The Decisive Factor Of The Iranian Revolution

Islam: The Decisive Factor of the Iranian Revolution “The First day of the government of God” – Ayatollah Khomeini On March 30, 1979, after the Iranian Revolution, which is also known as the Islamic Revolution, 97% of the Iranians in the country voted in the national referendum for the establishment of an Islamic Republic. During the Iranian Revolution, Islam, which appeared in Iran after the Islamic conquest in 637 B.C., played a huge role in motivating the Iranians to fight against the Shah. Islam is the decisive factor that generated Iranians to start the Iranian Revolution against the Shah, who tried to inhibit the influence of the Islamic base in Iran through modernization. This led to the Iranian Revolution started by Muslims, purposed
After Reza Shah Pahlavi, the last shah’s father, established the policies toward Islamic culture, Sattareh Farman Farmajan, an Iranian activist, said in an interview in 1936 about the policies of banning women’s veil that, “To allow strange men to gape at his wives in public was shameful in the extreme…. To my mother, it was exactly as if he had insisted that she parade naked in the street.” (?) This shows that Reza Shah Pahlavi attempted to use policies to get rid of Islamic culture. However, Sattareh Farman Farmain claimed that veils, as part of the Islamic dress code, already influenced most Muslims’ thinking like her and her family. This made them feel awkward when women could not wear veils. Farmain’s words emphasized the conflict between Islamic culture and the modernization ideas the Shah promoted, which eventually angered the Iranians and led to the revolution. Also, during the White Revolution Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah, started, “The Shah sought to limit or coopt the influence of the Shi'a clerics(ulama) through such measures as seizing their religious endowments (waqf), closing their schools and harassing, imprisoning and exiling the defiant ones.” The White Revolution is a modernization movement that mainly affected Muslims since the
When a researcher in China institute of International Studies describes his experience in Iran as an ambassador to Iran, he said that, “An article that was published in Newspaper of Iran in 1978 triggered an enormous protest against the Shah. The article blasphemed Khomeini, the leader of Islam in Iran. Therefore, from January 7th to 9th, thousands of theological students objected the Shah in Kum, the holy city of Islam, and was repressed. This caused 70 deaths and 400 injuries. The even in Kum ignited the flame of the Iranian Revolution between 1978-1979.” For Muslims in Iran, Islam was their belief and Khomeini was the religious leader the Islamic symbol, which were untouchable. Therefore, the belief of thousands of theological students motivated them to protect Khomeini in order to protect Islam from being offended by criticizes. Eventually, when the Shah repressed the students and caused injuries, more Iranians involved and the Iranian Revolution occurred. Besides, the Iranian Revolution, in Iranians perspective, was a war to protect their Islamic belief. Ali, an Iranian who experienced the 1979 revolution, reflected it many years later that, “We all thought [the] revolution was something beautiful, done by God, something like music, like a concert. It was as though we were in a theater, watching a concert, and we were