¹ Master’s Degree in the History of Shi‘ism, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran.

² The objective of this research is to analyze discourse construction as a highly central component of Ayatollah Khamenei’s leadership and managerial style, and to examine how such discursive formations contribute to consolidating Iranian national identity within the sphere of nation-building, thereby confronting Western cultural colonialism. The research adopts a qualitative approach, utilizing the method of qualitative content analysis. The research corpus comprises the entirety of Ayatollah Khamenei’s statements from 2001 to 2025. The findings indicate that his discourse construction, centered upon strengthening “Iranian–Islamic identity,” operates across several domains: the Persian language; historical memory; national self-confidence; indigenous progress; education and upbringing; and national production. These discursive initiatives include: reinforcing the authority and centrality of the Persian language and safeguarding it as a national cultural asset against the infiltration of foreign languages; rearticulating the historical identity of the Iranian nation; demanding the preservation and transmission of historical heritage to younger generations and confronting historical distortion by adversaries; strengthening national self-confidence and the ethos of “we can,” in opposition to the inculcation of inferiority by colonial West; promoting indigenous progress based on an Iranian–Islamic model rather than a Western development paradigm; cultivating identity-oriented education among the younger generation and resisting Western cultural penetration within educational institutions; and supporting national production while countering brand-oriented Western consumer culture and encouraging consumption of domestic goods.

10.22034/irsj.2026.243537