Review of Lloyd Ridgeon, ed., Shi’i Islam and Identity: Religion, Politics and Change in the Global Muslim Community New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2012. ix + 234 pp. ISBN 978 1 848856493 Mehdi Faraji Published online: 6 July 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 This volume, edited by Lloyd Ridgeon, focuses on different aspects and features of identity of Shi’a as an Islamic sect that has propagated in some countries, especially in the Middle East, addressing personal, social, organizational, collective, political, and ethnic identities of Shi’a in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Senegal, and Turkey. Lloyd Redgion aims in his introduction to the volume to ‘view the diverse “Shi’a worlds” that exist right in the heart of Europe and the West, as well as in Africa, Central Asia, and the traditional “heartlands” of Shi’a Islam’ (p. 8). If the editor had included chapters on the Shi’a in Lebanon and Pakistan where the identities are politically and ethnically faced with tremendous challenges, they would have added a rich dimension to the volume. The book is divided into ten chapters. Chapters one to four address Iranian Shi’a. Chapter one by David Thurfjell is a part of a case study of Shi’a mourning ceremonies in one mosque in Isfahan in Iran. Observing mourning ceremonies, which are the most important part of Shi’a rituals, for 4 years, David Thurfjell interviews selected partici- pants to draw a framework for analysis of Shi’a mourning rituals. He sees the rituals on a sociological level ‘as expression of a certain “emotional regime” in the Islamic Republic’ as well as on the individual level ‘as means through which individual believers may be helped to achieve different and very individual ends’ (p. 10). According to Thurfjell, one of the functions of these rituals as an emotional navigator is that it can help individuals reach their personal goals. Chapter two by Zahra Barth-Manzoori discusses the mechanism of construction of collective identity and dualism of nationalism and Shi’a identity in Iran. Due to the state education system in Iran, her analysis includes schoolbooks as one of the resources of identity construction. She argues that although the 1979 Islamic Revolution occurred in Iran, and was supposed to change the contents of the schoolbooks, most of the books Cont Islam (2015) 9:337–340 DOI 10.1007/s11562-013-0265-8 M. Faraji (*) Department of Sociology, University at Albany, State University of New York, 1400 Washington Ave., Albany, NY 12222, USA e-mail: mfaraji@albany.edu