1979 toppled a Shah and enthroned a jurist's republic
The Iranian or Islamic Revolution of 1979 replaced Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's Imperial State with Ruhollah Khomeini's Islamic Republic. A CIA–MI6 1953 coup had restored the Shah after Mossadegh nationalized oil; the 1963 White Revolution's top-down reforms alienated clergy and fed Khomeini's exile critique after 1964.
Clerical power in Iranian politics had surfaced long before. In March 1890 Nasir al-Din Shah handed a British major, G. F. Talbot, a fifty-year monopoly over tobacco, an industry employing more than 200,000 people. A fatwa from Mirza Hasan Shirazi set off a nationwide boycott, and within two years the shah cancelled the deal. The Constitutional Revolution of 1905 to 1911 then created a parliament, the Majlis, and a first constitution, weakening Qajar autocracy without building a strong replacement.
Out of the resulting disorder rose Reza Khan, commander of the Persian Cossack Brigade, who seized power in February 1921, deposed the last Qajar ruler in 1925 and became Reza Shah, founder of the Pahlavi line. His reforms swapped Islamic law for Western codes and banned traditional dress, including the veil, with police tearing chadors from women who resisted, measures that stored up resentment.
Explanations for the upheaval vary. Some stress a backlash against forced Westernisation, raised expectations after the 1973 oil windfall, and a sharp economic contraction in 1977 and 1978; others emphasise shortages, inflation and a shah seen as beholden to Washington, whose support may have cooled under Jimmy Carter. Supporters cast Khomeini in the mould of the Imam Husayn and the shah as the tyrant Yazid, while the shah's advisers dismissed the Islamist movement as minor. A turning point came on 19 August 1978, when militants set the Cinema Rex fire that killed around 400 people.
The March 1979 referendum reportedly drew 98 percent approval for an Islamic republic, and a new constitution followed. The speed of the change and the exile it produced still shape much of the Iranian diaspora.
Source: Iranian Revolution
