Emergence

Fundamentalism in Iran as a reaction to Western technology, colonialism, and exploitation arose in the early 20th century,^[24] and Sheikh Fazlollah Nouri and Navvab Safavi were among its pioneers figures.^[25]

Ayat. Khomeini led the Islamic revolution. It was the first step to found a constitution based on Islamic rules (see: Political Islam)

Iran was the first country in the post-World War II era in which political Islam became the rallying cry for a revolution, which was followed by formally adopting political Islam as its ruling ideology.^[26] The grand alliance assembled by Ruhollah Khomeini that led to the 1979 revolution abandoned traditional clerical quietism, adopting diverse ideological interpretations of Islam. The first three Islamic discourses were Khomeinism, Ali Shariati's Islamic-left ideology, and Mehdi Bazargan's liberal-democratic Islam. The fourth discourse came from the socialist guerrilla groups of Islamic and secular variants, and the fifth was secular constitutionalism in socialist and nationalist forms.^[27] By a few years after the triumph of the revolution, the only discourse left was Khomeinism.

Khomeini has been called a populist,^[28] fundamentalist, Islamist, and a reformer^{[note 3]} by various observers.

Pre-modern background

There are different theories as to when the ruling concept of the Ayatollah Khomeini and Islamic Republic of Iran—that Islamic jurists ought to govern until the return of the Imam Mahdi—first appeared. Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi^[30] (and Ervand Abrahamian),^[31] insists it was a revolutionary advance developed by Imam Khomeini. Other theories are that the idea is not at all new, but has been accepted by knowledgeable Shia faqih since medieval times, but kept from the general public by taqiya (precautionary dissimulation) (Ahmed Vaezi);^[32] that it was "occasionally" interpreted during the reign of the Safavid dynasty (1501–1702 C.E.) (Hamid Algar),^[33] argued by scholar Molla Ahmad Naraqi (1771–1829 C.E.) (Yasuyuki Matsunaga),^[34] or by Morteza Ansari (~1781–1864 C.E.) (according to John Esposito).^[35]

Developments that might be called steps easing the path to theocratic rule were the 16th century rise of the Safavid dynasty over modern day Iran which made Twelver Shi'ism the state religion and belief compulsory;^[36][37] and in the late 18th century the triumph of the Usuli school of doctrine over the Akhbari. The latter change made the ulama "the primary educators" of society, dispensers most of the justice, overseers social welfare, and collectors of its funding (the zakat and khums religious taxes, managers of the "huge" waqf mortmains and other properties), and generally in control of activities that in modern states are left to the government.^[38][39] The Usuli ulama were "frequently courted and even paid by rulers"^[38][39] but, as the nineteenth century progressed, also came into conflict with them.

Era of colonialism and industrialization

Ayatullah Sheikh Murtadha al-Ansari (Persian: مرتضی انصاری شوشتری; 1781 – 1864) was an Usuli Shia jurist who was the first scholar universally recognized as supreme authority in matters of Shi'i law, because of the modern printing press.^[40]

End of nineteenth century marked the end of the Islamic middle ages. New technological advances in printing press, telegraph and railways, etc., along with political reforms brought major social changes and the institution of nation-state started to take shape.

Concessions and the 1891–1892 Tobacco protest

Further information: Tobacco Protest

Tobacco Protest verdict issued by Shirazi in 1891

The Tobacco protest of 1891–1892 was "the first mass nationwide popular movement in Iran",^[47] and described as a "dress rehearsal for the ... Constitutional Revolution."^[48]

In March 1890 Naser al-Din Shah granted a concession to an Englishman for a 50-year monopoly over the distribution and exportation of tobacco. Iranians cultivated a variety of tobacco "much prized in foreign markets" that was not grown elsewhere,^[49] and the arrangement threatened the job security of a significant portion of the Iranian population—hundreds of thousands in agriculture and the bazaars.^[50]

This led to unprecedented nationwide protest erupting first among the bazaari, then,^[51] in December 1891, the most important religious authority in Iran, marja'-e taqlid Mirza Hasan Shirazi, issued a fatwa declaring the use of tobacco to be tantamount to war against the Hidden Imam. Bazaars shut down, Iranians stopped smoking tobacco,^[52][53][47]

The protest demonstrated to the Iranians "for the first time" that it was possible to defeat the Shah and foreign interests. And the coalition of the tobacco boycott formed "a direct line ... culminating in the Constitutional Revolution" and arguably the Iranian Revolution as well, according to Historian Nikki Keddie.^[54]

Whether the protest demonstrated that Iran could not be free of foreign exploitation with a corrupt, antiquated dictatorship; or whether it showed that it was Islamic clerics (and not secular thinkers/leaders) that had the moral integrity and popular influence to lead Iran against corrupt monarchs and the foreign exploitation they allowed, was disputed. Historian Ervand Abrahamian points out that Shirazi, "stressed that he was merely opposed to bad court advisers and that he would withdraw from politics once the hated agreement was canceled.^[55]

1905–1911 Iranian Constitutional Revolution

As in other parts of the Muslim world, the question of how to strengthen the homeland against foreign encroachment and exploitation divided religious scholars and intellectuals. While many Iranians saw constitutional representative government as a necessary step, conservative clerics (like Khomeini and Fazlullah Nouri) saw it as a British plot to undermine sharia,^[56] and part of foreign encroachment concerned Iranians were trying to protect Islam against.

The Constitutional Revolution began in 1905 with protest against a foreign director of customs (a Belgian) enforcing "with bureaucratic rigidity" the tariff collections to pay (in large part) for a loan to another foreign source (Russians) that financed the shah's (Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar) extravagant tour of Europe.

There were two different majlis (parliaments) endorsed by the leading clerics of Najaf – Akhund Khurasani, Mirza Husayn Tehrani and Shaykh Abdullah Mazandarani; in between there was a coup by the shah (Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar) against the constitutional government, a short civil war, and a deposing of that shah some months later.

It ended in December 1911 when deputies of the Second Majlis, suffering from "internal dissension, apathy of the masses, antagonisms from the upper class, and open enmity from Britain and Russia", were "roughly" expelled from the Majlis and threatened with death if they returned by "the shah's cabinet, backed by 12,000 Russian troops".^[57]

The political base of the constitutionalist movement to control the power of the shah was an alliance of the ulama, liberal and radical intellectuals, and the bazaar. But the alliance was based on common enemies rather than common goals. The ulama sought "to extend their own power and to have Shi'i Islam more strictly enforced"; the liberals and radicals desired "greater political and social democracy and economic development"; and the bazaaris "to restrict favored foreign economic status and competition".^[38]

Working to undermine the constitution and "exploit the divisions within the ranks of the reformers" were the shah Mohammad Ali, and court cleric Sheikh Fazlullah Nouri,^[58] the leader of the anti-constitutionalists during the revolution.^[59]

Khomeini, (though only a child at the time of the revolution), asserted later that the constitution of 1906 was the work of (Iranian) agents of imperialist Britain, conspiring against Islam who "were instructed by their masters to take advantage of the idea of constitutionalism in order to deceive the people and conceal the true nature of their political crimes".

