Ethnicity and Religion: Navid Kermani's visit to Iraq

The German-Iranian academic, writer and intellectual Navid Kermani spent a week traveling in war-torn Iraq. Here are some excerpts from his interview with the Muslim world news website Qantara about his findings. It paints a depressing picture of what once was a cosmopolitan country.

Relations [among Iraqis] are increasingly characterised by ethnicity. The old multicultural Baghdad – up until the 1940s, the Jews represented the largest and leading intellectual population group in the city – this multicultural Baghdad no longer exists. Now, people rely on the other members of their denominational group. Solidarity prevails within the group; people help each other. On the other hand, people are less likely to help members of other denominations. The sense of togetherness has dwindled to almost nothing.

Regarding the role of religion, in this instance Islam, Kermani stresses the prominent role played by people from 'secular' backgrounds (by which he means scientists and professionals), including members of the former Baathist regime, who use and manipulate religion for their own political objectives and who are willing to associate with organisations such as ISIS for these purposes.

One should take the religious façade seriously. Many European jihadis, many jihadis active on the ground and Wahhabism, which has contributed to the fact that this ideology was able to spread: all of that is religious; it should be taken seriously. It's a religious thought process. However, this process is turning against its own tradition. It is – and this is the protestant element involved – doing away with tradition in order to return to the basic scripture. It is, therefore, an anti-traditional movement.

To read the whole interview, click here.

For more on Navid Kermani and his work, visit  his website.

Links to some of his publications can be found by clicking on the widget below.

Iran executes 'heretic': innovative thinking about religion still a capital offense

Mohsen Amir-Aslani

In some Muslim countries, entertaining your own ideas or engaging in re-interpretations of religious texts and tenets is still a liability. Unfortunately, quite recently other countries than the 'usual suspects' such as - in this case -- Iran or Saudi Arabia, are also tightening the screws on religious freedom. Not only Egypt, but also supposedly more tolerant majority Muslim states such as Turkey and even Indonesia have made a turn for the worse (click here for an article on that subject).

In the present instance, after a tortuous nine-year ordeal, Iranian Mohsen Amir Aslani was sentenced to death and executed on account of insulting the Prophet Jonah and engaging in unlawful interpretations of the Qur'an.

Amir-Aslani was hanged last week for making “innovations in the religion” and “spreading corruption on earth”, but human rights activists said he was a prisoner of conscience who was put to death because of his religious beliefs. He had interpreted Jonah’s story in the Qur’an as a symbolic tale.

“Mohsen held sessions in his own house dedicated to reciting the Qur’an and interpreting it. He had his own understandings [of the religion] and had published his views in the form of a booklet and made it available to his fans,” an unnamed source told the New York-based group, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI).

Possibly because of the weakness of their case, authorities also added 'illicit' sexual activities to the list of charges -- notwithstanding the equally flimsy evidence for those accusations. While this shows the shaky legal foundations for heresy or apostasy cases even in countries such as Iran,  'deviant beliefs' and 'unlawful innovations' (the technical terms are takhayyul, bid'a, khurafat) remain capital offenses, and are used to prevent people from exercising universal human rights such as the freedom of belief, turning the concomitant freedom of expression into real liabilities in some Muslim countries.

To read the full article on Mohsen Amir-Aslani click here

Not what you would expect: Iran. Shi'ism and Fertility Treatment

In a provocatively titled article, 'The Islamic Republic of Baby-Making',  the online world affairs periodical Foreign Policy addresses an unexpected dimension of Shi'i Islamic thinking in Iran, centering around an issue that affects a large segment of the population in various Middle Eastern societies.

IVF Research Lab in Iran

IRAN, LIKE OTHER MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES, has an extremely high infertility rate. More than 20 percent of Iranian couples cannot conceive, according to a study conducted by one of the country's leading fertility clinics, compared with the global rate of between 8 and 12 percent. Experts believe this is due to the prevalence of consanguineous marriages, or those between cousins. Male infertility is "the hidden story of the Middle East," says Marcia Inhorn, a Yale University medical anthropologist and a specialist on assisted reproduction in the region. Couple that with a shocking, multidecade decline in the average number of children born per woman, and it means that fertility treatment is needed in Iran more than ever.

