Claim: In Iran in 1979, the extremists hijacked the broad-based popular revolution against the Shah and established a brutal theocracy.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Abdullah Yusuf Azzam
text: 16 January 1979 the Iranian Revolution succeed in taking over the country and exiling the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, which then brought about the world's first modern Muslim theocracy under the rule of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The second major attempt at Islamic revolution that year was the 20 November 1979 Grand Mosque Seizure at Mecca, in western Saudi Arabia, the holiest site in Islam. The two-week siege and bloody ending shocked the Muslim world, as hundreds were killed in the ensuing battles and executions. The event was explained as a fundamentalist dissident revolt against the Saudi regime. The Saudi regime

title: 1970s
text: Cambodia in 1975–78. In 1979, a new wrinkle appeared in the form of Islamic fundamentalism, as the Shia theocracy of Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah of Iran and declared itself hostile to both Western democracy and godless communism. People were deeply influenced by the rapid pace of societal change and the aspiration for a more egalitarian society in cultures that were long colonized and have an even longer history of hierarchical social structure. The Green Revolution of the late 1960s brought about self-sufficiency in food in many developing economies. At the same time an increasing number of people began to

title: Iranian Revolution
text: Islamic republic on 1 April 1979 and to formulate and approve a new theocratic-republican constitution whereby Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country in December 1979. The revolution was unusual for the surprise it created throughout the world: it lacked many of the customary causes of revolution (defeat at war, a financial crisis, peasant rebellion, or disgruntled military), occurred in a nation that was experiencing relative prosperity, produced profound change at great speed, was massively popular, resulted in the exile of many Iranians, and replaced a pro-Western authoritarian monarchy with an anti-Western authoritarian theocracy based on the concept of Guardianship

title: Consolidation of the Iranian Revolution
text: ("the Western plague"), and as "monafeqin "(hypocrites) and "kafer" (unbelievers). In February 1980 concentrated attacks by "hezbollahi" toughs began on the meeting places, bookstores, newsstands of Mujahideen and other leftists driving the left underground in Iran. The next month saw the beginning of the "Iranian Cultural Revolution". Universities, a leftist bastion, were closed for two years to purge them of opponents to theocratic rule. A purge of the state bureaucracy began in July. 20,000 teachers and nearly 8,000 military officers deemed too "Westernized" were dismissed. Khomeini sometimes felt the need to use "takfir" (declaring someone guilty of apostasy, a capital

title: Iranian Revolution
text: adhere to the Iranian Constitution of 1906 rather than to replace him with a theocracy, but lacked the cohesion and organization of Khomeini's forces. Marxist groups – primarily the communist Tudeh Party of Iran and the Fedaian guerrillas – had been weakened considerably by government repression. Despite this the guerrillas did help play an important part in the final February 1979 overthrow delivering "the regime its coup de grace." The most powerful guerrilla group – the People's Mujahedin – was leftist Islamist and opposed the influence of the clergy as reactionary. Some important clergy did not follow Khomeini's lead. Popular

title: Iranian Revolution
text: and federalist parties revolted in some regions comprising Khuzistan, Kurdistan and Gonbad-e Qabus, which resulted in fighting between them and revolutionary forces. These revolts began in April 1979 and lasted between several months to over a year, depending on the region. On 30 and 31 March (Farvardin 10, 11) a referendum was held over whether to replace the monarchy with an "Islamic republic". Khomeini called for a massive turnout and only the National Democratic Front, Fadayan, and several Kurdish parties opposed the vote. The results show that 98.2% had voted in favor of the Islamic Republic. In June 1979 the

title: History of the Islamic Republic of Iran
text: theocratic Constitution — whereby Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country — was approved in December 1979. In between, the Shah fled Iran in January 1979 after strikes and demonstrations paralyzed the country, and on February 1, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran to a greeting by several million Iranians. The final collapse of the Pahlavi dynasty occurred shortly after on February 11 when Iran's military declared itself "neutral" after guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed troops loyal to the Shah in armed street fighting. Iran officially became the Islamic Republic on April 1, 1979, when Iranians overwhelmingly approved a national

title: History of Islam
text: constitutional monarchy to a populist theocratic Islamic republic under the rule of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shi'i Muslim cleric and "marja". Following the Revolution, and a new constitution was approved and a referendum established the government, electing Ruhollah Khomeini as Supreme Leader. During the following two years, liberals, leftists, and Islamic groups fought each other, and the Islamics captured power. The development of the two opposite fringes, the Safavid conversion of Iran to Shia Islam the Twelver Shia version and its reinforcement by the Iranian Revolution and the Salafi in Saudi Arabia, coupled with the Iran–Saudi Arabia relations resulted in

title: Iranian Revolution
text: the post-Shah era, some revolutionaries who clashed with his theocracy and were suppressed by his movement complained of deception, but in the meantime anti-Shah unity was maintained. Several events in the 1970s set the stage for the 1979 revolution. The 1971 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire at Persepolis, organized by the government, was attacked for its extravagance. "As the foreigners reveled on drink forbidden by Islam, Iranians were not only excluded from the festivities, some were starving." Five years later the Shah angered pious Iranian Muslims by changing the first year of the Iranian solar calendar

title: Iran
text: unemployment, especially among millions of youth who had migrated to the cities of Iran looking for construction jobs during the boom years of the early 1970s. By the late 1970s, many of these people opposed the Shah's regime and began to organize and join the protests against it. The 1979 Revolution, later known as the "Islamic Revolution", began in January 1978 with the first major demonstrations against the Shah. After a year of strikes and demonstrations paralyzing the country and its economy, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled the country and Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile to Tehran in February 1979, forming

