現代イラン知識人の理想社会像-ジャラール・アーレ=アフマドの場合-

抄録

Jalal Al-e Ahmad (1923-1969) can be said to have lead a typical life as one of the intellectuals of his age. He was born of a clerical family in Tehran, graduated from the teachers' college, joined the Tudeh Party in the 1940s and also participated in the oil nationalization movement in the early 1950s, then retired from all political activities, and finally came to find his national identity in Shi'ite Islam.
He has been famous not only for his fictional works but also for the socio-political essays, especially Gharbzadegi (Westoxication). In this essay he analyses the situations of 1960s' Iran in terms of four opposing elements; 1) the West vs. the East, 2) the government vs. the religious establishment, 3) cities vs. villages, 4) Westoxicated intellectuals vs. conventional Islamic priests with uneducated people.
Through this analysis we can see his penetrating eyes on the modern Iranian society which has been suffering from Gharbzadegi. In order to cure this disease, he proposes, the Islamic priests and the intellectuals cast away their prejudice on each other, awake to the Iran-Islamic national identity, and cooperate for the social reform. He believes that both the leadership of the priests in the society and the administrative ability of the intellectuals are indispensable for a democratic government which holds the idealism of Shi'ite Islam.
Although the image of his ideal society is vague by the confusion of his socialistic ideas with Islamic nationalism, his idealism has been inherited by young religious nationalists to be one of the most influential ideology of the Islamic revolution in 1979.