Shi'is of Iraq

Iraqi Shi'is, the country's majority group, are nevertheless politically disinherited, as was vividly demonstrated in the aftermath of the Gulf War. Here Yitzhak Nakash provides a rich historical background for understanding their place in today's Sunni-dominated Iraq. The first comprehensive work on the Shi'is of Iraq, this book challenges the widely held belief that their culture and politics are a reflection of Iranian Shi'ism. In examining the years between the rise of the Shi'i strongholds Najaf and Karbala in the mid-eighteenth century and the collapse of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958, Nakash shows that the growth of Iraqi Shi'ism was closely related to socioeconomic and political developments in the nineteenth century.Nakash, Yitzhak is the author of 'Shi'is of Iraq' with ISBN 9780691034317 and ISBN 0691034311.