After the Arab conquest in the 7th century, Persians adapted to their rulers and adopted a new government and religion. Yet, the Persian language continued to thrive rather than completely succumbing to Arabic. However, Arabic did leave its mark, influencing about 40% of modern Persian vocabulary. Still, today there is pride amongst many Iranians that they were able to retain their language and their Persian identity, despite the circumstances. Recent rulers of Iran have recognized that pride and used it to their advantage. They utilized Iranian nationalism as a means to retain power by revering Iran’s history, rejecting foreign domination, and emphasizing the importance of Persian identity. Additionally, they realized the strong ties between Iranian identity and the Persian language. Iranian society also noted that connection and attempted to reform the language to spark unity and increase the accessibility of information and ideas. This presentation will compare how three different eras in Iran- the Qajar era, the Pahlavi era, and the era of the Islamic Republic used Persian language reform to spark nationalism within the population. I will analyze how both the Iranian rulers and society sought to reform Persian and their impetuses for doing so. I will argue that each era in Iran brought a distinct version of nationalism that molded language reform to fit their ideals. Thus, language reform constantly transformed, from attempting to eradicate European loan words to defy foreign occupation during the Qajar era to creating new words for military equipment to demonstrate strength during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi. From pushing to decrease the level of Arabic influence under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi to ceasing that push and embracing Arabic and Islam under Ayatollah Khomenei. I will argue that the reasons Iranian society desired language reform remained relatively constant as leaders changed, with accessibility and national pride remaining at the forefront, the biggest exception to this being the Islamic component. However, I will argue that the majority of Iranians balanced that disharmony and found ways to embrace both their Islamicness and their Iranianness. Lastly, I will argue that for Iranian society, language reform is tied to the promotion of democracy, from the Constitutional Revolution, when Persian was made accessible to better popularize freedom, to today, as some Iranians attempt to speak “pure” Persian in order to embrace their Iranianness to counter the impact of Arabic and the clergy on Iranian identity.