ABSTRACT
Sayyid Qutb's contention that the Islamic world is in a modern Age of Unbelief, a new Jahiliyah, is echoed in Muslim reformers' scorn for mass culture. The pages of Muslim reformist magazines and newspapers are filled with condemnations of those who would follow the paths of Western decadence by aping the styles, attitudes and even language with which they are bombarded by the mass media. The targets of attack in the early days of the revolution were the sites of Western —influenced culture: cinemas, bars, clubs, and liquor outlets. Mass culture is a phenomenon whose roots lie in the ideological and economic formations of the twentieth — century West. Shariati's argument that corrupt Pahlavi 'ulama were at the heart of the need to reform Iranian Shi'ism points to the degree to which even religious leaders were seen as corrupting agents of the West, never mind the Pahlavis themselves and their Westernised elite.
