New Discourses and Modernity in Postrevolutionary Iran Suroosh Irfani Iran’s social and cultural climates seem to have undergone a relative relaxation in recent years.’ The end of the Iran-Iraq war (1988), the death of Ayatollah Khomeini (1989), and the emergence of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as president are some of the factors affecting this develop- ment. A cursory analysis of the level of literate intellectual culture*- print media, film industry, literature, and music-reveals the range and nature of some cultural activities in post-1979 Iran. For example, between 1981-91, the number of book titles published annually increased from 3,500 to 8,600, periodicals from 100 to 501, and public libraries from 415 to 550 units, while the number of people using libraries rose from 4 mil- lion (1981) to 14 million (1991).3 In the film industry, despite a vigilant censor, Iranian cinema matured and acquired a new character: a devel- opment described as “the most stimulating event in arts”‘ over the last decade. More films were made by the local film industry and screened in international film festivals in 1990-91 than during any single year prior to the 1979 revolution.6 A paradoxical linkage between constraints on cultural activities and the flowering of creative potential also applies to music. Despite Khomeini’s fatwa banishing music from the national radio and TV for a time,’ it is now claimed that the creative range of modem Persian music is unmatched in the sixty years of its recorded history.* In literature, the emergence of new writers, new experiments in form and technique, as well as a phenomenal growth in the readership, sale, and publication of works by contemporary Iranian authors have enriched the cultural scene considerably? With sales of each best-selling title running between 15,000 to 35,000, together with the impressive quality of the works pro- duced, the literary arena appears to be more buoyant than at any other period of recent Iranian history.” Suroosh Irfani is senior research fellow, Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad, Pakistan. This paper is part of a project initiated at Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, in 1992. An earlier draft wa. published in Strategic Studies (Winter 1992). 14 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 13: 1 Even so9 many cultural manifestations are grounded by problems, mainly due to the absence of a multiparty democracy, which is one of the reasons why the cultural realm remains p e h p s the only channel for artic- ulating the experience of a society scarred by revolution and war. Conse- quently, culture has become a medium “with and through which” society is expressing its need for evaluating, interpreting, and analyzing its own coherence. Such a critical relationship with the present need not be solely political, as Abbas Mar’ufi, editor of a literary biweekly, argued after win- ning a court case against the government’s closure of his magazine in 1994. According to him, fiction, art, and literature in postrevolutionary Iran are not necessarily a means of propaganda and “reflect a creative efferves- cence, born of immersion in present realities,”’* an “effervescence” that accounts for the cultural vitality discussed above and also underlined by recent studies of postrevolutionary Iran. In this context, Amanat underscores the unprecedented rise in read- ership and print runs of historical titles as “a unique development” reflecting “the remarkable interest of the general reader in documents and primary material.”13 Such interest makes him wonder “whether the new revolutionary climate, in spite of a certain degree of intellectual repression, has not led to a new historical consciousness less hampered by dated biases and delusions?”14 Pahlevan argues that the “unprece- dented interest” in the study of history is inherent in the Islamic revolu- tion, which “very soon and in a unique way intensified the need for understanding and re-evaluating the past.”’.‘ A craving for knowledge, he continues, was bound to arise in the wake of a revolutionary upheaval “which overturned everything and created a sense of puzzlement about what had happened, as well as a need for finding coherence and mean- ing in why it happened the way it did.”I6 This need for coherence by a critical, self-interpreting, and historically aware readership seems to be an important factor underlying the vitality, at the level of the literate intellectual culture, of postrevolutionary Iran. This paper argues that the vibrant cultural matrix seen in the above discussion indicates the emergence of a new cultural discourse. By ana- lyzing some of the cultural manifestations in postrevolutionary society, the paper argues that elements of the new intellectual discourse include a critical reclamation of a Persian-Islamic past as well as an interpene- tration with a western civilizational heritage. It also discusses the rele- vance of these intellectual developments in terms of Iran’s transition to modernity. The paper first examines cultural manifestations in postrevolutionary Iran in terms of recent publications, especially dictionaries, given the cen- trality of language and meaning in articulating the emerging discourse. These are then discussed and analyzed in terms of a postrevolutionary cultural context, where Michel Foucault’s works on modernity and dis- course formation provide the theoretical terrain. Given the nature of the study, it is useful to have as a point of reference Europe’s civilizational Irfani: New Discourses and Modernity 15 experience, as the intellectual underpinnings of social revolutions are generally attributed to the new thinking that engendered the Enlighten- ment.I7 As for the terms used here, the key elements of modernity, “the cen- tral problematic in contemporary Iran,”” are regarded as “its acute his- torical sense of the present, its emphasis on rational autonomy over con- formity and dogma, and its critical o~tlook.”’~ As generally understood, modernity pertains to “a radical transformation in epistemology, aesthet- ics, economics and politics, transforming the private and public life of man and a society dominated by traditions.”” Rather than a period in his- tory, modernity is envisaged here as an attitude entailing “a form of rela- tionship to the present as well as a mode of relationship that has to be established with oneself”*’ and as reflecting “a voluntary choice in a way of thinking and feeling . . . of acting and behaving that at one and the same time marks a relation of belonging and presents itself as a task.’”2 Discourse pertains to “a way of thinking, talking, or representing a par- ticular subject”z3 and is thus “a group of statements that provide a lan- guage for a way of representing or talking about a particular kind of knowledge about a topic.”” It consists “of several statements working together to form a discursive formation.”2s These statements, in turn, fit together because each one implies a relation to all others: “they refer to the same object, share the same style and support a strategy . . . a com- mon institutional or political drift or Discourse, then, is not based on the conventional distinction between thought and action, lan- guage and practice, but is rather about the production of knowledge through language, although it is “itself produced through practice: dis- cursive practice-the practice of producing meaning.”27 The connection between discourse formation and dictionary writing, therefore, seems intrinsic, for dictionaries are the repository of language, and dictionary writing is an activity that produces meaning. The centrali- ty of dictionary writing, a publication boom, and other cultural manifesta- tions in postrevolutionary Iran suggest that the period in question is giving rise to new discourses. I Farhang, the Iranian equivalent for “dictionary,” also means “cul- ture.” The term includes bibliographies, glossaries, indexes, and other forms of compilation. The “dictionaries” cited in this study correspond to the Persian usage of farhang. What is distinctive about them is that, in addition to representing new ways of producing and classifying knowl- edge, they reflect an attempt at intellectual autonomy and cultural authen- ticity. One could say that, as with the compulsive list-making and drawing up of taxonomies that were distinctive features of the sixteenth-century renaissance,2* dictionary writing constitutes one of the most visible mani- . festations of classifying forms of knowledge in postrevolutionary Iran. 16 Indeed, in being the repository of language and its dynamism, these pub- lications mirror dimensions of meaning underlying the extant mode of thinking and organizing consciousness in postrevolutionary Iran. Most of the dictionaries discussed here were published after 1988, when a cease- fm halted the Iran-Iraq war. Moreover, they are only a cross-section of such publications on the basis of their availability during my visit to Iran during the summer of 1992. The proliferation of dictionaries and encyclopedic glossaries of such works as the Shahnumeh (the 65,000 verse epic poem [regarded as] the archive of the Persian national culture) and the Avestu (the sacred book of Zoroastrian Persia) suggest that, in addition to being the repository of lan- guage and a cultural past, such publications could also be viewed as capil- laries of consciousness for the reclamation and reconstruction of national identity. This statement is borne out by the subjectivity underlying some of the authors’ motives for producing their works. For example, in the preface to his Dictionary of Geographical Terms, Ashuri states: The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 13:l The triumph of the Islamic revolution in Iran could be considered, in all certainty, as a new beginning for the revival of spiritual Val- ues and a context for manifestation of an Islamic identity. The undertaking of this dictionary is part of a process of questioning and evaluating the extent to which the “scientific method’’ and the methodological and educational molds of the West have been rel- evant to (our) cultural context.B The author notes further that, despite limited progress in the postrevolutionary period in the cultural and scientific areas, a major achievement has been “the turning to research by thousands of students and teachers regarding problems of our society in the throes of transfor- mation.’” A similar theme underlies the preface of Moshiri’s Persian This ground-breaking volume follows Paul Robert’s method of enriching and extending the frontiers of the extant alphabeti- cal dictionaries by interspersing thousands of epigrams, verses, and sup- portive material from the Persian heritage and the experience of revolu- tionary Iran. According to Moshiri, the need for a new Persian dictionary forms part of an intellectual response to the process of reconstruction and renewal: Language is a dynamic phenomenon, [for] it changes as it under- goes transformation at multiple levels. In this sense, the various logisms in tune with the times are formed, reconstructed, or bor- rowed from other languages, thereby assuming new meaning or form, acquiring currency or falling out of circulation. It is, there- fore, our duty to revise, complete and enrich previous dictionaries. The best expression of our gratitude to authors of past dictionar- ies is to follow their path, not to repeat their work.’” Irfani: New Discourses and Modernity 17 This craving for expanding the horizons of Persian and intellectual dis- course is also reflected in Radfar’s A Literary Dictionary of Rhetoric and Eloquence. This innovative work repsents an attempt to understand the terms used in Persian. language and literature in the larger context of world literary heritage, especially