Javid Azimi

Javid Azimi, born in 1955 in the city of Kermanshah, is a specialist in industrial management and a distinguished researcher in the history, myths, and religions of the Iranian cultural sphere.

 

He is the author of the two-volume research work The Asian Mode of Production. In the first volume, Azimi introduces a novel theory on the productive structure of Iran, offering a fundamental departure from the perspectives of thinkers such as Karl Marx and Karl Wittfogel, who attribute the historical stagnation of the Middle East to water scarcity and its management. Instead, he develops an alternative analytical framework, examining both the economic base and superstructure of the Asian mode of production and exploring its historical manifestations.

 

In this volume, he also critically revisits dominant interpretations of Middle Eastern religions and the history of the ancient world up to the Arab conquest.

 

In the second volume, building on the same theoretical foundation, Azimi analyzes key historical transformations, including the Arab conquest, the emergence and evolution of Sufism and mysticism, the Mongol invasion, the origins and consolidation of Twelver Shiism and the Safavid state, the Qajar era, the Constitutional Revolution, and the development of modernity and pseudo-modernity in Iran. He further examines the Pahlavi dynasty and the Islamic Revolution, providing a comprehensive reinterpretation of Iran’s historical trajectory.