Encore: Iran 101 - Part 2

This original episode aired in late 2022, but I'm here in June 2025 with an encore to give some commentary. Hopefully you listened to part one already. If you did, you're in good shape for this episode. Part two covers only 19... to around 1980 and is much more linear and less dense. However, there are a few things I want you to know before you start. First is I make a mistake on statistics. I say that there are 10,000 Jews that whittled

down to 9,000. What I meant to say is that there were 100,000 Jews that whittled down to 9,000. Big number difference there. Little mistake. I also mentioned that the Quran is the works and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, but really the proper way to say that is that Muslims believe the Quran to be the word of God revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.

I want to make that distinction now. So when you hear that part, you know, I made a mistake there. I also add all corrections into my show notes for all episodes. So check those out anytime you have a question, because sometimes I do make little mistakes and it's a lot easier to correct them. in the show notes than it is to go back and re-record the entire thing. Also, with part two, the more you listen and stew on this episode, the more conflicted you may feel.

At least that's how I feel. If you can see multiple perspectives and are having a hard time carrying them in your mind.

I think that means you're thinking, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I believe that mental tension is essential when studying history because it is almost never as simple as we want it to be. And it's okay to feel tension about it and not know exactly what to think. I read five... books studying the 1979 revolution when I made this trying to see it from a traditionalist religious perspective also from a more secularist

And what I learned was that many different people with very different political and ideological differences supported this revolution, but for very different reasons. reasons. It was not black and white. And so if you find yourself interested in the 1979 revolution, please look into more resources to help round out your opinions, because there's a lot written about it. This just scratches the surface.

So just want to put that out there. For part one, we offered a free downloadable PDF with a timeline and some study guide material to help guide you through that episode. We've received positive feedback on that, and I'm really glad to hear it. I think we're going to...

keep doing them. So head to patreon.com slash wiserworldpodcast to access the part two timeline where you'll see an explanation of paid options, Patreon tiers, how to access these more in the future. Thank you again for listening. supporting the podcast. And here we go into part two of Iran 101. How did Iran change under the rule of Mohammad Reza Shah? Who is Ayatollah Khomeini and how did he change Iran?

What happened during the revolution in Iran in 1979 to 1980? And how did Iran become an Islamic republic? How did this change the lives of Iranians? What is the Iranian hostage crisis and how did it end? We will learn the answers to these questions and more in today's episode, part two of Iran 101, the last 100-ish years in Iran.

Welcome to Wiser World, a podcast for busy people who need a refresher on all things world. Here we explore different regions of the globe giving you the facts and context you need to think historically about current events. I truly believe that the more we learn about the world, the more we embrace our shared humanity. I'm your host, Allie Roper. Thanks for being here. Welcome to True Spies.

The podcast that takes you deep inside the greatest secret missions of all time. Suddenly out of the dark, disappeared bin Laden. You'll meet the people who live life undercover. What do they know? What are their skills? And what would you do? in their position. Vengeance felt good. Seeing these people pay for what they'd done felt righteous. True Spies from Spyscape Studios, wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back for part two. If you haven't listened to part one yet, it goes without saying, but you need to do that before you listen to this one. I'll be using names without explaining who they are, so that foundation is going to be very helpful. We ended part one with Mossadegh being... arrested, the Shah being put back into power with a military leader as his prime minister. This is 1953. We're going to jump right in.

Now, Mohammad Reza Shah ruled until 1979. So let's talk about him. He's a big figure in Iranian history. The Pallavi dynasty started with his father, Reza Shah. and ended with Muhammad Reza Shah. So just those two make up the Pallavi dynasty. And as we know from part one, he was less ambitious from 1941 to 1953. But once he was given a second chance by this coup,

he became more ambitious. He spent millions on a coronation event where he and his new wife were crowned the monarchs. And he also declared, quote, that Iran was at the gates of the great civilizations, that its standard of living would... soon surpass that of Europe. It would produce a way of life superior to both capitalism and communism. And indeed, within a generation, it would be the world's fifth most powerful country after the USA, Soviet Union, Japan, and China.

end of quote. So he had large aspirations for Iran. And Mohammad Reza Shah, like his father, continued to focus on the military, the aristocracy, and maintaining his power through the courts. He was so into the military that he loved to read manuals that the arms dealers would give to him. By 1975, so over his entire...

reign. He had the fifth largest army in the world, and he became somewhat savvy in his international relations. He was able to play the game of freedom by making some concessions that really did improve the quality of life of the people. still being able to keep his hand quite heavy. Iran became the world's fourth largest oil producer, the world's second largest oil exporter.

