Abstract
The intellectual life of Shaygan is divided into three periods: early, middle, and late. His book, "Asia against the West", was written in the early period of his life with the aim of protecting the Iranian, Asian culture and identity vis-à-vis the West. The main objective of this research is to find out Shaygan’s approach to the idea of ​​national identity and oriental culture in this book. He tried to make a distinction between the Western philosophy and Asian civilization and save Eastern mysticism, which is based on piety and inner purity, from the harms of modernism. His approach to the issue of identity had a nationalist orientation and his criterion in encountering Western cultural invasions was focusing on the Iranian traditional and ethnic concepts. He directed the identity of the current Muslim community to the Iranian-Eastern culture instead of leading and guiding it towards the Quranic Islamic identity. On the other hand, due to his special attachment to Asian mysticisms, he has ignored the essential conflict between Islam and Eastern schools. This research is an attempt to critically examine the main early ideas of Shaygan in the mentioned book. The necessary data was collected from library resources and analyzed through descriptive-analytical method.
Keywords: Islam, identity, eastern schools, modernism, Shaygan