as one of grandeur, and the advent of Islam as a radical rupture. Dislocative nationalism is thus predicated on more than a total distinction between supposedly Aryan Iranians and Semitic Arabs, as it is suggested that the two races are incompatible and in opposition to each other. These ideas are directly indebted to nineteenth-century racial thought, particularly the Aryan race hypothesis developed by European comparative philologists (a hypothesis that Zia-Ebrahimi discusses at length ). Dislocative nationalism presents the pre-Islamic past as the site of a timeless Iranian essence, dismisses the Islamic period as one of decay, and blames all of Iran's shortcomings in the years after on Arabs and the adoption of Islam. The advent of Islam is thus ethnicised into an 'Arab invasion' and perceived as a case of racial contamination or miscegenation. Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani (1854–96) was one of Akhundzades disciples, and three decades later will endeavour to disseminate Akhundzade's thought while also significantly strengthening its racial content. Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani also followed Jalāl-al-Din Mirzā in producing a national history of Iran, Āʾine-ye sekandari (The Alexandrian Mirror), extending from the mythological past to the Qajar era, again to contrast a mythified and fantasised pre-Islamic past with a present that falls short of nationalist expectations. Alphabet reform Well ahead of his time, Akhundzade was a keen advocate for alphabet reform, recognizing deficiencies of Perso-Arabic script with regards to Turkic sounds. He began his work regarding alphabet reform in 1850. His first efforts focused on modifying the Perso-Arabic script so that it would more adequately satisfy the phonetic requirements of the Azerbaijani language. First, he insisted that each sound be represented by a separate symbol – no duplications or omissions. The Perso-Arabic script expresses only three vowel sounds, whereas Azeri needs to identify nine vowels. Later, he openly advocated the change from Perso-Arabic to a modified Latin alphabet. The Latin script which was used in Azerbaijan between 1922 and 1939, and the Latin script which is used now, were based on Akhundzade's third version. Family His parents' was Mirza Mahammad Taghi (born in Khamaneh) and Nane Khanum. He married Tubu Khanum, his mother's cousin in 1842. He had 13 children of whom only 2 (Nisa and Rashid) reached maturity. His second marriage was to Nazli Beyim, a descendant of Javad Khan, with whom he fathered Sayrabayim. He married off both Nisa and Sayrabayim to Khan Baba Mirza from