Iran Revolution

Extracted Attributes

• Location

  Iran

• Key Ideology

  Velyat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist)

• Primary Outcome

  Establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran

• Alternative Name

  Islamic Revolution

• Defense Budget Increase

  800 percent increase in the early 1970s

• Referendum Approval Rate

  98% in favor of an Islamic republic

Timeline

• CIA- and MI6-backed coup reinstates the Shah as an absolute monarch, increasing U.S. influence. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1953-08-19

• The Shah launches the White Revolution, a modernization and land reform program that alienates the clergy. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1963-01-01

• Ruhollah Khomeini is exiled from Iran following his criticism of the regime. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1964-11-04

• Anti-government demonstrations begin, marking the start of the revolutionary movement. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1977-10-01

• The Cinema Rex fire kills approximately 400 people; the public blames SAVAK, intensifying mobilization. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1978-08-19

• Black Friday: Security forces open fire on protesters in Tehran, causing significant casualties. (Source: Stanford University)

  1978-09-08

• Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi leaves Iran for exile. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1979-01-16

• Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Tehran from exile and is greeted by millions. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1979-02-01

• The Iranian monarchy is officially brought down as rebel forces overwhelm Pahlavi loyalists. (Source: Britannica)

  1979-02-11

• A national referendum is held, resulting in overwhelming approval for an Islamic republic. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1979-03-30

• Ruhollah Khomeini becomes the Supreme Leader of Iran following the adoption of a new constitution. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1979-12-01

Iranian Revolution

The Iranian Revolution or the Islamic Revolution was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Imperial State of Iran by the Islamic Republic of Iran, as the monarchical government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was superseded by Ruhollah Khomeini, an Islamist cleric who had headed one of the rebel factions. The ousting of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, formally marked the end of Iran's historical monarchy. In 1953, the CIA- and MI6-backed 1953 Iranian coup d'état overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, who had nationalized the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. The coup reinstated Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as an absolute monarch and significantly increased United States influence over Iran. In the early 1970s, Iran’s defense budget increased 800 percent over four to five years which contributed to severe economic instability and social disruption. The Shah’s regime grew increasingly authoritarian; those who spoke out were often arrested or tortured by the Shah's secret police SAVAK. Additionally in 1963, the Shah had launched the White Revolution, a top-down modernization and land reform program that alienated many sectors of society, especially the clergy. Khomeini emerged as a vocal critic and was exiled in 1964. However, as ideological tensions persisted between Pahlavi and Khomeini, anti-government demonstrations began in October 1977, developing into a campaign of civil resistance that included communists, socialists, and Islamists. Mass protests were underway. A key turning point occurred in August 1978, when the Cinema Rex fire by Islamic militants killed around 400 people. However a large portion of the public believed it was a false flag operation by SAVAK to discredit the opposition and justify a crackdown, fueling nationwide outrage and mobilization. By the end of 1978, the revolution had become a broad-based uprising that paralyzed the country for the remainder of that year. On 16 January 1979, Pahlavi went into exile as the last Iranian monarch, leaving his duties to Iran's Regency Council and Shapour Bakhtiar, the opposition-based prime minister. On 1 February 1979, Khomeini returned, following an invitation by the government; several million greeted him as he landed in Tehran. By 11 February, the monarchy was brought down and Khomeini assumed leadership while guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed Pahlavi loyalists in armed combat. Following the March 1979 Islamic Republic referendum, in which 98% approved the shift to an Islamic republic, the new government began drafting the present-day constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran; Khomeini emerged as the Supreme Leader of Iran in December 1979. The revolution was fueled by widespread perceptions of the Shah's regime as corrupt, repressive, and overly reliant on foreign powers, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom. Many Iranians felt that the Shah's government was not acting in the best interests of the Iranian people and that it was too closely aligned with Western interests, especially at the expense of Iranian sovereignty and cultural identity. However others perceived the success of the revolution as being unusual, since it lacked many customary causes of revolutionary sentiment, e.g. defeat in war, financial crisis, peasant rebellion, or disgruntled military. It occurred in a country experiencing relative prosperity, produced profound change at great speed, and resulted in a massive exile that characterizes a large portion of Iranian diaspora, and replaced a pro-Western secular and authoritarian monarchy with an anti-Western Islamic republic based on the concept of Velâyat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), straddling between authoritarianism and totalitarianism. In addition to declaring the destruction of Israel as a core objective, post-revolutionary Iran aimed to undermine the influence of Sunni leaders in the region by supporting Shi'ite political ascendancy and exporting Khomeinist doctrines abroad. In the aftermath of the revolution, Iran began to back Shia militancy across the region, to combat Sunni influence and establish Iranian dominance in the Arab world, ultimately aiming to achieve an Iranian-led Shia political order.

