After coming to Iran, he was professor and deputy dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Tehran. In the 1990s, he was dismissed from his post as professor and deputy dean of the law school for criticizing the ideology of the Iranian government.[4]
Then, 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 around twenty books on the history of political ideas in Europe and Iran. On 14 July 1995, in France, he was decorated as a Knight of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques.[5]
Tabatabai, a leading theorist and historian of political thought in Iran, 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.[8] In 2001, in an interview with Libération, he said that political and ideological Islam is already dead, because they have no plans for modernity.[9]
Tabatabai rejected anti-Iranianirredentism and warned about the perils facing Iran from the provocations of pan-Turkism.[1] Tabatabai defended Persian as Iran's national language and argued that the histories of Turkey and the Republic of Azerbaijan are ridden with forgeries and fabrications (see also: Pan-Turkism#Pseudoscientific theories).[1] 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.[1]
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
Further reading
Boroujerdi, Mehrzad; Shomali, Alireza (2015). "The Unfolding of Unreason: Javad Tabatabai's Idea of Political Decline in Iran". Iranian Studies. 48 (6): 949–965. doi:10.1080/00210862.2014.926661. S2CID145769588.
References
^ abcdAhmadi, Hamid (2017). "The Clash of Nationalisms: Iranian response to Baku's irredentism". In Kamrava, Mehran (ed.). The Great Game in West Asia: Iran, Turkey and the South Caucasus. Oxford University Press. p. 123. ISBN978-0190869663.
^Boroujerdi, M., & Shomali (2015). "The Unfolding of Unreason: Javad Tabatabai's Idea of Political Decline in Iran". Iranian Studies. 48 (6): 949–965. doi:10.1080/00210862.2014.926661. S2CID145769588.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)