251 The Islamic Republic of Iran
34.5.3: The Islamic Republic of Iran
After the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the Shah’s pro-Western, autocratic monarchy was replaced by an Islamic Republic based on the principle of rule by Islamic jurists, which reversed most of the modernization and secularization of the prior regime.
Learning Objective
Compare the Islamic Republic with the government under the Shah
Key Points
- The 1979 Iranian Revolution brought about the Islamic Republic of Iran, marking a major shift in the country’s political structure, foreign policy, legal system, and culture.
- The leader of the revolution and founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was Iran’s supreme leader until his death in 1989; this era was dominated by the consolidation of the revolution into a theocratic republic under Khomeini and by the costly and bloody war with Iraq.
- While the revolution brought about some re-Islamization of Iran, particularly in terms of personal appearance—beards, hijab—it has not prompted a reversal of all modernization or a return to traditional patterns of family life.
- The new government began purging itself of the non-Islamist political opposition and of those Islamists who were not considered radical enough.
- The Leader of the Revolution (“Supreme Leader”), who is as much a religious leader as a political one, is responsible for delineation and supervision of the general policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
- On November 4, 1979, a group of Muslim students seized the United States Embassy and took 52 personnel and citizens hostage after the United States refused to return Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to Iran to face trial in the court of the new regime and all but certain execution. This event, known as the Iran hostage crisis, lasted 444 days.
Key Terms
- Iran hostage crisis
- A diplomatic standoff between Iran and the United States in which 52 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981, after a group of Iranian students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line, who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. It is the longest hostage crisis in recorded history.
- Islamic Republic
- The name given to several states in countries ruled by Islamic laws. Despite the similar name, their governments and laws substantially differ. The term “Islamic republic” has come to mean several different things, some contradictory. To some Muslim religious leaders in the Middle East and Africa who advocate it, this type of state is under a particular Islamic form of government. They see it as a compromise between a purely Islamic caliphate and secular nationalism and republicanism. In their conception, the penal code of the state must be compatible with some or all laws of Sharia, and the state may not be a monarchy as many Middle Eastern states are presently.
- theocratic
- A form of government in which a deity is the sourc