The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (1989 Edition)

On 3 December 1979, almost one year after Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi left Iran, the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran replaced the monarchical constitution of 1906. The new constitution was to guarantee that the monarchy was abolished and the Islamic Republic system of government was enforced in its place. The constitution was to observe the Islamic and the nationalistic aims of the revolution with regard to the demands of a public that came from various social, religious, ethnic, and political backgrounds. Thus the 1979 constitution included differing components, which necessitated the amendments and the modifications that were added to the constitution in 1989. The constitution and its development are subjects that have been discussed in detail by scholars of modern Iran, among whom Asghar Schirazi stands out for his comprehensive study of the constitution. The following translation of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran highlights the relationship between the 1979 text of the constitution and the 1989 amendments in an attempt to contribute to the ongoing discussions on this subject.     

Neither Dowlati nor Khosusi: Islam,Education and Civil Society in Contemporary Iran

Private universities are a rapidly expanding form of education in Iran, and increasingly include Islam and the social sciences alongside the hard sciences too. What implications does the privatization of religious and social scientific knowledge have for the Islamic Republic? Scholarship has so far responded by looking at the ways in which the Iranian authoritarian state has monopolized religion, repressed the social sciences and hollowed out student activism. Complicating these arguments, this article provides a historical and institutional comparison of higher education in Iran in order to look at the evolving degree of autonomy of academic institutions and the ability of actors that operate within them to contribute to critical debate, social activism and novel discourse. The article proposes that while state universities and Islamic Azad suffer from politicization and control, a small set of privately owned “Islamic” universities is using its elite connections, financial independence and socio-pedagogical ties to the seminary and modern academia to secure enhanced levels of free debate and independent thinking.     

Polygamy and Legislation in Contemporary Iran: An Analysis of the Public Legal Discourse

The purpose of this article is to analyze the interaction between different interpretations of Islamic jurisprudence in Iran and state law. It focuses on the public legal discourse about the new Family Draft Law in 2007–08, especially Article 23 regulating polygamous marriages and removing necessity for the first wife's permission. The participants in this public legal debate, which took place on the internet and in the media, were civil society organizations, especially women's organizations, the Shiite clergy, and state representatives. The article argues that even in a non-democratic, theocratic state such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, public discourse promoted by the named actors can challenge and influence state legislation. The removal of Article 23 from the Draft confirms this argument, but in the law of 2013 the requirement for the first wife's permission is not found. By looking at the arguments brought forward in the public discourse, the article demonstrates that the arguments are mainly “Islamic,” and none refers to international human rights, as this seems to be a kind of taboo in the political discourse.     

The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Holocaust: Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism

Iran espouses the most radical anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist position in the Muslim Middle East, calling for the elimination of Israel. Drawing on anti-Jewish traditions in Shi^ci Islam, Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, maintained that Zionism is the culmination of the Jewish-Christian conspiracy against Islam and undermines its historical mission. Fusing together Islamic and European anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist ideologies, Iran became a disseminator of Holocaust denial in the Middle East and a sponsor of Western Holocaust deniers. Iran's Holocaust denial, which aims at demolishing the legitimacy of the Jewish state, denies Jewish history and deprives the Jews of their human dignity by presenting their worst tragedy as a scam.     

The Knife’s Edge of the Present: Archaeology in Turkey from the Nineteenth Century to the 1940s

This paper investigates how archaeology functioned in Turkey from the nineteenth century until the end of the 1940s. In the nineteenth-century Ottoman world, an awareness was raised to acknowledge the power of patrimony. Amidst intense reforms to Westernize the empire, archaeological artifacts were used as a means of Europeanness. The Greek, Roman, and Byzantine pasts of the Ottoman lands were the focus of this era. The foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 marked the start of a new project to create a modern nation-state out of a centuries’ old Islamic dynasty. This project rewrote the history of Turkish nation in relation to prehistoric civilizations such as the Hittites and the Sumerians. Archaeology became the primary tool of the Republic to validate the renewed history.     

