Explaining Nasim-e Shomal’s Critical Discourse in the Context of the Qajar Minor Despotism Based on Fairclough’s Theory

Abstract

Critical discourse analysis regards language as a social and ideological practice and examines its relationship with power and social inequalities. Among the approaches developed in this field, Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework—description, interpretation, and explanation—is one of the most comprehensive. Focusing on Fairclough’s explanatory level, the present study analyzes the discourse of Seyyed Ashraf al-Din Hosseini (Nasim-e Shomal), a poet and journalist of the Constitutional era, within the context of the Qajar Minor Despotism. The study aims to explain the relationship between this discourse and prevailing structures of power and dominant ideology and to assess its role in either reproducing or transforming these structures. The findings indicate that Nasim-e Shomal’s discourse engages in a form of “adaptive resistance” through a purposeful duality characterized by explicit criticism veiled in humor, prayer, and allegory. By deconstructing legitimizing concepts such as the “Shadow of God,” delegitimizing hypocritical clerics, and challenging the ideology of fatalism, he constructs a critical discourse that, through an oral network of dissemination, develops into a pervasive force for awakening the collective consciousness. The results suggest that Nasim-e Shomal’s discourse, emerging from the oppressive conditions of authoritarian rule, ultimately contributed to the transformation of structures that legitimized absolute monarchy and advanced a new conception of legitimacy grounded in justice and the national will.