The

Iranian Revolution
Introduction to the Arab and Islamic Civilization – Reading Seminar
Aghiad Ghanem
Aims of the lecture
The aim of the lecture is to challenge the widespread view of the
Iranian revolution, according to which:

• It is linked to the islamic movements that emerge during the 1890s

and the 1950s-1960S.
• It was closely related to the religious Clergy that slowly rises to power
• It was a fundamentalist revolution aiming to get back to a traditional
order that suffered from modernization
Problems
• This view reduces the movement to its most obvious manifestation
à Need to look not only at the people who organized and led the the
Revolution (Khomeyni), but also to more subtle, sometimes contradictory
dynamics.

• This view overstates the importance of the Clergy as an actor, and fails to see
the fragmented nature of the movement and the importance of new actors,
mostly the youth influenced by modernity
“Revolutions are made by new political actors who appear on the
scene, in a form that was not suspected by the ruling elite. But the
Iranian revolution has a specificity: it is made by young people relying on
an old man”
F. Khosrokhavar, L’Utopie sacrifiée, p. 27
Islam and modernity
Finally, this view is too simplistic in its apprehension of Islam.

Two ways of linking religion to modernity:

• Religion as a reaction (Castells)

• Religion as being re-appropriated by modern elites (Giddens,

Appaduraï)
Questions
Need to adopt a sociological view of the revolution in order to answer
these questions:

• What were the causes of the revolution?

• To what extent was it a fragmented movement?
• How could it gather around Khomeyni and his Islamic doctrine?
Iran before 1979: the consequences of a forced
modernization

Mohammad Reza Shah

1939, abdication of his father Reza Pahlavi,

after British-Russian occupation

Mohammad Reza seen as a weak Emperor

easy to manipulate
Towards an autocratic rule
Mohammad Reza Shah managed to overcome the challenges he had to
deal with:

• 1946-1947: the proclamation of autonomous Republics in

Azerbaïdjan and Kurdistan.

• 1941: the creation of the Tudeh Party, communist party of Iran

close to the Soviets

• 1949: creation of the National Front

The 1951-1953 nationalist crisis
1951: Nationalization of oil, Mohammad
Mosaddeq Prime Minister (until 1953)

Emergence of new
leaders, such as
Abol-Qâsem Kashani

Feda’iyan movment
of Navvab Safavi,
1951, assassination
of PM Ali Razmara
• The Shah gets back to power after the British organized the deposition of
Mosaddeq in 1953, and manages to guarantee the stability of his reign
both internally:

• hunting down of his political enemies, mostly Feda’iyan and remaining militants of
Tudeh

• 1957: creation of a loyalist party (Melliyun), and a cosmetic opposition party

(Mardom, the People) + creation of the Savak

• And externally:

• alignment with the US, Baghdad treaty (with Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan and GB + US the
year after)

• Ambiguous position towards Israel

• In 1967, he organizes his coronation, showing how strong his power is.
Modernizing Iran: The ‘White Revolution’
The ‘White Revolution’ (enqelâb-e sefid) of the 1960s, started with an
agrarian reform, that was to redistribute the land, that was then owned by
the landed elite, to the peasants

He first met resistance in the Parliament that was mostly composed by

landed elite. But after he dissolved it in 1960, he could go further in his
reforms:
• nationalization of forests
• sale of state shares in industries to finance agrarian reform
• profit-sharing for workers
• new electoral code with women's right to vote
• creation of a knowledge army to teach young people
Emerging oppositions to the Shah
The reforms led by the Shah witnessed a lot of resistance, from
different political trends:
• The Liberals, In 1961, Mehdi Bazargan and other people influenced by
Mosaddeq found the Liberation Movement of Iran. à Constitutional
opposition.
• The rise of Khomeyni, taking refuge in Najaf after the 1963’s unrests,
where he theorizes the idea of velâyat-e faqih, in his book Hokumat-e
eslâmi
• Armed movements:
• Marxist trend: The Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas,
commonly known as Feda’iyan, created in 1971,
• Leftist Islamic trend: People's Mujahedin of Iran, the Mojahedin, founded in
1965, comming from the religious and radical trend of the National Front.
Towards revolution: the emergent effects of the
Shah’s policy

• The emergence of an educated modern youth, who becomes more

and more urban

• The emergence of impoverished peasants.

• New middle classes, thanks to education and the oil policy

• New capitalist bourgeoisie thanks to oil, considered as parasites.

New debates around identity
• Around materialism, freedom…
• Around the Shi’i nature of Iran
• Debates after the death of Ayatollah
Borujerdi in 1961, to know who could
become the new Marja-e taqlid (source of
imitation)
• Debates about the modernization of the
clergy.
• Emergence also of a new philosophy, with
both modern and Islamic references. The
most important figure of this new
philosophy is Ali Shariati.
Towards an Islamic Republic: the three stages of
the Iranian Revolution
The outbreak of the movement:
• Strong repression in the 70s, against the armed movements, students
and the Bazaaris in 1975.
• Provocations:
• In 1976, the Shah decides to change the calendar
• Carter toasting with the Shah
• In 1978, article written in him in Ettelâ’at to discredit Khomeyni
• Other independent events:
• Election of Carter in the US
• Confirmation of the Shah’s incurable disease by French Doctors
During 1978, the State’s legitimacy keeps decreasing as violence grows:

• 8 septembre 1978, the ‘Black Friday’ in Teheran, the police fired at

the people after the curfew.

• A few days later, an earthquake causes the death of 15 000 people.

The first help was organized by Islamic foundations, showing how
overtaken the state was.
 Khomeyni as a charismatic leader
Making speeches from Paris, Neauphle-le-Château
where he is taking refuge
Bazargan after he visited him in Paris: “I met with
the new Shah, he was wearing a Turban”
16th of Junuary 1979: Shâh raft (the Shah has left)
1st of February: Emâm âmad (The Imam has
arrived).
On the 11th, gvt is deposed, Bazargan is appointed
PM.
Different narratives: the Iranian revolution as an
Assemblage
The movement starting in 1979 was relying several narratives, and
different motives, according to the group you look at:

• Modern youth and some parts of the middle class: willingness to take
control of modernity.
• Elders and traditional elite: willingness to go back to what was before,
to the old form of communitarian management of life
• Neo-traditional elite: return to a mythical form of the past by the
constitution of a theocratic power
• Left intelligentsia: antidemocratic conception of power.
how could all these people with very diverse
motives would all gather around Khomeyni?

• Charisma
+ several ways for the people to justify their alignment with Khomeyni:
• For the elders, Khomeyni is a guarantee for them to go back to
traditional and communitarian habits
• For the impoverished people, he is the guide of the People, the
one who would save the oppressed.
• For the modern Youth, he is a resistant to imperialism
àThis confirms how simplistic it is to describe the revolution as an
Islamic, fundamentalist one

àThe Movement seen as an ‘Assemblage’: “a cluster of movements in

which various heterogeneous actors united in an incoherent and
multiple ensemble to overthrow a power collectively felt as
oppressive.” Khosrokhavar

àThe most important link between all these constituencies is their

common hatred of the Shah.
The three stages of the revolution
• End of the old regime (11 February 1979) to the occupation of the US
embassy (4 November 1979) and resignation of the Bazargan
government (6 November 1979): unanimity, all the people united
against the regime, but also confusion

• From the fall of Bazargan to the fall of Banisadr (June 1981):

progressive control of the Hezbollah

• Hezbollah's hegemony until Khomeini's death (4 June 1989)