A Nation through Language: The Limits of Iranian Nationalism, by Seyed Javad Miri

Description

In A Nation through Language: The Limits of Iranian Nationalism, Seyed Javad Miri offers a profound critique of the linguistic foundations of Iranian nationalism. Through the works of Mahmoud Afshar, Seyyed Ahmad Kasravi, Nasih Nategh, Abbas Eqbal Ashtiyani, and Javad Sheikh al-Islami, Miri examines how Persian was elevated as the sole marker of Iranian identity while Turkish and Arabic were marginalized. Situating this intellectual trajectory within the broader context of Eurocentric modernity, he argues that the pursuit of linguistic and cultural homogeneity fractured rather than unified Iran’s social fabric. By rereading classical nationalist texts, Miri redefines the Iranian nation as inherently multilingual, multicultural, and pluralistic—an enduring civilizational formation sustained by diversity rather than constrained by uniformity.

Seyed Javad Miri is a Swedish-Iranian sociologist, public intellectual, and professor of sociology at the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies in Tehran, Iran. He is a specialist in Islamic social theory, inter-civilizational discourse, and contemporary Islamic thought. He has published numerous books and articles and is the founder of the journal Islamic Perspective. He is the Co-Director of the Institute for Critical Social Theory.

Paperback. 85 Pages.

Published: February 2026

ISBN: 978-1-971333-01-4

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