Javad Tabatabai

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Javad Tabatabai

Seyyed Javad Tabatabai (Persian: سید جواد طباطبایی; born 14 December 1945 in Tabriz, Iran) is an Iranian philosopher and political scientist. He was Professor and Vice Dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Tehran.

Biography[edit]

Tabatabai, an Iranian Azeri,[1] was born in 14 December 1945 in Tabriz, Iran. His father was a merchant in Bazaar of Tabriz.[2] After pursuing studies in theology, law and philosophy in Tabriz and Tehran, he earned his PhD in political philosophy from the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, with a dissertation on Hegel's political philosophy.[3]

After coming to Iran, he was professor and deputy dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Tehran. In the 1990s, he was dismissed from his post as professor and deputy dean of the law school for criticizing the ideology of the Iranian government.[4]

Then, he continued his research, in other countries such as France, England, Germany and the United States: he has been a guest fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, as well as at the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs at Syracuse University. Tabatabai has published around twenty books on the history of political ideas in Europe and Iran. On 14 July 1995, in France, he was decorated as a Knight of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques.[5]

Views[edit]

Tabatabai, a leading theorist and historian of political thought in Iran, has presented a controversial theory regarding the causes of the decline of political thought and society in Iran over the last few centuries. His ideas on Iranian decline have affected the intellectual debates on modernity and democracy currently underway in Iran. Tabatabai's career-long research has revolved around this question: “What conditions made modernity possible in Europe and led to its abnegation in Iran?” He answers this question by adopting a “Hegelian approach” that privileges a philosophical reading of history on the assumption that philosophical thought is the foundation and essence of any political community and the basis for any critical analysis of it as well.[6] In 2001, in an interview with Libération, he says that political and ideological Islam is already dead, because they have no plans for modernity.[7]

Tabatabai rejects anti-Iranian irredentism and has warned about the perils facing Iran from the provocations of pan-Turkism.[1] Tabatabai defends Persian as Iran's national language and argues that the histories of Turkey and the Republic of Azerbaijan are ridden with forgeries and fabrications.[1] During one of his lectures in Tabriz, he emphasized that the history of the "Baku Republic" (i.e. the Republic of Azerbaijan) is central to the history of Iran.[1]

Awards[edit]

Books[edit]

  • Introduction to the History of Political Thought in Iran
  • Decline of Political Thought in Iran
  • Essay on Ibn Khaldun: Impossibility of Social Sciences in Islam
  • Nizam al-Mulk and Iranian Political Thought: Essay on the Continuity of the Iranian Thought
  • On Iran: An Introduction to the Theory of Decline of Iran
  • On Iran: Tabriz School and Basis of Modernity
  • On Iran: The Theory of Constitutionalism in Iran

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d Ahmadi, Hamid (2017). "The Clash of Nationalisms: Iranian response to Baku's irredentism". In Kamrava, Mehran (ed.). The Great Game in West Asia: Iran, Turkey and the South Caucasus. Oxford University Press. p. 123. ISBN 978-0190869663.
  2. ^ "مرکز دائرةالمعارف بزرگ اسلامی". www.cgie.org.ir (in Persian). Retrieved 2021-06-09.
  3. ^ Fariba Taghavi, Secular Apparition: The Resurgence of Liberal-democratic Intellectual .., ProQuest 2007, p.164-
  4. ^ Refugees, United Nations High Commissioner for. "Refworld: Human Rights Watch World Report 1996 - Iran". Refworld. Retrieved 2021-06-09.
  5. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-11-05. Retrieved 2013-09-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. ^ Boroujerdi, M., & Shomali (A. 2015). "The Unfolding of Unreason: Javad Tabatabai's Idea of Political Decline in Iran". Iranian Studies. 48 (6): 949–965. doi:10.1080/00210862.2014.926661. S2CID 145769588. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ "Javad Tabatabai : L'islam politique est voué à l'échec". Libération.fr (in French). 2001-10-27. Retrieved 2019-09-13.
  8. ^ "سید جواد طباطبایی رتبه نخست را به‌دست آورد".

External links[edit]

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