Iran’s backwardness from the perspective of nineteenth-century Iranian thinkers

Abstract

Contemporary Iranian scholars’ ideas about their country’s ‘backwardness’ have their roots in nineteenth-century Iranian intellectualism. This article introduces four prominent Qajar era thinkers and traces their perceptions of the reasons for Iran’s ‘backwardness’ and their solutions to overcome it. In addition to Iranian intellectuals’ admiration of modern science, the article identifies and examines four prominent aspects of nineteenth-century thought on the miserable situation of Iran and strategies for national progress: despotism and lawlessness in Iran; the Arab invasion of Persia; Islam in general and the Shiʿa ulama in particular; and the need for alphabet reform. This article shows that while elements of nineteenth-century intellectuals’ ideas are questionable, their legacy persists in contemporary Iranian scholarship.