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Abstract

This paper focuses on the concept of decline in twentieth-century Iranian intellectual history through a comparative reading of the works of Ali Shariati and Javad Tabatabai. Although they are often positioned at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum—Shariati as a revolutionary Islamic intellectual and Tabatabai as a secular political theorist—both thinkers sought to explain Iran’s historical weakness through sustained reflection on decline, power, and historical continuity.

I argue that despite their divergent diagnoses and normative prescriptions, Shariati and Tabatabai share a common conceptual framework in which foreign invasion and external domination play a decisive role in explaining Iran’s loss of political and intellectual vitality. In Shariati’s writings, classical invasions and modern imperialism are interpreted as forces that disrupted Islam’s revolutionary potential and contributed to the political subjugation of Muslim societies. In Tabatabai’s work, repeated invasions—most notably the Arab and Mongol conquests—are conceptualized as historical ruptures that undermined the continuity of Persian political thought, leading to the long-term erosion of intellectual sovereignty and state rationality.

In contrast to interpretations that explain Iran’s condition primarily in terms of economic backwardness or comparative underdevelopment, this paper shows that both thinkers conceptualized decline as an internally experienced historical process rooted in spatial intervention and intellectual disruption. Foreign domination, in their accounts, weakened not only political authority but also the capacity for autonomous knowledge production. While Shariati sought to overcome this condition through the revitalization of revolutionary Islam, Tabatabai proposed the reconstruction of Iranian political thought through a renewed historiography grounded in the Persian intellectual tradition.

This paper is based on close textual analysis of published books, essays, and lectures by Shariati and Tabatabai. By situating their debates within broader Central Eurasian discussions of invasion, sovereignty, and post-imperial vulnerability, the paper contributes to the intellectual history of decline as a mode of theorizing space, power, and historical rupture.

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This paper examines the role of Abu Ja'far al-Tabari (d. 923 CE), a preeminent scholar from the Caspian region of Central Eurasia, in shaping the Islamic memory of pre-Islamic female divinity. By analyzing both his monumental history, Taʾrīkh al-Rusul wa-al-Mulūk, and his seminal exegesis, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, I investigate how the identities of the three Arabian goddesses (Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat) were reconstructed to fit the burgeoning Islamic imperial identity.

Utilizing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), I argue that Tabari’s narratives function as more than mere records of the past; they are "institutional tools" that categorize the pre-Islamic sacred as a site of "ignorance" (Jahiliyya) while simultaneously preserving the structural memory of these deities. The paper explores the tension between Tabari's Persian-Eurasian intellectual background and the Meccan-centric narratives he systematized. Specifically, I focus on the "Gharaniq" episode and the destruction of the goddess sanctuaries as depicted in his works, illustrating how these events were used to justify the transition of power from tribal-polytheistic centers to a centralized Islamic state. This study provides a fresh perspective on how Central Eurasian scholars played a pivotal role in redefining "spaces and power" by mediating between the Arabian pagan substrate and the universalist claims of the Islamic Umma.

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This paper will examine several narratives pertaining to Shaykh Abū ‘Alī Sīnā, known more widely as either Ibn Sīnā or Avicenna, as recounted in the Badāyi‘ al-vaqāyi‘ of Zayn al-Dīn Maḥmūd Vāṣifī, a work which was completed in Tashkent and dedicated to Abū’l-Muẓaffar Hasan Sulṭān b. Kīldī Muḥammad Sulṭān, a prince of the Abu’l-Khayrid Shībānid dynasty, in 1538-39. Vāṣifī devoted an entire chapter of the Badāyi‘ al-vaqāyi‘ to the figure of Ibn Sīnā, wherein he related popular tales regarding Ibn Sīnā which would have been in circulation in Mavarannahr, particularly in Bukhara, during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. An examination of the Ibn Sīnā narratives provided by Vāṣifī in the Badāyi‘ al-vaqāyi‘ will serve to broaden our knowledge of how one of the greatest polymaths in the history of the Muslim world was popularly remembered in his Central Asian homeland centuries after his passing.