the literary experience of western civilization in terms of Greek, French, English, and Russian sources. Pointing out the insufficiency in extant Persian dictionaries, Radfar’s introduction reads: With the expansion of knowledge and specialization of human sci- ences, the need for composing specialized dictionaries is being felt more acutely now than in the past. Dictionary writing expresses one of the most vital needs in the development of human civiliza- tion and culture. Since work on writing Persian dictionaries began a thousand years ago, over 250 dictionaries have been written. Even so, there is a felt need for more comprehensive and scientif- ic works in the realm of dictionary Another noteworthy work is the Amid Dictionary of the Persian Lan- guage.” Although first published during the Pahlavi era, what makes this completely revised edition special is that its record print run of one hun- dred thousand copies includes a section on Persian names. Persian names, as distinct from Arabic names, are classified based on the various aspects of meaning for each name by drawing on the historical, mythological, and aesthetical contexts of Persian culture. Nowroozi describes his Dictionary of Political Terms as “a product of the Islamic revolution” written “in re- sponse to the urgent need of students and teachers who merged with the revolution and wanted access to the foreign media.”3s He seeks to provide Persian equivalents for political and international relations terms by exam- ining the context that gave rise to some of them. Arastekhou, author of A Critical Dictionary of Social Scientific Terms, has described his work as an “act of defiance” against existing academic molds?6 Recognizing the dynamism inherent in words, he argues that words and terms, when they enter a field of knowledge, “go beyond their simple meaning as they are transformed into complex and dilative conceptual tools.’”’ Emphasizing the organic link between research and a spirit of tolerance, Arastekhou gives special emphasis to terms such as mysticism and gnosis: The various levels of meaning deriving from these terms have merged over the centuries with the deposits of social phenomenon in Iran. As a result, mysticism and gnosis have impacted and influ- enced various social and political movements and events in the country; these notions permeate popular belief, intellectual reflec- tion and unconscious processes.% Stressing the social relevance of gnosis and mysticism in Iran’s cul- tural discourse, he argues further that: 18 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 13: 1 Contrary to what is sometimes preached, gnosis and science are not ranged across an unbridgeable chasm. At its higher levels, sci- ence becomes an auxiliary to gnosis, while gnosis without science is incomplete and illegith1ate.3~ Another glossary, covering thirty-one volumes of Ali Shariati’s Col- lected Works, contains definitions and explanatory notes of the terms and concepts used by this revolutionary thinker in his attempt to rethink Islam in terms of contemporary consciousness. This entailed a critical encounter with Pahlavi Iran’s politics and culture, the West’s intellectual heritage, and Islamic tradition and history. Shariati’s redefinition of Islam meant an informed understanding of the elements of pre-Islamic religious thought, including Buddhism, Hinduism, and Zoroastrianism. The immediacy of the political moment in Pahlavi Iran, against which Shariati etched the broad parameters of a new Islamic discourse, made him the controversial voice of new thinking in revolutionary Iran. While noting that Shariati’s spirit of creative defiance could not be bound “by the mundane boundaries of conventions,’” the glossary’s compilers point out the “balancing inter- play of thought and feeling, order and informality’*’ at the heart of his worldview, where rationalism becomes the self-conscious instrument of gnosis. Another marker in postrevolutionary Iran’s linguistic enrichment is the emergence of a new lexicon born of the Iran-Iraq war and published in a series entitled Culture of the Battle Front.“ This series marks the transfu- sion of a new experiential dimension-that of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards from the war front-into mainstream Iranian society. The nine slim volumes published so far exemplify what could be termed modernity’s crit- , ical preoccupation with itself and bring to the “public sphere” that which remained inaccessible during the war in the combatant’s “private” sphere. Their lived experiences have been captured in a diverse range of activities and concerns constituting personal and group life at the war front. If most of the publications discussed above have appeared in the post-Khomeini era, this is probably because of the long preparation such works require, rather than a policy of official encouragement. Several other dictionaries published in recent years also underscore the contextual relevance of the postrevolutionary period in their genesis. The Dictionary of Legal, Political, and Economic Terms4’ appeared in response to popular interest among Iranians eager to familiarize them- selves with international legal terminology after Iran and some western countries were implicated in international legal suits. The Glossary of Filmographic TermsM and the Bibliography of Cinema in Iran“ reflect the centrality assumed by Iranian cinema in postrevolutionary society as a form of popular art, in many ways comparable to Soviet cinema after the October revolution. They also reflect a desire to approach the realm of cinematography in a professional manner and thereby linking developments in Iran to the international cinema. Irfani: New Discourses and Modernity 19 The Bibliography of Names in the Shahnameha belongs to a distinct re- search category that is emerging as a hall.2mark of Iranian national identi- ty. Going by the number of critical works being published on it and its prominence in postrevolutionary discourse, the receptivity to and appeal of the Shahnameh in postrevolutionary Iran seems phenomenal. This is per- haps the result of the enduring appeal of an epic reflecting the national ethos in terms of Persian mythology and pre-Islamic history as much as it is of its being a historic symbol of Persian cultural defiance of Arab impe- rialism, which replaced Persian with Arabic after the seventh-century Persian defeat. Reflecting what could be termed a self-evolving project for the reclamation of national culture, including Iran’s pre-Islamic past, is a bibliography of the Shahnameh4’ that traces its heroes’ names to the Avesta, an interest also reflected in the Dictionary of Mythology and Symbolic Stories in Persian Literature.