Iran

Also facing the Gulf (and much more besides) but on the other side and having been a significant player in the Middle East since well before the time of Muhammad, through the discovery of oil and up to today’s revolutionary times, is of course, Iran (or at least the Persian people and the geographical region that now contains Iran).

Iran in the sense of a nation is a longstanding multi lingual, multi religious and multi ethnic nation which today has land borders with Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq and is a relatively short distance by boat from both the Gulf States and Russia. The name Persia is actually an Ancient Greek term for a small portion of what is now Iran. A Pahlavi Shah of Iran (i.e. from the most recent royal dynasty) chose the modern name, which is a more indigenously Aryan name for the country.

Before Islam, Persia was ruled by a succession of generally long-lasting dynasties concluding with the Sasanians that were conquered by Muslims in their first wave of conquests.

The official language is called Farsi and it now has an Arabic script. The major ethnic minorities include Turks, Arabs and Kurds and the religious ones include Sunni Muslims, Armenian Christians, Zoroastrians and probably the largest population of Jews in the Middle East outside Israel at around 11,000. The population is quite young and often multilingual.

The land itself consists mostly of mountain and plateau country: there are two main mountain ranges and two desert areas. Major cities such as Tabriz, Tehran, Esfahan and Mashhad have tended to be built in the foothills of mountain ranges where water can be tapped in a country with few significant water courses. The fertile region around the city of Tabriz in the far north is particularly densely populated and is not a generally Persian area ethnically. There are also significant nomadic populations in Iran, which tend to be difficult for a state to control. Partly as a result of this feature of Iran, all changes in rule in Iranian history have tended to be precipitated by tribal challenges. Throughout its history, much of the population has tended to not in fact speak Farsi as a first language.

Regarding its Shi’a Islam majority, the Safavid Dynasty was the first to introduce Shi’a Islam into popular use in Iran (in the 16th Century). Sunnism had been the main religion from the 7th to the 16th Centuries. The party of ‘Ali had developed its distinctive religion and political ideas since a division in the 7th Century including of a politico-religious Imamate ruled over by descendents of Muhammad. The subdivision introduced into Iran called Twelver or Imami Shi’a Islam holds that the twelfth Imam disappeared in the 9th Century as a child and is the final Imam who will return in the end times as the Mahdi to restore justice since dispensed with in his absence. Sunni Islam has an idea of the Mahdi but has not generally developed its ideas to the extent of Shi’a Islam. As the Shi’a form of Islam holds that the Imam should rule and one is not presently available, many Twelver Muslims have accepted that a deputy role may be appropriately filled by a wise religious ruler in a form of senior co-rule with a secular ruler as the current constitution of Iran arguably currently provides.

The Safavids didn’t provide for this form of co-rule in the 16th Century, however. They were local leaders of a Twelver Sufi order who sought to combine secular power and religious authority in the person of one ruler. Having been brought to power with the assistance of Twelvers which he organised for the purpose, the first Safavid ruler of Persia, Ismail I, first attempted to standardise the form of Shi’a Islam practiced in Persia. This standardisation was furthered under later rulers.

Shi’a ulema leaders were permitted a degree of independence from the government in this system by the establishment of the khoms tax for the purpose of funding their activities. In this fruitful environment, two camps formed among them called the Usulis and the Akhbaris. The conservative Akhbaris lost the battle of ideas and the Usulis thus became dominant. The Usulis attempted a policy of quietism which generally tolerated the rule of secular rulers.

This attitude to secular rule began to unravel, though, by the 19th Century, when the Qajar were the ruling dynasty. The Qajar dynasts generally collected taxes, spent them lavishly on themselves and caved into the demands of foreigners and that was about their limit. The judges they appointed were effectively outranked in the legal system by senior mujtahidun (the senior ulema).

The Usuli ulema had no reason to respect this new ruling clan and its legitimacy and every reason to doubt it so quietism thus came to be reconsidered as a policy. Interestingly, in this period there was a fine tradition of female scholarship in a period when the passive government left the field of education open to the ulema. A kind of alliance also became established in this period mainly by marriages between family members of the senior ulema class and senior bazaar merchants and craftspeople (called the bazaari class). The bazaaris were organised into powerful guilds and the ulema of course also had the power derived from the khoms and their activity in the community. In an era of weak government, this was a potent political alliance. The bazaaris were particularly concerned at erosion in their position by the allowance of foreign competition.