Avicenna Centre for Reproductive Biotechnology

The attitudes of the Islamic Republic's clergy is not exactly what one would expect regarding such a delicate issue, which touches at the very core of relations between the sexes and, with that, also at the foundations of the social conservatism that can be considered the norm even among many progressive-minded Muslims.

while the world's attention has been focused on Iran's nuclear program, the country has been quietly working on a different sort of breakout capacity. The Islamic Republic -- governed by its strict mullahs, who've managed to botch progress in fields ranging from domestic manufacturing to airport construction -- has unexpectedly transformed itself into the fertility treatment capital of the Muslim Middle East. Iran now boasts more than 70 clinics nationwide, which attract childless couples, Sunni and Shiite alike, from throughout the region.

It is actually the centrality of the family which forms the impetus for this  acceptance of medical and scientific progress. It has also forced a return to the tenets of the faith and  to the principles underlying the Shari'a in order to advance drastic reinterpretations of relevant stipulations of Islamic doctrine and law: 

Although, to Westerners, Iran's Shiite clerics might appear reactionary, they are downright revolutionary when it comes to bioethics. In recent years, they have handed down fatwas allowing everything from stem-cell research to cloning.

...medical specialists set about finding a religious solution, seeking the support of sympathetic mujtahids(clerics qualified to read and interpret the Quran).The Shiite tradition of reinterpreting Islamic law was central to the clerics' willingness to go along -- in stark contrast to Sunni jurisprudence's focus on scholarly consensus and literal readings of the Quran, which has meant few fresh legal rulings on modern matters.

...Iranian clerics' willingness to issue innovative religious rulings coincided with a changing political and demographic climate that also spurred fertility treatments. In the wake of the 1979 revolution, the country embarked on a quest to boost population, but by the late 1980s and early 1990s, as Iran struggled to rebuild in the aftermath of its devastating war with Iraq 

However, there still is a catch:

IRAN'S LEGAL SYSTEM HAS YET TO CATCH UP with the implications of third-party fertility treatments. Under Iran's Islamic family law, babies born of sperm or egg donation fall into the legal category of adopted children and stepchildren, who are not permitted to inherit property from non-biological parents. Couples thus must find alternative ways to put aside assets to provide for these kids, and the rights and responsibilities of biological parents (the egg or sperm donors, who are meant to remain confidential but whose identities are sometimes disclosed in practice) remain unclear.

 To read the whole article click here

Iranian Thinkers in Exile: What is the influence of progressive Muslim intellectuals living abroad?

Very soon after establishing the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Khomeini-led revolution ousting the Shah in 1979 began eating its own children and has continued to do so. Now, more than thirty years later, Urs Sartowitz has written an assessment.

Abdolkarim Soroush

Scientist-philosopher Abdolkarim Soroush (pseudonym of Hossein Haj Faraj-Dabbagh), who was initially implicated in the very sinister cultural politics of the regime, eventually found himself on the margins, to the point when challenges of his views turned into outright attacks forced him into exile. Not surprisingly, because as his thinking matured, Soroush's interpretations of the Islamic tradition --  which remain an interesting mix of daring new readings combined with references to Sufis from the classical era such as Jalaluddin Rumi (although most Persian-speakers prefer to refer to him as Jalaluddin al-Balkhi) -- are lightyears removed from the Islamic republic's partyline.

His most radical theory relates to the Koran, which he feels was not revealed word for word to the Prophet, but was written by the Prophet, who was inspired to do so by God. Soroush feels that like the Bible, the Koran is a human work and can, as such, be fallible. In this way, he has moved on from previous statements, in which he said that the language and the length of the Koran was a matter of chance.(cf also the blog post of 20 March 2012).

Mohsen Kadivar

The same happened to the cleric Mohsen Kadivar. Starting out as a member of the religious establishment, his proposition that the body of Islamic jurisprudence as it has taken shape in the formative period of Islamic civilization has now become outdated and needs to be reformed in order to avoid becoming obsolete, made his internal position untenable. He now teaches at Duke University in North Carolina.

Even moderate, much more traditionally-inclined, thinkers such as the theologian Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari (readers of Persian can also go here), who thinks that Soroush is going to far, was no longer safe after advocating the separation between state and religion, questioning the legitimacy of the doctrine of velayat-e faqih -- that is the absolute rule of Islamic legal scholars -- which forms the bedrock of the current regime in Iran, or criticizing the supporters of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for attributing Mahdi-like qualities to the current Supreme Religous Guide.

