Iran – Hybrid Learning

Countries That Recognize Israel 2021

Batoota — Sun, 23 May 2021 16:52:21 +0000

At midnight on May 14, 1948, the Provisional Government of Israel proclaimed a new State of Israel, a proclamation that both established Israel and declared its independence. The State of Israel was established by the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
On the same day as its creation, the United States became the first country to recognize Israel. President Harry Truman recognized the provisional Jewish government as the de facto authority of the Jewish state. Israel has the highest Jewish population worldwide.
On May 15, 1948, the day following Israel’s declaration, the first Arab-Israeli war broke out.

Almost a year after its creation, on May 11, 1949, the United Nations General Assembly approved Israel’s application to join the United Nations by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 273. Israel became the 59th member of the United Nations. The vote was 37 to 12 (and nine abstentions), with many countries voting in favor, having already recognized Israel before the UN vote. Of those who voted in favor, Cuba and Venezuela have since withdrawn their recognition of Israel. Of those who voted against Israel’s admittance to the UN, six were members of the Arab League.
Israel’s sovereignty, however, is disputed by some countries. As of December 2019, 162 of the 193 UN member countries recognize Israel, while 31 UN members do not recognize Israel.

Of the countries that do not recognize Israel, 17 are part of the 22 members of the Arab League. These countries include:

Nine of the countries that do not recognize Israel are members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation:

Sixteen countries do not accept Israeli passports:

Algeria
Bangladesh
Brunei
Iran (does not accept visitors with Israeli passport stamps)
Iraq (does not accept visitors with Israeli passport stamps)
Kuwait (does not accept visitors with Israeli passport stamps)
Lebanon (does not accept visitors with Israeli passport stamps)
Libya (does not accept visitors with Israeli passport stamps)
Malaysia
Pakistan (does not accept visitors with Israeli passport stamps)
Saudi Arabia
Sudan (does not accept visitors with Israeli passport stamps)
Syria (does not accept visitors with Israeli passport stamps)
United Arab Emirates
Yemen

The table below contains the countries that recognize Israel as an independent state.

