Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-p566r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T10:07:18.529Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Religious Modernism in Pre-University Schools: The Case of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Hamid Karamipour*
Affiliation:
University of Tehran, Iran
Matthew Shannon*
Affiliation:
Henry College in Emory, VA,USA

Abstract

The advent of “modern” education in Iran and its acceptance by political and cultural elites dates to the Qajar era. But the elitist nature of state reforms prevented modern education from spreading throughout society until the Pahlavi era. Especially during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, modern education reached most segments of the population, including religious families from the middle classes. This research is based on Persian-language documents and informed by the English-language historiography. The article finds that the Islamic Education Society (Jāmeʿeh-ye taʿlimat-e eslāmi) propagated religious modernism through a national network of private schools beginning in the 1940s. In the 1950s and 1960s private cultural foundations used the Islamic Education Society’s model to establish the Alavi, Kamāl, and Refāh schools in Tehran. The network that supported them was a reflection of the revolutionary movement and a vehicle for its organization by the 1970s.

Type
Varia
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abrahamian, Ervand. The Iranian Mojahedin. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Adelkhah, Fariba, Being Modern in Iran. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Afrāz, Behjat. Khāterāt-e khānum Behjat Afrāz [Memoirs of Mrs. Behjat Afrāz]. Edited by Hakimeh, Amiri.Tehran: Markaz-e asnād-e enqelāb-e eslāmi, 1378/1999.Google Scholar
Aghaie, Kamran Scot. The Martyrs of Karbala: Shi‘i Symbols and Rituals in Modern Iran. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Akbar, Ali.Islam–Science Relation from the Perspective of Post-Revolutionary Iranian Religious Intellectuals.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 46, no. 1 (2017): 119.Google Scholar
Akhavi, Shahrough. Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran: Clergy–State Relations in the Pahlavi Period. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Algar, Hamid, ed. and trans. Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini. Berkeley: Mizan, 1981.Google Scholar
Arjomand, Said Amir. The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Ashraf, Ahmad, and Banuazizi, Ali. “The State, Classes and Modes of Mobilization in the Iranian Revolution.” State, Culture, and Society 1, no. 3 (1985): 340.Google Scholar
Barzin, Saeed.Constitutionalism and Democracy in the Religious Ideology of Mehdi Bazargan.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 21, no. 1 (1994): 85101. doi: 10.1080/13530199408705593CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayani, Bahram.Mohammad-Ali Mojtahedi: His Life and Work.” Iranian Studies 44, no. 5 (2011): 755765. doi: 10.1080/00210862.2011.570484CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birask, Ahmad.Education xi: Private Schools and Educational Groups.” Encyclopaedia Iranica. https://iranicaonline.org/articles/education-xi-private-schools-and-educational-groupsGoogle Scholar
Boroujerdi, Mehrzad. Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Chehabi, Houchang. Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran Under the Shah and Khomeini. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Chehabi, Houchang.Diversity at Alborz.” Iranian Studies 44, no. 5 (2011): 715729. doi: 10.1080/00210862.2011.570479CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Ronen. The Hojjatiyeh Society in Iran: Ideology and Practice from the 1950s to the Present. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dabashi, Hamid. Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2006.Google Scholar
DuBois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Dover, 1994.Google Scholar
