Recognizing Role of Allameh Tabatabai in Inception of the Signifier of “Independence” in Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution Discourse

This paper, for the first time, intends to bring to light the undiscovered and unknown role of Allameh Tabatabai in inception of the signifier of “independence” in Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution discourse with the help of discourse theories expressed by Laclau and Mouffe, Foucault, Robert John Wuthnow, and Randall Collins. In the meantime, this study seeks appropriate answers to the following questions: What was the role of Allameh Tabatabai in inception of the signifier of independence in Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution discourse? What are the social mechanisms behind publication and connection of Allameh Tabatabai’s thought with the inception of the Islamic Revolution discourse? Results of the current analysis indicate that although Allameh Tabatabai lacked a political and revolutionary strategy in the course of the Islamic Revolution, with the centrality of his theory of “Idrakat I’tibari” (Conventional Perceptions), he has revived the subjective position of the “interpretive philosopher” and manifested the role of non-mediated “political subjectivity” (thought production) and mediated political subjectivity (through his students, intellectual circles and discourse assemblies). Furthermore, he has practically played his role in inception of the signifier of independence in Islamic Revolution discourse through the media of philosophical-social statement of the dogma of “Al-Islam Hovalhall” (Islam is the final solution), clarification of the concepts of political independence, cultural independence, and elaboration of the priority of intellectual and cultural independence over political independence.