The Immemorial Iranian Nation? School Textbooks and Historical Memory in Post‐Revolutionary Iran

Abstract. This paper is concerned with the fortunes of the pre‐revolutionary, Pahlavi nationalist narrative in post‐revolutionary Iran. The study analyses and compares pre‐ and post‐revolutionary school textbooks with the aim of demonstrating that, for all its revolutionary and Islamic‐universalist hyperbole, the Islamic Republic of Iran remained committed to the Pahlavi dynasty's conception of the ‘immemorial Iranian nation’ (or the ‘Aryan hypothesis’) as it was first articulated by European scholars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Post‐revolutionary Iran clung to the European/Pahlavi master narrative of Iranian history, its very basic ‘story line’. It was, therefore, subject to the same evolution, the same dialectic of remembering and forgetting, the same successive deformations, and the vulnerability to the very same manipulation and appropriation. This study, then, attempts to establish that the Islamic Republic's apparent shift from ‘Iran Time’ to ‘Islam Time’, though it reaches far beyond Iranian borders, nevertheless remains wedded to, and embedded in, the dominant European, secular traditions of the Pahlavi era. Islamic consciousness in Iran does not in any way constitute the basis for an alternative myth to the national myth. Rather, it adds Islamic terminology to the very same myth. Political Islam thus remains within the confines of Iranian nationalism. It is articulated in the framework of the symbols of Iranian nationalism, endowing them with a meaning that is supposedly religious.     

Russia and the Islamic World

This article offers a historical retrospective of the interactions between Russia and the Islamic world in all their diversity, beginning from the first trade contacts of Medieval Rus with the Arabs and Persians of the Abbasid era, as well as with the Turkic-speaking residents of Volga Bulgaria. The author concludes that except for the initial sporadic period, the connections between Russian and Muslim worlds have been stable and close throughout all the following periods. Moreover, with time, these two civilizational communities turned into communicating vessels because of the growing number of Muslims within the Russian State and in Russian society. Special attention is paid to Russian-Turkish relations across several centuries. A complete comprehension of the relations between Russia and the Islamic world through an example of the historical retrospective of Russian interactions with the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey helps to provide a full appreciation of the importance of joint efforts to secure a bridge connecting East and West and the oriental civilizations with Russia.     

Media,Language Policy and Cultural Change in Tatarstan: Historic vs. Pragmatic Claims to Nationhood

Abstract. The politics of national identity in the Republic of Tatarstan are complex and often contradictory. Although sometimes posed in terms of an historical legacy, claims to nationhood are also strongly shaped by more pragmatic contemporary concerns. In addition to more conventional forms of political mobilisation, national identity is also contested in cultural arenas. Examining policies on language reform and media development, for example, sheds light on the processes through which a sense of national identity is currently being renegotiated in Tatarstan. The Republic's official multicultural policy is situated in the context of a range of distinct conceptions of Tatarstan's identity, from radical Islamic nationalism to a view of the republic as a Russian province.     

Regionalism, Iran and Central Asia

A combination of revolutionary ideology, trouble with neighbours and location in the Middle East, where regionalism is moribund, make the Islamic Republic of Iran an unlikely enthusiast for regional coalition-building. The impetus towards regionalism derives first and foremost from geopolitical considerations–the need to counter the US government's efforts to isolate Iran–but also from domestic dynamics; the regionalist discourse has lent an acceptable ideological colouring to an increasingly pragmatic foreign policy.
Iran's neighbours, however, share neither its geopolitical predicament nor its ideological complexion, and the actual implementation of Tehran's regionalist agenda has been based on functional cooperation, rather than on geopolitics and ideology. Trade promotion and the development of transport infrastructure to link Central Asia and the Caspian to Turkey and the Persian Gulf have been the most appealing areas for northern neighbours, and dominate the agenda of the Economic Cooperation Organization, Iran's main vehicle for multilateral cooperaton with Central Asia and Azerbaijan. Tehran's 1992 proposal for a Caspian Sea Cooperation Organization has so far been stymied by the littoral states' well-publicized disagreements over the sea's legal status, though their numerous multilateral meetings and handful of agreements suggest that the idea has potential in the medium–term.
Notwithstanding the meagre tangible results to date, Iran's tilt towards regionalism has had a positive impact. It has helped to rehabilitate the Islamic Republic in the eyes of its neighbours, contributed to the evolution of policy debate at home and prepared the ground for future multilateral cooperation.     

