This is part one of a three part series on the Iranian Revolution and its impact on the Middle East.
Part One – Part Two – Part Three
In his famous address to the Shah on New Years Eve, US President Carter referred to Iran as “an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world”. On this day, the people of Iran, a majority Muslim country, saw their leader drinking alcohol and observing a ‘Western’ day of celebration, while the leader of the ‘Western world’ was receiving royal hospitality in the palace of Niavaran. Though this is a merely symbolic insight, it exemplified the Shah’s role to the Iranian nation and to the world on the last evening of 1977 – a few weeks before the major demonstrations commenced nationwide and the “island of stability” was flooded by the masses surrounding it. This Islam-fuelled movement, that ended 2500 years of Monarchy on Iranian soil, shook the world and affected the international relations of the region to an unprecedented extent. The Iranian Revolution undoubtedly brought the relevance and popular strength of Islamism to the forefront of political discourse and strategy in the world. It subsequently changed the political approach that the United States utilised, and ultimately inherited from their “imperial” predecessor – the United Kingdom. However, for the region in particular, the Islamic movement initiated a political and social rivalry under the banner of a “century old” Sunni and Shi’a divide – drawing back onto the very basis of the Shi’a narrative at Karbala: the corrupt autocratic Umayyads versus the righteous and divine bloodline of the prophet Muhammad.
Almost immediately prior to the 1979 revolution, the status of Iran within the international political sphere could be characterised as firstly: western compliant and secondly: western directed. Iran was a major, if not the most reliable, foothold to the US in the Middle East since the Pahlavi dynasty began, and most certainly since the re-establishment of the absolute monarchy in 1953. Nevertheless, that reliance and trust was not apparent in the popular masses of Iran, as their grievances towards Western dominance and its implications were embodied by Muhammad Reza Shah.
“The Iranian Revolution was an inspiration based on the path to justice through Islam, demonstrating the transcendence of sectarianism with regards to the political narratives deeply enshrined in Islamic history.”
Over a million Iranians marched on the streets of Tehran, demanding the fall of the Shah and declared their opposition by chanting “death to America!” to the hinderers of the attempted revolt in 1953. From the Bazaaris and the Ulama to university intellectuals and even Chador wearing feminists, the Pahlavi dynasty was successful to install grievances into the bulk of the Iranian population.
If it is minor and more symbolic matters such as changing the Islamic calendar to an Imperial one or more significant issues such as implementing radical secular changes through the white revolution, limiting freedom of speech or simply monitoring the Iranian population through SAVAK, almost every group had been affected in some way by the Iranian leadership . Nonetheless, the significance of this opposition to the Shah is its dissimilarity, and the property that united them in spite of those dissimilarities.
What united the Enghelabis of varying demographics, such as academics and religious fundamentalists, socialists and feminists, was their opposition to the Shah, but more significantly: the values and political narratives of Islamic history.
Though ideological differences or even clashes were existent, Khomeini’s ability to express the grievances of the population ultimately empowered this movement through an ‘Islamic framework’. With the Iranian Revolution the world witnessed how Islam was used as a political tool against the long-bearded western dominance successfully, for the first time. This was unprecedented and was unlike other Islamist movements, e.g. Jaamat-e-Islami or Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, that had failed to exile the West’s dominance and usher in a ‘people’s regime’ to the extent that the Iranians had achieved.
In light of the broad demographic makeup and the uniting force of ‘Islam’, the Iranian Revolution and other Islamist movements are, in reality, based on an Islamic justification, rather than an Islamic cause: this means that the root of their opposition lays not in the ‘inherently political nature of Islam’, but rather is entrenched and initiated by discontent which then is merely justified through a divine or holy struggle – an armed or unarmed revolt.
The immediate goal of Iranians (though in favour of an Islamic leadership as seen in the 1979 referendum) was to overthrow the Shah, rather than establish a theocratic regime, which within months unfolded to be another elite-leadership – with later ironic parallels such as the Revolutionary Guard resembling SAVAK, and a Supreme Leader holding similar powers to the toppled Shah-in-Shah.
“The goal of Iranians was to overthrow the Shah, rather than establish a theocratic regime, which within months unfolded to be another elite-leadership”
The uproar successful in overthrowing one of the many autocratic monarchs and dictators of the Middle East, amongst King Hussein of Jordan, King Khalid Al Saud, but also Anwar Sadat, heightened the hopes of grass-roots Islamist movements of the region. Thus, the concerns were now shared by the United States, but likewise (yet less so) by the region’s autocrats. Propagated by Sunni leaders in Egypt and suspected due to Khomeini’s “language of universal revolution”, frankly the concern for the region and Capitol Hill subsequent to the Islamic Revolution was its “export”.
These concerns were rather “exaggerated” through the “Iranian expansionist rhetoric coupled with a lack of understanding regarding the Shi’a Revolution” on the side of the US. Nonetheless, this does not deny the significance and the precedent set for the Islamic, and thus “indigenous”, people power in the region, extending to Arab Africa and Afghanistan.
An inspiration based on the path to justice through Islam (rather than the Shi’a narrative followed in Iran). Observable in the Islamist resistance to the Communists Invasion of Afghanistan (Sunni, also Shi’a Mujahedeen), the assassination of Sadat in Egypt, the disruptions caused by Islamists in Algeria and the direct support of Iran to Islamic Jihad and Hamas, all within the 1980’s – Demonstrating the transcendence of sectarianism with regards to political narratives enshrined in Islamic history.
This is part one of a three part series on the Iranian Revolution and its impact on the Middle East.
