A Qajari Social Contract: An English translation and Persian edition of Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani's 'Takvin va Tashri' (British Institute of Persian Studies)

This volume presents the first-ever Persian edition and English translations of Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani's Takvin va Tashri (Genesis and Canonical Lawgiving).Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani (1854-1896) was an Iranian intellectual, philosopher and secular nationalist whose iconoclastic ideas about modernisation and opposition to the Qajar monarchy would be taken up during the Constitutional Revolution and by later thinkers such as Ahmad Kasravi.In this book, Kermani argues for an evolutionary understanding of the origins and roles of societal institutions and divine ideas, presenting the concept of God as a psychological projection.With a critical commentary that places Kermani’s ideas in the context of Qajar-era Iran, this important primary source will be of value to scholars and students of Iranian intellectual history.