A Review on Political Thoughts of Seyyed Hossein Nasr from the Past to the Present

Seyyed Hossein Nasr (PhD) is among the philosophers and thinkers who cooperated with the Pahlavids Regime and was one of the elite of that time. He belonged to one of royal Qajar- Pahlavi families and this matter had a direct impact on his political life and thought. During his political life tried to use his political thought in stabilizing and reinforcing the Pahlavi government. Political thought of Nasr is a “Traditional Conservative” one. His ideal political system is “Islamic Sultanate” and by taking the Safavids political system paradigm and considering that era’s life style as an ideal, he wanted to revive that culture and politics in the modern time. As a genuine traditional conservative he was an advocate of renewal of traditional knowledge system. He spent most of his social and political life in this regard. As a known traditionalist philosopher, he is very interested in science and philosophy history in Iranian/Islamic civilization and a part of his works introduce this philosophy and knowledge system. His political thought is elitist and oligarchic and opposes any kind of mass-making of politics. However, he opposes leftist ideologies before any other one. In his political thought there is no place for equality, democracy, and liberty which are all among the results of modernity. From this point of view, the society is made of classes and at the same time has an “organic unity” that puts each person in the place that he/she should be. This thought defends “High Culture” which has traditional roots and criticizes the mass culture which is a result of modernity. Nasr was opposed to the pro-ancient nationalism that was promoted by Pahlavids and instead would suggest a kind of traditional and civilization-based patriotism that had a cultural approach and was geographically more expanded and would include Islamic Iranian civilization arena. After the Islamic Revolution and the collapse of two-pole-world a decade later, Nasr repeated this reading of patriotism. He was a critic of “The Clash of Civilizations” theory and believed that even in the modern era that the world is moving toward new world order, Iranian/ Islamic culture and civilization can save itself.