Causes of the Iranian Revolution

I believe that the Iranian revolution was a rejection of the Shah and his policies. The people of Iran enjoyed freedoms unheard of in the Middle East, yet these people were kept in check by the force of the secret police, the SAVAK, and the freedoms that they got were westernized ideas, something which many Iranians opposed to. Therefore, it is clear that the main cause of the revolution is because of the Shah’s westernizing leadership and his indifference to the people.

In the 1970’s Iran was the most western of any Islamic Countries, however this lifestyle was not a popular way of life with the older clerics, particularly Khomeini, an exiled cleric living in France. Around this time, the Shah adopted a number of controversial policies. He took over the courts and brought them into the central government, and appointed the judges himself. He had the Nation’s laws standardized and written down, and he began to collect taxes. He had an amicable relationship with the European governments and companies and allowed them to extract oil, and emphasized Iran’s Persian heritage instead of the Arab/Muslim one. He replaced the Arab lunar calendar with the Persian solar calendar. Finally, he had the government take over religious schools, and made studies focused on other things than Islam, and ordered women to stop wearing veils, something enforced by the Islamic religion. Many of his policies weakened the power of Islam, and were looked on as an attack on the Muslim community because they went against the traditional Muslim rule. In my opinion, these reforms were what caused the revolution. The shah wanted to reduce the power of ancient traditions in Iranian culture because he thought that these traditions prevented progress. Therefore, he tried to model Islam after the European states. At the end, the youth of Iran rebelled against the brutal oppression of the secret police, and the westernizing reforms that were put in place by the Shah 

The shah’s rule angered the people, and they finally protested. In 1978 a strange story appeared in the Iranian newspaper. It claimed that Khomeini was a homosexual and an agent of the British government. Since the Shah controlled all the newspapers, few doubted it and the next day furious religious students gathered to protest, and the police were brutal in handling them. Another protest broke out when people mourned their friend’s deaths. The police reacted with violence again. The rioters went crazy and attacked westernized things, and this cycle repeated itself and with this the government lost much credit. The shah attempted to stop the rebellions by exiling Khomeini to France, but at this point it was too late. The people were filled with revolutionary fervor and there was nothing that could be done to stop them.