QOM

Batoota — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 11:18:49 +0000

QOM. A small provincial town south of Tehran, Qom (or Qum) is the site of Hazrat-i Ma’sumah, the shrine of Fatimah, sister of the eight Imam, the second most important Shi’i shrine in Iran, and the leading center of Shi’i theological seminaries in Iran. The gold-domed shrine and its spacious New or Atabegi Courtyard are filled daily with pilgrims. Entry to the shrine is through a mirrored portal from the Atabegi Courtyard, built in 1883, along the sides of which are graves of nobles and ministers of the Qajar dynasty. The present dome was constructed under the Safavids and gilded by the Qajars. Four Safavid shahs are buried in a mosque behind the main shrine as are three leaders of the Qom seminaries. Behind the shrine is the new blue-domed A’zam or Borujerdi Mosque, a major teaching space for the highest level of study, the dars-i kharij. Two Qajar shahs are buried to the right of the shrine in the Old Courtyard, behind which are two more courtyards, turned by the Safavids into the Dar al-Shifa’ and Faydiyah Seminaries, centers of political activity in 1963, 1975, and 19771979. The shrine courtyard and the Borujerdi Mosque are important places for leading communal prayers and sermons. The shrine has been an economic and state institution; a focus of endowments and commercial rents dedicated to its upkeep, as well as a symbolic site whose opening and closing each day is accompanied by state-appointed guards chanting the sovereignty of the reigning government under Allah.
Economically, with little modern industry, the town depends on its farming hinterland, produces some fine carpets, but primarily provides services to pilgrims, religious students, and the religious establishment. Although Qom has a madrasah (seminary) tradition that can be traced back a thousand years, the current set of madrasahs are only some fifty years old and provided a major center of resistance to the Pahlavi monarchy. When Ayatollah Ruhollah al-Musavi Khomeini returned to Iran to lead the Islamic Revolution of 1979, he went immediately to Qom. Although Khomeini, as head of state, later moved to Tehran, Qom remained a key seat of educational and political organizations of the `ulama’ (clergy). Qom’s history provides a microcosm of currents in Iran’s state-clergy relations, from the time of the establishment of Islam and then of the struggles to establish Shiism.
Qom’s historians revel in its reputation as an obstreperous ShN center, tracing this posture back to the early Shi`i resistance to the Umayyads. Abu Musa al-Ash’ari, a representative of the first Imam, `All, visited Qom in AH 23/644 CE, but Qom remained Zoroastrian and paid jizyah (the tax on protected minorities) for some time. The great Sassanian ritual fire in the nearby village of Mazdiajan was extinguished only in AH 288/899 CE by the governor of Qom, Bayram Turk. Qom, however, became a refuge for opponents of the Umayyads during this early period. After Mutraf ibn Mughirahs revolt against the governor of Iraq, Hajjaj ibn Yfisuf alThaqafi, failed in AH 66-67/685-687 CE, a group of his followers, the Ban! Asad, came to settle in a village outside of Qom, called jam Karan (now an important sec
ondary shrine of the area). A decade later refugees from the unsuccessful jihad of `Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad al-Ash’ath (governor of Seistan) against Hajjaj also came to Qom (c. 78/697). `Abd al-Rahman’s army had included seventeen tabi’in (disciples of the Prophet’s companions), and among the refugees who came to Quom were the sons of Sa’ib who had fought with Mukhtar in the unsuccessful attempt to revenge Husayn in Kufa under the banner of his brother, Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyah. The first of `Abd al-Rahman’s followers to arrive in Qom were the brothers `Abd Allah and Ahwas Ash`ari. They were welcomed by the Zoroastrian, Yazdan Fizar of Abrastigan Qom, and were given a village, Muhammadan, apparently in recognition of aid the Ash`aris had previously given Qom in efforts to stay independent of the Daylamis. The alliance was shortlived, however: a quarrel broke out, the Ash’aris were asked to leave; instead they slaughtered the leading Zoroastrians. The other Zoroastrians began to leave or converted to Islam. Among the Ash`ari sons were twelve rawi (transmitters of riwayat or hadith) of Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq, the twelfth Imam.
From these beginnings, Qom next developed a reputation for resisting Sunni governors and their tax demands. Husayn Mudarris! Tabataba’i (1350/1975) lists five occasions in the ninth century alone when the town had to be militarily reduced before taxes could be collected. In contrast, a Shi’i governor was given so much cooperation that he was removed by the caliph lest he claim independence. During the ninth. century there were 266 Shi’l `ulama’. and 14 Sunni `ulama’ in the town; among the former were the Babuyah family and their most renowned son, counted now as a marja` altaqlid (supreme guide in religious matters), Shaykh alSaduq ibn Babuyah. On these grounds, Qom lays claim to being an older hawzah-i `ilmi (center of religious learning) than Najaf (in southern Iraq), although the scholarly tradition had periods of virtual disappearance.
It was to this Shi’i town that Fatimah, the sister of the eighth Imam, ‘Ali al-Rids, came when she fell ill in Saveh (then a Sunni town) en route to visit her brother in Mashhad. She died in Qom, and over the years her grave has come to be the second most important shrine of Iran: the shrine of Hazrat-i Ma’sumah, Fatimah. The first mutawalli (administrator) of the shrine appears to have been a representative of the eleventh Imam, and was of the Ash’ari family, Ahmad ibn Ishaq Ash’ari The first dome was constructed over the grave in the sixth century, and the shrine apparently served as a pilgrimage site for Sunnis as well as ShNs. The dome was redone in the Safavid period and was gilded in the Qajar period. Fatimah’s sister has a smaller shrine in the village of Kohak, a place that at times competed with Qom for predominance.
By the ninth/fifteenth century Qom’s identity had begun to crystallize: it became, in addition to a Shi`i center and a shrine, a place of royal interest. Jahan Shah, Uzun Hasan, Sultan Ya’qub, Alvand Sultan, and Sultan Murad all used Qom as a winter hunting capital (Uzun Hasan was visited here by envoys from Venice), Sultan Muhammad Bahadur briefly established a semiindependent state centered on Qom. Jahan Shah Karakoyunlu issued the earliest extant firmdn (royal order), dated 867/1462, naming Ahmad Nizamuddin as mutawalli of the shrine and naqib (local head) of the sayyids. He also sponsored majlis wa’iz (preachments) in Qom. From later furmans it becomes clear that the two jobs of nagib and mutawalli always went together and were assumed to be hereditary in the Razavi sayyid family of Musa Mubaqah, which had come to Qom in the ninth century. (This family has a large set of mausoleums on the edge of town.)
The Safavid shahs Isma`il and Tahmasp continued the tradition of using Qom as a winter capital. But the Safavids built Qom into something much grander than it had ever been. The tombs of Shahs `Abbas II, Safi, Sulayman, and Sultan Husayn were placed here, near the shrine of Fatimah, Hazrat-i Ma’sumah. The shrine was refurbished and two of its four courtyards were turned into the Madrasah Faydiyah with a small hospital behind for pilgrims, the Dar al-Shafa. Important teachers were brought: Mullahs Muhsin Fayd, `Abd alRazzaq Lahiji, Sadra Shirazi, and Tahir Qummi and Qadi Said. Several administrative arrangements were tried: for a while the governor was the mutawalli; for a while there were three mutawallis, one each for the tombs of Fatimah, Shah `Abbas II, and Shah Safi. But the main mutawalli was Mirza Habib Allah ibn Mir Husayn Khatim al-Mujtahidin and later his descendants; he had been brought from Lebanon by Shah Tahmasp with his father and two brothers. The two brothers were made mutawalli of the Shah `Abd al`Azim shrine in Rey and the Shah Safi shrine in Ardebil. These jobs remained hereditary until 1965 when Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi ousted them. Whether the custom is older is unclear, but under the Safavids the shrine became a place of bast-nishin (sanctuary), where one could take refuge from the law until a judgment thought to be unfair could be sorted out. At times this legal recourse tended to degenerate into a device used mainly by debtors.
The Qajars continued the tradition of placing royal and noble mausoleums at the shrine of Fatimah, with the tombs of Fath `All Shah, Muhammad Shah, and the many Qajar ministers: Qa’immaqam and Mirza `Ali Akbar Khan among others. They rebuilt sections of the shrine, the grand Sahn-i Jadid (New Courtyard) being built by Amin al-Sultan in 1883. The bast tradition continued despite efforts by the prime minister, Mirza `Ali Akbar Khan, to abolish it. The madrasahs, however, lost their vitality after the death of the scholar Mirza Qummi in 1231/1804, although several of them were rebuilt under Fath `Ali Shah (1797-1834), and the Jani Khan Madrasah was rebuilt under Nasir al-Din Shah (1848-1896).
In the twentieth century two social vectors became increasingly important and contested: first, the hawzah-i `ilmi was reestablished in Qom, but this time not through royal or aristocratic patronage; second, the Pahlavi state began to eliminate or reduce the spheres of influence claimed by the religious leaders: law, education, endowments, registry of contracts, and through control of television and radio even the dissemination of religious propaganda.
The year 1920, when Shaykh `Abd al-Karim Ha’iriYazdi arrived from Arak (Soltanabad) after leaving Iraq, is usually given for the modern founding of the hawzahi `ilmi of Qom. HA’irl-Yazdi arrived as part of the exodus back to Iran by Shi`i leaders who were concerned that the uncertain transition between Ottoman and British rule in Iraq might jeopardize their position in the `atabat (shrine towns of Iraq). Shaykh Murtaza Ansari earlier had sent Mir Muhammad `Ali Shushtari Jazayiri to reconnoiter Qom and Mashhad. Then in 1916 Ayatollah Fayd Qummi, joined later by others, returned to Qom to restore the old madrasahs to their original purpose. Shops and storage areas had to be converted back to student rooms in the Madrasah Faydiyah. Even wheat bakeries had to be set up. Over the course of a full century-since the death in 1815 of Mirza Qummi, author of the Qawanin (Laws)- -Qom’s madrasahs had fallen into disuse and ruin and the town had suffered “an intellectual famine” (Rahimi, 1339/1961). After establishing a minimal basis for a hawzah-i `ilmi, Ayatollah Mirza Mahmud Ruhani and Shaykh Husayn Qummi were dispatched to Arak to invite and persuade Ha’iriYazdi to come. He did so, bringing with him a large following, including those who were to succeed after his death (in 1935): Ayatollahs Muhammad `All Ha’iri Qummi (d. 1939), and Muhammad Hujjat Kuhkamari came immediately, as did Khomeini and Muhammad Riza Gulpaygani; Ahmad Khusari came in 1923, Shihab al-Din Mar’ashi and Muhammad Kazim Shari`atmadari in 1924, and Ayatollah Sadr al-Din Sadr in 1930. Almost immediately on the reestablishment of the Qom hawzah, it was able to play host to refugees from Iraq: Shi`i I, resistance to the British caused for short periods both the voluntary and nonvoluntary exile of students and teachers.
How much of a change the growth of the madrasahs made to life in Qom can only be estimated from a series of incidents: the campaign of Ayatollah Bafqi to keep men from cutting their beards, the staging by Nur Allah Isfahani in Qom of calls for the ousting of the dictator Reza Shah (1925), the clash between Bafqi and Reza Shah over the veiling of the royal women in the shrine, the burning of wine shops, opposition to modern schools, opposition to the enfranchisement of women, student harangues against the Tudeh (Communist) party, and opposition to the introduction of cinema and television. Not all the acts of the religious leaders, however, were conservative in this sense as can be seen in their leadership in building hospitals, welfare systems, libraries, and flood walls. Indeed some of the conservatism was reaction to Pahlavi-government-led anticlericalism. Some of the `ulama’. had helped with the establishment of modern schools at the turn of the century, but by the 1930s people who grew up in Qom told stories of having to dodge heckling talaba (religious students) on their way to school, especially the girls. The ambivalence of the `ulama’. had to do with the growth of government regulatory functions in education and in the administration of endowments (a key source of revenues). Secular education beyond elementary school did not exist until 1935, but a coeducational school opened that year, adult education was offered by the government, and fifteen more schools were opened in the next two years; by 1937 there were three high schools.
These were years of great pressure against the religious establishment. The great struggle over dressing like Europeans and unveiling women came in 19351936. Attempts were made to license those who had a right to wear religious garb (i.e., traditional dress), and the number of talaba began to decline, reaching a low of 500 or fewer at the end of Reza Shah’s reign in 1941 (Razi, 1332/1954 vol. 2, p. 119). When Ha’iri-Yazdi
died in 1935, not only were laws in effect against rawzah khvdni preachments, but a formal death memorial for him was disallowed (though the inpouring of people to Qom to chant in the streets could not be prevented). In 1938 the government tried to introduce exams for the religious students to regulate their progress and to formalize procedures for exemption from the army. The examinations were evaded by a plea from the hawzah leadership that the date set had fallen on the death anniversary of Shaykh Muhammad `Al! Qummi and the students had to convene a memorial service. The government acquiesced and did not try to reinstitute the examinations. In 1975 those who were at least middlelevel students and had six years of secular education could ask a committee of hawzah teachers to certify to the Office of Education that they were students in good standing, and this was forwarded with a request for deferrment to the gendarmerie. Direct control over religious students thus was abandoned in favor of informal surveillance. Resistance to open procedures had led to expansion of covert procedures. Similarly, rejuvenation of the shrine with its endowments as a state-linked religious center and the expansion of control by the Office of Endowments over all religious endowments in Qom were viewed by the religious establishment as parts of a process directed against its claims to leadership in all religious and moral matters.
As tensions intensified, Qom became a site of increasing resistance to the policies of the Pahlavi state. In June 1963 and again in June 1975 there were major demonstrations in Qom that were direct precursors to the revolution of 1977-1979. In 1963 Khomeini was arrested for leading the opposition to the enfranchisement of women, the Local Council Election Bill of 1962, land reform, the sixpoint White Revolution, and a major military loan from the United States, which was tied to immunity from Iranian law for American service personnel. Three months earlier demonstrations by religious students had led to the occupation of the madrasahs of Qom by security forces. On the fifteenth of Khurdad (5 June), a date that was to become a symbolic anniversary thereafter, which fell at the end of the emotional first ten days of Muharram that year, Khomeini was arrested, and resistance among the religious students in the central Madrasah Faydiyah was quelled, a number of students losing their lives by being tossed by gendarmes from the roof of the madrasah into the dry riverbed below. Within two hours of Khomeini’s arrest in Qom, crowds had also gathered in front of the Tehran bazaar; by 10:00 A.M. troops had fired on them. For three days disturbances continued in Tehran, Qom, Mashhad, Isfahan, and Shiraz; thousands are said to have died.
Twelve years later, the fifteenth of Khurdad 1975 fell just after the new single-party (Rastakhiz party) state had been declared, during the registration for the first elections under the new party. Khomeini, who had been in exile since 1963, had smuggled into Iran pamphlets denouncing the new party as merely a tool for tightening the dictatorship. At the same time the antiinflation campaign was moving into high gear, with many arrests of businesspeople. Students in Madrasah Faydiyah began to recite twenty thousand blessings (salavat) on the defenders of Islam (Khomeini) and curses (la’nat) on the enemies of Islam (the shah), keeping count on their prayer beads. Crowds gathered. The police and elite army units moved in. The disturbances went on for three days.
In 1975 there were 6,414 students listed in the seminary registers. Only a quarter of these were unmarried. There was a small sprinkling of international students from Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Lebanon, Tanzania, Turkey, Nigeria, Kashmir, and Indonesia. By social background, the two major sources of students were sons of farmers and sons of clerics. There were some fourteen traditional style madrasahs and four innovative new ones attempting to introduce modern teaching methods and subjects. The madrasahs and associated activities were roughly grouped into three major establishments around the three marja` al-taqlids: Shari’atmadari, Gulpaygani, and Mar’ash-i Najafi. These establishments put out religious journals and books, sent missionaries abroad (to London, to India, to the Persian Gulf states, to Africa, etc.), and maintained a bureau of itinerant preachers who could be sent out to small villages.
During the revolution of 1977-1979 Qom, of course, remained a focus of activity, and after the revolution it has continued to play an important role in the affairs of the state and society. It is as well the home not only of those religious leaders and lower-rank personnel who guide and support the religious leadership of the state, but also of several important figures who have criticized the state from within the ranks of Islamic ideology.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fischer, Michael M. J. Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution. Cambridge, Mass., 1980.
Razi, Shaykh Muhammad. Ganjina-i danishmandan. 5 volumes. Qom, Piruz. 1352-1353/1973-1974.
Tabataba’i, Husayn Mudarrisi. Qum dar qarn-i nuhum-i hijri. Qom, 1350/1971.

