From Monarchy to Theocracy: The Fall of the Shah and the Rise of Khomeini
The Rise of Khomeini’s Theocracy and the Collapse of Iran’s Democratic Aspirations
The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran marked a watershed moment in history, ousting Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's secular monarchy and establishing a revolutionary theocratic state led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. This revolution not only transformed Iran's government, but also introduced Islam as a modern form of governance and unleashed a zealous ideological force on the world stage. In subsequent decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran has defied international norms, destabilizing regions far beyond its borders. It has actively exported its revolutionary Islamist ideology, sponsoring militant proxies from Lebanon to the Gulf states, and defiantly pursued policies that challenge the West. Internally, the regime established a harsh authoritarian system that brutally suppresses dissent and violates human rights on a massive scale. More than forty years on, the Iranian Revolution’s legacy continues to reverberate through the Middle East and beyond, serving as both inspiration and threat to various Islamist movements and contributing to constant instability.
The Iranian Revolution’s ideological roots were a complex fusion of Shi’a Islamic revivalism and Third World anti-imperialism. In the years leading up to 1979, Iran was a hotbed of opposition to the Shah’s autocratic, Western-aligned regime. Secular leftists, Islamists, liberal intellectuals, and bazaar merchants formed an unlikely coalition united mainly by their desire to oust the Pahlavi monarchy. A key intellectual influence was Dr. Ali Shariati, a Western-educated sociologist who sought to synthesize Marxist anti-colonial thought with Shi’a Islamism. Inspired by thinkers like Frantz Fanon, Shariati advocated a revolutionary ideology aimed at liberating Iran’s “downtrodden” (mostazafin) from both the Shah’s tyranny and Western imperialism. Although Shariati died before the revolution, his Islamist–leftist populism resonated with Iran’s disaffected youth and set the stage for a broad-based uprising. The last Shah’s own rhetoric derided this alliance of “the black and the red” (clerics and communists), but it was proven to be very effective in mobilizing mass protests.
At the forefront of the revolutionary ideology was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a senior Shi’a cleric who had been exiled by the Shah. Khomeini provided the religious and political leadership that transformed disparate grievances into an Islamic revolution. In his writings and sermons from exile (notably the 1970 treatise Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist), Khomeini developed the doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), arguing that a senior cleric should rule as supreme guardian over an Islamic state. This concept broke with the quietist tradition of Shi’a clergy and infused the revolutionary movement with a clear goal: to establish an Islamic state governed by Sharia (Islamic law) and led by clergy as God’s vicegerents on earth. Khomeini framed the struggle against the Shah as one of Islamic justice against secular oppression, often invoking historical Shi’a themes of resisting unjust rulers. He accused the Shah of impiety, corruption, and subservience to foreign powers (especially the United States), tapping into widespread nationalist resentment. The revolution’s slogan “Neither East nor West – Only the Islamic Republic” captured its twin rejection of both Western capitalism and Soviet communism in favor of a unique Islamist third path.
When Khomeini returned triumphant to Iran in February 1979, he articulated lofty goals for the revolution that extended far beyond replacing one ruler with another. On April 1, 1979, after a national referendum formally abolished the monarchy, Khomeini proclaimed the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In a landmark address to the nation that day, he heralded the dawn of a new era. Khomeini declared that the “fulfillment of the Almighty God’s promise is close” and envisioned the imminent “triumph of those deemed weak over the arrogant.” He criticized both Cold War superpowers for their hypocrisy, denouncing Western democracy as fraudulent due to the United States' support for the "miserable Shah" and dismissing the Communist bloc as equally repressive. Only “Islamic democracy is correct,” Khomeini said, insisting that unlike the systems of East or West, “there is no repression in Islam,” and “an Islamic government does not do wrong.” These bold claims set an idealistic narrative that Islam was the panacea not only for Iran’s problems but for “the world’s ills.” Khomeini's message appealed to a sense of historical grievance, showing Iran as a long-suffering victim of foreign domination, and offering Islam as the solution to restore justice and dignity.
Crucially, from the very beginning Khomeini saw Iran’s revolution as the first step of a much broader Islamic awakening. In the same 1979 speech, he urged other Muslim nations to rise up and “cut off the hands of the satans from their countries.” This was a direct call for Islamic revolution beyond Iran’s borders, referring to the “satans” of imperialism and Zionism that he believed had corrupted the Muslim world. Khomeini often described Iran’s revolution as “not Iran’s alone” but the start of a global struggle. “The Iranian people’s revolution is only a point in the start of the revolution of the great world of Islam,” Khomeini proclaimed, envisioning an Islamist revival across the entire Muslim ummah. Such rhetoric made clear that the revolution’s goals were not confined to regime change in Iran. Rather, the ideological mission was to revive pure Islam and empower the oppressed worldwide. As one observer noted at the time, Khomeini presented himself as a kind of Islamic messiah-figure for the Third World, with Western leftists optimistically hoping he might provide “a desperately needed model of humane governance for a third-world country.” In reality, Khomeini's vision was far from liberal; it was radical Islamism, with religious rule surpassing all other forms of government. However, its populist appeal, which promised justice, independence, and spiritual renewal, resonated with many Iranians and non-Iranians alike. The revolutionary ideologues saw their movement as the third great revolution in modern history, following the French and Russian revolutions. They intended it to be universal, speaking for "the oppressed around the world."
