Dr. Mohammad Reza Kalantari
Research Fellow in International Relations of the Middle East
- mohammadreza.kalantari@rhul.ac.uk
- Mohammad Reza Kalantari
About Dr. Kalantari...
Dr. Kalantari is the co-director of the Centre for Islamic & West Asian Studies (CIWAS)
Dr. Mohammad Reza Kalantari’s research interest lies in the International Relations of the Middle East with a particular focus on the interaction of regional doctrines, Muslim clerical elites and their transnational networks. He has collaborated actively with policymakers and researchers in various inter-disciplinary projects addressing the contemporary affairs of the Middle East and the Muslim World. His first book, The Clergy and the Modern Middle East: Shi’i Political Activism in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon(Bloomsbury, 2021), is based on exclusive interviews with high-profile Shi’i clerics in order to reveal how the Shi’i clerical elite perceives its role and engages in politics today. The book focuses on three ground-breaking events in the modern Middle East: the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the 2003 Iraq War, and the 2006 July war in Lebanon.
Institutional Affiliations
Royal Holloway, University of London
Centre for Islamic & West Asian Studies
• Founder & Co-Director
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Associate Editor
the Sectarianism, Proxies and De-sectarianisation Project, Lancaster University (SEPAD)
Fellow
Publications
2021
The Clergy and the Modern Middle East: Shiʿi Political Activism in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon
Kalantari, M., 21 Oct 2021, (Accepted/In press) Bloomsbury. Book
2020
Review of In a Pure Muslim Land: Shiʿism between Pakistan and the Middle East by Simon Wolfgang Fuchs
Kalantari, M., 18 Jun 2020, In: Journal of the Contemporary Study of Islam. 1, 2, p. 142-144
Protecting the Citadel of Islam in the Modern Era: A Case of Shiʿi Mujtahids and the Najaf Seminary in Early Twentieth-Century Iraq
Kalantari, M., Jun 2020, In: The Muslim World. 110, 2, p. 1-15
The media contest during the Iran–Iraq war: The failure of mediatized Shiʿism
Kalantari, M., 31 Jan 2020, In: Media, War & Conflict. p. 1-21
Washington Doesn’t Understand Shiite Clerics in Iran or Iraq
Kalantari, M. & Hashem, A., 30 Jan 2020, In: Foreign Policy.
2019
The Shi’i clergy and perceived opportunity structures: political activism in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon
Kalantari, M., 21 Apr 2019, In: British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. p. 1-15
Making the Arab world: Nasser, Qutb, and the clash that shaped the Middle East
Kalantari, M., 2019, In: British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 46, 2, p. 334-335
2016
Power of Association: Shiite quietism and activism in the Middle East
Kalantari, M., 1 Feb 2016, (Unpublished)