He wanted a massive and competitive state structure. He was something of a friend to the United States, as we talked about, while Saddam Hussein, next door in Iraq, received money from the Soviets, from the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The Shah was receiving funds from the United States. The United States subsidized the Pahlavi throne so long as he kept out communism and gave them a steady flow of oil. He depended on U.S. foreign aid, and he cared a lot about what the...

acting president in the United States thought of him. The Shah had a secret police called the Savak, S-A-V-A-K. It was essentially an intelligence agency with police powers. The stories of the Savak

are pretty intense. They are known for censoring media, screening people for government jobs, hunting down torturing dissidents in horrific ways. I don't really want to go into those ways. They were so tragic to read. What I think is critical is knowing from all the countries that we've studied so far is that if a leader wants to keep control, it has to have a brutal secret police in order to create. and maintain absolute power and this puts

the Pahlavi regime and Mohammad Reza Shah in the category of a dictator. Human rights were not at the top of the SAVAK's list of to-dos. And when Jimmy Carter became president, he actually brought it up because the SAVAK was so well known. for their ruthless cruelty. And one man who was living in Iran at the time said, quote, gathering service and abroad

It keeps a check on every Iranian student. Educated Iranians cannot trust anyone beyond a close circle of friends, and for them, the effect is the same as if everyone else belonged. Savak intensifies this fear by giving no account of its activities. So you can see how the Savak had a lot of power. And in 1963, the Shah launches a series of reforms to aggressively modernize Iran.

This was to actually gain favor in the eyes of the Kennedy administration. And as part of this revolution, he worked on redistributing wealth, rapid growth of cities, breaking down the feudal old customs of Iran. And keep in mind that this was not in line with the... traditional religious leaders in Islam, and we'll talk about that in a minute. He instituted major land reform. Before then, Iran had had this old system with sharecroppers, growing land owned by an aristocracy or the wealthy.

And from his reforms, more than 50% of those sharecroppers became landowners. This created its own problems, but it did weaken the noble class. He nationalized forests. He privatized industry. He allowed women to vote. He was on a mission to become a world competitor, and one of those ways was reforming laws actually around marriage, divorce, custody, polygamy.

The economy grew, Iranians became wealthier, and the literacy rate more than doubled. More people were going to school than ever before in Iran. And he kind of established Iran as a major geopolitical power in the Middle East. Did it work for everyone? No. The changes were uneven. They were imperfect. But there was, I think it's important to know there was a general improvement in material standard of living and in the lives of women in terms of divorce, custody, marriage.

tended to go more in favor of women than past regimes had done. And the new educated middle class expanded, and there were more entrepreneurs and engineers and managers. older professions like lawyers and doctors and teachers also became more popular. Not all was well and good, though. The gap between the rich and the poor was still very wide. Inflation was rampant at first. The infrastructure was not fully prepared for all this modernization.

Politics in Iran revolved completely around the will of the Shah, and using his savak... Iran became something of a military state. The government had a lot of employees. The Shah exerted a lot of power over the economy. This is authoritarianism. You force the people to rely on you for the little things in life, right?

beehives are set up, animals are fed, crops are fertilized, carpets are woven, goods and babies are born, all under the intervention of the government. So this centralization caused some of Iran's ancient heritage to be stomped out, yes. nomadic and minority populations dropped, but also, you know, things improved in other ways as well. So again, it's really complicated, very nuanced. Mohammed Reza Shah's major critics were the Islamic clergy.

In the religion of Islam, we have the Sunni and Shia sects, which we talked about in part one. Both groups... use the same terms in terms of lingo and language in Islam, but they use them in different ways. So Iran, which is unique to Shia Islam, there is a hierarchy in leaders in the faith in Shia Islam.

