Chapter 3 considers the development of the infamous martyrdom operations, or "suicide bombings," in the late twentieth century. Beginning by considering postcolonial experiences of Shi’i Muslims in 1980s West Asia, I argue for approaching two contexts of conflict—Lebanon and Iran—in tandem, due to their joint recognition of the Guardianship of the Jurisprudent Ayatollah Khomeini. Evaluating the ideological contributions of Shi’a history and Persian art forms, I trace the way the concepts of jihad—struggle in the way of God—and shahid—martyrdom—increasingly take martial shapes during the period, leading to the figure of the istishhadi who gives their life in an attack on the enemy. Both the explosive tactics of Hezbollah and the human wave attacks of Iran’s Basij forces are linked by the conception that willing self-sacrifice paves the way to realizing a divine kingdom on earth and filtered through the lens of Husayn’s battle at Karbala. Finally, I show the connection between the words of these martyrs and contemporary Shi’i authorities to the idea of commanding right and forbidding wrong, and the need to live life according to divine law regardless of the consequences.

The focus of the chapter is the overriding assumption in Shia fiqh in general and theories of the velayat-e faqih in particular that society is in need of proactive protection and guidance. The notion of velayat is neither exclusively nor predominantly Shia in origin and development. However, it has played a central role in Shia theology. The logic underlying the notion of velayat-e faqih is that society needs proper guidance and protection, both from the hostile world in which it exists and from itself. Guidance needs to be provided by a specialist of fiqh, a mujtahid who has reached the esteemed position of marja‘iyat and is a “source of emulation,” a marja‘-e taqlid. Protection, or velayat, meanwhile, in its fullest sense is also to be provided by a specialist of fiqh, a faqih, who would be selected to serve in a system based on the velayat-e faqih. In relation to Iran, the clergy have long assumed that Iranian society needs protection from a number of clear and present dangers, be they communism, secular nationalism, unchecked republicanism, modernity, indiscriminate autocracy, or, more recently, the reformist “sedition” (fitna).

As the 1978–1979 revolution approached, Khomeini’s reactionary conceptions of the ideal social order were all but forgotten. The popular assumption was that Khomeini and, along with him, the rest of the clerical establishment were “revolutionary” in the true sense of the word. But the clerical establishment, which had long been divided among itself, had engaged in little innovation of any kind, either on its own or through the institution of the howzeh. Equally valuable for the victors of the revolution has been the howzeh, a hallowed institution of religious teaching and learning for the better part of a century. For nearly as long, it has been a bastion of jurisprudential traditionalism. Khomeini saw it as archaic. Two decades later, Khamenei extended the state’s capture to the howzeh, bureaucratized it, ensured its financial dependence, and, through added administrative units, made it a practical extension of the state. If the howzeh was ever a forum for jurisprudential innovation, that rare possibility is even rarer now. Not surprisingly, what jurisprudential innovation has taken place, by Khomeini and by successive generations of religious scholars, has been overwhelmingly outside of the howzeh.

Khomeini’s arguments were foundational to the Islamic Republic. The significance of his jurisprudential contributions and innovations cannot be overstated. For the first time, he theorized about direct rule by a faqih. He revolutionized the position of velayat-e faqih by taking it out of the social and cultural realms only and planting it firmly in the domain of politics. First, he made the velayat-e faqih a political supervisor, then a ruler, and finally an absolute ruler. Khomeini gave the absolute ruler the authority to issue injunctions that superseded the injunctions of religion if necessary and empowered him to decide on what was expedient and in the interest of the greater good. These ideas continue to remain foundational to the Islamic Republic. Today, Khomeini the ruler has been all but forgotten. His portraits continue to adorn government buildings, his mausoleum is a frequent stop for visiting dignitaries, and his legacy is duly praised on official occasions and in state ceremonies. But the state has long moved on from what one scholar aptly called “Khomeinism.” From the 1990s on, it has been “Khameneism” that has ruled Iran politically and jurisprudentially, with its own conceptions of velayat-e faqih.

In today’s Iran, state–religion relations exhibit three key features. An obvious feature is the deep basis of the state in innovative interpretations of Shia jurisprudence. The Islamic Republic is based on the system of the velayat-e faqih, generally translated in English as the “guardianship of the jurisconsult.” As a concept, the notion of the velayat-e faqih had existed in Shia thought for some time before Ayatollah Khomeini elaborated on it in his 1970 book by the same name. Khomeini’s contribution lay in his innovative interpretation of the velayat-e faqih as a supreme political leader who oversaw not just religious affairs, as previous theologians had theorized but was in overall charge of all affairs of the entire community, profane and political as well as religious. Today, Khomeini’s conception of velayat-e faqih underlies the institutional and political foundations of the Islamic Republic. The Iranian political system is far more ideologically informed, and hence ideological, than may at first meet the eye.

