been impossible for them to adequately understand the modernity. The social sciences, according to him, have been introduced in Iran without the secularization of thought and its rationalization and therefore, they reproduce in an unconscious way the ancient prejudices and the inability to think adequately. Dariush Shayegan criticizes a view of religion that does not take into account the major trends of the modern world where cultural homogeneity and religious absolutism are questioned. The quest for a holistic identity based on a monolithic view of Islam is alien to the evolution of modern world and means the isolation and regression of the (Iranian) society. Dariush Shayegan, who writes mainly in French (but has been extensively translated into Persian), shares some of the views of these particular intellectuals, but his major contribution is to invite Iranians to accept the ‘‘fragmented identity’’ of the modern world and to renounce a unitary view of the Self which leads to a fascination with utopian and mythological ideologies. He insists that, since Iran has undergone the change directly from tradition to postmodernity without the mediation of modernity, it is experiencing a strong malaise. His solution is to open up Iran to the new multicultural world in which one has to accept the diversity of the perspectives and, therefore, to be tolerant towards others who do not think and behave in the same way as the Self. This invitation to become open-minded and to give up the idea of a homogeneous culture exerts an undeniable influence on many young people in Iran. Traditional scholars The most notable circle was associated with Hossein Nasr, founder of Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy. For Nasr, the traditional world was pervaded by a tremendous sense of the Sacred and the Absolute, whereas the inception of modernity involved precisely the severing off of that awareness, resulting in what Max Weber would later dub the disenchantment of the world. Nasr has been an unrelenting opponent of Islamic fundamentalism in all its forms throughout his career because he sees it as a somewhat vigilante reactionary movement operating within the paradigm of the modern nation state, but even more so, because it lacks a well thought out metaphysical basis rooted in a traditional Muslim understanding of the world which respects both nature and human dignity. Other notable figures There are several intellectual figures who continue to be very influential in Iranian society, while they