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Taqi Erāni, Bizhan Jazani, and a Marxian Framework for the Critique of Religion in Twentieth Century Iranian Political Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Siavash Saffari
Siavash Saffari*
Affiliation:
Seoul National University
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Abstract

This article examines the development of a Marxian frame for the critique of religion in twentieth century Iranian political thought by Taqi Erāni and Bizhan Jazani. It argues that, following Marx, Erāni and Jazani understand religion to be a superstructural relic from an earlier stage of human development which will gradually and inevitably withdraw from collective human life as a consequence of the material dialectics of history. It further shows that Erāni and Jazani consider religion to be instrumental in sustaining relations of oppression, and they view with skepticism attempts to reform religion or to use religious faith as an instrument for mass mobilization in revolutionary struggles.

Keywords

IranIslamReligionClergyMarxismSocialismDialectical MaterialismSecularismSecularizationModernization
Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 5-6 , December 2021 , pp. 859 - 877
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Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2021

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Footnotes

He is the author of Beyond Shariati: Modernity, Cosmopolitanism and Islam in Iranian Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

This article was completed during my sabbatical semester in 2019. I am grateful to Seoul National University for providing and funding my sabbatical leave, and to my hosts at the University of Alberta for their generous hospitality. I am also indebted to the two anonymous reviewers of Iranian Studies for their judicious comments and helpful advice. Any remaining errors and shortcomings are, of course, mine alone.

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