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Religion in iran
Religion in iran politics
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The 1979 Iranian revolution is a revolution that changed the country of Iran for the better.
The Iranian revolution resulted in many events which include the overthrow of Reza Shah
Pahlavi, and the upbringing of Ayatollah Khomeini. Ayatollah Khomeini who replaced
Reza Shah with the role to improve a better perspective about Islam and to protect the
realm of the Shiaa community.
The Iranian revolution began with the overthrow of then leader Reza Shah, who was a non-
Muslim, western powering monarch. The people of Iran protested against Shah in order to
replace him as their leader. Iranian citizens lead Shah to flee the country of Iran because they
were fed up with his regime. Mehdi Bazargan was arranged to be prime minister of Iran due
to the power of Islamic leader Ayatollah Khomeini.
Ayatollah Khomeini was the founder of the Islamic Republic, who became known as the
leader of the Iranian Revolution and of the Shiaa community. Iranians welcomed their new
leader in the streets of Tehran. Khomeini came into Iran in order to change its democracy, build
a common wealth of Islam in order to bring it into his regime. He was a Shiite extremist who
believed that God was with him throughout his leadership. He would preach and make decisions
without the permission of Iranian prime minister Bazargan. Khomeini came into Iran as a new
ruler, who brought the rise of the Islamic empire into power. “The Islamic republic was seen as
providing a public good and a greater Islamization of society and politics rather than
development” (Ghesari, 97).
Khomeini was trying to spread Islamic republic throughout Iran. An election...
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...ieved the upbringing of power towards the shiaa community. If it wasn’t for
Khomeini Iran would not be the way it is today. Khomeini had brought up Iran under his rule as
a religious nation, which lead to having the largest population of shiaa in one country. With the
help of the Ulama, his strong actions and speeches, Ayatollah Khomeini had bettered Iran, both
politically and religiously.
Works Cited
Arjomand, A. Said. Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran. Oxford University
Press, Incorporated. 1989.
Clawson, Patrick, Rubin, Michael. Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos. Palgrave MacMillan. 2005.
Ghessari, Ali, Vali, Nasr. Democracy in Iran: history and the quest for liberty. Oxford University Press. 2006
Mir-Housseini, Ziba, Tapper, Richard. Islam and Democracy in Iran. I.B Tauris & Company,
Limited. 2006.
This completely changed the perception of the United States within Iran. Many Iranians believed that “American influence and power made a mockery of their national autonomy and desecrated their religious beliefs” (Farber, 37). The real struggle came once the Shah sought asylum in the U.S. Iran believed this to be a betrayal and demanded the Shah be released to the revolutionaries. Due to the fact that the United States did not refuse the Shah, the revolutionaries took the embassy in Tehran and all of the people that worked there hostage. One of the hostages wrote back to his parents during the crisis “‘We will not be set free until shah is released and the longer we stay here like this the better is a chance for something terrible to happen’” (Farber, 156). The siege was led by Iranian students who supported the revolution and the Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader that the revolution had selected to take the place of the
In All The Shah’s Men there seems to be a very strong hatred for all foreign powers, including the United States, taken by the citizens of Iran. I believe that this ultimately occurred because of the impatience of certain government officials in Washington D.C., and also in Great Britain. If only there could have been better communication between countries, I feel that there would have been a solution reached. The stubbornness of the British for the most part, led to many lives being lost, and a feeling of perpetual disgust being shown towards the United States for their involvement. Although the British were our allies and we did have an extreme fear of communism taking over the free world, this coup was disorganized, forced along too quickly, and put forth without any guidance or strong evidence, which in the end proved to completely defy what the United States was trying to impose on the world, and what Mossadegh was trying to give his people; freedom and democracy.
America and Iran had tricked the Soviets which left them very angry, and this inevitably led to the Cold War. But less than a decade later, America had done something which caused Iran to change their opinion of them. In 1951, Iran had recently elected a prime minister by the name, Mohammed Mosaddeq, which he nationalized the countryś petroleum industry, long the domain of the British-dominated AIOC. This move, however, pitted the two governments against each other in a bitter political fight. The Truman administration had tried to work between both sides, but Dwight Eisenhower had quickly concluded that Mosaddeq represented the problem rather than the solution to the crisis. They decided that they wanted him out and later he was kicked out and Mohammad Reza Shah took his place for the next twenty-five years. Shah not only gained access to sophisticated American weaponry, but also obtained tacit White House permission to forgo any serious effort at reform. Over the years, the internal resentment against the Shahś political and economic policies was building to a peak, but the depth of the problem escaped the notice of American
Prior to the Islamic Revolution, Iran was ruled by the Shah, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, and furthermore, not governed by religion. The Shah’s White Revolution launched a series of reforms in 1963 that are indicative of where women’s rights for Iran were heading prior to the Islamic revolution. The reforms included, giving women the right to vote, run for office and to become lawyers and judges. This large of a reform in regards to women’s rights, was far more drastic than anything Iran had experienced in the past, and the shock of these “extreme” measures, received a large backlash from over 90% of the population1, the Shia Muslims.
A few years later in 1979 the Islamic revolution began, causing the Shah to flee (introduction pages one and two).
