Martyrdom and Ecstasy

The book is concerned with one of the most important issues in Persian culture, that is to say a broadly conceived idea of sacrifice and martyrdom. At present, it is contained in the concept of shahadat, which arouses much controversy in the Western world today. In successive chapters, the author discusses the origin and evolution of this concept in Persian culture, the process of shaping attitudes conducive to the attainment of readiness for shahadat and the role of this concept in the propaganda, as well as presents its modern-day interpretation. The basic research material was provided by political and religious publications of the contemporary Iranian authors, including Ali Shari'ati, Morteza Motahhari, Ruhollah Khomeini and Abdolkarim Soroush, who exerted a significant influence on the formation of Iranian consciousness. The book is an interdisciplinary publication. The author refers to philology, literary studies, cultural anthropology, social psychology, and, interestingly, to the psychology of emotions in order to explicate the traditional Persian system of upbringing and shaping the readiness for martyrdom and sacrifice. The book shows the idea of shahadat as part of the Persian cultural paradigm, which, due to religious and literary tradition, has influenced the shaping of Iranian identity over the centuries and, as a result, it has affected social and political attitudes of the Iranian people. The book is mainly directed to Iranologists. Nevertheless, it might also be interesting for anthropologists, psychologists of culture, sociologists as well as philosophers due to its interdisciplinary character.