Race, Religion, Language: Three Conceptualization of Collective Identity in Iran
Abstract
Based on literary evidence, this essay surveys the emergence and transformations of the concept of ethnic identity in Iranian culture since the advent of Islam. It focuses on three originary moments in the process of group identity formation, and argues that, once more in the last decades of the twentieth century, that concept is being rethought.
The first historical moment occurred in the Iranian plateau during the
early centuries of the Islamic era. Following the Sho'ubiyyeh movement,
Iranians reconstructed their sense of ethnic belonging with an appeal to the Persian language, the primary distinction between them and their Arab overlords. The text that both reflects and fosters that conceptualization is the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, a work in which two concepts of ethnic identity--a racial one
belonging to the kings and heroes of ancient Iran, and a linguistic one proposed and promoted by the poet himself--are juxtaposed and contrasted. The linguistic identity eventually goes beyond defining the Ajam in contradistinction from the Arab, and helps transform Islam into a transnational belief system capable of accommodating plurality and propagating interethnic tolerance.
A second conceptualization of collective identity begins with the official
adoption of Shi'ism as the national religion of Iran in the sixteenth century. Faced with Sunni Turks of Central Asia and of the Ottoman empire as an ascending "other," the Safavids forge and foster a religion-based concept of collective identity which integrates and/or subordinates language and race in a new and primarily religious system of conceptualizing its distinctness. While solidifying the basis of the Safavid state, this new identity separates Iranians from other speakers of Persian in India, in Afghanistan, and in Central Asia. This sense of ethnic identity is most evident in the texts of the ta'zieh and the popular tales woven around the stories of the Shahnameh or in imitation of its epic style.
Finally, with the penetration of the European idea of the nation-state into
the Persian-speaking world, a modem way of conceptualizing collective identity emerges in Iran. Patriotic nationalism, replacing the earlier systems of conceptualizing collective identity, is essentially an amalgam of discordant elements in a precarious balance. As a part of its discourse, this new system tries to appropriate the cultural and literary heritage of all the speakers of Persian, including the Persian language itself, in the name of the modem country of Iran. The text that best illustrates this effort is Jamalzadeh's famous short story, "Persian is Sweet."
The essay argues at its close that in the aftermath of the dissolution of
the Soviet empire, new efforts at identity formation appear to be underway,
efforts which may well give rise to a new ascendance of the language component in the concept of ethnic identity among Iranians, Afghans and Tajiks.
The first historical moment occurred in the Iranian plateau during the
early centuries of the Islamic era. Following the Sho'ubiyyeh movement,
Iranians reconstructed their sense of ethnic belonging with an appeal to the Persian language, the primary distinction between them and their Arab overlords. The text that both reflects and fosters that conceptualization is the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, a work in which two concepts of ethnic identity--a racial one
belonging to the kings and heroes of ancient Iran, and a linguistic one proposed and promoted by the poet himself--are juxtaposed and contrasted. The linguistic identity eventually goes beyond defining the Ajam in contradistinction from the Arab, and helps transform Islam into a transnational belief system capable of accommodating plurality and propagating interethnic tolerance.
A second conceptualization of collective identity begins with the official
adoption of Shi'ism as the national religion of Iran in the sixteenth century. Faced with Sunni Turks of Central Asia and of the Ottoman empire as an ascending "other," the Safavids forge and foster a religion-based concept of collective identity which integrates and/or subordinates language and race in a new and primarily religious system of conceptualizing its distinctness. While solidifying the basis of the Safavid state, this new identity separates Iranians from other speakers of Persian in India, in Afghanistan, and in Central Asia. This sense of ethnic identity is most evident in the texts of the ta'zieh and the popular tales woven around the stories of the Shahnameh or in imitation of its epic style.
Finally, with the penetration of the European idea of the nation-state into
the Persian-speaking world, a modem way of conceptualizing collective identity emerges in Iran. Patriotic nationalism, replacing the earlier systems of conceptualizing collective identity, is essentially an amalgam of discordant elements in a precarious balance. As a part of its discourse, this new system tries to appropriate the cultural and literary heritage of all the speakers of Persian, including the Persian language itself, in the name of the modem country of Iran. The text that best illustrates this effort is Jamalzadeh's famous short story, "Persian is Sweet."
The essay argues at its close that in the aftermath of the dissolution of
the Soviet empire, new efforts at identity formation appear to be underway,
efforts which may well give rise to a new ascendance of the language component in the concept of ethnic identity among Iranians, Afghans and Tajiks.