In addition to ensuring its military and security protection through the IRGC and the Basij, the Islamic Republic employs a number of other institutional means to protect itself from un-Islamic influences, potential opponents in society, and the possibility of systematic problems and internal obstacles. Of these latter group of institutions, three stand out for their compound effects in helping the system maintain itself. They are the Guardian Council, the Expediency Council, and the judiciary. Each institution in its own way contributes significantly to maintaining the system. The Guardian Council performs a pivotal gatekeeping function by ensuring that only the legislation it approves becomes the law of the land, and only the candidates it vets get a chance at holding elected office. When the Guardian Council and the Majles reach a deadlock over legislation, the Expediency Council is meant to determine what is in the ultimate interest of the system so that its overall performance is not undermined. And, the judicial branch protects the system from political opponents and sees to the Islamization of Iranian society. The Islamic Republic system, in short, has devised a number of institutional means to guarantee its long-term resilience.

The velayat-e faqih has steadily come to occupy the apex of the political system in its day-to-day functions, in the process overwhelming and overshadowing elected institutions such as the presidency and the Majles. The Assembly of Experts, which is meant to select and then supervise the velayat-e faqih, has become a shadow of its constitutional self. Especially after Refsanjani was elbowed out of the institution, it has moved to become more of an auxiliary of the leadership. The presidency and the Majles have also come increasingly under the leader’s overpowering influence. The system continues to remain hybrid. But that hybridity is being steadily chipped away at. Khamenei is the most important element of the deep state, the critical connective tissue that binds all the other institutions together. The other elements of the deep state are its praetorians – the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij – its gatekeepers such as the Expediency and the Guardian Councils, and Khamenei representatives and the Friday Prayers Imams, along with the rest of the Qom theological establishment, the Ministry of Intelligence, the Special Court for the Clergy, and the state radio and television broadcaster, the IRIB.

There are three broad categories of challenges faced by the Islamic Republic state, namely those emanating from the inside, those exerted on the state from the outside, and those arising from the fraying of the state’s relations with society. In each instance, the state has been able to neutralize any potential threats coming its way through a resourceful combination of foreign policy adjustments, heightened repression, and expansive securitization. Ironically, the comprehensive and punishing sanctions imposed on the state from abroad have only helped further erode the purchasing power of Iranians and have narrowed prospects for international exchanges and globalization. The outcome has been a further strengthening of the state and especially hard-line factions within it, along with a steady disempowering of civil society and increased costs of political opposition. Sanctions have weakened Iranian society and strengthened the state.

Looking to the future, one of the factors that sustains continuity in human behavior is the eternal presence of potential dictators. Individuals with the personality characteristics of dictators are always present in all human groups. When the springboard to dictatorship becomes available, these potential dictators step forward to try to spring to absolute power. The eternally present potential dictator acts as a limiting factor on political plasticity so that progress toward democracy remains stunted, and at times there are reversals from democracy to dictatorship. But the potential dictator is not powerless as to when and how the springboard to dictatorship comes into place. As shown in this chapter, potential dictators use, and sometimes help manufacture, crisis incidents that create societal chaos – then they put themselves forward as the only individuals who can solve the crisis. Hitler used as his crisis incident the 1933 fire at the Reichstag building, Khomeini used the 1979–1980 invasion of the American Embassy in Tehran and the taking over of fifty American diplomats, Putin used the 1990 bombings of apartments in Moscow. In each case, the potential dictator helped to create a crisis, then used the crisis to spring to power. Trump attempted the same in the United States on January 6, 2021.

Chapter 3 shifts focus to the postrevolutionary era and how the revolutionary ideology and the national identity it inspired were used and misused by the new Islamic Republic. It also looks at how the Iranian people continued to appropriate and challenge the state’s ideology and representation. The chapter discusses the significance of the Iran–Iraq war (1980-88) in the early years after the revolution and how the war shaped contemporary Iran. While the Pahlavi’s maintained a discourse of monarchical ancient Iran and Persian supremacy, the new Islamic Republic made use of the Karbala paradigm and the martyrdom of Imam Hossein, which played especially well into the context of war and attack from an external force. Though the history and state remained the same, the opposing narratives offered by the old and new rulers speak to the nature of constructed national identities. In both cases, nationalism and Islamism have been crucial to their resistance movements. The Islamic Republic was brought to power by a revolution, whose opposition to the shah was embedded in anti-imperialist and Islamist rhetoric. Echoing Hamid Dabashi’s claim that Shiites must be perpetually engaged in resistance to oppression, the state depicts itself as continuously revolutionary and supports regional movements with analogous rhetoric.