Hasan Yousef Eskhevari

Being removed from direct contact with their domestic audiences immediately poses the question of what remains of their influence on Iranian Islamic discourses. While the internet and satellite TV offer solutions for this type of physical disconnect, there is a more fundamental question, which Sartowitz alludes to only in passing when discussing the controversial, even provocative, ideas of Soroush: 'Although he is opening up new opportunities for a re-interpretation of the Koran [...], it is questionable whether the majority of Muslims will follow him down this path'.

 Read the full article here. 

Abdolkarim Soroush: Critical Rationalism and Religious and Political Reform in Iran

Abdolkarim Soroush

On 15 March, the Iranian intellectual Abdolkarim Soroush (real name: Hosein Haj Faraj Dabbagh) delivered the Sir Karl Popper Memorial Lecture 2012, at the London School of Economics (LSE). Although he has never directly studied under Popper, Soroush memorated that he was studying philosophy of science at Chelsea College (later absorbed into King's College London) when Popper was teaching at LSE.

In his preliminary remarks Soroush noted that there is, and always has been, a very vivid interest in Iranian intellectual circles in philosophy, traditionally also extending into theoretical mysticism (in which Soroush is something of an expert too). However, when it comes to modern Western philosophy, until relatively recent, that interest was generally restricted to continental philosophy rather than the analytical Anglosaxon tradition.

In fact, prior to the revolution of 1979, Popper's work was virtually unknown in Iran -- except for his The Poverty of Historicism.

 
 (for free pdf download click here).

However, when he was appointed to the Cultural Revolution Institute in 1980, Soroush issued a directive making the teaching of philosophy of science mandatory for all university studies. This set in motion a wave of interest in the writings of Karl Popper and his work was translated into Persian and studied across Iran, including the shi'a seminaries in Qom. For almost ten years, Popper was one of the most widely read and discussed Western thinkers in Iran. As an anecdote, Sorouch recounted how, also later, President Sayyid Mohammad Khatami during his term in office (1997-2005) encouraged his cabinet members to study The Lesson of the Century (1992), an interview with Popper which was published in book form.

According to Soroush, for many Iranians the attraction of Popper's thought lay in its combination of anti-Platonic, anti-nominalist, and anti-Marxist views. Recalling the adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity, Soroush stated that Popper's criticism of these various philosophy schools eventually brought together these forces against Popper and eventually led to the repression of his ideas in Iran.

Sir Karl Popper (1902-1994)

Soroush's personal sympathy towards Popper's thinking comes from the modesty it exudes -- for example, his encouragement of piecemeal social engineering (Soroush recalls the Popperian anecdote that when it rains one brings an umbrella, rather embarking on theorizing how the cosmos could be redesigned so that it no longer rains).

To listen to a podcast of the full lecture, click here.

Arab Spring: Is there a critical Islamic discourse in Saudi Arabia?

On 17 October 2011, my colleague Madawi al-Rasheed, Professor of Social Anthropology at King's College London, gave a talk in the Middle East Seminar convened by the London School of Economics (LSE), under the title 'A Saudi Spring of Sand Storms; Signs of Domestic Turbulence'. The chair of the event, Fawaz Gerges, Professor of Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations at LSE, introduced Prof. al-Rasheed as one the most renowned scholars on present-day developments in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region, and certainly the foremost critical voices on current affairs in the Kingdom. She is the author of a number of books on Saudi Arabia.

Madawi al-Rasheed

In her preliminary remarks, Prof. al-Rasheed already foreshadowed a more pessimistic account when compared to seismic shifts which have occured elsewhere. Alluding to the metaphoric associations employed by Egyptians and Tunisians, who refer to the Spring as the season of blossoms and jasmine flowers respectively, in Saudi Arabia the arrival of Spring is accompanied by often vicious sand storms. Accordingly, the trajectory of the Arab Spring in the Arabian Peninsula in general has been less than promising. The Sunni-controlled government of the neighbouring miniature island state of Bahrain has clamped down, without mercy, on expressions of dissent by its disenfranchised majority Shi'a population -- rapidly and readily assisted by Saudi troops in armoured vehicles sent across the strategic King Fahd causeway by the government in Riyadh. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia' s southern neighbour Yemen teeters on the brink of civil war as the protests against Abdullah Ali Saleh are turning increasingly violent and bloody.

