This article examines the historical transformations of the concept resistance (moqavemat) within Iranian political language in the twentieth century. In contemporary Iranian discourses, resistance is often associated with foreign policy and a specific international order. However, a conceptual history approach shows how particular political experiences and expectations shaped resistance and its entanglements with other key concepts, such as survival and independence, in the twentieth century. This paper charts the historical transformations of the concept of resistance in Iranian political language, demonstrating that resistance became a pivotal concept in Iran in the 1920s. It traces the concept’s semantic transformations in the late twentieth century in relation to historical events associated with non-alignment. Analyzing political writings, newspaper archives, and debates in the parliament in twentieth-century Iran, the article details how the concept emerged out of imperial rivalries, continues to shape contemporary geopolitical conflicts, and refers to various spheres of the international order, both political and religious. In doing so, the article charts the co-constitution of the concept of resistance within domestic politics and the international order.