Document Type : Research Article
Author
. PhD in the history of Iran after Islam, Shahid Beheshti University,Tehran, iran.
10.30465/shc.2026.54571.2694
Abstract
The modern nation-building project during the first Pahlavi era was anchored in components such as the Aryan race, the Persian language, and ancient history, formulating “racial unity” as a fundamental pillar in defining the Iranian nation. Within this discourse, the existence of the Khuzestan Arab community—with its distinct ethnic consciousness and historical ties—posed a formidable challenge to identity homogenization, thereby subjecting this community to an identity redefinition. The present study seeks to answer the following question: How did the discourse of racial unity during the first Pahlavi period interpret, formulate, or deny the ancestry and race of the Khuzestan Arab community, and what was the relationship between this encounter and the state’s identity-building policies in the region? Relying on a historical-analytical method, this research examines primary sources, including government documents, educational texts, the press, and the viewpoints of contemporary theorists. The findings indicate that in confronting the question of the Khuzestan Arabs’ lineage, three major approaches emerged: first, the “Musta’rab (Arabized) approach,” which negated any ethnic distinction and regarded them merely as Arabic-speaking Iranians; second, the “conscious denial approach,” which, despite acknowledging their Arab descent, repudiated it due to the ideological imperatives of the hegemonic discourse; and third, the “history-centric approach,” which acknowledged this distinction based on historical evidence but did not perceive it as contradictory to national affiliation. The results demonstrate that the identity policies of the first Pahlavi era in Khuzestan extended beyond linguistic assimilation, aiming at “de-racialization” and ethnic integration within the Aryan-centric narrative.
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