"At the beginning of the constitutional movement, when people wanted to write laws and draw up a constitution, a copy of the Belgian legal code was borrowed from the Belgian embassy and a handful of individuals (whose names I do not wish to mention here) used it as the basis for the constitution they then wrote, supplementing its deficiencies with borrowings from the French and British legal codes. True, they added some of the ordinances of Islam in order to deceive the people, but the basis of the laws that were now thrust upon the people was alien and borrowed."^[60]

On the other hand, Mirza Sayyed Mohammad Tabatabai, a cleric and leader of pro-constitutional faction, saw the constitutional fight against the shah as tied to patriotism and patriotism tied to Shi'i Islam:

"The Shiʿite state is confined to Persia, and their [i.e., the Shiʿites'] prestige and prosperity depended upon it. Why have you permitted the ruin of Persia and the utter humiliation of the Shiʿite state? ... You may reply that the mullahs did not allow [Persia to be saved]. This is not credible. ... I can foresee that my country (waṭan), my stature and prestige, my service to Islam are about to fall into the hands of enemies and all my stature gone. As long as I breathe, therefore, I will strive for the preservation of this country, be it at the cost of my life."^[61]

Fazlullah Nouri

Sheikh Fazlollah Nouri (d. 1909)

If praise and official histories from the Islamic Republic of Iran can stand in for the heroes of Islamist/Fundamentalist Shi'ism, Sheikh Fazlullah Nouri (Persian: فضل‌الله نوری) is the Fundamentalist hero of the era. He was praised by Jalal Al-e-Ahmad the author of Gharbzadegi, and by Khomeini as an "heroic figure", and some believe his own objections to constitutionalism and a secular government were influenced by Nuri's objections to the 1907 constitution.^[62][63][64] He was called the "Islamic movement's first martyr in contemporary Iran",^[65] and honored to have an expressway named after him and postage stamps issued for him (the only figure of the Constitutional Revolution to be so honored).^[65]

Nouri declared the new constitution contrary to sharia law. Like Islamists decades later,^[66] preached the idea of sharia as a complete code of social life. In his newspaper Ruznamih-i-Shaikh Fazlullah, and published leaflets^[67][68] to spread anti-constitutional propaganda;^[67] and proclaim sentiments such as

Shari'a covers all regulations of government, and specifies all obligations and duties, so the needs of the people of Iran in matters of law are limited to the business of government, which, by reason of universal accidents, has become separated from Shari'a. ... Now the people have thrown out the law of the Prophet and have set up their own law instead.^[69]

He led direct action against his opponents, such as an around-the-clock sit-in in the Shah Abdul Azim shrine by a large group of followers, from June 21, 1907 until September 16, 1907; recruiting mercenaries to harass the supporters of democracy, and leading a mob towards Tupkhanih Square December 22, 1907 to attack merchants and loot stores.^[70]

But the sincerity of his religious beliefs has been questioned. Nouri was a wealthy, well-connected court official responsible for conducting marriages and contracts. Before opposing the idea of democratic reform he had been one of the leaders of the constitutional movement,^[71] but reversed his political stance after the coronation of Muhammad Ali Shah Qajar, who unlike his father Mozaffar al-Din Shah, opposed constitutional monarchy. He took money and gave support to foreign (Russian) interests in Iran,^[72] while warning Iranians of the spread of foreign ideas.^[68]

Furthermore, Nouri was an "Islamic traditionalist"^[73] or Fundamentalist rather than an Islamist. He opposed the Constitutionalists concept of limiting the powers of the monarchy, but not because he wanted monarchy abolished (like Khomeini and his followers) but because "obedience to the monarchy was a divine obligation".^[72] Monarchy was an Islamic institution and the monarch was accountable to no one other than God and any attempt to call him to account was apostasy from Islam, a capital crime.

Also, unlike later Islamists, he preached against modern learning. Democracy was un-Islamic because it would lead to the "teaching of chemistry, physics and foreign languages", and result in spread of atheism;^{[74][68][75][76]} female education because girls' schools were "brothels".^[77] Other liberal ideas he opposed included allocation of funds for modern industry, freedom of press, and equal rights for non-Muslims.

Fazlullah Nouri was hanged by the constitutional revolutionaries on 31 July 1909 as a traitor, for playing pivotal role in coup d'état of Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar and for "the murder of leading constitutionalists"^[72] by virtue of his denouncing them as "atheists, heretics, apostates, and secret Babis"—charges he knew would incite pious Muslims to violence.^[72] The Shah had fled to Russia.

Religious supporters of the constitution

The three Ayatullahs: (left to right) Akhund Khurasani, Mirza Husayn Tehrani and Abdallah Mazandarani

There was not shortage of Islamic scholars in support of the constitution. Acting as a legitimising force for the constitution^[78] were three of the highest level clerics (marja') at the time—Akhund Khurasani, Mirza Husayn Tehrani and Shaykh Abdullah Mazandarani—who defended constitutional monarchy in the period of occultation by invoking the Quranic command of 'enjoining good and forbidding wrong'.^[79] In doing so they linked opposition to the constitutional movement to 'a war against the Imam of the Age'^[80] (a very severe condemnation in Shi'i Islam), and when parliament came under attack from Nuri issued fatawa forbidding his involvement in politics (December 30, 1907),^[81] and then calling for his expulsion (1908).^[82] In supporting the constitution, the three marja' established a model of religious secularity in government in the absence of Imam, that still prevails in (some) Shi'i seminaries.^[79]

Nouri called on Shi'a to ignore the higher ranking of the marja' (the basis of Usuli Shi'ism) and their fatawa; he insisted that Shi'a were all "witnesses" that the marja' were obviously wrong in supporting the parliament.^[83] Another cleric, Mirza Ali Aqa Tabrizi, defended the marja' ("the sources of emulation") and their "clear fatwas that uphold the necessity of the Constitution".^[84]

Akhund aka Muhammad Kazim Khurasani, Muhammad Hossein Naini, Shaykh Isma'il Mahallati

Some of the religious arguments offered for the constitution were that rather than having superior status that gave them the right to rule over ordinary people, the role of scholars/jurists was to act as "warning voices in society" and criticize the officials who were not carrying out their responsibilities properly.^[85] and to provide religious guidance in personal affairs of believers.^[86]

Until the infallible Imam returned to establish an Islamic system of governance with himself governing,^[87] "human experience and careful reflection" indicated that democracy brought a set of "limitations and conditions" on the head of state and government officials keeping them within "boundaries that the laws and religion of every nation determines", reducing the tyranny of state", and preventing the corruption of power.^[88] All this meant it was "obligatory to give precedence" to this "lesser evil" in governance.^[89][87]

Muhammad Hossein Naini, a close associate and student of Behbahani, agreed that in the absence of Imam Mahdi, all governments are doomed to be imperfect and unjust, and therefore people had to prefer the bad (democracy) over the worse (absolutism). He opposed both "tyrannical Ulema" and radical majoritarianism, supporting features of liberal democracy, such as equal rights, freedom of speech, separation of powers.^[90][91]

Another student of Akhund who too raised to the rank of Marja, Shaykh Isma'il Mahallati, wrote a treatise "al-Liali al-Marbuta fi Wajub al-Mashruta" (Persian: اللئالی المربوطه‌ فی وجوب المشروطه‌).^[87] during the occultation of the twelfth Imam, the governments can either be imperfectly just or oppressive. Limiting the sovereign's power through a constitution means limiting tyranny. Since it was the duty of the believer to fight injustice, they ought to work to strengthen the democratic process—reforming the economic system, modernizing the military, establishing an educational system.^[86] At the same time, constitutional government was the option of both "Muslims or unbelievers".^[86]

Reza Shah and the Pahlavi dynasty

While the Constitutional Revolution did not succeed, the secular, modernizing authoritarianism of the two Pahlavi shahs had more success, ruling from Reza Shah's seizure of power in 1921, to his son's overthrow in 1979, and can be said to have combatting Iran's backwardness. Reza Shah, leader of the Iranian Cossack Brigade before his coup, was a secular, nationalist dictator in the vein of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk of Turkey.^[92][93] Under his rule Iran was militarily united, a 100,000-man standing army created, uniform Persian culture emphasized, and ambitious development projects undertaken: 1300 km railway linking the Persian Gulf with the Caspian Sea was built, a university, and free, compulsory primary education for both boys and girls was established while private religious schools were shut down.