Saudi Arabia itself, like many other Arab kingdoms (Jordan, Morocco, Oman), makes every effort to present the monarchical system in the most benign ways, alleging it offers a favourable contrast to the nasty republican regimes that seem to be falling like dominoes. As a critical note, Prof. al-Rasheed observes that this rosy image is swallowed without question, and even spread further, by external stakeholders in regional Gulf stability. these interested parties are no longer confined to America and Western Europe, but now also include Russia and China. Their willingness to side with the incumbent regime is motivated by the need for access to Saudi oil reserves and the prospects of lucrative arms deals.

But, the sand storms of the Spring of 2011 are harbingers of growing domestic turbulence, Prof. al-Rasheed insists. As one of her informants has it: 'The events of early 2011 have propelled Saudi Arabia ten years ahead of its own pace of development'.

There is widespread dissatisfaction in Saudi Arabia, but Saudis express their grievances and frustrations differently than elsewhere. Again, al-Rasheed refers to the explanation offered by a disaffected activist within the Kingdom she is in contact with: If Saudis would be confronted with the kind of humiliation suffered by Egyptians or Tunisians at the hands of security forces, their temperament and cultural conventions would force them to respond in kind. In a country where weapons are readily available, violence would rapidly spirall out of control. So instead, critics of the regimes and opponents of the present political order have taken recourse to their conventional way of addressing complaints to the government: sending petitions.

Since the mid-1990s, when foreign troops taking part in Operations 'Desert Shield' and 'Desert Storm', assembled on Saudi soil to fend off the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the Saudi opposition has issued a dozen or so petitions demanding reforms and change. In general, these addresses studiously avoided any direct criticism of the king or other members of the royal family. And whereas, the ruling monarch, the crown prince, and the grand mufti -- as leader of the religious establishment -- still retain near sacred status, the latest petitions contain thinly veiled criticisms of the highly umpopular minister of interior, Prince Nayif bin Abd al-Aziz. Heading a vicious security apparatus and himself an epigone of political conservatism and authoritarian repression of any democratic reforms, Nayif is nevertheless best positioned to succeed the aging king and ailing crown prince -- both of whom have spent extended periods of time in hospital during the last few years.

The government, in turn, has responded with its time-tested counteroffensive: financial mumificence. This time around the key beneficiaries were, first of all, the armed forces. All serving members were promoted one rank, while also receiving the cocomitant rise in pay. In addition, another 60,000 new positions will be created. Whereas this will only lead to a further militarization of Saudi society, Madawi al-Rasheed took care to note that the armed forces are by no means a united front. In fact, the loyalty of the various branches is fragmented and divided between key senior members of the royal family. The religious establishment too benefited from royal generosity, receiving additional budget for its activities. Combined with the third strategy: a further curtailment of the press, the Saudi regime has -- for now -- taken the sting out of the protest movement.

But aside from a combination of repression and largesse on the part of the government, there is another reason why protests in Saudi Arabia have remained relatively subdued when compared to other Arab countries. Calls for a 'day of rage', scheduled for 11 March, were generally ignored because there is no consensus among the protesters on the agenda for reforms. Moreover, Saudi Arabia has no tradition of civil activism. In order to prevent the development of such a sense of civil society or the articulation of shared citizens' concerns, the government also plays up tribal belonging and sectarian divides: pitching regions and tribes, and Sunnis and Shi'ites, against each other.

Saudi Arabia's 'day of rage' (11 March 2011)

However, it cannot be denied that Saudi society is sick, and the key ailments include not just the repression of the Shi'ite minority (not only 'Twelvers' or 'Imamis' in the Eastern Province, but also the often forgotten Ismaili community in the southern border province of Najran). Then there is the denial of equal rights to women; the continued detention of large numbers of political prisoners; and -- above anything else -- the rampant unemployment of the Saudi youth. According to some estimates, the level of joblessness in Saudi Arabia is only topped by Gaza and Iraq. In the face of such challenges, Saudi society increasingly resembles a pressure cooker ready to explode.

