This is the first comprehensive study of the life and works of Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr - an Iraqi scholar who made an important contribution to the renewal of Islamic law and politics in the contemporary Middle East. Executed in 1980 by the regime of Saddam Hussein, Sadr was the most articulate thinker as well as a major political actor in the revival of Shi'i learning, which placed Najaf in Southern Iraq at its centre.

Dr Chibli Mallat examines in depth the intellectual development of Sadr and his companions, who included Ayatollah Ruhullah al-Khumaini. He assesses how Sadr reformed the system of religious education and developed innovative approaches to the key areas of study of law, economics and banking. The author convincingly demonstrates how Sadr's ideas and activities were influential in the rise of political Islam across the Middle East, particularly in countries with strong Shi'i constituencies such as Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, and played an important part in the Iranian revolution of 1979. Given the renewed interest in Islam as a religious, political and social phenomenon, this is a most timely book and will be widely read by students and specialists of law, economics and the politics of the Middle East as well as of the history of ideas.