To put it simply, the 1979 revolution's ideological roots were a mix of Shi'a Islamism and anti-colonial revolutionism. Its objectives were twofold: to replace the Shah's secular despotism with an Islamic Republic governed by Khomeini's theocratic doctrine, and to continue the revolution beyond Iran's borders in the name of Islamic unity and justice. These ambitions, enshrined in early speeches and later in the Islamic Republic's constitution, would shape Iran's domestic and foreign policy for decades. Khomeini quickly transformed what began as a popular uprising for "independence and freedom" into a crusade for an Islamic world order.
The toppling of the Shah in February 1979 was followed by a rapid and often tumultuous process of building the new Islamic Republic. Ayatollah Khomeini, as the revolution’s supreme leader, moved swiftly to consolidate power and to implement his vision of a theocratic state. The political order that emerged in 1979–1980 fundamentally reshaped Iran’s governance, law, and institutions. It wedded elements of republicanism (e.g. elected offices and a constitution) with a rigid theocratic hierarchy that ultimately subordinated popular sovereignty to clerical authority. Khomeini famously said that the revolution was about installing “Islamic democracy” – a term that in practice meant rule by God’s law as interpreted by Islamic jurists, rather than secular liberal democracy.
One of Khomeini’s first actions was to legitimize the new order through a popular mandate. On March 30-31, 1979, a national referendum was held asking voters simply to approve or reject an “Islamic Republic.” The result was an overwhelming “yes” (officially over 98% in favor). On April 1, 1979, Khomeini declared Iran an Islamic Republic, cementing the revolution’s first achievement. As noted above, in his April 1 address Khomeini praised the near-unanimous vote as a sign that “the nation wants the teachings of the blessed Quran to be implemented in Iran”, and that “only an Islamic Republic can fulfill all the objectives of the Iranian nation.” From Khomeini’s perspective, the massive popular support for the Islamic Republic validated his claim to rule in the name of the people and Islam simultaneously. However, even at this early stage, he downplayed democratic mechanisms in favor of divine authority – proclaiming that “the commands of the Islamic republic override all others.” This implied that Islamic law and the revolutionary leadership's laws were above any secular concept of popular will.
Throughout 1979, the skeletal framework of a new state took shape. A provisional revolutionary government was first led by moderate Islamist Mehdi Bazargan, but Khomeini and his clerical circle retained ultimate power, issuing decrees and establishing parallel institutions. In February 1979, Khomeini created the Revolutionary Council and Revolutionary Courts to try and execute officials of the old regime. Thousands of former ministers, generals, and secret police agents were arrested and scores were executed in summary trials as the new regime sought to “kill off supporters of the ancien régime.” his violent purge of the Shah’s elites (as well as some rival revolutionaries) set the tone for the new order. At the same time, in May 1979, the regime established the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a parallel armed force to both defend the revolution from internal foes and act as an ideological army. According to Reuters, the IRGC was formed “shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to protect the Shi’ite Muslim clerical ruling system and provide a counterweight to the regular armed forces.” The IRGC, which answered directly to Khomeini, and later to his successor as Supreme Leader, quickly became the regime’s praetorian guard. It even created a volunteer militia, the Basij, to enforce Islamic norms and crush protests, a role it continues to play in cracking down on dissent. These steps ensured that coercive power lay firmly in the hands of those loyal to the revolution’s hardline core.
A decisive moment in the revolution’s consolidation was the drafting of a new constitution. Throughout mid-1979, an elected Assembly of Experts (dominated by clerics sympathetic to Khomeini) wrote a constitution that institutionalized Velayat-e Faqih. The resulting document, approved by referendum in December 1979, made Khomeini the Supreme Leader for life, with sweeping authority over all branches of government and the armed forces. The constitution’s very preamble emphasizes the “ideological and Islamic nature” of the revolution, explicitly stating that the constitution’s mission is to “realize the ideological objectives of the movement” and to create conditions for “the continuation of the Revolution at home and abroad.” Past Iranian democratic movements, it argues, failed due to “lack of an ideological basis” and deviation from genuine Islam. In contrast, the new Islamic Republic is unabashedly ideological: its Article 1 pronounces that “the form of government of Iran is that of an Islamic Republic,” founded on “submission to Allah” and the central role of “divine revelation” as the source of law. The constitution explicitly inscribes Khomeini’s doctrine by stating that the governance is to be based on Velayat-e Faqih, the guardianship of the Islamic jurist. In effect, the Supreme Leader was placed above the elected President and Parliament, with final say on all state matters and the power to appoint key military, judicial, and media posts. The Guardian Council, a body of jurists, was created to vet legislation and candidates for office, ensuring all laws and officials conform to Islamic criteria and loyalty to the revolution. This hybrid structure is “theocratic and republican,” but heavily weighted toward unelected bodies – as even semi-official analyses concede, Iran’s system is only “semi-republican,” since bodies like the Guardian Council disqualify any candidates not “loyal to the Islamic Republic.” Such built-in vetting has prevented any true opposition from taking power and has been a "key impediment" to genuine democracy in Iran.
