The Application of Iranshahri Thought in the Shu'ubiyyah Movement and Its Failure to Revive an Iranshahri Government

The Shu'ubiyyah movement in the second and third centuries AH was a socio-cultural reaction against the Arab pursuit of supremacy in the Islamic Caliphate, which, relying on the civilizational heritage of Iranshahri, sought to recreate Iranian identity and prepare the ground for the revival of an independent government based on the Sassanid Shahryari model. By utilizing Iranshahri symbols, ideas, and political structures, this intellectual movement attempted to revive the ancient heritage of the nature of power in Iranshahri thought. However, its most important obstacles and inabilities in realizing this ideal were the lack of an independent military and organizational organization, the dependence of Iranian bureaucrats on the structure of the Caliphate, the fundamental incompatibility of the concept of "hereditary Shahryari" with the principles of the Islamic Caliphate, and the fragmentation of identity in different regions of Iranshahri. The findings of the study indicate that the Shoubiyyah had significant success in the cultural arena (including the revival of the Persian language, the compilation of national history, and the reproduction of royal myths), but in the political arena, it failed to realize the project of establishing or reviving a full-fledged Iranshahri government. As a result, the application of the Iranshahri legacy by the Shoubiyyah remained mainly at the discursive level, and its main achievement, given the power and space of time and place, was not the decline and fall of the caliphate, but the reproduction and continuation of Iranian identity within Islamic civilization.