NA’INI, MUHAMMAD HUSAYN

Batoota — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 14:40:53 +0000

NA’INI, MUHAMMAD HUSAYN (May 25, 1860-1936), the leading theoretician of the 1905-1909 Persian constitutional movement and the leading clergyman who granted legitimacy to the rule of Reza Shah Pahlavi. His life can be divided into three periods. During the first, he was actively engaged in bringing about the Constitutional Revolution and wrote a famous treatise. During the second period, he was an important lecturer and became one of the most important Shi’i mujtahids, clergymen entitled to exercise ijtihad (individual inquiry into legal matters). He led the Iraqi nationalists against the British and worked actively for independence. During the last period, he lost his fighting spirit, devoted his life to teaching, and acquiesced to the powers that be.
Nd’ini studied in Samarra, Iraq, with Muhammad alFisharaki al-Isfahani (d. 1899) and Muhammad Hasan Shirazi (d. 1896), whose secretary he became. After his master’s death, he moved to Karbala and studied with Mulla Muhammad Kazim Khurasani (d. 1911). Both Shirazi and Khurasani played important roles in political events in Iran. Nd’ini drafted the telegrams that Khurasani sent to Iran during the Constitutional Revolution. He was heavily involved in the planning of `ulama’, (religious scholars) involvement in the politics of Iran. However, he and other constitutionalists became disillusioned with subsequent events. Nd’ini therefore concentrated on teaching, became involved in Iraqi politics at the outset of World War I, and led the Iraqi opposition against the subsequent British mandate. This latter action led to his departure from Iraq in 1923. Nd’ini was then drawn into Iranian politics, namely, the campaign to establish a republic in that country. Together with `Abd al-Karim Hi’iri Yazd! (d. 1936) and Abu al-Hasan Isfahani, he was able to convince Reza Khan to give up this idea in 1924. Reza Khan assisted in the return of Nd’ini to Iraq by first arranging compensation for the British insult against him in expelling him in the first place, followed by an invitation to return to that country. Na’ini showed his gratitude by sending a letter plus portrait of Imam ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib to Reza Khan, thus conferring legitimacy on his regime. One year later, he and Isfahani jointly sent a letter depicting those opposing Reza Khan’s rule as enemies of Islam. This opened the road to the deposing of the Qajar dynasty (1785/97-1925). On Reza Khan’s accession to the throne, Nd’ini sent a telegram of congratulations to the shah and continued to send him similar messages on holy festival days. The remainder of his years he spent teaching in Najaf, Iraq.
Nd’ini’s most famous work was Tanbih al-ummah va tanzih al-millah dar asds vausul-i mashrutiyat (An Admonition to the Nation and an Exposition to the People Concerning the Foundations and Principles of Constitutional Government), written in 1909. It is still the most detailed and coherent justification of constitutional government from a Shi’i point of view. It aims to reconcile the impossibility of legitimate rule (in the absence of the Hidden Imam) with the practical need for government that promotes the well-being of the Shi’i community, but in a way that is not too much at odds with the dictates of religion. In his book, Nd’ini does not advocate actual administration of government by the `ulama’, but he embraces an islamization of constitutionalist principles, and he accepts certain principles of democracy that are in conformity with Islam. The importance of the book, even for modern times, is emphasized by the fact that its third edition (1955), with notes, was prepared by Ayatollah Mahmud Taleqani (d. 1979), a major religious figure who played an important role in the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
[See also Constitutional Revolution; and the biographies of Ha’iri Yazdi and Pahlavi.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arjomand, Said Amir. “The State and Khomeini’s Islamic Order.” Iranian Studies 13.1-4 (1980): 147-164. Contains a pertinent summary of Na’ini’s doctrinal justification for supporting the Constitutionalists (see especially pp. 150-152).
Bayat, Mango]. Iran’s First Revolution. New York, 1991. Minimizes the importance and originality of Na’ini’s ideas (see especially pp. 256-258).
Hairi, Abdul-Hadi. ShNsm and Constitutionalism. Leiden, 1977. Full treatment of Nd’ini’s thought and activities in Shi`i Islam and Iran.
WILLEM FLOOR

LIBERATION MOVEMENT OF IRAN

Batoota — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 11:35:27 +0000

LIBERATION MOVEMENT OF IRAN. A political party whose program is based on a modernist interpretation of Islam, the Liberation Movement of Iran (LMI) was founded in May 1961 by leaders of the former National Resistance Movement (NRM). A few days after the ouster of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh (Muhammad Musaddiq) in August 1953, with his close collaborators either under arrest or surveillance, some of Mossadegh’s less politically prominent followers founded the NRM as a secret organization to uphold the nationalist cause under the repressive conditions of the new dictatorship. Among its leaders were the cleric Sayyid Riza Zanjani, Mehdi Bazargan, the lawyer Hasan Nazih, and Muhammad Rahim `Ata’i. The NRM had two social bases: the bazaar and students. Key NRM. leaders came from a bazaar background, which facilitated contacts with Mossadeghist merchants who financed the movement; students, for their part, demonstrated. Based in Tehran, the NRM was also present in a few provincial centers, most notably Mashhad, where ‘Ali Shari ati was active.

The NRM organized protest demonstrations against the regime on the occasions of Mossadegh’s trial (fall 1953) Vice President Richard Nixon’s visit to Iran (December 1953), sham parliamentary elections (winter 1954) and the new oil agreement that resolved Iran’s dispute with Great Britain (spring 1954). Internal disagreements-between secular and Islamist activists, between opponents and proponents of collaboration with the communists-weakened the movement, and after 1954 the increasing efficiency of the shah’s security apparatus caused NRM activity to decline, until the organization was crushed in 1957 when all top activists were arrested and held prisoner for eight months.
When in 1960 Mossadeghists became active again in the course of the shah’s liberalization policies, carried out in response to President John F. Kennedy’s election, conflict arose between erstwhile NRM. Leaders and the National Front’s old guard of former cabinet members. Two issues were at stake. First, NRM veterans and their young sympathizers in the National Front wanted to target the shah personally, whereas the more moderate National Front leaders tried to spare him, hoping that he would become a constitutional monarch. Second, the core members of the former NRM, most of whom were also active in Islamic circles, wanted to mobilize Iranians by appealing to their religious values, a policy the National Front’s secular leadership rejected. The dispute came to a head in May 1961 when Mehdi Bazargan, Sayyid Mahmud Taleqani, Hasan Nazih, Yad Allah Sahabi, and eight other men formed a separate party, the LMI. The party was defined as Muslim, Iranian, constitutionalist, and Mossadeghist.
During the nineteen months of its activity, the LMI opposed the shah’s regime and its policies, calling on the ruler to respect the constitution. When the shah named the independent politician ‘Ali Amini prime minister, the LMI tried to accommodate him so as to weaken the shah, unlike the National Front, which considered Amini too pro-American. Amini’s resignation in July 1962 heralded the end of liberalization in Iran. In January 1963 the shah had the entire leadership of the LMI and the National Front arrested, after both had sharply criticized his planned referendum on what would become the “White Revolution.” Although the secular politicians were soon released, the LMI leaders were sentenced to several years imprisonment.
After the violent repression of the June 1963 riots, which propelled Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini into the political limelight and in which certain lower level LMI activists participated, the shah’s rule became increasingly autocratic. This made any oppositional party activity in Iran impossible. Several young LMI militants concluded that the legal constitutional methods of their elders having failed, armed struggle was now called for: they formed the Mujahidin-i Khalq [see Mujahidin, article on Mujahidin-i Khalq]. Others decided to continue the struggle against the shah abroad and formed an LMI-in-exile. The chief initiators of this move were ‘Ali Shari`ati, Ibrahim Yazdi, and Mustafa Chamran. The first was active in Paris until his return to Iran in 1964. Yazdi’s base was Houston, Texas, but he was also in close contact with Khomeini in Iraq. Chamran first worked in the United States but then moved to Lebanon, where he had a leading role in the formation of the Amal movement [see Amal].
The LMI reconstituted itself in 1977 with Bazargan as chairman. In 1978 the party would have preferred to accept the shah’s offer of free elections, but recognizing Khomeini’s hold on Iranian public opinion, it went along with Bazargan’s rejection of elections. In the last weeks of the shah’s regime, LMI figures played a leading role in negotiating with striking oil workers, military leaders, and U.S. diplomats to smooth the transfer of power to the revolutionaries. In 1979 most LMI leaders held key positions in the provisional government. After its ouster in the wake of the seizure of the U.S. hostages in November, the LMI gradually became an oppositional force. It was represented in the first parliament of the Islamic Republic but barred from presenting candidates in subsequent elections. After 1982 it sharply criticized Khomeini’s unwillingness to end the Iran-Iraq War. Since then its activities have been sharply restricted, and many of its leaders have been in and out of prison.
Remarkable continuity characterizes the LMI in its two periods of activity. The party’s program derives from a liberal interpretation of Shi’i Islam that rejects both royal and clerical dictatorship in favor of political and economic liberalism, which are both considered more conducive to the flowering of Islamic values than coercion. Based on a relatively narrow constituency of religiously inclined professionals, the party’s major weakness has been its inability to engender mass support.
[See also Iran; Iranian Revolution of 1979; and the biographies of Bdzargan, Khomeini, Pahlavi, Shari ati, and Taleqani.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chehabi, H. E. Iranian, Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini. Ithaca, N.Y., and London, 1990. In-depth study of the history and ideology of the party.
H. E. CHEHABI

IRAN

Batoota — Sun, 25 May 2014 15:56:17 +0000

IRAN. Iranians have always called their country Iran (Land of the Aryans, or “noble people”), but outsiders long used the name Persia (Parsa; Gk., Persis), referring to Pars, now Fars, the southern part of the country. The name Persia remained in use until 1935, when the government in Tehran formally requested the world community to use the name Iran.

