A Critical Review of the Book “Iran as Imagined Nation”

Iranian identity is one of the topics that some are happy to admit and few are merry to deny. The book’s author in question is one of the deniers. As the name of the book suggests, the book’s author wants to challenge Iran and the historicity of Iranian and national identity. He, who is under the influence of new theoretical and ideological debates, which are all unconcerned about the background and historical-cultural context of the countries under study, sees Iran and its national identity as the construction of orientalists and their servants and makes the historicity of the word Iran insignificant and unimportant. The author of the work believes that since Iran's national identity was formed in the West, presenting any historical background and origin for Iran and its national identity is an unforgivable misdeed and a clear injustice to many ethnic groups of this land. The author of the book Iran as Imagined Nation: the Construction of National Identity, which is interested in Edward Said and his Orientalism and benefited a lot from the book Imagined Communities written by Benedict Anderson, believes that some Iranian and non-Iranian writers who consider Iranian and national identity to be a historical matter, under the influence of Western methodology and based on racial and ideological orientations, narrated the past, presented an ahistorical and delusional reading and placed fake constructions instead of history. The present article does not criticize all the chapters of the book Iran as Imagined Nation: the Construction of National Identity, rather, those parts that have made weak and incorrect claims about the historical origin of Iran, the nature of Iran, and Iran's ethnic and linguistic diversity, will be put into perspective and shed light on them.