Desired belonging to a culturally demarcated space as the basis of legitimate entitlement to political self-rule is emblematically associated with nationalism, as are selective remembering and forgetting, real or assumed enemies, and narratives of victory or humiliation. Nationalism continues to be an important subject of exploration, and the ideas of a number of its theorists, including Benedict Anderson, Ernest Gellner, Eric Hobsbawm, and Tom Nairn, and a few of its postcolonial interrogators, remain pertinent. According to Gellner, since the 17th century a cluster of economic and scientific changes have transformed the world and the role of culture in human life. The expansion and spread of literate “high” culture, replacing “folk” cultures, engendered nationalism and nations, resulting in the congruence of the boundaries of the cultural with the political community. According to Anderson, Enlightenment and revolutionary movements destroyed the legitimacy of hierarchical dynastic realms and the sovereign state became the emblem of the free nation. This process involved the heightening of a longing for connectedness, community, and solidarity with others of one's own kind without ever meeting or knowing them.
Originating from a 2010 conference at the University of Texas at Austin, Rethinking Iranian Nationalism and Modernity seeks to transcend “the received historiographical tradition” informing the study of Iranian nationalism in favor of new approaches that encourage innovative explorations, comparative perspectives, and a rethinking of that historiography (p. ix). The book comprises fifteen chapters divided thematically into three parts. The first, entitled “Orientalism, Modernity, and Historiography,” begins with Marashi's discussion and brief assessment of four “paradigms” in the study of Iranian nationalism; these he identifies as revolving around historical sociology, the cultural or linguistic turn in the humanities, the Habermasian public sphere approach, and the postcolonial one. Marashi advocates “a radical rethinking of traditional disciplinary paradigms of the humanities and the social sciences” (pp. 3–4), and remarks that “Iran's history seems to reveal to theories of nationalism the limits of the established paradigms of nationalism” (p. 20). Here an adequate discussion of what accounts for Iran's specificity would have been in order. Marashi questions “the ‘universalist’ claims of European social science,” and cautions against “uncritical engagement” with them (p. x). While any uncritical engagement is to be derided, one wonders whether the geographic provenance of the social sciences can justifiably be seen as detrimental to their epistemological status, and whether theories and concepts are to be regarded as irredeemably culture dependent.
Further exploration of the heuristic efficacy of the identified “paradigms” would have been helpful. Specifying analytical frameworks that might justifiably be regarded as more intellectually compelling, and underlining theories and concepts more capable of furnishing cogent explanations, would considerably further the conversation. Parenthetically, Thomas Kuhn did not intend paradigm, as he understood it, to be applied to the social sciences, which, in his eyes, remained preparadigmatic. Linking Habermas and nationalism may also need greater justification. Those who regard an analytically rigorous historical-sociological approach as more conducive to cognition and clarity than rival approaches need greater persuasion to rethink their position. The remaining chapters in this section explore the impact of the ideas of the right-wing German Orientalist Franz Babinger on the historiography of the rise of the Safavids; investigate how interwar German intellectual trends influenced key characteristics of modern Iranian nationalism; and consider how debates about Iranian mysticism became normative discussions about modern sexuality.
Part 2 of the book, entitled “Imagining Iran: Land, Ethnicity, and Place,” explores aspects of Iranian identity, including discussions of the contours of prenationalist Iran as reflected in an 18th-century literary compendium (Azar's Ateshkadeh); the failure of a separatist movement among the Arabs of Khuzistan (1941–46); nationalist considerations and their cultural assumptions in early US–Iranian relations; and an account by ʿAbbas Masʿudi, an Iranian journalist-politician, of his 1945 US trip.
The third section of the book, “Religion, Nationalism, and Contested Visions of Modernity,” begins with a chapter by Aghaie in which he seeks to make a case for “religious nationalism” mainly as it has recently evolved in Iran. He plausibly maintains that unlike their 19th century predecessors, many Islamists of today can be regarded as nationalist. Of course, perceiving religion as a key component of the inherited culture is one thing and conceiving of nationalism primarily in terms of religion is another. What is it that makes someone a religious nationalist, as opposed to a nationalist who is also religious? In the case of Iran, a sharper distinction between a generic “Islam” and the hegemonic Shiʿism has to be made. More crucially, scrutiny of the appropriation of a nationalist narrative by the rulers should not occlude the lively discussions of Iranian national identity taking place outside the ruling circles, or ignore the ideas of those who have questioned the centrality of religion in Iranian nationalism. Statements such as, “nationalism has been widely condemned in Iran over the past few decades by most intellectuals” are puzzling (p. 189). Nationalism has often sought to elevate culture as the foundation of interconnectedness and to furnish a sense of community less exclusionary than a religious one. It is unclear how nonreligious citizens or those of different faiths living in a community strongly marked by religious nationalism could feel full inclusion in the national community.
The following chapters in this section underline the presence rather than absence of attention to Islam in the works of history and educational curricula in the interwar period; discuss contrasting ramifications of modernization in Iran and in Europe and trajectories of Azeri ethnicity; explore the affinity between secular-minded reformist nationalism and an avant-garde aesthetics; and discuss differing conceptions of national identity in Pahlavi and Islamic republican Iran and their transcendence by the 2009 Green Movement. The final two chapters comparatively juxtapose nationalism and issues of community and identity in Iran, Egypt, and Israel.
The ideological components of nationalism are among its least profound constituents but often attract the bulk of attention, at the expense of a whole range of pertinent accompanying material and institutional developments and structural processes. Questions of class, along with the ideological salience of the nationalist discourse, and the impact of the exercise of power in producing or reinforcing the determinants of the nation, should be central to explorations of nationalism. Formal nationalism associated with or promoted by the state and geared to elite empowerment should be distinguished from popular nationalism emerging from below, challenging the privileges of rulers, and furnishing a revolutionary or anti-imperialist impulse.
Among the conspicuous lacunae in this work is a discussion of civic nationalism associated with the movement that culminated in the nationalization of the oil industry and the premiership of Mosaddeq. That nationalist movement sought to transcend ethno-religious ties, foster an inclusive solidarity, underline national self-determination as a primary right entwined with meaningful citizenship, and construct nationhood as centered on resistance to imperialism, control of national resources, and democratic self-rule.
An edited volume rarely furnishes a coherent position and it is often difficult to identify a common thread linking its segments. This volume does, however, offer suggestive vistas for further thinking on the components of nationalism in modern Iran; even chapters that are only tangentially linked to the core issues of nationalism can be read with benefit. Versatile in the range of ideas as well as sources employed, they reveal a solid grasp of the heuristic framework and the historiographical context within which the authors operate. This volume can be regarded as an opportune plea for a theoretically informed and self-consciously critical approach to the study of nationalism and modernity in Iran.
