essay on iranian revolution

• History & Society
• Science & Tech
• Biographies
• Animals & Nature
• Geography & Travel
• Arts & Culture
• Games & Quizzes
• On This Day
• One Good Fact
• New Articles
• Lifestyles & Social Issues
• Philosophy & Religion
• Politics, Law & Government
• World History
• Health & Medicine
• Browse Biographies
• Birds, Reptiles & Other Vertebrates
• Bugs, Mollusks & Other Invertebrates
• Environment
• Fossils & Geologic Time
• Entertainment & Pop Culture
• Sports & Recreation
• Visual Arts
• Demystified
• Image Galleries
• Infographics
• Top Questions
• Britannica Kids
• Saving Earth
• Space Next 50
• Student Center
• Introduction

Prelude to revolution

• What countries border Iran?
• How did Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi come to power?
• What were Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s accomplishments?
• How did Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi die?
• Why was Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi so significant?

Iranian Revolution

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

• CORE - The Iranian Revolution
• GlobalSecurity.org - Iranian Civil Strife - Coming of the Revolution
• Pressbooks on Buffscreate - The Iranian Revolutions
• International Centre on Non Violent Conflict - The Iranian Revolution (1977-1979)
• Middle East Institute - The Iranian Revolution of February 1979
• Table Of Contents

Recent News

Iranian Revolution , popular uprising in Iran in 1978–79 that resulted in the toppling of the monarchy on February 11, 1979, and led to the establishment of an Islamic republic .

The 1979 revolution, which brought together Iranians across many different social groups, has its roots in Iran’s long history. These groups, which included clergy, landowners, intellectuals , and merchants, had previously come together in the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11. Efforts toward satisfactory reform were continually stifled, however, amid reemerging social tensions as well as foreign intervention from Russia , the United Kingdom , and, later, the United States . The United Kingdom helped Reza Shah Pahlavi establish a monarchy in 1921. Along with Russia, the U.K. then pushed Reza Shah into exile in 1941, and his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi took the throne. In 1953, amid a power struggle between Mohammed Reza Shah and Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh , the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the U.K. Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) orchestrated a coup against Mosaddegh’s government.

Years later, Mohammad Reza Shah dismissed the parliament and launched the White Revolution —an aggressive modernization program that upended the wealth and influence of landowners and clerics, disrupted rural economies, led to rapid urbanization and Westernization , and prompted concerns over democracy and human rights . The program was economically successful, but the benefits were not distributed evenly, though the transformative effects on social norms and institutions were widely felt. Opposition to the shah’s policies was accentuated in the 1970s, when world monetary instability and fluctuations in Western oil consumption seriously threatened the country’s economy, still directed in large part toward high-cost projects and programs. A decade of extraordinary economic growth , heavy government spending, and a boom in oil prices led to high rates of inflation and the stagnation of Iranians’ buying power and standard of living .

In addition to mounting economic difficulties, sociopolitical repression by the shah’s regime increased in the 1970s. Outlets for political participation were minimal, and opposition parties such as the National Front (a loose coalition of nationalists, clerics, and noncommunist left-wing parties) and the pro-Soviet Tūdeh (“Masses”) Party were marginalized or outlawed. Social and political protest was often met with censorship, surveillance, or harassment, and illegal detention and torture were common.

For the first time in more than half a century, the secular intellectuals—many of whom were fascinated by the populist appeal of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini , a former professor of philosophy in Qom who had been exiled in 1964 after speaking out harshly against the shah’s recent reform program—abandoned their aim of reducing the authority and power of the Shiʿi ulama (religious scholars) and argued that, with the help of the ulama, the shah could be overthrown.

In this environment , members of the National Front, the Tūdeh Party, and their various splinter groups now joined the ulama in broad opposition to the shah’s regime. Khomeini continued to preach in exile about the evils of the Pahlavi regime, accusing the shah of irreligion and subservience to foreign powers. Thousands of tapes and print copies of Khomeini’s speeches were smuggled back into Iran during the 1970s as an increasing number of unemployed and working-poor Iranians—mostly new migrants from the countryside, who were disenchanted by the cultural vacuum of modern urban Iran—turned to the ulama for guidance. The shah’s dependence on the United States, his close ties with Israel—then engaged in extended hostilities with the overwhelmingly Muslim Arab states—and his regime’s ill-considered economic policies served to fuel the potency of dissident rhetoric with the masses.

Outwardly, with a swiftly expanding economy and a rapidly modernizing infrastructure , everything was going well in Iran. But in little more than a generation, Iran had changed from a traditional, conservative , and rural society to one that was industrial, modern, and urban. The sense that in both agriculture and industry too much had been attempted too soon and that the government, either through corruption or incompetence, had failed to deliver all that was promised was manifested in demonstrations against the regime in 1978.

In January 1978, incensed by what they considered to be slanderous remarks made against Khomeini in Eṭṭelāʿāt , a Tehrān newspaper, thousands of young madrasah (religious school) students took to the streets. They were followed by thousands more Iranian youth—mostly unemployed recent immigrants from the countryside—who began protesting the regime’s excesses. The shah, weakened by cancer and stunned by the sudden outpouring of hostility against him, vacillated between concession and repression, assuming the protests to be part of an international conspiracy against him. Many people were killed by government forces in anti-regime protests, serving only to fuel the violence in a Shiʿi country where martyrdom played a fundamental role in religious expression. Fatalities were followed by demonstrations to commemorate the customary 40-day milestone of mourning in Shiʿi tradition, and further casualties occurred at those protests, mortality and protest propelling one another forward. Thus, in spite of all government efforts, a cycle of violence began in which each death fueled further protest, and all protest—from the secular left and religious right—was subsumed under the cloak of Shiʿi Islam and crowned by the revolutionary rallying cry Allāhu akbar (“God is great”), which could be heard at protests and which issued from the rooftops in the evenings.

The violence and disorder continued to escalate. On September 8 the regime imposed martial law , and troops opened fire against demonstrators in Tehrān, killing dozens or hundreds. Weeks later, government workers began to strike . On October 31, oil workers also went on strike, bringing the oil industry to a halt. Demonstrations continued to grow; on December 10, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Tehrān alone.

During his exile , Khomeini coordinated this upsurge of opposition—first from Iraq and after 1978 from France—demanding the shah’s abdication. In January 1979, in what was officially described as a “vacation,” the shah and his family fled Iran. The Regency Council established to run the country during the shah’s absence proved unable to function, and Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar , hastily appointed by the shah before his departure, was incapable of effecting compromise with either his former National Front colleagues or Khomeini. Crowds in excess of one million demonstrated in Tehrān, proving the wide appeal of Khomeini, who arrived in Iran amid wild rejoicing on February 1. Ten days later, on February 11, Iran’s armed forces declared their neutrality, effectively ousting the shah’s regime . Bakhtiar went into hiding, eventually to find exile in France .

• Spring 2024
• Tahrir Forum
• Global Forum
• Book Reviews
• Regions and Countries
• Contributors
• eBook: A Global Perspective on the Trump Era

--> .cls-1{fill:#770c1d;}

.cls-1{fill:#770c1d;}.

Support Our Balanced Narrative

A Revolution and A War: How Iran Transformed Today’s Middle East

How the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the eight-year Iran–Iraq War greatly and irreversibly influenced the geopolitics and regional dynamics of the Middle East

An Iranian girl carries a photo of the late leader of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini,  to mark the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, a week before parliamentary elections, Tehran, Feb. 11. Damir Sagolj/Reuters

• X (Twitter)

Since the Iranian 1979 Revolution, but also more recently, the geopolitics of the Arab World vis-à-vis Iran has undergone a significant transformation. Iran has strengthened its alliance with Russia and China and has remained a hostile force resisting U.S. hegemony. Its influence has only grown as a number of armed non-state or quasi-state groups spread across the region. Another development in favor of Iran has been the rise of sectarianism in the Islamic world, which—with the exception of Tunisia—has reached its pinnacle. Finally, the Arab Spring, which heralded democracy to people, failed to do particularly that in the end. These events and others require us to adjust the prism through which we examine the geopolitics of the region today.

Prior to the 1979 Revolution, what shaped the geopolitics of the region was the Nixon Doctrine . The doctrine influenced Nixon’s foreign policy decision to arm its allies, both Iran and Israel, to the teeth in the 1970s. The United States consistently sold the latest, most sophisticated, conventional weapons to Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (the Shah of Iran). It is estimated that the Shah purchased a total of 15 billion dollars of the most-advanced U.S. arms—weapons that were technologically superior to most of those available to other US allies, except Israel. Adjusted for inflation, 15 billion dollars in 1970 amounts to almost 115 billion dollar s in 2022. This leaves analysts with no doubt that both Nixon and Henry Kissinger believed that strengthening Iran’s military would stabilize the Middle East; because the Shah was considered to be the “police” of the region, Iran was assigned the role of a buffer state whose function was to prevent the spread of communism and ensure a steady supply of oil.

The strategic support of the United States to the Shah was due to the geographic proximity of Iran to the former Soviet Union. As American analyst Gary Sick once said, Iran was the site for the United States to watch over the activities of the Soviet Union. By heavily arming Iran, the United States sought to build a shield against its rival, making sure that the Russians would never realize their dream “to reach the warm waters of the Persian Gulf”. Hence, the Shah of Iran was at the forefront of receiving the largest and most advanced U.S. military weapons such as the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), which was then the most sophisticated and expensive radar that the United States and Iran used to conduct reconnaissance operations on the Soviet borders. Moreover, Washington decided to help Iran build its nuclear program as early as in the 1950s under the “ Atoms for Peace Program ”. It may be interesting to the reader to note that the CIA reported to then-President Gerald Ford that the Shah would have an atomic bomb by 1984.

Armed by the United States, Iran’s U.S.-assigned role as the police of the region manifested in many instances. One was during the Dhofar rebellion against the Sultan Qaboos of Oman from 1963 to 1976. The civil war began with the formation of the Dhofar Liberation Front—a communist group which aimed to create an independent state in the Dhofar area in the south of Oman. The Dhofar Liberation Front was heavily supported by the Soviet Union and had launched serious attacks on the central government in Qaboos. Were it not for the Shah of Iran ’ s intervention in sending troops to put down the Dhofar rebellion, the Dhofar Liberation Front would have continued to challenge the rule of Sultan Qaboos. The fact that Iran intervened in the so-called “Arab affairs” as it saw fit; that it sent troops to another sovereign country; and that no country opposed the Shah for his interventions in the domestic affairs of other countries clearly shows Iran’s political might in the region.

Another example is related to Bahrain. The Shah had claimed uninterrupted Persian sovereignty over Bahrain since the pre-Islamic era. Indeed, throughout the nineteenth century, the Shah expressed objections to London over the 1930 treaty to recognize the sovereignty of Bahrain. In fact, in 1927, Reza Pahlavi, the Shah’s father, took the dispute with Britain over Bahrain to the League of Nations, albeit with no resolution. In the end, in 1971, the Shah agreed with Britain to grant Bahrain independence from Iran, but insisted that the Greater and Lesser Tonb and Abu Musa islands would remain under the Iranian sovereignty .

With the onset of the 1979 Revolution, the regional affairs of the Middle East were the subject of tremendous change. The revolution brought about a completely different discourse by bringing down millennia of monarchical rule to an Islamic Republic. Iran, once an ally of the United States, turned into one of its avid foes, resisting its imperial tendencies. Although one could argue that the principles on which the Islamic Republic crafted it foreign policy have more or less remained the same particularly when it came to resisting U.S. presence in the Middle East region, bringing down millennia of monarchical rule through the transformations that led to the rise of an Islamic Republic as a result of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and in particular, the effect of Iraq–Iran War, forces us to rethink the ways we look at the geopolitics of the region.

Before that, it is important to examine Iran’s current standing in the region in comparison to similar countries in the region including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan.

Iran’s Standing in the Region as U.S. Ally In the 1960s, Turkey’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was greater than that of both Iran and Pakistan, but in the 1970s, this trend changed. This can largely be attributed to the fact that the price of oil dramatically increased, which gave the Shah a large inflow of foreign exchange, which also led to a staggering growth in the relative size of capital. As the price of oil increased right after the 1973 oil crisis, Iran’s GDP became greater than that of Turkey. Iran under the Shah also spent twice as much as Turkey and Pakistan. In 1975, Turkey and Pakistan spent 4 and 6 percent of their GDP on military expenditure whereas Iran spent 12 percent.

These figures clearly demonstrate Iran’s weight and significance as the most influential ally of the United States in the Middle East region. Indeed, as the most powerful U.S. military ally in the Middle East at the time, the Shah pursued a policy that minimized the risk of confrontation with the Soviet Union, and this “zero-problem” approach with the Soviet Union is one of the success stories of its foreign policy.

Buttressed by its role as an ally of the United States, Iran was also able to exhibit regional superiority in terms of sheer exhibition of power. Take, for example, the 1975 Algiers Agreement between Iran and Iraq to settle any disputes and conflicts concerning their common maritime border on Shatt Al-Arab River . In exchange for the Shah’s withdrawal of support to the Iraqi Kurdish rebellion, Iran’s borders were to be respected. However, following an eight-year war with Iran, the Algiers Agreement was abandoned, not to be revisited again, and Iraq stood to lose the most from the treaty abrogation, losing benefits it had once acquired from the border river.

