Kamran Djam Annual Lecture 2017: Managing the Guarded Domains, SOAS University of London

Managing the Guarded Domains was given by Abbas Amanat (Yale University) was the first of two Kamran Djam Annual Lectures, it was given at the London Middle East Institute's Centre for Iranian Studies on 13 March 2007.

What made the Safavid state declare Shi’ism as the state creed and patronize a Shi’i establishment? How in the four centuries since the rise of the Shi’i state did the Guarded Domains of Iran endure despite pressures on its vulnerable borders, volatile nomadic powers in its periphery, meager economic resources, popular dissent, and inconsistencies within the structure of the state?

Lecture to be preceded by a reception on at 6.00pm in the Brunei Suite.

Abbas Amanat is Professor of History and International Studies at Yale University and Director of the Program in Iranian Studies. His book publications include Resurrection and Renewal: the Making of the Babi Movement in Iran; Pivot of the Universe: Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy and Apocalyptic Islam and Iranian Shi’ism. Most recently he co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Iranian Studies on “Iran’s Environmental Changes and Challenges” and co-authored Az Tehran ta ‘Akka: Babiyan va Baha’iayan dar Asnad-e Dowran-e Qajar. His forthcoming books include In Search of Modern Iran (Yale University Press, 2017) and ‘Ahd-e Qajar va Sowda-ye Farang (Tehran: Namak, 2017). His most recent edited volumes are Iran Facing Others: Identity Boundaries in a Historical Perspective and the forthcoming The Persianate World: A Conceptual Inquiry. Abbas Amanat served as editor-in-chief of the journal of Iranian Studies and as Chair of the Yale Council on Middle East Studies. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Encyclopedia Iranica and one of its consulting editors. He is a recipient of the Mellon Foundation Seminar Award and a fellow of the Carnegie Foundation Islamic Scholar program.