One thousand years have passed since the soil of Iran...

One thousand years have passed since the soil of Iran embraced the last remains of Ibn Sina. His philosophic and medical books were presented in our libraries and his scientific views were on the tips of our tongues, though without any consequence. Seven hundred years had passed since the mathematical works and the cultural heritage of Khwajah Nasir al-Din al-Tusi were the goal of our lives, though without any result.

But following in the footsteps of the Europeans, we joined them in celebrating their one-thousandth and seven-hundredth anniversaries. More than three centuries were past since the philosophical school of Mulla Sadra was followed in Iran and his philosophical ideas were the subject of study. On the other hand, many years had also passed since the Tehran University was established and had opened a faculty of philosophy.

But some years back when a conference was held there, one of the Orientalists made some remarks in appreciation of Mulla Sadra, this caused an unprecedented clamor in the university regarding his personality and philosophic thought. These are a few examples which fully illustrate the state of affairs in our society and the nature of our intellectual temperament. This shows the degree of our intellectual bankruptcy and servility to others.

Such was the condition of the majority of our intellectuals. A few of them, who were successful in retaining their independence of thought and had preserved their intellectual heritage, became the victims of the malady of split-personality. They were infatuated with the ideas of Western thought and at the same time remained loyal to their Eastern intellectual heritage.

They strived to bring about a reconciliation between these two opposite poles and to create a state of matrimonial harmony between the unlikely pair. One of our able writers tried to reconcile the Islamic tradition with the Western tradition of democracy in an article entitled “Islamic Democracy”. Another gentleman strove hard to extract the notion of a classless society from Islamic texts, under the title of “Islamic Communism”! Isn’t that strange?