Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T16:43:24.822Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - A Decade of Confrontation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2014

Toby Matthiesen
Toby Matthiesen
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

Why did they have to go through fifteen years of siege and absence from the world and keeping people in the dark, only to reap such a paltry harvest? What real gains did we glean from it?

Seba al-Herz – The Others

Revolutionary Iran and the Gulf Shia

Immediately after the Iranian Revolution the MVM and its leaders such as Muhammad Taqi al-Mudarrisi became very close to some political factions in Iran. The MVM cadres as well as Muhammad al-Shirazi moved to Iran. Given the harsh response of the security forces and the arrest of scores of demonstrators, many OIRAP leaders and activists went into exile. After the intifada several hundred young Saudi Shia went to the hawzat al-Qaʾim of the MVM in Tehran. MVM was provided with the grounds of the former women’s association (sazeman-e zanan) in Mamazand outside Tehran to establish a large educational centre. This hawza was modelled on the hawza in Kuwait. Muhammad Taqi al-Mudarrisi was the main supervisor and administered the hawza with the help of Hasan al-Saffar, Muhammad Fawzi, Muhammad al-Sayf, Sahib al-Sadiq and some others. The hawza had several hundred students, most of whom were Saudis.

In post-revolutionary Iran MVM and its regional branches mainly dealt with Muhammad Montazeri, the son of Hossein ʿAli Montazeri, and after Muhammad’s death with Mehdi Hashemi. Muhammad was the main interlocutor between the Iranians and the ‘Liberation Movements’, until he was killed in the bombing of the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party in 1981. After Muhammad’s death, OIRAP printed condolence telegrams to Ruhollah Khomeini and Hossein ʿAli Montazeri and published a long article about Muhammad’s achievements in which it praised his support of the foreign revolutionary movements in Iran and acknowledged that OIRAP had known him for years before the Iranian Revolution. Thereafter, Mehdi Hashemi, who was Hossein ʿAli Montazeri’s son in law, was in charge of coordinating the activities of the liberation movements from 1981 until he was arrested in 1986 during the Iran-Contra affair. It is still not clear who exactly in the Iranian government knew about assistance to Gulf Shia and some argue that the Iranian Foreign Ministry, for example, was opposed to many of the export operations. The Montazeri/Hashemi group was one of several factions wrestling for influence in post-revolutionary Iran and its role largely ended with the arrest of Mehdi Hashemi in 1986.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Other Saudis
Shiism, Dissent and Sectarianism
 , pp. 114 - 139
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Dunn, Micheal, “Until the Imam Comes: Iran Exports its Revolution,” Defense & Foreign Affairs (July/August 1987), 43–51Google Scholar
Fürtig, Henner, Iran’s Rivalry with Saudi Arabia between the Gulf Wars (Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 2002), 34–8Google Scholar
Fischer, Michael M. J., Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 232–4Google Scholar
Halliday, Fred, “Iranian Foreign Policy since 1979: Internationalism and Nationalism in the Islamic Revolution,” in Shiʿism and Social Protest, ed. Cole, Juan R. I. and Keddie, Nikki R. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986), 88–107Google Scholar
Hammada, Rashid, ʿasifa fawq miyah al-khalij: qissa awwal inqilab ʿaskari fi al-Bahrayn 1981 (A Storm on the Waters of the Gulf: Story of the First Military Coup in Bahrain 1981) (London: al-Safa li-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawziʿ, 1990)Google Scholar
Alhasan, Hasan Tariq, “The Role of Iran in the Failed Coup of 1981: The IFLB in Bahrain,” The Middle East Journal 65, no. 4 (2011), 603–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heard-Bey, Frauke, Die arabischen Golfstaaten im Zeichen der islamischen Revolution (Bonn: Europa Union Verlag, 1983)Google Scholar
al-Mdaires, Falah, “Shiʿism and Political Protest in Bahrain,” Domes 11, no. 1, (Spring 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, Martin, “Syria’s Alawis and Shiʿism,” in Shiʿism, Resistance, and Revolution, ed. Kramer, Martin (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987), 237–54Google Scholar
Mervin, Sabrina, “Sayyida Zaynab, Banlieue de Damas ou nouvelle ville sainte chiite?” Cahiers d’Études sur la Méditerranée Orientale et le Monde Turco-Iranien 22 (1996), 149–62Google Scholar
Sindawi, Khalid, “The Shiite Turn in Syria,” Current Trends in Islamist Ideology 8 (June 23rd, 2009), 82–107Google Scholar
Talhamy, Yvette, “The Fatwas and the Nusayri/Alawis of Syria,” Middle Eastern Studies 46, no. 2 (2010), 175–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunayama, Sonoko, Syria and Saudi Arabia: Collaboration and Conflicts in the Oil Era (London: I. B. Tauris Academic Studies, 2007)Google Scholar
al-Saffar, Hasan, al-jamahir wa-l-thawra (The Masses and the Revolution) (Qatif: n.p., 1981)Google Scholar
Al-ʿAmir, , al-haraka; kalimat al-haraka al-islamiyya fi al-jazira al-ʿarabiyya (The Word of the Islamic Movement in the Arabian Peninsula) (n.p.: Munazzamat al-Thawra al-Islamiyya fi al-Jazira al-ʿArabiyya, 1986)Google Scholar
al-Shaykh, ʿAbd al-Rahman, al-masʾala al-filastiniyya fi al-manzar al-suʿudi (The Palestinian Question in the Saudi View) (n.p.: Munazzamat al-Thawra al-Islamiyya fi al-Jazira al-ʿArabiyya, 1982)Google Scholar
al-Mudarrisi, Hadi, hiwar ʿan al-marʾa (Discussion of the Woman) (Beirut: Dar al-Taʿarruf, 1978)Google Scholar
