In 1721, in his famous Lettres persane (The Persian Letters), the French philosopher Montesquieu posed the question ‘Comment peut-on être persan?’ The answer to that question is perhaps an even more wide-ranging, challenging and fascinating conundrum today. In his exploration of where such an answer might be found, the renowned contemporary philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo turns to the writings of the politician and diplomat Muhammad Ali Foroughi (1877-1942), and his vision of what ‘being’ a Persian might embrace. After centuries of invasion, murder, destruction and authoritarian rule, this philosophical investigation examines Montesquieu’s original question against a backdrop in which a common, plural subjectivity of Persian-ness has been frustrated for centuries, and at a time when the country is wrestling with the possibility of an extended period of political, social and cultural decline. Even so, the battle for social and political freedoms is still underway in Iran; and in The Idea of Persia, the concept of nationhood is presented as the means by which Iranians may liberate themselves from the heroes and saints of old, and remake their political mentality in a manner that stays true to an age-old idea of Persian-ness, and to the author’s own belief in freedom as a virtue that has to be taught.
