The Origins of the Early Iranian Enlightenment
The Case of Akhundzade’s “Qirītīkā”
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13093740 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mohammad Rezaei (0000-0002-8926-0233, Goethe University Frankfurt, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 9-21 |
| Publication date | 2020-12-15 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Contemporary Review of the Middle East (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2349-0055 • E-ISSN: 2347-7989 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/2347798920976274 |
| OpenAlex | W3112516182 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 16 |
Akhundzade is one of the greatest Iranian modern intellectuals. Addressing nationalism, literary criticism, and alphabet reform in the Muslim world, and, most importantly, provoking trenchant criticism of the Islamic religion, he initiated a persistent controversy among the Iranian intellectuals. It is often argued that he approached the European thought through the lens of self-orientalism and grounded a so-called will to imitation. Drawing on his method of Qirītīkā (criticism), particularly in Maktūbāt (1865), I argue that he confronted the Western ideas instrumentally and was aware of the historical and social context of Iran. Furthermore, despite his apparent secular approach, which is labelled usually as garbzade (West-struck), he articulated an ensemble of elements that can be traced back to pre-Islamic Iran, India, and the West. His intellectual works not only stand as the figureheads of regional studies but also represent a pathbreaking approach to the problem of backwardness in Muslim societies
Backwardness · Context (archaeology · Criticism · Enlightenment · Epistemology · Islam · Nationalism · Orientalism · Political science · Politics · Social criticism · Sociology · Theology · Education and Islamic Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions
Both Eastern and Western
Refashioning Iran
‘Arab invasion’ and decline, or the import of European racial thought by Iranian nationalists
The critique of religion as political critique
De-politicizing Westoxification
Controversy over the concept ‘freedom’ during the Iranian constitutional revolution (1906– 09)
Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture
Mirza Ya'qub Khan's Call for Representative Government, Toleration and Islamic Reform in Nineteenth-Century Iran
The Revolution for Law
Liberty in Akhundzadeh's and Kermani's Thoughts
Constitutionalism, economic modernization and Islam in the writings of Mirza Yusef Khan Mostashar od‐Dowle
Svabhāvavāda and the Cārvāka/Lokāyata
On Liberty in Talebof’s Thought
Intellectual History as History
The Roots of Domination
Who's Afraid of Critical Social Science
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |