West and Modernity in the Discourse of "Abdul Latif Shoushtari"

Abstract

During the Qajar era, an important factor for Iranian society's familiarity with Western modernity was the travel of Iranian thinkers and tourists to India. Among these thinkers, Abdul Latif Shoushtari was a prominent figure, whose role has been much studied yet. The present paper seeks to answer these question: how Western modernity in India was reflected in Abdul Latif Shoushtari's discourse and what effect it had on the Iranian evolution of political thought? This paper is using descriptive-analytical method and discourse analysis theory. The findings of this study show that, although Shoushtari included many components of Western modernity in his book, and as a pioneer in this field, played a constructive role in the initial introduction of modernity to Iranian society as well as later thinkers to this, however, his knowledge was mostly based on appearances and manifestations, without deep knowledge of the basics and foundations of modernity.