Iranian nationalism

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Iranian nationalism

Iranian culture, Iranian languages and history, and a sense of pride in Iran and Iranian people. While national consciousness in Iran can be traced back centuries, nationalism has been a predominant determinant of Iranian attitudes mainly since the 20th century. [1]
Modern Iranian nationalism rose during the constitutional revolution. There began a refreshing atmosphere of unity and Iranian patriotic sentiments during the constitutional era. During the Pahlavi dynasty (1925–1979), Iranian nationalism experienced a resurgence due to the Pahlavi government's bolstering of patriotic sentiment.

History

Origins

The idea of Iran as a religious, cultural, and ethnic reality goes back as far as the end of the 6th century B.C.E. As a political idea, it first appeared in the twenties of the third century C.E. as an essential feature of Sasanian propaganda.[2]

Third-century Iran was shaken by a conflict between universalism and nationalism that was most clearly manifested in the religious and cultural sphere. The outcome of this conflict is well known: the traditionalistic and nationalistic impulses gained the upper hand, and Manichaean universalism succumbed to the nationalism of the Zoroastrian Magi. Iranian identity, which up to that point had essentially consisted of cultural and religious nature, assumed a definite political value, placing Persia and the Persians at the center of the Ērān-šahr, in other words, at the center of a state based on the twin powers of throne and altar and sustained by an antiquarian and archaizing ideology. This ideology became more and more accentuated during the Sassanian period, reaching its height in the long reign of Khosrow I (531-79 C.E.). Of course, economic and social factors favored the victory of the stronger classes in a society that was based mainly on a rural economy, namely the aristocratic landed and warrior classes and the Magian clergy.[2]

Shu'ubiyya

Main article: Shu'ubiyya

Iranian identity came under threat after the fall of the

Muslims to the growing Arabization of Islam in the 9th and 10th centuries and discrimination against Iranian people by the occupiers. It was primarily concerned with preserving Persian culture and protecting Persian identity. Some of the famous Iranian Shu'ubi figures are Bashshar ibn Burd, Ismail Nisa'i, Zeyad e Ajam, Hissam ibn Ada, Abulhassan Ali Mada'ini, Abu Hatam Sajestani, Ibrahim ibn Mamshad and Abu Abdullah Muhammad Marzbani. Many consider Ferdowsi
a Shu'ubi poet.

Iranian Intermezzo

Main article: Iranian Intermezzo

The term

Arab rule and power and the eventual emergence of the Seljuq Turks in the 11th century. The Iranian revival consisted of Iranian support based on Iranian territory and most significantly a revived Iranian national spirit and culture in an Islamic form.[3]

Iranian-Shia identity under the Safavids

Main article:
Safavid conversion of Iran from Sunnism to Shiism

Mughal empire in India, and the Uzbek empire in Central Asia, all adhering to Sunni Islam. The formation of these political entities helped create a distinct Iranian-Shia political identity among these polities. It also helped to expand the hegemony of the Persian language in much of the Islamic world. Persian literature was, apart from Iran and its territories stretching from the North Caucasus to the Persian Gulf, produced from the Balkans to Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent.[4][5][6]

Qajar Era - start of modern nationalism

Iran in the 19th century
The state flag of the Imperial State of Iran most prominently used by Iranian expatriates

The modern Iranian national movement began in the late 19th century. Iranian nationalism is in origin a reaction to

South Caucasus comprising what is now Georgia, Dagestan, Azerbaijan and Armenia to Imperial Russia.[8] These territories had made, for centuries, part of the concept of Iran until their loss. [9]

The initial objectives of these nationalists e.g. ending the feudalistic landholding system, governmental sloth and corruption and, the wholesale distribution of Iranian resources to foreigners also greatly appealed to modernizers.[1]

One of the principal and most noted forerunners of Iranian nationalism of the Qajar era was Mirza Fatali Akhundov, born in the recently taken territories in the Caucasus to a landowner family originally stemming from Iranian Azerbaijan.[10]

Modern nationalism

Mohammad Mossadegh

Modern nationalism in Iran dates back to 1906 when an almost bloodless

constitutional revolution created Iran's first parliament
.
modernize
Iran. The Pahlavi dynasty thus was set irrevocably down the road towards infusing the country with a form of secular nationalism, a path that would eventually bring it into conflict with the country's clerical class. Iranian nationalism was a deciding force in the 1951 movement to nationalize Iran's oil wealth.

Britain, Reza Shah's son and successor Mohammad Reza Pahlavi retained control and used the increased gas prices to expand modernization in Iran.[13]

Iranian nationalist discourse often focuses on the pre-Islamic history of Iran.[14] In the 20th century, different aspects of this romantic nationalism would be referenced by both the Pahlavi monarchy, which employed titles such as Āryāmehr "Light of the Aryans", and by some leaders of the Islamic Republic that followed it.[15]

Despite the secular tendencies of the vast majority of Iranian nationalists, there is a grouping called the Religious Nationalists who are Iranian nationalists but also religious Muslims.

Nationalist parties of Iran

Active parties
Historic parties

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Persian: ملی‌گرایی ایرانی
    Baloch: راج دوستی ایرانی
    Kurdish
    : نەتەوە پەروەریی ئێرانی
    Gilaki: ایجانایی ایرانی
    Azerbaijani: İran millətçiliyi
    Turkmen: Eýranyň milletçiligi
    Arabic: القومية الإيرانية
  2. ^ Such an obviously coined designation was introduced by Vladimir Minorsky, "The Iranian Intermezzo", in Studies in Caucasian history (London, 1953) and has been taken up by Bernard Lewis, among others, in his The Middle East: A brief history of the last 2,000 years (New York, 1995).

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 0-8229-5299-8
    . Retrieved 2011-01-31.
  2. ^ a b Gnoli, Gherardo. "IRANIAN IDENTITY ii. PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD". Encyclopædia Iranica. Archived from the original on 2011-11-17. Retrieved 2011-09-11.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  3. ^ Lewis, Bernard. The Middle East: 2,000 Years of History from the Rise of Christianity to the Present Day. pp. 81–82.
  4. ^ Ashraf, Ahmad. "IRANIAN IDENTITY iii. MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC PERIOD". Encyclopedia Iranica. Retrieved 2012-02-08.
  5. S2CID 55237025
    .
  6. ^ Eaton, R. The Persian Cosmopolis. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. Retrieved 3 May. 2023, from https://oxfordre.com/asianhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277727-e-402.
  7. ^ Patrick Clawson writes:
    "Since the days of the
    ISBN 1-4039-6276-6
    .
  8. ISBN 1598849484
  9. ^ Fisher et al. 1991, p. 329.
  10. ^ Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition (New York: Columbia University Press), 1995, page 27-28:
  11. ISBN 9780199371020
    .
  12. ISBN 9780199371020
    .
  13. ^ Hunt, Michael (2014). The World Transformed 1945 to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 282.
  14. ^ Adib-Moghaddam, Arshin (2006). "Reflections on Arab and Iranian Ultra-Nationalism". Monthly Review Magazine. 11/06..
  15. ISBN 0-300-12105-9
    ..

Sources

Further reading
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