Intellectual Decolonization and Redefining the Self in the works of Ali Shariati

Abstract

History of modern Iran has been the history of external intervention and revolts against it. Like intellectuals all over the third world, intellectuals in Iran also played significant role in producing counter-discourses to Western imperialism. Debating modernity was a general theme, but condemnation and critique of the state and redefining Iranian identity dominated the works of intellectuals in nineteenth and early twentieth century. Ali Shariati provided an intellectual critique of the Western imperialism and explained the detachment of the self from its authentic nature. He proposed return to the self through revolt and therefore is often seen as an ideologue of the Iranian Revolution of 1979.