Islamism and Modernism: The Changing Discourse in Iran

Preface and Acknowledgments

Preface and Acknowledgments In a thoroughly shameful fashion, we have lost confidence and belief in ourselves. In our long history, we had never so easily given in without resistance, or had never been so cheaply “disarmed spiritually.” Mohammad Ali Eslami-Nadoushan (1362/1993, 110). A keen observer of Iranian culture and society, Eslami-Nadoushan made this comment in an essay in 1965, when Americanization had won the day in Iran. T his book narrates the story of the Islamic movement in Iran, a framework of thought and action that began as an alternative to a century of modernization. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Iranians had succeeded in ushering in a genuine “Iranian modernity ,” in the form of a constitutional polity. Then Iran became hostage to the “Age of Imperialism” (Hobsbawm 1987) as the Middle East became the most “penetrated region” (Brown 1984) in the world. As a result, modernism became the dominant paradigm in Iran, leading to the fragmentation of its cultural homogeneity, an erosion of confidence, and, most importantly, a consequential loss of spirituality. The 1979 revolution promised to restore confidence and arm Iran with a renewed spirituality. Even though all social classes had taken part in the course of events, which had also been influenced by diverse intellectual trends, when the revolution destroyed the monarchy, it was the Islam-minded Iranians who assumed the helm of power. In hindsight, it is clear that this group was the most articulate, mobilized, and organized, and this superior preparedness enabled them to gain the upper hand in 1979. My primary objectives are to explain why that was the case, to canvass their thoughts, and to explain how they turned revolutionary. This book may also serve as an interpretive essay on Iran’s contemporary intellectual history, even though it is not an exhaustive account.1 It ISLAMISM AND MODERNISM x concentrates on the views of those Iranians who reacted to modernism from within the framework of Islamic teaching and who expressed their views using familiar Islamic terms and vocabularies. Their responses to modernism, always diverse, are still evolving. In many ways, they have simultaneously complemented and contradicted one another. Fully aware and appreciative of the fact that this complexity could be ill served by my reductionist approach, I am nonetheless compelled to take it to better comprehend and explain Iranians’ responses to modernism. To remain focused, I have selected those approaches that have retrospectively proved to be dominant and epoch-making. Thus, I contend that Islam-minded Iranians have displayed four responses to modernism, corresponding to four generations in the evolution of the Islam-centric discourse in Iran. Only the views and practices of one generation could be termed “Islamism,” namely, that of the third generation. The first generation felt threatened by modernism, and thus took on a defensive posture. In this group’s lifetime, what came to Iran in the name of modernity did not espouse modernity’s original emancipatory aim, offering instead nothing but hegemonic views and practices. As this hegemonic modernity was being challenged within the West itself, this generation of Islam-minded Iranians became very defensive and removed themselves from politics; they concentrated instead on a cultural defense of their indigenous social and religious life. The first generation criticized the West and was apologetic about its religion. I have termed their effort “revival” because they tried to rebuild Islam in the face of Iranians’ strong attraction to modernism. As world politics polarized during the Cold War, the Islam-minded Iranians whom I refer to as the second generation began taking radical positions against modernism and proposed a revolution that would eradicate what they termed Gharbzadegi—a neologism meaning “infected or afflicted by the West.” Decolonization stimulated their confidence, which emboldened them to put forward the claim that Islam could provide an alternative to the Western project and replace modernism altogether. I have called the paradigm of the second generation “revolution” because its members formulated an ideology of revolt out of Islam. In the end, this ideology was successful in manipulating the revolutionary climate of Iran, culminating in the Islamic Revolution of 1979. A revolution, however, is easier to instigate and mobilize than it is to direct, manage, or control. Revolution and revolutionary zeal gave birth to a third generation, which adopted Islamism and radicalism as its ideology and practice. The artificiality of this phenomenon is striking, in preface and acknowledgments xi that Islamism is...