Wandering Soul: An Examination of Shahid Motahari's Narration of Iranian Nationality

In his book, Mutual Services between Iran and Islam, Shahid Motahari has dealt with Islam and the issue of nationality and, by explaining the inseparability of Islam from Iranian identity, rejects the ideological approach of the monarchy to Iranian nationality. However, this narrative itself had been captured by a kind of cosmopolitan Islamic ideology that was common in the Islamic world for more than a century. As a result, since his main goal in this book was to reject royal nationalism, the subject of explaining nationality and its necessary aspects in this book has been remained unfinished. The current paper has examined this unfinished narration of Iranian nationality on two levels: theoretical foundations and practical results. At the level of theoretical foundations, the paper has examined the shortcomings of the idea of Islamic unity and has shown that in the Islamic world, this idea seeks to revive the caliphate through negating the system of national government, and by defeating the revival of the Islamic caliphate, has been defeated by the system of national government in practice, The findings of the study show that, in the practical level, the educational, political, and legal system of Iran has faced serious challenges and the negation of the concept of the national government and the lack of a clear interpretation of the relationship between the national government and the monotheistic nation, the national soul has been wandered between the two national and global bodies.