From KAŠF AL-MAḤJUB (“Unveiling the hidden”) to Kashf-e hijab (unveiling women) (A reflection on the symbolic confrontation of Iranians with the allegorical strain of modernity)

تاریخ و فرهنگ

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available Online from 26 February 2025   

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: 10.22067/jhistory.2025.91099.1351

Authors

Reza Javid¹; Hadi Noori^{* 2}; Mohammad Reza Gholami Shekarsaraei²

¹PhD student in cultural sociology, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Humanities, Gilan University, Rasht, Iran

²Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Humanities, Gilan University, Rasht, Iran

Abstract

Western women, goods and modern spaces aroused the astonishment of the first Iranian tourists of the Qajar period. In our traditional culture until that time, women belonged to the inside in a symbolic way (Keshf al-Mahjub) and now their presence in public spaces was a shock for the first Iranian tourists. Walter Benjamin has also analyzed modern capitalism with such a semantic shock. He analyzed capitalism and modernity by allegorical method. According to him, allegory was a separate element without organic connection with a general meaning. For Benjamin, capitalist goods were the best allegorical manifestation of these meaningless signs. He saw the female body in capitalist spaces as another field of allegorical reading. The female body and goods were allegorical signs that challenged the symbolic meanings before them. The first Iranian tourists experienced such a challenge when facing a western woman. Using Benjamin's allegorical methodology in reading history, from the point of view of the first Iranian tourists this article intends to examine the contrast between these two ways of perceiving the female experience in our culture (the discovery of the veil) and the experience of modernity (the discovery of the veil).

Keywords

Allegiry; symbol; Arcades Project; Benjamin; Kashf al-Maḥjūb; modernity

References