@ The Dictionary of Persian Poets49 lists Persian poets over the last eight centuries, cites samples of their work, and is complemented by Caravan of a bibliogmphical anthology of over seven hundred poets who emigrated to India during the Safavid period (1500- 1743) and composed Persian poetry there. Three dictionaries dealing with aspects of Qur’anic studies could also be cited: The Statistical Dictionary of the Words in the Holy Qur’an“c1aims to be “the most comprehensive dictionary providing access to all the words in the holy Book, as well as giving the context for each given word in terms of chapter and verse.” However, the Dictionary of the Translation and the Stories of the Qur‘ans2 is of as much interest to devotees of Qur’anic research as it is to scholars of the Persian language, as it is based on one of the oldest Persian-language commentaries of the Qur’an. A third work, A Glossary of Islamic Technical Terms, is written to “facilitate the work of the world’s researchers, Islamologists and Iranologists.”sl The latter would also find A Bibliography of Tehran, the first of a three-volume series, of interest. Described as “an analytical and descriptive work. . . based on sci- entific methods and moral standards of re~earch,”‘~ it provides wide-rang- ing access “to the social and human problems of Tehran”“ in terms of lists of books published about the city. A host of research articles dealing with aspects of research methodol- ogy are also being published in various research journals, literary maga- zines, scientific periodicals, and even daily newspapers. Discussion and analysis of these periodicals lies beyond the scope of this paper. I1 A common denominator of the works cited above is the underlying impulsion for intellectual expansion, an attempt to go beyond the literal level of interpretation and extant meaning by enlarging, where possible, the scope of each entry by means of a juxtaposition of cultural and spiri- tual dimensions. This is achieved in Moshiri’s dictionary of the Persian language by using verses of such great Persian poets and mystics as Hafiz 20 (d. 1389) and Riimi (d. 1273) as well as many other Iranian gnostics known throughout the Persian-speaking world. Verses of these poets per- meate the dictionary, just as they do Persian culture. The attempt to go beyond the literal level of the “given” and of Cartesian logic is also underlined by the dictionary of social sciences, which reinterprets many western terms and concepts by situating them in the context of the Iranian gnostic tradition. This technique transfuses a spiritual dimension into what might otherwise have remained a compendium of borrowed intel- lectual constructs. Nowroozi’s dictionary of politics also attempts an enlargement of perspective by adding a third-world dimension and dwelling on the political, historical, and economic origins of certain words and concepts used in international relations. Amid’s dictionary of the Persian language reflects an enlargement of perspective by emphasiz- ing the national ethos as well as the range and richness of Persian by focusing on Persian names. Inherent in these dictionaries, then, is an intellectual act of tran- scending traditional thought by breaking out of the conventional levels of language and meaning-an act that entails an enlargement of perspective by reclaming Iran’s cultural past as well as its interpenetration with the West’s cultural heritage.s6 A deep interest in the western heritage is reflected in the various programs on state-run radio and television, where works of such literary figures as Goethe and Gunter Grasss7 are discussed extensively, where Shakespeare is hailed “as great a literary figure as the Persian mystic Hafez,”“ and where the Italian playwright Pirandello is bracketed with Tolstoy and Sadi, the thirteenth-century Persian moralist. Other examples of cultural osmosis include the “export” of traditional Iranian music to the West and its experimental fusion with western clas- sical music, symbolized in the concert of a symphonic orchestra I “Azargoon” in the southern provincial capital of Shiraz during September 1994. Its theme, on su’ye merzhu (Beyond Boundaries), is indicative of a general trend for expanding one’s life horizons, a tendency that some forces within the religious establishment seem to share. One example of this is an ongoing series of international symposia between Islam and Christian orthodoxy held alternately in Tehran and Athens each year, a dialogue that Iran’s Islamic feminists are also pursuing. A recent issue of Furzuneh, a journal published by the Tehran University Women’s Study Centre, examines the “suitability of Mary as a universal role model for the women of the world.”sg Contrary to the popular notion of the Islamic revolution marking a wholesale repudiation of westem culture, postrevolutionary Iran reflects a complex and vibrant picture that includes the interpenetration of Iranian and western literary heritages.6o That such a cultural osmosis foms part of official policy is reflected in the theme of a popular television series shown during the spring of 