The top leader is called the Grand Ayatollah, and the term Ayatollah is basically a title of high honor. There's the Grand Ayatollah, and then there are kind of regular Ayatollahs below him. Currently, there are over 80 in the world. So if you hear ayatollah, we're talking a very high-ranking person in Shia Islam. And then we have mullahs.

In Iran, this is a title for a member of the clergy or a leader of a mosque, which is where Muslims go to worship. They're typically well-educated in Islamic theology and Sharia law, which we'll talk about in a second. kind of like a teacher or a leader who knows their scriptures really well. That's a mullah. So let's talk about Sharia law, because this is going to play in big time.

Okay, the holy book of scripture in Islam is called the Quran. And the Quran is believed to be the works and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam. But this book was written a long time ago, and so religious leaders and scholars after the Prophet Muhammad had to kind of give guidance or rulings on things that weren't covered by the Quran. So, Sharia is a code of ethical conduct of sorts.

that Muslims are supposed to adhere to. It's Islamic law, like the rules of the religion. It can affect all parts of life, like how you dress, give to the poor, legal issues, crime. understand is that Sharia law is interpreted differently in different places. It looks different depending on where you are in the world. And the ayatollahs and mullahs of Shia Islam in Iran interpret Sharia law.

different way than other places in the world. So with this foundation, now we know a little bit about the Islamic clergy at the time. They're not super happy with Muhammad Reza Shah. We know what an ayatollah is. We know what a mullah is. It's all going to come into play.

Let's go back to Mohammad Reza Shah. He is more of a secularist, more pro-Western. Girls can wear miniskirts if they want to. Education's more secular, not religious. Education is run by the state. He's not going to see... to eye with many of the traditionalist Ayatollahs. and mullahs in the mosques, right? So he had enemies, and many were very powerful religious ayatollahs and mullahs, and the most outspoken clergyman by far was a man named Ruhollah Khomeini. Because I'm terrible at...

I'm just going to call him Khomeini, but his name starts with a K, but it's a silent K. Khomeini came from a long line of religious leaders. His family were descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, he was quite educated, and in many ways he was unique because he studied mysticism and philosophy. And one of the ideas he really took to heart young was to explain religious things so that ordinary people could understand. And he was made an Ayatollah, so again, a great honor, in 1961 at the age of 59.

right about that time, he becomes extremely outspoken against the Shah. He was pretty savvy about the way he talked about political things. He spoke out against government corruption, was very upset at some of the changes that the Shah was making. And in 1963, this Ayatollah Khomeini led three days of riots and a few hundred people were killed.

by the Savak. In his speech, he verbally attacked the Shah in a very personal way, which got him exiled in 1964. I find this very interesting that instead of him being taken to prison or killed by the Savak, which was not unheard of at the time, he was exiled. And he actually became more popular

in his exile. He was exiled to Turkey, then Iraq, and then his last time was in Paris. And I'm going to come back to him in a second because he does come back and he leads a revolution that changes Iran forever. But let's talk about what Iran looked like in the 1970s.

to build the scene for a revolution that Ho Meni basically leads. As we talked about, during the Shah's reign, people's standard of living did improve, and in the 1970s, many people were quite wealthy. I read a book written by a Jewish Iranian woman, so... Definitely a minority in Iran. And her experience at the time, her family was pretty pro-Shah, and yet she had some really interesting things to say about her life during the 1970s.

By the mid-1970s, more than 40% of the people in Iran were undernourished. The land reforms had not kept up with the urban growth. And so people were starting to see the Shah as an American puppet. they were becoming more vocal about it. As she put it,

The class division between the wealthy and educated living in northern Tehran neighborhoods and the conservatives living in southern Tehran districts was getting deeper and more profound. Tehran had become a city of people divided by lifestyle and ideals. which gave way to an undercurrent of instability. Women's dress was evidence of the deep division between modernism and tradition across all sectors of society. As a teenager with deep Iranian roots, I felt the tremors of unease.

