and engaging study casts new light on the nature of religion in pre-Islamic Iran.

Patricia Crone (Author)

9781107642386, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 March 2014

586 pages
22.6 x 15.2 x 3 cm, 0.79 kg

'Crone's Nativist Prophets is a tour de force of data collection from primary sources and scholarly publications. It presents much fascinating information about localized discontents, specific beliefs, and marginal practices.' Jamsheed K. Choksy, Journal of the American Oriental Society

Patricia Crone's book is about the Iranian response to the Muslim penetration of the Iranian countryside, the revolts subsequently triggered there and the religious communities that these revolts revealed. The book also describes a complex of religious ideas that, however varied in space and unstable over time, has demonstrated a remarkable persistence in Iran across a period of two millennia. The central thesis is that this complex of ideas has been endemic to the mountain population of Iran and occasionally become epidemic with major consequences for the country, most strikingly in the revolts examined here and in the rise of the Safavids who imposed Shi'ism on Iran. This learned and engaging book by one of the most influential scholars of early Islamic history casts entirely new light on the nature of religion in pre-Islamic Iran and on the persistence of Iranian religious beliefs both outside and inside Islam after the Arab conquest.

1. Introduction
Part I. The Revolts: 2. The Jibal: Sunbadh, the Muslimiyya
3. Azerbaijan: Babak
4. Khurasan: Muhammira, Khidashiyya, Rawandiyya, Harithiyya
5. Sogdia and Turkestan: Ishaq
6. Sogdia: al-Muqanna and the Mubayyida
7. South-eastern Iran: Bihafaridh, Ustadh Sis, and Yusuf al-Barm
8. The nature of the revolts
9. The aftermath
Part II. The Religion: 10. God, cosmology, and eschatology
11. Divine indwelling
12. Reincarnation
13. Ethos, organisation, overall character
14. Khurrami beliefs in pre-Islamic sources
15. Regional and official Zoroastrianism: doctrines
16. Regional and official Zoroastrianism on the ground
Part III. Women and Property: 17. 'Wife-sharing'
18. The Mazdakite utopia and after
Part IV. Conclusion: 19. Iranian religion versus Islam and inside it
Appendices.

Subject Areas: Islam [HRH], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]