Shi'ites protesting in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province

External factors also play a role in defining the future prospects for a Saudi Spring. According to Prof. al-Rasheed the world is rapidly moving, if it has not already, from a one-super power post-Cold War order to a multipolar world, in which varies powers are vying for influence, including orchestrating developments in the strategically so important Persian Gulf Region. On a global level these include the USA, Russia, China and India, on the regional level Saudi Arabia itself, Iran, and Turkey. Each of these players tries to direct developments into a direction that serves its own interests.

Whereas some Arab countries are looking to Turkey for inspiration, it is highly unlikely that this will be a useful model for Saudi Arabia, at least in the short term. Its lack of a sense of civil society and tradition of feminist activism currently deprive it of the necessary preconditions. This lack of civil action also severely limits the likelihood of a 'facebook' or 'twitter' revolution -- which al-Rasheed also considers a misnomer in the cases of Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria.

However, what is not an unlikely scenario is that continuing turbulence and the persistence of critical questions being directed at the government could destabilize the regime to such an extent that a fragmentation of the Kingdom is not entirely inconceivable. Most likely candidates for a breakaway would be the oil-rich Eastern province and the Asir and Najran provinces on the border with Yemen.The lack of a tradition of civil disobedience also makes a violent turn of events a very likely option.

According to Prof. al-Rasheed the current initiatives of the government to respond to the demands of the protesters are insufficient. Although Saudi Arabia's economy continues to expand it has never managed to absorb the country's rapidly growing population; for that the government has always relied on expanding the civil service, which is seen as inefficient and corrupt. Women's issues are primarily addressed in response to foreign criticism, but Madawi al-Rasheed is adamant that the kind of emancipation introduced by the Saudi regime will not undermine its authoritarian grip on power. Playing up sectarianism often expressed by pandering to a sense of 'Iranphobia' will also not contribute to the creation of a sense of nationhood. However, according to al-Rasheed there are signs that leading figures among the citizenry in the Western Hijaz province, a more cosmopolitan region with a historical tradition of plurality where also the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina are located, are trying to build bridges between Sunnis and Shi'ites.

Even though the Saudi government has been pushing for years for a military intervention in Iran, al-Rasheed thinks that in the current multi-polar world a sustained military campaign against Iran is highly unlikely, and Saudi Arabia definitely lacks the means to go it alone.

King Abdullah

However, the key to any future scenario for Saudi Arabia is the succession question. At present there are five key princes, representing various factions within the royal family. Aside from the King and Crown Prince, and their sons, there is the governor of the Eastern Province, Prince Muhammad bin Fahd, the oldest surviving son of the late King Fahd (1982-2005), and the governor of Mecca, Prince Khalid bin Faisal, as the most senior member among the descendants of King Faisal (1964-1975). However, as she mentioned earlier, at present Madawi al-Rasheed considers the powerful interior minister, Prince Nayif -- a half-brother of King Abdullah and full brother of Sultan, the ailing crown prince and defence minister -- as the most likely future king. This does not bode well for the prospects of any drastic reforms.On the other hand, it is never certain what the 33 most senior members of the royal family will decide. What is certain is that the opportunities for a horizontal succession -- for brother to brother -- will soon be exhausted. How this will play out the next level, the sons of the leading royal members of government, is anybody's guess.

Saudi interior minister, Prince Nayif

In Madawi al-Rasheed's mind, for any drastic change to occur -- and this is only likely in the long run -- it will be absolutely vital that freedom of expression and organization are widely expanded; without the creation of a viable public space any attempts for real political reforms are doomed. That is exactly why the regime continues to stress tribal and sectarian affiliations;why it makes sure to kepp foreigners away from the native population by confining them to their walled compounds and labour camps; and why universities are closed enclaves keeping young Saudis isolated, under strict surveillance, while exposing them to skills training rather than an education which would enable them to articulate their critical faculties. Critical Muslims are the nemesis of a regime composed of a well-entrenched royal family and collaborating religious establishment as the self-appointed custodians of a narrow-minded intolerant interpretation of the Islamic tradition.
 