Iran has one of the world’s oldest civilizations, dating back to about 2700 BCE, when the Elamites ruled over areas that include the present-day Khuzistan Province in southwest Iran and adjacent areas to the north and east. Indo-Europeans, migrating from the east, did not dominate the Iranian plateau until the Iron Age, about 1300 BCE. The Kingdom of the Medes, centered at Ecbatan (modern-day Hamadan), ruled the plateau and areas of the west and southwest from 728 to 559 BCE. During this time, other Indo-European peoples, such as the Scythians, crossed into the western plateau from the Caucasus Mountains. The Achaemenid (559-330 BCE), Parthian (247 BCE-226 CE), and Sassanian (224-651) dynasties secured their rule over areas of Iran, as well as regions of the Fertile Crescent, the Caucasus, Transoxonia, Afghanistan, and the Indian subcontinent. These dynasties left the indelible stamp of a recognizably Iranian civilization on the land.
The Arab invasion, beginning in 637, was a turning point in Iranian history. Zoroastrian beliefs, rooted in the idea of unceasing struggle between the forces of good and evil, were replaced by Islam, an austere, monotheistic religion. Although Iranians embraced Islam, they retained many of their native traditions. They also kept their language despite the fact that Arabic words pervaded it and the Arabic alphabet replaced the old script. For about a millennium, Iran became a territory of the caliphate and its successors, and Sunnism prevailed, except for local pockets of Shiism, as in the city of Qom (Qumm). During this period, Iranians contributed immeasurably to the development of literature, art, architecture, philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and the Islamic sciences.
In 1501 a centralizing monarchy known as the Safavid dynasty secured control over the plateau and its adjacent areas on behalf of Shi i Islam. Iran has since been the home of Ithna `Ashari Shiism, although the short-lived Afsharid dynasty (1736-1747) tried to restore Sunnism. [See Safavid Dynasty; Afsharid Dynasty.]
The Safavid period witnessed the emergence of the Iranian `ulama’, (community of religious scholars) as an important social force. Safavid rule collapsed in 1722, later followed by the benevolent but brief Zand dynasty (1750-1779). The Zands were succeeded by the Qajar dynasty (1785/97-1925). The `ulama’, increased their power significantly in the Qajar era. By the end of the nineteenth century, they had become key actors in the social movements and institutions of the country. [See Zand Dynasty.]
The Qajar dynasty, never matching the power of the Safavids, was unable to withstand foreign military, economic, and political pressures or to overcome the ineptitude of its rulers. It was replaced by the Pahlavi dynasty, whose founder, Reza Shah and his son, Muhammad Reza, collectively ruled from 1925 to 1979. Their policies stressed modernization, westernization, and secular, integral Iranian nationalism. They resolved to uproot traditional practices and beliefs and to implant new ones from abroad. These policies led to the dynasty’s overthrow and replacement by a clerical regime controlled by the `ulama’, under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah al-Musavi Khomeini (1902-1989; ruled 1979-1989). The Islamic Republic of Iran has undone many Pahlavi policies. Contrary to popular notions, however, it has retained many features of the state that it overthrew and has continued some of its predecessor’s foreign policies.
Qajar Dynasty. The Qajar period was characterized by weak rulers, severe center-periphery problems, poor economic performance, and foreign domination. Iran lost territories to the Russians in 1804-1813 and 18251828. The British denied Iranian territorial ambitions in Afghanistan in the conflicts of 1836-1838 and 18561857. The Qajar shahs granted concessions and capitulatory rights to foreigners, allowing the British, Russians, French, Dutch, Swedes, Belgians, and Hungarians to dominate fields ranging from transport and banking to internal security. The most important concessions were the Reuters Concession of 1871 (mining, banking, and railroads), the Tobacco Regie of 1891, and the D’Arcy Concession of 1901 (oil). In 1891-1892 and in 190519o9, largescale collective protests broke out in opposition to the shah’s capitulations to foreign interests, as well as to his domestic policies and autocratic rule.
During the nineteenth century, the clergy became increasingly assertive. Explanations for this lie in certain doctrinal changes in Shi’i Islam, as well as `ulama’, reactions to historical events. As early as the medieval period, some clergymen, such as al-Muhaqqiq al-Hill! (d. 1326), had claimed that the `ulama’, collectively exercised wala’ al-imdmah (guardianship) over the imamate of the Hidden Imam. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries a doctrinal dispute raged between those who maintained that the clergy were the deputies of the imam and those who believed that they were mere interpreters of the law with no special relationship to the Hidden Imam. The former group prevailed, signaling victory for the view that certain experts among the clergy (mujtahids) were entitled to exercise independent judgment (ijtihad) in determining the law in the absence of a clear textual rule in the Qur’an or sunnah.
Controversy exists over whether the clergy, in their interventions against royal policies, were defending popular sovereignty, democratic ideas, the interests of the religious institution, or their own private ambitions. However, the consensus is that-whatever their private motives-many of the `ulama’, did throw their moral authority behind challenges to foreign interference and the misrule of the shahs.
Some historians have held that the clergy harbored inherently antistate views on grounds that the doctrine of the imamate vests political rule exclusively in the imam, thus mandating opposition to secular rulers as usurpers. A more recent view is that Shiism has been apolitical ever since the sixth imam, Ja’far al-Sadiq (d. 765), suspended the political dimension of the imam’s authority until some future unspecified date. This view holds that clergymen have not only not been doctrinally opposed to the state but in fact have supported it and called on it to protect Shiism and Shi’i Muslims. Even Ayatollah Khomeini, who was later to abjure this position, argued in a work published in the early i94os that the clergy had never opposed secular rulers in principle but merely asked the state to seek their counsel.
In 1891-1892 the clergy utilized the Shi’i tax known as khums provided by believers, especially the bazaar merchants, to finance a collective protest against the Tobacco Regie. Later, most clergy demanded a constitution and a “house of justice” during the social movement known as the Constitutional Revolution of 1905 to 1909. Many mujtahids at this time couched their admonitions to the Qajars in the familiar terms of zulm (oppression of the justice of the Hidden Imam). The merchants were generally fed up with the influx of foreign goods and favorable terms extended to foreigners to sell their wares in Iran. Many had become declassed and others had been driven bankrupt by the competition of European entrepreneurs. Others also resented the shah’s failure to repay their loans and hiring of a foreign financial expert to rationalize tax collection, suggesting further efforts to wrest money from them. At times, merchants took the initiative in challenging the state, while senior clergymen played a secondary role. [See Khums; Constitutional Revolution; Zulm.]
The constitutionalists, though victorious, still faced a problem that was to bedevil future constitutionalist movements, such as those of 1949-1953 196o-1963, and 1978-1979: the relationship between revelation and positive law. Their opponents maintained that the promulgation of a fundamental law implied that shari `ah (the holy law) had to be supplemented by manmade law, an idea they held as anathema. They additionally maintained that the creation of a Parliament suggested that sovereignty reposed in the nation, rather than Allah, an intolerable bid’ah (heretical notion).
The Constitutionalists acknowledged these difficulties but stressed the urgency of upholding the principles of hisbah, the legal norm of holding an authority to account, and al-nahy `an al-munkar (prohibiting evil), both of which were ineluctable duties (fard al-`ayn/fard alkifayah) of the Muslims as commanded by Allah. Were Muslims to fail in such duties, they argued, the ruler’s despotism could mortally endanger Islam itself. [See Qajar Dynasty.]
Pahlavi Dynasty. The Qajar period was known for the contrast between the shahs’ claims to omnipotence and their actual weakness. By World War I, faced with external pressures and constant challenges to their authority by tribal chiefs, provincial governors, reforming bureaucrats, and obstreperous clergymen, the dynasty reached the brink of collapse. Iran narrowly escaped partition by Russia and Britain in 1907 and conversion into a British protectorate in 1 9 1 9, in the latter case rescued by its parliament’s refusal to back the prime minister’s endorsement of the deal.
Under these circumstances, a military leader in the Russian Cossack Brigade, Reza Khan, seized power in 1921 and made himself Iran’s strongman. In 1923, he installed himself as prime minister, and in 1925 he engineered the dissolution of the Qajar dynasty by the Constituent Assembly, followed in January 1926 by his formal elevation to the throne as Reza Shah Pahlavi. The dynasty’s watchwords were Western-style modernization and centralization of authority. Reza Shah mounted successive military campaigns against the periphery, brutally suppressing the tribes, implanting a heavyhanded state bureaucracy, and forming a standing army loyal to him.
Reza Shah’s reforms were modeled on those implemented by his neighbor and fellow ruler, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Turkey. Among them were wholesale legal changes involving the importation of European civil, criminal, and commercial law codes, and administrative centralization based on the French model. Most of the revenue from state monopolies (such as sugar and cement) were allocated to infrastructure development (especially roads and railroads) and to pay for his growing army. Unfortunately for him, private enterprise did not flourish, as financiers demurred from investing in new industries and instead directed their energies to speculation and real estate.
Reza Shah did try to secure more revenue from the British-owned and -operated Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), but in the end, he contented himself in1933 with a paltry 20 percent increase in revenues from annual profits. These added revenues were not invested in the economy, however, but were earmarked for the modernization of the shah’s military forces.
Reza Shah’s social reforms were more successful than his economic reforms, although advances were generally confined to the urban areas. The Qajars had taken some halting steps toward establishing state schools, but Reza Shah’s policies greatly accelerated their construction and the training of teachers to staff them. Admiring both the method and content of Western education, his government sponsored annual student missions to European universities to promote the study of law, economics, medicine, and engineering as an aid to the country’s modernization. Tehran University, opened in 1934, was the first institution in what was to become a national university system. Significant gains were also made with the establishment of hospitals, clinics and laboratories, the testing of foods, and the inoculation of school children against debilitating diseases. Much less successful were the shah’s efforts to abolish the veil, require the adoption of Western forms of dress, uproot the influence of the clergy in society, and streamline the operation of bureaucratic and business organizations. His policies did displace and declass the clergy, but this was only a temporary accomplishment.