1991: the homecoming of an Iranian student from France and the circumstances surrounding his traditional family’s accep tance of his European wife, which is eased by her Greek nationality and The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 13: 1 Irfani: New Discourses and Modernity 21 her fascination with Iranian culture. Appropriately entitled Mehmun (The Guest), this light-hearted serial ends to everyone’s satisfaction after the mehmun takes a new name, the not-so-foreign Maryam, and starts a new life in Iran. The emergence of new awareness through the reclamation of a pri- mordial past has been captured in the film “Bashu: The Little Stranger” (1986):’ Set against the backdrop of the Iran-Iraq war, this highly acclaimed film is about Bashu, a little boy who flees the war-tom south after his family perishes in a bombing raid and ends up in the calm sur- rounding of northem Iran amidst people who speak a different language and taunt him for his dark skin. Rejected by the villagers, he is adopted by a defiant young mother “because we are all children of the sun and the earth.” The film’s scant dialogue heightens the sense of a breakdown of formal structures, while its archetypal motifs underscore the healing to which a reversion to primordial experience leads. Its message is that “through love and friendship, empathy of cultures and negation of eth- nicity, race and linguistic barriers, it is possible to connect.’w Various cultural programs broadcast by Radio Iran also reflect the ’ theme of a primordial reclamation. For example, the epic of Gilgamesh is praised as “an indisputable masteqiece in mankind’s literary experience,’m and papyrus fragments found in Egypt are hailed “for enriching the pre- sent.’- The message is loud and clear: “There is hope in precious reclama- tions. New forms of consciousness are gained by reclaiming past r.dtures. This gives human life continuity.’*5 The manifestation of postrevolutionary discourses is not without tension. A case in point is the controversy surrounding the works of Abdul Karim Soroush, a professor of philosophy at Tehran University. Taking Iqbal’s Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam* as a point of departure, Soroush’s magnum opus, Theoretical Contraction and Dilation of the Sh~ri‘ah,~’ seeks to provide an epistemological break- through in Muslim scholarship by underlining the relativity of knowl- edge. Following the controversy generated by this book, Soroush lost access to his hour-long prime-time Islamic issues broadcast on national radio and came under conservative fire in the national media. The debate remains alive in theological seminaries and universities, as well as in the print media.68 This tension between an “emergent consciousness” and a “dominant consciousness” underscores the risks inherent in new discourses. Some of the publications discussed reflect an awareness of the sense of defiance entailed by an act of intellectual expansion. Moshiri mitigates this defi- ance by acknowledging her respect for past authors while stressing the need to press on with the new. For his part, Arastehkhou situates his dic- tionary of social sciences in terms of North-South tension at one level (by identifying with Third World WriteT) and between spirituality and sci- ence at another level. Arastehkhou’s awareness that his works amount to an “act of defiance”@ is partly because of the attempt to extend the bound- 22 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 13:l aries of social sciences by including gnosis and mysticism in a new social scientific discourse. Clearly, then, the discourse flow in postrevolutionary Iran could be seen in terms of a defiance that groundbreaking works entail and a broadening of meaning they represent. Conclusion Our discussion of various postrevolutionary cultural manifestations suggests a broadening of intellectual discourse marked by a critical recla- mation of the Persian-Islamic past and a cultural osmosis with the west- ern heritage. As with the Enlightenment, Iran’s Islamic revolution has caused changes that include elements of social transformation in politi- cal institutions, in ways of producing and classifying knowledge, and in projects of knowledge rationalization.’O While critical thinking and his- torical consciousness, as generalized attributes of any society, could be seen as marking the intellectual correlates of modernity, the underpin- nings of gnosis distinguish Iranian modernity from its conceptualization in the West. In drawing upon condensations of the West’s civilizational experi- ence in the wellspring of a Persian-Islamic culture, discourses in postrevolutionary Iran reflect a broader universal appeal than in other parts of the Muslim world on the plane of literate intellectual culture. With the contours of a critical approach and historical consciousness, the new discourses suggest the onset of “gnostic modernity,” given the spir- itual underpinnings of modernity as an attitude in contemporary Iranian experience. However, unlike the western experience, the mode of pro- duction in postrevolutionary Iran remains largely unchanged, an indus- trial revolution does not appear imminent, nor does there appear to be any possibility for a colonization experience of the type that primed western modernity.” In this sense, the Iranian experience may well indicate the intellectual transition to modernity of a Muslim society without a linear traversing of the historical past of the West. Moreover, if in the western experience the onset of modemity was accompanied by an erosion of religious faith and a secularization of society and worldview, the emergence of an Iranian modernity has been mediated by religion as a spiritual force and as a self- transforming technique.” While violent change is a common denominator shared by the Iranian revolution with other revdlutionary pathways in the modem age? what marks the Iranian experience is the spiritual transfor- mation of subjectivity underlying the new discourse^.'