Abstract
This chapter follows the early protests by civil society activists in 1977—tolerated as a result of the “liberalization” policy—to the reemergence of traditional oppositionist activism with flashes of hardcore Islamist militancy. The author details the different facets of this activism in fall 1977 that culminated in an outpouring of sympathy for Ayatollah Khomeini following the sudden death of his son in Najaf, a death that was blamed on the regime. That seminal event inspired the return of Khomeini to the limelight with a renewed sense of purpose. It also marked the transfer of leadership of the anti-Shah drive from essentially constitutionalist lay opposition forces to Shia revivalist militants with inherently anti-constitutional goals, personified by Khomeini and his clerical camp.
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Notes
- 1.
Ganji, Defying the Iranian Revolution, 5–6.
- 2.
Abas Milani, Eminent Persians, 1.167.
- 3.
For a vivid description of Tehran in the 1970s, see Michael Axworthy, Revolutionary Iran (London: Penguin Books, 2013), 76–133.
- 4.
Sabeti/Qanee-Fard, 390.
- 5.
Alam Diaries, Ibex ed., May 24, 1977, 6.457.
- 6.
Ibid., January 16, 1977, 6.387 and 6.393.
- 7.
For the US Embassy assessment, see Sullivan to DOS, July 25, 1977, ‘Straw in the wind; intellectual and religious opposition’ The Carter Administration and the Arc of Crisis”: Iran, Afghanistan and the ‘Cold War in South-west Asia, 1977–81, DNSA.
- 8.
A. A. Haj-Seyyed-Javadi in HIOHP interview with Zia Sedghi, March 1984, Paris, transcript 6–8; see also Khosro-Panah, Nameh’haei dar Da’vat az dictator; Graham, Iran, the Illusion of Power, 206.
- 9.
Milani, The Shah, 390; Haj-Seyyed-Javadi, HIOHP interview, tape 6; Khosro-Panah, Nameh’ha dar da’vat az diktator.
- 10.
Khosro-Panah, Nameh’ha dar daa’vat az dictator; Graham, Iran, 207–8.
- 11.
Graham, Iran, 206; an English translation of the letter in ibid., 255–6.
- 12.
The text was widely echoed in foreign press, notably in Le Monde which carried excerpts; see Eric Rouleau, Le Monde, June 23, 1977.
- 13.
Sanjabi memoirs, 312.
- 14.
For one among several references to the Shah’s support base, see Nicholas Gage, New York Times, June 4, 1978.
- 15.
Alam Diaries, Ibex ed., June 1, 1976, 6. 459–60.
- 16.
Queen Farah, An Enduring Love, 258–9.
- 17.
Afkhami, Life and Times of the Shah, citing Queen Farah’s inner circle, 441n1; Alam Diaries, Ibex ed., June 1, 1976, 6. 482.
- 18.
Sullivan to DOS, 06991, August 7, 1977, DSWL.
- 19.
The untouchables were Foreign Minister Khalatbari; Economic and Finance minister Ansari; War Minister General Azimi; Education minister Ganji. The Shah’s brother-in-law Mehrdad Pahkbod had first been appointed to Culture and Art portfolio in 1964 in Mansur cabinet and continued in that post while Mohammad Yaganeh replaced Majidi at the head of Plan and Budget organization; full list of the cabinet in Agheli: 2–323.
- 20.
Sullivan to DOS, 10124, November 15, 1977, DSWL.
- 21.
Agheli, [Compendium of biographies]:1-30-36
- 22.
Sullivan to DOS, 06991, August 7, 1977, DSWL.
- 23.
Queen Farah, An Enduring Love, 268; Mohammad-Reza Shah, Réponse à l’Histoire, 233.
- 24.
Nahavandi and Bomati, Le dernier Shah, 422–23; Sabeti/Qanee-Fard, 397; US Embassy, Tehran, 07702, August 15, 1978, DNSA.
- 25.
Fereydoun Hoveyda, Chute du Shah (New York: Wyndham Books, 1980), 84–85; Keddie, Modern Iran, 223n7.
- 26.
Milani, The Shah, 384; Afkhami, Life and Times of the Shah, 441–2.
- 27.
Sullivan to DOS, cable 05416, June 20,1977, DSWL.
- 28.
Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Khaterat, a two-volume memoire of Ayatollah Montazeri, 1. 378, hereafter Montazeri memories. https://amontazeri.com/book/khateratin.
- 29.
Taleghani was re-arrested in 1975 for ‘abetting terrorist activities’ in relation to MKO where his children were active. The sentence of Taleghani’s daughter Azam had been commuted from death to life imprisonment while his son joined the Marxist faction of the MKO; see, Center for Documentation of Islamic Revolution, Central Archive, p. 67 (tracing number 1133).
- 30.
Agheli, Roozshomar, 2.322, 325.
- 31.
Their demands included the return of Khomeini from exile and release of FMI prisoners Taleghani, Ezatollah Sahabi and Lotfollah Misami as well the release of Montazeri and Hashemi Rafsanjani; ibid., 329.
- 32.
Davoud Dashtbani, “hameh’e dostan irani’e ghazafi; barrasi’e jenahbandihay’e dakheli bar sar’e rabeteh ba libi” [All Iranian Friends of Gadhafi…] in Tarikh’e Irani website http://www.tarikhirani.ir/fa/files/All/bodyView/137/.
