Iran before Ayatollah Khomeini


 Walking down a snowy street in Tehran in 1976: "You cannot stop women walking in the streets of Iran, but you wouldn't see this today - her earrings and make up so clearly on show," Prof Afshar says. "There is this concept of 'decency' in Iran - so nowadays women walking in the streets are likely to wear a coat down to her knees and a scarf." 

  • In the decades [1941-1979] prior to the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran was ruled by the Shah-King Mohammad Reza Pahlavi 


from: Max Style catalogue 
  • Shah's dictatorship repressed dissent and restricted political freedoms 
  • Under Shah's rule, Iran's economy and educational opportunities expanded 
  • Britain and the U.S counted Iran as their major ally in the Middle East 

from:Iranian women - before and after the Islamic Revolution - BBC News 


Watch: https://youtu.be/T4M_EJzjItk




from: Iranian Historical and Information Center 


  • Due to Iran's supply of oil, proximity to India and shared border with the Soviet Union, Britain and the U.S fully backed the Iranian government 
  • Communists and religious members of society disliked the Shah and his pro-Western government 


Friday picnic in Tehran in 1976: Families and friends tend to get together on Fridays, which are weekend days in Iran. "Picnics are an important part of Iranian culture and are very popular amongst the middle classes. This has not changed since the revolution. The difference is, nowadays, men and women sitting together are much more self-aware and show more restraint in their interactions," says Prof Afshar.



  • In 1953, the Shah fled Iran after a Western-backed coup to overthrow Iranian Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh failed 


  • A second coupr succeeded in overthrowing Mosaddegh who wanted to nationalise the Iranian oil industry to Britain's chagrin  





  • The Shah returned to the country
  • Like Ataturk in Turkey, Reza Shah undertook a series of reforms aimed at turning Iran into a modern westernized nation 
  • These reforms included the structuring of Iran around a Persian identity 
  • The brutal suppression of tribes and their laws in exhange for a strong central government and the expansion of women's rights took effect 
  •  
  • from: Iran History Pics 


  • Women were banned from wearing veils in public, as part of Reza Shah's strategy to make religious observation subservient to the state 
  • Women were also encouraged to attend school 
  • Shah's intentions to westernize Iran alienated and frustrated religious conservatives and traditionalists 
  • Despite conservative backlash, the Shah managed to create a seemingly cosmopolitan city life 


from: Boredpanda 
  • Toward the end of the Shah's reign, the royal family attempted to rally the country around an increasingly historic nationalism on the preceding Persian empires 





from: Vintag.es 



  • In 1967, the Shah took the old Persian title "Shahanshah", or King of Kings at a coronation ceremony in Tehran 




from: Vintag.es 


  • Tehran funded study abroad in Europe for Iranians. Schools and clinics were built throughout the Iranian countryside to care for poorer children as part of the Shah's White Revolution, an American-inspired package of measures designed to give the regime a liberal and progressive facade 



  • Ayatollah Khomeini denounced the Shah's programs, issuing a manifesto that bore the signatures of eight other senior scholars, listing the various ways the Shah had violated the Constitution 




Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader and the founder of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution during a press conference. Tehran-Iran, 05/02/1979 


  • By January 1979, Reza Shah fled Iran during the Iranian revolution 

The Revolution was sparked by outrage against governemtn extravagance, corruption, brutality, and the suppression of individual rights before being taken over by Ayatollah Khomeini 






Pro-hijab rally in Tehran in 2006: More than 25 years after the revolution, women backing the hardliners in the establishment staged their own rallies to protest against what they saw as the authorities' failure to enforce the compulsory hijab law. Here, the women are all dressed in black chadors with the exception of a little girl. 





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