The shah pointedly refused to allow any political liberalization or local autonomy. On the contrary, many who dared disagree with him, or even those whom he merely suspected, were either exiled, jailed, tortured, executed, or reported dead under suspicious circumstances. Perhaps the most famous individual to run afoul of Reza Shah’s autocracy was Mohammed Mossadegh (Muhammad Musaddiq), the future leader of the Iranian nationalist movement and prime minister from 1951 to 1953. Important clergymen, too, suffered from his tyranny. Moreover, the religious institution was not only deprived of most of its resources, but the original constitutional mandate in the 1906-1907 supplementary fundamental laws to create a committee of mujtahids to ensure the conformity of parliamentary acts with ShN law was never implemented.
In summary, Reza Shah tried to westernize the country through fiat. He gained the grudging respect of some, but his state was not securely rooted in any particular social class. The ease with which he was forced to abandon the throne underscores the narrow base of his rule.
Reza Shah, mindful of the weakness of the Qajars in their submission to the great powers, was a nationalist who yearned to end foreign domination of Iran. As World War II approached, he permitted German agents to agitate against British interests in the south, especially in the oil fields. He followed this line not because he was sympathetic to Nazi ideology and conduct (although he undoubtedly admired what he perceived to be the Germans’ “Prussian discipline”) but for tactical reasons: to neutralize British influence. However, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 sealed his fate. In September, British and Soviet troops invaded Iran and forced his abdication.
As with the first global war, World War II devastated Iran’s economy. But politically this period witnessed liberalization. Political prisoners were released, the press grew freer, a more vital parliament emerged, and political parties arose. However, the landed aristocracy, a sodality left virtually intact by Reza Shah, retained its power and privileges. The new shah, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, inexperienced and uncertain of himself, was a mere figurehead beholden to the British. Nonetheless, he succeeded in invigorating his ties with the army and, in 1949, oversaw the creation of a docile upper chamber (the Senate) in parliament that would support him against his critics, a move many regard to have been a virtual coup d’etat.
Later in the same year a coalition was formed of nationalist groups known as the National Front, led by Mossadegh and ardently seeking the nationalization of the hated AIOC, a concession that symbolized British hegemony in Iran. As head of the oil commission in parliament, Mossadegh shepherded the nationalization bill to passage. At this point, the prime minister resigned, and public opinion compelled the reluctant shah to appoint Mossadegh as premier. The latter immediately moved to implement the nationalization decree and at once became involved in a bitter dispute with the British government, the AIOC’s majority owner.
London, under American pressure, first tried negotiation, but it concomitantly embargoed Iranian terminals and threatened would-be purchasers with dire consequences. Mossadegh sought to overcome the embargo’s effects by relying on nonoil exports, but these added only a fraction of the revenues needed to fund his programs. Meanwhile, his National Front coalition began to unravel, as leftists upbraided the prime minister for playing up to the Americans, while the clergy feared that he was falling under the sway of the communists. If Mossadegh had been able to secure revenues from other sources, he would likely have headed off catastrophe. The Truman Administration encouraged negotiation between Iran and Britain and generally distanced itself from London’s hardline position. However, the Eisenhower Administration abandoned its predecessor’s evenhandedness, believing that Moscow was controlling events in Iran. Furthermore, Eisenhower believed that an Iranian victory would set a precedent against Western oil interests, despite the fact that the precedent had already been set in the Mexican oil nationalizations of 1938. Eisenhower rejected Mossadegh’s request for a loan and secretly planned with the British to overthrow him.
As the crisis unfolded, Mossadegh was also challenging the shah over authority to control the military. Mossadegh invoked the Constitution, whereas the shah cited his father’s role in creating the army. With covert U.S. and British backing, a coup d’etat was mounted against Mossadegh: Unfortunately for him, a key group within the National Front, led by Ayatollah Abol-Qasem Kashani (Abu al-Qasim Kashani; d. 1962), abandoned him and went over to the royalists. Kashani accused Mossadegh of being a dictator and condemned his request for extraordinary powers, his suspension of the 1952 elections in the countryside to prevent procourt landowners from winning any more seats, and his requirement that those opposed to him in the July 1953 referendum (on extending his extraordinary powers) must go to special precincts to vote no. Weakened by great-power pressures from without and internal crises from within, Mossadegh’s government fell to the conspirators in August 1953. [See the biography of Kashani.]
This action earned the shah and the West the bitter hostility of many Iranians. Nothing seemed more symbolic of the shah’s dependence on the British and Americans than their role in restoring him to his throne after his panic flight to Rome at the onset of the coup. Upon his reinstallation, the shah began to rule as an absolute autocrat. In the early 1960s, the Kennedy Administration urged him to implement reforms to gain popular support. He reluctantly agreed to do so only after it became clear to him that Iranian politicians in his own state bureaucracy, who were more responsive to the need for reforms than he, were gaining independent stature and popularity among the people.
The keystone of the shah’s program was land reform, begun in the early 1960s and completed in the early 1970s. Scholars are divided as to the net impact of these reforms. Some believe that they merely served to replace the traditional aristocracy with the state in rural areas and were never intended to benefit the peasants. Others hold that a significant number of families obtained enough land to render them viable freeholders and thus to rescue themselves from destitution. Since the accuracy of these competing claims depends on the kinds of data one uses, it is not easy to make a conclusive assessment. It seems, however, that the great majority of landless peasants at the start of the reform (sometimes estimated to be half the population of rural Iran at that time) ended up still having no land.
During this period (1961-1963) professionals, intellectuals, elements of the bureaucracy, and the clergy and its supporters were engaged in collective protest. The secular opposition attacked the shah’s violation of the Constitution in suspending parliament without calling for new elections. The clergy protested aspects of the monarch’s reform program-the “White Revolution”-particularly women’s suffrage and land reform. Some clergymen believed that any putatively meaningful reform the shah sponsored was a sham, because he would ensure its subversion to keep his power. Others, however, undoubtedly feared losing either their own lands or their administration of waqf (religious mortmain). Virtually all clerics maintained that enfranchising women would bring them into public arenas and endanger their modesty and virtue.
In March and June 1963 major clashes between students and the army broke out at Tehran University and the seminary in Qom, and Ayatollah Khomeini, then one of several marja` al-taglids, publicly and bitterly attacked the shah for unleashing his forces against the `ulama’, for his dependence on the United States, and for his commercial and intelligence cooperation with Israel. In October 1964, Khomeini openly accused the shah of restoring the hated capitulations by compelling his hand-picked parliament to pass, at Washington’s request, an amendment to the Status of Forces Agreement with the United States. This amendment extended the protections of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Immunity to U.S. armed-forces personnel, their families, and any employees working for those families. The bill was so unpopular that even many pro-shah deputies could not vote for it, but enough deputies were rounded up to pass the measure by a narrow margin.
The regime, which had arrested Khomeini several times, reportedly was set to execute him this time but was stayed by the intervention of other marja` al-taglids. Instead, he was exiled, first going to Turkey, and then to Iraq, where he was to stay for about fourteen years. Although the regime survived the disturbances of 1961-1963, in retrospect they marked the beginning of the end of the Pahlavi dynasty.
Before its collapse, however, the monarchy appeared to be invulnerable. Economic growth in the 1960s and early 1970s was enviably high, reaching as high as io percent per year. The shah finally celebrated his rule by holding his coronation in 1967, investing his wife as empress and his son as crown prince. In 1971, scandalous amounts were spent on the so-called 2,500th anniversary of the Iranian monarchy. The shah apparently felt it necessary to match this pomp with commensurate military might, including the purchase of Mi tanks, spruance-class cruisers, hovercraft, and state of the art fighter planes. All of this cost enormous sums of money. On paper at least, Iran had become the most powerful regional actor.
The fragility of the system was its dependence on oil revenues. The huge increase in oil prices after the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War enabled the shah to purchase vast quantities of weapons but also so emboldened him that he discarded carefully crafted economic planning in favor of grandiose, showcase projects, such as nuclear reactors. The state’s expenditures were so high that they fueled great rates of inflation and created major bottlenecks in the distribution system.
Meanwhile, a glut of oil worldwide led to a sudden decline in prices, caused a fiscal crisis, and forced the regime to borrow in the financial markets. The government alienated businesses by launching an antiprofiteering campaign and arresting merchants and businessmen. Inflation ate into workers’ wages, although the regime repeatedly hiked wages to prevent collective action by labor. Compounding these difficulties were mounting attacks by guerrilla groups influenced by the writings and practice of Mao Zedong and Che Guevara. Although these attacks did not threaten the existence of the regime, they did contribute to the sense of its vulnerability. Increasingly, groups in society repudiated the cultural alienation spawned by the Pahlavis’ westernization policies. The term gharbzadagi (“plagued by the West”), introduced by a well-known lay author from a prominent religious family, Jaldl Al Ahmad, became a particularly damaging charge that was used by the opposition to characterize these policies. It began to seem as though Iranians of all political hues were yearning for a reassertion of autochthonous values, which had so long been under official near-ridicule.
The shah’s awareness that he was dying from cancer, coupled with mixed signals from Washington toward the regime, encouraged the ruler’s liberal critics, especially the lawyers’ syndicate, parliament, and the press. All these factors contributed to the collective protests of late 1977 to early 1979. But by themselves, they were insufficient to overthrow the shah.
From abroad, Ayatollah Khomeini continually berated the shah and his system for their dependence on the United States, ties to Israel, and domestic policies that he believed had impoverished the masses. At the same time, Khomeini’s allies at home had established networks of mobilization and support for thousands of the urban poor population. Many of these had been driven into the cities from the countryside by landreform policies that had failed to provide sufficient credit and other resources to the peasants to keep them on the land. Newly arrived migrants in these towns were absorbed not by the institutions of the Pahlavi state nor private enterprises but by the religious solidarity associations administered by the allies of Ayatollah Khomeini from neighborhood mosques.
