The Place of National Identity in the Discourse of Religious Democracy

Religious democracy, supporting and protecting past findings of national identity, is capable for actualizing such new components of national identity as law-abidingness, political participation, developing high education on the basis of cultural plurality, national solidarity, citizenship law, preparing appropriate model of Islamic Iranian development. Today, Iranian identity has been regarded as a politico-legal subject, emphasizing Iranian laws. The problem of national identity, therefor, in addition to traditional components of territory, history, religion and language, should be put in a framework of human and legal values, beliefs and norms. The paper intends to study the question of the place of national identity in religious democracy. As is explained in the paper, the discourse of religious democracy may function as an appropriate ground for new components of national identity. The purpose of the paper lies in paying attention to new components of national identity in harmony with the needs in modern Iranian society.