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4 - Revolution and Its Discontents: Ideology and the Death of Utopia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2019

Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Summary

This chapter outlines the historical lineage of so-called 'ideological' and 'jurisprudential Islam' (Islam-e feqahati) and the dismissal of 'liberalism' as merely Western-imposed licentiousness and then goes on to examine how such ideological formations were progressively subject to criticism and reappraisal by religious intellectuals from the late 1980s and early 1990s onwards. By the time of the revolution’s second decade, the same cadre of ideologues and politicians, whom had formerly been on the frontline in providing an intellectual and political defence of the new regime against the Marxist left and People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran, sought to 'de-ideologise' Islam and thereby dismiss 'ideology' tout court. This trend is epitomised in the political writings of ʿAbdolkarim Sorush. To this end several religious intellectuals drew upon the theories of a raft of Western thinkers within the pantheon of Cold War liberalism, namely those whom had become well-known for their scathing criticisms of Marxist ideology, above all in its Soviet guise. The influence of Karl Popper, Raymond Aron, Arthur Koestler, Isaiah Berlin, and Friedrich Hayek, amongst others, are traced in detail, thereby linking the religious intellectuals’ own distinct contributions under the Islamic Republic to the wider ideological battles of the global Cold War and its aftermath.
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Chapter
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Revolution and its Discontents
Political Thought and Reform in Iran
, pp. 187 - 240
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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