The Geopolitics of the Middle East and the 1979 Revolution The popular demonstrations in Iran led by Ayatollah Khomeini against the dictatorship of the Shah and the U.S. domination of the region gave rise to the “ last of great revolutions ”. The 1979 Revolution was accompanied by certain events that altered the geopolitics of the Middle East region as Iranian-U.S. relations faltered. The occupation of the U.S. embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, and the hostage-taking of U.S. diplomats that lasted for 444 days, was among the first major post-revolutionary shocks after the 1979 Revolution. Although it was a reaction to twenty-five years of U.S. dominance of Iran (1953–1979), to this day, this very event looms over Iran’s relations with the West, and in particular the United States. Iran became the flag-bearer of hostile countries to the United States to the extent that none of the Soviet allies in the region were as threatening to the United States the way Iran was.

The second event that altered Iran’s position in relation to the region and the United States was the severance of diplomatic ties with Israel, following which the Israeli embassy in Iran was closed. Iran went from a country that was friendly to Israel to one of its stubborn foes. The severing of ties with Israel and the subsequent hostilities between Iran and Israel had—and continues to have—consequences for Iranian-U.S. relations.

The third event was the promotion of revolutionary political culture. The most telling example of this was Khomeini’s slogan of “exporting the Islamic Revolution” to other countries in the Islamic world. The transformation of the political culture of the region under the influence of the 1979 Revolution frightened the Petro-Arab monarchies in the region, because their regimes were similar to that of the Shah’s dictatorship, which meant that they feared popular uprisings the most. It is crucial to note that both the United States and the Soviet Union feared the possibility of the 1979 Revolution being exported to countries in the Middle East, but also to the satellite states of eastern Europe. Exporting a revolution based on the Iranian model meant that developing countries that were dependent on either of the superpowers would demand independence.

The 1979 Revolution brought many consequences for the broader region. First, it produced a state that had an anti-imperial ideology and identity, one that purported that resisting U.S. hegemony was the only way to liberate the “oppressed” nations in the post-colonial world. Due to the spread of this ideology, the Iranian state has actively opposed U.S. imperialism in the region for the past four decades. Second, it caused Iran to support the freedom and/or resistance movements across the region, from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq. Third, during the 1980s, when Iraq had launched a protracted war against Iran, including launching hundreds of missiles and chemical weapons on civilians, the state faced tremendous shortages in military equipment due to the embargo imposed by the United States. This caused military generals to start manufacturing missiles and other heavy artillery equipment by the mid-1980s. Largely due to the United States’ economic sanctions on Iran, coupled with an arms embargo by all world powers, Iran was forced to develop domestic technical capabilities in the production of heavy artillery and missiles.

Despite economic sanctions and the arms embargo, Iran developed significant industrial and manufacturing sectors in steel, rubber, cement, and iron that other countries in the region lacked, as well as cutting-edge sectors such as auto aerospace, nanotechnology, and stem cells. In the later decades, particularly after the fall of Saddam Hossein, Iran emerged as a country that exerted power and influence in the region, and developed a rivalry particularly with Saudi Arabia, which has greatly influenced the geopolitical dynamics of the region. On the political front, Riyadh has continuously tried to check the growing role of Iran in the Arab World, but the Kingdom’s attempts at doing so have all but failed. Saudi attempts to curtail the power of Iran’s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, to contain the role of Iran in Iraq, to stop its support for the Houthis have fallen short. These failures offer enough incentive for the Saudis to be obsessed with Iran as a legitimate geopolitical competitor.

Yet, another watershed event that would have even greater influence on the geo-politics of the region is the Iran–Iraq War.

The Iran–Iran War’s Role in Shaping the Geopolitics of the Region In September 1980, Iraqi forces launched a full-scale invasion of Iran—a conflict that lasted for eight years, killing at least a half million lives, injuring over a million, and displacing millions more. The Iran–Iraq war remains one of the largest and longest conventional interstate wars since World War II. Throughout the 1980s as Iraq invaded parts of Iran’s territory, it continued to enjoy the full support of the Arab World. The economic cost of the war is estimated to have been over a trillion dollars. After eight years of warfare, the armies ended in virtually the same positions in which they had started in September 1980. It was also the only war in modern times in which chemical weapons were used on a massive scale along with ballistic missiles to attack cities. It was the most extensive use of weapons of mass destruction since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945.

On January 15, 1991, Reuters quoted King Fahd of Saudi Arabia saying that the sum of Saudi Arabia’s financial support to Iraq topped 27 billion dollars while estimates of support from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to Saddam reached up to 80 billion dollars in the 1980s.The tremendous physical and human cost that Saddam Hussein inflicted on Iran is one thing, but the consequences of this destructive war on the geopolitics of the region are quite another.  In fact, the Iran–Iraq War set the trajectory for the future geopolitics of the region, and remains one of the most critical junctures in contemporary history of the Middle East region.

First, the Iraq–Iran War and the subsequent embargoes imposed on Iran gave Iran a strong incentive to develop an indigenous military complex after it had been one of the largest buyers of sophisticated conventional weapons in the region. Indeed, securing conventional weapons in order to defend its people against the aggression of Saddam’s regime was one of the major challenges of the Iranian government. Virtually no country was willing to sell conventional weapons (i.e., Scud missiles) to Iran to be used in defense when its cities were showered with the same missiles by the Iraqi army. It is now well-documented that hundreds of Russian missiles were launched by the Iraqi forces on Iran’s civilian populations and tens of thousands of Iranians were either wounded or martyred.

The massive cost of the war forced Iran to establish an independent local missile industry. As a result, Iran went from being a major purchaser of missiles to one of its major producers by the late 1990s. Today, Iran’s ability to produce long-range missiles is on par with those of global powers. Missiles are not the only conventional weapons that Iran manufactures. Fighter jets, tanks, artillery, submarine, drones, and speedboats are among the other high-tech military equipment it also manufactures. Groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and the Houthis in Yemen have been able to achieve considerable missile power with the help of Iranian knowhow and have played a decisive role in confronting Israel, Saudi Arabia, and UAE, the three countries that are actively united against Iran.

Second, Saddam’s use of unconventional weapons such as chemical weapons against Iran was a sheer violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and all treaties on weapons of mass destruction. The Western world not only turned a blind eye from Saddam’s extensive and comparatively greater use of  chemical weapons against Iran’s civilian population, but also s upplied and sold his Baath Party more of them. Additionally, the failure of negotiations with the West (1980–1995) to operate Tehran Research Reactor, built by the United States in 1967 and to complete the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant whose construction began in 1975 by German companies but was not completed, was another major reason that Iran sought to produce its own nuclear power. In 2003, Iran achieved enrichment and heavy water technology, and its access to these two technologies meant that it could build a nuclear bomb if decided to. Although Iran could now challenge Israel’s monopoly over possessing a nuclear weapon in the Middle East, its nuclear capability has become the biggest political and security issue between Iran and world powers in the last fifteen years. The fact that Iran does have such technical capacities in the nuclear field—and other countries in the region (except Israel) do not—gives Iran a competitive edge.

Third, Iran’s relations with the Arab states of the Persian Gulf fundamentally worsened after the Iraq–Iran War due to their one-sided support of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The GCC states moved toward purchasing the latest and most sophisticated weapons from the United States. To them, the first and biggest threat in the region came from Iran. The United States has increased its military presence to support its allies, establishing 46 military bases in eleven Middle Eastern countries, which is considered to be a staggering number of military bases in one region.

Fourth, the Iran-Iraq War demonstrated to Iranian officials that countries in the region are willing to do whatever it takes to bring regime change in Iran. From uniting themselves with Israel to using non-conventional weapons against civilians, the aim for the Arab states was to change the revolutionary governing system in Iran. Iranian officials knew that they needed to transcend their national borders to resist the aggression of the neighboring countries including Israel. Hezbollah of Lebanon is a telling example of the proxies Iran propped up to project its influence in the region. Over time, Hezbollah acquired significant power and remains a strong force to this day. It defeated Israel in its 2006 invasion of Lebanon. In fact, Arab countries lost all military wars against Israel, but Hezbollah prevented Israel from advancing onto Lebanese territory. Today, Hezbollah’s increasing power is a major source of concern for the United States and Israel. It remains a military force with tens of thousands of missiles and 100,000 troops and has political representation in the Lebanese parliament and government.

Fifth, one of the most crucial geopolitical transformations has been the emergence of armed non-governmental or quasi-governmental groups in the Middle East. Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, and the Fatimids of Afghanistan are among the major Shiite groups that have been supported by Iran. Iran built alliances with these groups in response to the security situation in the region. For example, when ISIS conquered Iraq in 2014, occupying 40 percent of the country within two years and capturing the large and oil-rich cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, the Iraqi cities Baghdad and Erbil were on the verge of collapse. In response, Ayatollah Sistani issued a fatwa to form the Popular Mobilization Forces, which is reminiscent of the Iranian Basij Forces , established in 1979 as a volunteer paramilitary organization operating under Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and later formed a “people’s militia” to aid in the war against Iran (The Quds Force of Iran used its experiences of forming the Basij popular force in countering Saddam’s aggression to help the Lebanese Hezbollah with its popular mobilization). The Popular Mobilization Forces militia, with the help of the Iraqi army, eventually defeated ISIS and cleared Iraqi territory of terrorists, and as a result, new influential political-security-military dynamic entered the balance of power in Iraq. During the Syrian crisis, the Shiite group “Fatimids of Afghanistan” with the support of Iran, played an important role in Syria and in the fight against ISIS and Al-Qaeda. To be sure, Iran’s alliance with organized groups is not limited to the Shiite ones, but also Sunni groups such as Hamas. This clearly shows that the alliance that Iran has built is not organized around sectarian lines.

Sixth, Iran’s pivot to the East was a result of the world powers’ support of d Saddam’s aggression in the Iraq war.  After the war, Eastern powers, namely Russia and China, pursued a form of rapprochement with Iran, whereas those of the West—particularly the United States and Western Europe—pursued a hostile approach to Iran. The upshot was that after Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA and Europe’s unremitting compliance and subservience to Trump’s maximum pressure strategy, Iran’s Supreme Leader officially declared that Iran no longer trusts Europe and that Iran should count on the East. Hence, the continuity of Western powers’ hostility toward Iran after the war has provided the strongest incentives for Iran to turn toward the East. The twenty-year strategic agreement with China and the twenty-year strategic agreement with Russia are two clear examples of Iran’s lack of mistrust of the West. Today, China and Russia are Iran’s main trade partners, whereas in the early 2000s, it was Germany.

Back to Diplomacy For Iranians, it is not easy to forget the magnitude and the scale of death and destruction of the Iraq–Iran War. However, massive death and destruction aside, the long-term consequences of that war shaped in many ways the geopolitics of the region. Indeed, many of the hard problems of today’s Middle East have originated in those eight years.

The Iraq–Iran War set the political trajectory of the region in some important ways for the decades to come. But that is not the only war the Middle East has witnessed. If one war has that many pernicious consequences for peace and stability in the region as I examined above, one might ask in horror, what would be the long-term consequences of the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan by the United States in early 2000s and the Saudi-led war on Yemen for the future of the region? These questions are hard to even contemplate. But they give us enough reason to believe that exhibition of power in the form of warfare is doomed to failure. Sooner or later, the United States will have to realize that its policy of domination has led to disastrous outcomes for the region and beyond. To fill the vacuum left behind by the United States when it leaves the region is an invitation to create a regional security and cooperation system among the countries of the region. A regional security and cooperation system in the Persian Gulf engulfing Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the other GCC member states would be the first vital achievement. To move toward such a strategy, we need an end to war and to choose diplomacy as the only choice.

No doubt the 1979 Revolution shaped the geopolitics of the region. However, Iraq’s aggression against Iran and the support of regional countries and international powers was the most important factors shaping Iran’s foreign policy strategy and its geopolitical shift. The Iran–Iraq War bolstered the resistance discourse against hegemony and neo-imperial forms of domination by the world powers, including and most importantly by the United States. Iranian officials remember when Saddam enjoyed the support of powers from both the West and the East, from both the United States and Soviet Union. If the Iranian leaders are suspicious of the United States when it comes to holding its end of the bargain on any negotiation table, the suspicion almost entirely can be attributed to the hard lessons they learned during the Iraq–Iran War. The experience of the war shows that the terrible consequences of a war remain a stumbling block to peace efforts. To achieve a lasting peace, belligerent thinking must be thrown into the dustbin of history, focusing only on the option of diplomacy.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian is a Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy specialist at the Program on Science and Global Security in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He previously served as Iranian ambassador to Germany (1990−97) and spokesman for Iran’s team in nuclear negotiations with the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency (2003–05).  From 2005 to 2007, he served as foreign policy advisor to Ali Larijani, then secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and chief nuclear negotiator.  Mousavian was head of the Foreign Relations Committee of Iran’s National Security Council from 1997 to 2005 and served as the vice president of the Center for Strategic Research for International Affairs between 2005 and 2009 and as general director of Foreign Ministry for West Europe between 1987 and 1990. He is the author of  The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir , Iran-Europe Relations: Challenges and Opportunities , and his forthcoming book,  Iran and the United States: An Insider’s View on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace .

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Related Articles

The Iran Nuclear Deal: A Springboard for a New Middle East Security Architecture

Changed Ties With Iran Will Reconfigure The Middle East

The New Middle East, Iran Nuclear Deal and the Arabs

America and the Middle East – II

• Privacy Overview
• Strictly Necessary Cookies

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

• Iranian Revolution: Causes, Events, and Effects

In the late 1970s, the Pahlavi Dynasty was overthrown and replaced by a new Islamic Republic of Iran. The revolution was mostly non-violent, although there were incidents of armed struggle. Here is an overview of the events that led up to the Iranian revolution, as well as the events in the revolution and the aftermath. 

