Traditionally, the thought and practice of Islamic fundamentalism and Islamism in the nation of Iran has referred to various forms of Shi'i Islamic religious revivalism that seek a return to the original texts and the inspiration of the original believers of Islam. Issues of importance to the movement include the elimination of foreign, non-Islamic ideas and practices from Iran's society, economy and political system. It is often contrasted with other strains of Islamic thought, such as traditionalism, quietism and modernism.M. Hope and J. Young, CrossCurrents:ISLAM AND ECOLOGY. Retrieved 28 January 2007. dead link In Iran, Islamic fundamentalism and Islamism is primarily associated with the thought and practice of the leader of the Islamic Revolution and founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ("Khomeinism"), but may also involve figures such as Fazlullah Nouri, Navvab Safavi, and successors of Khomeini.
In the 21st century, "fundamentalist" in the Islamic Republic of Iran generally refers to the political faction known as the "Principlists", (also spelled principlist) or Osoulgarayan—as in acting politically based on principles of the Islamic Revolution—which is an umbrella term for a variety of conservative circles and parties that (as of 2023) dominates politics in the country. (The Supreme Leader and the president are principlists, and principlists have control of the Assembly of Experts, the Guardian Council, the Expediency Discernment Council, and the Judiciary.) The term contrasts with "reformist" or Eslaah-Talabaan, who seek religious and constitutional reforms.
Definitions and terminology
Some of the beliefs attributed to Islamic fundamentalists are that the primary sources of Islam (the Quran, Hadith, and Sunnah), should be interpreted in a literal and originalist way; that corrupting non-Islamic influences should be eliminated from every part of a Muslims' life; and that the societies, economies, and governance of Muslim-majority countries should return to the fundamentals of Islam, which make up a complete system including the Islamic state.Unity and Diversity in Islamic Fundamentalism, in M. Marty and R.S. Appleby, eds., Fundamentalisms Comprehended, the University of Chicago Press, 1995, pp. 179–198. (The term fundamentalism has also been criticized as coming from Christianity and not truly appropriate for Islam.)
Academics have made a variety of distinctions between Fundamentalism, Islamism (political Islam) and other terms in Iran and other Islamic societies. Yahya Sadowski, distinguishes Islamic fundamentalism from Islamism, calling Islamism "neo-fundamentalism".
A 2005 program on BBC Persian Service put Islamic movements among Iranians into three different categories: "traditionalists" (represented by Hossein Nasr, Yousef Sanei), "modernists" (represented by Abdolkarim Soroush), and "fundamentalists" (represented by Ali Khamenei, Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, and several Grand Ayatollahs including Mahdi Hadavi). Javad Tabatabaei, Ronald Dworkin and a few other philosophers of law and politics have criticized the terminology of "conservatism", "fundamentalism" and "neo-fundamentalism" in the context of Iranian political philosophy, suggesting other classifications.Hamshahri online, Discussing reformism: an interview with Dr. Seyyed Javad Tabatabayi . Retrieved 28 January 2007.Hamshahri online, Do we have Iranian reformism? . Retrieved 28 January 2007.Hamshahri online, Iranian reformism a term without a definition . Retrieved 28 January 2007.Hamshahri online, Fundamental liberalism and conservatism in Iran and the West. . Retrieved 28 January 2007. According to Bernard Lewis, when it comes to Political Islam:Lewis, Bernard(1993) Islam in history:ideas, people and events in the Middle East:402
A 2007 post from Radiozamaneh offered five categories for Iranian thinkers: Anti-religious intellectuals Religious intellectuals Traditionists—who avoid modernity, neither accepting nor criticizing it. This group makes up the majority of clerics, Traditionalists—who criticize modernity and humanism, believing in eternal traditional wisdom. However, unlike Fundamentalists, Traditionalists believe in religious pluralism. Fundamentalists—who openly criticize modernity like Traditionalists and unlike Traditionists, but unlike them seek to take social and political power to put a stop to modernity and revive the religion.
History Emergence Fundamentalism in Iran as a reaction to Western technology, colonialism, and exploitation arose in the early 20th century, and Sheikh Fazlollah Nouri and Navvab Safavi were among its pioneers figures.
Iran was the first country in the post-World War II era in which political Islam became the rallying cry for a revolution, which was followed by formally adopting political Islam as its ruling ideology. The grand alliance assembled by Ruhollah Khomeini that led to the 1979 revolution abandoned traditional clerical quietism, adopting diverse ideological interpretations of Islam. The first three Islamic discourses were Khomeinism, Ali Shariati's Islamic-left ideology, and Mehdi Bazargan's liberal-democratic Islam. The fourth discourse came from the socialist guerrilla groups of Islamic and secular variants, and the fifth was secular constitutionalism in socialist and nationalist forms. By a few years after the triumph of the revolution, the only discourse left was Khomeinism.
Khomeini has been called a populist, fundamentalist, Islamist, and a reformer by various observers.
