The present paper investigates the reaction of Iranian intelligentsia to liberal thought from 1340s up to Islamic revolution. The liberal thought entered Iran as a modern way of thinking, affecting intelligentsia in two aspects. On the one hand, some of the Iranian intelligentsia yielded to liberal thought and imitated it; they are called westerners. On the other hand, some of the intelligentsia, in their defense of Iranian religious and national identity, embarked on renewing religious thought and prevented undermining identity and intellectual beliefs of the society. Here, the reaction of intelligentsia to liberalism has been studied with an emphasis on thoughts and views of three influential Iranian personalities, i.e. Jalal Al-e Ahmad as a criticizer intellectual as well as Bazargan and Shari'ati as two religious intellectuals.