Click here for the first part of this article
Waving the green banner: Khatami out of office
The pressures facing Khatami domestically and from abroad intensified as public opinion began to shift away from the reformers. In 2005, he ended his second consecutive term in office, the maximum permitted by the constitution, and the next election was won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hardliner and the mayor of Tehran. Ahmadinejad represented, a scholar reported, “a different interpretation of Khomeinism that rejected the entire basis of Khatami’s understanding of it.”[1] Ahmadinejad took a confrontational position in relation to the US, and enjoyed support from the precise quarters of society which had opposed Khatami and the reformers. Within months of Ahmadinejad’s election, Khatami “warned of a ‘fanatical’ interpretation of Islam.”[2] In 2006, Khatami along with other senior leaders formed a coalition “in concern over both the radicalism of Ahmadinejad and growing US pressure focused on Tehran’s nuclear programme.”[3]
In 2009, Khatami decided to challenge Ahmadinejad for the presidency. When former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi announced he would run as a reformer, however, Khatami dropped out and endorsed Mousavi to avoid splitting the vote and “to demonstrate that the wave of hope in society does not refer to a specific person (Khatami), and it is not just a passion or emotional excitement in the society; instead, people are aware, and they deliberately and consciously follow a specific way of change.”[4]
Khatami gave Mousavi a green sash, an image widely circulated and memorialized in posters, and the “Green Movement” for reform in Iran took its name from this sash. While Khatami campaigned extensively for Mousavi, Ahmadinejad was again declared the winner, 63 percent to 34 percent. Mousavi then said that the vote had been rigged, and the largest protests since the 1978-79 Revolution broke out, which were crushed by the authorities—Ayatollah Khamenei claimed that the vote had not been rigged. Khatami backed the protestors, stating, “a velvet coup d’état against the people and democracy has taken place…The People’s protests were crushed and those who hold responsibility to protect the rights of the people, humiliated them.”[5] Following this crisis, the conservative security apparatus consolidated, and the Revolutionary Guard expanded, for example controlling a third of Iran’s economy by 2010.[6] In response to Khatami supporting the protestors, the government banned him from making public appearances and from traveling abroad.[7]
Following Ahmadinejad’s second term, another Khatami-backed reformer arose to contest the presidency, the cleric Hassan Rouhani, who had served in senior national security posts and was Khatami’s lead international negotiator over Iran’s nuclear program. Under Khatami, Iran had agreed to suspend the enrichment of uranium and allow increased inspections.[8] Khatami argued that “as Muslims, our religious faith should not allow us to seek nuclear weapons…The Islam I know does not have a use for them,”[9] and shortly after leaving office called for a global religious movement against weapons of mass destruction: “It is the duty of the entire religious community to save the world from atomic bombs and chemical weapons.”[10]
Rouhani, who had a PhD from a Scottish university, won the election, and went on to strike a landmark nuclear deal with the United States and international community in 2015 which limited Iran’s nuclear program. Rouhani also took his cue from Khatami in making grand gestures at the UN, calling for a “World against Violence and Extremism” and announcing the “Coalition for HOPE” (Hormuz Peace Endeavour) to address security in the Persian Gulf.[11] Many officials from Khatami’s administration returned to serve in Rouhani’s cabinet.[12]
Iranian security forces tightened restrictions on Khatami, despite Rouhani holding the presidency. In 2015, Iranian news media were banned from mentioning Khatami’s name or publishing his picture. In 2016, Rouhani publicly called for this ban to be rescinded, describing it as “illegal,”[13] and in 2017 Rouhani criticized Iranian judicial officials after they prevented Khatami from leaving his home and meeting with political allies, rendering him under a sort of house arrest.[14] In 2020, Khatami was able to make a rare public statement in which he warned that protestors might grow violent in frustration and despair, which would lead the government to respond, resulting in what Khatami called a “cycle of reciprocal violence between the people and the government” which would only “cause more hatred and violence on both sides, creating numerous complications.”[15]
In 2021, another conservative cleric, Ebrahim Raisi, who unsuccessfully challenged Rouhani in 2017, was elected president. Under Raisi widespread protests again broke out after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, was detained by morality police, allegedly for not wearing a hijab. She died in government custody, with her family claiming she was beaten by authorities. Amini’s death instigated an outpouring of public anger, with protestors chanting “Woman, life, freedom.” Once again, the protests were crushed by security forces, with an estimated 500 people killed and 19,000 arrested.[16] Khatami voiced his hope that “nonviolent civil methods [will] “force the governing system to change its approach and accept reforms,” and attested, “Iran and Iranians need and are ready for a fundamental transformation whose outline is drawn by the pure ‘Woman, life, freedom’ movement”[17]—it was, Khatami said, a “beautiful slogan.”[18] Khatami called on Raisi’s government to “recognise the wrong aspects of governance and move towards good governance before it is too late.”[19] In August 2023, a newspaper affiliated with Ayatollah Khamenei accused Khatami of “betraying the nation,” stated he was a “pawn for external forces seeking to overthrow the regime,” and called for his prosecution.[20]
Following Raisi’s death in a 2024 helicopter crash, Khatami backed Masoud Pezeshkian, who had served under Khatami as Minister of Health and Medical Education, as the reformist candidate in the next election. Pezeshkian won, but his election came amid a decline in the power of the presidency[21] and the outbreak of the Middle East crisis which steadily worsened following the Hamas October 7th attack on Israel and Israel’s devastation of Gaza. Throughout the turmoil, Khatami continued to emphasize dialogue, including a May 2025 statement in which he said, “Negotiation and engagement are not signs of submission to the coercion of enemies.”[22]
Currently, Iran is essentially in a state of war with the US and Israel—a war in which most of the surrounding countries including the Arab Gulf States have become embroiled. Many senior Iranian leaders including Ayatollah Khamenei have been assassinated in airstrikes, an act condemned by Khatami.[23] Khamenei’s killing, Khatami said, was “a grave crime and a deeply painful tragedy for Iran’s present and future.”[24] The US and Israeli strikes, Khatami further stated, have targeted “Iranian officials and citizens, including children.”[25]
With great uncertainty about the future course of Iran both internally given its political divisions and concerning its international relationships, Khatami supported negotiations. “Lasting peace is the other face of heroic and comprehensive defense,” he said in April 2026, “It is greater than the mere absence of war. It requires genuine dialogue, logical negotiation, and a wise agreement—and it must encompass all parties, including political, social, and economic actors.”[26] “Iran has entered a new and more sensitive phase,” he further affirmed, “We must, away from momentary euphoria, consolidate military and political victories and move toward a future in which all people participate with dignity in rebuilding the country.”[27]
The trajectory of Khatami’s career is striking. We recognize in it the revolutionary nature of his reform program, the manner in which he stepped aside from actively leading it while remaining its most esteemed spiritual leader, and how important Khatami’s example remains for the future of Iran at this delicate time in which so many of the conventions which have held since 1979 have been shattered.