While his modernization efforts were significant, he was the bete noire of the clergy and pious Iranians,^[94] (not least of all Ruhollah Khomeini). His government required all non-clerical men to wear Western clothes,^[95] encouraged women to abandon hijab.^[96] He expropriated land and real estate from shrines at Mashhad and Qom, to help finance secular education, "build a modern hospital, improve the water supply of the city, and underwrite industrial enterprises."^[97] Khomeini focused his revolutionary campaign on the Pahlavi shah and all of his government's alleged shortcomings.

Fada'ian-e Islam

Fada'ian-e Islam (in English, literally "Self-Sacrificers of Islam") was a Shia fundamentalist group in Iran founded in 1946 and crushed in 1955. The Fada'ian "did not compare either in rank, number or popular base" with the mainstream conservative and progressive tendencies among the clergy, but killed a number of important people,^[98] and at least one source (Sohrab Behdad) credits the group and Navvab Safavi with influence on the Islamic Revolution.^[99] According to Encyclopaedia Iranica,

"there are important similarities between much of the Fedāʾīān's basic views and certain principles and actions of the Islamic Republic of Iran: the Fedāʾīān and Ayatollah Khomeini were in accord on issues such as the role of clerics [judges, educators and moral guides to the people], morality and ethics, Islamic justice [full application of Islamic law, abolition of all non-Islamic laws and prohibition of all forms of immoral behavior], the place of the underclass [to be raised up], the rights of women and religious minorities [to be kept down], and attitudes toward foreign powers [dangerous conspirators to be kept out]."^{[100][101][102][103]}

In addition, leading Islamic Republic figures such as Ali Khamenei, (the current Supreme Leader), and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, (former president, former head of the Assembly of Experts, and former head of Expediency Discernment Council), have indicated what an "important formative impact of Nawwāb's charismatic appeal in their early careers and anti-government activities".^[103]

Navvab Safavi

See also: Navvab Safavi

Sayyid Mojtaba Mir-Lohi, known as Navvab Safavi

Ayatollah Sayyid Hossein Ali Tababataei Borujerdi (Persian: آیت الله العظمی سید حسین طباطبایی بروجردی; March 1875 – 30 March 1961) was a student of Akhund Khurasani.

Sayyid Mojtaba Mir-Lohi (Persian: سيد مجتبی میرلوحی, c. 1924 – 18 January 1956), more commonly known as Navvab Safavi (Persian: نواب صفوی), emerged on political scene around 1945 when after only two years of study, he left the seminaries of Najaf^[104] to found the Fada'iyan-e Islam, recruiting frustrated youth from suburbs of Tehran for acts of terror, proclaiming:

"We are alive and God, the revengeful, is alert. The blood of the destitute has long been dripping from the fingers of the selfish pleasure seekers, who are hiding, each with a different name and in a different colour, behind black curtains of oppression, thievery and crime. Once in a while the divine retribution puts them in their place, but the rest of them do not learn a lesson ..."^[105]

In 1950, at 26 years of age, he presented his idea of an Islamic State in a treatise, Barnameh-ye Inqalabi-ye Fada'ian-i Islam.^[106] Despite his hatred of interfering infidel foreign powers, his group attempted to kill prime minister Muhammad Musaddiq, and he congratulated the shah after the 1953 coup deposed Mosaddegh:^[107]

"The country was saved by Islam and with the power of faith ... The Shah and prime minister and ministers have to be believers in and promoters of, shi'ism, and the laws that are in opposition to the divine laws of God ... must be nullified ... The intoxicants, the shameful exposure and carelessness of women, and sexually provocative music ... must be done away with and the superior teachings of Islam ... must replace them."^[108]

He enjoyed a close enough association with the government to be able to attend a 1954 Islamic Conference in Jordan and traveled to Egypt and meet Sayyid Qutb.^[109][110] He clashed with Shia Marja', Hossein Borujerdi, who rejected his ideas and questioned him about the robberies that his organization committed on gun point, Safavi replied:

"Our intention is to borrow from people. What we take is for establishing a government based on the model of Imam Ali's government. Our goal is sacred and prior to these tools. When we established an Aliid government-like state, then we give people their money back."^[111][112]

Fada'ian-e Islam called for excommunication of Borujerdi and the defrocking of religious scholars who opposed their idea of Islam,^{[note 4]} Navvab Safavi did not like Broujerdi's idea of Shia-Sunni rapprochement (Persian: تقریب), he advocated Shia-Sunni unification (Persian: وحدت) under Islamist agenda.^[114] Fada'ian-e Islam carried out assassinations of Abdolhossein Hazhir, Haj Ali Razmara and Ahmad Kasravi. On 22 November 1955, after an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Hosein Ala', Navvab Safavi was arrested and sentenced to death on 25 December 1955 under terrorism charges, along with three other comrades.^[109] The organization dispersed but after the death of Ayatullah Borujerdi, the Fada'ian-e Islam sympathizers found a new leader in Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini who appeared on political horizon through the June 1963 riots in Qom.^[115] In 1965, prime minister Hassan Ali Mansur was assassinated by the group.^[116]

Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 coup

Mohammad Mosaddegh

Mohammad Mosaddeq was prime minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953 and led the nationalization of the British owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Originally he and nationalization had mass support, with a core of "modern or politically literate middle-income or underprivileged segments of the urban population", but expanding to include "considerable support" from traditional sectors such as "guilds of restaurant owners, coffee and teahouse owners".^[117] He was overthrown on 19 August 1953, aided by the United States^[118] and the United Kingdom,^{[119][120][121][122]} and "directly or indirectly helped" by sections of the military, landlords, conservative politicians, and "the bulk of the religious establishment".^[123][124]

According to Fakhreddin Azimi, in the "modern Iranian historical and political consciousness" the 1953 coup "occupies an immensely significant place". The coup is "widely seen as a rupture, a watershed, a turning point when imperialist domination, overcoming a defiant challenge, reestablished itself, not only by restoring an enfeebled monarch but also by ensuring that the monarchy would assume an authoritarian and antidemocratic posture."^[125]

Critics hold Mosaddegh and his supporters responsible for failing "to create an organization capable of mobilizing broad support for their movement"; refusing "to take the difficult steps necessary to settle the oil dispute; and not acting "forcefully against their various opponents, either before the coup or while it was underway."^[126]

Mosaddeq was to his supporters struggling to "overcome orchestrated oppositional machinations through a consistently defiant, transparent, morally unassailable, principle-driven stance."^[127] In Iranian domestic politics, the legacy of the coup was the firmly held belief by many Iranians "that the United States bore responsibility for Iran's return to dictatorship, a belief that helps to explain the heavily anti-American character of the revolution in 1978."^[128]

Iranians felt exploited by the British, whose Anglo-Iranian Oil Company paid Iran royalties of $45 million for its oil in 1950, while paying the British government "taxes of $142 million on profits from that crude and its downstream products."^[129] The Iranian operations of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (English owned but operating in Iran) was nationalized in 1951. Mosaddeq stated

"Our long years of negotiations with foreign countries... have yielded no results this far. With the oil revenues we could meet our entire budget and combat poverty, disease, and backwardness among our people. Another important consideration is that by the elimination of the power of the British company, we would also eliminate corruption and intrigue, by means of which the internal affairs of our country have been influenced. Once this tutelage has ceased, Iran will have achieved its economic and political independence. The Iranian state prefers to take over the production of petroleum itself. The company should do nothing else but return its property to the rightful owners. The nationalization law provide that 25% of the net profits on oil be set aside to meet all the legitimate claims of the company for compensation... It has been asserted abroad that Iran intends to expel the foreign oil experts from the country and then shut down oil installations. Not only is this allegation absurd; it is utter invention..."^[130]

The AIOC management "immediately staged an economic boycott, with backing from the other major international oil companies, while the British government started an aggressive, semi-covert campaign to destabilize the Mosaddeq regime." The United States, the leader of the "Free world" bloc in the cold war was "ostensible neutral", but allied with the UK and worried about the influence of Iran's huge neighbor and leader of the communist bloc, the Soviet Union, the Truman administration "quietly abided by the boycott". As U.S. worries over Iran's political and economic deterioration increased,^[131] and that the country's economy was "near collapse",^[132] which would cause some combination of increased dependence on the Tudeh party leading to its eventual takeover,^[133] and or "collapse followed by a communist takeover."^[132]

Iran had difficulty finding trained non-British workers to run the industry and buyers to sell the oil to.^[134] but the government was not near bankruptcy nor inflation unmanageable.^[135]

Demographic changes

Sayyid Muhsin al-Hakim (Arabic: سيد محسن الطباطبائي الحكيم; 31 May 1889 – 2 June 1970) was a student of Akhund Khurasani.