Female Iranian Reformist Ranked 3rd among top 100 Global Thinkers

Foreign Policy Magazine has ranked Zahra Rahnavard, the wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi (see also the post of 4 July 2009), as the third most influential global thinker of the past year. Here is an excerpt from the article:

for being the brains behind Iran's Green Revolution and the campaign of her husband, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Political scientist and Reformer | Iran

Of all the critical moments in the Iranian presidential election that captured the world's attention this year, one stands out: On June 3, incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad publicly questioned the credentials of his opponent's wife, wondering in a televised debate if her Ph.D. in political science was legitimate. Furious, the 64-year-old Rahnavard staged a blazing, 90-minute news conference in which she accused the president of lying, debasing her sex, and betraying the Islamic Revolution. The attack galvanized the opposition and rejuvenated the campaign of her husband, Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Ahmadinejad should have known better. During and after the Islamic Revolution, Rahnavard had been an ardent Islamist who worked to discredit secular feminist groups. But years later, when the revolution failed to yield dividends for women, she changed course and became a driving force behind the nascent feminist movement in Iran. After she was placed on the High Council of Cultural Revolution, the body issued its first declaration in 1992 advancing women's rights. She was later fired as chancellor of Tehran's exclusively female Al-Zahra University for inviting feminist lawyer and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi to speak.

This year, Rahnavard's rage at Ahmadinejad drove her husband's campaign. She began stumping with him and organizing supporters through rallies, Facebook, Twitter, and text messages. Campaign posters that depicted the couple holding hands subtly hinted at the liberal reforms Mousavi would make in office; she has more explicitly said these would involve greater democratization, a stronger role for women in the cabinet, and a relaxing of Iran's notoriously discriminatory gender laws.

The Iranians: A People Interrupted Once Again

I have already expressed my appreciation for the view points of the US-based Iranian scholar and intellectual Hamid Dabashi (see the earlier post of 8 November 2008). So it is perhaps not surprising that I also value his recent contributions to the news media and current affairs periodicals, in which he comments on the events as they are presently unfolding in Iran. These developments only underscore -- unfortunately I would say -- how apt the title of his book on Iran's political-cultural history, Iran: A People Interrupted actually is....



This week an Iranian friend drew my attention to one of Hamid Dabashi's op-ed pieces in the weekly English-language edition of the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram. In this article 'People Power', Dabashi takes stock of the political fall-out in the aftermath of Iran's controversial June 2009 presidential elections.



In fact, the current turbulence has thrown Dabashi into the limelight of a media frenzy and he has become a familiar face on the mainstream networks. It appears that this demand for his views has interrupted the posting of his running thoughts on developments in Iran on his own website. Hopefully, the insightful analyses which characterize both his academic and more engaged writings (even though I am not always charmed by their tone), will leave an impact on public opinion around the world. As an example consider this commentary on the CNN website.



An interesting aside in the constellation of these events is that Dabashi is also an authority on Iranian cinema and in particular the film-maker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who is now acting as the international spokesman for Mir Hossein Mousavi, the opposition candidate who is challenging the election results and has even taken his campaign to facebook.




Get Dabashi's Makhmalbaf at Large: The Making of a Rebel Filmmaker from amazon.

Iran and the Iranians (2): Pushing boundaries

The limits of the possible and acceptable in the Islamic Republic of Iran are not only explored by men. Recently, actress Golshifteh Farahani, who stars in Body of Lies opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, challenged the mores of her home country by appearing unveiled at the film premier in New York.

The issue is now the subject of hot debates on Iranian websites, between those who support Farahani's decision and those who accuse her of 'selling out to Hollywood'. The actress is not the first high profile Iranian woman to put Islamic conventions to the test. In 2003, Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi attended the award ceremony in Oslo without a veil.

Watch Golshifteh Farahani's Youtube interview

Iran and the Iranians (1): Misunderstood and underrated.

No Muslim country has had such a consistently bad press in the West as Iran since 1979, when a grave-looking cleric succeeded in ousting the Shah. But it is often forgotten that also under the Pahlevi-dynasty Iranian politics had its sinister side – not least by the decision of the last Shah’s father to rename the country ‘Iran’ in order to underscore the nation’s perceived Aryan roots, a notion that conjures up very unsavoury associations, certainly in post-war Europe and America.