When it came, the shah’s overthrow was achieved not by the singleminded determination of any particular group in society but by the actions of a broad array of groups in response to a combination of factors. These included incompetent economic policies between 1973 and 1978, resentment over growing class disparities, the immobility of the state, policies that alienated industrialists and businesspeople, opportunities and willingness of key actors, especially the bazaar, to engage in largescale collective protest, inconsistent regime responses to such protest after January 1978, the organizational skills of the opposition, the willingness of the various groups in that opposition to unite behind the common objective of overthrowing the system, Khomeini’s effectiveness as a leader of the opposition, and the shah’s advancing cancer. [For biographies of Reza Shah and Muhammad Reza Shah, see under Pahlavi.]
Islamic Republic. The opposition’s victory was secured with the return of Ayatollah Khomeini from exile in February 1979. The revolutionaries did not have a blueprint, but Khomeini had already revealed his general intentions in his book The Mandate of the Jurist (Hukumat-i Islami; 1969-1970), which vindicated the clergy’s right to rule and called for the implementation of Islamic law in all areas of life. He proceeded to appoint a provisional government, although effective power lay in his own hands and in that of the Revolutionary Council, which was made up mainly of his staunch supporters.
The provisional government was forced to resign in November 1979 when Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan was accused of plotting with the United States over the future role of the shah. Just weeks earlier, on 23 October, Washington, in a fateful decision, had agreed to permit the shah to enter the United States for medical care. Many Iranians rejected this explanation, feeling instead that the Americans were preparing to restore the shah to the throne the way they had done in 1953. In a defining moment of protest, students occupied the American embassy in Tehran on 4 November 1979 and held most of its diplomats hostage until Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as president in January 1981.
Although Khomeini had not ordered the storming and capture of the embassy, after the fact he realized that the hostages could be used for at least two purposes: to humiliate the United States, and to defeat the liberals in his own regime, people he saw as insufficiently committed to his policies. The key players in this power struggle were Prime Minister Bazargan, President AbolHasan Bani Sadr, Ayatollah Muhammad Husayn Bihishti (a powerful cleric who enjoyed Khomeini’s total trust), and Bihishti’s numerous allies on the council. Bazargan and Bani Sadr were accused of being proAmerican liberals and were eventually removed from office. [See the biography of Bdzargan.]
The guerrilla groups, who had expected some reward for their role in the revolution, were the next targets of the regime. At first, the regime moved gradually against them through administrative measures designed to hamper their access to the media and encouraging street ruffians known as hizbullah to attack their rallies and property. Later, blunter methods were used, including armed clashes, arrests, torture, and executions. In the middle of all this, Iraqi forces invaded Iran in September 1980. intending to overthrow Khomeini but instead unwittingly shoring up his support among Iranians. Ten months later, in a showdown with the regime, the main guerrilla group, Mujahidin-i Khalq, began to assassinate key clergymen in the government. Many of the top leaders, including Bihishti, were killed, causing the regime to unleash a reign of terror, the bloodiest phase of which lasted for about a year and a half. [See Hizbullah, article on Hizbullah in Iran; Mujahidin, article on Mujahidini Khalq.]
In March 1979, a national plebiscite endorsed the restructuring of the political system from a monarchy to a
theocratic republic. In December 1979, another referendum approved a new constitution that gave enormous powers to the fagih (chief jurist; i.e., Khomeini). This aroused misgivings among certain senior clerics who opposed Khomeini’s doctrine of wilayat al fagih (guardianship of the jurisconsult) as usurping the prerogatives of the Hidden Imam and who believed that it could be invoked only during a temporary emergency when the normal institutions of the state had collapsed. [See Wilayat al-Faqih.] In January and March to May 1980. elections for the presidency and the parliament were held. By June 1981, Khomeini’s supporters were in charge of all the crucial institutions of the state, including the judiciary, with its numerous revolutionary courts, both civilian and military. Using these powerful instruments, supplemented by Komitehs (revolutionary committees), the religious militia known as the Pasdaran (Sipah-i Pasdaran-i Ingilab-i Islami), quasi-governmental organizations known as bunyad (“foundations”), the Society of Combatant Clergymen, and a variety of socalled popular organizations, the government crushed its critics. Among these were eminent clergymen who had come to be distressed by all the bloodshed and violence. These senior clerics were threatened, placed under house arrest, and in one case tried for treason and “defrocked” (although there is no mechanism for defrocking clergymen in Islam). [See Komiteh; Sipah-i Pasdaran-i Ingilab-i Islam-i; Bunyad.]
Despite the triumph of the members of the central clerical tendency, who appropriated for themselves the name Maktabi (i.e., adhering to the true doctrinal line), cleavages continue to divide the ruling group. Although they are generally united on cultural issues, factionalism persists over economic matters. The key to these divisions is property ownership, nationalization of trade, and land reform. Despite all the efforts of Ayatollah Khomeini and his successors to pass final legislation on these matters, they remain unresolved. Bitter disputes have persisted among the officials of the state, the government, and other agencies over the proper role of the state in the economy. Recourse to scripture has not resolved these disputes, since the scriptures themselves are open to various interpretations.
Initially, few expected the rule of the clergy to endure, but as the years passed, the regime consolidated its power, marked by the regular holding of elections for the presidency and the parliament. The war with Iraq proved extremely costly to the government, but Ayatollah Khomeini and his supporters evidently saw its continued prosecution as necessary to maintain their hold on power, an advantage that outweighed the enormous costs. In order to retain the loyalty of its hardcore support, the urban poor and the petite bourgeoisie (small shopkeepers, artisans, smallscale merchants, the self-employed), the regime has favored them with ration cards and other services. It has also maintained a steady stream of criticism of Western tahajum-i farhangi (“cultural imperialism”), which resonates well with these constituencies, who believe that their very identities have been under attack by such things as Hollywood films, rock music, teenage dating, and even Western dress.
In July 1988, the government announced its acceptance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 of 1987, imposing a cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq War. Although the cease-fire was supposed to have been followed by exchange of prisoners of war, mutual withdrawal of troops behind existing international frontiers, and the initiation of an inquiry as to who was responsible for launching the war, none of these steps has yet been completed and some not even commenced. In June 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini died, and a month later, constitutional amendments were made to eliminate the post of prime minister. ‘Ali Akbar Hashimi Rafsanjani was elected president, while ‘Ali Khamene’i was selected to replace Khomeini as rahbar (revolutionary leader).
However, since he was not even an ayatollah, the government had difficulty claiming that Khamene’i had the requisite stature to play the role of faqih. Accordingly, arguments were advanced as to why the leader did not have to be a marja` al-taqlid, namely, that a marja` altaqlid was likely to be a poor administrator, something the revolution could not afford. The press mounted a campaign to have Khamene’i recognized as a grand ayatollah (ayat Allah `uzma), but it soon dropped this and settled for the lesser appellation of ayatollah (which was still a promotion). In late 1993, the leader of the judicial branch of government, Ayatollah Muhammad Yazdi, resumed the effort to have Khamene’i recognized as a marja` al-taqlid in the wake of the deaths of three grand ayatollahs-Abfi al-Qasim Khu’i (Abol-Qasem Kho’i), Shihab al-Din Mar’ashi Najafi, and Muhammad Riza Gulpaygani. It remains to be seen whether this effort will succeed, but if it does, it will set a precedent in view of the practice since the inception of maija`iyat in the nineteenth century of designating individuals as marja` al-taqlids through popular acclamation. [See the biography of Kho’i. ]
Iran remained officially neutral in the Gulf War of 1991, although it has refused to return Iraqi planes that had flown to Iran to escape destruction by coalition forces. Tehran has not, however, prevented smuggling over the Iran-Iraq frontiers, despite UN resolutions embargoing trade with Iraq. These frontiers, however, are notoriously immune to any attempt to stop all crossings along their entire length, no matter how much effort is exerted to this end.
The Islamic Republic’s relations with most Arab states remain cool, and with Egypt in particular they are poor. The Egyptian and Algerian governments, as well as Washington, have accused Tehran of training radical Islamists from Sudan, Algeria, and Egypt in guerrilla warfare, with the purpose of overthrowing what the radicals consider un-Islamic governments and replacing them with Iranian style regimes.
In late 1993, tentative voices in the Parliament were raised calling for a restoration of ties with the United States. Even President Rafsanjani, noting that much of the machinery and infrastructure of the economy, inherited from the monarchy, had been of American manufacture, called for limited economic ties with the United States. Meanwhile, trade relations with European countries seriously declined in 1992 and 1993 because of growing defaults on credits and loans on the part of the Islamic Republic. Thus Tehran’s relations with the West overall remain troubled.
[See also Iranian Revolution of 1979; Shi’i Islam; and the biography of Khomeini. ]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Cottam, Richard W. Nationalism in Iran. Rev. ed. Pittsburgh, 1979. Examines the various strands of nationalist thought and practice in Iran under the Pahlavi shahs.
Dabashi, Hamid. Theology of Discontent. New York, 1993. Thorough investigation of the social thought of seven thinkers whose ideas were crucial to the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
Goodell, Grace. The Elementary Forms of Political Life. London and New York, 1986. Critique of the Pahlavi state’s development policies under Muhammad Reza Shah.
Halliday, Fred. Iran: Dictatorship and Development. 2d ed. Baltimore, 1979. Examination of Iranian politics from the perspective of political economy and class structure, with a focus on the Pahlavi period. Hooglund, Eric J. Land and Revolution in Iran, 1960-1980. Austin, 1982. Trenchant critique of the Shah’s land reform policies. Keddie, Nikki R. Roots of Revolution. New Haven, 1981. Overview of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Iranian history.
Lambton, Ann K. S. Qajar Persia. Austin, 1987. In-depth examination of nineteenth-century Iranian history.
Parsa, Misagh. Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution. New Brunswick, N.J., 1989. Detailed structural analysis of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, emphasizing particularly the role of the bazaar.
Zonis, Marvin. Majestic Failure. Chicago, 1991. A psychologically oriented analysis of Muhammad Reza Shah.
SHAHROuGH AKHAVI

