Encyclopedia of Islam

Iran

  

363  J

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republic. The constitution of the Islamic Repub-

lic of Iran, adopted in 1979, is organized on the 

basis of Islamic law (

sharia

) and gives supreme 

authority to the Shii leader (faqih, religious 

jurist). The constitution describes the responsi-

bilities of the three branches of the government 

(the legislative power, the executive power, and 

the judiciary power), while emphasizing that 

their operations are subject to the authority of 

the leader and the guardian council. Any attempt 

to introduce social change through legal and 

parliamentary channels and by means of public 

participation in national referenda is accordingly 

monitored by the authority of the religious elite 

who rule Iran.

Revolutionary Iran has had to contend with a 

number of serious crises since the 1979 revolu-

tion. The first arose when revolutionary youths 

seized the American embassy in Tehran and took 

its personnel hostage for 444 days in 1979–80. 

This ended with the release of the hostages and the 

closing of the U.S. embassy in 1980. The United 

States proceeded to penalize Iran by launch-

ing an economic embargo as part of a policy of 

containment to limit its influence in the region. 

In September 1980, Iran was invaded by Iraq, 

which, under the leadership of s

addam

  h

Usayn

(r. 1968–2003), sought to gain control of access 

to the Gulf through the Shatt al-Arab waterway 

and to check the spread of Khomeini’s Shii revo-

lution to Iraq and other Arab Gulf countries. To 

the surprise of many, Iranians rallied to halt the 

invasion, but a bloody nine-year war of attrition 

ensued that resulted in the deaths of as many as 

a million Iranians and Iraqis. The war ended in a 

cease-fire brokered by the United Nations. Iran’s 

troubles continued in the 1990s, with a rapidly 

growing population, economic stagnation, grow-

ing demands for liberalization by the postrevo-

lution generation, corruption, political chaos in 

neighboring Afghanistan, and the proliferation 

of nuclear weapons in Israel, Pakistan, and India. 

At the same time, however, Iran encouraged radi-

cal Shii groups to take up arms against Sunni-led 

governments in Iraq, s

aUdi

  a

rabia

, Kuwait, and 

Bahrain. It also supported h

izbUllah

 in l

ebanon

, 

a Shii guerrilla movement that had formed when 

Lebanon was invaded by Israel in 1982.

A short-lived period of cultural liberalization 

occurred in 1998–2002, represented by such 

figures as Muhammad Khatami (b. 1942), who 

served as president from 1997 to 2005, Abd al-

Karim Soroush (b. 1945), a philosopher and intel-

lectual critic of Islamic radicalism, and human 

rights activist Shirin Ibadi (b. 1947), who won 

the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize. The liberal currents 

these figures represented were especially popular 

with women and young Iranians, but they were 

strongly opposed by hard-line supporters of the 

revolutionary Shii ideology of Khomeini and his 

successors. This party regained significant popu-

lar support when U.S. president George W. Bush 

identified that country as part of an “axis of evil” 

responsible for terrorism around the world. Reac-

tionary elements were further energized when 

the United States and Britain invaded neighbor-

ing Iraq to remove Saddam Husayn in 2003. 

The invasion helped bring about the election of 

Mahmoud Ahmadinajad (b. 1956), the hard-line 

former mayor of Tehran, as president in 2005. His 

government played an active role in supporting 

Shii political groups in post-Saddam Iraq, oppos-

ing Israel, and seeking close ties with Syria. Also, 

under his leadership, Iran accelerated efforts to 

become a nuclear power, which provoked the 

United States and European countries to take dip-

lomatic and military countermeasures.

See also 

constitUtionalism

; g

UlF

 s

tates

; g

UlF

W

ars

.

Firoozeh Papan-Matin