First, the Shah, out-of-touch with what his people wanted, became the catalyst for massive xenophobic and anti-Western feelings to spread throughout the nation. By giving up traditional Islamic ideals and becoming sort of a “puppet” for the U.S. and the Western world, the Shah made a mockery of himself and of those traditional Islamic values, which were paramount in Iran. For many years, Iranians wrote letters to the Shah, voicing their discontent with many aspects of his rule — the spread of the Bahá’í Faith, the collapse of Islamic traditions, and the crumbling economy. The Shah, however, did nothing to fix these issues. Instead, he designed a political reformation movement, hoping to silence his opponents, to introduce personal rights for women, and to establish a sense of fiscal equality. This series of reforms, which appeared to be a blatant attempt to Westernize Iran, became known as the “White
achieved unprecedented popularity in both Egypt and the Arab world. He was said to be
Throughout the 20th century, the United States tried to control Iran to ensure the exportation of oil to America. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi came to power in 1941 and became allies with the United States. However in the 1950s, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh began to gain political power. Unlike the Shah, he was extremely against western influence in Iran. Mossadegh won national elections and he demanded more power. In order to retain influence in Iran, the CIA helped overthrow Mossadegh and bring Pahlavi back to power....
Over the course of the last century, the Islamic Republic of Iran (formerly known as Persia) has seen colonialism, the end of a dynasty, the installation of a government by a foreign power, and just over three decades ago, the popular uprising and a cleric-led revolution. These events preceded what could be considered the world’s first Islamic state, as politics and fundamentalist religion are inextricably linked in contemporary Iran. Looking at Iran from the mid 1940’s until the present day, one can trace the path that led to the rise of fundamental Islam in Iran in three distinct periods. The first is that which began with the rise of secular nationalism and the decline of Islam. In the second, the secular, western-friendly government eventually gave way to the Islamic revival in the form of a government takeover by hard-line clerics and disillusioned, fundamentalist youth; both motivated and led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Rule of Iran by these fundamentalist clerics then led to the formation of the fundamentalist Islamic theocracy that governs present-day Iran. The current government has some democratic appearances, but all real power is in the hands of the supreme leader, an Ayatollah who is chosen by the Assembly of Experts, a group of clerics chosen by the Guardian Council. With the Iranian Revolution, political Islam was born, with the fundamentalists holding the reins of power in Iran to the present day.
In the 1970’s Iran, under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was a very centralized military state that maintained a close relationship with the USA. The Shah was notoriously out of touch with working class Iranians as he implemented many controversial economic policies against small business owners that he suspected involved profiteering. Also unrestricted economic expansions in Iran lead to huge government expenditure that became a serious problem when oil prices dropped in the mid 1970’s. This caused many huge government construction projects to halt and the economy to stall after many years of massive profit. Following this was high rates of inflation that affected Iranians buying power and living standards. (Afary, 2012) Under the Shah, political participation was not widely available for all Iranians and it was common for political opposition to be met with harassment, illegal detention, and even torture. These measures were implemented by the Iranian secret police knows as ‘SAVAK’. This totalitarian regime combined with the increasing modernisation of the country paved the way for revolution.
Although the Iranian Revolution was both a political and religious movement in that it resulted in major shifts in government structure from an autocracy to a republic and that Islamic beliefs were fought to be preserved, it was more a religious movement in that the primary goal of the people was to preserve traditional ideology and in that the government became a theocracy intertwined with religious laws and desires of the people. Although the Iranian Revolution was caused by combination of political and religious motivations and ideas, the desires of the people supporting the movement were more dominantly religious ideas that were wished to be imposed in society and in a new government. The Shah, or king, of Iran at the time was Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, who had developed relations with nations in the “western” world, specifically with the United States. The United States supported the White Revolution, which was a series of social reformations the Shah made to remove Islamic values, law and tradition from the government to boost the country’s economy (White Revolution, 2010).... ...
Part of modernizing Iran was turning it into an absolute dictatorship. The Shah was a ruthless leader. He jailed those who did not follow his laws. The Shah violated the basic principles of human rights, such as freedom of speech and religion. The Shah's son was also a ruthless leader who made himself like a king; he denied Iranian citizens peace.
The Iranian Revolution, “was the 1979 overthrow of Iran 's monarchy and the establishment of an Islamic Republic. Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was replaced by the cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The revolution established religious leaders as the ruling class and integrated fundamentalist Islamic law into all aspects of the government, military, and public and private enterprise” (Definition of Islamic Revolution). The symbolism that is associated within the novel shows her rebellious stages such as, smoking a cigarette due to the amount of deaths that occurred in the revolution. Satrapi became curious about her surroundings and she seeks for knowledge and information about the Iranian Revolution in different ways such as reading.
The revolution received the name “White” by the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, because it was to be a revolution without any bloodshed. Originally, the reform program had twelve main points that the Shah wanted to accomplish. However, throughout the 60’s and 70’s points were added and in 1977 the White Revolution had 19 points. In the reform, there were specific points that the Shah wanted to address such as land reforms, but there were also plans set forth to develop Iran economically and socially. The land reform was an attempt to limit the power of landowners by redistributing farmland equally among all farmers in the region. Another aspect of the reform was the development of roads, railways, and ports in order to help increase the economic output of Iran. The Shah felt that improving infrastructure was important in order to increase Iran’s industry. This was in attempts to model the American economy; the Shah saw what industry provided to America and he wanted to recreate that in Iran. Another significant point in the White Revolution was the expansion of educational and economic opportunity for women. In order to westernize, the Shah saw the need to grant women greater rights in society. At the surface the reforms of the White Revolution seemed to be the Shah attempting to reform his country; however many Iranian nationals saw the White Revolution as a
Arjomand, Said Amir. “Iran's Islamic Revolution in Comparative Perspective.” World Politics, Volume 38, Issue 3 (1986. 4), 383-414.