The external governments involved in pressuring the Shah at this time for their own reasons involving economic and political control of the region were Britain and Russia. A balance of power between those two countries may have contributed to Iran avoiding direct colonisation by one or the other of them. Meanwhile neither country interested itself in developing Persia in any serious way. Britain’s ‘generous’ intervention to install telegraph lines in Persia was clearly a security measure for the British seen as necessary following the 1857 Sepoy Massacre in India in a year in which British troops had been engaged in a war against Persia.

The local silk industry was hit especially hard by foreign competition. Some of the concerns for the ulema included a new cotton and opium industry for export that may have (in the case of opium) been considered immoral and also may have diluted the power of the old ‘axis powers’ of Iran. The upshot of the diversion of land use to growth of these cash crops (especially opium) appears to have also been severe famine conditions from 1869 to 1872. In such circumstances, Baron Von Reuter (a formerly German British journalist more famous as the founder of the British newsagency bearing his name) effectively imposed an ‘unequal treaty’ upon Iran in 1872 in the way similar treaties were imposed upon the rest of the semi-colonised third world in that colonial period but that gave monopolies to the British to an extent that even the British marvelled at (notably Lord Curzon).

The period 1890 to at least 1912 was characterised by protests instigated by the ulema and bazaaris and most notably the reformer, Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, who formally brought them together for the purpose. Al-Afghani had developed a hatred of the British and the West after experiencing India in 1857-8 in the era of the Sepoy Mutiny. He became persona non grata with the Shah soon after arriving in Iran. In 1890 the Shah had granted yet another extravagant concession to the West, a tobacco concession which the protesters combated with a successful boycott of all commerce in tobacco products.

The leading cleric, Grand Ayatollah Mirza Shirazi from Samarra in Iraq but born in Shiraz, Iran, as his name indicates, provided the imprimatur to the idea of protest required at this time with a fatwa against tobacco products and other senior ulema were also prominent in the movement. By 1906 the movement had achieved a form of constitutional check on the power of the Shah, generally, with the advent of a formal Persian constitution. The Majlis (assembly) thus instituted was set up in such a way that Bazaaris were major beneficiaries. The constitutional document itself was expressly progressive and tolerant. An open press was set up as well as a national bank.

Meanwhile in 1907 the British and Russians reached agreement on their spheres of influence within Persia (naturally without consulting the Persians). A Russian-supported coup soon led to the dissolution of this relatively democratic majlis and the return of its powers to the presumably relatively compliant Shah. Also, following the discovery of oil, a British oil company was set up in 1908 to exploit it. Women had also been prominent in this era of protest.

After the overthrow of the Qajar by the first Pahlavi dynast, capitulations with the West by the new (and, it turned out, last) dynasty seemed to remain the order of the day and further increased interest in politics among the combined ulema/bazaari axis of power which had already become subtly evident and in revising the general quietist policy of the ulema.

The Qajar was replaced by the Pahlavi dynasty ultimately by means of another coup in 1921 led by Reza Shah Pahlavi. His attitude to government was notably more active and reformist than had been the attitudes of the Qajar monarchs but also quite authoritarian. As a result of favouring the axis (Nazi) side during the Second World War, he was forced by the allies to abdicate in favour of his son, Mohammed (who thus became the last Shah), in 1941.

By the 1950s there were two main parties in the Iranian political system: a Communist Party and a nationalist party. Iran had also become the world’s second largest oil exporter. Both of these facts naturally attracted the Cold War era interest of the US so that when Prime Minister Mossadegh attempted to nationalise oil, the CIA engineered a coup to depose him.

Following this success at the elimination of a democratically elected leader, the Shah became increasingly autocratic. From 1953 until 1977 Iran effectively became an American assisted military dictatorship led by the Shah. Education and the economy were in crisis (especially in the 1960s). The Shah’s response was called the “White Revolution” and didn’t meet with the approval of the powerful ulema/bazaari coalition whose power it tended to erode. In this period there were even Americans acting as ministers in the Iranian government.

