Iran in World History

The Satanic Verses
(which Khomeini himself had not read)—and was 
therefore liable to the death penalty under Islamic law. Khomeini’s 
pronouncement led to massive demonstrations throughout the Muslim 
world and beyond, and a number of people, including several connected 
with the publishing industry, were killed. Rushdie himself went into 
hiding and made only rare public appearances thereafter. The United 
Kingdom suspended diplomatic relations with Iran from 1989 to 1998 
over the Rushdie affair.
Iran’s internal politics throughout that decade were dominated by 
the policies of President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a cleric with 
strong ties to Iran’s powerful merchant class. Rafsanjani was a conser-
vative pragmatist who focused on rebuilding Iran’s shattered economy 
while keeping a tight rein on social restrictions. Although Rafsanjani 
initiated a number of free market reforms, economic growth during 
this period was disappointing, especially after the imposition of US-led 
international sanctions in 1995.
Meanwhile Rafsanjani’s daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, launched a 
political career of her own, serving in parliament from 1996 to 2000 
and staying active in women’s issues thereafter. Protected to some extent 
by her father’s position, Hashemi created controversy by wearing jeans 
and encouraging women’s sports, eventually founding a feminist news-
paper. As she said in an interview, “Some customs in our society have 
been imposed, and an imposed custom is without value and cannot 
persist. Therefore, when I do not believe in certain customs and I do not 
believe them to be logical or I do not value them as beneficial to soci-
ety, especially to girls and women, I do not see it necessary to follow 
them.”
4
A hugely successful family planning campaign established in 1989 
brought Iran’s pre-revolution fertility rate of six children per woman 
down to 1.71 by 2007. (Iran’s population nevertheless doubled during 
this same period, from fewer than thirty-five million to more than sev-
enty million, due to decreases in infant mortality and rising life expec-
tancy.) Women’s health clinics throughout the country provided sex 
education and contraceptives to all married couples, earning Iran the 
honor of having one of the best systems for women’s reproductive rights 
in the world. Unfortunately, these progressive policies were eventually 
reversed.

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I r a n i n Wo r l d H i s t o r y
116
The postwar decades also saw improvements in women’s access 
to higher education and the workplace, although they were prevented 
from serving as judges due to a persistent stereotype questioning wom-
en’s capacity to be impartial. Female university students came to out-
number males, and literacy reached even the remotest villages. Iranian 
women continued to face challenges in such areas as divorce and child 
custody laws, but women’s rights activists made progress in these areas 
as well. In 2003 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Iranian law-
yer Shirin Ebadi, founder of Iran’s Center for the Defense of Human 
Rights. This gesture served as an international acknowledgment of the 
diligence with which Iranian women were fighting for their rights in the 
face of a highly patriarchal regime. In Ebadi’s view, “it is not religion 
that binds women, but the selective dictates of those who wish them 
cloistered.”
5
During the first decade of the revolution many of the intellectuals 
who had originally supported the Islamic Republic began to express dis-
appointment with the way it was developing. Philosopher Abdolkarim 
Soroush was the most prominent among this group. Western journal-
ists heralded him as an Islamic Martin Luther, but repeated harass-
ment from government-supported thugs forced Soroush to leave Iran in 
2000 and his thought had little impact thereafter. He remained popular 
within Western academia, however, receiving invitations to lecture at a 
number of prestigious institutions including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, 
Columbia, and the University of Chicago.
Another highly visible figure within the “loyal opposition” was 
Mohsen Kadivar, a cleric and philosophy teacher. Kadivar notably crit-
icized Khomeini’s principle of “Guardianship of the Jurist,” arguing 
that it had no basis in Shi‘ite thought. “It is time for the Supreme Leader 
to be subject to the constitution too,” Kadivar wrote. “After all, the 
Supreme Leader doesn’t come from God!”
6
Eventually, like Soroush, 
Kadivar left Iran to pursue a series of visiting teaching appointments in 
the United States.
The 1990s saw Iranian cinema garnering attention as one of the 
world’s most dynamic and creative film industries, beginning with