Before the Revolution

Western and secular influences on iranian society before the revolution.

Prior to the revolution, Iran was ruled by a monarchy headed by Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. The Shah was heavily US-backed and promoted westernization which many Iranians believed was diluting their indigenous culture and values. Separation of sexes, which had been a traditional practice, had been banned. Women during this period wore western clothes in place of the hijab and could now go to school, vote, and work. The new rights to women were embraced by the elite society while Islam Puritans viewed it as secularization. A more secular take on religion was adopted, where religious minorities could hold office.

Discontent With the Pahlavi Dynasty

Due to the Shah’s economic reforms, Iran had ascended into the ranks as a globally formidable industrial economy. By late 1970s, the economy had stagnated, and inflation led to a higher cost of living. Iranians all over the country were dissatisfied with the regime and viewed it as having failed on its economic promise coupled with corruption and incompetence among public officials.

The regime of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was very oppressive, and used the SAVAK, who were the American-trained secret police, for mass murder, torture, and imprisonment of those against his government. The Shah’s ideology that westernization was the tool for Iran’s progress was seen as having failed, and the Iranians felt that they should turn back to Islam.

Student, Left-wing, and Conservative Shia Sentiments Against the Shah's Government

The government was heavily opposed by the Conservative Shia Muslims led by Ayatollah Khomeini. The basis of their arguments against the government took a cultural and religious approach. The Conservative Shia accused the Shah of destroying Islam through the popularization of Western values.

Iranian Muslim Students, who had been exposed to the ideas of Ayatollah Khomeini, increasingly began to support the idea of an Islamic State. The left-wing Islamist groups encouraged the use of armed struggle as the means to topple the Shah’s regime.

Setting the Revolution into Motion

The early 1970s brought with it inflation in Iran’s economy, and the Shah was criticized for his extravagance while most Iranians were suffering in poverty. The Shah’s government suppressed any form of resistance and had exiled Ayatollah Khomeini. By the start of 1977 however, Khomeini ideologies began to spread in Iran through smuggled audio cassettes. Khomeini called for strikes, refusal to pay tax, boycotts, and even martyrdom for the Islam religion. The death of Khomeini’s son in 1977, which was blamed on the SAVAK, increased Khomeini’s popularization. Organizations opposed to the government also cropped up in Iran which encouraged open resistance.

During the Revolution

Major events.

Demonstrations began in January of 1978 with religious students who were protesting a slanderous article with criticism against Khomeini published by a Tehran newspaper. Many students were killed by the government which sparked off nationwide protests concentrated in religious institutions. Protests surged after the 40 day customary mourning period in Shi’ite customs for the students. Institutions viewed as western such as cinemas and bars were razed to the ground. Deaths during protests served to fuel more demonstrations. The Shah attempted to institute reforms to quell down the protests, but he eventually fled Iran on January 16, 1979. Khomeini returned to Iran in February in 1979.

After the Revolution

A referendum was held in April of 1979, and Iranians voted overwhelmingly to establish an Islamic Republic. A new constitution was adopted, and Ayatollah Khomeini became the Supreme Leader of the Republic of Iran.

Global Versus Internal Perceptions of the Revolution

The Iranian Revolution shocked the world as it was not caused by economic issues, but rather cultural reform. The Economic crisis had been, up to that point, the leading cause of revolutions and Iran had been enjoying relative economic prosperity. Iranians viewed the revolution as the only way to block western influence in their country.

A conservative rule in Iran was enforced, and former nationalists, elites, and left-wing revolutionaries were sidelined in the new regime. Strict dress codes were implemented and rigorously enforced. Iraq felt threatened by Iran and, to avoid the possibility of a Shia revolution in Iraq, the country invaded Iran in 1980, a war that lasted for eight years. The war served to unite Iranians against the US-supported Iraq forces.

Geopolitical Outlook of Iran Following the Revolution and Today

The reign of Khomeini as Supreme spiritual leader ended in 1989 with his death, and he was succeeded by Hojatoleslam Seyed Ali Khamenei, who had been president since August of 1981. Khamenei led the wave of revolutionary purists who firmly believed in non-compromising on revolutionary ideals. The Revolutionary Guards in Iran have risen in status to be a political and economic force. Sanctions placed on Iran by the US increasingly isolated Iran, a situation which can still be seen today. While Iran’s economy remains largely reliant on oil, many Iranians are dissatisfied with the perceived inflation and corruption in the government. Iran remains an Islamic state to this day.

More in Society

Countries With The Most Stripped Olympic Medals

How Long Are the Olympics?

Countries With The Most Military Aircraft

How Many Olympics Have There Been?

How Often Are The Olympics?

The Largest Ethnic Groups In Syria

6 Ways To Live A Better Life According To Alan Watts

Athletes With The Most Olympic Medals

•   [email protected]

HIS 100 - Perspectives in History

Iranian revolution.

(Please note, encyclopedias/tertiary sources should NOT be cited in your assignment. Scroll down for primary and secondary sources) .

The Iranian Revolution, also called Islamic Revolution, Enelāb-e Eslāmī (in Farsi), was a popular uprising in the Muslim majority country of Iran in 1978–79 that resulted in the toppling of the authoritarian government led by the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, on February 11, 1979. Islamist revolutionaries opposed the western secular policies of the Shah which led to the establishment of an Islamic republic after the revolution under the Leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini (also known as Imam Khomeini).

• Iranian Revolution [1978–1979] This link opens in a new window This Encyclopedia Britannica entry discusses the prelude to the Iranian Revolution, as well as the Revolution and its aftermath.

Primary Sources

Note: For help with citing primary sources properly, check out this FAQ and be sure to reach out to your instructor with any questions you may have.  For help citing interviews such as Reconstructed Lives (below), click here . 

This is a powerful gallery of photos and commentary by photographer David Burnett from his arrival in Iran on December 26, 1978, initially unaware of the degree of political unrest as he would go on to document protests, killings, confrontations between soldiers/police and protestors, funerals, departure of the Shah and his family and the arrival of Khomeini in Tehran. These photos also appear in his book, 44 Days: Iran and the Remaking of the World .

Burnett, D. 44 Days: The Iranian Revolution. David Burnett - Galleries.

This edited interview transcript by the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Dialogue radio program host and producer George Liston Seay with former Iranian journalist, Haleh Esfandiari, author of Reconstructed Lives: Women and Iran's Islamic Revolution, discusses the interviews she conducted with Iranian women “whose careers were either begun or redefined under the Islamic Republic” formed by the Iranian Revolution.

Seay, G. L. (1997). Reconstructed lives: Women and Iran's Islamic Revolution. Wilson Center.

Secondary Sources

Written by a professor at the University of St. Andrews, this fully illustrated and readable article describes the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the fall of Mohammed Peza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran covering events beginning in 1953 through the Iranian Revolution.

Randjbar-Daemi, S. (2019). “Death to the Shah”. History Today , 69 (4), 28–45.

This article explains the role of the Iranian Revolution in inspiring Islamic activism by creating the first Islamic state. Established in Shia Iran it had the effect of encouraging Sunni Muslims to organize as they feared the Revolution was designed to strengthen Shiism at their expense. The authors explain how the Revolution antagonized problems within the Islamic world and with its relationship to the West.

Potočnik, D., & Plemenitaš, K. (2018). The Iran Revolution and its Influence on the revival of Islam. Annales: Series Historia et Sociologia , 28 (1), 29–40. https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.19233/ASHS.2018.03

• << Previous: Philippine Revolution
• Next: Research Topic List: Climate Change and Environmental Issues >>

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Iran Dispatch

The Iran Revolution at 40: From Theocracy to ‘Normality’

By Thomas Erdbrink

• Feb. 10, 2019

In February of 1979, Tehran was in chaos. A cancer-stricken Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Western-backed autocrat, had gone into exile in mid-January, leaving behind a rickety regency council. On Feb. 1, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the godfather of the revolution, returned from exile in Paris. And in the Iranian version of “Ten Days That Shook the World,” street demonstrations raged until the government collapsed on Feb. 11.

Ecstatic Iranians danced in the streets, playing cat and mouse with soldiers as lingering pro-government sharpshooters fired from the rooftops. Families joined in mass protests, as vigilantes ransacked liquor stores and people kissed the foreheads of turbaned clerics leading the revolution.

Forty years ago, Iranians swelled with pride, hope and the expectation of a better future. Dreams of freedom and independence from the United States fired up the revolutionaries. But great, rapid change can leave deep and lasting wounds. There were lashings, hangings, amputations and mass imprisonment. Thousands of people died and hundreds of thousands left the country, some fleeing for their lives, never to return.

What materialized after those first bloody years was truly revolutionary: an Islamic republic, a theocracy built on ideological choices inspired to a great extent by Ayatollah Khomeini.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

Visiting Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion?

You must join the virtual exhibition queue when you arrive. If capacity has been reached for the day, the queue will close early.

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Years leading to the iranian revolution, 1960–79.

Sohrab Sepehri

Nahid Hagigat

Calligraphic Drawing 1 and 2, Untitled

Faramarz Pilaram

Untitled, 2013

Nasrollah Afjei

Maryam Ekhtiar Department of Islamic Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Julia Rooney Department of Islamic Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The artistic flowering in Iran that began in the 1950s continued through the 1960s and early ’70s, as artists from the Saqqakhana School gained international prominence. These decades saw the opening of Iran to the international art scene, as local artists participated in art fairs, including five Tehran Biennials (1958–66), founded galleries (the Apadana, the Seyhoun, and the Borghese), courted local supporters (the Pahlavi Foundation and the Ministry of Art and Culture), and eventually foreign collectors (Abby Weed Grey and the Iran American Society). The Shiraz Arts Festival at Persepolis , largely backed by the government, was inaugurated in 1967. The festival hosted a roster of international musicians, artists, dancers, and otherwise cutting-edge performers, and for the next eleven years represented Iran’s vibrant art scene to the world. All of this paved the way in 1977 for the opening of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, which would come to hold an important collection of works by both Western and Iranian artists.

In these years, Faramarz Pilaram (1937-1982) and Hossein Zenderoudi (born 1937) continued their experiments with calligraphy , abstracting letters and introducing techniques of modern painting. Master of the tradition Seyed Mohammad Ehsaey (born 1939), for instance, pioneered the use of media not traditionally used in calligraphy (oil paint and canvas) to produce works that focus on the composition and forms of the letters rather than content. His contemporary Nasrollah Afjei (born 1933) further abstracted the words through repetition, creating wavelike compositions. Some artists used text less as a visual component than a springboard of inspiration. Sohrab Sepehri (1928–1980) was both a poet and painter, studying first in Tehran and then traveling to Japan and India, where he developed a strong understanding of Eastern aesthetics and thought. His abstract paintings feature simple brushstrokes and colors that embody his appreciation of nature and of  Zen philosophy .

This surge of artistic activity was largely a result of Iran’s economic prosperity and the policies of the Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi and the Empress Farah Diba. The White Revolution attempted to expand women’s rights, improve education in outlying provinces, and privatize business. This, coupled with the oil boom, catapulted Iran into a period of unprecedented financial prosperity. However, the distribution of wealth was uneven, leaving the vast majority of Iranian citizens marginalized and alienated by the country’s Western-leaning regime. As much as the court supported artistic exploration, many artists resented the shah’s economic and social program and the surveillance and repression of those who opposed the regime. Ardeshir Mohassess (1938–2008), for instance, made scathing political cartoons during the 1960s and ’70s that deftly illustrated the corruption and extravagance of monarchical leadership, both in Iran and more generally. In 1976, after his work was banned by the Shah, Mohassess left Iran for Paris and then the United States, where he continued to produce biting caricatures and political cartoons.

Nahid Hagigat (born 1943) was one of the few artists to express the concerns of women during the years leading to the Revolution. In her prints, she captured the feeling of tension and fear in a male-dominated society under government scrutiny. Beyond the unique perspective she offered, printmaking was a rare medium in Iran at this time, yet an appropriate one for her subject. The paintings of Nicky Nodjoumi (born 1942) also conveyed this climate of secrecy, often depicting figures under pressure or restraint.

The 1979 Revolution changed the dynamics of the arts scene. After the Islamic takeover, museums and galleries enjoyed less latitude. The Revolution itself was documented by the photographer Abbas (born 1944), who had just returned to Iran for a project to examine changes in society brought about by the oil boom. Caught in the moment, he recorded both the fervent demonstrations of the masses and the dealings of the higher-level politicians. Other notable photographers who captured footage of the Revolution were Kaveh Golestan (1950-2003) and the couple Bahman Jalali (1944-2010) and Rana Javadi (born 1953).

Although officially censored, photography and film became some of the most effective mediums used during this period, overshadowing painting and sculpture. Most paintings of the early 1980s were idealized portraits of Ayatollah Khomeini and other religiously inspired themes. Stylistically, the work became literal and narrative, showing a linear progression of ideas and clear ideological themes. Both the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) and the Revolution prompted development in the graphic arts, as powerful posters were created to galvanize national support and to commemorate the lives lost. This combination of broad religious appeal and more directed nationalism made posters a particularly effective medium in the late 1970s and ’80s.

The art coming out of Iran from the 1960s to the 1980s is one of transition. Its heterogeneity reflects the range of societal conditions at the time: political discontent coupled with patriotism; secularism contrasted to religious fervor; the increasing disparity between rich and poor. As the country moved into another mode, artists struggled to defend, discover, and re-create their own identities both at home and abroad. In their work, we see a diversity of concerns that continue to preoccupy contemporary artists today.