The great symbolic final insult to Islam which enraged many Muslims was a celebration of an alleged 2,500 year anniversary of the so-called Iranian “Great Civilisation” and the monarchy. It thus suggested a status for pre-Islamic rulers and pre-Islamic Persia that Muslims regarded as virtually blasphemous. Added to that, the celebration itself, which was mostly engaged in by the Shah and invited foreign dignitaries, was obscenely ostentatious (and therefore un-Islamic) in a time of depredation and suppression of a large number of Iranians. At around the same time he added to the blasphemy by also changing the start date of the official solar calendar formally imposed in the reign of his father (the popular unofficial one was still the standard lunar Islamic calendar) from the date of the Hijra to the presumed beginning of the reign of an early Shah some 4,000 years ago, well before the time of Muhammad.

The opposition in this repressive period came from various quarters besides the powerful axis including workers who had been suppressed and whose trade unions had been banned and women’s groups concerned with the social conditions. Minority groups that were traditionally oppressed in Iran continued to be oppressed and also formed part of an opposition increasing in popularity and militancy. Student groups and intellectual and Islamic student and professional groups also stood out in this environment of determined opposition. Parties that conspired to bring about the revolution that occurred in 1978-79 included the Communist Party, a Marxist guerrilla organisation, various Ayatollahs, laypeople and a nationalist/religious guerrilla group.

The idea that there was unity even within any of the disparate groups (including the senior ulema) as to precisely what system the revolution should bring about is certainly questionable. There were many views and no clear consensus even within the clerical fraternity. Khomeini was one among many of the 'ideas people' seeking to be heard at the time. In his case he was trying to be heard from his exile near Paris after having fallen foul of both the Shah’s and then Saddam Hussein’s regime where he had at first sought and been given refuge. His activism (and often against the Shah rather than for any particular replacement) was successfully conducted via the distribution of lectures and sermons both on cassette tape and in writing.

Finally the Shah was forced to flee Iran and a strike of oil workers can be said to have finished his regime off. The strike struck at the very heart of that income stream which had given the Shah the resources with which to repress his people. Within a couple of weeks Khomeini was back on Iranian soil. The question of what would replace the Shah’s regime now became pressing.

A consensus finally formed that a model giving supreme power to the popular Khomeini and perpetually to a learned Islamic lawyer (known as the Rahbar, or guide/pilot) would shape the forming of the constitution. Along with the theocratic Islamist element, an element of republican secular government was included (a novel combination). There would be an elected parliament (a majlis) and an elected president (a ra’is). However the ruling cleric had two major forms of control: he (at the head of his not popularly elected “Council of Guardians”) was permitted to vet all prospective presidential and parliamentary candidates and he was also permitted an absolute veto power over any law. The vetting power was at first not often exercised but came to be exercised more as time went on.

In Islamic terms, the rule of a supreme jurisconsult thus established in accordance with Khomeini’s political ideas known as Velayat-e Faqih was new even to Shi’a Islam. The power to rule supremely politically had hitherto been validly able to be exercised only by Muhammad, himself, and the Twelve Imams that followed him.

From 1979 virtually until his death in 1989, the Iranian Revolution became established and was shaped largely by the charisma and understanding of the issues of Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini was a pragmatic leader. Much of this period was also taken up with a conflict with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which was significantly supported by both the Arab and Western worlds in a war with the new state, and with a dispute with the US brought about ostensibly by the US’s alleged protection of the Shah from the Iranian ‘justice’ system. That system had a revolutionary character that was also responsible for many deaths and attempted assassinations in the period both within and outside Iran’s geographical borders. The war with Iraq also resulted in millions of Iranian deaths.

Domestically, the participation of women in education and literacy levels of women markedly increased in a sign of Khomeini’s modernist pragmatism. Interestingly, a 2007 report of the United Nations Development Program found that in various indices of equality between males and females Iran fared bettered than the US in several areas. However issues of inequality remain, especially in the more rural regions of the country. Other social issues to which the Shah had apparently been somewhat indifferent were swiftly dealt with.

