Iranian Revolution

The Iranian Revolution was a mass political and social upheaval that ended over two millennia of Persian monarchy and replaced the Pahlavi dynasty with a theocratic republic grounded in Shia clerical authority. Discontent had been building through the 1970s over rapid Westernization, the Shah's authoritarian rule, the activities of the SAVAK secret police, economic inequality, and perceived subservience to the United States after the 1953 CIA- and MI6-backed coup that restored the Shah.

Sustained protests began in early 1978, escalating after incidents such as the Cinema Rex fire in Abadan (August 1978) and Black Friday in Tehran (8 September 1978), when troops fired on demonstrators in Jaleh Square. Strikes in the oil sector crippled the economy by late 1978. Ayatollah Khomeini, exiled since 1964 and broadcasting from Neauphle-le-Château in France, became the movement's symbolic leader, uniting a broad coalition of clerics, bazaar merchants, leftists, and liberal nationalists.

The Shah left Iran on 16 January 1979. Khomeini returned from exile on 1 February 1979, and the imperial government collapsed on 11 February 1979. A national referendum in March 1979 approved the establishment of an Islamic Republic, and a new constitution adopted in December 1979 institutionalized the doctrine of velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist), giving the Supreme Leader ultimate authority.

The revolution reshaped regional and global politics. The U.S. Embassy hostage crisis (4 November 1979 – 20 January 1981) ruptured U.S.–Iran relations, which remain severed. Iraq's invasion in September 1980 triggered the eight-year Iran–Iraq War. The revolution also inspired Islamist movements across the Muslim world, intensified Sunni–Shia geopolitical rivalry (notably with Saudi Arabia), and remains a foundational reference point in debates over political Islam, sanctions regimes, and non-proliferation diplomacy.