BAZARGAN, MEHDI

Batoota — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 16:39:43 +0000

BAZARGAN, MEHDI (1 September 1907 – 20 January 1995), Iranian Muslim modernist and reformer, regarded as one of the major voices of Islamic opposition in the pre- and postrevolutionary eras. Mehdi Bazargan was born into a religious family of bazaar merchants. His elementary and secondary education in Tehran combined traditional Qur’anic learning with a modern curriculum. In 1928 he was one of the few students chosen by the government to study abroad. He studied engineering at the Ecole Centrale in Paris, returning to Iran in 1935 after receiving his doctorate. After a year of military service, he worked at the National Bank and joined the engineering faculty of Tehran University. Later in the 1930s he began a lifelong collaboration with Sayyid Mahmud Taleqani, one of the leading oppositionist clergy, spreading the message of progressive Islam. In 1939 he was imprisoned for opposing the shah’s religious policies. Since 1941, Bazargan has been instrumental in establishing various professional Islamic organizations, including Muslim student associations and the Association of Engineers.
As an ardent nationalist Bazargan was also drawn to Mohammad Mossadegh’s nationalist cause. After World War II he collaborated with Mossadegh and the National Front. Known for his honesty and integrity, he was named deputy minister in 1951, heading a committee that supervised the nationalization of Iranian oil. Subsequently he became the first chairman of the board of directors of the National Iranian Oil Company.
After the downfall of Mossadegh in the CIA-backed coup d’etat of 1953, he joined the nationalist resistance movement, Nahzat-i Muqavamat-i Milli (NMR). The NMR was crushed in 1957 and many of its leaders, including Bazargan, were imprisoned. In 1961, with Ayatollah Taleqani and Yadollah Sahabi, he founded the Liberation Movement of Iran (LMI), which called for an end to foreign domination and the restoration of constitutional and democratic rights. Their political activities brought all three men prison terms. Between 1963 and 1977, Bazargan was sentenced to several short prison terms for his political activities.
In the 1950s and 1960s Bazargan also collaborated with Ayatollah Murtaza Mutahhari, another prominent cleric, by contributing to the monthly Religious Society Lectures. Mutahhari, Taleqani, and Bazargan were among the founders of the Islamic Association of Teachers and organized its first and second national congresses.
Shortly before the emergence of massive anti shah political activism in the late 1970s, Bazargan co-founded the Human Rights Association in 1977 to defend the democratic rights of the opposition. Bazargan also played an active role in the revolution that toppled the shah, when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini sent him to organize the oil workers’ strikes in mid-1978. In February 1979 Khomeini appointed him as the first prime minister of the provisional government, but in November of that year he resigned complaining of powerlessness and multiple centers of power and more specifically over the seizure of the American embassy on 4 November 1979. Bazargan was also a member of the Council of the Islamic Revolution and was elected to the first parliament in 198o as a representative for Tehran. In the early 1980s when the Islamic Republic launched a major assault on the opposition, Bazargan’s LMI was the only political group that escaped suppression. Although tolerated as a loyal opposition, LMI members were often imprisoned and harassed. Disillusioned with the policies of the Islamic Republic in general and the suppression of democratic rights in particular, Bazargan cofounded the Association for the Defense of the Freedom and Sovereignty of the Iranian Nation (ADFSIN) in 1984. In the early 1990s Bazargan was active in both the LMI and ADFSIN.
Throughout his political career Bazargan has attempted to reconcile Shi’i theology with the modern world and his own democratic aspirations. His politics represent a synthesis of nationalism, gradualism, liberalism, and Islam. These attributes distinguished him from the traditionalist clergy, such as Khomeini, and the radical Islamists, such as ‘Ali Shari’ati. Whereas Shari`ati’s firebrand rhetoric galvanized the youth and Khomeini articulated the resentment of the underprivileged and the traditional social groups, Bazargan’s appeal was confined to more enlightened members of the traditional middle class. By the time the revolutionary mass movement erupted, Bazargan’s political reformism was out of step with the revolutionary fervor of the masses. Bazargan’s liberalism and gradualism had a wider appeal in the 1950s when Mossadegh’s liberalism and his parliamentary method of political struggle captured the imagination of the postwar generation. But by the mid-1960’s and early 1970s, because of the radicalizing impact of such global events as the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cuban revolutions on Iranian youth, Bazargan’s reformist political program and his liberal rendition of Islam seemed increasingly irrelevant to them. The generation of the 1960s had no memory of Mossadegh’s liberal nationalism; rather, it was inspired by a radical vision that attributed the defeat of Mossadegh to his parliamentary method of political struggle. Some of the founding members of Mujahidin-i Khalq, a guerrilla organization that fought against the shah’s regime and the Islamic Republic, began their political careers as members of the LMI, many joining the party in 1963; by 1965, inspired by the example of armed struggle, they founded their own political party. Therefore, the moderate LMI did not greatly grow in strength throughout the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
Iranian Revolution
On 4 February 1979, after the revolution forced the Shah to leave Iran, Bazargan was appointed prime minister of Iran by Ayatollah Khomeini. He was seen as one of the democratic and liberal figureheads of the revolution who came into conflict with the more radical religious leaders – including Ayatollah Khomeini himself – as the revolution progressed. Although pious, Bazargan initially disputed the name Islamic Republic, wanting an Islamic Democratic Republic. He had also been a supporter of the original (non-theocratic) revolutionary draft constitution, and opposed the Assembly of Experts for Constitution and the constitution they wrote that was eventually adopted as Iran’s constitution.
Bazargan resigned along with his cabinet on 4 November following the US Embassy takeover and hostage-taking. His resignation was considered a protest against the hostage-taking and a recognition of his government’s inability to free the hostages, but it was also clear that his hopes for liberal democracy and an accommodation with the West would not prevail.
Bazargan continued in Iranian politics as a member of the first Parliament (Majles) of the newly formed Islamic Republic. He openly opposed Iran’s Cultural Revolution and continued to advocate civil rule and democracy. In November 1982 he expressed his frustration with the direction the Islamic Revolution had taken in an open letter to the then speaker of parliament Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
The government has created an atmosphere of terror, fear, revenge and national disintegration. … What has the ruling elite done in nearly four years, besides bringing death and destruction, packing the prisons and the cemeteries in every city, creating long queues, shortages, high prices, unemployment, poverty, homeless people, repetitious slogans and a dark future?
In 1985 the Council of Guardians denied Bazargan’s petition to run for president. He died of a heart attack on 20 January 1995 while traveling from Tehran to Zurich, Switzerland.
Bazargan is considered to be a respected figure within the ranks of modern Muslim thinkers, well known as a representative of liberal-democratic Islamic thought and a thinker who has emphasized the necessity of constitutional and democratic policies. He opposed the continuation of Iran-Iraq war and the involvement of clerics in all aspects of politics, economy and society. Consequently, he faced harassment from militants and young revolutionaries within Iran.
Bazargan is noted for having done some of the first work in human thermodynamics, as found in his 1946 chapter “A Physiological Analysis of Human Thermodynamics” and his 1956 book Love and Worship: Human Thermodynamics, the latter of which being written while in prison, in which he attempted to show that religion and worship are a byproduct of evolution, as explained in English naturalist Charles Darwin’s 1859 Origin of Species, and that the true laws of society are based on the laws of thermodynamics.
[See also Iranian Revolution of 1979; Liberation Movement of Iran; and the biographies of Mutahhari and Taleqdni. ]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bazargan, Mehdi. Mudafa’at dar dadgah-i ghayr-i salih-i tajdid-i nazari nizami. Tehran, 1971. Good biographical source on Bazargan’s personal life and political career.
Bazargan, Mehdi. Rah-i Tayy shudah. Houston, 1977. Reflects on the political problems of Iranian society, including the role of opposition groups under the Pahlavis, and proposes remedies to overcome them.
Bazargan, Mehdi. Bazyabi-i arzishha. Tehran, 1983. Provides an interesting perspective on the evolution of Bazargan’s Islamic modernism.
Bazargan, Mehdi. Inqilab-i Iran dar du harakat. Tehran, 1984. Analysis of the Iranian Revolution and the postrevolutionary situation, from the political perspective of the Liberation Movement of Iran. Chehabi, H. E. Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini. Ithaca, N.Y., 1990 One of the best studies available to date on Bazargan and the Liberation Movement of Iran.

