Javad Tabatabai

{{Short description|Iranian philosopher and political scientist (1945–2023)}}

Image:Seyyed_Javad_Tabatabai_20170104_03_(cropped).jpg

Seyyed Javad Tabatabai ({{langx|fa|سید جواد طباطبایی}}; 14 December 1945 – 28 February 2023) was an Iranian philosopher and political scientist. He was Professor and Vice Dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Tehran.

Biography

Javad Tabatabai, an Iranian Azeri,{{cite book |last1=Ahmadi |first1=Hamid |editor1-last=Kamrava |editor1-first=Mehran |title=The Great Game in West Asia: Iran, Turkey and the South Caucasus |year=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0190869663 |page=123 |chapter=The Clash of Nationalisms: Iranian response to Baku's irredentism}} was born on 14 December 1945 in Tabriz, Iran. His father was a merchant in the bazaar of Tabriz.{{Cite web |title= مرکز دائرةالمعارف بزرگ اسلامی |url=https://www.cgie.org.ir/fa/news/3521 |access-date=9 June 2021 |website=www.cgie.org.ir |language=fa}} He studied theology, law, and philosophy in Tabriz and Tehran, then earned his PhD in political philosophy from the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, with a dissertation on Hegel's political philosophy.Fariba Taghavi (2007). "Secular Apparition: The Resurgence of Liberal-democratic Intellectual...", ProQuest, p.164- His daughter is Ariane Tabatabai.

After returning to Iran, Tabatabai was Professor and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Tehran. In the mid-1990s, he was dismissed from his posts as both professor and deputy dean for criticizing the ideology of the Iranian government.{{cite web |title=Human Rights Watch World Report 1996 - Iran |date=1 January 1996 |publisher=Human Rights Watch |url=https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/hrw/1996/en/22879 |website=UNHCR Refworld |access-date=23 October 2024 |language=en}}

He continued his research in other countries such as France, England, Germany and the United States: he was a guest fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, as well as at the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs at Syracuse University. Tabatabai published about 20 books on the history of political ideas in Europe and Iran.

Tabatabai died on 28 February 2023 in Irvine, California, at the age of 77.{{cite web |url= https://www.tasnimnews.com/fa/news/1401/12/10/2860871 |title= Seyyed Javad Tabatabai passed away |publisher=Tasnim News Agency |access-date=}}{{in lang|fa}}{{cite web |url=https://en.irna.ir/news/85044310/Iranian-political-philosopher-Tabatabai-passes-away-at-77 |title=Iranian political philosopher Tabatabai passes away at 77 |date=March 2023 |publisher=Islamic Republic News Agency |access-date= 2023-07-22}}

Views

Tabatabai presented a controversial theory regarding the causes of the decline of political thought and society in Iran over the last few centuries. His ideas on Iranian decline have affected the intellectual debates on modernity and democracy currently underway in Iran.

Tabatabai's career-long research revolved around this question: “What conditions made modernity possible in Europe and led to its abnegation in Iran?” He answered this question by adopting a “Hegelian approach” that privileged a philosophical reading of history on the assumption that philosophical thought is the foundation and essence of any political community and the basis for any critical analysis of it as well.{{Cite journal |last=Boroujerdi, M., & Shomali |date= 2015 |title=The Unfolding of Unreason: Javad Tabatabai's Idea of Political Decline in Iran |journal=Iranian Studies |volume=48 |issue=6 |pages=949–965 |doi=10.1080/00210862.2014.926661 |s2cid=145769588}} In 2001, in an interview with Libération, he said that political and ideological Islam are already dead, because they have no plans for modernity.{{Cite web |url=https://www.liberation.fr/planete/2001/10/27/javad-tabatabai-l-islam-politique-est-voue-a-l-echec_382158 |title=Javad Tabatabai : L'islam politique est voué à l'échec |date=27 October 2001 |website=Libération.fr |language=fr |access-date=13 September 2019}}

Tabatabai rejected anti-Iranian irredentism and warned about the perils facing Iran from the provocations of pan-Turkism. Tabatabai defended Persian as Iran's national language and argued that the histories of Turkey and the Republic of Azerbaijan contained many forgeries and fabrications. During one of his lectures in Tabriz, he emphasized that the history of the "Baku Republic" (i.e. the Republic of Azerbaijan) is central to the history of Iran.

Awards

Knight of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques - Paris (14 July 1995) {{cite web |url=http://paris-iea.fr/en/resident/javad-tabatabai |title=Javad Tabatabai | Institut d'études avancées de Paris |access-date=10 September 2013 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131105063402/http://paris-iea.fr/en/resident/javad-tabatabai |archivedate=5 November 2013 }}
Farabi International Award - Tehran{{cite web|title= Seyyed Javad Tabatabai won the first rank |publisher= IBNA |date= January 14, 2018 |url=http://www.ibna.ir/fa/report/256646/سید-جواد-طباطبایی-رتبه-نخست-به-دست-آورد}}

Books

Introduction to the History of Political Thought in Iran
Decline of Political Thought in Iran
Essay on Ibn Khaldun: Impossibility of Social Sciences in Islam
Nizam al-Mulk and Iranian Political Thought: Essay on the Continuity of the Iranian Thought
On Iran: An Introduction to the Theory of Decline of Iran
On Iran: Tabriz School and Basis of Modernity
On Iran: The Theory of Constitutionalism in Iran

References

External links

[https://web.archive.org/web/20060825020414/http://www.iran-newspaper.com/1384/840420/html/horizon.htm Biography of Javad Tabatabai]
[http://www.javadtabatabai.org Javad Tabatabi's website (in Persian)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131115050838/http://www.javadtabatabai.org/ |date=15 November 2013}}

Category:1945 births

Category:2023 deaths

Category:Iranian writers

Category:University of Tehran alumni

Category:University of Paris alumni

Category:Academic staff of the University of Strasbourg

Category:20th-century Iranian philosophers

Category:Academic staff of the University of Tehran

Category:Syracuse University faculty

Category:Chevaliers of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques

Category:People from Tabriz

Category:Farabi International Award recipients