This book had no focus, was choppy, and really doesn't help you to understand Iran - if anything, it confuses you even more. The first half of the chapters is the story of Ali Hashemi, a young Iranian boy who studies at a madreseh and eventually becomes a prominent mullah in the town of Qom. Not fantastic, but that part's okay. What kills the book is the second half of the chapters: a sloppy, unfocused, confusing, rambling account of Iranian history. The book goes into such detail on some aspects of Iranian history (for example, providing detailed biographies of historical figures) that you can't grasp the overlying structure. This detail would be fine in a purely nonfiction book on the history of Iran, but coming in a book with such a jumbled format, a general synopsis would have been more appropriate. The history portion attempts to relate to the previous "fictional" portion of the chapter, but in doing so the history isn't presented in a clear chronological order, leaving you befuddled as to what's happening when. I had to read this book for a class and it was very painful. Don't read it if you don't have to - stay far away!

This book had no focus, was choppy, and really doesn't help you to understand Iran - if anything, it confuses you even more. The first half of the chapters is the story of Ali Hashemi, a young Iranian boy who studies at a madreseh and eventually becomes a prominent mullah in the town of Qom. Not fantastic, but that part's okay. What kills the book is the second half of the chapters: a sloppy, unfocused, confusing, rambling account of Iranian history. The book goes into such detail on some aspects of Iranian history (for example, providing detailed biographies of historical figures) that you can't grasp the overlying structure. This detail would be fine in a purely nonfiction book on the history of Iran, but coming in a book with such a jumbled format, a general synopsis would have been more appropriate. The history portion attempts to relate to the previous "fictional" portion of the chapter, but in doing so the history isn't presented in a clear chronological order, leaving you befuddled as to what's happening when. I had to read this book for a class and it was very painful. Don't read it if you don't have to - stay far away!

This book had no focus, was choppy, and really doesn't help you to understand Iran - if anything, it confuses you even more. The first half of the chapters is the story of Ali Hashemi, a young Iranian boy who studies at a madreseh and eventually becomes a prominent mullah in the town of Qom. Not fantastic, but that part's okay. What kills the book is the second half of the chapters: a sloppy, unfocused, confusing, rambling account of Iranian history. The book goes into such detail on some aspects of Iranian history (for example, providing detailed biographies of historical figures) that you can't grasp the overlying structure. This detail would be fine in a purely nonfiction book on the history of Iran, but coming in a book with such a jumbled format, a general synopsis would have been more appropriate. The history portion attempts to relate to the previous "fictional" portion of the chapter, but in doing so the history isn't presented in a clear chronological order, leaving you befuddled as to what's happening when. I had to read this book for a class and it was very painful. Don't read it if you don't have to - stay far away!

This book failed to provided Khomenie's life. Another point that this book was super exaggerating Ali's mother breathfeeding. According to the author every time before breathfeeding her son she was water purifying {vozou}. A child is breathfeed more than three times a day.

Last point that the book made which was interesting that 1979 revolution was for socioeconomic reason and after success of revolution the socioeconomic was remained unresolve.

This book has good points with regard to Islamic doctrine and Shi'ite sect belief.

Trust me. I've read them all, and this one's the worst.

A history book thinly disguised as a novel, this book reads at the pace of molasses sliding down a 3-degree incline. The story "centers" around Ali, a fictional character placed in a historical context. However, only a few pages of each chapter actually relates to him. The majority of the book is a bewildered exploration of tangential facts. Every now and then Mottahedeh will simply say, "Oh, by the way, all the information you could ever want to know about Khomeini's childhood belongs here, right next to Ali's experience at a lecture!" Or how about a two-page discussion of the definition of a partnership? With stilted dialogue and no plot whatsoever, this book does nothing to educate and even less to amuse.

Though deliberate in its pace and what I might call dry in tone, I believe this book, which I read over the summer, masterfully reveals the real Iran as it was in the last two decades of the twentieth-century, and gives the best insights I've yet found into that nation today: a country founded on the principles of a blood-soaked revolution. Forget what you hear on the evening news, read this book and approach Iranian culture with an open mind. I think you'll be startled, as I was, at much of what you learn. If the culture of Iran at the time of the Islamic uprising of 1979 was justifiably viewed by Americans as shocking, then it was also certainly fascinating in all its depth. This book takes us inside Iran from the point of view of a number of its citizens, as the pro-western nation in which they'd grown up retreats 1300 years in an effort to save itself from what it views as destruction from the outside. It is too easy to characterize Islamic fundamentalists as unintelligent and backward, but let us make no mistake, many who take that stance are shrewd, brilliant, and above all proudly commited to their way of life. In The Mantle of the Prophet, the reader will meet many of these.

This book gives descriptions of all areas of life under the Ayatollahs, from the law courts, to the marketplaces, the army, to the mosques themselves, and introduces us to real people who lived through those frightening times. This book is as important today in the age of nuclear proliferation as it was when first published in 1985. Anyone who wants to learn about life inside fundamentalist Iran would do no better than to add The Mantle of the Prophet to her reading list.

The Mantle of Prophet is an interesting novel written in the context of Iranian history, religion, and politics. I would say pretty balanced description of the Iran today, I enjoyed that alot, except in the discussion of last fifty years, the author focused more on Jalal Ahmed, who undoubtly did good contribution, and other 'liberal' intelligentsia and neglected to give proper place to Khomeini, Mutahhari, and Shariati's ideas and role, in all, the role of the religious intelligentsia. I also wanted to see the the context of neo-colonial politics and the emerging (as a reaction) international Islamic movements that had influences on the shape of Iranian Revolution. The author traces Khomeini's involvement in politics after Bourojerdi death (1960s), which is not historically accurate. Khomeini wrote his book Kasful Asrar (or some other very controversial book, in which he not only criticized Shah but the lethargic Ulema class as well) around 1942. But all in all a good read.

I read The Mantle of the Prophet many years ago. OSmehow the Amazaon computer knew me well enough to reccomend it, and it brought back the impression that this book left me. It is wonderfully written and relates the mix of socio-economic events and the Shi'a culture that coalesced to foment the Islamic Revolution in 1979. However, the sense the reder gets while rapidly going through it, is that the book presents this very thoughtful and clear historical and sociological argument in the manner of a novel, you can't put the book down. This no ordinary academic text and Mottahedeh combines the skills and art of the poet and novelist with the clarity and facts of an academic. I have never read such an interesting and clear - devoid of controversy or criticism - description of what's it like to study in a Shiá Madrasa, to undertand the curriculum and the stages that a student must follow to become an Ayatoallah. Mottahedeh also offers a simple and brilliant, powerful description of the cultural contrast that existed between the supericially modern and wealthy cosmopolitan Teheran and the countryside, which supplied so many of the clerics that influenced the masses living on the fringe. This book is as invaluable to the specialist, and is an excellent complement to the socio-hiostorical classic text by Ervand Abrahamian "Iran Bewteen two Revolutions", yet it can also be read and enjoyed by the non-specialist just the same. This was, however I look at it, one of the finest books I've ever read in my life