Chapter 2 provides historical background of Pahlavi monarchy and its nation-state project. To be a modern nation-state required a cohesive national identity and complimenting narrative. The significance of that account was not lost on the shah, who tried to formulate an uninterrupted history of Iranian dominion. Chapter 2 relies heavily on a close reading of the words of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to shed light on the shah’s rationale for upholding this narrative. The shah understood that Iran could not forge its independence and image as a modern nation-state without freedom from foreign control. According to the shah, it was his father who "created" the modern Iranian state and saved Iran from the ineptness of its previous dynasty. This chapter also challenges the shah’s account and explores how his subjects saw him as foreign and as a symbol of Iran’s capitulation to external powers. The shah’s failed nationalism left space for his opposition to produce an alternative narrative that captured the imagination of the masses of Iranian people. Chapter 2 lays the foundation for the sections that follow by presenting not only the newly constructed image of Iranian nationalism, but also why it was needed in order to advance the cause of independence.

On the eve of victory in the 1979 revolution, Ruhollah Khomeini and his Islamists followers discussed blueprints for a new system of Islamic government. Integral to these plans was an emphasis on the new institutions of Islamic shura (local councils) to replace the secular anjumans (local associations) that existed in town and cities. The chapter details Khomeini’s call to establish elected local government in early 1979, months before the new constitution delineating the shape of the new state had been ratified, indicating the significance of the shura. I examine the tensions between the competing visions of shura within the theocratic Islamist camp, by contrasting the views of Khomeini and Mahmoud Taleghani. This chapter also discusses the aborted attempt to hold the first local government elections in the fall of 1979, a factor contributing to the new regime’s reluctance to decentralize government for another decade and a half. The chapter details the multiple and conflicting perspectives on shura during the deliberations leading to the first constitution. The ratified constitution subordinated local and national government (shura and the Majles) to the velayat-e faqih and established a settlement that shaped and constrained the future possibilities and limitations of decentralization in the ensuing decades up to the present day.

The Introduction begins with a look at how the contested legacies of the Iran-Iraq War have permeated the debate concerning Iran’s relations with the United States, which draws the reader into the story by demonstrating that the IRGC’s efforts to construct the history of the war represent an important front in the struggle for Iran’s future. After setting out the book’s main subjects and arguments, the first chapter then provides a brief overview of the Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq War, and the IRGC. The following section discusses the existing literature on those topics, the book’s contributions thereto, and the approach to the subject and methodology. The Introduction concludes with a narrative outline of the rest of the book.

Chapter 1 outlines the theoretical foundation of this book. It elaborates on the reading of the secular and how it is calibrated to fit Shiite Islam in the context of post-revolutionary Iran. It puts forward the main argument of this book, which contends that the secularity spawned in the past four decades of Islamic rule does not denote an absence of religion, but rather, the construction of a new religion which is secular in essence. The traditional religious foundations upon which the Islamic Republic of Iran was built remain. Yet their meanings and practices have evolved and their content and distinctiveness have transformed. Moreover, this chapter will examine the three elements of Khomeini’s revolutionary religiosity (Khomeini as an Imam, jihad and martyrdom, and ascetic equality) and how these elements rendered the very notion of an election an anomaly in Iranian collective understanding during the Islamic Republic’s first decade.

This chapter explores evolving regional dynamics first through an examination of the relationship between Iran’s revolution and its foreign policy. It proceeds to analyse the Islamic Republic’s efforts to export revolution and the underpinnings of Iran’s burgeoning alignment with Syria. The second half of the chapter focusses on the other Arab states’ efforts to contain the revolution, including through manipulating state–society relations, before moving on to examine the role of the anti-Soviet ‘jihad’ in Afghanistan in the hegemonic strategies of regional states.

This chapter explores the implications stemming from the advent of the Islamic Republic for liberal-thought practices inside Iran. Specifically, it seeks to clarify the differences between liberal objections to all varieties of religious governance and Islamic modernist-cum-reformist efforts to reconcile monistic doctrines with pluralistic realities. The latter cohort’s appropriation of some aspects of liberal thinking – by the Liberation Movement of Iran (LMI) in 1970-80 and by religious reformists after the election of Mohammad Khatami in 1997 – has obscured significant substantive differences between these visions, allowing for incoherent labels such as “Islamic liberalism”. Efforts to make the Islamic Republic more democratic or to advance a pluralistic vision of political Islam, however much progressive in the context of their times and political possibilities, nonetheless are substantially different in depth and scope from liberal-constitutional principles and visions of progress championed by advocates of political liberalism around the globe and inside Iran. Curiously, these differences have largely been downplayed, if not altogether overlooked, in political studies of post-revolutionary Islamic modernism and reformist thought. This chapter examines these differences and offers an explanation for their combined impact on liberal political thought in contemporary Iranian intellectual discourses.