[Thread]

The ideology of the Iranian Revolution has been called a complex combination of nationalism, political populism, and a return to the Shi’a Islamic way of life. But below, I will explain to you what the ideology of our tremendous Islamic Revolution truly is.

The Iranian revolution expresses itself in the language of Islam, that is to say, as a democratic movement with a religious leadership, a religiously formulated critique of the old order, and religiously expressed plans for the new.

Muslim revolutionaries look to the birth of Islam as their model, and see themselves as engaged in a struggle against paganism, oppression, and empire. Perhaps the most important of the diverse ideological interpretation of Islam within the grand alliance that led to the 1979...

revolution were Khomeinism, Ali Shariati’s Islamic-left ideology, and Mehdi Bazargan’s liberal-democratic
Islam. Less powerful were the socialist guerrilla groups of Islamic and secular variants, and the secular constitutionalism in socialist and nationalist forms.

The slogan chanted by demonstrators—"Independence, Freedom, and Islamic Republic" (Estiqlal, Azadi, Jomhuri-ye Eslami!) — has been called the "pivotal yet broad demand" of the revolutionaries. Revolutionaries railed against corruption...

extravagance and the autocratic nature of corrupt Pahlavi rule policies that helped the rich at the expense of the poor and the economic and cultural domination/exploitation of Iran by non-Muslim foreigners—particularly Americans.

Imam Khomeini continued to preach in exile about the evils of the Pahlavi regime, accusing the shah of irreligion and subservience to foreign powers. Thousands of tapes and print copies of Khomeini’s speeches were smuggled back into Iran during the 1970s as an increasing number

of unemployed and working-poor Iranians mostly new migrants from the countryside, who were disenchanted by the cultural vacuum of modern urban Iran turned to the Ulama for guidance. The shah’s dependence on the United States, his close ties with Israel then engaged in extended

hostilities with the overwhelmingly Muslim Arab states and his regime’s ill-considered economic policies served to fuel the potency of dissident rhetoric with the masses.

With a swiftly expanding economy (for the rich), everything was going well in Iran for them but the majority of Iran was forgotten. The people of Iran were becoming tired of seeing the rich live lavish lives while they could barely afford basic essentials.

The sense that everything was failing in the country, except the pockets of the high class getting more filled and the poor getting poorer, all this anger was all manifested into demonstrations never seen before forcing the Corrupt Shah to leave for good.

Contributors to the ideology included Jalal Al-e-Ahmad, who formulated the idea of “Gharbzadegi”—that Western culture must be rejected and fought as was a plague or an intoxication that alienated Muslims from their roots and identity.

Ali Shariati influenced many young Iranians with his interpretation of Islam as the one true way of awakening the oppressed and liberating the Third World from colonialism and neo-colonialism.

But the man who ultimately formulated the ideology of the revolution though, was the man who dominated the revolution itself—Imam Khomeini.

He preached that revolt, and especially martyrdom, against injustice and tyranny was part of Shia Islam, that clerics should mobilize and lead their flocks into action, not just to advise them. He introduced Qur'anic terms—mustazafin ('weak') and mustakbirin ('proud and mighty')

for the Marxist terminology of the oppressors-oppressed distinction. He rejected the influence of both Soviet and American superpowers in Iran with the slogan "not Eastern nor Western - only Islamic Republican" (Persian: نه شرقی نه غربی جمهوری اسلامی).

The Imam developed the ideology of who would run the Islamic Republic, what form of government it would take. Imam Khomeini believed strongly that Islam required the principle of welayat-e faqih...

be applied to government, that Muslims, in fact everyone, required "guardianship," in the form of rule or supervision by the leading Islamic jurist or jurists—such as Imam Khomeini himself. This was necessary because Islam requires obedience to traditional Islamic sharia law

alone. Following this law was not only the Islamically correct thing to do, it would prevent poverty, injustice, and the plundering of Muslim land by foreign unbelievers.

But for all this to happen, sharia had to be protected from innovation and deviation, and this required putting Islamic jurists in control of government.

Establishing and obeying this Islamic government was so important it was "actually an expression of obedience to God," ultimately "more necessary even than prayer and fasting" for Islam because without it true Islam will not survive. It was a universal principle,

not one confined to Iran. All the world needed and deserved just this government, the true Islamic government, and Imam Khomeini "regarded the export of the Islamic revolution as imperative." However regarding "export of revolution" the Imam stated...

“It does not mean interfering in other nation's affairs", but answering their questions about knowing God"

Following the revolution, its ideology became apparent in social, economic and cultural policies. Men and women began to return to the simple Iranian way of life and left all western toxins in the past.

41 years have gone by and the Islamic Revolution still stands strong today, and believe, we’re just at the beginning of this revolutions potentials. Long live the Islamic Revolution