Khomeini also had the constitution changed when the time came to consider his successor to the position of Rahbar, to permit the less senior cleric he favoured to be appointed. The current Rahbar anointed by Khomeini, Ayatollah ‘Ali Hoseyni Khamanei, who was thus permitted to succeed him had been a relatively junior cleric who would not have been able to succeed him under the former version of the constitution. He had not even been an Ayatollah when he was formerly chosen by the required committee of experts (he immediately achieved this rank upon the choice being made, however).

The period from the death of Khomeini in 1989 to around 1997 was a period of reconstruction following the long war with Iraq as well as a period of adjustment to the absence of one of the greatest symbols of the revolution. The president in the entire period was Ayatollah ‘Ali Rafsanjani, a great social and political reformer, under the new Rahbar, Ayatollah Khamanei.

A revised 1989 constitution, which strengthened the powers of the Rahbar over all other constitutional groups including the ulema from which it finally formally separated him, inaugurated the period. The electronic media became fully nationalised. In the period also, a religious movement developed, including a number of women, whose ideas were referred to as “new religious thinking” and which regarded the Rahbar as having become effectively a secular ruler and thus sought further reform to protect the religious ideals of the revolution.

A reform period from 1997 to 2005 under a new president (Mohammad Khatami, the son of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khatami) although the same Supreme Leader and Guide (Ayatollah Khamanei) in a sense answered the questions posed by this group. Khatami liberalised the media and arts somewhat and also made government more transparent. The period was also characterised by lively debate in the free daily press. Khatami’s 2001 peace overtures towards the US were met with a US declaration in George Bush’s 2002 “State of the Union” address to congress that Iran belonged to the famous “Axis of Evil”. Iran was thought to be (and is still thought to have been) secretly and illicitly developing a nuclear weapons programme. The US estimated more recently in a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that a presumed programme was halted in autumn of 2003. Nevertheless, the failure of the US to reach back when an olive branch was at least offered may be regarded today as a lost opportunity.

This period of opportunity was effectively ended by the election in 2005 of the inflammatory former mayor of Tehran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. He was the first non-Ayatollah appointed or elected to one of the two top jobs in the country since 1981. His election platform was a redistributive programme and he drew his support from two conservative but not necessarily religious movements with which he had longstanding connections and which had begun during the Iran-Iraq War period.

Today, many Iranians feel threatened by the US in a comparable way to the way Americans have felt threatened by al-Qaeda since 9/11. As we have seen, the threats to the US have had a significant impact there. So, too, the presumed threat to Iran indicated by America’s general warlike attitude has had a significant impact in Iran. Up to recently, Ahmadinejad’s support has thus remained relatively strong (despite his failure in the distribution effort) largely because of those fears.

As of today there are still no private local television stations. However Iranians generally have access to satellite television broadcast from outside Iran. Iranian cinema on the other hand is extremely active. Much of the cinema is quite ‘Bollywood’ in style and Iran doesn’t seem an especially Islamic place in it, exploring issues of drug use and abuse and other subjects which might be thought to be ‘taboo’ in an Islamic society. Each film must be approved for distribution by authorities, which are naturally influenced by the nature of the Iranian government system.

Iran has recently undergone a significant major period of industrialisation and at the same time has become mostly self sufficient in food. Practically the only food not produced within Iran is the banana. The siege mentality that has been a feature of the post revolution period has naturally contributed to these quite successful projects.

Women continue to extend their influence and activities in public life and to achieve reforms in their favour. In nationality law, for instance, children can now choose to identify with either their fathers’ or mothers’ nationalities. Also women’s pensions may now continue to be received by their dependents in the event of their deaths as was formerly only the case with men’s pensions.

A major area of continuing concern for human rights groups continues to be the treatment of people of the Baha’i faith. Generally speaking discrimination against recognised religious minorities is outlawed but the Baha’i continue to not be recognised thus permitting severe discrimination against this group. There is also a level of discrimination against even the recognised religious minorities despite the law.