Background and causes of the Iranian revolution

Its causes continue to be the subject of historical debate and are believed to have stemmed partly from a conservative backlash opposing the westernization and secularization efforts of the Western-backed Shah,[1] as well as from a more popular reaction to social injustice and other shortcomings of the ancien régime.

[10] The Shah maintained a close relationship with both regimes, sharing a fear of the southward expansion of the Soviet Union, Iran's powerful northern neighbor.

The antithesis of this idea, that Western culture was Gharbzadegi – a plague or an intoxication that Muslims ought to eliminate from their society/culture/lives – was introduced by intellectual Jalal Al-e-Ahmad and became part of the ideology of the revolution.

[15] Also spreading and gaining listeners, readers and supporters during this time were Ali Shariati's vision of Islam as the one true liberator of the Third World from oppressive colonialism, neo-colonialism, and capitalism;[16] and Morteza Motahhari's popularized retellings of the Shia faith.

[21] Publicly, Khomeini focused more on the socio-economic problems of the shah's regime (corruption, unequal income and developmental issues),[22] not his solution of rule by Islamic jurists.

[23][24] His book, published in 1970, was widely distributed in religious circles, especially among Khomeini's students (talabeh), ex-students (clerics), and traditional business leaders (bazaari).

A powerful and efficient network of opposition began to develop inside Iran,[25] employing mosque sermons and smuggled cassette speeches by Khomeini, amongst other means.

Added to this religious opposition were secular and Islamic modernist students and guerrilla groups[26] who admired Khomeini's history of resistance, though they would clash with his theocracy and be suppressed by his movement after the revolution.

Based in the urban middle class, this was a section of the population that was fairly secular and wanted the Shah to adhere to the Iranian Constitution of 1906 rather than religious rule.

Khomeini, who was in exile in Iraq, worked to unite clerical and secular, liberal and radical opposition under his leadership[28] by avoiding specifics – at least in public – that might divide the factions.

[31] They subsequently failed to pose much of a threat to the regime once it had assumed power, although the People's Mujahedin of Iran, an organization that opposed the influence of the clergy, fought against Khomeini's Islamic government.

By late 1974 the oil boom had begun to produce not "the Great Civilization" promised by the Shah, but an "alarming" increase in inflation and waste and an "accelerating gap" between the rich and poor, the city and the country.

[34] Nationalistic Iranians were angered by the tens of thousands of skilled foreign workers who came to Iran, many of them to help operate the already unpopular and expensive American high-tech military equipment that the Shah had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on.

[41] Later that year a dissenting group (the Writers' Association) gathered without the customary police break-up and arrests, starting a new era of political action by the Shah's opponents.

[42] That year also saw the death of the very popular and influential modernist Islamist leader Ali Shariati, allegedly at the hands of SAVAK, removing a potential revolutionary rival to Khomeini.

It produced profound change at great speed[45] and replaced the world's oldest empire with a theocracy based on Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists (or velayat-e faqih).

[49] Some of the customary causes of revolution that were lacking include The regime it overthrew was perceived to be heavily protected by a lavishly financed army and security services.

"[53] Another historian noted the revolution was "unique in the annals of modern world history in that it brought to power not a new social group equipped with political parties and secular ideologies, but a traditional clergy armed with mosque pulpits and claiming the divine right to supervise all temporal authorities, even the country's highest elected representatives.

"[54] Explanations advanced for why the revolution happened and took the form it did include policies and actions of the Shah, in addition to the mistakes and successes of a myriad different political forces: Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union long competed with each other for the domination of Iran.

"[116] Kurzman points out that one explanation for the Shah's overthrow – the 40-day (Arba'een) cycle of commemorating deaths of protesters – "came to a halt" on June 17, 1978, a half year before the revolution's culmination.

[118]Alexis de Tocqueville's idea that "steadily increasing prosperity, far from tranquilizing the population, everywhere promoted a spirit of unrest", has been offered by several observers as an explanation for the 1978–79 revolt.

[119] Furthermore, revolutions were conspicuously absent in other "high-growth autocracies" – Venezuela, Algeria, Nigeria, Iraq – in the 1970s and 1980s despite the fact that those countries also suffered from oil wealth problems (corruption, debt, fraud, repression).

[120] However, Tocqeueville's other idea that "when a people which has put up with an oppressive rule over a long period without protest suddenly finds the government relaxing its pressure, it takes up arms against it"[72] would seem to solve this anomaly.

But since 1970s, Shah aroused the defense and oppositions of the bazaar by attempts at bringing under control their autonomous councils and marginalizing the clergy by taking over their educational and welfare activities.

The next question is how as part of a unique historical precedence, millions of Iranians were willing to face death in the mass demonstrations against brutal suppression by the army and how the clerics could rise as the leaders of the revolution.

Shi'a Islam embodies substantial symbolic content to inspire resistance against unjust rule and to justify religious leaders as alternative to secular authority.

The story of Husayn's just revolt against the usurper caliph, Yazid I, and his eventual martyrdom, as well as the belief in the Islamic Messiah, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who clerics claim to represent during his Occultation, were particularly influential in victory of the revolution.

The revolution also attracted secular Iranians who saw Shi'a Islam and Khomeini's unwavering moral leadership as an indigenous way to express common opposition to an arrogant monarch too closely associated with foreigners.

Khomeini's message and appeal spread through existing networks of social links with the urban life and gradually resonated with the majority who saw Shah as being subservient to foreign powers instead of the indigenous demands of his own people.

This sustained resistance, gradually undermined the morale of the military rank-and-file and their willingness to continue shooting into the crowds, until the state and the army succumbed before the revolution.