Ekhtiar, Maryam, and Julia Rooney. “Years Leading to the Iranian Revolution, 1960–79.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/irnv/hd_irnv.htm (May 2016)

Further Reading

Amirsadeghi, Hossein, ed. Different Sames: New Perspectives in Contemporary Iranian Art . London: Thames & Hudson in association with TransGlobe Publishing Limited, 2009.

Bardaouil, Sam. Iran Inside Out: Influences of Homeland and Diaspora on the Artistic Language of Contemporary Iranian Artists . New York: Chelsea Art Museum, 2009.

Daftari, Fereshteh. Without Boundary: Seventeen Ways of Looking . New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2006.

Daftari, Fereshteh and Layla S. Diba, eds. Iran Modern . Exh. cat. New York: Asia Society in association with Yale University Press, 2013.

Issa, Rose, Ruyin Pakbaz, and Daryush Shayegan. Iranian Contemporary Art . London: Booth-Clibborn Editions, 2001.

Keshmirshekan, Hamid, ed. Amidst Shadow and Light: Contemporary Iranian Art and Artists . Hong Kong: Liaoning Creative Press Ltd., 2011.

Porter, Venetia. Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East . London: The British Museum Press, 2006.

Yar-Shater, Ehsan. Iran Faces the Seventies . New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971.

Additional Essays by Maryam Ekhtiar

• Ekhtiar, Maryam. “ Modern and Contemporary Art in Iran .” (October 2004)
• Ekhtiar, Maryam. “ Artists of the Saqqakhana Movement .” (April 2014)
• Ekhtiar, Maryam. “ Early Qur’ans (8th–Early 13th Century) .” (May 2014)
• Ekhtiar, Maryam. “ Tiraz : Inscribed Textiles from the Early Islamic Period .” (July 2015)
• Ekhtiar, Maryam. “ Nineteenth-Century Iran: Art and the Advent of Modernity .” (October 2004)
• Ekhtiar, Maryam. “ Nineteenth-Century Iran: Continuity and Revivalism .” (October 2004)

Additional Essays by Julia Rooney

• Rooney, Julia. “ Artists of the Saqqakhana Movement .” (April 2014)

Related Essays

• Artists of the Saqqakhana Movement
• Modern and Contemporary Art in Iran
• Modern Art in West Asia: Colonial to Post-colonial
• West Asia: Between Tradition and Modernity
• West Asia: Postmodernism, the Diaspora, and Women Artists
• The Art of the Book in the Ilkhanid Period
• The Art of the Ilkhanid Period (1256–1353)
• The Art of the Safavids before 1600
• The Art of the Seljuqs of Iran (ca. 1040–1157)
• The Art of the Timurid Period (ca. 1370–1507)
• The Arts of Iran, 1600–1800
• The Arts of the Book in the Islamic World, 1600–1800
• Calligraphy in Islamic Art
• The Nature of Islamic Art
• Nineteenth-Century Iran: Art and the Advent of Modernity
• Nineteenth-Century Iran: Continuity and Revivalism
• Silk Textiles from Safavid Iran, 1501–1722
• Vegetal Patterns in Islamic Art
• West Asia: Ancient Legends, Modern Idioms
• Zen Buddhism
• Iran, 1900 A.D.–present
• 20th Century A.D.
• Abstract Art
• Calligraphy
• Islamic Art
• Islamic Art in the Later Period
• Modern and Contemporary Art
• Nationalism
• Photography
• Printmaking
• Religious Art
• Women Artists

Artist or Maker

• Afjei, Nasrollah
• Hagigat, Nahid
• Mohassess, Ardeshir
• Pilaram, Faramarz
• Sepehri, Sohrab

Foucault and the Iranian Revolution

Gender and the seductions of islamism.

Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson

Read an excerpt .

312 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2005

Gender and Sexuality

Middle Eastern Studies

Philosophy: Philosophy of Society

Political Science: Political and Social Theory

Religion: Islam

• Table of contents
• Author Events

Related Titles

"I am very impressed by the authors’ clarity of thought, meticulousness of research, and important insights. Their book’s originality lies in the way it links Foucault’s main ideas to the Iranian revolution, thereby illuminating one through the other. The authors remind us of Foucault’s immense influence in the current debates on Islamism and Iran."

Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran

" Foucault and the Iranian Revolution provides an original and groundbreaking examination of Foucault’s writing on Iran in the context of his intense interrogation of the differences between modern and traditional social orders. Providing a rich dossier containing translations of Foucault’s relatively unknown writings on the Iranian revolution and his critics’ responses, Afary and Anderson provide new insights into Foucault’s work and the ongoing confrontation between the Muslim world and the West."

Douglas Kellner, author of From 9/11 to Terror War: The Dangers of the Bush Legacy

"This is an important and extremely timely book. For decades there has been debate, sometimes hushed, sometimes bitter, about Michel Foucault’s celebration of the Iranian revolution. What we have lacked is documentary evidence of what was said, and by whom. Afary and Anderson have provided an immense service by translating the relevant writings by Foucault and, more significantly, his critics. The story that emerges from the translations and the thoughtful, measured analysis of them is gripping."

Mark Lilla, author of The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics

"This book, which contains the first full translation of Foucault’s articles on the Iranian revolution, is essential reading for his political positions in general and his conception of power, as well as for his sexual politics."

Fredric Jameson, author of Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

"Laser-like . . . in their brilliant unraveling of Foucault’s Iranian moment, Afary and Anderson seek to guard us more generally from accepting what we do not know simply out of repugnance for what we do."

"The authors’ analysis of Foucault’s journalistic impressions sheds light on a presumed resistance to the material body of the West. . . . insightful . . ."

Library Journal

"[Foucault’s] dispatches--now fully available in translation--shed some light on the illusions of intellectuals in our own time. . . .at a time when religion is resurgent in politics and Western liberals are divided between interventionists and anti-imperialists, Foucault’s particular blend of blindness and insight about the Islamists remains instructive. The authors dissect the shortcuts and evasions that led Foucault into his distinctive stance."

Wesley Yang | Boston Globe

"The whole of Foucault’s Iranian journalism--a total of fifteen articles and interviews--was republished in France in 1994 as part of a four-volume anthology of his occasional writings. Ever since then, French critics have made the most of his ’error’ over Islamism, and some of them sought to implicate him in the attacks on Washington and New York in 2001. In the English-speaking world, however, the Iranian writings have hitherto been ignored; but the anomaly is now being put right with some authority by Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson. In Foucault and the Iranian Revolution , they tell the full story of Foucault’s sudden induction into the journalist’s trade and his contacts with exiles in Paris and rebels in Iran, concluding with an appendix of 100 pages comprising translations of Foucault’s articles, together with some of the reactions they provoked, copiously annotated and explained. One could hardly have asked for more."

Jonathan Ree | The Nation

"The publication of this book is a major event in the world of Foucault scholarship, and it can be expected to generate a torrent of discussion, debate, reconsideration, and intellectual fireworks. Foucault’s adventure in geopolitical journalism provoked considerable controversy at the time. In unearthing that controversy and forcing us to revisit it, Afary and Anderson’s book is certain to evoke the same passions and push the same buttons that surfaced during the original dust-up, because the issues at the heart of the debate are still very much with us."

The Common Review

"Foucault and the Iranian Revolution presents a concise and accurate account of Foucault’s philosophy in clear and translucent language. The book also provides many helpful and meticulous oberservations about the Iranian Revolution and its historical antecedents. Readers with little or no background will learn about important subjects in Foucault’s philosophy, Christian theology, Shi’i theology, and Iranian history. This book is one of the most important recent contributions to Foucauldian studies and will also contribute to a better understanding of the Iranian Revolution."

BBC Persian.com

"An insightful look at how Foucault’s experiences in Iran influenced his ideas on the Enlightenment, homosexuality, and his search for political spirituality."

Middle East Journal

"Afary and Andeson’s book will certainly reopem debate on a very interesting moment in Foucault’s life and work, and should lead to reconsiderations of some of the most difficult, yet most important, political and social questions of this time."

Eric A. Wolfe | Magill's Literary Annual

"[Foucault’s] insights into the role of Islam in modernizing societies remain relevant today."

Pankaj Mishra | New York Review of Books

"This work offers an important contribution to the Foucault and religion debate, because it opens up the central issues of pre-modern and modern critical consciousness and the place of religion in our modern political worlds."

Jeremy Carrette | Journal of Religion

"Afary and Anderson have done an important sevice to the scholarly community by publishing this book. Foucault’s essays on the Iranian Revolution are critical reading for anyone interested in Foucault’s politics, the general question of revolution, or the specific subject of Iran."

Norma Claire Moruzzi | International Journal of Middle East Studies

"Afary and Anderson assign a deeper cause to Foucault’s persistent misreading of the Khomeini revolution: His deep disdain for women. . . . Till now, most students of Foucault have treated the Maitre’s yearnings as an odd, embarrassing, but ultimately trivial derogation from his great contributions to modern thought. Afary and Anderson have restored them to the place that Foucault himself believed they occupied: the very center."

David Frum | National Review Online

"Foucault’s essays on the Iranian Revolution are critical reading for anyone interested in Foucault’s politics, the general question of revolution, or the specific subject of Iran. Despite our differences of interpretation, I welcome Afary and Aderson’s important contribution to the debates on these subjects."

Norma Claire Maruzzi | International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies

Table of Contents

Association for Humanist Sociology: Betty and Alfred McClung Lee Book Award Honorable Mention

Persian Heritage Foundation: Latifeh Yarshater Award Won

About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self

Michel foucault, speaking the truth about oneself.

Vernon W. Cisney

Hubert L. Dreyfus

Be the first to know

Get the latest updates on new releases, special offers, and media highlights when you subscribe to our email lists!

Sign up here for updates about the Press

The Anglo-Iranian Oil company and the Islamic Revolution

An essay about colonies and dynasties.

• A staff writer National Library of Scotland

With the hostile relations between the UK, USA, and Iran prominently in the news once again, it is timely to revisit some of the fundamental causes of the 1979 revolution in Iran and its consequences.

During the 1980s and since, Anglo-American relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran (founded in 1979 following the Iranian Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini) have been tense, with moments of dangerous rhetoric and violent engagement. But things weren't always so. How did the United States go from being a long-standing friend of Iran to the 'Great Satan'? The causes date back to at least the turn of the century, with their roots in British colonial exploitation, anti-democratic, monarchical rule and foreign interference.

'Exclusive privilege'

In 1901 British geologist William Knox D'Arcy discovered huge oil reserves in Iran and purchased the rights for a bargain price with the 'exclusive privilege to search for, obtain, exploit, develop, render suitable for trade, carry away and sell natural gas, petroleum, asphalt and ozokerite throughout the whole extent of the Persian Empire for a term of sixty years'. The so-called D'Arcy Concession enabled the site at Abadan to become the largest oil refinery in the world. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) — later called British Petroleum (BP) — paid royalties and tax to Iran, but was wholly British controlled. Britain's investment in Iran included supplying equipment and training for military purposes, building roads and improving infrastructure; in fact, this was all paid for by Iran with a British loan of £2 million secured by 'customs revenue' (i.e. from oil), thereby consolidating Britain's grip over Iran.

For centuries Persia/Iran had been a monarchy, with various dynasties vying for supremacy. By the time of the D'Arcy Concession, pressure for reform was building and in 1906 the ruler, Ahmad Shah Qajar, bowed to popular pressure for reform and made the country a constitutional monarchy, with its first Majlis (parliament). By 1925 the Pahlavi dynasty had usurped the Qajar dynasty as rulers. During the Second World War, Iran declared neutrality; however, the British and Russians, fearing the Germans would seize oil supplies, invaded in 1941. The British ejected the Shah and installed his more compliant son, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

After the war there was a call for social and political change, as well as a desire to be free from outside interference. The nationalist and left/liberal forces, namely the Communist Tudeh Party and the National Front Party (NF), led the movement. In 1950 Haj Ali Razmara was appointed Prime Minister by the Shah (with the urging of the British Government and the Company — significantly, Razmara was opposed to the nationalisation of AIOC). Razmara's tenure was short. He was assassinated in March 1951 by a member of a nationalist/Islamist group, and with the threat of more political violence, by May that year the Shah was obliged to accept the NF leader Mohammed Mossadegh as Prime Minister. Mossadegh was a liberal, nationalist politician who immediately set about achieving his main aims, namely the restoration of democracy in Iran through the Majlis (parliament), and control over the country's oil reserves through nationalisation.

The AIOC's annual reports and accounts during these turbulent years contain interesting, albeit biased, descriptions of the events surrounding the assassination of President Razmara, the appointment of Mossadegh, the attempted nationalisation of the oil industry, the take-over of the refinery by Iranian Government officials, and the expelling of non-Iranian staff (mainly British and Indian). The company's reports also complained that the Mossadegh Government had broken a 1933 convention (basically revoking the D'Arcy Concession) ratified by the League of Nations: '… Article 21 provided that the Convention shall not be annulled by the (Iranian) Government …' However, the company was being selective; the convention also enshrined improvements to the company's payments to the Iranian Government, as well as raising standards of employment conditions for its Iranian employees. But 20 years after this agreement an American emissary was appalled at the slum housing of the company's Iranian employees, and condemned the colonial attitude of the British.

The AIOC chairman, Scot Sir William Fraser, wished to keep politics and business separate (though with the British Government holding by far the largest share of the AOIC's holdings, this was more of a hope than a reality). He was therefore disinclined to involve officialdom in this crisis, but despite this the matter was presented before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague. The Court's recommendations for co-operation were dismissed by the Iranian Government as interference in its internal affairs (in fact, the ICJ declared it had no jurisdiction over the matter).

