Remembrance of Things Past

Abstract

In this chapter I wish to map out the historical and theoretical landscape upon which I intend to construct this book on Jalal Al-e Ahmad, whom I am proposing be read as ‘the last Muslim intellectual’. To do so I would like to begin with the last time I had an urgent occasion to write on Al-e Ahmad. Detailing the particular time of that occasion and why I then turned to Al-e Ahmad is the best means of describing why I have now returned to this seminal figure in the history of the Iranian encounter with colonial modernity.