Ayatullah Sayyid Mohammad Hadi al-Milani (Persian: سيد محمد هادى حسينى ميلانی; July 1, 1895 – August 7, 1975) was a student of Ayatullah Na'ini.

Iran was undergoing a fast societal change through urbanization. In 1925 Iran was a thinly populated country with a population of 12 millions, 21% living in urban centers and Tehran was a walled city of 200,000 inhabitants. Pahlavi dynasty started major projects of converting the capital into a metropolis.^[136] Between 1956 and 1966, the rapid industrialization coupled with land reforms and improved health systems, building of dams and roads, released some three million peasants from countryside into the cities.^[137] This resulted in rapid changes in their lives, decline of traditional feudal values, and industrialization, changing the socio-political atmosphere and created new questions.^[138] By 1976, 47% of Iran's total population was concentrated in large cities. Between 42 and 50% of the population of Tehran lived on rent, 10% owned private car and 82.7% of all national companies were registered in the Capital.^[139]

A less complimentary view of Nikki Keddie is that,

"especially after 1961, the crown encouraged the rapid growth of consumer-goods industries, pushed the acquisition of armaments even beyond what Iran's growing oil-rich budgets could stand, and instituted agrarian reforms that emphasized government control and investment in large, mechanized farms. Displaced peasants and tribespeople fled to the cities, where they formed a discontented sub-proletariat. People were torn from ancestral ways, the gap between the rich and the poor grew, corruption was rampant and well known, and the secret police, with its arbitrary arrests and use of torture, turned Iranians of all levels against the regime. And the presence and heavy influence of foreigners provided major, further aggravation.^[38]

Rapid urbanization in Iran had created a modern educated, salaried middle class (as opposed to a traditional class of bazaari merchants). Among them were writers who started to criticize traditional interpretations of religion, and readers who agreed with them. In one of his first books, Kashf al-Asrar, Khomeini attacked these liberal critics and writers as a "brainless" treacherous "lot" whose teeth the believers must 'smash ... with their iron fist’ and heads they should 'trample upon ... with courageous strides’.^[140] Furthermore

Government can only be legitimate when it accepts the rule of God and the rule of God means the implementation of the Sharia. All laws that are contrary to the Sharia must be dropped because only the law of God will stay valid and immutable in the face of changing times.^[140]

Cold War literature

Sayyid Qutb (Arabic: سيد إبراهيم حسين قطب; 1906 – 1966) was an Egyptian Sunni islamist author and a leading member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and 1960s.

Following World War II, Western capitalist and other anti-Communist leaders were alarmed at how large, centralized and powerful the Eastern bloc of countries ruled by Communist parties (now including China), had become. As the peoples of Western colonial empires were given independence, the idea that poor, formerly colonialized countries naturally aligned with the Socialist Bloc, should follow socialist economic development models, and keep their distance from former colonizers, alarmed anti-communists still further. In the Muslim world this led to an effort to compete with Communist propaganda and the revolutionary enthusiasm of Marxist, anti-imperialist ideas by promoting works by the original Islamist thinkers, Sayyid Qutb and Abul A'la Al-Maududi (known to be deeply anti-Communist), through the Muslim World League with Saudi patronage, translating them into Farsi and other languages.^[141]

Their books were translated into Persian/Farsi, and helped to shape the ideology of Shi'i Islamists.^[113][142] Sayyid Qutb's works enjoyed remarkable popularity in Iran both before and after the revolution. Prominent figures such as current Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his brother Muhammad Khamenei, Aḥmad Aram, Hadi Khosroshahi, etc. translated Qutb's works into Persian.^[143][144] Hadi Khosroshahi was the first person to identify himself as Akhwani Shia.^[145] Muhammad Khamenei is currently head of Sadra Islamic Philosophy Research Institute, and holds positions at Al-Zahra University and Allameh Tabataba'i University.^[146] According to the National Library and Archives of Iran, 19 works of Sayyid Qutb and 17 works of his brother Muhammad Qutb were translated to Persian and widely circulated in the 1960s.^[147] Reflecting on this import of ideas, Ali Khamenei said:

The newly emerged Islamic movement ... had a pressing need for codified ideological foundations ... Most writings on Islam at the time lacked any direct discussions of the ongoing struggles of the Muslim people ... Few individuals who fought in the fiercest skirmishes of that battlefield made up their minds to compensate for this deficiency ... This text was translated with this goal in mind.^[148]

Concerned about the post-World War II geo-political expansion of Iran's powerful northern neighbor the Soviet Union, the Shah's regime in Iran tolerated this literature for its anti-Communist value,^[149] but an indication that the Western Cold War strategy for the Muslim world was not working out as planned was indicated by the coining of the term "American Islam", in 1952, by one of the authors—Sayyid Qutb—that were being translated with Saudi and Western funding. The term was later adapted by Ayatullah Khomeini after the 1979 Islamist revolution,^[150] who proclaimed:

The Islam that America and its allies desire in the Middle East does not resist colonialism and tyranny, but rather resists Communism only. They do not want Islam to govern and can not abide it to rule because when Islam governs, it will raise a different breed of humans and will teach people that it is their duty to develop their power and expel the colonialists ... American Islam is consulted on the issued of birth control, the entry of women into Parliament, and on matters that impair ritual ablutions. However, it is jot consulted on the matter of our social and economic affairs and fiscal system, nor is it consulted on political and national affairs and our connections with colonialism.^[151]

Maududi appreciated the power of modern state and its coercive potential that could be used for moral policing. He saw Islam as a religious-state that sought to mould its citizens and control every private and public expression of their lives, like totalitarian fascist and communist states.^[152] Iranian Shi'i Islamists had close links with Maududi's Jamaat-e-Islami, and after the 1963 riots in Qom, the Jamaat's periodical Tarjuman ul-Quran published a piece criticizing the Shah and supporting the Islamist currents in Iran.^[153]

In 1984 the Iranian authorities honoured Sayyid Qutb by issuing a postage stamp showing him behind the bars during trial.^[154]

Khomeini's early opposition to the shah

Khomeini's speech against the Shah in Qom, 1964

White Revolution

In January 1963, the Shah of Iran announced the "White Revolution", a six-point programme of reform calling for land reform, nationalization of the forests, the sale of state-owned enterprises to private interests, electoral changes to enfranchise women and allow non-Muslims to hold office, profit-sharing in industry, and a literacy campaign in the nation's schools. Some of these initiatives were regarded as Westernizing trends by traditionalists and as a challenge to the Shi'a ulama (religious scholars). Khomeini denounced them as "an attack on Islam",^[155] and persuaded other senior marjas of Qom to decree a boycott of the referendum on the White Revolution. When Khomeini issued a declaration denouncing both the Shah and his reform plan, the Shah took an armored column to Qom, and delivered a speech harshly attacking the ulama as a class.