'Eisenhower … agreed to help the British with "regime change"

After threats to expel all British AIOC staff, the matter was escalated to the UN Security Council by the British Government; again, Iran rejected the validity of the Council and proceeded with its aim of nationalisation. The AIOC responded by renaming the company The British Petroleum Company Ltd., and formed a consortium (The Iranian Oil Participants Ltd.) to deal with the new National Iranian Oil Company. The British Government, and the company, had underestimated the determination of Mossadegh and his supporters: … No imperial business leader could have failed to observe the Iranian nationalization in 1951 as an example of worldwide failure of British governments to protect commercial interests from the predatory instincts of determined post-war economic nationalists' (from 'Narrative reporting and crises: British Petroleum and Shell, 1950-1958').

Mossadegh's determination to nationalise AIOC through negotiations with the company failed due to entrenched positions on both sides. The British Government, appalled at the loss of control over Iran's rich oil reserves, imposed economic sanctions and conducted military manoeuvres in the area. Ultimately they contrived a plot (Operation Boot) to oust Mossadegh. President Truman's government, on friendly terms with Iran, had been reluctant to commit the USA to any intervention in support of the British except as mediators. In fact, worried about Iranian instability, they sent financial and military aid to the Iranian Government and dissuaded the British from military intervention. Despite friendly relations between Iran and the USA, the latter continued with their covert operations there, which post-Second World War had concentrated on planting anti-Soviet propaganda to guard against the spread of communism.

Events escalated with the expulsion from Iran of British diplomats as well as AIOC employees from the country, and oil operations ceased. The Shah, in panic at the hostile atmosphere, fled to Rome. Truman's successor, Eisenhower, had no qualms. In the midst of the Cold War and fearing a Communist take-over in Iran (and with one eye on the oil reserves), he agreed to help the British with 'regime change'. In 1953 the British-supported, CIA-led coup (Operation Ajax) unseated the government of Prime Minister Mossadegh. Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was restored to the throne and, of course, was thereafter indebted to the USA. Iran's struggle for democracy was snuffed out. The company's annual report from 1953 blandly states that there had been a 'change of government'.

'The Great Satan'

The Shah's repressive grip on Iran was consolidated with USA support and the use of the hated SAVAK (secret police). There were attempts to overthrow him, including an assassination attempt, but the disparate anti-Shah groupings, a weakened secular leftist movement and a disorganised liberal middle class meant they came to nothing. When the extent of the USA involvement in the 1953 coup had emerged, Iranian public opinion hardened. Once a friend of Iran, the USA had overthrown a liberal and democratic, secular government and in so doing alienated all classes of society living under Pahlavi's repressive dictatorship. It was the first time the USA had overthrown a foreign government (in peacetime), and was not to be the last. America was now considered a traitorous enemy — the 'Great Satan'.

A movement to re-establish Iranian culture, as opposed to the Shah's imposed western-inspired culture, included the resurgence of Shia Islam. This was led by the charismatic Ayatollah Khomeini, a senior cleric who had long opposed the Shah's 'decadent' westernising ways and had been exiled for it. Formerly left-leaning and pro-democracy clerics eventually supported Khomeini's bid for power, either swayed by his proclamations of support for social justice, or by the ruthless force of his supporters. The 1979 Iranian Revolution was also greeted with enthusiasm by some international left-wing groups: 'If anyone tried to substitute this code [extreme sharia law] for the democratic and social demands of the masses they would get short shrift' (from 'Iran: the unfolding revolution' by Saber Nickbin). Khomeini's establishment of an Islamic theocracy showed that such optimism was misplaced.

Formerly left-leaning and pro-democracy clerics eventually supported Khomeini's bid for power

Since 1979, the diplomatic relationship between both the UK and the USA with Iran has remained volatile. Throughout the 1980s, Anglo-American support for Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, positive trade and diplomatic relations with Iran's regional rival Saudi Arabia, and a pro-Israel stance from both western nations only served to intensify the ill feeling between Iran and the United Kingdom and the United States. This was at its most deadly during the Iran hostage crisis, when 52 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage from 4 November, 1979, to 20 January, 1981. Student supporters of the revolution had staged a takeover of the USA embassy building in Tehran. Rescue attempts ordered by President Jimmy Carter failed spectacularly and resulted in eight deaths, which arguably contributed to his defeat in the 1980 presidential election.

The decade also ended with a notable expression of the ideological and cultural differences between Iran and the United Kingdom. In 1989 — in response to the publication in the UK the year before of Salman Rushdie's book 'The Satanic Verses'— Ayatollah Khomeini issued a call for the author's death. The Rushdie controversy extended far beyond Iran of course, but Khomeini's fatwa (which was in place until 1998) was a further example of the intense dislike and estrangement that had grown between Iran and both the UK and the USA. The tension between these nations remains.

• '1979 and the birth of the 21st century' essay
• Essay about the Romanian Revolution
• 'The Velvet Revolution' essay

Further reading

• 'Abadan: A first-hand account of the Persian oil crisis' by Norman Kemp (London: Wingate, 1953) [National Library of Scotland shelfmark: NE.85.c.5].
• 'All the Shah's men: An American coup and the roots of Middle East terror' by Stephen Kinzer (New York, NY: Wiley, 2003) [shelfmark: Q4.204.0086].
• 'Anglo-Iranian relations since 1800' edited by Vanessa Martin (London: Routledge, 2005) [shelfmark: HB2.206.11.541].
• 'Annual Report and Accounts as at 31st December 1950' Anglo-Iranian Oil Company Limited (London: The Company, 1950) [shelfmark: 5.1555].
• 'Dispute between His Majesty's government in the United Kingdom and the Imperial government of Persia' (Geneva: League of Nations, 1933) [shelfmark: LN.VII.2/1.(27)].
• 'Dynamics of the Iranian Revolution: the Pahlavi's' triumph and tragedy' by Jahangir Amuzegar. (Albany, NY: University of New York Press, 1991).
• 'Empire and nationhood: the United States, Great Britain, and Iranian oil, 1950-1954' by Mary Ann Heiss (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1997) [shelfmark: Q3.98.1361].
• 'Insurrection in Teheran: an eye-witness report' by Brian Grogan (London : The Other Press, 1979) [shelfmark: QP2.80.291].
• 'Iran no. 1 (1952). Correspondence between Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the Iranian Government, and related documents, concerning the joint Anglo-American proposals for the settlement of the oil dispute, [1951-52]' [Cmd. 8677] (London: Stationery Office, 1951-52) [available as a National Library eResource].
• 'Iran: the unfolding revolution' by Saber Nickbin; foreword by Tariq Ali (London: International Marxist Group, 1979) [shelfmark: QP2.80.356].
• 'Narrative reporting and crises: British Petroleum and Shell, 1950-1958' by N Abdelrehim, J Maltby and J S Toms, in 'Accounting History', vol 20 (2.) pages 138-157 [available as a National Library e-journal article].
• 'Oil is flammable!: The Persian crisis' by Harold Davies (London: Union of Democratic Control, 1951) [shelfmark: 1973.116].
• 'Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a very British coup' by Christopher de Bellaigue (London: Vintage, 2013 [shelfmark: PB5.213.189/2].
• 'The Scottish nation at Empire's end' by Bryan S Glass (Edinburgh: University Press, 2014) [shelfmark: HB2.214.6.986].
• 'The Turban for the crown: The Islamic revolution in Iran' by Said Amir Arjomand (Oxford: University Press, 1988) [shelfmark: Q4.88.424].

Four decades later, did the Iranian revolution fulfill its promises?

Subscribe to the center for middle east policy newsletter, ali fathollah-nejad af ali fathollah-nejad former brookings expert.

July 11, 2019

• 12 min read

Content from the Brookings Doha Center is now archived . In September 2021, after 14 years of impactful partnership, Brookings and the Brookings Doha Center announced that they were ending their affiliation. The Brookings Doha Center is now the  Middle East Council on Global Affairs , a separate public policy institution based in Qatar.

If Iran were to hold a referendum on the Islamic Republic today, over 70% would clearly oppose it—among them the wealthy, academics, clerics, village, and city-dwellers. This remarkable hypothetical was not declared by an exiled Iranian dissident, but by the well-known Tehran political science professor, Sadegh Zibakalam, in an interview during the upheaval that took place in late 2017 and early 2018.

But how is it that even a formerly enthusiastic supporter of the Islamic Revolution has delivered such a devastating verdict? To understand this radical shift and the frustration behind it, we must revisit the promises that the revolution made four decades ago. The 1979 Iranian revolution promised three goals: social justice, freedom and democracy, and independence from great power tutelage.  

Iran’s paradoxical quest for social justice

Framed in a Marxist–Islamist mindset, the revolution was made on behalf of the mostazafin —the downtrodden—who were left behind by the monarchy’s uneven development model. In the following four decades, intense controversy has erupted over the Islamic Republic’s socio-economic performance. While some claim that under the Islamist regime remarkable progress has been made, others depict an entire country mired in misery. More nuance and contextualization is needed.

Iran has indeed experienced progress over the last 40 years. Whether these successes have been a result of post-revolutionary policies, societal pressures, or the foundations laid by the shah remains hotly debated.

The shift from the shah’s pro-urban, elite-centered policies to a pro-rural and pro-poor (populist) approach under the Islamic Republic included expanding infrastructure and basic services—such as electricity and clean water—from cities to the countryside. In short, the revolution sought to eliminate the rural-urban divide. In rural Iran, the expansion of health and education led to a clear reduction in poverty: The 1970s poverty rate of 25% dropped to less than 10% in 2014. These social policies, biased in favor of the poor, help explain why Iran’s Human Development Index (HDI) has been relatively positive.

Unlike before the revolution, most Iranians today enjoy access to basic services and infrastructure, while the population has almost doubled and most of the country is urbanized. Other measures of social development have similarly improved. Literacy has more than doubled , especially among women, and now encompasses almost all the population. Meanwhile, female students have outnumbered their male counterparts at universities for more than a decade.

Related Books

Suzanne Maloney

January 28, 2025

However, while statistics indicate that absolute poverty has declined sharply, a majority of Iranians continue to suffer from socio-economic precarity. Official sources state that 12 million live below the absolute poverty line and 25 to 30 million below the poverty line. Estimates suggest that one-third of Iranians, as well as 50 to 70% of workers, are in danger of falling into poverty. Fourteen percent of Iranians live in tents, according to the Statistical Center of Iran , and one-third of the urban population lives in slums. The living conditions of what anthropologist Shahram Khosravi calls Iran’s “other half,” or working-class poor , are striking: a 17-fold increase in the number of Iranians living in slums; 50% of the work force have only irregular employment; approximately 10 to 13 million Iranians “entirely excluded  from health, work or unemployment insurance.”

And Iran’s socio-economic challenges cannot be separated from its political economy that favors regime loyalists and is marked by mismanagement, cronyism, nepotism, corruption, and the absence of much-needed structural reforms. Although U.S. sanctions have undoubtedly had negative repercussions, their overall impact on Iran’s economic situation is often overstated. For instance, in the summer of 2018, Hossein Raghfar , an economist at Tehran’s Allameh Tabataba’i University, has suggested that as little as 15% of Iran’s economic problems can be attributed to sanctions. The “ illiberal neoliberalization ” in various Iranian economic policies since the 1990s, featuring clientalistic privatizations and de-regulated labor market, has helped form nouveaux riches on one hand and precarious social strata on the other.

A chief failure of the Islamic Republic has been the lack of job creation, with jobless growth even increasing during oil booms. Unemployment rates remain high, especially among the youth, university graduates, and women. Officially, every eighth Iranian is unemployed. According to the Iranian parliament’s research center, the unemployment rate will reach 16% by 2021 in an optimistic scenario, 26% if conditions are less auspicious. Among the youth, one in four is unemployed (but some estimates go as high as 40%). These figures rank Iran’s youth unemployment rate as among the highest worldwide.

Iran’s Gini index of income inequality has remained consistently high at above 0.40, pointing to the lack of inclusive economic growth. Studying levels of inequality in pre- and post-revolutionary Iran, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani found that inequality in 2002 was about the same as in 1972, adding:

The findings on inequality raise important questions about the nature of the Islamic Revolution. Did it significantly affect the power structure as a social revolution of its magnitude should have? This is particularly relevant in the case of Iran because, in addition to changes in the distribution of productivity, the distribution of access to oil rents also affects inequality. Since access is directly related to political power, inequality may reflect the distribution of power. Thus, the finding that inequality in 2002 was about the same as in 1972 raises questions about the significance of the Islamic Revolution as a social and political revolution.

In other words, the class character of Iranian society has remained unchanged , with one ruling class replaced by another only with another social composition. In political cartoons, this was reflected in pictures of the shah’s crown merely being replaced by the mullahs’ turban. Such continuity led some scholars to interpret the 1979 revolution as merely a “ passive revolution, a revolution without change ” in class relations. Today, there is a strong public perception of high income inequality, given the ostentatious display of wealth and nepotism by the offspring of regime affiliates, the so-called âghâzâdeh , that Iranians observe on the streets of Tehran or on their smartphones through Instagram accounts like “Rich Kids of Tehran.”

The Islamic Republic’s relative achievements in the fields of rural infrastructure, education, and literacy, along with its failure to create jobs, have produced a socio-economic paradox that is politically explosive. Iran’s job market can simply not absorb the hundreds of thousands of university graduates. This paradox has produced a stratum of “middle-class poor,” as described by sociologist Asef Bayat. Defined as those with middle-class qualifications and aspirations but suffering from socio-economic precarity, this group was considered the social base of the 2017-18 uprising and is widely expected to continue to voice its anger and frustration.

