Nation-State Fault across the history of Iran and the relation of the clergy to it: The Case Study of Southern Anti-Colonialism Movement

Nation-state fault in the Iranian society has long been there and there have been different views in analyzing it. In this paper, we try to figure out the stance the clergy have had toward the phenomena in contemporary history of Iran; in fact, we focus on four southern anti-colonialism movement, especially at the time of constitutional movement and World War I. We put Dr. Hamid Parsania’s approach in our agenda as the supportive theoretical framework to analyse the fault. We have inferred the approach from three works of him specifically the first one: Seven Waves of Reforms (haft moj-e eslāhāt): the relation of theory to practice, The Story of Bushel (hadith-e peymāneh): the study of Islamic Revolution, and Types and Cycles of Intellectualism (anvā’ va advār-e roshanfekri). We have used library research to gather the data.
The problem of nation-state fault is not restricted to the society of Iran, yet its causes in the history of Iran could be understood in relation to the nature of society. Iranians’ historical beliefs are the major causes of strengthening or weakening the fault. Our findings prove the decisive effect of Shia scholars on catch and spread of nation-state fault in the course of southern constitutional movement as well as southerners’ fights against British colonialism during 1837-1919. It also supports the practicality of “Parsania Algorithm”[1] in justifying the scholars’ southern movement.