[pt] A Revolução Islâmica ocorrida em 1979 no Irã deve ser entendida como um processo formador de consenso político sob a liderança do ativismo religioso. As tensões que marcaram a sociedade iraniana na segunda metade do século XX puderam ser reunidas em um projeto de nação elaborado com maior intensidade pelo aiatolá Khomeini durante seu exílio na França. Seus discursos dessa época são portadores de um vocabulário político alicerçado em experiências da fé militante reconhecidas por grande parte dos iranianos como manifestações de um projeto de poder legítimo. Com a vitória da revolução e a implantação de uma República Islâmica no país, elementos desse léxico político são incorporados à nova Constituição Nacional, mantendo o domínio dos religiosos e concedendo pequenos espaços de negociação política à setores que apoiaram a revolução, tais como os liberais e os socialistas. O projeto de nação aplicado à Carta Constitucional se adapta ao novo quadro político do país, influenciado por questões internas como a consolidação da teoria do wilayat- i faqih; e por demandas externas como a Guerra Irã-Iraque iniciada em 1980. / [en] The Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran should be understood as a process of building political consensus under leadership of religious activism. The conflicts that marked the Iranian society during the second half of the twentieth century have been gathered in a project of nation developed mostly by Ayatollah Khomeini during his exile in France. His speeches at that time were accompanied by political language grounded in experiences of militant faith recognized by most of the Iranians as manifestations of a legitimate power project. After the victory of 1979`s revolution and implantation of the Islamic Republic in Iran, elements of this political lexicon are incorporated into the new National Constitution, maintaining the dominance of the religious and granting small spaces for political discussion to sectors that have supported the revolution, such as liberals and socialists. The project of nation applied to the Constitutional Letter suits the new political portrait in the country, influenced by internal affairs such as the consolidation of the wilayat al-faqih theory; and by external demands such as the Iran-Iraq War started in 1980.

This thesis considers the transformation of Iranian-Israeli ties following the 1979 Iranian Revolution from a Western-allied relationship to a covert, scandalous relationship, specifically in the context of the Iran-Iraq War. I also look at the Iranian and Israeli narratives and compare the religious, historical, ideological and psycho-political underpinnings that reveal significant similarities between these two superficially diametrically opposed states, and ultimately shaped the complex and misunderstood relationship between the two countries. / text