On the situation of Iran’s youth under the Islamic Republic, Bayat explained in a 2016 interview :

The youth not only want a secure future—that is reasonable jobs, a place to live, get married, and form a family in the future—they also want to reclaim their “youthfulness,” a desire to live the life of youth, to pursue their interests, their individuality, free from the watchful eyes of their elders, from moral and political authority. This dimension of young people’s lives adds to the existing social tensions in Iran.

As alluded to before, Iranians face another structural impediment to socio-economic opportunities. Regime “insiders” ( khodi ) or those with access to state resources and privileges also enjoy privileged access to jobs. These frustrations have led many young Iranians to vote with their feet. Even under the Rouhani administration, Iran has continued to experience world record-breaking levels of brain drain , losing an estimated $150 billion per year.

Political freedom and democracy

In addition to social justice, the architects of the 1979 revolution contended that the ouster of the monarchy would usher in greater freedom. However, the brief post-revolutionary euphoria and sense of liberation quickly gave way to the new rulers’ systemic Islamization of state and society. That one dictatorship was replaced by another, and by an even more brutal one, became apparent in the Islamic Republic’s first decade. Between 1981 and 1985, nearly 8,000 people were executed, and similar numbers were killed during the so-called “great massacre” in the final year of the 1980–88 war with Iraq. By contrast, in the eight years preceding the revolution (1971-79), fewer than 100 political prisoners were executed. The Islamic Republic became one of the most repressive systems on the globe, more recently with the world’s highest execution rate.

In this process, modern Iran’s three dominant politico-ideological formations , or political cultures—namely nationalism, socialism, and Islamism—were narrowed to heavy emphasis on the latter, which managed to incorporate elements of the others. Although there is some variety, the new political elite is largely limited to various stripes of Islamism. The revolutionary movement’s political pluralism has been suppressed, with no veritable opposition party allowed by the state.

Likewise, Iranian civil society’s constitutive movements—women, students, and labor—have faced systemic repression, undermining their organizational capacities and leaving Iran’s dynamic civil society weak compared to the state. State repression has also targeted dissidents of various ideological persuasions, non-Persian minorities, and journalists. Iran today is one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists, ranked 170th among 180 by Reporters Without Borders . While the Islamic Republic’s press landscape displays a remarkable degree of vibrancy and openness within the system’s redlines, the hardline-dominated judiciary has regularly banned publications and imprisoned journalists.

Overturning the existing monarchical order, the Islamic Republic established a peculiar political system that is conventionally understood to be based on two pillars: theocratic (with the supreme leader at the top as the head of state) and republican (with an elected parliament and president). However, the latter is at best semi-republican, as the Guardian Council only allows candidates deemed loyal to the Islamic Republic to run for office. This unique configuration has been a key impediment for the creation of democracy; non-elected institutions still dominate, while elected ones have remained faithful to the system. Most importantly, the Islamic Republic’s hybrid authoritarianism has shown remarkable resilience against meaningful political change, leading to widespread popular frustration today with both regime wings—the so-called moderates as well as the hardliners.

Independence inseparable from freedom

The revolution’s fervent opposition to both Cold War superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, was encapsulated in the revolutionary slogan “Neither West, nor East, [only] the Islamic Republic.” But it was the revolution’s animosity toward Washington that has dominated Iran’s international relations. And while Iran has found itself in a geopolitical confrontation with the West, it was never geopolitically integrated into the East. Instead, as the policies of Russia, China, and India during heightened U.S. sanctions have demonstrated, Iran has found itself forced to give concessions to Asian great powers that have consistently prioritized their ties with Washington over those with Tehran. As a result, Iran has experienced new patterns of dependency on those Eastern great powers, since confronting them is not an option so long as Tehran is at loggerheads with the international system’s most powerful state.

Iran has experienced new patterns of dependency on those Eastern great powers, since confronting them is not an option so long as Tehran is at loggerheads with the international system’s most powerful state.

Against this backdrop, how can Iranians safeguard their longstanding desire for independence in a 21st-century, interdependent world? Ruhollah Ramazani, the late doyen of Iranian foreign policy studies, rightly emphasized that in an interdependent world, there is no such thing as absolute independence, but rather degrees of dependence. In other words, Iran’s national development will suffer if today it tries to maintain a fervent, ideological adherence to an abstract notion of absolute independence.

Iran’s domestic authoritarian context poses another formidable challenge for safeguarding independence, as it favors close ties with authoritarian rather than democratic states. The hardline custodians of the Islamic Republic need not fear that like-minded authoritarian regimes, like China and Russia, will introduce issues like human rights and democracy in bilateral relations. The result is a geopolitical preference for a “Look to the East” policy, mostly favored by those forces who stand to benefit politically and economically from such an orientation. The shadow of Iran’s antagonism with the United States has sustained its conflictual relationship with the Western world. This has not only prevented it from developing its full potential by building robust ties with both the West and the East, but has pushed the country into the hands of the latter powers who have abused Iran’s isolation from the West and its need of the East. For this reason, Ramazani aptly noted that a democratic polity is a necessary precondition to prevent dependency, noting that “the breakdown of the rule of law and politicized judiciary will ultimately undercut Iran’s ability to maintain its independence in world politics.” He also emphasized that freedom and independence are inseparable.

A more open political climate, as in India for example, would allow for domestic debates about foreign policy choices and the stakes involved for the population. Hence, democratization would significantly improve Iran’s international image and potentially improve its bargaining power vis-à-vis great powers, especially given Western powers’ tendency towards instrumentalizing human rights in order to generate political pressure.

So did the Iranian revolution eventually deliver on its promises? Despite some achievements, the overall picture looks bleak, particularly when it comes to promises of democracy. Whether that is reversible is another difficult question. The acute triple crisis—socio-economic, political, and ecological—the Islamic Republic faces in its 40th year, a growing sense of popular disillusionment and frustration that forcefully erupted during the 2017-18 upheaval, and the ongoing confrontation with the world’s most powerful state leaves little hope that the same system that failed to deliver on these promises for decades will succeed in the future.

Related Content

February 12, 2019

Kenneth M Pollack

March 8, 2019

Djavad Salehi Isfahani

March 14, 2019

Gulf States Iran

Foreign Policy

Gulf States Iran Middle East & North Africa

Center for Middle East Policy

Online Only

2:00 pm - 3:00 pm EDT

May 20, 2024

Madiha Afzal, Marsin Alshamary, Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, Pavel K. Baev, Sarah A. Binder, E.J. Dionne, Jr., Vanda Felbab-Brown, William A. Galston, Sharan Grewal, Ryan Hass, Tanvi Madan, Suzanne Maloney, Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti, Itamar Rabinovich, Natan Sachs, Jaganath Sankaran, David Wessel, Andrew Yeo

April 15, 2024

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

The Iranian Revolution in 1979; Causes and Consequences for Regional Stability Leicester University Dissertation

Related Papers

Xander Byng

Jason Freewalt

According to Ramazani, the Iranian Revolution had substantial domestic, regional, and global consequences, the long-term result of which would have a great deal to do with Iran’s ability to stabilize the Revolution to meet the practical needs of its people. The Revolution polarized domestic politics, exemplified by the clash between traditionalist theocrats and secular modernists. Tensions with Iraq magnified following the Revolution, eventually erupting in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. The Revolution damaged diplomatic and economic relations with the United States, most blatantly through the discontinuation of the Shah’s immense foreign import expenditures, dwindling oil production, the hostage crisis, and the resulting imposition of sanctions. How the Revolution would deal with these problems, as well as class, ethnic, and ideological struggles, would determine the prospects for survival of the new regime.

Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism

Kamran Nayeri

The February 1979 Iranian revolution was the largest urban mass uprising since the 1917 Russian revolutions. It was also a deep-going revolution in which working people and youth organized popular democratic committees called shoras (councils) in workplaces, in the countryside, by the oppressed nationalities, in universities, and briefly among the soldiers. The working people of Iran had a genuine opportunity to create a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Yet, within a month after the February 11, 1979 revolution, an absolute majority of the population voted in an undemocratic referendum organized by Ayatollah Khomeini for an undefined Islamic Republic. Khomeini used this "mandate" to undermine and destroy all popular independent mass organizations and by the end of 1982, destroy the revolution and solidify a capitalist theocracy in place of the capitalist monarchy. The essay draws the lessons of the revolution and its defeat.

Muhammad A B B A S Mosvi

Rabith Shaikh

Mohammad Reza Shah initiated a process to modernize Iran on the lines of his father once he assumed direct control over Iran, after the fall of Mosaddegh. The land reforms initiated in 1962, the nation building projects under the five-year plans fueled by the oil revenues and the subsequent increase in literacy rate set up the stage for a pre – revolutionary psyche in the Iranian people. This psyche was an amalgamation of discontents towards Shah’s policies and his rule. The land reforms liberated a lot of peasants from the clutches of land-owning families; however, the reforms fell short of providing these peasants with strong means to maintain livelihoods in the aftermath of these reforms’ implementation. The oil boom allowed the Shah’s government to undertake and encourage industrialization of the country on a massive scale centering the monarchy’s cities. This catalyzed an urban migration at an unprecedented scale. The increase in literacy rate created skilled workers for Shah’s modernization projects. However, their supply could not keep up with the demand for skilled workers necessary for these projects. And, all these jobs were concentrated in the cities. The demand for housing and subsequent increase in rents, degradation in quality of lives in the cities (traffic jam, pollution), hiring of foreign skilled workers with higher pay; among other reasons led to discontent. The literate class got subscribed to the ideas of intellectuals speaking adversely of Shah’s reforms. I argue that the land reforms, modernization projects facilitated by the oil boom and increase in literacy rate along with certain other factors created a set of circumstances in Iran; which drove Iranians into a confrontation with the Shah (in the aftermath of the dramatic increase in oil revenues after 1973 and resultant inflation) and led to his eventual downfall.

The Islamic Revolution of 1979

Erekle Gozalishvili

David Clark

Mohammad Ali Kadivar

In the span of a decade from 1977 to 1988, Iranians first participated in one of the major social revolutions of modern history and then after that the Iraqi invasion in 1981, Iran engaged in the longest interstate war of the 20th century. Why did the revolution happen in Iran? What was the connection between war and revolution? What are the consequences of the revolution for politics, society, and economy in Iran, and how has Iranian politics and society has transformed since 1979 in Iran? These are some of the major questions that we try to answer through this course. Through case studies of Iranian revolution and then Iran-Iraq war, we also study main theories of revolution and war and the legacies of these most dramatic political events for post-revolutionary and post-war societies. We specifically examine the birth of the Islamic Republic out of the revolution and war and also major episodes of protest and social movements in the Islamic republic.

Abdou Filali-Ensari Occasional Paper Series

ibrahim memmedov

he Iran Islamic Revolution of 1979 marked a watershed moment in modern history. Triggered by socio-economic grievances and fueled by religious fervor, it culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi monarchy and the establishment of an Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Khomeini's leadership. This seismic shift reshaped Iran's domestic landscape, ushering in a new era of political Islam and fundamentally altering the country's trajectory. Internationally, it spurred debates on the role of religion in governance and set the stage for Iran's complex relations with the West and its neighbors. Decades later, the revolution's legacy continues to reverberate, shaping Iranian society, politics, and foreign policy in profound ways.

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.

RELATED PAPERS

NASER TIZHOOSH

Roschanack Shaery

Iranian Studies

Darioush Bayandor

Homa Katouzian

Raja M A Saleem

Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi

E-International Relations

Mohammed Nuruzzaman

Iran's relations with middle east after Islamic revolution i1979.

Muhammad A B B A S Mosvi , Boghairy Ali

Torab Saleth

Zeeshan Rahim

Revolutionary Marxism

Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the …

Eric Selbin

Mahmoud Kashefi

Third World Quarterly

Ali Banuazizi

Zeynep Sena Kaynamazoğlu

Simge Güven

Radical History Review

Ahmad Sadri

Michael Eisenstadt

Understanding and Teaching the Modern Middle East (University of Wisconsin Press)

Arielle Gordon

International Socialism

atieh ehteshami

Middle Eastern Studies

Marouf Cabi

International Journal of Political Science & Urban Studies

Meral Balcı

Esra Deniz , Meral Balcı

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

• Arts & Culture

Get Involved

Special Issue 2024

Exhibition Opening: Louder than Hearts, Women Photographers from the Arab World and Iran

Annual Gala Dinner

Internships

The Iranian Revolution at 30

Andrew Parasiliti

Originally posted January 2009

It is only fitting that “The Iranian Revolution at 30” begin with an introductory essay by R.K. Ramazani and that this project be dedicated to him. For 55 years, Professor Ramazani has been a teacher and mentor to many scholars and practitioners of the Middle East. His body of work on Iran is unrivalled in its scope and originality. Many of his articles and books on Iranian foreign policy are standard works.

For over a quarter century, Dr. Ramazani also has written with eloquence and conviction of the need for the United States and Iran to end their estrangement and begin direct diplomatic talks. Ramazani has no illusions about overcoming three decades of animosity, but he believes that reconciling US-Iran differences is vital to resolving America’s other strategic challenges in the Middle East — including in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and to bringing sustainable peace and security to the region.

Professor Ramazani’s service to both the Middle East Institute and to the University of Virginia has been recognized time and again. As one of Dr. Ramazani’s former students, and as a former director of programs at MEI, I can personally attest to his deep commitment to both institutions. His life-long contribution to the Middle East Institute was recognized at MEI’s Annual Conference in October 1997, when he was presented with the Middle East Institute Award. Currently, Dr. Ramazani serves with distinction on The Middle East Journal’s Board of Advisory Editors. At the University of Virginia, his teaching and scholarship embodied Thomas Jefferson’s precept for the University that “Here we are not afraid to follow truth, wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it. ”

It is in that spirit that this volume is dedicated to R. K. Ramazani.