End of quote. She talks about how she would have people that would work in their household who would wear, you know, very modest coverings. Their heads covered with a hijab. That's a headscarf for Muslim women. And then she would go out in public. She was not Muslim, so she would have her hair uncovered and she was dressing very similar to an American girl. So she talks about how there's just these differences in culture and there's just this divide going on. I'll continue with what she says.

Thank you. stylish dresses. Many small fashion boutiques lined the long and wide Pahlavi Avenue and other shopping districts. Our own statuesque Queen Farah epitomized elegance and chic. In official portraits of the royal family displayed on the walls of our classrooms, banks, shops, and offices, I would admire Her Majesty's custom-made and designer outfits."

In the mid-1970s, a change began to truly brew in Iran. Many Iranians began to be more open about their distaste for these Western values that many felt were being imposed upon them by the Pahlavi regime.

and it became more popular to be anti-Shaw. Then in 1975, the Shah made a very political move by abolishing the multi-party system in Iran and only allowing one party. So imagine that in the United States, it would be like the president abolishing the... Republican Party or the Democratic Party and only allowing one party. This is a big deal. And then he also got rid of the Islamic calendar.

all in one year. So many Iranians saw this as an affront to their religion. Despite Savak informers being everywhere, watching for dissidents, the people wanted more from their leadership, and discontent was rising. Do you find it hard to sleep at night? Then the Sleep Cove podcast can help you. Hi, I'm Christopher Fitton, the voice and clinical hypnotherapist behind Sleep Cove.

Sleep Cove features sleep hypnosis, meditations and bedtime stories, all designed to help those of you who struggle at night to achieve a restful and peaceful night's sleep. Search for Sleep Cove. on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and see why Sleep Cove helps millions of people sleep deeply all night long.

All you need is a few minutes to start your day off with something historic when you listen to the This Day in History podcast. Every day there's a new episode for you to listen and learn about what happened that day way back when. Today could be the day a famous mobster met their end, or the first milestone for humans in space. Who knows what history today holds?

Find out when you listen and subscribe to This Day in History wherever you get your podcasts. That's This Day in History wherever you get your podcasts. Meanwhile, in Paris... Ayatollah Khomeini, he is whipping up fervor. He is sending ideas words making speeches they're making their way into iran in a more powerful way that things need to change and the shah needs to go and the nation was in a frenzy as one author put quote even though most iranians had enjoyed

varying degrees of success under the Shah, Khomeini's message resonated with a population wary of oppression and desperate for the political choice they felt the Shah denied them. They believed Ayatollah Khomeini could make us not only So what was Khomeini sharing? His ideas at the time were fundamentalist Islamic anti-Shah. pro-freedom, pro-self-reliance, anti-American. Here's a quote from Khomeini himself, quote,

does not have civilization. A civilized nation is one that is free. There should be freedom of the press and people should have the right to their opinion. This Shah, this servant of America, this agent of Israel needs to be overthrown and kicked. out of Iran. We need an Islamic government independent of the superpowers, where all Iranians enjoy the wealth and not a specific few. We want to improve not only your material life, but also your spiritual life. They have taken our spirituality.

We need spirituality. In our government, clergies will not govern, but will help you with your spirituality. In our government, women will be free and officials can be publicly criticized. End of quote. Okay, so that was what he said at the time before the revolution.

This is what one woman had to say about it as she was an Iranian. She said, The campaign was effective inciting anti-Shah riots and demonstrations. burning rubber tires, and the resulting thick black smoke and acrid smell became the preferred means of mass protest. End of quote. So 1978 itself had many protests. Iran has a long history of protests. I'm sure you're gathering that. And many died for the anti-Shah cause. They became known as martyrs.

They were revered by the revolutionaries and still are today. On September 8th, 1978, there was a protest where over 100 people were shot down by the Pahlavi military and over 200 people were injured. This is often called Black Friday.

Eerie how this sounds a lot like Tiananmen Square if you've listened to the China episodes, right? This massacre, Black Friday, really ignited the revolution to kick out the Shah. And the Shah in the United States hadn't seen this amount of discontent coming. It took a lot of... wealthy class by surprise. As one historian put it, quote, the turban classes were overlooked because they were considered vestiges, representatives of a fading ancient world.

