I don’t think Tabaar’s text equips us to make generalized claims about modernity’s basis as a phenomenon broadly, especially because it’s so difficult to speak in terms of necessary/ sufficient preconditions. In the case of Iran, though, I think one of the answers to the question of “on what basis” that Tabaar implies is that there is always a negotiation between these two sources of modern truth (which echoes the needs of each of the competing promises of modernity), to borrow the phrasing of the question. His book clearly presents the idea that the divine/ governmental aspect, the imposed modernity, was essential for actually enacting reforms, making decisions, and for shaping the will of the people (for which Islam and religious arguments were used), but was imbued with power through its claim to legitimacy, which was affirmed through the assent of the people.

This dynamic surfaces in his discussion of Khomeini’s influence being derived from the support of the people as well as the way Khomeini later draws upon this to remind the people of their role in giving him power. In responding to his critics and attempting to delegitimize their critiques– particularly clerics– following the issuing of the fatwa against Rushdie, for example, he emphasized that they used to support the separation of politics and religion (a model opposite that which Khomeini advocated and the people had supported), and that he had made the “‘slogan of overthrowing the Shah’ a reality”– he had realized the vision of the future supported by the people (195). By arguing that “the imperialists were using these pseudo-religious-nationalist figures to sow doubt in the society,” he is reaffirming his position as the legitimate voice, reminding the people that they, though possibly now doubting their initial position, had once fully supported it and brought it into being– it was theirs, not just Khomeini’s (ibid). By taking the modern position of the representative of the people’s will, he is also invoking ‘modern’ notions of legitimate power being rooted in the consent of the governed.

At its simplest, modernity’s wager is that religion can be replaced with rationality and reason. Seligman says the wager has been lost: this transition cannot be made. His proposed solution is to return to a kind of unquestioned religious belief, but a religion characterized by tolerance.

Shariati, while not articulating the same rationale, presents a similar conclusion. Following in the legacy of Al e Ahmad, who mourned what he saw as Iran’s self-loathing love of the West, Shariati called for “a return to an authentic Islam as an answer to modern problems” (Secor, 13). This solution built upon Al e Ahmad’s ideas by claiming that liberal, ‘modern’ ideas of the West were authentically Islamic— because these ideas did not belong to the West, but were born of Islam. Shariati advocated for a “limited freedom,” where the “liberated” Iran could “subordinate their will to the will of God.” In this way, Shariati’s claim seems to replicate at least part of Seligman’s: humans are liberated, but with (and even through) constraints placed upon them by a higher authority.

I think there is, however, a marked difference between Shariati and Seligman. Shariati argues against a need for clerics, taking the stance that there was no need for mediation between God and man. His claim that Islam was “open to multiple, competing orientations” seems at first take to mirror the ‘tolerance’ prescribed by Seligman. More deeply, though, this undercuts the main basis of Seligman’s proposition– that what is needed is unquestioned belief in a set of basic tenets— as Shariati’s solution still places man as the ultimate arbiter of right/ wrong, as each person can interpret the will of God in their own way. For Shariati, then, the problem is one of authenticity; his utilization of Islam allows for modernity to be ‘claimed’ as Iranian. Shariati’s wager, it seems, would be that without this claim to authenticity, ‘modernity’ would destroy Iran, leading to a similar consequence as that posed by Seligman— the people would be left ‘placeless’ and would become inheritors of an anomic condition.

I made a similar connection to Will when I read Najmabadi, thinking of the creation of the gender binary of having similarities to the ideals presented in Scott’s work. Creating the binary made the world (specifically people’s bodies) more easily legible, as the possibilities of what/ who they could be, at least “proper” possibilities, were much more limited and less ambiguous. When Scott talks about the abstraction and simplification of maps, he presents it as something that both labels what is already there (responds to the present conditions) and influences what it becomes, as the way the area is regarded changes after its simplification of the map, and this influences the people living there and the way others interact with it. Similarly, the changing understanding of gender and homoerotic attraction affected both the way people perceived gender in Iran and the way gender was acted out. The issue of women’s veiling. There is so much ambiguity surrounding the topic, as the physical covering of the veil also renders its wearer more visible. While the veil is sometimes viewed as a mark of un-modernized views on women’s roles and positions in society, it could also sometimes be viewed as making the female body ‘acceptable’ to appear in a wider social, public contexts.

Najmabadi’s account of gender in premodern Islamic Iran helps to show that beliefs binary sexuality/ gender labels were not deeply ingrained in sensibilities that are either essentially Islamic or Iranian, and that the current status of women could not be a natural outworking or such beliefs. Rather they are extremely historically and situationally contingent, as these beliefs emerged after contact with the ‘modern,’ more ‘advanced’ Europeans.