In Hope of a Third Movement, By Nader Naderpour - Translated by Farhad Mafie

Translator’s Introduction (November 2000):
In the seventh century, the Arabs defeated Iran and imposed Islam on Iranians. For Nader Naderpour, the Islamic Revolution of 1979 was the second Islamic invasion. In Naderpour’s opinion, Iranian thinkers (he avoided the word intellectual because of its connection with Iranian leftists, as he explains in his endnotes) tried twice—unsuccessfully—to rid themselves of Islam, especially of Islamic governmental rule.

Here Naderpour explains why two historical “thinkers’ movements,” as he calls them, failed, and he describes how a third movement is needed to help Iran and Iranians rid themselves, once and for all, from the tyranny of Islamic domination.

Understanding Erfan, the first “movement” that Naderpour addresses here, is key to appreciating Naderpour’s position. Erfan is often incorrectly associated with Sufism. Naderpour makes clear that Erfan was a product of Iranian thinkers and that it was a philosophical ideology, not a religion.

The second “movement,” according to Naderpour, was the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, when Iranian thinkers tried to separate church and state, that is, to end Islamic rule over Iran.

This, then, is the background to what Naderpour hoped would be the Third Movement.