But away from the affluent westernized neighborhoods where American diplomats and visiting military officers lived and visited, the mullahs had been building a national network of mosques, which waited patiently for the moment Islam would rise up and smite the infidels. and their puppet king. Support for change grew openly on college campuses and even among the vast military bureaucracy that maintained the Shah's war machine. In this, Iran's secular rebels underestimated the mullahs.

So we have this grassroots uprising from the religious class mainly, but there were also secularists who wanted to get rid of the Shah. I want to be clear about that. This wasn't a complete Islamic revolution at the time. There was a lot of different types of people. There are so many stories I could tell about this revolution. We have the army firing to crowds of young rebels, targeting unarmed citizens. We have...

The revolutionaries targeting foreign banks, the British embassy was targeted. They would burn down any businesses that were associated with the West and imperialism. The Shah actually got on television and made a speech to the nation. He encouraged...

the young generation to not burn down our homeland, as he put it. He said, quote, let us all think about our beloved Iran. Let us think about Iran and its future, end of quote. The interesting thing was this was kind of the moment when everyone realized that the Shah was in trouble. And as one author put it, Ayatollah Khomeini urged the people to continue staging mass

demonstrations and strikes. The Ayatollah garnered support across many sectors, the urban poor, university students, trade unions, intellectuals, leftists, Islamists. They believed the Shia clerics promise. No one questioned how... this would be possible. A leading slogan at the time, appearing on walls and banners and in revolutionary songs was, quote, only when the devil departs, the angel will arrive. The Shah was cast as the devil and the Ayatollah, the angel. End of quote.

So the political turmoil was intense. There were risks to leaving your home and being sprayed with tear gas or arrested, especially in Tehran. And even being home wasn't necessarily safe either. The major demonstrators during the revolution were pretty anti-Western. especially anti-US, which they referred to as

as the Great Satan, and Israel was called the Little Satan. Many demonstrators dressed in white to symbolize a death shroud to show they were ready to die to get rid of the Shah. He tried to make some appeasing changes, but it was... Too little, too late. Again, this woman, she does such a fabulous job, I want to quote her again. The growing frenzy to overthrow the Shah was relentless. The Ayatollah had devised a plan for his followers to continue the fight.

as instructed by the ayatollah every evening at 8 55 p.m supporters turned off their lights and took to their open flat rooftops or balconies then at the stroke of nine the city erupted in a roar loud and forceful of thousands of people stood in the cold and shouted Allahu Akbar. This is the Islamic phrase in Arabic meaning God is great. They would shout it over and over and over. The ecstasy of dissent lasted about 10 long minutes in the darkness.

the protesters felt united, powerful, defiant, and a camaraderie with others like themselves who were trying to free the country and reach the promised land of an Iran free from the rule of the Shah. They looked up to Ayatollah Khomeini as a holy man of God. Obviously, not all protesters were doing this, but yes, this was like the general vibe of the revolution.

And as she puts it, we continued to live our days as normally as we could, but life was anything but normal. There were long lines for essentials such as milk, eggs, and bread. In the pre-revolution era, my family would dine at fine restaurants.

followed by coffee, tea, and pastries in the lobby of one of the high-end international hotels. Waiters in white gloves served our drinks and treats on round silver-colored trays while we discussed our plans for the weekend. Now, Dad will leave the house at 6 in the morning to stand in line to ensure...

that we get his hands on basic dietary needs most of the country was on strike tens of thousands of workers at schools government ministries post offices and other businesses and institutions took to the streets and demanded the release of political prisoners Most crippling was the strike by anti-Shah workers at the National Iranian Oil Company, creating a severe fuel shortage.

On street corners, alongside the flyers for house sales, were notices of the locations of the next demonstration. Graffiti, most popular was Death to the Shah, was written everywhere. Angry mobs marched through the streets. The days were...

cold, dark, and gloomy. In addition to fuel rations, electricity was rationed and water shutoffs were frequent. End of quote. And granted, she is just living in Tehran. So she's just giving the experience of someone living in Tehran. But I thought it was very interesting to see, okay, this is...

very much a part of their lives. The revolution is in everyone's faces. During all of this, people were fleeing the country, especially religious minorities such as Jews, Christians, Baha'is, Zoroastrians. They were fleeing. a revolution that was led by a religious leader at the time, and they abandoned their property and they left. Some couldn't get out. They didn't have passports or the money to do so. However, for Iran's Jews, they used to have 10,000.