^ In this sense, a “paradoxical” linkage between the new discourses and a degree of official repression of such activities appears to form an inner dynamic discourse irruption in postrevolutionary Iran.” The ground-swell of such discourse irruption, some manifestations of wpch have been discussed above, dis- tinguish Irania~ modemity from earIier attempts at a benign synthesis betuieen Islam and Irfani: New Discourses and Modernity 23 If, during 1978-79, the €ranian revolution reflected an ethics of resis- tance formulated largely in the context of Islamic spirituality, a broaden- ing of the intellectual discourse(s) rooted in such a spirituality in postrev- olutionary Iran may yet initiate a mutually healing dialogue between the Muslim world and the West. Endnotes 1. Such relaxation is, at best, erratic. For example, in August 1993, Abbas Abdi, edi- tor of the daily newspaper Salam and a devout Islamist, was arrested on a Tehran street on unspecified charges. The mouthpiece of the radical Association of Militant Clergy, Salom has been outspokenly critical of the government. See “Blueprint for an Islamic Press,’’ lrulex on Censorship 22, no. 10, p. 39. In January 1994, the government authorized 1,400 shops specializing in video rental and sale, an activity previously punishable by imprisonment, fine, and flogging. The News, 26 January 1994,9. 2. According to Zubaida, “the most comprehensible similarities” between Muslims of the Middle East are to be found at the level of literate intellectual culture: philosophy, mysticism, poetry, and music. This cultural realm constitutes the common universe of dis- course in which the educated elite of the various parts of the Middle East region partici- pate. However, as used here, the term also includes literature, the media, and academia. See Sami Zubaida, Islam, the People, a d the State (London: Routledge, 1988), 115. 3. See “Roedad hae Farhangi,” where Shaheen Tavassolli quotes an official of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, in Kelk 39 (August 1992): 301. See also Gholam Hossein Zakeri, ‘“Tose’ea matbu’at der lava’ea yak miage mihan’i” (The Program of the Press within a National Covenant), Adineh (Persian) 55-56 (March 1991): 24-25. 4. Hamid Naficy, “The Development of an Islamic Cinema in Iran,” Third World Affairs (1987): 447-63. 5 . Omid Rohani, “Sinamae melli va rahe ha1 hae sadey” (National Cinema and Simple Solutions), Adineh 55-56 (March 1991): 41-43. 6. See Hoshang Golmakani in Film (Persian), special Nowrooz issue (March 1991). Conservatives reject the postrevolutionary cinema and filmmakers for “‘pseud&ntellectu- alization’: . . . all our film makers have become either sociologists or psychologists, teach- ers, philosophers or mystics. None is a film maker any more. Is it possible for all the films of a nation to speak of philosophical issues?’’ See “Bar re sie doushvari ha’e Ontimale Iran” (Analysis of the Problems of the Iranian Cinema), Aineh-ye-anclishay (May 1991): 39. 7. In 1979, a fatwa by Khomeini declaring music to be “un-Islamic” led to a virtual ban on the playing of music on the national radio and television. Revolutionary anthems and Fr6dt5ric Chopin’s “Funeral March” were exempted. 8. See “Dahe yeh shast-e-mouseqi” (Music of the Sixties) (1980 of the Jualin Calendar), op cit., p. 34. 9. Prominent Iranian literary critic and editor Ali Dehbashi points out, while noting the unprecedented rise in sale of postrevolutionary fiction, the “new values, new experi- ments and the new language in Iranian fiction today.” He claims that postrevolutionary Iranian fiction is different, for it uses new categories and forms to convey contemporary Iranian experience born of the revolution. BBC Persian Service, interview with Ali Deh- bashi, 4 December 1992. 10. Reza Barahani, “Post Revolution lrartian Fiction” (Lecture at the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford, 19 February 1992). For an official view on the phenome nal transformation in literature and the arts since the revolution, see Kayhun Furhangi 85 (June 1992), special edition on ‘“Thought, Art, and Literature of the Revolution.” This rosy picture of the cultural scene has its detractors, both in and out of the govem- ment: Engineer Aminzadah, a deputy minister of culture and Islamic guidance, conFiders the number of periodicals being published currently unsatisfactory. His criterion for compari- son is that over one thousand periodicals began publishing right after the Islamic revolution. See “Khabere Junoog” (News of the South), Shaz (13 May 1992): 1. An article in the radi- 24 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 13: 1 cal daily Salam criticizes Iranian publishers for lacking the “agony of the intellectual quest” and succumbing to commercial interests, which is responsible for the “poor quality of pub- lications in Iran today.” See “Negahe Koli bay vazeiat ketab der Iran-2” (An Overall View on the Situation of Books in Iran, Part 2,” S a h . Tehran (24 May 1992): 5. Increased eco- nomic pressure following the removal of government subsidies appears to be affecting adversely the publications boom. See special report on books, their sale, and readership (Ketab darim, Ketab Khan nadarim? Ya ketab Khan darim va ketab naradim?”) Gardoon, nos. 23-24 (May 1993): 14-27. 11. See Faraj Sarkuhi, “Bay ser amadane hounar” (Art’s Coming of Age), Adineh 12. Abbas Mar’ufi (editorial), Gar&on 23-24 (May 1993): 4-5. 13. Abbas Amanat, “The Study of History in Post-revolutionary Iran: Nostalgia, Illusion, or Historical Awareness?,” Iranian Studies 22, no. 4 (1989): 3-18. Amanat’s explanation for this turn to primary sources is that, in the past, because “polemics had replaced balanced historical research, the distrustful readers had to go behind the rhetoric and explore something of the reality for themselves” (p. 8). (March 1991): 33-34. 