This paper presents a narrative history of Iranian revolutionary ideology and its evolving impact on foreign policy. It looks at this history primary through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an institution established after the revolution and designed to defend the Islamic political order in Iran as well as oppressed Muslims abroad. The Revolutionary Guard, or Guard for short, became a focal point in the efforts of Iranian revolutionaries to export their ideology and has evolved overtime into a politicized and unconventional military force, often associated in the media with supporting foreign terrorists and militants. This paper argues that the Guard has implemented revolutionary ideology in an arc from radical to pragmatic. Unlike past literature on the Guard, this paper situates the organization’s institutional history in Iran’s broader political context and concentrates on its relationships to and differences with other factions. A persistent aim is also to analyze terminology such as radical and pragmatic and provide theoretical foundations for the use of such terms.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The year 1924, which coincided with the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate and more recently, the Arab Spring which started in Tunisia in December 2010, and spread across much of north Africa and parts of the Middle East, has captured the attention of worldwide audiences, but also policy makers from the West to relook at the masses in the Muslim world as not politically acquiescent, even ignorant, but also, and more importantly as to which forms of government these regions would adopt, secular or Shari‘ah based (Islamic Law), or a combination of the two. The proposed research will examine and compare the views of the Shī‘i Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Egyptian Sunni intellectual and Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Quţb regarding the form of government and its source of authority. Both scholars agreed on the sovereignty of the Sharỉ‘ah. Khomeini stressed the centrality of the establishment of an Islamic government and the concept of Wilāyat al-faqīh in his book of Ḥukūmah al-Islamiyyah (Khomeini, undate). Therefore, Khomeini’s doctrine of Wilāyat al-faqīh argues that the government should be run in accordance with the Shari‘ah. For this to happen, a high-ranking cleric (Islamic jurist) should provide political guardianship over the people in the absence of and until the reappearance of the Hidden Imām. Sayyid Quţb stressed the establishment of an Islamic society before attempting to codify the Sharī‘ah (Quţb, 1981:76). His writing on politics and government does not lay out a comprehensive plan for Islamic governance. He does however; provide a foundation and three sub-principles that help determine its powers and structure. He declared that the foundation of Islamic political rule is Ulūhiyya (servitude) and Al-ḥākimiyya (sovereignty of Sharī‘ah) of Allah. This means that the Islamic government is the rule of God (Loboda, 2004: 25) Furthermore, Quţb, argues that Islam does not provide man with sovereignty, but Allah (God) is the only sovereign. In addition, he clarifies that an Islamic form of government itself is not divine as past Christian governments considered their kings to be divinely ordained. Instead, any rule with reference to Al-ḥākimiyya and based on three subprinciples is Islamic rule (Quţb, 1993). The three sub-principles for Islamic political rule indicated by Sayyid Quţb are as follows. Firstly, the rulers should be just. Secondly, the people should be obedient to the ruler as long as he submits to the sovereignty of Allah and implements the Sharī‘ah. Thirdly, there should be consultation between the rulers and the community. However Sayyid Quţb does not indicate a clear method of consultation between the ruler and the people. Instead, he leaves it up to the local conditions of the community. In the third principle, Quţb indicated that the importance of consultation encompasses the entire concept of Islamic rule and Muslim community life (Quţb, 1993:45). This means Sayyid Quţb "indirectly states that rulers should be elected by democratic vote" (Loboda. 2004:28).

Women's rights have been a historically controversial issue. This is no exception in Iran, where the struggle between modernization and keeping with traditional Islamic values has been a topic of constant disagreement between political leaders. Women in Iran have experienced many changes in their personal rights and freedoms throughout the decades. This research focuses on religion and culture, the policies of the main leaders of Iran in the past decades, and the role of non-governmental organizations as factors that expand or limit the rights and freedoms of women. It attempts to identify which factor is mostly responsible for the position that women have been historically placed in. The intent of this thesis is to research the rights and conditions of women in Iran.In general the question could be proposed as "are the lives of women in Iran better off today than in the past?" In the western world there are many stereotypes that are oftentimes attached to women, such as the notions that they are not allowed to pursue an education or career and that they do not have any legal rights. Evidence shows that these notions are not accurate in contemporary Iran, and that women have made significant strides in gaining their rights and freedoms. Through the analysis of several case studies, literature reviews, and statistical evidence, this thesis seeks to identify the factors that most affect women's rights and freedoms. By analyzing the factors that have historically placed women at a disadvantage in Iranian society, and better understanding their lives, this thesis aims to fight the stereotypes placed upon them as well as raise awareness for the continuing plight of women in Iran today.

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This dissertation is a study of Islamist ideas on and visions of the Islamic state. It begins with the observation that although a growing amount of research explores Islamism; few studies closely investigate Islamist ideas. The aim of this dissertation is to empirically and theoretically contribute to the understanding and interpretation of contemporary Islamism and its intellectual origins. Sayyid Qutb, Abu al-Ala al-Mawdudi and Ruhollah Khomeini are generally considered as sources of inspiration to Islamists currently active. Their ideas are analysed and compared to those of two Islamist parties; the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) in Pakistan and the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) in Algeria. Islamism is part of a global religious resurgence that has taken many politicai and other social scientists by surprise. According to modernization and secularisation theories, such a resurgence was not to be expected. The focus in this study is therefore on the relationship between visions of the Islamic state and modernity. In this respect, two theoretical positions are critically assessed; one stating that we should understand Islamism in terms of a rejection of modernity and the other that Islamism can be understood and interpreted as an expression of there being multiple or alternative modernities. A key issue in this regard revolves around the question of how modernity is alternative and what that means. A content-oriented analysis of ideas — based on a social constructivist approach and anchored in practical hermeneutics - is utilized in the reconstruction and analysis of Islamist texts. A framework for analysis is developed in which dimensions of modernity are constructed. Islamist ideas on and visions of the Islamic state are analysed in terms of what is rejected, accepted or possibly added to these dimensions. The empirical contribution to research on Islamism is the content-oriented analysis of Islamist ideas. This analysis also helps to explore similarities and differences between the ideas of Qutb, Mawdudi and Khomeini and those of the JI and the FIS. The comparisons show that Islamist ideas are under evolution; there are important differences between the two contemporary parties and their sources of inspiration. Moreover, the content-oriented analysis reveals the complexity of the relationship between modernity and visions of the Islamic state. The theoretical contribution involves both theory-testing and theory-development. It is concluded that theories of multiple or alternative modernities, with some reservations, can be applied to Islamist ideas on and visions of the Islamic state. / digitalisering@umu