Classy Kids and Down-at-Heel Intellectuals: Status Aspiration and Blind Spots in the Contemporary Ethnography of Iran

This article reviews the ways in which class, status, social mobility and their cultural ramifications have been considered (or failed to be considered) in recent ethnographic studies of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It argues against the trend of privileging “resistance” to an oppressive state as a theoretical frame for documenting social phenomena in Iran: lifestyles and consumption patterns cannot be interpreted merely as signs of political rebellion because they are endowed with symbolic value as status attributes in a society whose class configurations are shifting. I present a number of sources and concepts that help to rethink these phenomena, and show how the experience of Afghan refugees living on the margins of Iranian cities illuminates both the opportunities and constraints created by the Islamic Republic's uneasy mix of political Islam, populism and neoliberalism. A focus on aspiration to upward mobility becomes a useful analytical lens that allows us to sidestep reductive dichotomies such as tradition/modernity or religion/secularism that are in practice blurred by its very pursuit.     

Ayatollah Khomeini: From Islamic Government to Sovereign State

This paper argues that the mature form of the political doctrine of the Ayatollah Khomeini (1902–89), Iranian Shiite religious authority and architect of the Islamic Republic of Iran, grew out of an encounter with the modern understanding of the state and the concept of sovereignty. Khomeini’s political doctrine, called the Absolute Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, although based on a religious foundation, should be studied as a break with the traditional understanding of political power in Shiism. It will be argued that such a political doctrine can play the same role as the Christian rhetoric of the early modern political thinkers played, pave the way for modernization of Shiite political thought, and prepare the ground for a modern temporal conception of politics.     

Re-Ghettoization: Armenian Christian Neighborhoods in Multicultural Tehran

This paper incorporates a study of “re-ghettoization” among the Armenian Christians of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It focuses on how legal marginalization has led to the emergence of an entirely separate existence from the Muslim majority in Tehran among Armenians born after the revolution. By focusing on the spatial and social divisions of the hayashatner (Armenian neighborhoods) and the “social” ghetto of the Ararat Compound, this article addresses the question: what are the social implications for religious discrimination in the Muslim Middle East? This paper is based on three extensive blocks of fieldwork carried out in Iran from 2010 to 2015.     

Negotiating Difference in a Muslim Society: A Longitudinal Study of Islamic and Secular Discourses in Turkey

This article explores the changes in attitudes among Islamic and secular groups in Turkey through an analysis of their discourses regarding Islam, democracy, secularism, and dialogue. We present the findings of a longitudinal study (Q study) conducted in Turkey in 2002 and 2007. The time period under investigation marks the first uninterrupted five‐year‐long term of an Islamic‐leaning government, Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi (AKP, Justice and Development Party), in office since the inception of the Turkish Republic in 1923. We suggest that the continuous electoral success of the AKP has played an important role in shaping Islamic and secular discourses in the Turkish public sphere. In contrast with its predecessor, the AKP has employed a rights‐based paradigm when defining the place of Islam in a secular society. This, we suggest, has softened the divide between Islamic and secular discourses in Turkey. In this article, after defining the core characteristics of both discourses that remained the same in both 2002 and 2007, we focus on the major shifts in discourses that have occurred during these five years. Our research reveals that during this time, both Islamic and secular discourses underwent important shifts with respect to Islam's place in a democratic society. We interpret the AKP's discursive shift toward a rights‐based paradigm and the increasing emphasis on dialogue in both Islamist and secular discourses as promising signs for expanding the scope for democratic polity in Turkey.     

Where is the Islamic republic of Iran heading?

The ‘war on terror’ has had significant repercussions for the Islamic Republic of Iran in both international and domestic arenas. In the international context, Iran is finding itself isolated. Gains made by the moderate leadership of President Khatami in normalising relations between Iran and the West appear to have been lost. In the domestic arena, the moderates seem powerless against the concerted advances of the hardliners, most evident in the February 2004 Parliamentary election.     