Khomeini denouncing the Shah on 'Ashura (3 June 1963)

After his arrest in Iran following the 1963 riots, leading Ayatullahs had issued a statement declaring Ayatullah Khomeini a legitimate Marja. This is widely thought to have prevented his execution.^[156]

Opposition to capitulation

Khomeini attacked the Shah not only for the White Revolution but for violating the constitution, the spread of moral corruption, submission to the United States and Israel, and in October 1964 for "capitulations" or diplomatic immunity granted by the Shah to American military personnel in Iran.^[162][163] The "capitulations" aka "status-of-forces agreement", stipulating that U.S. servicemen facing criminal charges stemming from a deployment in Iran, were to be tried before a U.S. court martial, not an Iranian court.

Further information: Iranian Revolution § 1970s: Pre-revolutionary conditions and events inside Iran, and Ruhollah Khomeini's life in exile

Khomeini in exile at Bursa, Turkey without clerical dress

In November 1964, after his latest denunciation, Khomeini was arrested and held for half a year. Upon his release, Khomeini was brought before Prime Minister Hassan Ali Mansur, who tried to convince him to apologize for his harsh rhetoric and going forward, cease his opposition to the Shah and his government. When Khomeini refused, Mansur slapped him in the face in a fit of rage. Two months later, Mansur was assassinated on his way to parliament. Four members of the Fadayan-e Islam, a Shia militia sympathetic to Khomeini, were later executed for the murder.^[164]

Non-Khomeini sources of Islamism

Gharbzadegi

Main article: Gharbzadegi

Jalal Al-e-Ahmad

In 1962, Jalal Al-e-Ahmad published a book or pamphlet called of the book Occidentosis (Gharbzadegi): A Plague from the West. Al-e-Ahmad, who was from a deeply religious family but had had a Western education and been a member of the Tudeh (Communist) party,^[171] argued that Iran was intoxicated or infatuated (zadegi) with Western (gharb) technology, culture, products, and so had become a victim of the West's "toxins" or disease. The adoption and imitation of Western models and Western criteria in education, the arts, and culture led to the loss of Iranian cultural identity, and a transformation of Iran into a passive market for Western goods and a pawn in Western geopolitics.^[172][173] Al-e-Ahmad "spearheaded" the search by Western educated/secular Iranians for "Islamic roots", and although he advocated a return to Islam his works "contained a strong Marxist flavor and analyzed society through a class perspective."^[174]

Al-e-Ahmad "was the only contemporary writer ever to obtain favorable comments from Khomeini", who wrote in a 1971 message to Iranian pilgrims on going on Hajj,

"The poisonous culture of imperialism [is] penetrating to the depths of towns and villages throughout the Muslim world, displacing the culture of the Qur'an, recruiting our youth en masse to the service of foreigners and imperialists..."^[175]

At least one historian (Ervand Abrahamian) speculates Al-e-Ahmad may have been an influence on Khomeini's turning away from traditional Shi'i thought towards populism, class struggle and revolution.^[174] Fighting Gharbzadegi became part of the ideology of the 1979 Iranian Revolution—the emphasis on nationalization of industry, "self-sufficiency" in economics, independence in all areas of life from both the Western (and Soviet) world. He was also one of the main influences of the later Islamic Republic president Ahmadinejad.^[176] The Islamic Republic issued a postage stamp honoring Al-e-Ahmad in 1981.^[177]

Socialist Shi'ism

Ali Shariati (Persian: علی شریعتی مزینانی; 1933 – 1977)

One element of Iran's revolution not found in Sunni Islamist movements was what came to be called "Socialist Shi'ism",^[178] (also "red Shiism" as opposed to the "black Shiism" of the clerics).^[179]

Iran's education system was "substantially superior" to that of its neighbors, and by 1979 had about 175,000 students, 67, 000 studying abroad away from the supervision of its oppressive security force the SAVAK. The early 1970s saw a "blossoming of Marxist groups" around the world including among Iranian post-secondary students.^[178]

After one failed uprising, some of the young revolutionaries, realizing that the religious Iranian masses were not relating to Marxist concepts, began projecting "the Messianic expectations of communist and Third World peoples onto Revolutionary Shi'ism.", i.e. socialist Shi'ism.^[178] Ali Shariati was "the most outspoken representative of this group", and a figure without equivalent in "fame or influence" in Sunni Islam.^[178] He had come from a "strictly religious family" but had studied in Paris and been influenced by the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, Frantz Fanon and Che Guevara.^[180]

Socialist Shia believed Imam Hussein was not just a holy figure but the original oppressed one (muzloun), and his killer, the Sunni Umayyad Caliphate, the "analog" of the modern Iranian people's "oppression by the shah".^[178] His killing at Karbala was not just an "eternal manifestation of the truth but a revolutionary act by a revolutionary hero".^[181]

Shariati was also a harsh critic of traditional Usuli clergy (including Ayatullah Hadi al-Milani), who he and other leftist Shia believed were standing in the way of the revolutionary potential of the masses,^[182] by focusing on mourning and lamentation for the martyrs, awaiting the return of the messiah, when they should have been fighting "against the state injustice begun by Ali and Hussein".^[183]

Shariati not only influenced young Iranians and young clerics,^[184] he influenced Khomeini. Shariati popularized a saying from the 19th century, 'Every place should be turned into Karbala, every month into Moharram, and every day into Ashara'.^[181] Later Khomeini used it as a slogan.^[185]

The "phenomenal popularity" of Shari'ati among the "young intelligentsia"^[186][179] helped open up the "modern middle class" to Khomeini. Shari'ati was often anticlerical but Khomeini was able to "win over his followers by being forthright in his denunciations of the monarchy; by refusing to join fellow theologians in criticizing the Husseinieh-i Ershad; by openly attacking the apolitical and the pro-regime `ulama; by stressing such themes as revolution, anti-imperialism, and the radical message of Muharram; and by incorporating into his public declarations such 'Fanonist' terms as the 'mostazafin will inherit the earth', 'the country needs a cultural revolution', and the 'people will dump the exploiters onto the garbage heap of history.'"^[186]

Shariati was also influenced by anti-democratic Islamist ideas of Muslim Brotherhood thinkers in Egypt and he tried to meet Muhammad Qutb while visiting Saudi Arabia in 1969.^[187] A chain smoker, Shariati died of a heart attack while in self-imposed exile in Southampton, UK on June 18, 1977.^[188]

Ayatullah Hadi Milani, the influential Usuli Marja in Mashhad during the 1970s, had issued a fatwa prohibiting his followers from reading Ali Shariati's books and islamist literature produced by young clerics. This fatwa was followed by similar fatwas from Ayatullah Mar'ashi Najafi, Ayatullah Muhammad Rouhani, Ayatullah Hasan Qomi and others. Ayatullah Khomeini refused to comment.^[189]

Khomeini-Tradionalist clash in 1970s

Sayyid Abul Qasim al-Khoei (Persian: سیدابوالقاسم خویی), 1992–1899 was a student of Ayatullah Na'ini.

Ruhollah Khomeini (Persian: سید روح الله خمینی), anti-secularist leader of Islamic Revolution of Iran was a student of mystic Sheikh Muhammad Ali Shah-Abadi.

Ruhollah Khomeini, an ambitious cleric, used to deliver public speeches on gnosis and moral steadfastness. He had studied Ibn Arabi's gnosis and Mulla Sadra's theosophy, and taught and wrote books on it.^[195] His keen interest in Plato's ideas, especially those of a Utopian society, had an impact on his political thought as well.^[196]

While in exile, Khomeini gave a series of 19 lectures to a group of his students from January 21 to February 8, 1970, on Islamic Government, and elevated Naraqi's idea of Jurist's absolute authority over imitator's personal life to all aspects of social life. Notes of the lectures were soon made into a book that appeared under three different titles: The Islamic Government, Authority of the Jurist, and A Letter from Imam Musavi Kashef al-Gita^[197] (to deceive Iranian censors). This short treatise was smuggled into Iran and "widely distributed" to Khomeini supporters before the revolution.^[198] It was "the first time a leading Shiite cleric had thrown his full weight as a doctor of the law behind the ideas of modern Islamist intellectuals."^[199]

The response from high-level Shi'a clerics to his idea of absolute guardianship of jurist was negative. Grand Ayatollah Abul-Qassim Khoei, the leading Shia ayatollah at the time the book was published rejected Khomeini's argument on the grounds that the authority of jurist in the age of occultation of the Infallible Imam, is limited to the guardianship of orphans and social welfare and most jurists believed there was an "absence of [scriptural] evidence" for extending it to the political sphere.^[200]

Syed Abulhassan Shamsabadi was killed by Islamists in 1976.