14. Ibid., 6. 15. Tchangez Pahlevan, ”Negahi gozara bay Khaterat nevisi der Iran,” Zamineay hnnshenasi (An Anthology of Iranian Studies), compiled and edited by Tchangez Pahlevan (Tehran: Ekhnar Publications, 1991). 12. 16. Ibid. 17. Abbas Millani, ‘“Tehran va Tajadudd (Iran and Modernity), Iran Names 9, no. 3 18. Steven Best and Douglas Kellner. “Foucault and the Critique of Modernity.” in 19. Millani, “Tehran va Tajadudd.” 20. See Michel Foucault, “What is Enlightenment?,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul 21. Ibid. 22. See Stuart Hall and Bram Geibin, eds., Foimution.~ ofMr&rnity (Cambridge, UK: 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid. 25. M. Cousins and A. Hussain, Michei Foucauit (London: Macmillan, 1984), 84-85. 26. Hall and Geibin, Formations, 293. 27. Ibid., 293. 28. Zachary Sayre Schiffman, On the Threshoil qf Modernity: Relativism in the French Renaissance (London: John Hopkins, 1991), 8. 29. Esmail Ashuri, comp. and trans., Farhange Estelahate Joghraphiae (Dic- tionary of Geographical Terms) (Tehran: Cultural Section of the Central Office of Uni- versity Crusade, 1985). Preface by the Geographical Committee of University Crusade, (Summer 1991): 441. Poshrwdern Theory: Critical Interrogations (London: Macmillan, 1992). 53. Rabinow (London: Penguin. 1985). 39-41. Polity Press, 1992), 291. p. 1. 30. Ibid. 31. Mashid Moshiri, Farhang-i-&ban-i-Farsi (Persian Dictionary: Alphabetical Analogical) (Tehran: Soroush Publications, 1991). The author had earlier published the innovative Persian Phonetic4rthographic Dictionary (Tehran: Kitab Sara Press, 1987). 32. Ibid.. p. 7. 33. Abol Qassem Radfar, Farhang-e-Ballaghi A&&, 2 vols. (Literary Dictionary of Rhetoric and Eloquence) (Tehran: Ettelaat Publications, 1989), 7-8. For a compilation of lit- erary terns, see Rezvan Shariat, Dafar-e-estahhat-e-Adubi (Tehran: Heemand Press, 1992). 34. Farhang-e-Amid (Amid Dictionary) (Tehran: Amir Kabir Publications, 1986). According to the publishers, a “complete list of historical and geographical names” is forth- coming in a separate volume. See publisher’s note on p. 1225. 35. Mehdi N o m z i . Farhang-e-hghat va Estalahat-e-Siasi (A Dictionary of Poli- tical Terms) (Tehran: Ney Publishing House, 1991). 1. Irfani: New Discourses and Modernity 25 36. Mohammad Arastekhou, Naqd-o-Naqaresh bar Farhang-e-Estellahat-e-Elm& Ejtemai (Observations et critique sur quelques aspects des notions scientifique-sociales) (Tehrm: Gosteresh Publications, 1990), 31-33. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. As a spiritual quest beginning with refining of the psyche (nafs) and self-forma- tion as a life task, gnosis (‘irfin) is characterized by its emphasis on an experiential knowl- edge of the divine. It entails a constructive struggle against all obstacles to spiritual devel- opment, including social, economic, and political. See Arastekhou, Naqd-o-Naqaresh, 40. Farhang bghat va Mafahim Doktar Ali Shariati (Dictionary of Words and Terms in the Works of Dr. Ali Shariati) (Tehran: Qelam, 1992). An earlier version of this edition was published in 1984. 253-54. 41. Ibid. 42. Syed Mehdi Fahimi, The Battle Front‘s Cultural Lexicon: Phrases (13 vols.); The Battle Front’s Cultural Lexicon: Ethics and Munners; The Battle Front’s Cultural Lexicon: Humorous Remarks (2 vols.); The Battle Front‘s Culture Lexicon: Leisure Time; The Battle Front’s Cultural Lexicon: Signhoartlv and Inscriptions (2 vols.). (Tehran: Islamic Publicity Organization, 1990). Also by the same author are The Buttle Front’s Culture: Placards, Culture ofthe War Front: Phrases (Tehran: Islamic Publicity Organization, 1989). 43. Bahman Keshavarz, Farhang-e-Huqwqi: englesi bay farsi (English-Persian Law Dictionary: Legal, Political, and Essential Economic Terms) (Tehran: Amir Kabir Publica- tions, 1991). 44. Juan Cartenberg, Furhang-e-Film Negari (Glossary of Filmographic Terms) (Tehran: Ministry of Islamic Guidance, 1987). Translated by Bahram Raipur and Abul Hassan Alavi Tabataei. 45. M. Mehrabi, Ketab Shenasi Cinema Der Iran (Bibliography of Cinema in Iran) (Tehran: Cerandeesh Publishers, 1988). 46. Mansoor Rastager Fasai, Furhang-e-namhae-Shahnumeh (Dictionary of Names in the Shahnameh) (Tehran: Mousase Motale’at va Tahqiqat-e, Farhangi [Institute of Cultural Studies and Research, Ministry of Education and Culture]. 1990), 2 vols. 47. Ali Jehangeri, Farhung-e-Namhae Shahnumeh: harmah ha Tutbiq-e-namha-e- Shahnameh vu Avesfa (Dictionary of Shahnameh: With a Comparative Study of the Names in Shahnameh and Avesta) (Tehran: Barq Publishers, 1990). 48. Mohammad Jafar Yahaqi, Farhang Esutir vu Esharut Dastuni &r Adabiyate Fursi (Dictionary of Mythology and Symbolic Stories in Persian Literature) (Tehran: Sourosh Publishers and Institute for Cultural Studies and Research, 1990). 49. Abdul R&I Heqiqat R ~ I . Farhang-e-Sha’erun-e-&ban-Fursi (Dictionary of Persian Poets) (Tehran: Sharkate mo’alefin va motarjamane Iran [Iranian Writers and Translators Publishing Company], 1989). 50. Ahmad Golchin Ma’ani, Karevun Hind (The Caravan of India: Life and Works of the Poets of the Safavid Era who Emigrated to India) (Mashhad: Astan-e-Qod.s Razabi Publications, 1990). 2 vols. 51. Mahmood Ruhani, Farhang-e-Amari-e-Kalmat-e-Qorun (Statistical Dictionary of the Word.. in the Holy Qur’an) (Tehran: 1990). 52. Mohammad Javeen Sabaghian, comp., Farhang-e-Tarjame va Qeseha-e-Quran (Dictionary of the Translation and the Stories of the Holy Qur’an). Based on the commen- tary of Abu Bakr Ateeq Nishaburi (Mashhad: Astan-e-Qods Razabi Publications, 1989). 53. B. Khorranshahi, ed., Farhang-e-Estlahat Uloom va Tamadun-e-Elsumi (A Glos- sary of Islamic Technical Terms), Persian-English (Mashhad Islamic Research Foundation, Astane-Quds Razabi, 1991), 6. 54. Tehran Studies Research Group, Nasser Takmil Homayoun. A Bibliography of Tehran (Tehran: Cultural Studies and Research Group, 1990). 