Office Hours: By appointment
Phone Number: (631) 632-7746
e-mail:sarjoman@notes.cc.sunysb.edu
Areas of Interest: Comparative; historical; political; law; religion; global studies.
Saïd Amir Arjomand (Ph.D, University of Chicago, 1980) has been at Stony Brook since 1978, and
is currently the Editor-in-Chief of "Studies on Persianate Societies". Arjomand is the author
of The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Organization and Societal Change
in Shi'ite Iran from the Beginning to l890, the University of Chicago Press, l984, and The Turban
for the Crown. The Islamic revolution in Iran, Oxford University Press, 1988. He served as the Section’s
Secretary-Treasurer from 1987 to 1990. His article, "Constitutions and the Struggle for Political Order
A Study in the Modernization of Political Traditions," European Journal of Sociology, 33.4 (1992), won
the Section’s Award for the Best Essay in Comparative and Historical Sociology in 1993.More recently,
he has published "The Law, Agency and Policy in Medieval Islamic Society: Development of the
Institutions of Learning from the Tenth to the Fifteenth Century," Comparative Studies in Society
and History, 41.2 (1999), and “Civil Society and the Rule of Law in the Constitutional Politics of
Iran under Khatami,” Social Research, 76.2 (2000). Arjomand is concurrently working on two major
comparative projects, “Revolution in World History,” which will be published as a book by the
University of Chicago Press, “Constitutional Law and Political Modernization in the Islamic
Middle East,” which has been supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
Professor Arjomand was on leave during the 2004-2005 Academic Year as the Crane Inaugural
Fellow in Law and Public Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. He is currently
on leave as a Carnegie Scholar (2006 - 2008) working on Islam and constitutionalism."
Graduate Courses
“Theory and method in Historical Sociology”
“Sociology of Max Weber”
“Comparative Cultural Sociology”
“Development and Modernization”
Research Interests
Comparative; historical; political; law; religion; global studies.
Recent Publications
Constitutionalism and Political Reconstruction, edited with an introduction, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2007 (in press).
Constitutional Politics in the Middle East, edited with an introduction, London: Hart Publishers, 2007 (in press).
Rethinking Civilizational Analysis, edited with Edward A. Tiryakian, London: Sage Publishers, 2004.
"Islam, Political Change and Globalization," Thesis Eleven, 76 (2004), pp. 5-24.
"Rationalization, the Constitution of Meaning and Institutional Development," in C. Camic & H. Joas, eds., The Dialogical Turn. New Roles for Sociology in the Post-Disciplinary Age, Rowman & Littlefield, 2004, pp. 247-74.
"Coffeehouses, Guilds & Oriental Despotism: Government & Civil Society in late-17th-early 18th Century Istanbul and Isfahan, and as seen from Paris & London," Archives européennes de sociologie/European Journal of Sociology, 45.1 (2004), pp. 23-42.
"Social Theory and the Changing World: Mass Democracy, Development, Modernization and Globalization," International Sociology, 19.3 (2004), pp. 321-53.
"Modernita, tradizione e la riforma schi`ita nell =Iran contemporanea", Sociologia del diritto, XXVIII.2 (2001, forthcoming).
"The Reform Movement and the Debate on Modernity and Tradition in Contemporary Iran," International Journal of Middle East Studies (forthcoming).
"Perso-Indian Statecraft, Greek Political Science and the Muslim Idea of Government," International Sociology, 16.3 (2001), pp. 461-480.
"Authority in Shi`ism and Constitutional Developments in the Islamic Republic of Iran," in W. Ende & R. Brunner, eds., The Twelver Shia in Modern Times: Religious Culture & Political History, Leiden: Brill, 2000, pp. 301-332.
"Civil Society and the Rule of Law in the Constitutional Politics of Iran under Khatami," Social Research, 76.2 (2000), pp. 283-301.
"The Law, Agency and Policy in Medieval Islamic Society: Development of the Institutions of Learning from the Tenth to the Fifteenth Century," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 41.2 (1999), pp 263-293.
"Islamic Apocalypticism in the Classical Period," in B. McGinn, ed., The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, New York: Continuum, vol. 2, 1998, pp. 238-283.
"The Consolation of Theology: The Shi`ite Doctrine of Occultation and the Transition from Chiliasm to Law," , 76.4 (1996): pp. 548-571.
"Crisis of the Imamate and the Institution of Occultation in Twelver Shi`ism: a Sociohistorical Perspective," International Journal of Middle East Studies 28.4 (1996): pp. 491-515.
"Unity and Diversity in Islamic Fundamentalism," in M. Marty and R.S. Appleby, eds., Fundamentalisms Comprehended, the University of Chicago Press, 1995, pp. 179-198.
"Religious Human Rights and the Principle of Legal Pluralism in the Middle East," in J. van der Vyver and J. Witte, eds., Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective, Vol. 2: Legal Perspectives, M. Nijhoff, 1995, pp. 331-347.
The Political Dimensions of Religion, edited with an introduction, State University of New York Press, 1993.