Pre-modern background
There are different theories as to when the ruling concept of the Ayatollah Khomeini and Islamic Republic of Iran—that Islamic jurists ought to govern until the return of the Imam Mahdi—first appeared. Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi (and Ervand Abrahamian), insists it was a revolutionary advance developed by Imam Khomeini. Other theories are that the idea is not at all new, but has been accepted by knowledgeable Shia faqih since medieval times, but kept from the general public by taqiya (precautionary dissimulation) (Ahmed Vaezi); that it was "occasionally" interpreted during the reign of the Safavid dynasty (1501–1702 C.E.) (Hamid Algar), argued by scholar Molla Ahmad Naraqi (1771–1829 C.E.) (Yasuyuki Matsunaga), or by Morteza Ansari (~1781–1864 C.E.) (according to John Esposito).Esposito, John, "Ansari, Murtada." The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, (2003). Found in Oxford Islamic Studies Online
Developments that might be called steps easing the path to theocratic rule were the 16th century rise of the Safavid dynasty over modern day Iran which made Twelver Shi'ism the state religion and belief compulsory; and in the late 18th century the triumph of the Usuli school of doctrine over the Akhbari. The latter change made the ulama "the primary educators" of society, dispensers most of the justice, overseers social welfare, and collectors of its funding (the zakat and khums religious taxes, managers of the "huge" waqf mortmains and other properties), and generally in control of activities that in modern states are left to the government. The Usuli ulama were "frequently courted and even paid by rulers" but, as the nineteenth century progressed, also came into conflict with them.
Era of colonialism and industrialization
End of nineteenth century marked the end of the Islamic Middle Ages. New technological advances in printing press, telegraph and railways, etc., along with political reforms brought major social changes and the institution of nation-state started to take shape.
Conditions under the Qajars
In the late 19th century, like most of the Muslim world, Iran suffered from foreign (European) intrusion and exploitation, military weakness, lack of cohesion, corruption. Under the Qajar dynasty (1789–1925), foreign (Western) mass-manufactured products, undercut the products of the bazaar, bankrupting seller, cheap foreign wheat impoverish farmers. The lack of a standing army and inferior military technology, meant loss of land and indemnity to Russia. Lack of good governance meant "'large tracts of fertile land" went to waste.
Perhaps worst of all the indignities Iran suffered from the superior militaries of European powers were "a series of commercial capitulations." In 1872, Nasir al-Din Shah negotiated a concession granting a British citizen control over Persian roads, telegraphs, mills, factories, extraction of resources, and other public works in exchange for a fixed sum and 60% of net revenue. This concession was rolled back after bitter local opposition.Lambton, Ann K. S. (1987). Qajar Persia. University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292769007, p.223Keddie, Nikki R. (1966). Religion and Rebellion in Iran: The Tobacco Protest of 1891–92. Frank Cass. ISBN 9780714619712. p.5 Other concessions to the British included giving the new Imperial Bank of Persia exclusive rights to issue banknotes, and opening up the Karun River to navigation.
Concessions and the 1891–1892 Tobacco protest
The Tobacco protest of 1891–1892 was "the first mass nationwide popular movement in Iran", and described as a "dress rehearsal for the ... Constitutional Revolution."
In March 1890 Naser al-Din Shah granted a concession to an Englishman for a 50-year monopoly over the distribution and exportation of tobacco. Iranians cultivated a variety of tobacco "much prized in foreign markets" that was not grown elsewhere,Mottahedeh, Roy P. (2000). The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran. Oneworld Publications. ISBN 9781851686162, p.215 and the arrangement threatened the job security of a significant portion of the Iranian population—hundreds of thousands in agriculture and the bazaars.Poulson, Stephen. Social Movements in Twentieth-Century Iran. Lexington, 2005, p. 86.
This led to unprecedented nationwide protest erupting first among the bazaari, then,Algar, Hamid. Religion and State in Iran 1785–1906. University of California, 1969, p. 208 in December 1891, the most important religious authority in Iran, marja'-e taqlid Mirza Hasan Shirazi, issued a fatwa declaring the use of tobacco to be tantamount to war against the Hidden Imam. Bazaars shut down, Iranians stopped smoking tobacco,Lambton, Ann K. S. (1987). Qajar Persia. University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292769007. p.248Gilman, Sander, and Zhou Xun. Smoke: A Global History of Smoking. Reaktion Books, 2004, p. 60.
The protest demonstrated to the Iranians "for the first time" that it was possible to defeat the Shah and foreign interests. And the coalition of the tobacco boycott formed "a direct line ... culminating in the Constitutional Revolution" and arguably the Iranian Revolution as well, according to Historian Nikki Keddie.
Whether the protest demonstrated that Iran could not be free of foreign exploitation with a corrupt, antiquated dictatorship; or whether it showed that it was Islamic clerics (and not secular thinkers/leaders) that had the moral integrity and popular influence to lead Iran against corrupt monarchs and the foreign exploitation they allowed, was disputed. Historian Ervand Abrahamian points out that Shirazi, "stressed that he was merely opposed to bad court advisers and that he would withdraw from politics once the hated agreement was canceled."
1905–1911 Iranian Constitutional Revolution
As in other parts of the Muslim world, the question of how to strengthen the homeland against foreign encroachment and exploitation divided religious scholars and intellectuals. While many Iranians saw constitutional representative government as a necessary step, conservative clerics (like Khomeini and Fazlullah Nouri) saw it as a British plot to undermine sharia, and part of foreign encroachment concerned Iranians were trying to protect Islam against.