al-Saffar, Hasan, al-marʾa masʾuliyya wa-mawqif (The Woman: Responsibility and Position) (Qatif: n.p., 1981)Google Scholar
al-Saffar, Hasan, al-marʾa wa-l-thawra (The Woman and the Revolution), 2nd printing (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Aʿlami li-l-Matbuʿat, 1981)Google Scholar
Makki, ʿAliyya, yawmiyyat imraʾ fi al-sujun al-suʿudiyya (Diary of a Woman in Saudi Prisons) (London: al-Safa, 1989), 9–19Google Scholar
Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia: Detention without Trial of Suspected Political Opponents (London: 1990)Google Scholar
Human Rights Watch, Empty Reforms: Saudi Arabia’s New Basic Laws (New York: 1992)Google Scholar
Kramer, Martin, Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival: The Politics of Ideas in the Middle East (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1996)Google Scholar
Shariati, Ali, Hajj (Bedford, OH: Free Islamic Literature, 1977)Google Scholar
al-Mani’, Saleh, “The Ideological Dimension in Saudi-Iranian Relations,” in Iran and the Gulf: A Search for Stability, ed. al-Suwaida, Jamal S. (Abu Dhabi: Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, 1996), 158–74Google Scholar
Amirahmadi, Hooshang, “Iranian-Saudi Arabian Relations since the Revolution,” in Iran and the Arab World, ed. Amirahmadi, Hooshang and Entessar, Nader (London: Macmillan, 1993), 139–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chubin, Shahram and Tripp, Charles, Iran–Saudi Arabia Relations and Regional Order: Iran and Saudi Arabia in the Balance of Power in the Gulf (London: Oxford University Press/International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1996)Google Scholar
Djalili, Mohammad-Reza, Diplomatie Islamique: Stratégie Internationale du Khomeynisme (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1989), 158–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuller, Graham E, The “Center of the Universe”: The Geopolitics of Iran (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991)Google Scholar
Goldberg, Jacob, “Saudi Arabia and the Iranian Revolution: The Religious Dimension,” in The Iranian Revolution and the Muslim World, ed. Menashri, David (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), 155–70Google Scholar
Leverrier, Ignace, “L’Arabie Saoudite, le pèlerinage et l’Iran,” Cahiers d’Études sur la Méditerranée Orientale et le Monde Turco-Iranien 22 (1996), 111–47Google Scholar
Piscatori, J., “Managing God’s Guests: The Pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Legitimacy,” in Monarchies and Nations: Globalisation and Identity in the Arab States of the Gulf, ed. Dresch, P. and Piscatori, J. (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005), 222–45Google Scholar
Ende, Werner, “Steine des Anstoßes: Das Mausoleum der Ahl al-bayt in Medina,” in Differenz und Dynamik im Islam: Festschrift für Heinz Halm zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Biesterfeldt, H. and Klemm, V. (Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2012), 181–200Google Scholar
al-Hajiri, Yusuf, al-baqiʿ: qissa tadmir Al Suʿud li-l-athar al-islamiyya fi al-Hijaz (The Story of the Destruction of Islamic Archaeological Sites in the Hijaz by the Al Saud) (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Baqiʿ li-Ihyaʾ al-Turath, 1990)Google Scholar
al-Rayyis, Riyyad Najib, riyyah al-sumum: al-suʿudiyya wa-duʾul al-jazira baʿd harb al-khalij 1991–1994 (Poisonous Winds: Saudi Arabia and the States of the Peninsula after the Gulf War 1991–1994) (Beirut: Riyyad al-Rayyis li-l-Kutub wa-l-Nashr, 1994), 209Google Scholar
Chubin, Shahram and Tripp, Charles, Iran and Iraq at War (London: I. B. Tauris, 1988), 158–79Google Scholar
El-Shazly, Nadia El-Sayed, The Gulf Tanker War: Iran and Iraq’s Maritime Swordplay (Houndmills, UK: Macmillan, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Navias, Martin S. and Hooton, E. R., Tanker Wars: The Assault on Merchant Shipping during the Iran-Iraq Conflict 1980–1988 (London: I. B. Tauris, 1996), 77–85Google Scholar
Nonneman, Gerd, Iraq, the Gulf States and the War (London: Ithaca Press, 1986), 71Google Scholar
Ende, Werner, “Sunni Polemical Writings on the Shiʿa and the Iranian Revolution,” in The Iranian Revolution and the Muslim World, ed. Menashri, David (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), 219–32Google Scholar
Seale, Patrick, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East (London: I. B. Tauris, 1988)Google Scholar
Bulloch, John and Morris, Harvey, The Gulf War: Its Origins, History and Consequences (London: Methuen London, 1989)Google Scholar
Katzman, Kenneth, The Warriors of Islam: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993)Google Scholar
Keddie, Nikki R., Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 260Google Scholar
Moin, Baqer, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah (London: I. B. Tauris, 1999)Google Scholar
al-Qahtani, Fahd, majzarat Makka: qissat al-madhbaha al-suʿudiyya li-l-hujjaj (Mecca Massacre: The Story of the Saudi Bloodbath of the Pilgrims) (London: al-Safa li-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawziʿ, 1988)Google Scholar
Musa, Hussayn, al-ahzab wa-l-harakat al-islamiyya fi al-khalij wa-l-jazira al-ʿarabiyya (The Islamic Parties and Movements in the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula) (Manama: n.p., 2004), 68Google Scholar
Calabrese, John, Revolutionary Horizons: Regional Foreign Policy in Post-Khomeini Iran (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teitelbaum, Joshua, “Saudi Arabia’s Shiʿi Opposition: Background and Analysis,” Policy Watch 225 (Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 14 November 1996), 1Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×