Jewish people living in Iran. And then after the revolution, it was only 9,000. So that's 90% of its population left during the revolution. Not to mention many other people who knew that the revolution wasn't going to turn out well for them. And so they left.

the same time, many Iranians were abroad going to school or living abroad, and many came back to join in the revolution. There was genuine excitement among the majority of the population, especially young people, about overthrowing a dictator and replacing him.

with what they hoped would be a genuinely better government. Freedom and representation were important to them. They felt that Khomeini was hearing them. It was a historic time for Iran. It was led by religious leaders, but again, it wasn't necessarily a full religious revolution.

Words like freedom or criticizing the state aren't necessarily religious ideas. It was a people's revolution, and the people were pretty fed up. And to many religious people, they believed that Khomeini was the most important Islamic leader at the time. he was leaving it. After about a year of upheaval, the Shah left Iran on January 16, 1979 for, quote, vacation in Egypt. I'm sure this was a very painful time for the Pahlavis.

And he said in one of his last speeches to his country, he said, quote, if I leave, Iran will go down. If Iran goes down, the Middle East will go down. If the Middle East goes down, the world will suffer, end of quote. He never returned. 2,500 years of dynastic rule ended that day.

in 1979. On February 1st, 1979, so just a few weeks later, Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran after 15 years in exile. On his flight back, a journalist asked Khomeini, what his feelings were about returning to Iran, and he responded with nothing.

This is a very popular story, and I felt it was important to share it because a lot of people bring it up. And there's a lot of interpretations on it. Some think that he was indifferent to the Iranian people. He didn't actually care about them. Others are more understanding. They think that there's another reason for it. His personality wasn't exactly warm and fuzzy.

However, he did see himself as a channel for the mind of God. Very high view of himself. Ultimately, when he did land in Iran, he was adored. And immediately, Khomeini got to work. He set up his own prime minister, made himself the... Supreme Leader of the New Islamic Republic, members of the Pahlavi regime or political enemies or SAVAC members were rounded up and executed.

For nearly all of the revolutionaries, this was a shock. They hadn't anticipated him acting so strongly in a very similar way to what previous dictators had done, and they thought that things would be more peaceful. For most people, this... revolution, as I've said, was more of an anti-Shah revolution, an anti-monarch revolution. And so when Khomeini came in and set it up so strongly as an Islamic republic,

This was surprising to many people. I've got a quote for you here. This woman says, quote, This was not so. Some of the Supreme Leader's supporters were now opposed to Islamic law. During the resistance, the Ayatollah had stressed that he was not seeking power and wanted to return to the seminary. Once in power, he changed course.

weeks of his return, Ayatollah Khomeini announced that women were barred from becoming judges. Three days later, March 7, 1979, the Ayatollah declared that women should wear the hijab, that's the head covering, in the workplace. As explained, it was best for them to refrain from revealing their hair and the curves of their bodies to men who were not relatives. As hijab was applied to the workplace only, women were still seen in public in varied dress. Everyone I knew was...

upset by the law. Ironically, the next day, March 8, was International Women's Day. Emboldened by the efficacy of recent strikes and demonstrations, some Iranian women from all spheres of life, including nurses, teachers, mothers, and students, took So you can see here that Homany changed his tune. When he was in exile, he said different things than when he came and actually did in the country.

In March 1979, there was a referendum to create an Islamic republic. And they were told, the Iranians were told that the newly liberated nation would allow citizens as young as 15 to freely voice their opinion. for or against the new form of government in Iran and that the nation was going to go to the polls and there would be one question they could answer. Should the monarchy be abolished in favor of an Islamic republic?

And everyone had to vote, but everyone was being watched when they voted. And the answer that you put down, yes or no, was noted. And so people voted yes almost completely. And they said that...

the Iranian people had voted for this. Khomeini ended up updating the constitution. In theory, day-to-day governance would be secular, but ultimate power would still lay within the Islamic government. The constitution allowed for a an elected Majlis parliament, but it also established a council of guardians, which were essentially 12 clerics and jurists.