Murtaza Mutahhari (Persian: مرتضی مطهری; 31 January 1919 – 1 May 1979) was a moderate islamist.

Ayatullah Khoei showed greater flexibility and tolerance than Islamists in accommodating modern values, for example he considered non-Muslims as equal citizens of the nation-state, stopped the harsh punishments like stoning and favored the use of holy books other than Quran for oaths taken from non-Muslims.^[202] In Isfahan, Ayatullah Khoei's representative Syed Abul Hasan Shamsabadi gave sermons criticizing the Islamist interpretation of Shi'i theology, he was abducted and killed by the notorious group called Target Killers (Persian: هدفی ها) headed by Mehdi Hashmi.^{[203]: 162–166 [204]} At Qom, the major Marja Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari was at odds with Khomeini's interpretation of the concept of the "Leadership of Jurists" (Wilayat al-faqih), according to which clerics may assume political leadership if the current government is found to rule against the interests of the public. Contrary to Khomeini, Shariatmadari adhered to the traditional Twelver Shiite view, according to which the clergy ought to serve society and remain aloof from politics. Furthermore, Shariatmadari strongly believed that no system of government can be coerced upon a people, no matter how morally correct it may be. Instead, people need to be able to freely elect a government. He believed a democratic government where the people administer their own affairs is perfectly compatible with the correct interpretation of the Leadership of the Jurists.^[205] Before the revolution, Shariatmadari wanted a return to the system of constitutional monarchy that was enacted in the Iranian Constitution of 1906.^[206] He encouraged peaceful demonstrations to avoid bloodshed.^[207] According to such a system, the Shah's power was limited and the ruling of the country was mostly in the hands of the people through a parliamentary system. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the then Shah of Iran, and his allies, however, took the pacifism of clerics such as Shariatmadari as a sign of weakness. The Shah's government declared a ban on Muharram commemorations hoping to stop revolutionary protests. After a series of severe crack downs on the people and the clerics and the killing and arrest of many, Shariatmadari criticized the Shah's government and declared it non-Islamic, tacitly giving support to the revolution hoping that a democracy would be established in Iran.^[208]

Meanwhile in Iraq, since 1972, The Ba'ath regime in Iraq had started arresting and killing members of the Dawa party. Ayatullah Khoei, Baqir al-Sadr and Khomeini condemned the act. Sadr issued a fatwa forbidding students of religious schools and clerics from joining any political party. In 1977, the Iraqi government banned the annual Azadari commemorations in Karbala.^[209]

1979 Islamist Revolution

Sayyid Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari (Persian: سید محمد کاظم شریعتمداری), 5 January 1906 – 3 April 1986, died under house arrest.

Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran with Ahmad Khomeini and Mohammad-Ali Rajai

On 6 January 1978, an article appeared in the daily Ettela'at newspaper, insulting Ayatullah Khomeini. This has been called the moment that turned agitation into revolution as "the entire opposition" from secular middle class to urban poor "rose in his defense". Khomeini "unleashed" his partisans, and the bazaars were closed down.^[210] Frustrated youth in Qom took to the streets, six were killed. On 40th day of deaths in Qom, Tabriz saw uprising and deaths. Mullahs who had hitherto withheld support from Khomeini and his doctrines "now fell in line", providing the resources of "over 20,000 properties and buildings throughout Iran", where Muslims "gathered to talk and receive orders".^[211] The chain-reaction started and led to uprisings in all cities, starting "a spiral of provocation, repression and polarization that rose steadily until the shah was forced to depart".^[211] Seizing the moment, Khomeini gave an interview to the French newspaper Le Monde and demanded that the regime should be overthrown. He started giving interviews to western media in which he appeared as a changed man, spoke of a 'progressive islam' and did not mention the idea of 'political guardianship of the jurist'. At the end of 1978, Shapour Bakhtiar, a known social democrat was chosen to help in the creation of a civilian government to replace the existing military one. He was appointed to the position of Prime Minister by the Shah, as a concession to his opposition. However his political party, National Front, expelled him. In the words of historian Abbas Milani: "more than once in the tone of a jeremiad he reminded the nation of the dangers of clerical despotism, and of how the fascism of the mullahs would be darker than any military junta".^[212] On 10 and 11 December 1978, the days of Tasu'a and Ashura, millions marched on the streets of Tehran, chanting 'Death to Shah', a display that political scientist Gilles Kepel has dubbed the "climax" of "general submission to Islamist cultural hegemony" in Iran.^[213]

On 16 January 1979, Shah left the country "on vacation",^[214] never to return and to die of cancer a year and a half later. By 11 February 1979, the monarchy was officially brought down and Khomeini assumed leadership over Iran while guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed Pahlavi loyalists in armed combat.^[215][216] Following the March 1979 Islamic Republic referendum, in which Iranian voters overwhelmingly approved the country's becoming an Islamic republic; several months later voters approved the new constitution and Khomeini emerged as the Supreme Leader of Iran in December 1979.^[217]

In the early days after the revolution it was praised as "a completion" of the 1905–1911 Constitutional Revolution, "a fulfillment" of Mosaddeqh's attempt to establish an Iranian "sense of independence and self-direction", "a vindication" of the insurrection against the "White Revolution".^[218]

After the success of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the major Iranian Usuli Marja Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari criticized Khomeini's system of government as not being compatible with Islam or representing the will of the Iranian people. He severely criticized the way in which a referendum was conducted to establish Khomeini's rule. In response, Khomeini put him under house arrest and imprisoned his family members. This resulted in mass protests in Tabriz which were quashed toward the end of January 1980, when under the orders of Khomeini tanks and the army moved into the city.^[219] Murtaza Mutahhari was a moderate islamist and believed that a jurist only had a supervisory role and was not supposed to govern.^[220][221] In a 1978 treatise on modern Islamic movements, he warned against the ideas of Qutb brothers and Iqbal.^[222] Soon after the 1979 revolution, he was killed by a rival group, Furqan, in Tehran.