The Middle East Institute (MEI) is an independent, non-partisan, non-for-profit, educational organization. It does not engage in advocacy and its scholars’ opinions are their own. MEI welcomes financial donations, but retains sole editorial control over its work and its publications reflect only the authors’ views. For a listing of MEI donors, please click here .

A series of writings throughout my cosmic journey…

Persepolis: An Analysis of the Role of Identity During the Iranian Revolution

Although cinema is often seen as entertainment rather than a work of art, Marjane Satrapi’s film Persepolis beautifully captures the rhetoric of the Iranian revolution in an artistic demeanour. Her comic-inspired film follows the life of Marjan, a young girl struggling for truth during an era where the lines between human sincerity and strict government policy are blurred. The aim of the movie, however, can be argued to be the unification of the Western and Eastern public ideology regarding Iran – based on the fundamental issues of assimilation. Members of the Iranian diaspora can deeply resonate with Persepolis as a whole, but more specifically relate with Marjan’s personal endeavour for meaning in a binary world of culture. In addition to this, the movie drew a deep parallel with Marjan’s struggle with truth, and the journey for the entire nation of Iran in a society of deeply rooted political conflict. Although a wide variety of the film’s themes and ideas are solely rooted from Marjan’s personal identity, it should also be noted that a wide variety of the sub themes follow the socio-political conditions in Iran, such as women’s issues, social constructs and Western intervention. Therefore, this essay aims to explore Marjan’s emphasis on self identity, in addition to the storytelling of Iranian history and conflict. I will use Saparti’s choice of animation as aid for my thesis with an emphasis on imagery juxtaposition.

         Firstly, I will trace the origins of the root of the title and meaning behind Saparti’s choice to call the film Persepolis. Beginning with the analysis of the film title, the world Persepolis quite literally means the ancient land of the Persians. The Persian Empire was found by Cyrus the Great and was renown at the time for its strong reign.[1] Once Alexander the Great took over the capital, the people were left impoverished and their country in ruins.[2] I argue that Satrapi chose the title Persepolis as a parallel to the events that occurred during the era. The merciless overthrow of the government combined with the excruciating torture that many Iranians felt at the time are both parallels with the film.  Before the war in both circumstances, it can be argued that Iran was prosperous and free-spirited. Saparti aimed to show how dictatorship can dangerously harm a society that was once so well reputable. Throughout Persepolis it was evident that the political strain can affect nearly all interpersonal levels of Iranians throughout the revolution. This is evident in the way the Iranian revolution shaped the path of Marjane’s life; from her personal relationships to her drive for life. Furthermore, the powerful state before the war was a symbol for the utopia that the Iranians thought they were going to have. For many Iranians, the revolution was meant to be an event that altered their state for the better; to free them from the chains of totalitarian regime. However, this was clearly not the case.

         I will lay out the framework to further prove that using animation in Persepolis was a tool for Saparti in order to create an artistic portrayal. The use of animation meant an acceptance of the impossibility of perfect representation of such traumatic events. In other words, it became an accessible means of dealing with difficult content of Saparti’s life. The issues that Saparti aims to explore are often ‘grey’ and not black-and-white. This allows surplus room for the viewer to self-interpret the complex emotion that Saparti aims to express. Although it can be counter argued that animation lacks a particular element of realism, it immerses the viewer in narrative and aesthetic art. In this way, the use of animation offers a medium where memory, dream, and fantasy can be intertwined; without the burden of realist depiction. In a way, the lack of clarity and realism leaves furthermore to the imagination, which allows the viewer to grapple with meaning to the point of resolution.

Saparti monochromatic palette beautifully uses the juxtaposition of light and dark in her film. The contrast aims to represent the innate emotions and experience of each character within the film, whilst outlining their inner motivations. The gloomy silhouettes represented the lives of sorrow that the Iranian people felt, while the bright lights aimed to signify the sense of hope they felt as they clung onto the memory of freedom. A beautiful example is when Marjane learns that her Uncle Anoosh was re-arrested by the regime troops, and she is seen in front of a texture-less background with no sense of depth. The outline of her black hair and clothing contrast within frame as her figure is seen hovering through a vacant, black void. This image, although animated, depicts the sense of deep isolation and resentment Marjane faced towards the revolution. Furthermore, the use of dense black frames is used during the scene of the bombing occurring in Iran. The dark silhouette of the stairs combined with the black empty screen during the bombing ignite a sense of fear and mystery within the viewer. This is used many times throughout the film, most notably when depicting the false dream that the Iranian government sold to young men embarking off to the war. Saparti was able to, once again, draw a parallel between the young men of Iran fighting in the Iraqi war (often promised the “key to paradise”), causing the viewer to ask if these young men are any different than the youth of the American wars. In this way, Saparti uses universalization to appeal to both Iranian and Western viewers.

As the film commences, it is evident from the very opening scene that Marjane is dissatisfied with her contrasting cultures. This scene was one of the very few in colour; further punctuating the film. Marjane is seen in solitude waiting at the Paris airport in a familiar flashback. She shines a look of disapproval upon putting on a head scarf before her arrival in Tehran whilst smoking a cigarette. Immediately, we see that the complex and deeply rooted themes of identity, exile and return emerge in the introduction. Throughout the movie, the recurring theme of solitude and identity emerge as thousands of Iranians left Iran during the revolution. The relocation to another country left colossal gaps in the streams of identity amongst those individuals. Furthermore, Persepolis captures the sense of loss when Marjane’s family members dwell on the question of whether they too should leave or stay behind. In this way, the film depicts the struggles of those individuals that choose to stay, whilst placing emphasis on the severed ties with those that choose to stay behind. An example is Marjan’s Uncle Anoosh, where the theme of exile is embodied in his character’s decisions. His exile to Russia and attempt to sneak into his homeland signified his deeply rooted ties to his Iranian identity. Although he was a revolutionary that fought against the ordeals of the Shah, Uncle Anoosh served as a role model for Marjane; embodying hope, strength, and passion. He shares his stories of imprisonment with Marjan, which serve as a medium for inspiration. In addition, the toy swans carved out of the prison bread serve as a symbol for hope. Upon Anoosh’s execution, the white swans are surrounded by black water – once again the use of dark and light to represent Marjan’s deep feelings of loss and hopelessness. In this way, the perceptive genius used by Saparti illustrates the anguish Marjane faces as she is also ‘exiled’ to Vienna during her youth.

Upon moving to Vienna, we see a stark contrast with the quaint depiction of Tehran. Although in Western eyes, Iran is often seen as the foregin ‘other’; in this turn around of events, Vienna was depicted in the light of “otherness”, with Viennese tams and sidewalk cafes, along with ringing church bells. In this way, the viewer was placed directly in Marjane’s perspective; engulfed in a sense of wonder and foreignism. An overarching scene in which consumerism and Western industrialism is well depicted in one where Marjane is in the bounds of a modern-day grocery store – shining with branded product. This generates a stark contrast with the poverty that many Iranians faced during the revolution, and due to this a fundamental and underlying guilt is developed in Marjane. While her family is faced with the darkness of war, Marjane is blessed with the Western opportunities and frivolous life. Unable to live with the guilt and lack of external support from her friends in Vienna, Marjane is later diagnosed with depression. There is uneasiness with her friends’ ease of philosophy and the dark realities of war that Marjane faced. This internal struggle aims to show how the revolution creates deeply embedded memories in the Iranian diaspora, in which it is carried with them throughout all their experiences. The internal struggle within Marjan also runs parallel with the struggles of Iranian across the globe, which further attributes to the universality of the film. In addition to her struggle into assimilation, Marjan also experiences various romantic relationships that also contribute to her shaping of her adolescent identity.

As the attempts to find understanding and sympathy in her friendships, the same is apparent in her strive for love. As she strives to find meaning in these relationships, Marjane loses a piece of herself. In a scene where she lies about being French from fear of being seen as a “barbaric” Iranian, Marjane imagines her grandmother following her trail and catching her in her lie. Through the act of dishonesty, it is clear that Marjane still possesses an innate dissatisfaction with her identity. Upon her return to Tehran, she also sees the socio-political effects that the revolution had on the people. As her grandmother famously quoted that “fear lulls us to sleep,” Marjane sees fear manifesting in the actions of her fellow Iranians. In a way, the revolution had normalized people to be savage and this is evident in the distinct scenes of her mother at the grocery store or swearing at other drivers. Furthermore, her decision to turn in an innocent man also shows how fear had caused everyone in Iran to resort to a “survival” and “state of nature” instinct. The Iranians became stripped of their pride, nationalism and meaning, therefore the country had evolved into a cold society, where all individuals only possessed the will to survive.

It is evident that Saparti effectively used animation as a means of portraying the harsh realities of the Iranian revolution. Saparti was able to beautifully capture the binary world of Iranian and Western culture, and the deeply rooted conflict that many individuals like Marjan felt during this era. It is also evident, however, that the Iranian diaspora today also feel disconnect when approaching the fragile world of cultural clash. Furthermore, Saparti was able to go beyond the physical bounds of Iran and travel beyond into the universal world, where her film can be applied to individuals of nearly all cultures. That is the beauty of universality that lies in the fundamental roots of Persepolis. No matter what culture one may originate from, the internal conflict with the “traditional” and modern will always persist. The outcome, however, will not always be positive. Although Marjane was able to undergo multiple external identity alterations, in the end, she was still the carefree and curious soul. Her drive for justice is evident at a young age and is manifested later in her life. This is evident when she is seen standing up for her classmates in university regarding dress code.  Marjane’s early life and her exposure to her parents’ activism instilled determination for justice and a desire for freedom.

Through the use of animation and contrasting depictions of dark and light, Saparti is able to tell the story of Marjane’s coming of age during the violent birth of the Iranian revolution. Through this, Saparti also universalizes the ideology of binary culture and sheds light on the day-to-day victims of the Iranian revolution that are often ignored in Western portrayal. Persepolis acts as a beacon of hope where cross-cultured individuals can reconnect with meaning, and a desire to discover identity through Saparti’s rich, inky black and white illustrations. Marjan’s dissatisfaction with revolutionary promise for freedom, and with totalitarian rule is manifested in her acts of defiance throughout the film. In conclusion, Saparti’s story-telling monochrome palette reveal throughout Persepolis that the deep socio-political issues it highlights are anything but black and white.

One Reply to “Persepolis: An Analysis of the Role of Identity During the Iranian Revolution”

Well-articulated ideas! Your perspective is refreshing. Thank you for the enlightening read. This post resonates with me. Looking forward to your future articles. Keep it up!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Spam prevention powered by Akismet

The Iranian Revolution Causes Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

The impact of the Iranian revolution cannot be underrated as it has not only influenced Iran and the Middle East as a whole but also had a great impact on the Western world and its leaders. Although the revolution itself happened in the year 1979, the events that happened several years earlier were of utter importance as well.

The regime of Muhammad Reza Shah became more powerful in 1975 and tried to gain more control over the political groups that stayed more or less independent of the government. The religious establishment in Iran was also attacked; the Shah also replaced the Islamic calendar, which could not go unnoticed by the public. The real problem of the government was its inefficient economic management. While the Shah’s family enjoyed the luxury that was illegally financed by the national wealth, representatives of the urban middle classes were hit by inflation and feared for their economic livelihood.

The Shah’s dependence on the West was also discouraged by many members of society. Slowly, the opposition began to form: it consisted of Westernized urban professionals, students from secular universities and theological seminaries, and bazaar merchants. Their views based on the ideologies and beliefs of prominent oppositionists, such as Mehdi Bazargan and Ali Shariati. Another wing of protesters existed whose views were influenced by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

According to him, an Islamic state, controlled by the ulama, should have been created instead of a monarchy. His activism was based on religion, and he believed that the government ruled by the laws of Islam as possible. His ideas gained more support as the revolution approached. One of his key statements addressed the Shah’s subordinate position to the West; he did not approve the Westernized, secular Iran that the government had created.

In 1978, the revolution took its shape. What began as a movement, ended as a revolution after the Shah had decided to pressure the protesters with brutal force. The protests continued, but during the next two participants were killed. On February 18, 1978, another set of demonstrations took place. Although they were peaceful, 100 protesters were killed in Tabriz where the government sent army forces to break up the demonstrations. Other demonstrations that followed brought more deaths. In summer 1978, the government had implemented a new economic policy that led to unemployment among urban workers who eventually joined the protests. Street demonstrations were banned; however, on September 8 of the same year, other protests in Tehran took place. This time, hundreds of people died.

Anti-regime protests continued during the ritual mourning of Imam Husayn. On this day, 700 hundred protesters were killed. Nevertheless, the protests continued and soon two million people took part in them on December 2. On February 1, Khomeini returned to Iran where the crowd of protesters met him with joy. Shapour Bakhtiar suggested his candidature, but Khomeini declared that it would be illegal. Hence, Shapour Bakhtiar was denounced by the Freedom Movement.

The Shah had left the country on January 16, 1979. Later it was stated that Shah had terminal cancer; eventually, he died in 1980. Although the revolution was successful, the economy and the country needed to be rebuilt. There was no consensus between the political parties, and a new prime minister was needed to restore Iran.

