In the autumn of 1978, as the Shah’s regime was collapsing under the weight of mass demonstrations, Michel Foucault traveled to Iran as a special correspondent for Corriere della Sera. What he encountered there electrified him. He believed he was witnessing something that modern political theory had overlooked: a revolution not driven by class struggle, technocracy, or Western rationalism, but by what he called “political spirituality.” Foucault was not alone in his fascination.