Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of the book. The book offers diverse overviews of nationalism in Iran. Nationalism in its many forms has proven to be the most potent and popular ideology of modernity, and in many ways the surrogate religion of modernity. The scholarship on nationalism, which seemed to decline after World War II, rebounded and bloomed since the 1980s. The study of Middle Eastern nationalisms, however, lagged behind this trend.10 The failure of pan-Arabism and the rise of Islam as a political ideology and movement contributed to this gap, as nationalism appeared to be out of tune with the changing regional realities. A major issue, alongside the Iraniyat-Islamiyat conflict, has been the tension between Iran's ethnic diversity and the homogenizing tendencies of nationalism, which has focused on the centrality of the Persian language and history.