Unifying Two Pasts: Sufi Nationalism and Iranian Antiquity in Basiri’s Secrets of Persepolis (1955- 1971)

Tamassoki, Zeinab

doi:10.22059/jhss.2025.398829.473825

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Zeinab Tamassoki

PhD in Architecture History, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Architectural Studies, National University, Tehran, Iran

10.22059/jhss.2025.398829.473825

Abstract

In the mid-twentieth century, as state archaeologists unearthed Persepolis and the Pahlavi regime cast the site as a symbol of Iran’s pre-Islamic grandeur, the director of Shiraz’s National Library was composing a different kind of monument. Ali-Akbar Basiri’s Secrets of Persepolis, a lengthy narrative poetry written in Persian, reframed the Achaemenid site not as a symbol of secular nationalism, but as a spiritual landscape animated by Sufi metaphysics. In Basiri’s poem, the architectural layout of Persepolis becomes a spiritual topography: each palace represents a distinct stage on the path toward perfection. Darius, imagined as an embodiment of the insān-i kāmil, serves as the poet’s guide along this journey, which is illuminated by the Prophet and Imam ʿAlī. Written after the 1953 coup, during a period of ideological fracture and renewed debates over national identity, Basiri’s work quietly challenged the dichotomy between Iran’s Islamic and pre-Islamic pasts. Drawing on his connections to Shiraz’s literary and intellectual circles, as well as his proximity to ongoing archaeological discoveries, Basiri composed a vision of Iranian identity that neither glorified ancient kingship nor dismissed it, but sought to reconcile it with the language of mystical unity. This article situates Secrets of Persepolis within the larger landscape of Pahlavi-era cultural politics and examines how the poem embodies a syncretic effort to bridge divided temporalities. The article thus contributes to three overlapping fields: first, the study of nationalism and identity in twentieth-century Iran; second, the reception of antiquity in Islamic cultural contexts; and third, the role of mystical literature in modern Iranian intellectual history. By situating Secrets of Persepolis alongside both earlier Islamic texts and contemporaneous nationalist projects, the study highlights the poem’s role in mediating a longstanding cultural tension between two overlapping but often compartmentalized pasts

Keywords

Main Subjects

History

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Historical Sciences Studies

Unifying Two Pasts: Sufi Nationalism and Iranian Antiquity in Basiri’s Secrets of Persepolis (1955- 1971)

References

References

Volume 18, Issue 1 - Serial Number 41
April 2026
Pages 113-137

Unifying Two Pasts: Sufi Nationalism and Iranian Antiquity in Basiri’s Secrets of Persepolis (1955- 1971)

References

References

Volume 18, Issue 1 - Serial Number 41April 2026Pages 113-137

Volume 18, Issue 1 - Serial Number 41
April 2026
Pages 113-137