The first decade of the Islamic Republic: a revolution against the Shah produced a constitution that combined an elected president and parliament with the guardianship of the Islamic jurist (velayat-e faqih), embodied by Ayatollah Khomeini, and was consolidated through war with Iraq, the suppression of rival revolutionaries and mass executions.
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi ruled as an increasingly autocratic monarch after the 1953 coup that removed Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Oil wealth financed rapid modernisation, but Ervand Abrahamian describes a state that closed political space, relied on the SAVAK security police and alienated the clergy, the bazaar, the left and much of the new middle class. Mass protests and strikes in 1978 forced the Shah to leave in January 1979; Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile on 1 February, and the monarchy fell on 11 February. A referendum in March 1979 approved an "Islamic Republic".
The constitution of December 1979 created a dual structure:
The coalition that overthrew the Shah included liberals, leftists, the People's Mojahedin (MEK), ethnic movements and clerics. The seizure of the US embassy in November 1979 and the 444-day hostage crisis strengthened radicals; the first president, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, was impeached in June 1981. The MEK's armed uprising and bombings that killed senior leaders in 1981 were followed by mass arrests and executions. Universities were closed from 1980 to 1983 in a "cultural revolution". Leftist parties, including the Tudeh, were banned and their leaders forced into televised confessions. In the summer of 1988, after the ceasefire with Iraq, thousands of political prisoners, most of them MEK members and leftists, were executed after summary hearings; Abrahamian describes it as an act of violence unprecedented in Iranian history.
Banks and large industries were nationalised; the bonyads became major economic actors. Iraq's invasion in September 1980 began an eight-year war that killed hundreds of thousands on both sides, devastated the border provinces and absorbed resources through rationing and a war economy. At the same time, Kevan Harris shows, the revolutionary state began building a welfare system aimed at the rural poor: the Construction Jihad brought roads, water and electricity to villages, and a rural primary health-care network was created in the 1980s.
By 1989 the clerical leadership had defeated its rivals, survived the war (which ended in stalemate in 1988) and institutionalised a new state. The constitution's central tension, between popular sovereignty and the sovereignty of the jurist, was unresolved. In March 1989 Khomeini dismissed his designated successor, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, who had protested the 1988 executions. Khomeini died on 3 June 1989.
Replaced the Pahlavi monarchy with a constitution combining elected bodies and clerical guardianship under Khomeini; built the Revolutionary Guards, revolutionary courts and bonyads; began a rural welfare and health programme. The regime survived an eight-year war with Iraq and eliminated rival revolutionary groups through mass arrests and executions, culminating in the execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.
Khomeini's death in June 1989 ended the founding charismatic configuration. The Assembly of Experts chose Ali Khamenei, then president and a mid-ranking cleric, as Leader, and a constitutional revision approved by referendum in July 1989 removed the requirement that the Leader be a senior source of emulation, abolished the post of prime minister and entrenched the Expediency Council.
Iran's 1979 constitution vested leadership in a just and learned Islamic jurist (velayat-e faqih) alongside an elected president and parliament, and created a Guardian Council of six clerics and six jurists to review legislation and supervise elections.[1][2]
In the summer of 1988, after the ceasefire with Iraq, the Islamic Republic executed thousands of political prisoners after summary hearings, most of them members of the People's Mojahedin and leftist groups.[1]
The revolutionary state's rural development and primary health-care programmes of the 1980s laid the foundation for a welfare state that narrowed gaps between rural and urban Iran.[1][2]