The Status of Iranian Identity in Mehdi Bazargan's Thought: A Historical-Conceptual Analysis

Document Type : Research Paper I Open Access I Released under (CC BY-NC 4.0) license

Authors

1 PhD student in Islamic History, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Associate Professor, Department of History and Archaeology, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

3 Assistant Professor, Department of History and Archaeology, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

In response to the dualism of "Westernization" and "nationalism" Muslim modern religious thinkers chose a third path that emphasized the dual identity of Iran and Islam with an innovative and merciful approach. This adaptive approach includes various tendencies in confronting new sciences, such as the existence of an inherent identity or the usefulness of accepting and adapting to it. Mehdi Bazargan, with an engineering education and a religious background, turned to this third path. The fundamental question is what is the Iranian identity in Bazargan's thought and to what extent did he pay attention to the components of Iranian identity? Present study, using a causal historical method with a descriptive-analytical approach, aims to explain the individual thought of religious thought about Iranian identity and to identify the different levels of Bazargan's "Iranianism" or "Iranization" over time. The findings show that at one stage, Iran was a means for Bazargan to realize Islamic ideals, which this research has called “Iranization” and at another stage, he spoke of the priority of Iran’s national interests, which can be called “Iranism”. However, he failed to present a coherent theory about Iran and the Iranian issue and was unable to resolve the duality of Iran and Islam. This issue conflicted with the basis of the religious innovation process that sought to integrate national and religious elements. As a result, Bazargan’s thought structure was incoherent due to his engineering perspective on fundamental issues in the humanities and social sciences and his lack of specialized education.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Publisher: University of Tabriz       Copyright © The Authors   

   

 

This is an open access article distributed under the following Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

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Iranian History of Culture
Volume 2, Issue 1
Spring & Summer
March 2025
Pages 177-198

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History

  • Receive Date: 30 July 2025
  • Revise Date: 02 September 2025
  • Accept Date: 07 September 2025
  • Publish Date: 21 March 2025

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