- 33.
Sullivan to DOS, 09082, October 13, 1977, DSWL; Agheli, Roozshomar, 2.329.
- 34.
Sullivan to DOS, 09082, 10,184, November 17, 1977, DSWL.
- 35.
For background on creation of the Kanoon, see “Socio-political Climate in the 1960s” in Chap. 1; for circumstances of its revival in 1977, see the title “Feeling out the Democracy earlier in this same chapter.
- 36.
Gheissari: 109–10; Zandian, baz’khani’e dah shab, 9–10; Nasser Mo’azen, dah shab, (ten nights), a compilation of all presentation published in 1978; available on the web, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/650297; See also Axworthy: 101–2.
- 37.
See as an example, the statement by Simin Daneshvar who started her presentation by a Qur’anic verse, text in Zandieh, baz’khani’e dah shab, 189.
- 38.
Homayoon [minister of information at the time], Man va Rouzegaram, Part IV.
- 39.
Bazargan, Enghelab Iran dar do harakat, 13.
- 40.
Agheli: roozshomar, 2–330; Moin: 184–5; Qanee-Fard/Sabeti: 244fn1; Parsons, The Pride and the Fall, 56.
- 41.
Summary of the SAVAK files related to the death of Seyyed Mostafa, in, in Etemad Melli, Aban 2, 1386/October 24, 2007; for observations of the household see, “hadis’e bidari, zendeginameh emam Khomeini, in the official website of Ayatollah Khomeini Jamaran, www.jamaran.ir/fa/NewsContent-id_12959.aspx, accessed December 23, 2015.
- 42.
Witness account by Seyyed Mahmud Doa’i (later Islamic Republic’s ambassador to Baghdad) in Etemad Melli daily, Tehran, Esfand 25, 1995/March 15, 2017; Moin, Khomeini, 184.
- 43.
Transcript of Khomeini’s altāf’e khofieh elāhī sermon after Mostafa’s death in Najaf, in Khomeini papers, Safiheh Emam, vol.1-HTML 11 (EV), undated; also in Moin, Khomeini, 185.
- 44.
Statements by Masumeh Haeri (Seyyed Mostaf’s wife), by Ahmad Khomeini and by Sheikh Borqeei, (an acolyte) in hadis’e bidari, zendeginameh emam Khomeini, (an authorized biography of Khomeini) in Jamaran, the official website of Ayatollah Khomein, www.jamaran.ir/fa/NewsContent-id_12959.aspx, accessed December 23, 2015.
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
Memoirs of Hojat-al Islam Ferdosi-pour (a Khomeini acolyte and eyewitness): 196, cited in Ali Saba, “chera ayatollah Khomeini dar marg farzandash geryeh nakard?” (Why Khomeini did not weep over the death of his son?), Zamaneh Tribune, October 23, 2013, https://www.tribunezamaneh.com/archives/34644?tztc=1, accessed February 2014.
- 47.
Sabeti/Qanee-Fard, 400.
- 48.
Ibid., 399.
- 49.
Gholamreza Goli-Zavareh, “qorub’e sepideh gosha; taasir shahadat haj aqa mostafa Khomeini dar gostaresh nehzat eslami Iran” [The impact of Mostafa Khomeini’s martyrdom in the flourishing of the Islamic movement in Iran], Pasdar Eslam, no. 324, Azar 1387/December 2009, 38ff.
- 50.
Bazargan, enqelab Iran dar do harakat, 13; Ramin Parham and Michel Taubmann, Histoire Secrète de la Révolution iranienne (Paris: Denoël, 2009), 220.
- 51.
See, “Emam Khomeini chegouneh molaqab be Emam shod?” (How was Khomeini given the title of Imam), Jamaran website, https://www.jamaran.ir/.
- 52.
Yazdi memoirs, 2.366.
- 53.
Ibid., 2.368–9.
- 54.
Khomeini papers, Sahifeh Emam, vol. 1, HTML 11 (EV), November 4, 1977.
- 55.
Vance, Hard Choices, 321.
- 56.
Cyrus Vance letter to Carter, November 10, 1977, in Javier Gil Guerrero, The Carter Administration and the Fall of Pahlavi Dynasty: US-Iran Relationship on the Brink of 1979 Revolution (New York: Palgrave, 2016), 49.
- 57.
Sullivan to Vance, secret, 09613, November 1, 1977, DSWL.
- 58.
Ibid.
- 59.
Sullivan to the Department of State, 09970, November 10, 1977, DSWL.
- 60.
Guerrero, “Human Rights and Tear Gas”, November 25, 2015.
- 61.
Yazdi memoirs, 2.434.
- 62.
Yazdi memoirs, 2.433–4, 466ff.
- 63.
Washington Post, November 15, 1977.
- 64.
Queen Farah, An Enduring Love, 270; contradicted by Sullivan, Mission to Iran, 127.
- 65.
New York Times, November 16, 1977 (front page).
- 66.
Sullivan,Mission to Iran, 128–9; Carter, White House Diary, 135–6, entry for November 15, 1977.
- 67.
Carter, White House Diary, 136.
- 68.
Sullivan, Mission to Iran, 130.
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Bayandor, D. (2019). 1977: The Year of all Dangers. In: The Shah, the Islamic Revolution and the United States. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96119-4_6
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