And they were allowed to vote and approve candidates before they could run for election. And they also approved or vetoed legislation or laws that were passed by the Majlis. So think about it this way. The religious clergy had to approve everyone running for election and could approve... or veto any laws that the elected people could make. So it's not a free election process. Yes, there's voting in Iran, but the people who are running have already shown their allegiance to the regime.

Do you find it hard to sleep at night? Then the Calm Cove podcast can help you sleep deeply all night long. Cobb Cove has deeply relaxing meditation music and ambient sounds like ocean waves and crackling fires. All of our episodes are designed to help you relax and to fall asleep fast.

Calm Cove is brought to you by the team behind Sleep Cove, the sleep podcast that consists of spoken word hypnosis, meditation and stories. So if you want to listen to a beautiful soundscape tonight, Search for Calm Cove on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and see how we're helping millions of people relax and go to sleep every night. On Who Arted, we discuss art in a way that's fun and accessible for everyone who wants to explore the visual arts in an audio medium.

Each week, we focus on the stories that make up art history, with emphasis on finding the good in all sorts of artworks, and I mean all sorts. I cover the traditional stuff you'd learn in any art history course, but with fun facts you're professor probably never shared. Art is all around us, and art should be accessible for all of us. Who Arted is dedicated to celebrating the artists and artworks that shape our perceptions of the world, while helping us envision a better tomorrow.

So please follow Who Arted wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Essentially, Khomeini changed the constitution to create an Islamic state and make sure everything... that he was going to do was legal. So he implemented Sharia law, which meant, for example, that adulterers could face stonings now. Homany changed the laws for sure, but he wasn't above using violence to accomplish his intentions either.

Freedom of the press was limited, if not completely lost. Forty newspapers closed down, and the two biggest were taken over by the state. The SAVAC was also revamped to become the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. There was no longer a separation of religion and state. The clergy wore these long robes and turbans, and they served as chief justice in the judiciary.

Essentially, everyone who had been pro-Shaw were put on court and they were put on trial, excuse me, and a lot of them were executed by firing squad. Pretty much every part of life changed significantly for Iranians. Most of those changes had to do with male-female relationships, like men and women couldn't shake hands or smile at each other in public anymore. Men's clothing changed to show loyalty.

to the regime and women began to dress far more conservatively. Many women, especially in poor areas, started wearing a solid black chador. A chador... covers absolutely everything except the woman's face. It covers the neck, the hair, everything is tucked in. And likewise,

The regime also closed down the universities for a number of years, starting in 1979, and they said it was to root out any Western influence. Additionally, curfews, especially for women, were installed. Long beards became far more popular. for Iranian men so you can see here that life's changing very quickly

This was surprising to many revolutionaries. And the Revolutionary Guard became kind of the new police force of the Islamic Republic. Kind of, like I said, replacing the Sabak. I read a book about a man who joined the Revolutionary Guard at the beginning and then... Realized how bad it was, and he became a CIA informant and wrote this book. And his stories of the kind of torture that happened by the Revolutionary Guard, they're still around. I'll talk about them in part three as well.

But those stories are pretty horrific. Evin Prison became the most notorious prison in Iran. It's even today. Almost every Iranian activist or human rights lawyer has had a run-in with Evin Prison because it houses mostly political prisoners. Also, a morality police was created at this time. It was women and men. If they were found breaking the rules, they could be taken to prison. And the morality police's motto is, quote,

promote virtue, prevent vice, end of quote. The typical unit of the Morality Police consists of a van with mixed male and female crew that patrols or waits at like busy public spaces to police. non-proper behavior and dress. Again, that's going to come up again in part three.

The revolutionaries and the new government were especially upset at this time with President Carter and the United States. And now, as I've alluded to before, the U.S. was associated with the Shah for many Iranians, especially the most extremists. powerful philosophy circulating that all of the materialism of the West was a huge threat to the purity of the Islamic State.

And ideas about the freedoms and excesses of America were essentially like a plot to ensnare virtuous people into a godless capitalist dystopia. death to America or calling America the great Satan were very common during this time. Obviously, not all Iranians agreed with this. A lot of this is the extremists that are getting the most press. America, to many of them, was the embodiment of evil.