While academics and commentators have debated about whether Khatami’s presidency was a success or not, given the strengthening of the conservative position in Iran after he left office,[28] it is clear that the importance of Khatami for Iran does not only lie in his actions while in office. Khatami himself lamented after leaving office, “despite reaching a global audience, the message of dialogue barely penetrated the most intractable political dilemmas, either at home or abroad.”[29] “Today in universities, in our schools, and at home,” Khatami said, “we are incapable of exercising tolerance toward one another. Let us not doubt that unless we undergo an inner transformation, we cannot expect external forces to solve our problems for us.”[30]
While some have called Khatami a failure, observers and scholars have noted the enduring impact of his presidency on Iranian society, including the framework for democracy in Iran which he established, and the manner in which he altered the terms of the debate and the nation’s political culture which was now being shaped by civil society and not only by the state.[31] Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, an Iranian female member of parliament, contended that Khatami “brought to the fore such concepts as patience, tolerance, dialogue, questioning and answering, mutual respect and democratic family relations. More broadly, she argues, he changed the traditional master/follower relationship and introduced aspects of a democratic culture.”[32]
For the scholar Golnar Mehran, “Khatami will be remembered for opening the doors of tolerance, kindness, and culture for a new generation of Iranians.”[33] The scholar Arshin Adib-Moghaddam has pointed to Khatami’s unleashing of “pluralistic momentum” which he contends “was not limited to a single institution, political party or even a set of ideological currents.”[34] The Iranian anthropologist Faribah Adelkhah described Iran under Khatami as “a society engaged in full-scale internal debate,”[35] and this debate has continued to rage in the country. Khatami remains a major presence, even with the restrictions he faces.
And yet, the debates in which Iran has been embroiled are not so different in many ways from those taking place around the world. In each society we observe forces which seek to draw hard barriers and walls around the religious, ethnic, racial, or national community to protect identity from perceived threats, and those advocating more openness and tolerance, particularly towards the “Other.” It is to this latter position—which Khatami embodies—that we now turn.
Khatami on God and unity
Before discussing Khatami’s views concerning the “Other,” it is important to state first his views on God and the divine because Khatami approaches the “Other” from a perspective of common unity. All humans are united, Khatami affirms, in their “divine origin”[36] and constitute a “single entity.”[37] Khatami cites the Prophet of Islam and the thirteenth century Sufi poet Saadi to make the point: “Human beings, who in Saadi’s eloquent description borrowed from a saying of the holy Prophet of Islam, are various organs of the same body.”[38]
The unity of humanity is but a reflection, Khatami teaches, of the unity of “the center of being” and the “source,” which he defines as “a God that is magnificent and majestic. Humans are in love with it but also reverent toward it.”[39] Khatami refers to God as “the loved one”[40] and describes the awareness of God as “Erfan,” using the Sufi term for the understanding of the unitary divine reality.[41] Love for Khatami is thus a crucial reflection of the unity of reality in God, as is kindness, and he identifies “empathy, compassion and understanding” as binding the different cultures and civilizations of the world together.[42]
As humans, we all are in a similar position of seeking to understand the unity we are a part of and get closer to an awareness of God, which is associated with truth and love—as Khatami says, “Humans instinctively seek God.”[43] We live, Khatami explains, “in a sea of mysteries and curiosity about being, dazzled by existence and all its complexity and intricacy.”[44] While he notes that some modern Western philosophers, contemplating the enormity of being itself, believe that it is impossible for humans to understand it, Khatami believes that God can be understood “through the heart…through direct experiential contact,” an idea he states that “All religions have emphasized.”[45] “The path of the heart” leads to truth, Khatami affirms, and “The truth of religious belief” involves “resignation before the grandeur of existence, and enchantment by the loved one.”[46]
Khatami’s theological approach emphasizes that our human understanding of religion is inherently relative, warning against the dangers of dogmatic absolutism
Khatami is clear, however, that his emphasis on love and the heart in understanding God “in no way denies the importance of philosophical and scientific intellect, especially in Islam,” only that unlike the limitless love of the heart, the intellect has “limitations” due to our partial understanding of reality.[47] What we do have to make sense of the world and the divine, Khatami affirms, is reason: “In my view, reason is the common bond of all humans, a means of connecting to the world and to others, the same reason through which Plato and Aristotle communicated their views. Reason and intellect represent the only way of understanding this world, even though this understanding is too relative to guide us to ultimate truths.”[48]
There is an association between humans using their God-given powers of reason and the manner in which different religious traditions have developed among humanity. The process and pattern of attempting to understand the divine unity is the point at which the religions of the world come together—as Khatami argued, “all the divine religions are not quintessentially different.”[49] The differences between religions and peoples derive, Khatami explained, from “religious laws and codes of conduct that govern the social and judicial life of human beings” which have arisen over time.[50] Some of these eventually assume “the veneer of sanctity and are viewed as being immutable” despite having arisen in a specific period.[51] Yet Khatami teaches that “Faith can only bear the fruits of morality and peace when it is constantly flowing. It is with an ever-renewing stream of faith that one can love the world and one’s fellow man.”[52]
