Akhond Khorasani’s Viewpoints towards Modern Concepts

In 1906, at the dawn of the twentieth century, Akhond Khorasani assumed the leadership of the Iranian constitutional revolution. He was a prominent figure in Iranian history regarding whom this paper sets out to unveil his mentality vis-a-vis the modern concepts of freedom, constitutionalism, justice and parliament. Before the occurrence of the constitutional revolution, such concepts were not present in Iran’s political – soc ial culture. These were modern concepts which entered Iran coming from the west and were subsequently utilized during the constitutional revolution. As the revolution’s leader, Akhond Khorasani made use of these words in his political literature. Discovering the manner in which he integrated and used these concepts in his works is the objective of this article. In order to reach this objective, all the primary sources that included the Akhond’s announcements, letters, telegraphs, answers to questions and fatwas through which he specified his political mentality are made use of in this quantitative research where the method of evident content analysis is implemented for the purpose of data analysis. Iran is a society intertwined to a high degree with religion and thus the clergy are highly influential on the people. The understanding and comprehension of traditional clergies’ mentality in relation to modern concepts has the potential to shed light on the issue of whether this influence can be continued.