Web Search Results

• Iranian Revolution - Wikipedia

  The Iranian Revolution or the Islamic Revolution was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Imperial State of Iran by the Islamic Republic of Iran, as the monarchical government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was superseded by Ruhollah Khomeini, an Islamist cleric who had headed one of the rebel factions. The ousting of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, formally marked the end of Iran's historical monarchy. [...] The revolution was fueled by widespread perceptions of the Shah's regime as corrupt, repressive, and overly reliant on foreign powers, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom. Many Iranians felt that the Shah's government was not acting in the best interests of the Iranian people and that it was too closely aligned with Western interests, especially at the expense of Iranian sovereignty and cultural identity. However others perceived the success of the revolution as being unusual, since it lacked many customary causes of revolutionary sentiment, e.g. defeat in war, financial crisis, peasant rebellion, or disgruntled military. It occurred in a country experiencing relative prosperity, produced profound change at great speed, and resulted in a massive exile that characterizes [...] [edit")] Main article: Persian Constitutional Revolution The growing dissatisfaction continued until the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1911. The revolution led to the establishment of a parliament, the National Consultative Assembly (also known as the Majlis), and approval of the first constitution. Although the constitutional revolution was successful in weakening the autocracy of the Qajar regime, it failed to provide a powerful alternative government. Therefore, in the decades following the establishment of the new parliament, a number of critical events took place. Many of these events can be viewed as a continuation of the struggle between the constitutionalists and the Shahs of Persia, many of whom were backed by foreign powers against the parliament.

• Iranian Revolution | Summary, Causes, Effects, & Facts - Britannica

  Iranian Revolution, popular uprising in Iran in 1978–79 that resulted in the toppling of the monarchy on February 11, 1979, and led to the establishment of an Islamic republic. It involved the participation of a wide range of Iranians—from the secular left to the religious right—who sought an end to the shah’s autocracy and Western interference in the country’s policies. The revolution found expression in the form of Shiʿi Islam, which many supporters considered to be a unifying element of Iranian identity and culture, and ultimately in the guidance of Ruhollah Khomeini, an accomplished religious scholar critical of the shah who had articulated, as an alternative, a populist form of government overseen by a spiritual authority. [...] The 1979 revolution, which brought together Iranians across many different social groups, has its roots in Iran’s long history. These groups, which included clergy, landowners, intellectuals, and merchants, had previously come together in the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11. Efforts toward satisfactory reform were continually stifled, however, amid reemerging social tensions as well as foreign intervention from Russia, the United Kingdom, and, later, the United States. The United Kingdom helped Reza Shah Pahlavi establish a monarchy in 1921. Along with Russia, the U.K. then pushed Reza Shah into exile in 1941, and his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi took the throne. In 1953, amid a power struggle between Mohammed Reza Shah and Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, the U.S. Central [...] The violence and disorder continued to escalate. On September 8 the regime imposed martial law, and troops opened fire against demonstrators in Tehrān, killing dozens or hundreds. Weeks later, government workers began to strike. On October 31, oil workers also went on strike, bringing the oil industry to a halt. Demonstrations continued to grow; on December 10, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Tehrān alone. Quick Facts Also called: : Islamic Revolution Persian: : انقلاب اسلامى (Enqelāb-e Eslāmī) Date: : January 1978 - April 1, 1979 Location: : Iran Key People: : Ruhollah Khomeini : Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi On the Web: : World History Encyclopedia - Iranian Revolution (Dec. 10, 2025) See all related content