• Technological Advances in Song Dynasty
• The Creation of the State of Israel
• Iranian Civilization, History and Islamic Rebirth
• To What Extent Did the Cold War Play a Role in the 1950s in Catalyzing the Iranian Revolution in 1979?
• Iranian Social and Cultural Life Before and After 1979
• Southeast and International Trade in Asian History
• Japan's, China's, South Korea's Historical Legacies
• China’s Improvements in 1970-2012
• Women and the first Palestinian Intifada
• Tibet as Shangri-La in Public Perception
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2020, October 6). The Iranian Revolution Causes. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-iranian-revolution-causes/

"The Iranian Revolution Causes." IvyPanda , 6 Oct. 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/the-iranian-revolution-causes/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'The Iranian Revolution Causes'. 6 October.

IvyPanda . 2020. "The Iranian Revolution Causes." October 6, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-iranian-revolution-causes/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Iranian Revolution Causes." October 6, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-iranian-revolution-causes/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Iranian Revolution Causes." October 6, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-iranian-revolution-causes/.

Iran's Jesus Revolution: Mosques Close as 1 Million Muslims Accept Christ

Share This article

Amid talk of a broader war in the Middle East, there is also news that a Jesus Revolution may be underway.

An unprecedented number of Muslims are choosing to follow Christ, especially in Iran as people search for a better life.

Iranians are growing tired of the ayatollahs and a nation led by the empty promises of their Islamic theocracy. An anonymous internal poll found that 80% now prefer a democratic government, and many are leaving Islam.

"You have a country with one of the highest drug addiction rates in the world. You have a country where corruption runs rampant. You have a country where more than half the people live below the poverty line," explained Todd Nettleton of The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) . 

"And the people of Iran are looking at this and they are saying, 'Wait a minute. If this is what Islam has brought us in the last 45 years, we're not interested. We want to know what the other options are.'"

According to Nettleton, Vice President of Messaging at VOM , the faith option many are choosing is Jesus with at least a million Muslims reportedly leaving Islam for Christianity.

So, how is the regime reacting to this with a reported 50,000 of the country's 75,000 mosques now closed?

"This is not something that is making the regime happy. And, really, in many ways, they are seeking to solidify their power and to crush any kind of dissent," Nettleton said. "We have heard multiple stories this year of Bible study, a home church being raided. Everyone there is photographed, everyone there is questioned. But then the leader of the meeting is held on to. They are arrested. They are detained, they're put in prison."

***Please sign up for  CBN Newsletters  and download the  CBN News app  to ensure you keep receiving the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***  

Moreover, Nettleton contends family members and friends are more tolerant than the government about leaving Islam.

"They kind of have the attitude of, 'Hey, if you found something that works for you, if it's Jesus or if it's atheism or if it's whatever, if it works for you... I know Islam doesn't work, so I'm happy you found something that works,'" he explained.

"I think what's happening there is actually representative of what's happening in the Islamic world," said Don Shenk, executive director of The Tide Ministry.  

He explains how Muslims are experiencing dreams and visions, leading many to find purpose and a different understanding of God.

"We get responses from listeners who say, you know, now I understand that God loves me. I always thought that God wanted to punish me," Shenk explained. "And I think there's an awakening that is taking place across the Muslim world, not just in Iran."

Shenk says Tide Ministry radio broadcasts are even receiving positive responses in Afghanistan where the Taliban pose great danger for those seeking information from secret Christians within the country.

"There's a lot of suspicion, okay. If I'm going to meet with these people and share that I'm now a believer, 'Are they really true believers or are they, just trying to identify me?'" he said. 

"It's more than simply being ostracized or disowned by your family. It is actually the threat of death. So, accepting new life in Christ means accepting the possibility of your life ending in this world."

Christianity is also spreading in Yemen, where the Joshua Project reports Christian growth is almost double the global average. 

Next door, Nettleton sees the Saudi Arabian monarchy becoming a bit more tolerant of Christians and their churches.      "Not necessarily welcoming with open arms, obviously. But just the understanding that it could happen, that there could be Christians here," he explained. "And maybe that's not the worst thing in the world. That's such a change from what we would have seen 10 or 15 or 20 years ago."

It's a move of God's Spirit bringing change that may eventually transform not only Iran but the entire Middle East.

  'Follow Me': Iranian Muslim Sees Jesus in a Vision, Abandons Islam for Christianity

  Exiled Iranian Christian Woman Tells Inspiring Story of Faith, Courage under Persecution

  EXCLUSIVE: 20 Iranian Christians Embark on Secret Journey to Celebrate Baptism

About The Author

Mr. Lane currently serves as International News Director and Senior International Correspondent for CBN News. He has traveled to more than 120 countries—many of them restricted nations or areas hostile to Christianity and other minority faiths where he has interviewed persecution victims and has provided video reports and analysis for CBN News. Also, he has provided written stories and has served as a consultant for the Voice of the Martyrs. Gary joined The Christian Broadcasting Network in 1984 as the first full-time Middle East Correspondent for CBN News. Based in Jerusalem, Gary produced More

You are signing up to receive general newsletters from CBN. By signing up, you are consenting to our privacy policy . You can specify preference after sign-up and opt out at any time.

EXCLUSIVE: Evangelicals for Harris Use 'False Prophet' Bible Passage in…

Do Churchgoers Truly Know the Old Testament? Shocking Stats Reveal the Truth

Greg Laurie Reveals Powerful Message From Billy Graham, Next Gen's Stunning…

• BROWSE TOPICS X
• Devotionals
• Newsletters

• Entertainment
• Positive Stories

1 Million Muslims in Iran Have Turned to Christ as 50,000 Mosques Closed

• Michael Foust Crosswalk Headlines Contributor
• Updated Aug 16, 2024

A million Muslims have accepted Christ in Iran as tens of thousands of mosques in the Islamic country have closed, according to reports on the ground and multiple ministries in the region. In February, Mohammad Abolghassem Doulabi, a senior cleric in Iran, revealed that 50,000 of the nation's 75,000 mosques had closed because of a substantial drop in attendance.

At the same time, Muslims are finding Jesus , with approximately 1 million Muslims in Iran coming to Christ, according to the international radio ministry The Tide and a new report from CBN .

Todd Nettleton, vice president of message for The Voice of the Martyrs, said many Iranians are searching for hope.

"You have a country with one of the highest drug addiction rates in the world. You have a country where corruption runs rampant. You have a country where more than half the people live below the poverty line," Nettleton told CBN. "And the people of Iran are looking at this, and they are saying, 'Wait a minute. If this is what Islam has brought us in the last 45 years, we're not interested. We want to know what the other options are.'" 

A December survey of Iranians from the Netherlands-based Gamaan Institute found that 80 percent reject the Islamic Republic and want a democratic government.

The potential of a "Jesus revolution" within Iran has sparked pushback from the Islamic government, Nettleton said. Conversion from Islam to Christianity is illegal in Iran. 

"This is not something that is making the regime happy. And, really, in many ways, they are seeking to solidify their power and to crush any kind of dissent," Nettleton told CBN. "We have heard multiple stories this year of Bible study, a home church being raided. Everyone there is photographed, everyone there is questioned. But then the leader of the meeting is held onto. They are arrested. They are detained, they're put in prison."

Don Shenk, executive director of The Tide ministry, said Muslims are responding to gospel-centered messages that are broadcast into Iran. 

"We get responses from listeners who say, 'Now I understand that God loves me. I always thought that God wanted to punish me,'" Shenk told CBN. "And I think there's an awakening that is taking place across the Muslim world, not just in Iran."

The international ministry Open Doors said Christianity in Iran is only tolerated if "you're part of a traditional Christian community, for instance, Armenian or Assyrian Christian."

But for "Christians who convert from Islam," Open Doors said, "not even the veneer of tolerance is present."

"The government views conversion as an attempt by the West to undermine Islam and the Islamic government of Iran," Open Doors reported. "This means that anyone who is discovered to be a member of a house church can be charged with a crime against national security, which can lead to long prison sentences. Anyone arrested or detained can be tortured and abused while in jail. Some Christians are released and monitored -- and know a second arrest would mean a long prison sentence."

Shenk's ministry, The Tide, reported that "what is happening in Iran is just the tip of the iceberg, as similar movements to Christ are happening across the Muslim world." The ministry said it is not uncommon for Muslims to dream about Christ.

"There is one common thread across these testimonies of Jesus appearing to Muslims in dreams: the dreams by themselves do not immediately result in conversion," a blog on The Tide website said. "Rather, they are a step in the spiritual journey, where the Lord breaks down some of the barriers which were the result of growing up in the Islamic faith . After receiving these dreams, these Muslims are often led to believers who engage them relationally."

WATCH: Iran's Jesus Revolution? Mosques Close as 1 Million Muslims Accept Christ | CBN News

Photo Credit: ©YouTube/ CBN News  

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

Recently On Michael Foust

Editor's Picks

Trending Headlines

• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use
• Crosswalk App
• California - Do Not Sell My Personal Information
• California - CCPA Notice

Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission.

What We Know About the Trump-Campaign Hack

The presidential election received yet another twist last week as Donald Trump ’s campaign disclosed that it was the victim of a hack by a foreign entity that managed to obtain private materials. The announcement came as news organizations reported receiving internal campaign documents via email from an anonymous source and as Microsoft unveiled a new report warning of malicious online influence in the election from Iran. Here’s what we know so far.

What happened?

On Friday, Microsoft issued a report from its threat-analysis center detailing its concerns about Iran attempting to influence the presidential election. In an accompanying blog post , the company said that groups with ties to the Iranian government have begun to use influence campaigns on election-related topics to potentially sway voters as well as initiating operations to gather intelligence on political campaigns.

“Yet another Iranian group, this one connected with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign from the compromised email account of a former senior advisor. The email contained a link that would direct traffic through a domain controlled by the group before routing to the website of the provided link,” the company wrote.

The following day, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung acknowledged that campaign data was compromised, blaming “foreign sources hostile to the United States” for the hack in a statement .

Trump himself confirmed the news on TruthSocial , writing, “We were just informed by Microsoft Corporation that one of our many websites was hacked by the Iranian Government - Never a nice thing to do! They were only able to get publicly available information but, nevertheless, they shouldn’t be doing anything of this nature.”

What do we know about the investigation?

The FBI confirmed on Monday that it is investigating the purported hack of the Trump campaign, per the Washington Post . The agency’s inquiry began back in June due to suspicions that Iran intended to compromise U.S. presidential campaigns. The Post reports that three staffers on the Biden-Harris campaign were targeted with spear phishing emails back then, citing sources familiar, but it doesn’t appear that those attempts were successful.

It appears that the hackers were able to breach the systems of Roger Stone , an adviser and friend of Trump. In an interview with the Post , Stone said that he was told by law enforcement that some of his email accounts were compromised and that he is currently cooperating with the investigation.

What information was compromised?

Some of the information accessed from the hack appears to have made its way to several news organizations. On Saturday, Politico reported that it began receiving emails containing Trump campaign documents from an anonymous account on July 22. The missives originated from an AOL email address and from an individual who would identify themself only as “Robert.” According to the outlet, the emails contained internal communications from a top Trump campaign official as well as a 271 page dossier on Trump’s running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance , believed to be part of a vice-presidential vetting file assembled on him. Also included was a portion of a research document on Florida senator Marco Rubio , who was also under consideration to join Trump on the Republican presidential ticket.

Politico verified the documents’ veracity, but could not establish the hacker’s motive or identity. The New York Times and the Washington Post have since reported receiving what appears to be the same documents sent to Politico from the same source. It’s not clear if other documents or materials were stolen in the hack. The three outlets notably did not publish or publicize any of the information they received from the unknown source.

What has Iran said about the allegations?

In a statement to the Associated Press , Iran’s mission to the United Nations denied having any involvement in the Trump-campaign hack. “The Iranian government neither possesses nor harbors any intent or motive to interfere in the United States presidential election,” they said.

Tensions between Trump and the Iranian government have only grown since his time in the White House. After an attempt was made on Trump’s life in July, reporting emerged that U.S. intelligence had recently become aware of an Iranian assassination plot against Trump, notifying the Secret Service, which then increased its security around the Republican candidate. The rumored plot is believed to be tied to Trump’s authorization of a military air strike in 2020 that killed Qasem Soleimani, a top commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The incident in Butler, Pennsylvania, was later deemed to be unrelated. Iran has denounced the allegations of a plot against Trump as “unsubstantiated and malicious,” per CNN .

• donald trump
• trump campaign

Most Viewed Stories

• How the J.D. Vance–Tim Walz Debate Could Affect the 2024 Race
• The Media’s Double Standard Favors Donald Trump, Not Kamala Harris
• Nate Silver Knows Who Will Win
• Trump Can’t Hide Jealousy Over Kamala Harris Time Cover
• The Shame of Saint Ann’s
• Why Did Trump Say Kamala Looks Like Melania on This Time Cover?
• What the Jeffrey Epstein Documents Reveal About Donald Trump

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

• How the J.D. Vance–Tim Walz Debate Could Affect the 2024 Race By Ed Kilgore
• The Media’s Double Standard Favors Donald Trump, Not Kamala Harris By Jonathan Chait
• Nate Silver Knows Who Will Win By David Freedlander
• Trump Can’t Hide Jealousy Over Kamala Harris Time Cover By Margaret Hartmann
• The Shame of Saint Ann’s By Caitlin Moscatello and James D. Walsh
• Why Did Trump Say Kamala Looks Like Melania on This Time Cover? By Margaret Hartmann
• What the Jeffrey Epstein Documents Reveal About Donald Trump By Margaret Hartmann

What is your email?

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

• Lower case letters (a-z)
• Upper case letters (A-Z)
• Numbers (0-9)
• Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.