Untitled Flashcards Set

IRAN - KEY TERMS

 

IRAN – the following terms in bold are important

Terms in plain text are not as important

 

I. Basic features of Iran & pre-1979 history of Iran

Persia (p. 558)

Farsi (p. 555)

 

 - Religious terms:

Koran (p. 555)

Muhammad (p. 557)

Shiism (p. 557)

ayatollah (p. 558) and imam (p. 558)

Mahdi (p. 558)

 

 - 20th Century events & figures up to 1979

Constitutional Revolution (p. 559) early 20th c democracy experiment

Pahlavi, Reza Shah (p. 560) ruled as monarch; dominated Iran’s politics from 1925-41; followed by…

…Pahlavi, Mohammad Reza (p. 560); monarch, ruled from 1941-1979

his reform policies were called the White Revolution (p. 561);

oppressed opponents using secret police SAVAK (p. 561)

Mosaddeq, Mohammad (p. 561) key elected leader in 1950s, overthrown by

Operation Ajax (p. 561) which was partly run by Great Britain and the US

            National Front (p. 561) was Mosaddeq’s party

 

II.  Post-1979 Iranian – Features of Regime and Elections 

Iran-Iraq War (p. 563)

 

Terms about Role of Religion in politics:

Islamic Republic of Iran (p. 562), instituted policy of

velayat-e faqih (p. 562) as basis of regime and state, and theocracy (p. 555)

Islamism, or Islamic fundamentalism (p. 555)

principalists (p. 573) and quietist (p. 573) – opposing views of the appropriate role of religion in politics

 

 

Regime institutions –Unelected & Elected, also note they are either explicitly Religious or Secular:

-       See the chart on p. 564 for a basic idea how the institutions below are interconnected

 

Unelected Institutions & Leaders

supreme leader (p. 564); there have been only two: Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah (p. 555) and

 Khamenei, Ayatollah Ali (p. 57)

Expediency Council (p. 565)

Guardian Council (p. 55)

chief justice (p. 565)

Revolutionary Guard (p. 567)

Basij (p. 567)

bonyads (p. 575)

 

Elected Institutions & Leaders:

Majlis (p. 559)

Assembly of Experts (p. 564) 

president (p. 564) – in order, from recent to earlier

former presidents: note alternating reformer-conservative pattern

Pezeshkian, Mahsoud – newly elected president in 2024; is a reformer

Raisi, Ebrahim (p. 557)– president elected 2021, died in plane crash in 2024.  Former chief justice,

Conservative, cleric

Rouhani, Hassan (p. 557) – reformer & cleric

Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud (p. 568) – highly conservative, non-cleric

Khatami, Mohammad (p. 557) – reformer, cleric          

Rafsanjani, Ali Akbar Hashemi (p. 565)