title: History of Western civilization
text: to ensure stability on the region and a steady supply of the oil the world economy needed, the United States supported many corrupt dictatorships in the Middle East. In 1979, an Islamic revolution in Iran overthrew the pro-Western Shah and established an anti-Western Shiite Islamic theocracy. Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, most of the country came under the rule of a Sunni Islamic theocracy, the Taliban. The Taliban offered shelter to the Islamic terrorist group Al-Qaeda, founded by the extremist Saudi Arabian exile Osama Bin Laden. Al-Qaeda launched a series of attacks on United States overseas interests

title: Iran
text: Marxists had initially joined with Islamists to overthrow the Shah, tens of thousands were executed by the new regime afterwards. Many former ministers and officials in the Shah's government, including former prime minister Amir-Abbas Hoveyda, were brutally shot dead by firing squads on Khomeini's order to purge the new government of any remaining officials still loyal to the exiled Shah. On 4 November 1979, a group of Muslim students seized the United States Embassy and took the embassy with 52 personnel and citizens hostage, after the United States refused to return Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to Iran to face trial in

title: History of Iran
text: the approval of the new theocratic Constitution—whereby Ayatollah Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country—in December 1979. In between, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi left the country for exile in January 1979 after strikes and demonstrations paralyzed the country, and on February 1, 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran. The final collapse of the Pahlavi dynasty occurred shortly after on February 11 when Iran's military declared itself "neutral" after guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed troops loyal to the Shah in armed street fighting. Iran officially became an Islamic Republic on April 1, 1979, when Iranians overwhelmingly approved a national referendum to make

title: Monarchism in Iran
text: in the Shah, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had kept the fact secret, to leave the country with his family to seek treatment overseas. Within several days the Shah's government had effectively collapsed and the Second Revolution had begun. The new provisional revolutionary government officially abolished the monarchy and declared Iran to be a republic. The following year, in 1980, the Islamic Republic of Iran was established under the Supreme Leadership of Ruhollah Khomeini. In the months following the Revolution, former Field Marshal of the Imperial Armed Forces Bahram Aryana organized a counter-revolution in exile. Based in

title: Iranian Revolution
text: son Mostafa died of an alleged heart attack, his death also blamed on SAVAK. A subsequent memorial service for Mostafa in Tehran put Khomeini back in the spotlight. By 1977, the Shah's policy of political liberalization was underway. Secular opponents of the Shah began to meet in secret to denounce the government. Led by the leftist intellectual Saeed Soltanpour, the Iranian Writers Association met at the Goethe Institute in Tehran to read anti-government poetry. Ali Shariati's death in the United Kingdom shortly after led to another public demonstration, with the opposition accusing the Shah of murdering him. The chain of

title: Intellectual movements in Iran
text: a British corporation (now BP). A military government under General Fazlollah Zahedi was formed which allowed Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran (Persian for an Iranian king), to effectively rule the country as an absolute monarch according to the constitution. He relied heavily on United States support to hold on to power until his own overthrow in February 1979. In August 2013 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) admitted that it was involved in both the planning and the execution of the coup, including the bribing of Iranian politicians, security and army high-ranking officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda. The

title: Iran
text: a new government. After holding a referendum, Iran officially became an Islamic republic in April 1979. A second referendum in December 1979 approved a theocratic constitution. The immediate nationwide uprisings against the new government began with the 1979 Kurdish rebellion and the Khuzestan uprisings, along with the uprisings in Sistan and Baluchestan and other areas. Over the next several years, these uprisings were subdued in a violent manner by the new Islamic government. The new government began purging itself of the non-Islamist political opposition, as well as of those Islamists who were not considered radical enough. Although both nationalists and

title: 1981 Bahraini coup d'état attempt
text: 1981 Bahraini coup d'état attempt After Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in Iran in 1979, Tehran made clear its intention to spread its Islamic Revolution throughout the Muslim world. However, the Sunni Bahraini government oppressed its Shia majority long before the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran; for example, journalist Saeed Al-Uwainati and medical doctor Mohammed Gholoom were both tortured to death by the regime’s security forces in 1976. Established with the help of the British (Ian Henderson (police officer)), since 1974, State Security Law in Bahrain allowed torture against mass opposition to the ruling regime. One of the most dramatic

title: Consolidation of the Iranian Revolution
text: Western style," giving pro-democracy liberals (and later leftists) a taste of disappointments to come. In succession the National Democratic Front was banned in August 1979, the provisional government was disempowered in November, the Muslim People's Republic Party banned in January 1980, the People's Mujahedin of Iran guerillas came under attack in February 1980, a purge of universities was begun in March 1980, and leftist Islamist Abolhassan Banisadr was impeached in June 1981. Explanations for why the opposition was crushed include its lack of unity. According to Asghar Schirazi, the moderates lacked ambition and were not well organised, while the radicals

title: Monarchism in Iran
text: the Shah increasingly exercised his executive powers unilaterally, thus leading towards the development of autocracy. By the early 1970s, with most political parties having been banned, Iran had effectively become a one-party state under Rastakhiz. National Front leaders like Karim Sanjabi and moderate traditional Islamic leaders like Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari continued to espouse a constitutional monarchy. Under increasing international pressure, particularly from President Jimmy Carter of the United States, the Shah pushed forward major democratic reforms in the late 1970s, designed to gradually restore the constitutional monarchy as it had originally been. However, several uprisings in 1978 and 1979 culminated