Abstract
Qajar scholars of mid-19th-century Iran were heavily influenced in their construction of Iranian national identity by intellectual models of European nationalism because they were subject to the same forces of modernity. Two different approaches to Iranian national identity are discussed. One approach set up a limited set of binary oppositions between self & Other to reify the nation. However, because this unitary approach could not produce an original self, it was susceptible to accusations of racism & chauvinism. The second approach recognized multiple selves & multiple Others within a universalist view of humanity overlaid with a territorial patriotism. Both approaches had to deal with Iranian shame & anger at military & economic inferiority in Europe, with building self-respect, & with the tensions between imitation & rejection of Other. The scholars also had to locate in their concepts of national identity the primitivism of some tribes in Iranian history & the antimodern stance of Arabian & Turkic Islam. Several Qajar intellectuals, their works, their approaches to nation, & biographical & social reasons in placing the Other are analyzed. M. Pflum