In formal terms, the establishment of the Islamic Republic created new institutions that have endured since: the Supreme Leader (Khomeini himself from 1979–1989, succeeded by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), the President and Parliament with limited powers, the Guardian Council, the Assembly of Experts (to choose or remove the Supreme Leader), the IRGC, and the judiciary infused with Islamic revolutionary values. Every institution was designed to safeguard the revolution over the long term. Indeed, Article 3 of the constitution lists among the regime’s objectives “the complete elimination of imperialism and the prevention of foreign influence” and Article 154 explicitly commits Iran to support “the just struggles of the oppressed against the oppressors in every corner of the globe.” This constitutional entrenchment of revolutionary ideals (hostility to imperialism, pan-Islamic solidarity, etc.) ensured that state policy would be ideologically driven. As one analysis notes, “Iran’s Islamist ideology is at the crux of the Islamic Republic and cannot be detached from the Iranian state.” In short, the state exists to serve the revolution, not vice versa – a notion Khomeini himself reinforced. During the 1980–88 Iran-Iraq War, when some pragmatists urged prioritizing national interest over ideological fervor, Khomeini famously responded that the war and its sacrifices were about preserving the revolution’s principles, even above Iran’s territorial concerns.
Khomeini’s personal consolidation of power was completed by mid-1981. In November 1979, radical Islamist students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 American diplomats hostage – an event Khomeini blessed as a blow against the “Great Satan.” The hostage crisis (which lasted 444 days) had the side effect of undermining moderate figures like Prime Minister Bazargan (who resigned in protest) and rallying nationalist support around Khomeini. By mid-1980, Iran was effectively under the control of Khomeini’s clerical network and the Islamic Republican Party. In June 1981, President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr (a moderate Islamist who had fallen out with hardliners) was impeached and fled into exile. Revolutionary courts and the IRGC cracked down violently on opposition factions such as the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK, a leftist-Islamist guerrilla group) and secular leftists. Between 1981 and 1985, roughly 7,900 political opponents were executed as the regime eliminated rivals and cemented a one-party theocracy. A further mass killing took place in 1988, when thousands of imprisoned dissidents (mainly MEK members and leftists) were summarily executed on Khomeini’s order during what is often called the “great massacre.” By contrast, under the Shah’s last eight years (1971–79), fewer than 100 political prisoners had been executed – highlighting how much more brutal the new regime was against opponents. One dictatorship had been replaced by an even more brutal one. The early years of the Islamic Republic saw a reign of revolutionary terror not unlike the aftermath of the French or Russian revolutions – except justified in Islamic terms. Khomeini and his circle made clear that preserving the Islamic Revolution and “purifying” the country of un-Islamic influences took absolute precedence over any liberal notions of freedom or pluralism.
By 1989, the basic structure of power in the Islamic Republic was set, and it has proven remarkably enduring. Khomeini died that year, but not before amending the constitution to make the Supreme Leader’s powers even more “absolute” (the 1989 amendments strengthened the office, removing the requirement that the Leader be a high-level marja or source of emulation, thus allowing Ali Khamenei, a mid-ranking cleric, to succeed Khomeini). The principle of Velayat-e Faqih was reasserted unequivocally. As one clause puts it, during the occultation of the 12th Imam, the “leadership of the ummah” is entrusted to Iran’s Supreme Leader. Khomeini’s successor Ayatollah Khamenei has since ruled as Supreme Leader for over three decades, continuing the system Khomeini built. The Islamic Republic’s constitution and institutions thus enshrine the revolution’s ideological DNA – blending theocracy with selective republican elements, and mandating the regime to champion Shi’a Islamism both at home and globally. The Islamic Republic under Khomeini’s guidance became a model of a modern theocratic state, unique in the world. Its establishment marked the first time a large, strategically important country was governed by clerics wielding temporal power, and it presented a stark challenge to the secular nation-state model in the Middle East.
The establishment of the Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Khomeini transformed Iran’s political landscape. The new state was explicitly founded on ideological and Islamic principles, as reflected in its constitution and institutions. Khomeini’s role as Supreme Leader put a single cleric at the pinnacle of authority, ensuring the revolution’s ideals guided policy. While the regime claimed to uphold the people’s will through referendums and elections, in practice it instituted a “hybrid authoritarianism” in which unelected bodies loyal to the revolution hold veto power over popular sovereignty. The immediate years after 1979 saw the elimination of pluralism – no veritable opposition was allowed and Iran quickly became “one of the most repressive systems on the globe,” with the world’s highest per-capita execution rate. Nevertheless, Khomeini achieved his primary goal: he founded an Islamic state that he believed could serve as the nucleus for a wider Islamist revolution.