Ahmad Fardid

Seyyed Ahmad Fardid (Persian: سید احمد فردید) (born Ahmad Mahini Yazdi; 1910, Yazd – 16 August 1994, Tehran) was a prominent Iranian philosopher and a professor of Tehran University. He is considered to be among the philosophical ideologues of the Islamic government of Iran which came to power in 1979. Fardid was under the influence of Martin Heidegger, the influential German philosopher, whom he considered "the only Western philosopher who understood the world and the only philosopher whose insights were congruent with the principles of the Islamic Republic. These two figures, Khomeini and Heidegger, helped Fardid argue his position." What he decried was the anthropocentrism and rationalism brought by classical Greece, replacing the authority of God and faith with human reason, and in that regard he also criticized Islamic philosophers like al-Farabi and Mulla Sadra for having absorbed Greek philosophy.

Quotes

• My wish is to be free from the modern cave, which is filled with self-founded nihilism, enchantment by earthly gods (taghutzadegi), and historicism. This is my ideal, and wherever I see a lack of angered fists and the prevalence of compromise, I will be disappointed... because to possess and insist on a position is the right move.
  • Quoted from: Farhang Rajaee, Islamism and Modernism: The Changing Discourse in Iran, University of Texas Press (2010), p. 182.

• Weststruckness has dominated us for a hundred years... The youth are looking for the God of the yesteryears and that of the future. They are looking for the God of the Qur᾽an, while the nihilistic and self-founded history of the contemporary world has put down deep roots among us.
  • Quoted from: Farhang Rajaee, Islamism and Modernism: The Changing Discourse in Iran, University of Texas Press (2010), p. 184.

• There is no way to find democracy in the Qur’an. The Islamic Government is achieving the truth of the ”day before yesterday” and the “day after tomorrow.” Democracy belongs to Greece, and they embody idolatry.
  • Didar e Farahi va Fotuhate Aakhare Zamaan [The Divine Encounter and Apocalystic Revelations,” 2nd edition, Tehran: Moassesseye Farhangi va Pajoheshi Chap va Nashr Vaza, 2008, p. 77.

• Humanism has nothing to do with the human. In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there is no trace of the human… It is all about liberty, equality, and fraternity of the ego (nafsi ammarah) and the satanic self.
  • Didar e Farahi va Fotuhate Aakhare Zamaan [The Divine Encounter and Apocalystic Revelations,” 2nd edition, Tehran: Moassesseye Farhangi va Pajoheshi Chap va Nashr Vaza, 2008, pp. 76-77.

• In accordance with Heidegger, I put forward a historical position [mowghef]. Mankind is in a historical age when God is absent, the true God... Now, human is the Truth which is apparent, that, human is god, and the Greek taghut [idolatry] embodies the human. This is the humanism that I previously mentioned: humanism and human taghut [idolatry].
  • Ali Mirsepassi, Transnationalism in Iranian Political Thought: The Life and Times of Ahmad Fardid, Cambridge University Press (2017), p. 242.

• Mysticism's one eye has been blinded by wahdat al-vojud ("Unity of Being'), and the other one has been blinded by Bergson. According to Bergson, there is turbulence in the world. Where is presence? Where is God? I hope the human dies of the unrest. This intrinsic (natural) wisdom [esnokherad], which is like darkness, appears like lightness for Bergson. Bergson's gnosis is one of the examples of Westoxification. In fact, there is no gnosis in the West. During the last four hundred years, philosophy in the West has focused on the actually existing reality (mowjud). In fact, you can not find any question about "existence" [vojud] in the nineteenth century, and all discussion were centered on mowjud.
  • Quoted from: Ali Mirsepassi, Transnationalism in Iranian Political Thought: The Life and Times of Ahmad Fardid, Cambridge University Press (2017), p. 249.