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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nII. Cultural Underpinnings: Persian Humanist Tradition and Shia Religious Identity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Iran’s cultural tradition comprises two parallel strands. The first is the ancient Persian humanist tradition, represented by poets such as Hafez and Rumi. Hafez distinguished classical Persian from classical Arabic\u2014which served as the language of religion\u2014by positioning Persian as a “language for communicating with the people.” The poetry of Rumi also reflects a profound respect for individual value and rational thought. These traditions formed the ideological foundation of Iran’s modern nationalist movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second is the Islamic Shia tradition.<\/strong> Approximately 75% of Iran’s population adheres to Shia Islam. Historically, the Safavid Dynasty and the Sunni Ottoman Empire waged prolonged wars, during which religious and national identities became deeply intertwined, forming a unique political-cultural foundation. The tension between these two strands\u2014humanist rationality and religious authority\u2014runs throughout Iran’s modern history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n III. The Establishment of the Pahlavi Dynasty: The Symbiosis of Nation-State and Comprador Character<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1921, Reza Khan staged a coup, overthrowing the Qajar Dynasty and establishing the Pahlavi Dynasty. The emergence of this event can be attributed to both external factors\u2014the “Great Game” between Britain and Russia in Central Asia turned Iran into a buffer zone among competing powers, and the discovery of oil resources further increased external intervention\u2014and internal causes: barren land, backward agriculture, villages firmly controlled by landowners and the clerical class, peasants mired in chronic poverty, and a general lack of national cohesion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reza Khan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Simin Daneshvar’s Savushun<\/em> portrays the complex psychology of this period from an internal perspective. The novel’s male protagonist, as a member of the landed gentry, chooses to support the British intervention forces against the Turkish forces. From the perspective of later revisionist historiography, he is seen as a “compromiser of national interests” (a literary othering label) and consequently suffers political violence; yet his wife, in traditional ceremonies, venerates him as a hero. This narrative reveals the internal divisions and ethical confusions within Iranian society when faced with foreign intervention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During his rule, Reza Khan promoted the construction of modern infrastructure such as railways and factories, but simultaneously outsourced the oil resources of Abadan Island to the British, receiving only a modest rent in return, and was thus criticised as a “comprador regime.” He was both a pioneer of Iran’s modernisation and the one responsible for the erosion of its sovereignty\u2014this duality became the fate of the Pahlavi Dynasty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n IV. The Mosaddegh Era: Internal and External Dilemmas of Nationalist Reform<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1941, during World War II, Reza Khan was exiled, and his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, succeeded to the throne. After the war, the Soviet Union was unwilling to withdraw its troops from northern Iran, while Britain was no longer able to maintain its influence, and the United States gradually replaced Britain as Iran’s primary external power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mohammad Mosaddegh<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mohammad Mosaddegh was the most iconic figure of this period. Born into an aristocratic family, he was determined to pursue reform and founded the National Front, putting forward three core demands: first, oil nationalisation\u2014bringing oil resources under state control as the foundation of Iran’s economic independence and political sovereignty; second, labour mobilisation\u2014organising workers at the Abadan refinery to halt production in resistance to British capital control; and third, constitutionalism\u2014insisting on retaining the constitutional monarchical framework and refusing to abolish the throne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the reform programme of the National Front was severely disconnected from the peasant class. The peasants remained impoverished and neglected, never becoming beneficiaries or supporters of the reforms. Mosaddegh was a reformer rather than a revolutionary; his constitutionalist stance alienated the radicals while failing to win the trust of the conservatives. In 1953, the CIA and MI6 jointly orchestrated a coup (the first attempt failed, the second succeeded), overthrowing Mosaddegh’s government. The Shah’s power was thus consolidated to an unprecedented extent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n V. The White Revolution and the Intensification of Social Contradictions (1953\u20131979)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the 26 years following the coup, the Shah, with American support, implemented the “White Revolution”\u2014a series of modernising measures encompassing land reform, women’s emancipation, and secular education. However, serious problems emerged in their execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the economic front, land reform failed to address the fundamental issues of barren land and the scarcity of agricultural tools. The peasants merely shifted from “being poor on the landlords’ land” to “being poor on their own land,” with only marginal improvement in their circumstances. The oil industry stood out as a singular success, creating a classic “Dutch disease” effect\u2014a single resource sector boosted national income, but domestic consumer goods quality and industrial competitiveness failed to improve correspondingly, resulting in a severely unbalanced economic structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the socio-cultural front, an American-style lifestyle flooded in: the TOEFL exam was introduced to Iran as early as the 1960s, beauty pageants and Western clothing became widespread in urban areas, yet they remained severely disconnected from traditional religious and rural society. The Shah himself lived a lavish and dissolute life; records indicate that upon arriving in a foreign country, his first act after disembarking from the plane was to visit places of entertainment, squandering state finances in stark contrast to the poverty of his own people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the political front, the notorious SAVAK\u2014the secret police force trained by the CIA\u2014carried out large-scale suppression of dissidents, forced the populace to join the party and pay party dues, closed down the shops of opponents, and gradually turned Iran into a police state. The clerical class harboured deep resentment towards the tide of Westernisation, the urban middle class grew increasingly dissatisfied, and the peasant class was completely excluded from the benefits of reform. Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran<\/em> vividly documents the existential predicaments of intellectuals during this period: returning scholars were subjected to censorship, female university teachers were forced to wear the veil, and intellectuals could only organise secret reading groups, using literature to resist political oppression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The internal and external environment facing the Pahlavi dynasty deteriorated comprehensively. Domestically, economic imbalance, political repression, and religious opposition coalesced; internationally, the Carter administration pursued a “human rights diplomacy” and no longer gave unconditional support to authoritarian regimes, causing the Shah’s international backing to loosen. The religious leader Khomeini, exiled in Paris, seized the historical moment and became the central symbol of the revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n VI. The Islamic Revolution and the Hostage Crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n After the revolution, Khomeini implemented the system of Velayat-e Faqih<\/em> (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), establishing a theocratic state that merged religion with politics. To consolidate the new regime’s legitimacy, he exploited the Iran hostage crisis (1979\u20131981, 444 days) to cast the United States as the “external enemy,” effectively diverting domestic contradictions, but simultaneously plunging Iran into prolonged international isolation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n VII. The Iran\u2013Iraq War and Post-War Stalemate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n During the Iran\u2013Iraq War of 1980\u20131988, the Khomeini regime demonstrated formidable capacity for religious mobilisation, even organising teenage “human wave” troops on the battlefield to confront Iraq’s equipment advantage with their own flesh and blood, at a terribly heavy cost. The war further militarised the regime and deepened Iran’s estrangement from the outside world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the war, the pragmatic leader Rafsanjani attempted to adjust relations with the West and promote economic reconstruction, but conservative forces within the country consistently posed a powerful constraint. Researchers have noted that since 1979, the “dual decline” in both the quality and quantity of Iran’s internal historical sources has yet to reverse; for the period following the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty, researchers have become increasingly reliant on external observations and limited oral materials, finding it difficult to obtain solid native narratives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n VIII. Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Both the authoritarian rule of the late Pahlavi dynasty and the religious authoritarian system under Khomeini were highly controversial. The former lost popular support due to excessive reliance on external forces and neglect of people’s livelihoods, while the latter suppressed social pluralism in the name of religion. Neither was able to properly handle the deep-seated contradictions between tradition and change, religion and secularism, independence and dependency, in the course of modernisation. This historical lesson suggests that the true challenge of state-building does not lie in the superficial pace of “modernisation,” but in whether a social system can be established that is both inclusive and rooted in indigenous culture. Iran’s path is still unfolding, and its experiences and lessons hold unavoidable reference value for all countries exploring their own modes of modernisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (This article is based on a presentation by Elias Ye at the UHHC Alliance’s third sharing session. All copyrights belong to the author. In the event of infringement, UHHC and the author will pursue legal liability to the fullest extent. The accompanying images are sourced from the internet; if any infringement exists, we will remove them immediately.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Union of Humanities and History Clubs (UHHC)<\/strong> is an international high school student organisation focused on the humanities\u2014history, literature, art, philosophy, and related interdisciplinary applications (such as economics, business, law, humanities AI, etc.). The alliance currently consists of 13 student clubs and 47 independent members, spanning 15 cities across China (Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Nanjing, Huizhou, Hong Kong, Shenyang, Dongguan, Nanchang, Qingdao, Zhangjiagang, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Tongling, Suzhou), as well as Diamond Bar, California (USA), Newton Township, Pennsylvania (USA), Toronto, Canada, and Singapore, covering 33 secondary schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We believe that the humanistic spirit belongs not only to the great civilisations of the past, but also should shine brightly in the contemporary era. In an age of rapid technological advancement, we hope to inherit and promote the beauty of humanism through intellectual exchange, academic exploration, and cultural practice\u2014so that more people may feel the power of the humanities and join us in exploring the depth and breadth of this world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.uhhc.com.cn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/640-41-761x1024.png\"){kind=spacer}
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