Shortly after assuming power, Khomeini began calling for Islamic revolutions across the Muslim world, including Iran's Arab neighbor Iraq,^[223] the one large state besides Iran with a Shia majority population. At the same time Saddam Hussein, Iraq's secular Arab nationalist Ba'athist leader, was eager to take advantage of Iran's weakened military and (what he assumed was) revolutionary chaos, and in particular to occupy Iran's adjacent oil-rich province of Khuzestan, and to undermine Iranian Islamic revolutionary attempts to incite the Shi'a majority of his country. While Khomeini was in Paris, Baqir al-Sadr in Iraq had issued a long statement to the Iranians praising their uprising. After the 1979 revolution, he sent his students to Iran to show support and called on Arabs to support the newly born Islamist state. He published a collection of six essays titled al-Islam Yaqud al-Hayat (Islam Governs Life), and declared that joining Ba'ath party was prohibited.^[166] Khomeini responding by issuing public statements supporting his cause, that resulted in an uprising in Iraq. Sadr told his followers to call off demonstrations as he sensed the Sunni dominated Ba'ath party's preparations for a crackdown. The crackdown began by his arrest, in response to which the demonstrations spread nation-wide and the government had to release him the next day. The Ba'athists started to arrest and execute the second layer of leadership and killed 258 members of the Dawa party.^[224] Dawa party responded by violence and threw a bomb at Tariq Aziz, killing his bodyguards.^[225]

Saddam Hussain had become the fifth president of Iraq on 16 July 1979, and after publicly killing 22 members of Ba'ath party during the televised 1979 Ba'ath Party Purge, established firm control over the government.^[226] Those spared were given weapons and directed to execute their comrades.^[227][228] On 31 March 1980, the government passed a law sentencing all present and past members of the Dawa party to death. Sadr called on people to uprising. He and his vocal sister were arrested on 5 April 1980 and killed three days later.^[225]

In September 1980, Iraq launched a full-scale invasion of Iran, beginning the Iran–Iraq War (September 1980 – August 1988). A combination of fierce resistance by Iranians and military incompetence by Iraqi forces soon stalled the Iraqi advance and, despite Saddam's internationally condemned use of poison gas, Iran had by early 1982 regained almost all of the territory lost to the invasion. The invasion rallied Iranians behind the new regime, enhancing Khomeini's stature and allowing him to consolidate and stabilize his leadership. After this reversal, Khomeini refused an Iraqi offer of a truce, instead demanding reparations and the toppling of Saddam Hussein from power.^{[229][230][231]}

Meanwhile in traditional Usuli seminaries, the islamists were facing passive resistance. In an attempt to present themselves as sole representatives of Shi'ism, the islamists launched defamation campaign against the traditional Usuli clergy. In his "Charter of the Clergy" (Persian: منشور روحانیت), Ayatollah Khomeini wrote:

"At the religious seminaries, there are individuals who are engaged in activities against the revolution and the pure Islam (Persian: اسلام ناب محمدی). Today they are simply sanctimonious posers, some are undermining religion, revolution and system as if they have no other obligation. The menace of the foolish reactionaries and sanctimonious clerics at religious seminaries is not insignificant. ... The first and most significant move [by the enemy] is the induction of the slogan of separation of religion from politics."^[232]

After the arrest of Ayatollah Shariatmadari and his televised forced confessions, other Usuli sources of emulation like Ayatollah Hasan Qomi, Ayatollah Muhammad Rohani and Ayatollah Sadiq Rohani were among the most prominent clerics to face the wrath of the islamist regime.^[232]

Fadayan-e Islam

Fadayan-e Islam was founded in 1946 as an Islamic fundamentalist organization. Navab Safavi, a neo-fundamentalist cleric, founded the group.^[259] The group's aim was to transform Iran into an Islamic state. The group committed numerous terrorist acts. Notable among these was the 1946 assassination of Ahmad Kasravi, an intellectual who had criticized the Shia Islamic clergy. The group also assassinated two prime ministers (Ali Razmara and Hassan Ali Mansour, 1951 and 1965) and a former prime minister, Abdolhossein Hazhir, in 1949.

Haghani school

Haghani Circle is a neo-fundamentalist school of thought in Iran founded by a group of clerics based in the holy city of Qom and headed by Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, an influential cleric and theologian.

The school trains clerics with both a traditional and modern curriculum, including secular science, medicine, politics, and Western/non-Islamic philosophy (topics not taught in traditional schools). It was founded by Mesbah-Yazdi, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, Beheshti and Ayatollah Sadoughi.

Many famous theologians and influential figures in Iran's politics after the revolution were associated (as teacher or student) with the Circle or follow its ideology.

Combatant Clergy Association

The association is composed of conservative elements of Iran's political culture, including the nation's foremost politicized clerics, the Friday prayer leaders in most of Iran's metropolitan areas, the bazaar merchants, and the Supreme Leader. Not surprisingly, members of this faction support the status quo, including strict limits on personal freedoms and the continued primacy of the clergy in the nation's governance. Important constituents of the Militant Clergy Society include the Islamic Coalition Society and the Coalition of Followers of the Line of the Imam.

The Combatant Clergy Association was the majority party in the 4th and 5th parliaments after the Iranian revolution.^[260] It was founded in 1977 by a group of clerics who intended to use a cultural approach to overthrow the Shah. Its founding members were Khamenei, Motahhari, Beheshti, Bahonar, Rafsanjani and Mohammad Mofatteh^[261] and its current members include Rafsanjani, Ahmad Jannati, Mahdavi Kani, Reza Akrami and Hassan Rohani.

As the foremost advocates of the status quo, the Association is not popular among rank-and-file Iranians.^[262]

Ansar e Hezbollah

Ansar-e-Hezbollah is a militant neo-fundamentalist group. Mojtaba Bigdeli is a spokesman for the Iranian Hezbollah. Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned the assault on students at Tehran University halls of residence in the early hours of Friday 9 July 1999 by group members.^[263]

Basij

Basij is a military fundamentalist network. In July 1999, Ezzat Ebrahim-Nejad was shot dead in a Tehran University dormitory by a member of Basij's military force. The event initiated a demonstration. In 2001, a member of the Basij, Saeed Asgar attempted to assassinate Saeed Hajjarian, a political advisor to Khatami. Asagar was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison, but was released after a short interval. HRW stated that the Basij belong to the "Parallel institutions" (nahad-e movazi), "the quasi-official organs of repression that have become increasingly open in crushing student protests, detaining activists, writers, and journalists in secret prisons, and threatening pro-democracy speakers and audiences at public events." Under the control of the Office of the Supreme Leader these groups operate arbitrary checkpoints around Tehran, while uniformed police refrain from confronting them. "Illegal prisons, which are outside of the oversight of the National Prisons Office, are sites where political prisoners are abused, intimidated, and tortured with impunity."^[264] On 8 March 2004 the Basij initiated a violent crackdown on activists celebrating International Women's Day in Tehran.^[265] On 13 November 2006 Tohid Ghaffarzadeh, a student at Islamic Azad University of Sabzevar, was murdered by a Basij member at the university. The murderer reportedly said that what he did was according to his religious beliefs. Tohid Ghaffarzadeh was talking to his girlfriend when he was approached and knifed by the Basij member.^[266]

Islamic republic versus Islamic administration

Since Khatami's election in 1997, two outlooks toward the achievement of reform in Iran have predominated: "Reformists" within the regime (in-system reformers) claim that the Constitution has the capacity to lead the "Revolutionary" government of Iran toward "democracy." By contrast, secularists, who remain outside the regime, claim that the Constitution contains impediments sufficient to block meaningful reform.^[268][269]

Fundamentalists and in-system reformers on one side and neo-fundamentalists on the other side struggle over "Khomeini's Islamic Republic" versus "Mesbah's Islamic administration." Mesbah-Yazdi and Ansar-e-Hezbollah call for a change in the Iranian constitution from a republic to an Islamic administration.^[270][271] They believe the institutions of the Islamic Republic, such as the Majlis (Iran's Parliament), are contradictory to Islamic government which is centered around Velayat-e Faqih and total obedience.^[272]

The Iranian parliament building as it appeared in the winter of 1956.