Perhaps it would be better if the country were named ‘Persia’ again',* because it might help raising other people’s awareness of its ancient cultural legacy. When, in the seventh century CE, Islam took a foothold in the region, Persians quickly occupied influential positions because they possessed the skills which were in short supply among the Arabs who initially controlled the new empire. When the Abbasid caliphate replaced the Umayyad Dynasty of Damascus, Persians began pouring into the state administration and education system. Their cultural influence radiated far beyond present-day Iran into Central Asia and what are now Pakistan and Northwest India. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, Persian was the court language of the Mughal emperors.

The Persians' cultural resilience is exemplified by the fact that they managed to retain their own language even after Islamization, in contrast to, for example, the Egyptians and Syrians who became more thoroughly Arabized. Some of the finest Islamic poetry of Islamic world was written in Persian. Through translation, poets like Attar, Hafiz, and Rumi (or Jalal al-Din al-Balkhi as the Persians call him) have even become household names in the West. But also famous medieval Islamic scholars addressing wider audiences in Arabic, like Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and al-Ghazali, came from the Persianate world.

Present-day Iranians (Persians) are not only well aware of this legacy, but take an active interest in preserving it and keeping it alive. Whenever I meet Iranians they never fail to impress me with their erudition. At a conference in Indonesia I met a man who in his daily life worked as an administration manager at an oil refinery in Southern Iran, but whose real passion was literature. Equally at home in classical Persian poetry and modern prose, as well as Western writings, he quoted from Bertold Brecht and Joseph Conrad. Although he claimed that his superior at work was a grim and dour member of the 'mullahcracy', the latter nevertheless was generous enough to give him time off to attend conferences around the world and always eager for stories from the outside when he returned.

Kader Abdolah

Admittedly, substantial numbers of intellectuals have been forced to seek refuge elsewhere. There is the very impressive example of Kader Abdolah (pen name of Hossein Sadjadi Ghaemmaghami Farahani). As a leftist political activist he fell foul of the regime and had to flee the country in 1985, reaching the Netherlands in 1988 While awaiting political asylum in a refugee centre he taught himself Dutch. In 1993, he made his Dutch literary debut with a collection of short stories about his experiences as a refugee and foreigner. Now he is one of the country’s best-selling authors. The English translation of his latest novel, My Father's Notebook won the prestigious Vondel Prize, while the Dutch original (Spijkerschrift: Notities van Aga Akbar) was awarded the E. du Perron Prize. Others were able – for some time at least – to find a modus Vivendi with the regime, although with the growing influence of hardliners that became increasingly difficult.

Abdolkarim Soroush

For some time one of today’s foremost Persian thinkers, the pharmacologist-turned-philosopher and scholar of religion Abdolkarim Soroush (pen name of Hosein Haj Faraj Dabbagh), was able to combine his work in the Islamic Republic’s higher education system with critical philosophical investigations. Initially primarily interested in the philosophy of science, he later shifted towards religious topics. Unfortunately, by 2000 his views drew such hostile reactions from Ansar-e-Hizbullah vigilante groups that he deemed it prudent to move abroad. Since then he has been teaching at Ivy-league universities in the States and at Berlin’s Wissenschaftkolleg. Most of his writings are in Persian, but Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam, a collection of essays in English, gives a good insight in his ideas.

More recently, I came across the writings of Ramin Jahanbegloo. A cousin of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Jahanbegloo studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and spent many years teaching in Toronto, until he returned to Iran, accepting a post as head of the Contemporary Philosophy Department of the Cultural Research Center in Tehran (2001-2006). During this time he wrote a book on intellectual life in Iran, entitled Iran: Between Tradition and Modernity

Ramin Jahanbegloo

After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took over the presidency in the Fall of 2005, Iran’s intellectual climate deteriorated and between April and August 2006, Ramin Jahanbegloo was detained in the notorious Evin prison. Following an intensive campaign by intellectuals in both Iran and abroad he released and went to India. BHe served for two years as Rajni Kothari Professor of Democracy at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi, until returning to Toronto in early 2008.

Jahanbegloo made name as the one who managed to bring thinkers like Richard Rorty, Antonio Negri, and Michael Ignatieff to Tehran. He also published books of his conversations and interviews with Isaiah Berlin and Ashis Nandy, and written about Indian thought, Gandhi, and the doctrine of nonviolence. Certainly a man to watch.