Khatami describes humans as “earthly and historical creatures” whose “understanding of the truth changes with the passage of time and change of location.”[53] He says, “knowledge evolves. At one time, men of knowledge have one understanding, while at another time their understanding evolves, or perhaps the former understanding is even negated and replaced by our present understanding…Thus a great portion of our understanding of the Book of God is limited to time and space.”[54]
This process is also present in the case of Islam, as Khatami contends, “I believe one can never have understanding of the Qur’an and religion...new interpretations have appeared with varying frequency…As the Prophet said, the Qur’an contains seventy layers. He also said that different minds have different interpretations. In other words, ijtihad [interpretation] is one of the important pillars that can help the Islamic world in making new interpretations.”[55]
Khatami believes that the same process occurs in “civilizations” which represent the cultures and worldviews that form over time in human societies—“Every civilization is based on a specific world-view which is itself shaped by a people’s idiosyncratic historical experience.”[56] He further explains, “Civilization is an answer to the curiosity of humans who never stop questioning their world. The ever-changing needs of humans compel them to fulfill these needs, and civilization is the answer to the questions one faces…With each question that is answered and each need that is fulfilled, humans are confronted with new questions and needs.”[57]
While different attempts to understand the divine unity appear and develop among different religions and civilizations over time, Khatami believes, this should not overshadow the common process by which these interpretations develop nor should it preclude understanding between traditions. Reason is very important because it enables us to attempt on a renewed basis to understand God and being in our own time informed by our own traditions. Through dialogue we can also communicate with others and benefit from their approaches in their own contexts. As God is associated with truth and unity, the greater understanding humans have, the more harmony there will be—and the inverse is also true: with a lack of understanding we devolve into discord and move away from unity. As Khatami says, “misunderstanding is itself one of the important factors that distances us from the truth and transforms people with understanding into people who are at war and in conflict with one another.”[58]
Thus Khatami’s ideal world is one where, as he explains, on one level we recognize and embrace the common unity of all, but we also recognize and embrace our differences in grappling with and trying to understand the world, and indeed we can benefit from encountering the different human approaches. We should pursue what Khatami called “unity in diversity…we want a world that has commonalties, co-existence, but that also has differences and variety.”[59]
Khatami and the “Other”
When Khatami views people who are different—by categories including religion, ethnicity, culture, civilization, nation, or race—then, he is seeing them as part of the same unity. He understands the diverse traditions of humans to be the result of human beings attempting to understand the divine and live the best way they can. Human cultural diversity is thus a fact of nature and derives from our relative positions in relation to one another. As Khatami says, “people are by nature different; we do not all think alike, and we do not have identical interpretations”[60]
Khatami repeatedly stresses our relative perspectives concerning religion and thus inability to access the “full truth.” While humans “have signs of the superior being in them,” he contends, they “must use their fallible intellect that nature has bestowed on them to deal with nature.”[61] There is a “relativity of human understanding, even of religion,”[62] Khatami argues, and “All the diversity among different traditions, views, and religions, and even among sects of the same religion is proof that no one can claim to understand all reality from all angles.”[63]
Thus, “Given the multiplicity of views of religion over history,” Khatami asserts, “we must ensure that we do not think that our view of religion is the only one.”[64] He similarly urged Iranians in his inaugural address as president, “We should all avoid considering our own understandings and interpretations as absolute.”[65] While there are indeed “sacred matters,” he contended, “our interpretations of them are human. Only through this realization will humans open their minds to the experiences and innovations of others.”[66]
People who do “take some realities to be absolute, transcendent, and holy”[67] or believe themselves to be “absolutely ‘good’ while considering the other as absolutely ‘evil’”[68] are in fact viewing reality “through the prism of the relativity of their own minds and bodies.”[69] Humans should “concede their limitations” as fallible people interpreting religion, Khatami implores, and if they do not, a “catastrophe” could result whereby the “prescriptions of a few may come to be viewed as religiosity itself. A believer is seen only as someone who subscribes to this specific view. Many frictions have their root here.”[70]
Thus to impose a uniform society would be contrary to the rules of nature and creation, and the sign of a “dead” society which will condemn itself to destruction.[71] God has “created humans different,” Khatami affirmed, and “Those who wish to homogenize society, especially with directives and from above, are moving in a direction opposed to the course [intended by] creation.”[72] The inherent diversity among humanity is not a burden or weakness but a “blessing” according to Khatami.[73] In fact, he said, “human creativity is based on diversity.”[74]
This approach to the “Other” has both philosophical and socio-political implications. First of all, it is a view of compete human equality. Because of each of our limited perspectives, we should not impose how we see the world on others—such thinking often leads to ideas of superiority, but, as Khatami says, “we are all humans and no one can consider him/herself as superior to others.”[75] He is adamant that “We should not divide humans into first and second class people.”[76]
As a politician and government official, Khatami stressed repeatedly the equality of all people in the state as having the same rights and emphasized tolerance, empathy, and respect for diversity and the “Other.” This included categories of difference including gender, and he spoke passionately about women’s rights, urging the government to, as he said, “prepare the ground for women to recognise their rights and capabilities, and acknowledge their merits” and that it is “wrong to regard women as inferior and second sex and men as first and superior sex.”[77]