AYATOLLAH.

Batoota — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 09:21:08 +0000

AYATOLLAH. Derived from the terms dyat (sign, testimony, miracle, verses of the Qur’an) and Allah (God), ayatollah (“sign of God”), is an honorific title with hierarchical value in Twelver Imamite Shiism, bestowed by popular usage on outstanding mujtahids, with reference to Qur’an 41.53. The sense of this title can be traced to the need for legitimacy sought by the Shi`i `ulama’ during the absence of the twelfth imam, the Master of the Age, in the end of the greater occultation, from 94o to the end of time. Its attribution reflects the socioreligious environment prevailing in the Qajar period (1796-1925). The title was not in use among the Shi’is of Lebanon, Pakistan, or India and remained restricted in Iraq to mujtahids of Iranian origin. An imitation of the title zill Allah (“shadow of God”) traditionally applied to Persian Islamic rulers, which was confirmed by the use of dyat Allah zadah (“son of ayatollah”), a counterpart of shah zadah (“son of the shah”), has also been proposed as the origin of the title (Matini, 1983).
The attribution of this title seems to have coincided with crucial moments of influence of Twelver Shiism in Iran. Its first reputed bearer, Ibn al-Mutahhar al-Hilli (d. 1325), converted the Mongol Il-khan Oljeitu Muhammad Khudabandah (r. 1304-1317) to Twelver Shiism. He was styled ayat Allah fi al-`alamayn (ayatollah in the two worlds), in addition to his best-known title of al-`Allama’ (i.e:, “the most learned”; this became an essential requisite for a marja` al-taqlid, a “source of emulation” in the Qajar period). But this case remained an exception. Although the modern bio-hagiographical Shi’i literature sometimes applies retrospectively titles such as marja` al-taglid or ayatollah to pre Qajar `ulama’, this is historically groundless. Former Safavid and even Qajar Shi i titles were styled differently. Most titles were related to the functions of the mujtahid, such as: mujtahid al-zaman (mujtahid of the age); khatam al-mujtahidin (“seal of mujtahidin”); shaykh al-mujtahidin (“dean of mujtahidin”), and so forth. Except for the functional title of marja` al-taglid, other titles were related to Islam, such as thiqat al-Islam (“trustee of Islam”) and hujjat al-Islam (“proof of Islam”).
The general use of the title appears in the late Qajar period. It is mentioned in a pamphlet against the `ulama’ (see Hajj Sayyah, Khaterat, Tehran, AH 1346/ 1930 CE, p. 338; text written between the 1870s and 1910s). Among its earlier modern bearers one may find religious/political leaders of the constitutional revolution of 1905 to 1911, Sayyids `Abd Allah Bihbahani (d. 1910) and Muhammad Tabataba’i (d. 1918). But anti-constitutionalist mujtahids were also called ayatollah, and a spiritual leader, `Abd al-Karim Ha’iri-Yazdi (d. 1937) founder of the new theological center of Qom, is said to be the first mujtahid to bear this title. Titles such as dyat Allah ft al-anam (“ayatollah among mankind”), or ft al-`alamayn (“in the two worlds”), or ft al-ward (“among mortals”) also appeared from the time of the constitutional revolution.
Besides being a fully qualified mujtahid, an aspiring ayatollah must assert his authority over both his peers and his followers. As shown by recent research on Shi`i leadership (Amanat, 1988), to the prerequisite notion of a`lamiyat (“superiority in learning”) must be added the often overlooked concept of riyasat (“leadership”) that is solidified by popular acclamation and payment of religious taxes. Although contributing to centralizing clerical authority, riyasat also meant clerical leadership over specific communities (e.g., Arab, Turkish, or Persianspeaking groups in Iraqi Shi’i sanctuaries, the `atabat [see `Atabat]).
With the appearance of such outstanding figures as Mohammad Hosayn Borujerdi (d. 1962), who emerged as the sole marja` al-taglid, and the religious political leader Abol-Qasem Kashani (d. 1962), the title ayatollah became increasingly common and ubiquitous. Losing its initial prestige, it even came to be applied, against their own usage, to Sunni religious dignitaries. The leading ayatollah of his time came to be designated by the elative ayatullah al-usma (“grand ayatollah”, i.e., the supreme mujtahid or marja al-taglid), the first bearer of the title being Borujerdi. A kind of restricted college of ayatollahs, in Qom, decided on his nomination. A further debasement of even this higher title occurred with the application of the title imam to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989), quite unusual for Twelver Shi’i (see Matins, 1983, p. 603f.).
At the time of Borujerdi’s death there was a great discussion among prominent mujtahids, ayatollahs, and Shi’i laymen regarding the role of the marja al-taglid and his function. Among the views discussed was the idea, formerly favored by `Abd al-Karim Ha’irs-Yazdi, that the concept of a sole marja` al-taglid be abandoned. Each mujtahid should then specialize in a field and be followed in that field. Another idea was that a council of mujtahids should be sharing leadership. In practice, there was a split in the leadership, outstanding ayatollahs and maraji` al-taglid being established in the main centers of learning (Mashhad and Qom in Iran; Najaf in Iraq). After rivaling Qom from the 1960s until the mid1970s, Mashhad declined in importance. After the events of 1963, Ayatollah Khomeini emerged as one of the top-ranking maraji` al-taglid, although Muhsin al-Hakim (supported by the shah) had a large following in Iraq.
Although Shi`i `ulama’ were traditionally reluctant to structure their leadership, as a result of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, by 1980 a sort of seven-degree hierarchy was established: talabah (“student”); thiqat al-Islam (title formerly given to higher ranking mujtahids); hujjat al-Islam; hujjat al-Islam wa al-muslimin; ayatullah; ayatullah al-`uzma; nayib-i imam (“lieutenant of the Imam”). The latter title reflects the assumption of both temporal and spiritual power by Khomeini. The concept of niyabat (general vicegerency of the Hidden Imam) was until then purely theoretical in Twelver Shiism. Despite its devaluation, a growing number of mujtahids bore the title ayatollah. A decree from Khomeini (September 1984) stated that certain persons calling themselves ayatollah should henceforth be called hujjat al-Islam.
With the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran (1979), a leading role was attributed to prominent ayatollahs. But some of them reluctantly accepted or even objected or opposed the application of Khomeini’s theory of vilayat-i fagih (wilayat al fagih; mandate of the jurist), the most prominent opponent being Shari-at Madari (d. 1986), demoted from the rank of grand ayatollah in 1982. One of the leading opponents, Ayatollah Abol-Qasem Kho’i (Abu al-Qasim Khu’i, d. 1992) had many followers. After Khomeini’s death, Sayyid ‘Ali Khamene’i became the vali-i faqih (leading theologian), while Ayatollah Husayn `Ali Muntaziri, initially nominated by Khomeini as his spiritual heir (and ratified by the Assembly of Experts, or shura yi khibrigan, in 1985), only to be dismissed by Khomeini in 1989, is still waiting a general acknowledgment of his title of dyatulldh al-`uzma at the top of the hierarchy.
[See also Ijtihad; Marja` al-Taqlid; Mujtahid; and Iran; in addition, many of the figures mentioned are the subjects of independent entries.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Akhavi, Shahrough. Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran. New York, 1980.
Algar, Hamid. “Ayatollah.” In Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 3, fasc. 2, p. 133. New York and London, 1982-. See related bibliography. Amanat, Abbas. “In Between the Madrasa and the Marketplace: The Designation of Clerical Leadership in Modern Shi’ism.” In Authority and Political Culture in Shi’ism, edited by Said Amir Arjomand, pp. 98-132. New York, 1988.
Arjomand, Said Amir. The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam. Chicago and London, 1984.
Arjomand, Said Amir. “Ideological Revolution in Shi’ism.” In Authority and Political Culture in Shi`ism, edited by Said Amir Arjomand, pp. 178-209. New York, 1988.
Arjomand, Said Amir. The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran. New York and Oxford, 1988.
Bakhash, Shaul. The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution. London, 1986.
Calmard, Jean. “Ayatullah.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., Supplement, pp. 103-104. Leiden, i96o-. See related bibliography. Calmard, Jean. “Mardja’i-taklid.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., vol. 6, pp. 548-556. Leiden, i96o-. See related bibliography. Calmard, Jean. “Mudjtahid.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., vol. 7, pp. 295-304. Leiden, i96o-. See related bibliography.
Fisher, M. M. J. Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution. Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1980.
Matini, J. “Spiritual Titles in Iranian Shi’ism” (Persian). Iran Nameh 1.4 (1983): 560-608.
Momen, Moojan. An Introduction to Shi`i Islam. New Haven and London, 1985.
JEAN CALMARD