AKHUNDZADE,MIZRA,FATH,ALI AND THE CALL FOR MODERNIZATION OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD

In sharp contrast to west European societies, where modern nationalism emerged as the ideological expression of an internal process of natio n formation, in the Muslim states of the Middle East nationalism devel oped as a response to an external threat posed by the military and eco nomic ascendancy of European powers. In Iran, decades before the moder n nation-state came into existence, a new group of intellectuals artic ulated nationalistic ideas. These intellectuals viewed the modernizati on of their society as the principal means through which the independe nce of their country could be preserved against the European onslaught . Having witnessed the ruling Qajar monarchy's failure to offer an eff ective response to the growing military, political and economic threat posed by Russia and Great Britain and humiliated by the social and ec onomic backwardness of their country, beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, a small group of Iranian intellectuals began t o question the utility of traditional Islamic values and customs. They called for the adoption of European ideas and institutions as the onl y means to create a strong and independent Iranian state. The loss of confidence in traditional Islamic values and institutions, along with the call for modernization of the state structure signalled the beginn ing of an ideological crisis expressed in the growing alienation of th e Iranian intellectuals from Islam and the Qajar state. Nowhere can th is intellectual alienation be more clearly seen than in the case of Mi rza Fath Ali Akhundzade (1812-78), one of the first intellectual precu rsors of Iranian nationalism who in his writings waged a relentless an d merciless attack both on Iran's autocratic political structure and t raditional Islamic values and beliefs. His poetry and plays as well as his philosophical and political writings reflected the first genuine attempt by a Muslim intellectual to articulate a systematic critique o f Islamic culture and political traditions.