The concept of secularization in the second Pahlavi discourse and its challenges (1357-1332)

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

Authors

1 Associate Professor at the Department of The History and Civilization of Islamic Nation, Payame Noor University (PNU), Tehran, Iran

2 PhD, Department of History, Institute of Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran

3 , Assistant Professor, Department of History and Civilization of Islamic Nations, Faculty of Theology, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.

4 Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Institute of Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

The present study examines the process of secularization in the Pahlavi II era, emphasizing its relationship with the historical, cultural, and religious context of Iranian society. The main goal of the article is to analyze how the secular policies of the Pahlavi II regime were formed and failed to achieve legitimacy and social institutionalization. This study uses a descriptive-analytical method and historical and documentary sources to analyze the official discourse of the ruling party and competing discourses - especially religious and traditionalist discourse. The findings show that secularization policies in Iran, unlike Western societies that emerged from their historical developments, were of an adaptive and top-down nature and acted in conflict with the religious and cultural values ​​and beliefs of the society. This inconsistency led to the formation of a crisis in the semantic system, divergence between the government and social forces, and ultimately the loss of the political legitimacy of the regime. Religious discourse led by Imam Khomeini (RA) was able to become the dominant discourse of society by reinterpreting religious concepts and relying on Iranian-Islamic cultural identity and prepared the ground for the collapse of the Pahlavi regime.

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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)

Iranian History of Culture
Volume 2, Issue 2
September 2025
Pages 106-122

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History

  • Receive Date: 14 August 2025
  • Revise Date: 27 October 2025
  • Accept Date: 02 November 2025
  • Publish Date: 23 September 2025

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