1. 55. Ibid. 56. Cultural interpenetration features as a theme in some of the highly acclaimed works of fiction in postrevolutionary Iran, e.g., in merging a Beethoven symphony with tra- 26 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 13:l ditional Iranian music in a leisurely Tehran neighborhood, as in “Shahmush Parsiopur, Tooba va ma’ani Shab” (Tooba and the Meaning of Night) (Tehran: Espark Publishers, 1988), or in the emotional labyrinths of a Christ-like Muslim carpenter, the intensity of whose love for his Armenian wife blurs the boundaries between her internalized images and the reality of her absence. See Abbas Mar’ufi, Samfoni-e-Mordegan (Symphony of the Dead) (Tehran: Gardoon Publishers, 1989). For an academic analysis of the debate on cul- tural synthesis in Iran, see Abdul Karim Soroush, “Sae Farhang” (Three Cultures) in Aineh- ye-aindishay 3450-59. 57. Radio Iran, “Der Entehai shab” (Late Night Literary Program), 12 August 1992. 58. Ibid., 17 October 1992. 59. Monir Gorji, “A Study on the Life and Status of the Virgin Mary: The Chosen Woman,” Farzaneh: Journal of Women’s Studies and Research 1, nos. 2-3 (1994): 67-80. 60. A measure of this complexity is reflected in the continued imposition of an offi- cial ban on the violin, a “western influence,” despite the formal rehabilitation of the Tehran symphony orchestra. See Mahmood Mirzazadeh’s interview with prominent Iranian violinist Assodallah Malek, “Zabene Mouseqi Kame1 Tarin Zabanha” (Language of Music, the Most Complete of Languages), Adabestan 4, no. 5 (May 1993): 49-50. 61. Described as “the most Iranian of Iran’s film makers” Behram Bezai, the film’s director, is a much venerated artist. Bashu’s exceptional premiere on national television was underscored by the fact that Bezai’s films were banned in Iran for some years after the revolution. See Majmue maqalt der naqd va marafi ye asare, Behram Bezai (A Collection of Critical Reviews and Articles about the Work of Behram Bezai), edited by Zawan Kokasian (Tehran: Agah Publishers, 1992), 9. 62. Ibid., 471. 63. Radio Iran, 15 May 1993. 64. Radio Iran, “Der entehai shab,” 21 December 1992. 65. Ibid. 66. Mohammed Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. First pub- lished by Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1930 and as a revised edition by Lahore: Institute of Islamic Culture, 1986. 67. Abdul Karim Soroush, Qabz-0-Baste Shariat (Contraction and Dilation of the Shari’ah), 2d ed. (Tehran: Serat Publishers, 1992). 68. See, for example, Sadiq Larijani, Marefat-e-Deni (Religious Knowledge) (Tehran: Markaze Terjome va Nashre Ketab, 1991). 69. Arastekhou uses the term kar-e-gostakhaneh for his defiance as a “tayk.” See Arastekhou, Naqd-o-Naqaresh, 16. For new discourses as an act of defiance, see Michel Foucault, “What is an Author?,” in Modern Criticism and Theory, ed. David Lodge (Lon- don: Longman, 1988), 209. 70. This follows a view of the Enlightenment a5 an event. However, what lay at “the basis of an entire form of philosophical reflection characterized by the Enlightenment” concerned “the mode of a reflective relation to the present.” See Michel Foucault in The Foucault Reader, 44. 71. The colonization experience seems to have been central in the diffusion of an instrumental analytical approach in the West, given the powerful motivational basis of markets and capital in shaping manipulative strategies for control and domination of the colonized. See Richard Falk, “Culture, Modernism and Postmodemism: A Challenge to International Relations,” in Culture and International Relations, ed. Jongsuk Clay (New York: Pmeger, 1990), 268-77. 72. This view of the Iranian revolution reinforces Maurice Furret’s reinterpretation of the French revolution. Furret separates the structural ensemble of economic and social process of transformation from the revolution, arguing that these transformation had taken place long before 1789. See Georg Stauth, “Revolution in Spiritless Times: An Essay on Michel Foucault’s Enquiries into the Iranian Revolution,” International Sociology 6, no. 3 A factor in the diffusion of intellectual modernity in Iran was the urban guemlla move- ment against the Pahlavi regime. Waged between 1%3-78, armed struggle became a poli- (1991):259-80. Irfani: New Discourses and Modernity 27 tics of ethics blending critical thinking and heroic action. For an example of the intellectual crisis that the guemlla experience entailed, see a letter to Ayatollah Taleqani by his son in Arvand Abrahiman, ‘The Guemlla Movement in Iran: 1%3-1977,” MERIP 10,3 (March- April 1979). 73. Moore approaches the transition from preindustrial to the modem world in terms of the three routes of capitalism, fascism, and communism. The common denominator of each route is the violent change that marked the transition. He gives the example of the French revolution, the American civil war (which he considers to be a revolution), and the Bolshevik revolution. See Bamngton Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship a d Democracy (London: Penguin, 1991). 74. For a view of the Iranian revolution entailing a spiritual “transformation of sub jectivity of the people,” see Michel Foucault, “Iran: The Spirit of a World without Spirit,” in Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy, Culture, Interviews, and Other Writings, ed. Lawrence D. Kritzman (London: Routledge, 1988), 21 1. 75. This follows an argument in which discourse formation is viewed as part of the process for the control of discourse “as irruption, as an unpredictable event,” a control effected within the discourse itself by “classifying, ordering (and) distributing” the prome tion of knowledge. See Alan Sheridan, Michel Foucault: The Will to Truth (London: Rout- ledge, 1984), 124. 76. See ‘AbdulHamid AbilSulayman, editorial, American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 1 I , no. 4 (Winter 1994).