Talking to Workers: From Khomeini to Ahmadinejad,how the Islamic Republic’s Discourse on Labor Changed through May Day Speeches (1979‒2009)

This paper explores the transformations of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s dominant narratives on labor between 1979 and 2009. By analyzing official May Day speeches of this period, it navigates multiple constructions of workers’ roles, which were systematically propagated by the IRI’s Supreme Leader and president over time. The analysis relies on the following primary sources: from the 1979 May Day sermon, pronounced by Ruhollah Khomeini, to the 2009 speech given by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, together with messages sent by Ali Khamenei, Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami. Showing how workers’ role—understood as a collective and distinct group—was gradually minimized, this paper argues that a bottom-up cleaning up process slowly purified May Day. In fact, the IRI progressively neglected workers as (revolutionary) social actors and interlocutors, as it stopped talking to masses and started speaking to middle classes.     

The trials and travails of the Islamic State in Pakistan

While Pakistan is in many ways an ideal location for transnational terrorist groups due to state weakness, Islamic State has had difficulty making headway in the country. In this article, the authors argue that Islamic State’s failures in Pakistan are due to competition from other groups. Drawing on the terrorist competition literature and interviews with Pakistani counterterrorism officials, the authors find that the presence of other groups in Pakistan meant there was little demand for what Islamic State offered. Islamic State relied on splinter groups and defectors for recruitment, which alienated mainstream groups and harmed the group’s capacity. Islamic State’s competition problems were exacerbated by its internationalist ideology, which was at odds with that of many groups in Pakistan, and allowed opposing groups to present themselves as reasonable alternatives to other actors. Despite Islamic State’s lack of success, it and its allies have still engaged in extreme violence in Pakistan as a result of attempts to outbid other groups. This article has implications for fighting terrorism in Pakistan and more generally.     

The Village in Contemporary Persian Poetry

This paper explores the ever-shifting symbiosis between the village motif, social justice and populist politics in Iran over the past three decades. The village has remained a recurring motif in Persian literature, employed by a variety of writers and state institutions for a range of means. As a symbol, it has been a conduit into which any ideology can be poured; the village allegory can be manipulated to both condemn and support the official policies of the state. A comparison of Iran’s pre- and post-revolutionary literature sheds light on the ways the state literati perpetuated an idealized picture of the village as an authentic, sacred space, increasingly associated with religious nationalism during the 1980s. The paper examines the key socio-political influences on the evolution of the pastoral motif, the work of state-sponsored official poets, and the impact of the village on the cultural doctrine of the Islamic Republic.     

Paradoxes of Iranian Messianic Politics

Shi‘ite Messianism has been accommodated constitutionally and has been portrayed as an indispensable aspect of political culture under the Islamic Republic. If the state is using the concept as a form of legitimacy, the concept is standardized in accordance with the prevailing perspectives of the political system. Thus, if there are other emerging grassroots messianic narratives incompatible with the political ideology, they could undermine the legitimacy of the state. This article examines the emerging paradoxes in a climate in which the state uses messianism as a legitimacy tool but, at the same time, is unable to monopolize the concept primarily for its own use. This article will assess a situation in which the state and the grassroots are struggling in order to maintain dominance over ideas that advocate millenarianism. There will be a critical discussion on how the politics of the Shi‘ite Messianism have proved to be contradictory, and the dilemmas over the politicization of Mahdism will be identified.     

Iran and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Ideology and Realpolitik in Iranian Foreign Policy

The Islamic Republic of Iran has pursued full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). In doing so, Iran has appeared to be unfazed by the prospect of allying with Russia and China, two countries which have systematically suppressed their Muslim minorities for decades. Similarly, the SCO's Central Asian member states are led by individual leaders who are generally believed to rule in spite of their populations. As a result, Iran's eagerness to join the SCO may appear to contradict its self-promoted image as the champion of Muslim interests, but in reality it sits nicely within its overarching enmity for the USA. Indeed, the SCO is seen as a geopolitical counterweight to the USA. For Iran, this geopolitical opportunity overrides ideological imperatives, with the gap between ideology and geopolitics most evident under the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.