Abstract
The Islamization of the Iranian Revolution drove the processes of state formation and the institutionalization of religion toward a radical fusion of the Iranian state and Khomeini’s version of Shi’ism. By the eve of the revolution, Khomeini was a mystic and a marja, vali faqih (the Jurist Guardian), the Supreme Leader, the deputy of the Hidden Imam, and the first politician to hold the title of Imam in modern Shi’i history. His position at the helm of both religious and political power was unprecedented in the history of Shi’ism and Iran. This chapter explores the effects of this unique development on the trajectory of the state and institutionalized religion during this intense period of Iranian history and measures the degree to which it accounts for the Islamic Republic’s chain of crises from 1979 to the present.
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Notes
NYT. “European Policy in the Gulf, a Striking Reverse,” 9/16/1987. http://www.nytimes.com/ 1987/09/16/world/european-policy-in-the-gulf-a-striking-reversal.html.
Mehdi Khalaji, “Inside the Authoritarian State: Iran’s Regime of Religion,” Journal of International Affairs, Fall/Winter 2011, Vol. 65(1), (131–147), 144 (emphasis added).
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© 2013 Behrooz Moazami
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Moazami, B. (2013). The Invention of a Modern Theocracy: An Unfinished Revolution. In: State, Religion, and Revolution in Iran, 1796 to the Present. Middle East Today. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137325860_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137325860_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-32588-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-32586-0
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