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This paper examines the transformation of the concepts of being (wujūd) and knowledge (maʿrifa) in the thought of the Andalusian Sufi philosopher Ibn al-ʿArabī (1165–1240) and explores their intellectual reception within the broader tradition of rational Islamic theology in Central Asia. While Ibn al-ʿArabī is often associated primarily with mystical metaphysics, his philosophical interpretation of existence and knowledge significantly influenced later intellectual discourses across the Islamic world, including Central Eurasia. The paper situates Ibn al-ʿArabī’s ontology and epistemology within the historical development of Islamic intellectual traditions that shaped theological and philosophical debates in the region.

The study employs textual and comparative analysis of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s major works, particularly al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya and Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, alongside selected writings of later scholars associated with the intellectual traditions of Central Asia. By examining key metaphysical concepts such as the unity of being, divine knowledge, and the relationship between reason and revelation, the paper analyzes how Ibn al-ʿArabī’s thought reconfigured classical theological discussions concerning the nature of existence and the limits of human knowledge.

The central argument of the paper is that Ibn al-ʿArabī’s metaphysical framework introduced a distinctive synthesis between rational theological inquiry and mystical epistemology, thereby transforming the intellectual structure of Islamic theological discourse. This transformation did not simply replace rational theology but rather expanded its conceptual boundaries by integrating metaphysical and spiritual dimensions of knowledge.

By highlighting the philosophical significance of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s ideas in the context of Central Eurasian intellectual history, this paper contributes to broader discussions on the interaction between Sufi metaphysics and rational Islamic theology. It also seeks to reconsider the role of Central Asian intellectual traditions in shaping the reception and reinterpretation of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s thought within the wider Islamic intellectual world.

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This paper offers a critical examination of anti-Semitic and anti-Bahá’í discourses in modern Iranian intellectual history through a focused analysis of the thought of Ahmad Fardid (1910–1994). Drawing on selected passages from Fardid’s published and archival works, it reconstructs the conceptual logic underpinning his hostility toward Jews and Bahá’ís, situating these attitudes within his broader philosophy of history and critique of modernity. Deeply influenced by Heideggerian thought, Fardid articulated a civilizational narrative centred on the notion of gharbzadegi (Westoxification), through which he interpreted modernity as a condition of metaphysical decline and estrangement from divine truth. Within this framework, he associated both “Jewish rationality” and the Bahá’í Faith with forces that sustain and intensify this historical deviation.

The paper argues that Fardid’s anti-Semitic and anti-Bahá’í positions are not incidental or merely rhetorical, but structurally embedded in his metaphysical and historical worldview. His conflation of Zionism with Jewishness, portrayal of Jews as agents of nihilism and global domination, and depiction of Bahá’ís as cosmopolitan and politically subversive reflect a broader pattern of ideological othering that merges theological, philosophical, and political registers. At the same time, the paper highlights the internal inconsistencies, generalisations, and lack of substantive engagement with primary sources that characterise his treatment of both communities.

To contextualise Fardid’s thought, the paper briefly examines similar anti-Bahá’í narratives in the works of Mirza Mehdi Khan Tabrizi (Zaeem al-Dowleh) and Fereydun Adamiyat, representing earlier phases of Iranian intellectual history. Through these comparative cases, it demonstrates how prejudice, limited knowledge, and the circulation of inherited accusations contributed to the normalisation of anti-Bahá’í (and, at times, anti-Jewish) sentiment across diverse intellectual milieus.

By placing Fardid within both Iranian intellectual history and broader debates on modernity, secularism, and historicism, the paper contributes to a more critical understanding of how exclusionary narratives are philosophically constructed and reproduced. It further argues that such discourses have not only marginalised these communities but have also obscured their intellectual and social contributions to Iranian society. Ultimately, the paper calls for a more nuanced and historically grounded engagement with religious minorities in the study of modern Iranian thought.