Fischer, Michael. Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Gheissari, Ali. Iranian Intellectuals in the 20th Century. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Habibi, Rana, and De Meulder, Bruno. “Architects and ‘Architecture without Architects’: Modernization of Iranian Housing and the Birth of a New Urban Form Narmak (Tehran, 1952).” Cities 45 (2015): 2940. doi: 10.1016/j.cities.2015.03.005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harnwell, Gaylord. Educational Voyaging in Iran. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1962.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Kevan. A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hashemi-Najafabadi, Adel.The Shi’i Concept of Imamate and Leadership in Contemporary Iran: the Case of Religious Modernists.” Studies in Religion 40, no. 4 (2011): 479496. doi: 10.1177/0008429811420408CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jahanbakhsh, Forough. Islam, Democracy and Religious Modernism in Iran, 1953–2000: From Bazargan to Soroush. Leiden: Brill, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalb, Zep.Neither Dowlati nor Khosusi: Islam, Education and Civil Society in Contemporary Iran.” Iranian Studies 50, no. 4 (2017): 575600. doi: 10.1080/00210862.2017.1295345CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamali, Masoud.Multiple Modernities and Islamism in Iran.” Social Compass 54, no. 3 (2007): 373387. doi: 10.1177/0037768607080833CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamaly, Hossein. God and Man in Tehran: Contending Visions of the Divine from the Qajars to the Islamic Republic. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karamipour, Hamid, ed. Jāmeʿeh-ye taʿlimat-e eslāmi: Ayatollāh Abbās-Ali Eslāmi va naqsh-e ʿishān dar enqelāb-e eslāmi [Islamic Education Society: Ayatollāh Abbās-Ali Eslāmi and his role in the Islamic revolution]. Tehran: Markaz-e asnād-e enqelāb-e eslāmi, 1380/2001.Google Scholar
Karamipour, Hamid, ed. Kārnāmeh-ye siāsi va farhangi-ye dabirestānhā-ye Kamāl-e Narmak, Refāh, Alavi [The political and cultural report card of Kamāl-Narmak, Refāh, and Alavi high schools]. Tehran: Markaz-e asnād-e enqelāb-e eslāmi, 1389/2010.Google Scholar
Katouzian, Homa.Alborz and Its Teachers.” Iranian Studies 44, no. 5 (2011): 743754. doi: 10.1080/00210862.2011.570483CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keshavarzian, Arang. Bazaar and State in Iran: The Politics of the Tehran Marketplace. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khosrokhavar, Farhad, and Ghaneirad, Mohammad Amin. “Iranian Women’s Participation in the Academic World.” Iranian Studies 43, no. 2 (2010): 223238. doi: 10.1080/00210860903542093CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurzman, Charles. Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Kurzman, Charles. The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Marashi, Afshin. Nationalizing Iran: Culture, Power, and the State, 1870–1940. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Martin, Vanessa. Creating an Islamic State: Khomeini and the Making of a New Iran. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2003.Google Scholar
Matin-Asgari, Afshin. Iranian Student Opposition to the Shah. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2002.Google Scholar
Mehran, Golnar.The Paradox of Tradition and Modernity in Female Education in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Comparative Education Review 47, no. 3 (2003): 269286. doi: 10.1086/378248CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menashri, David. Education and the Making of Modern Iran. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Milani, Abbas. The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution. Washington, DC: Mage, 2004.Google Scholar
Milani, Abbas. Eminent Persians: The Men and Women Who Made Modern Iran, 1941–1979. 2 vols. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Mirgholami, Morteza, and Sintusingha, Sidh. “From Traditional Mahallehs to Modern Neighborhoods: The Case of Narmak, Tehran.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 32, no. 1 (2012): 214237. doi: 10.1215/1089201X-1545472CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mirhadi, Turan.Education viii: Nursery Schools and Kindergartens.” Encyclopaedia Iranica . http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/education-viii-nursery-schools-and-kindergartensGoogle Scholar
Mirsepassi, Ali. Democracy in Modern Iran: Islam, Culture, and Political Change. New York: New York University Press, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moin, Baqer. Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah. New York: I.B. Tauris, 1999.Google Scholar