Khatami stated, the “worst society is one in which only a single voice is heard.”[78] Invoking his central theme of “freedom” in society, Khatami defined freedom in this way: “freedom means freedom for the opponent,” a crucial part of what Khatami calls the “art of governance.”[79] Khatami is aware that in many societies, minority groups are often given precisely this “second class” status for deviating according to various characteristics from the majority group. This was certainly true in Iran, and Khatami spoke inclusively of Iranian identity as incorporating both Muslims and non-Muslims, Shia and Sunni, and the various ethnic groups of the nation. People should be assigned responsibility, Khatami said, “if they are ‘capable, skilled, and trustworthy, no matter if they are Sunni, Shi’i, Kurd, or Baluchi.”[80]
As noted above in the discussion of Khatami’s ideal city based in the example of Medina guided by the Prophet of Islam, Khatami attempted to move the Iranian society towards this inclusive model. As he argued, “Our civil society is not a society where only Muslims are entitled to rights and are considered citizens. Rather, all individuals are entitled to rights, within the framework of law and order.”[81] Such statements were particularly notable given that Khatami was “one of the few officials of the Islamic Republic to pronounce formally that rights of citizenship should be expanded to non-Muslims.”[82] Even “if these rights [of non-believers] are trampled by a believer,” Khatami said, “[the state] would confront the believer.”[83]
Khatami also cited the example of Caliph Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet and a central figure in Shia Islam as the first Shia Imam—Khatami stated, “Amir Al-Mu’menin Imam Ali (AS) enjoined his representative to observe the principle of justice and equality as regards all people and not Muslims only, for ‘they are of two groups; a group of them is your brothers in faith and the other is like you in creation.’”[84]
Speaking further about minorities in Iran, Khatami asserted, “our Sunnis, Shi’is, Baluchis, Kurds, Turkomans, and Lurs can be proud only if Iran is strong and proud.”[85] On the subject of the Baháʼí, who have suffered longstanding persecution in Iran, Khatami said, “Bahai or not, they are Iranian citizens and their rights ought to be protected. The president, who sees himself as responsible for the rights of Muslim citizens, also sees himself as responsible for the rights of Bahai citizens.”[86] Khatami additionally voiced his support for federalism in Iran, an arrangement which would give minority areas more autonomy, as “the most desirable democratic form of government for Iran,” and as president attempted to expand the powers of local bodies such as local councils.[87] While Khatami’s suggestion of federalism provoked accusations he was promoting Iran’s disintegration, minority voices such as Abdollah Mohtadi, the co-founder of the Iranian Kurdish Koumeleh party, supported Khatami’s comments, stating, “I believe federalism is a progressive idea which secures Iranian people’s rights and brings them closer to each other.”[88]
Internationally, Khatami was a pathbreaking president in reaching out to the “Other.” He assumed office aware of Iran’s isolated status in the world and attempted to change this by tearing down what he called “the wall of mutual distrust” between Iran and other nations.[89] As discussed above, he reached out to the US in substantial ways, and in 2006, the year after he left office, he became the highest-ranking Iranian official to visit the US since the taking of the American hostages at the US embassy—this meant that for the first time since that period the US was specifically welcoming an Iranian leader outside of the United Nations structure.[90]
Khatami also reached out to other Western countries. As president he was the first head of state to visit France since the Iranian Revolution, and he welcomed Prince Charles to Iran after a devastating earthquake, the first British royal visit since the Revolution. Khatami also had a private audience with Pope John Paul II and was welcomed by the King of Spain at his palace. Khatami additionally visited Vienna to build ties with the European Union. In Asia, Khatami was the first Iranian head of state to visit Japan in 40 years, where he met the Emperor, and in China he built economic ties. Given the often icy relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, it was also a trailblazing move for Khatami to visit Saudi Arabia, where he became the first Iranian leader to visit since the Revolution.[91]
While Khatami tirelessly promoted understanding and acceptance of the “Other,” he observed that global trends seemed to be moving away from embracing the “Other.” With globalization, he noted, had come an increased “identification with local cultures” as “local traditions have felt threatened and have therefore started a return to the ‘self.’”[92] What they fear, Khatami discerned, was a “merging of cultures,” that their distinctiveness will be lost.[93] Hence people who feel this way often focus on the “greatness” of their own identities, and obsess about supposed glories of the past.[94] Here, Khatami says, it is necessary “to be able to critique your past” while attempting to understand it, which is important for self-identity.[95] As societies are constantly in a state of flux and adaptation there can never be a true return to the past, he contends—learning about the past should be done not “to return to it and stagnate in it,” but to “understand the types of mentality and habits that are very much temporally and spatially relative…to find a foundation for the dignity of our today and a future that is even more glorious than our past.”[96] Khatami calls this “moving towards the future while leaning on the past.”[97] Then, he recommends, “We should automatically seek certain standards in the framework of which all peoples can live in understanding, but maintain their own values, without leading to any confrontation with others.”[98]
The Dialogue among Civilizations
It was with passion and resolve that Khatami promoted his solution to help the world ameliorate the problems it faced: the dialogue among civilizations. He envisioned it as “a new basis on which to regulate human and social relations.”[99] The dialogue among civilizations is deeply rooted in core elements of Khatami’s thinking discussed above—the unity of all, the respect for naturally occurring diversity, and the central role that our human, God-given reason plays in understanding the world, life, and the divine.
The dialogue among civilizations is the ultimate step for Khatami, a way to connect people of different backgrounds who each have their own religions, traditions, cultures, and civilizations. While humans are striving to understand God in their own way, and in the context of changing circumstances over time, Khatami believes that if multiple traditions are put in conversation and contact with each other, humans can grow closer to understanding God. In this sense, different perspectives are connected in a common endeavor, and with greater unity we can better approach the divine ideal. And yet, he always stresses that it is a unity in diversity—through diverse perspectives we are better able to approach and appreciate the unity.
Khatami believes that the dialogue among civilizations is both naturally occurring and a process that must be encouraged and facilitated, especially in the contemporary world where distances are growing smaller, we are grappling with transformative new technologies and scientific advances, and face new perils and dangers. The dialogue is naturally occurring because, as in Khatami’s discussion of Iranian identity, civilizations are the result of a dynamic process of interaction—they “ordinarily affect and transform one another.”[100] He asserts, “no major culture or civilization has evolved in isolation.”[101] On the subject of Islam and the West, for example, Khatami pointed out that after being “enriched in its golden age by Persian and Greek culture,” Islam “familiarized Westerners with their history of philosophy and civics. The transfer of Greek science, philosophy and wisdom first occurred as a result of Europeans’ familiarity with Muslims…The great Western civilization is strongly indebted to Islamic civilization.”[102]
It was notable, Khatami said, that the great Sufi mystic Ibn Arabi influenced Dante, and in turn, “in our schools of philosophy, the views of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, and those of Descartes, Kant, Hegel and Wittgenstein from among the modernists are taught alongside the views of al-Kindi, Farabi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra. If the great civilizations of Asia view themselves today in a Western mirror and get to know one another through the West, it was Islam that served in the not-too-distant past as a mirror to the West.”[103]
In this important matter of cross-cultural influences, Khatami argued, recognition is important—otherwise people will not understand how the process has worked and may think that there were no external links. Speaking of the idea of tolerance, Khatami noted, “It is ironic that this concept of tolerance that was adopted from the Muslims and is a result of the contacts made by Europeans with them, is now, in our time, being offered by Europeans to Muslims as an ethical and political piece of advice. Evidence of the Muslim influence in the creation of this spirit of tolerance among Europeans is clear and can be traced in Europe’s literary history.”[104]
Discovering such connections is itself part of the dialogue among civilizations which scholars and learned people can help the wider public appreciate. Khatami advises that discussing such connections should proceed even despite harmful processes such as colonization which have given the “West” a bad name in much of the world—he reminds his audience that the West is more than the colonialism, aggression, and imperialism that has occurred.[105]
Conversely, some see the West as superior and believe that Eastern or non-Western cultures have little to contribute, or believe that in an age of globalization the world must “develop” precisely along the Western model. In contrast, Khatami counsels, “wherever hate or infatuation arises, the ability to know and critique a truth is lost. If the East can rise above this problem and begin to separate the intellectual and valuable aspects of the West from its political aspects, I believe that Easterners can better critique Western civilisation. But Easterners should not be so prejudiced as not to critique their own tradition as well.”[106] There is no reason the dialogue cannot continue, and he calls on Islamic civilization “to absorb the positive aspects of Western civilization.”[107] “Our society needs to evolve and transform itself,” he says, “but we must know that development in its Western sense is merely one form of transformation, not the only form.”[108]
In addition to such past examples of the dialogue among civilizations and intercultural and religious contact occurring organically—“as naturally and persistently as the emigration of birds in nature”[109] as he put it—Khatami also promotes the dialogue as a conscious method and process. It is an interaction ultimately between “self” and “other” which aims at understanding, not only about the “other” but about the “self.” As Khatami explains, “Knowledge of the other makes us more knowledgeable about the self and knowledge of the self-enhances our knowledge of the other.”[110] Khatami teaches, referring to the impact of dialogue on the self, that “Seeing in essence requires taking distance in perspective, and distance provides the grounds for immersion into another existential dimension…Dialogue is a bilateral or even multi-lateral process in which the end result is not manifest from the beginning. We ought to prepare ourselves for surprising outcomes, since every dialogue can provide grounds for human creativity to flourish.”[111]
Furthermore, by speaking and listening to one another we are better able to contemplate and appreciate the unity and being of which we are all a part, and how each understands and makes sense of that unity. Khatami phrases it like this in his piece for my book After Terror: “Speaking and listening…are efforts by two or more parties aimed at coming closer to truth and achieving understanding…dialogue…reveals its beautiful but veiled face only to those aspirants who march hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder with other human beings…In effective dialogue among civilizations, listening is as important as speaking.”[112]
Engaging in interfaith dialogue specifically is an important part of the dialogue among civilizations for Khatami. While religions have their own theological understandings and figures they hold sacred, the goal of dialogue is not to challenge these understandings and figures but to learn from and recognize one another with empathy. As an example, Khatami discusses the distinctions between the three Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Jews, Khatami says, “believe the messiah has not yet come,” while Christians “do not believe in a messenger after Christ.”[113] Speaking from an Islamic perspective, Khatami said, “We see one root in all divinely inspired religions and believe all Abrahamic religions have the same nature.”[114] Khatami thus reminds Muslims of how the Abrahamic religions are seen in Islam to stress commonalities while hoping the other Abrahamic faiths “can “recognise Muslims, as Muslims recognise them, so that understanding and, God willing, achievement of common standards is made possible.”[115] In such a manner the dialogue between faiths can progress.
Khatami offered an ideal example of how the dialogue among civilizations can be conducted in the relationships between three great poets: Hafez of Persia, Goethe of Germany, and Allama Iqbal of India (in Iran he is known as Iqbal Lahori and today he is considered the national poet of Pakistan, of which he had dreamt but did not live to see). The links between these figures began, Khatami tells us, when Goethe encountered Hafez, reaching from Christian Europe across time and space to the Islamic Persian Orient of Hafez. Iranians consider Hafez as the Shakespeare of the Persian language and “the tongue of the hidden,” Khatami explains, due to Hafez’s ability to convey “the inner nature of our people.” In his inclusive mystic embrace Hafez has written some powerful verses in honor of Jesus: “I am a hole in a flute through which blows the breath of Christ: listen to this music.” For Khatami Goethe, in his poetry in honor of Hafez employs Hafez’s style, and “found ‘the tongue of the hidden’ and established contact with him.”[116] Goethe did not become “the Other”—he remained German—but he collapsed the distance between Islam and Europe and East and West.
Similarly, Iqbal, who subsequently responded to Goethe in his poetry, did not become German or European but collapsed the distance between civilizations. Khatami notes that Iqbal, living under colonial rule, would have had a reason to condemn Europe, but he looked beyond the “colonial colours” of Western culture, to access its human essence.[117] All these thinkers were connecting in a space beyond geographical categories, a common human space. Khatami states, “Goethe said, ‘The East is God’s, the West is God’s,’ and Iqbal, as if to indicate the origin of the German poet’s inspiration, adorned his Message of the East with the Qur’anic verse that ‘East and West belong to God.’ The objective of both poets is to show a point where East and West meet. The common point of contact, in both views, is the divine origin of humanity. The feeling of estrangement that East and West have towards each other will be dissolved when each stops viewing itself as an absolute phenomenon and sees its ‘self’ in relation to the ‘other’ and in relation to this common origin. That is how East and West help each other towards perfection.”[118]
Now coming to his ultimate point of guidance to humanity using these examples, Khatami concludes, “If dialogue is to be propounded as a new chapter in the world it must transform its basis from negative tolerance to joint co-operation. No nation should be marginalised for any philosophical, political or economic reasons; one must not just tolerate others, but also work with them.”[119] It is not merely curiosity that should drive the dialogue among civilizations, but a quest “to discover the truth and to find salvation, understanding and coexistence,”[120] which ultimately will be possible only by embracing each other with kindness.
Respect is key, as “one conducts a dialogue only when one respects the other party and considers the other party as equal to oneself.”[121] It should be carried out with “sympathy and affection” as a “genuine effort to understand others,” and “without the desire to vanquish them.”[122] Thus Khatami does not have in mind the Orientalist relationship, for example, whereby “the East is treated as an object of study, rather than as ‘the other side’ of a dialogue,” and, he also urges, “We too, as Iranians, as Muslims and as Asians, need to take major steps towards gaining a true knowledge of the West, as it really is.”[123] In a correctly conducted dialogue, Khatami teaches, we consider the different positions and “look for the common human element.”[124]
Khatami’s dual modes of approaching God or truth—reason and love/the heart—are also applicable to his understanding of the dialogue among civilizations. While we have been largely discussing the use of reason in the exchange of different views, Khatami once again suggests that a dialogue of the heart may be the ultimate form of the dialogue. He contends that “dialogue, before anything else, is a search for emotional contact and sincere trust.’’[125]
It is not a coincidence that the three great figures discussed by Khatami as exemplars of the dialogue, Hafez, Goethe, and Iqbal are all poetic artists, indicating the essential role the arts and matters of the heart have in the dialogue among civilizations. In an often-unforgiving environment, Khatami states, “we need the magical touch and spell of the enchanted artist and the inspired poet to rescue life—at least part of it—from the iron clasp of death” in a world “thoroughly controlled by political, military and economic conditions.”[126]
In contrast to the prevalent discourse of international relations which consists of raw power, “realism,” and “national interests,” and the usual language of diplomacy which Khatami characterizes as “plastic,” meaning artificial and clinical,[127] the dialogue among civilizations brings in an essential moral, humane, lively, dynamic, and ethical language and perspective to relations between states and peoples.[128] In fact, Khatami argues, it is only the dialogue among civilizations which can achieve the goals that raw power realism purports to: stability and a stable world order. As Khatami puts it, “the paradigm of dialogue among civilizations requires that we give up the will for power and instead appeal to the will for empathy and compassion. Without the will for empathy, compassion and understanding there would be no hope for the prevalence of order in our world.”[129] Civility, which is also crucial to living together, he says, “is contingent upon dialogue among societies and civilizations representing various views, inclinations and approaches.”[130]
Khatami additionally contends that while it is possible to impose stability and peace through raw power and force, this is contingent “on the amount of force” employed and “whether the peace in question serves the interests of either party.”[131] In contrast, peace achieved through dialogue is much deeper, loving, and long lasting. This peace “will depend on its own raison d’être as well as on the rational and psychological development of man…such a peace will definitely be long-term, with a very broad range, covering such fields as peace among cultures, peace among religions,” and “peace among civilizations.”[132]
The dialogue of civilizations, then, is a paradigm for coexisting, for strengthening the bonds between us as we aspire to greater peace and unity. It is an attempt to make whole what may be broken or fractured. This also goes for the relationship between humans and nature, where Khatami observes the same ongoing process: “This rupture of intimate and ardent relations with nature has led to a weakening of similar relations among men.”[133] Just as humans may see the “Other” as an object rather than a full subject, they also commonly see nature as a “source of energy” or “a mass of inert materials with different shapes”—in this case, the “communion” that humans have had with “the sea, the mountains, the forests and the deserts” for thousands of years is broken.
The goal here is “peace between man and nature,”[134] which is part of what Khatami calls “Comprehensive peace,” an all-encompassing state “over and above peace among human beings.”[135] Again, the dialogue can help achieve this peace: “The dialogue among cultures and civilizations which should be concerned with the most important and urgent problems that afflict all mankind should naturally place the problem of man’s relations with nature at the top of its agenda.”[136]
Khatami’s lessons for our world
In 2026, following the start of the American and Israeli war with Iran, a revived internet meme of Khatami went viral in the United States. The meme consists of a still of Khatami from a CNN interview as he attempted to reach out to Americans, with his quote, “Alexis de Tocqueville…which I am sure most Americans have read” displayed in text. While Khatami is not identified in the meme, the image had resonance due to Khatami’s appearance in his spectacles, beard, turban, and clerical robes—he was effectively a stand in for Iran’s clerical leaders.
The irony was that Iran’s educated leaders may expect too much understanding from the American public. Not only do Americans commonly not understand Iran or appreciate the high levels of erudition among the leadership, but they similarly may not be as well versed in American and Western literature as Iranians might assume.
The meme gained added resonance when Iran’s negotiation team traveled to Pakistan for talks with the United States, and it was revealed that all four of Iran’s top negotiators—Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Ali Akbar Ahmadian, Iran’s security chief, and Abdolnaser Hemmati, the governor of Iran’s central bank—had PhDs, while no member of the US delegation consisting of Vice President J. D. Vance, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner had a PhD.[137]
The meme indicated there was an awareness among some Americans of the immense chasm of understanding between Iran and the US. It also contested the idea that the Iranian leadership consisted of ignorant “fanatics.” Abbas Araghchi’s PhD, for example, was in politics from England’s University of Kent and examined the relationship between Islamic governance and Western liberal democracy.[138]
Currently, the relationship between the US and Iran is in uncharted territory. On the positive side, in Pakistan the two countries held their highest-level face to face talks since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. However, the scale of the US and Israeli strikes—the US alone carried out over 13,000 strikes on Iran before a ceasefire came into effect in April[139]—and the high office of many of the targets, including Supreme Leader Khamenei, may only embolden the most hardline figures in Iran. Huge questions remain, for example, on the future and goals of Iran’s nuclear program, and the status of the Strait of Hormuz which is essential for the global economy and the world’s oil supply.
There is clearly a power vacuum at the top of the government which is being filled by aggressive, more confrontational forces, with the Iranian leadership now reportedly consisting of “a battle-hardened collective of commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and those aligned with them.”[140] The Revolutionary Guard has sidelined the Khatami-backed president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and told him “to focus only on domestic affairs, such as providing a steady flow of food and fuel.”[141]
The dominance of such hardline figures was on display in Iran’s negotiation team which met Vance and the US team—two of the four top negotiators, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Ali Akbar Ahmadian, as senior Revolutionary Guard commanders in 1999, signed a letter threatening Khatami if he did not control pro-democracy protestors. They wrote, “Our patience is at an end. We do not feel it is our duty to show any more tolerance…Mr. President, if you don’t take a revolutionary decision today, and fail to abide by your Islamic and nationalistic duty, tomorrow will be too late and the damage done will be irreparable and beyond imagination.”[142]
If Khatami lamented Bush’s “Axis of Evil” for its detrimental effect on the possibilities of facilitating dialogue, tolerance, and reform in Iran, President Donald Trump’s apocalyptic threat to destroy Iran-- “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again”--[143] and killing Supreme Leader Khamenei will make the task infinitely more complex and difficult. Perhaps those around Trump did not let him know that Persian civilization spreads far and wide beyond the borders of Iran and has penetrated deep into Central and South Asia and the Middle East.
The devastating attacks on Iran’s infrastructure including hospitals, colleges and archeological sites which began with the heartless slaughter of some 170 school girls in Minab has only served to unite the nation against what was an unpopular and shaky regime. The killing of the Supreme Leader has become a rallying point and symbol of nationalism not only for Shia Iranians but also for other Muslims throughout the Muslim world. Not only Muslim countries but in what is regarded as the Global South people have responded with enthusiastic admiration for Iran. Here is the former Supreme Court Justice of India, a prominent Hindu public intellectual (“A humble tribute to the greatest nation on earth today” by Justice Katju, Indicanews):
“For over 60 days since 28 February 2026, a day which will live in infamy, it was suddenly attacked by the US-Israeli forces … Iran has withstood that furious, unprovoked and treacherous assault of America, the mightiest nation on earth with the most powerful military… In my opinion it is only Iran, which has valiantly and heroically faced the mightiest military power in the world for over 60 days and has refused to surrender, ( when France had surrendered to Germany in June 1940 in just 43 days ), which can be that leader, and can, by the example of its own heroism and valour, inspire other underdeveloped nations to begin their own struggles for emancipation … That is why I regard Iran as the greatest nation on earth today.”
And yet, if the Middle East is to be brought back from the brink, and a better world built, Khatami’s example is extremely important. It is significant that however intense the pressure was on Khatami and his supporters and allies, who faced intimidation and violence, he never deviated from his peaceful approach of dialogue and negotiation, even with his fierce opponents.[144] While the time of the peacemakers like Khatami may not have come yet, it may come from the debris of the current crisis. Khatami’s life and thought demonstrate clearly and conclusively the presence and durability of the reform camp in Iran and the deep desire for dialogue and openness, despite recent trends.
Iran, the Middle East, the West, and the world face similar challenges—a retreat to tribalism and closing off to the “Other,” the difficulties of reconciling tradition and modernity and religion and science, grappling with transformative and potentially dangerous technologies such as AI, and dealing with the perils of climate change and the possibility of the use of nuclear arms.
On all these issues, Khatami presents an approach to finding viable solutions, as we have endeavored to show in this piece. His paradigm of the dialogue among civilizations should be revived and strengthened to pursue the ideal of a peaceful and loving world. It can be applied both internally and between nations and peoples, and as a framework to resolve the significant problems concerning humanity as a whole such as protecting and healing the natural environment. To pursue a positive and inspiring ideal is not, as Khatami tells us, “an exercise in imagination but the panoramic outlook of a future situation, whose achievement is possible and for whose realization it is our urgent duty to strive.”[145]
Khatami implores us to be hopeful, to pursue the ideal and attempt to make it a reality, arguing, “We must be brimming with hope for the future.”[146] As “humanity has a common fate”[147] and we are all “aboard the same ship,” [148] Khatami says, we should aspire to a world of “mutual comprehensive cooperation.”[149] A world where we move away from the use of violence, and as he put it, achieve “the final victory of the word over the sword.”[150] We should “hope that in the coming century resort to force and violence shall not be glorified, and the essence of political power be compassion and justice, externally manifested in dialogue between civilizations.”[151]
It is to have what Khatami calls “vivacious hope: the hope of living in a world permeated by virtue, humility and love.”[152] Indeed, Khatami affirms, love is the answer: “We say we love all the people in the world and we want them to love us in return…Resentments should be turned into kindness and love.”[153] While the prospect of the “cooperation of the entire human community” might sound “romantic,” Khatami said, “it is now an inescapable necessity for the survival of mankind.”[154] We simply have no other choice.
We will close with Khatami’s prayer and dream captured in his powerful invocation of Hafez which reflects the splendor and grandeur of the thought of Ibn Arabi, Al Farabi, Goethe, and Iqbal: “Let us hope that all human beings will sing along with Hafez of Shiraz, that divinely inspired spirit: No ineffable clamour reverberates in the grand heavenly dome more sweetly than the sound of love.”[155]
References
[1] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, p. 335.
[2] Gareth Smyth, “Iran’s Khatami strikes back,” The Guardian, September 19, 2013.
[3] Gareth Smyth, “Iran’s Khatami strikes back,” The Guardian, September 19, 2013.
[4] Samira Ghoreishi, Women’s Activism in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Political Alliance and the Formation of Deliberative Civil Society (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), p. 154.
[5] Shakibi, Khatami and Gorbachev, p. 356.
[6] Mark Gregory, “Expanding business empire of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards,” BBC News, July 26, 2010.
[7] Erin Cunningham, “Security forces reportedly bar Iran’s popular ex-president from leaving his home,” The Washington Post, October 19, 2017; “Iran’s Ex-Reformist President Banned From Public Appearances Week After Seven MPs Sentenced to Prison,” Center for Human Rights in Iran, October 8, 2017: https://iranhumanrights.org/2017/10/irans-ex-reformist-president-banned-from-public-appearances-week-after-seven-mps-sentenced-to-prison/
[8] “Timeline: The U.S., Iran and the Nuclear Question,” NPR, August 25, 2009.
[9] “Iran leader says nuclear bomb would be un-Islamic,” CNN, December 11, 2003.
[10] “Khatami urges religious leaders to save world from nuclear weapons,” Mehr News Agency, November 15, 2005.
[11] Shabnam Holliday and Edward Wastnidge, “Towards a post-imperial and Global IR?: Revisiting Khatami’s Dialogue among Civilisations,” Review of International Studies, vol. 51, no. 1, 2025, p. 74.
[12] Gareth Smyth, “Iran