Chapter Two: The Middle East and the Impact of Imperialism
Part 12. Political Islam in the Modern World
Islamic Revivalism and Revolution in Iran
In 1970, Iran was one the closest allies of the United States, a prosperous oil state led by a progressive monarch who the American government viewed both as a bastion against Soviet infiltration into the region and as “policeman of the Gulf,” charged with the task of maintaining Western hegemony in the critical Persian Gulf region. Yet, by the end of the decade, this ally had fallen before a startling revolution that brought together Iranians from a wide variety of political persuasions, economic conditions, and religious viewpoints. In fact, this diverse group contained representatives from almost all sectors of Iranian society and was united only by its common determination to rid itself of the rule of Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi.
Along with most outsiders, this revolution took the United States completely by surprise and the situation went from bad to worse in the aftermath of the revolution, when Iranian youths held American hostages at the United States embassy in Tehran for over a year, even as the new Iranian leader referred to the United States as “the Great Satan” and the U.S. government seemed strangely unable to strike back at this disturbing new enemy. As time progressed, it became increasingly clear that the revolution was being directed by religious leaders who sought to implement a government according to Islamic law (shari`a) in place of its Western leaning predecessor. A brutal internal purge of opponents was coupled with a bloody and drawn out war against Iraq, in which the United States played both ends against the middle, offering military intelligence to the government of Iraq even as it conducted secret negotiations to sell antitank missiles and military spare parts to the Iranian government.
The Iranian revolution serves as the most tangible example of the transformation of Middle Eastern politics during the 1970s and 1980s, a period when Islamist movements would gain traction in many of the Middle Eastern countries. Despite the growing popularity of Islamist answers to Middle Eastern problems, Westerners and their allies consistently underestimated the appeal of these movements between the early 1970s and the early 1990s. The revival of Islamic political movements can be traced to many different factors that affected the entire region, including disillusionment with Western inspired politics and ideologies. This disillusionment resulted in the rise of new movements through which Middle Eastern Muslims would reject the excessive materialism and open secularism of Western-inspired governments in favor of a return to religious and moral values seen as more authentically Islamic.
Yet, Islamist movements were not a “one size fits all” phenomenon. In fact, “the forces that gave rise to (the resurgence of Islam) were specific to individual states. The movement should therefore be seen as a phenomenon that had its origins in the context of local conditions even though it acquired certain transnational features” (William L. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, 2016, 372). This fact is illustrated through the case of Egypt, one of the first Middle Eastern countries in which Islamist movements had a significant impact, and home to some of the most influential Islamist leaders, including Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb. In the 1970s and 1980s, Egypt witnessed a proliferation of Islamist movements seeking to overturn the secular government and replace it with a government implementing shari`a as the law of the land. Nevertheless, the regime of Hosni Mubarak managed to forestall this development, with considerable help from U.S. government subsidies. In fact, despite the popular appeal of Islamist religious movements throughout the Middle East, very few have obtained political power in their home countries so that, to date, the Iranian example remains the exception rather than the rule (although that has changed a bit since the Arab spring and the rise of a more religiously oriented government in Tunisia, albeit one that is not implementing shari`a as the law of the land).
Primary Sources
The first source is an excerpt from a speech given by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. The second and third sources are collections of photographs from the Iranian revolution. The fourth source is a pictorial history of the rise and fall of the Shah of Iran. The fifth source is a collection of three statements from Iranian Marxist groups that participated in the revolution. For a more detailed analysis of the Iranian revolution, including interviews with participants, see the Al-Jazeera film, “Iran 1979: Anatomy of a Revolution” (last link below)
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1979khom1.asp
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/04/middle_east_the_iranian_revolution/html/1.stm
https://www.iranchamber.com/history/photo_albums/revolution79_album1/revolution79_album1.php
http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1872024,00.html
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/sojournertruth/irandocuments.pdf