Ce mémoire est une analyse interprétative des facteurs endogènes et exogènes qui peuvent expliquer l'échec de la politique d'extension de la révolution (PER) menée dans le Golfe Persique entre 1979 et 1989 par certains acteurs politique iraniens. Il entend montrer, à l'aide d'une méthodologie wébérienne, la difficulté d'établir de solides relations causales entre ces facteurs et l'échec de la PER, en fonction de sources premières limitées et sans la compréhension nécessaires des langues arabe et iranienne. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Iran, Golfe Persique, Khomeiny, Révolution, Relations internationales.

From angry torch-swinging Parisians attacking the Bastille and Russian workers rising up against the Tsar to outraged Chinese peasants exacting revenge on their landlords and Cuban guerrillas battling Batista’s army, revolutions without violence have in the past been near inconceivable. But when unarmed Iranians after an extended popular struggle forced Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, the last king of Iran, to flee Tehran on January 16, 1979, they had gifted the world a new and seemingly paradoxical phenomenon: a nonviolent revolution. Far from a historical oddity, such revolutions have since occurred on almost every continent. Over the past thirty years the function of guerrilla tactics, military coups, and civil war has increasingly been replaced by demonstrations, boycotts, and strikes. How can social scientists account for this “evolution of revolution” that have so altered the appearance of the phenomenon that by Arendt’s definition events in places like Iran, the Philippines, Chile, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine may not even qualify as revolutions? Yet, the popular overthrows of authoritarian regimes in each and every one of those countries were nothing less than revolutionary. The dissertation seeks to understand this recent development in the nature of revolutions by historically examining the phenomenon’s signal case, the Iranian Revolution. The core question asked is: what are the structural and historical forces that caused the Iranian Revolution to be the world’s first nonviolent revolution? The central argument is that both the emergence and success of the nonviolent Iranian Revolution can be explained by its internationalization. In other words, the Iranian Revolution turned out to be successfully nonviolent because, unlike previous revolutions, it was a global affair in which the revolutionaries intentionally and strategically sought to bring the world into their struggle against the state. Indirectly, the aim of this study is to generate the genesis of a theoretical framework that can explain more broadly the emergence and success of nonviolent revolutions in the late 1970s and beyond. / text

The thesis focuses on the Islamic Revolution of Iran by a comparative analysis of the monarchy regimes before and after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Although there is little doubt that the transformation of Imperial Iran to the Islamic Republic has played a vital catalyst in redrawing the "greater" Middle Eastern geopolitics ever since this thesis aims to compare the historical development of Iran during the monarchy and the effect of the revolutionary institutions brought on the Iranian society. Despite the extensive amount of resources used in this thesis being both from Iran and abroad, the author has made every effort to reduce the effects of the influences whether from the overzealous defenders of monarchy or the die-hard revolutionaries to a bare minimum and allow the facts on their own to project the picture through an objective lens. The goal of the thesis is for the objective research and comparison to try and provide a factual answer to the million-dollar question, whether the revolution was for better or for worse.