Moosavi, Sadroddin, trans. The Islamic Revolution of Iran: A Sociological Study, Volume 1. Tehran: Alhoda International Publishers, 2001.Google Scholar
Mottahedeh, Roy. The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran. Oxford: Oneworld, 2004.Google Scholar
Namazi, Rasoul.Ayatollah Khomeini: From Islamic Government to Sovereign State.” Iranian Studies 52, nos. 1–2 (2019): 111131. doi: 10.1080/00210862.2018.1551054CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nassehi, Ramin.Domesticating Cold War Economic Ideas: The Rise of Iranian Developmentalism in the 1950s and 1960s.” In The Age of Aryamehr: Late Pahlavi Iran and its Global Entanglements, ed. Alvandi, Roham, 3569. London: Gingko, 2018.Google Scholar
Pahlavi, Mohammad Reza. Answer to History . Trans. Joseph, Michael. New York: Stein and Day, 1980.Google Scholar
Parsa, Misagh. Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Rahnema, Ali. An Islamic Utopian: A Political Biography of Ali Shari’ati. New York: I.B. Tauris, 1998.Google Scholar
Rajaee, Farhang. Islamism and Modernism: The Changing Discourse in Iran. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ringer, Monica. Education, Religion, and the Discourse of Cultural Reform in Qajar Iran. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2001.Google Scholar
Rizvi, Kishwar. The Transnational Mosque: Architecture and Historical Memory in the Contemporary Middle East. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sabahi, Farian. The Literacy Corps in Pahlavi Iran (1963–1979): Political, Social and Literary Implications. Lugano: Editrice Sapiens, 2002.Google Scholar
Sabahi, Farian.Gender and the Army of Knowledge in Pahlavi Iran, 1968–1979.” In Women, Religion and Culture in Iran, ed. Ansari, Sarah and Martin, Venessa, 99126. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2002.Google Scholar
Sajjādi (Qayurān), Tāhereh. Khorshidvāre: Khāterāt-e Tāhereh Sajjādi (Qayurān) [Like the Sun: Memoirs of Tāhereh Sajjādi (Qayurān)]. Tehran: Markaz-e asnād-e enqelāb-e eslāmi, 1383/2004.Google Scholar
Setam-Setizān: Ayatollāh Javād Fumani Hāʾeri beh revāyat-e asnād-e SAVAK [Oppression fighters: The life story of Ayatollāh Javād Fumani Hāʾeri based on SAVAK documents]. Vol. 1. Tehran: Markaz-e barresi-ye asnād-e tārikhi-ye vezārat-e ettelāʿāt, 1377/1998.Google Scholar
Sheikhzadegan, Amir.The Trajectory of the 1953 Military Coup and the Course of Liberal Islam in Iran: A Sociological Analysis.” In Beyond the Islamic Revolution: Perceptions of Modernity and Tradition in Iran Before and After 1979, ed. Sheikhzadegan, Amir and Meier, Astrid, 3159. Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shokat, Hamid. Flight into Darkness: A Political Biography of Shapour Bakhtiar. Bethesda, MD: Ibex, 2019.Google Scholar
Sohrabi, Naghmeh.Where the Small Things Are: Thoughts on Writing Revolutions and their Histories.” Jadaliyya, May 21, 2020. https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/41154Google Scholar
Steele, Robert.The Pahlavi National Library Project: Education and Modernization in Late Pahlavi Iran.” Iranian Studies 51, nos. 1–2 (2019): 85110. doi: 10.1080/00210862.2018.1557512CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taghavi, Seyed Mohammad Ali. The Flourishing of Islamic Reformism in Iran: Political Islamic Groups in Iran (1941–1961). New York: Routledge, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vahdat, Farzin.Alborz High School and the Process of Rationalization in Iran.” Iranian Studies 44, no. 5 (2011): 431441. doi: 10.1080/00210862.2011.570482CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vejdani, Farzin. Making History in Iran: Education, Nationalism, and Print Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Yārān-e imām beh revāyat-e asnād-e SAVAK [Imam’s friends based on SAVAK documents]. Markaz-e barresi-ye asnād-e tārikhi-ye vezārat-e ettelāʿāt. Vol. 3, Mohammad-Hossein Beheshti, 1377/1998. Vol. 14, Mohammad-Ali Rajāʾi, 1378/1999. Vol. 15, Mohammad-Javād Bāhonar, 1379/2000.Google Scholar
Zarrinnal, Navid.The Origins of Dabestān: Mīrzā Hasan Rushdīyeh and the Quest for New Education.” Iranian Studies (2020). https://doi.org/10.1080/00210862.2020.1744429Google Scholar