“American Islam”: The Politics of Religious Authenticity in Iran

ABSTRACT This article analyzes “American Islam” as a political category of religious authenticity in the Islamic Republic of Iran rather than as a fixed theological concept. Using a critical discourse‐analytic framework, it examines how Ayatollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Khamenei construct and operationalize the opposition between pure Muhammadan Islam and American Islam across text, institutional circulation, and social practice. It argues that Khomeini introduced the term within a revolutionary context to delegitimize monarchism, clerical quietism, and any separation between religion and politics, embedding this dichotomy in the constitutional and institutional architecture of the new state. Under Khamenei the concept is expanded and securitized to target reformist intellectuals and the discourse of “Islam of Mercy” alike. By tracing this transformation, the article demonstrates how claims to doctrinal purity function as instruments of political authority, narrowing interpretive plurality and redefining dissent as ideological deviation within the Islamic Republic of Iran.