• Ideology and Iran's Revolution: How 1979 Changed the World

  The revolution’s consequences still reverberate, yet most assessments, while accepting its importance, still situate it on a broader Cold War canvas, in which the ‘loss of Iran’ is viewed principally through an American perspective. As such, the Iranian Revolution remains marginal rather than central to Western focus, incidental rather than truly consequential, and an event to be contained rather than challenged and confronted. This is not a view, unsurprisingly, that the revolutionaries in Iran share. They hold 1979 to be not only significant but epochal: a global revolution with historic consequences, and a cause above all others. [...] Perhaps more surprising for observers in the West was the belief among the revolutionaries that their revolution was the third in a line of great revolutions stretching back to the Russian and French Revolutions. Iran’s revolutionaries saw their historical pedigree in thoroughly European terms as the product of the unfolding of history. Other third-world revolutions were simply not in their field of vision and were largely irrelevant to the grand narrative of revolutionary emancipation that they sought to promote. #### Revolution vs. Republic [...] The Soviet invasion was in part based on a far more significant development in its hinterland: the Islamic Revolution in Iran. This was in many ways the real revolutionary change. The events that followed—including the Siege of Mecca by Sunni Islamist insurgents that year and the assassination of Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat by Islamist extremists in 1980—showed how the revolution was to impact the region beyond Iran’s borders.

• Iranian Revolution of 1979 - Stanford University

  (Farmanfarmaian 451). [...] In the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini ousted Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who succeeded his father as Shah of Iran in the early 1950�s. Reza Shah, the elder Pahlavi, came to power during the 1920�s after promoting the idea of 2,500 years of Persian monarchy (Mohammadi 38). As the first Pahlavi monarch, Reza Shah determined to modernize and centralize the operations of Iran. Using a Western model of industrial development, he quickly instigated a system of political dictatorship by using his own magnetic authority and leadership of the army. In addition, Reza Shah banned political parties, suppressed revolts, formed a police force, and curtailed the power of the clergy (Mohammadi 49). In the late 1940�s, political opposition to the Shah arose under the [...] On September 7, the Shah imposed martial law on the country and banned all unauthorized meetings. However, on September 8, members of Tehran�s working class and university students gathered at Jaleh Square. When security officers opened fire, more than a hundred people died, and as many as 400 suffered injuries. This incident, known as "Black Friday," became the beginning of the Revolution (Farmanfarmaian 443). By November, the Shah had appointed General Azhari, the army chief of staff, as head of the military government. Nevertheless, his appointments could not satisfy the revolutionaries who attacked banks, theaters, and hotels, setting parts of the city on fire. Furthermore, when workers at the Abadan Refinery went on strike, oil production dropped to 150,000 barrells a day, a quarter

• The 1979 Iranian Revolution Explained - YouTube

  In 1979, a revolution topples Iranian ruler Shah Muhammad Risavi. And with that, a monarchy of more than 2,500 years. That's the way authoritarian regimes fall. First gradually and then suddenly. The Sha's mistake was to want to do too much too fast. Sha Muhammad Riza Paraklavi, Persia's last emperor, was a key figure in world politics in the second half of the 20th century. His fiercest opponent, Roa Mousavi Kmeni, the Ayatollah becomes the bearer of hope for all those who are against the sha. on. They became very fierce antagonist. Absolutely. And the sha developed an almost obsession with them. Their rivalry lasted for almost their entire lives. In the end, the sha is defeated. The Ayatollah is victorious and with him Islamic fundamentalism, a new challenge for world politics. In