“Al-e Ahmad was fundamentally different from all the appropriators of his rhetoric. Even Shariati, who resembled him in many ways, never outwardly showed - and perhaps never felt - the doubts that Al-e Ahmad continually had and expressed. Ultimately these doubts prevented Al-e Ahmad from pushing any single solution as the salvation of Iran; he was the master of social and cultural critique but not of social and cultural construction. This failure was a mark of his extreme loyalty to and honesty about his own feelings.” Iranian RevolutionIranian LiteratureIranian Studies Book:The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran Source: The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran
“Combined with this indecision was Ahmad's sense of being intellectually incomplete; he felt he had never really read enough and never studied enough to offer a firm opinion on anything. Privately he would assure his friends that they had no idea, they could not possibly imagine, how ignorant he was. In the semipublic arena of the dowreh on Islamic philosophy that he and Ali attended, when Ahmad entered the conversation he would talk brilliantly about a subject for a few minutes, then think up objections to what he had said, then think of things he should have read before he had spoken on the subject. Then, after adding several times, "What can I say? I don't really know," he would tumble into silence and, in his good-natured way, look even more deeply oppressed than he had before he talked. It was no surprise that Ahmad published so little.” Iranian LiteratureIslamic Sciences Book:The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran Source: The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran