'The Nationalist–Religious Ones')[2] or the National–Religious[5][6] (Persian: ملّیمذهبی, romanized: Melli–Mazhabi as an adjective) are terms referring to a political faction in Iran[7][8] that consists of individuals and groups embracing Iranian nationalism and Islam, as an integral part of their manifesto.
The political lineage of this faction is traced back to the 1940s while its adherents have been off power with the exception of a brief period after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, during which the Interim Government of Iran was led by Mehdi Bazargan.
Having opposed the rule of both Pahlavi dynasty and the current Islamic Republic system, they have for long sought democracy in Iran through reformism –rather than revolutionary means– albeit their aspirations of being accepted as the loyal opposition by the establishment have been fruitless.
[9] Other Muslim intelligentsia who worked with the Front to help nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, were not socialists in the traditional sense of the term but instead were instead proponents of liberalism.
[12] Bulk of the FMI members were exiled and became politically active abroad against the government, with younger generations founding the People's Mujahedin of Iran.
[13] Historian Ervand Abrahamian identifies six distinguishable political factions that emerged in the immediate aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, including "lay-religious liberals" represented by Bazargan.
[14] According to him: Fearful of replacing the monarchy with either anarchy or theocracy, they hoped to demolish the old order 'step by step’ and erect a republic that would keep intact the main state institutions, especially the army and the bureaucracy, and would be Islamic in form but secular and democratic in content.
Inspired by nationalism as well as Shiism, they used patriotic symbols as much as religious ones, dreamed not of exporting the revolution but of modernizing the country, and feared not so much alien cultural influences as predatory neighbours, in particular Iraq.
And apprehensive of all forms of autocracy, these liberals hoped to set up a state that would not weigh too heavily on society, especially in economic matters, and would tolerate political diversity.
[20] Another organization named Dr. Ali Shariati Cultural Researches Bureau (daftar-e pažuḥeš-hāye farḥangī-ye doktor alī-ye šarīatī), was founded by Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari in 1996 and started working the next year but was forcibly shut down in 2001.
[28] Matthijs van den Bos observed that by 2002, university students associated with National-Religious orientation were disillusioned with state religion but had a quest for what he calls "political mysticism", as they used the slogan āzādī, barābarī, ʾerfān (lit.