Khamenei has remained silent on the issue.^[273] However, he clearly rejected the supervision of Assembly of Experts over the institutions under his responsibility (e.g. Military forces, Judiciary system and IRIB).^[274]

Neo-fundamentalists believe that the supreme leader is holy and infallible and the role of people and elections are merely to discover the leader, whose legitimacy comes from God and not the people.^[275] In January 2007, Rafsanjani, who won the 2006 election for Assembly of Experts, rejected this idea and emphasized the fact that the leader and the cleric members of the Assembly of Experts may make wrong decisions and the legitimacy of the leader comes from the people not the God.^[274]

Beyond these theoretical debates, advocates of the Islamic Administration are slowly replacing those of the Islamic Republic.^[273]

Books

• Abrahamian, Ervand (1993). Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic. California: University of California Press. ISBN 0520081730. Retrieved 30 December 2016.
• Calvert, John (July 2010). Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism. London, UK: Hurst Publishers. ISBN 9781849040068.
• Farzaneh, Mateo Mohammad (March 2015). Iranian Constitutional Revolution and the Clerical Leadership of Khurasani. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815633884. OCLC 931494838.
• Malcolm Byrne (2004). "Introduction". In Gasiorowski, Mark J.; Byrne, Malcolm (eds.). Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran. Syracuse University Press. p. xiv.
• Graham, Robert (1980). Iran, the Illusion of Power. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-43588-6.
• Kadivar, محسن کدیور (2008). سیاست نامه خراسانی (in Persian). تہران: انتشارات کویر.
• Kepel, Gilles (2002). Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674010901. Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam.
• Khomeini, Ruhollah (1981). Algar, Hamid (ed.). Islam and Revolution : Writing and Declarations of Imam Khomeini. Translated by Algar, Hamid. Berkeley, CA: Mizan Press. ISBN 9781483547541.
• Keddie, Nikki R. (1966). Religion and Rebellion in Iran: The Tobacco Protest of 1891–92. Frank Cass. ISBN 9780714619712.
• Kurzman, Charles (2004). The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-01328-X.
• Mangol, Bayat (1991). Iran's First Revolution: Shi'ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-506822-1.
• Rahnema, Ali (1 November 2005). Pioneers of Islamic Revival. London, UK: Zed Books. ISBN 9781842776155.
• Rahnema, Ali (2000). An Islamic Utopian - A Political Biography of Ali Shari'ati. London, NY: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 1860645526.
• Roy, Olivier (1994). The Failure of Political Islam. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674291416. Retrieved 2 April 2015.
• Sayej, Caroleen Marji (2018). "Patriotic Ayatollahs". Patriotic Ayatollahs: Nationalism in Post-Saddam Iraq. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. p. 67. doi:10.7591/cornell/9781501715211.001.0001. ISBN 9781501714856.
• Wilford, Hugh (2013). America's Great Game: The CIA's Secret Arabists and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-01965-6.

Articles

• Akhavi, Shahrough (1996). "Contending discourses in Shi'i law on the doctrine of Wilayat Al‐faqih". Iranian Studies. 29 (3–4): 229–268. doi:10.1080/00210869608701850.
• Aziz, T. M. (May 1993). "The Role of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr in Shi'i Political Activism in Iraq from 1958 to 1980". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 25 (2): 207–222. doi:10.1017/S0020743800058499. JSTOR 164663. S2CID 162623601.
• Behdad, Sohrab (January 1997). "Islamic Utopia in Pre-Revolutionary Iran: Navvab Safavi and the Fada'ian-e Eslam". Middle Eastern Studies. 33 (1): 40–65. doi:10.1080/00263209708701141. JSTOR 4283846.
• Bohdan, Siarhei (Summer 2020). ""They Were Going Together with the Ikhwan": The Influence of Muslim Brotherhood Thinkers on Shi'i Islamists during the Cold War". The Middle East Journal. 74 (2): 243–262. doi:10.3751/74.2.14. ISSN 1940-3461. S2CID 225510058.
• Fuchs, Simon Wolfgang (24 May 2021). "A Direct Flight to Revolution: Maududi, Divine Sovereignty, and the 1979-Moment in Iran". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 32 (2): 333–354. doi:10.1017/S135618632100033X. S2CID 236344952.
• Fuchs, Simon Wolfgang (July 2014). "Third Wave Shi'ism: Sayyid Arif Husain al-Husaini and the Islamic Revolution in Pakistan". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 24 (3): 493–510. doi:10.1017/S1356186314000200. JSTOR 43307315. S2CID 161577379.
• Hermann, Denis (1 May 2013). "Akhund Khurasani and the Iranian Constitutional Movement". Middle Eastern Studies. 49 (3): 430–453. doi:10.1080/00263206.2013.783828. ISSN 0026-3206. JSTOR 23471080. S2CID 143672216.
• Keddie, Nikki R. (June 1983). "Iranian Revolutions in Comparative Perspective". The American Historical Review. 88 (3): 579–598. doi:10.2307/1864588. JSTOR 1864588. Retrieved 1 May 2023.
• Khalaji, Mehdi (27 November 2009). "The Dilemmas of Pan-Islamic Unity". Current Trends in Islamist Ideology. 9: 64–79.
• Martin, V. A. (April 1986). "The Anti-Constitutionalist Arguments of Shaikh Fazlallah Nuri". Middle Eastern Studies. 22 (2): 181–196. doi:10.1080/00263208608700658. JSTOR 4283111.
• Mashayekhi, Azadeh (December 2015). "Tehran, the Scene of Modernity in the Pahlavi Dynasty: Modernisation and Urbanisation Processes 1925–1979". In F. Arefian; S. Moeini (eds.). Urban Change in Iran. The Urban Book Series. pp. 103–119. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-26115-7_9. ISBN 978-3-319-26113-3.
• Nouraie, Fereshte M. (1975). "The Constitutional Ideas of a Shi'ite Mujtahid: Muhammad Husayn Na'ini". Iranian Studies. 8 (4): 234–247. doi:10.1080/00210867508701501. ISSN 0021-0862. JSTOR 4310208.

Works of Principalists

• Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, Philosophical Instructions (English translation by Muhammad Legenhausen & Azim Sarvdalir), Binghamton University & Brigham Young University, 1999, ISBN 1-883058-75-9.
• Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, Islamic Political Theory (Legislation) Vol. 1 (English translation by Mansoor Limba, Translation Unit, Cultural Affairs Department, The Ahl al-Bayt ('a) World Assembly (ABWA), 2008.
• Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, Islamic Political Theory (Statecraft) Vol. 2 (English translation by Mansoor Limba, Translation Unit, Cultural Affairs Department, The Ahl al-Bayt ('a) World Assembly (ABWA), 2008.
• Dr.Ahmad Vaezi, Shia Political Thought, Islamic Centre of England, 2004, ISBN 1-904934-01-3.

Works of non-Principalists

• Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution by Alastair Crooke, Pluto Press (17 February 2009) ISBN 0-7453-2885-7.
• Iran's Tortuous Path Toward Islamic Liberalism, International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, Vol. 15, No. 2, Winter 2001
• Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition: Essays by Western Muslim Scholars (Perennial Philosophy Series) by Joseph Lumbard and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, World Wisdom (23 October 2003) ISBN 978-0-941532-60-0.
• Traditional Islam in the Modern World by Seyyed Hossein, Nasr Kegan Paul International(1995) ISBN 978-0-7103-0332-5.
• Roots of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (Four Lectures) by Hamid Algar, Islamic Publications International, January 2001, ISBN 1-889999-26-1.
• Democracy, Justice, Fundamentalism and Religious Intellectualism, by Abdolkarim Soroush (2005)
• R. Scott Appleby, eds., Accounting for Fundamentalisms (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 403–424.
• Islamic Fundamentalism, Edited by Abdel salam Sidahmed and Anoushiravan Ehteshami. Boulder, CO.
• Overcoming Tradition and Modernity: The Search for Islamic Authenticity, By ROBERT D. LEE. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8133-2798-9.
• The Just Ruler in Shi'ite Islam: The Comprehensive Authority of the Jurist in Imamite Jurisprudence By Abdulaziz Sachedina, Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-511915-0.
• The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future, by Vali R. Nasr, W. W. Norton (5 August 2006) ISBN 0-393-06211-2
• Democracy in Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty, by Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr, Oxford University Press, USA (15 June 2006) ISBN 0-19-518967-1
• The Islamic revival in Central Asia: a potent force or a misconception?, By Ghoncheh Tazmini, Central Asian Survey, Volume 20, Issue 1 March 2001, pages 63–83.