And they felt that they were fighting on the side of good. And yet the American embassy in Tehran had not been vacated yet. Americans were still there. And in late 1979, after a lot of deliberation, Carter allowed the Shah, Mohammad Reza Shah, to come to the United States for cancer treatment. Remember how he went on vacation to Egypt?

Well, he had cancer. And so when Carter allowed him to come back to the United States, this upset many young student revolutionaries in Iran. They felt that it was a ploy to give the Shah sanctuary in the United States and that it had nothing.

to do with his cancer, and they wanted their tyrant back so they could put him on trial for the crimes he committed during his reign against Iranian citizens. And by letting him come to the United States, they felt that America was complacent to his crimes. young activists supported by Ayatollah Khomeini.

got the idea to break into the American embassy and take 52 U.S. diplomats hostage. This happened on November 4th. What a crazy year in 1979. And it's often called the Iranian hostage crisis. heard of it. The Iranian hostage crisis lasted for 444 days. That's a long time. The stories that come from this crisis are pretty insane. It was a massive issue because

The United States wasn't allowed to get them out. In fact, there was an attempt by the U.S. military to go in and remove them. But there was this huge dust storm and it prevented it, killed some military men. And it was seen as like this huge victory to the hostage takers. It was seen as like Allah.

or God, supporting them and their cause. And the story of the hostages is very fascinating. There are lots of documentaries and books written about it, and I read one. And if I had to summarize it, I would say... that it was a story of contradictions in many senses, much like Iranian history.

Many of the Iranian students were really quite kind to the hostages. Others, obviously not. Some of the hostages were treated decently well. They were allowed to celebrate Christmas, for example. But other times, some were put in horrible conditions, got very sick, didn't have enough... food or underwear or medical treatment. One of them, his mother came over to Iran from the United States to visit.

Many of the hostages were harassed. They were asked to denounce the United States publicly. They were paraded about with blindfolds on, very humiliating to America. and that was kind of the point of taking these hostages was to embarrass the United States. And it became a huge point in the presidential election. In 1980, the Shah died, and yet the hostages were not released. And from the books that I read, I was surprised to read them.

most Iranians were pretty horrified by the hostage crisis and felt it was absolutely meaningless. From what I read, the majority of Iranians were not in favor of the Iranian hostage crisis. We're not fans of it. Interestingly enough, all of the hostages did survive, and some of them tried to escape. There's so many stories in books that I would recommend you read. Their stories are very incredible and very terrifying, especially the moments when they realized that the embassy was being...

taken over. Super fascinating. Eventually, though, the hostages were released on January 20th, 1981. The U.S. exchanged weapons for them, and interestingly enough, They were released the day that Ronald Reagan was sworn in. Almost every book I read talked about how Iran takes credit for Jimmy Carter not being reelected. They held the hostages for as long as they could through the entire election process because they hated. Jimmy Carter so much.

Okay, I'm going to end there. We've covered so much. In the next episode, we're going to cover the 1980s through until now, but now we have covered the Iranian Revolution in 1979-1980, and that's crucial for what's coming up next. Let's do a quick summary. First, Mohammad Reza Shah He's put into the throne. This is in 1953. He's not elected. After that coup led by the U.S. CIA, he creates the SAVAC or secret police, which keeps dissidents quiet. He begins making significant...

changes to Iran, such as land reforms, and over the next 20 years, the quality of living goes up for many Iranians. But the gap between the rich and the poor continues, and many Iranians, especially the Islamic clergy, begin to get that up. Then Ayatollah Khomeini begins leading a revolution from exile, and students in particular begin rioting in the late 1970s. Chaos ensues for almost a year in Iran. Huge protests, killings, absolute mayhem.

In 1979, the Shah leaves the country, Khomeini comes back, and Islamic Republic is formed post-revolution. Things go differently than many Iranians expected. What some thought was more of a secular revolution turned out not to be. Religion and Sharia law were enforced rather heavily and violently. The Revolutionary Guards were brutal.

And it was not the peaceful transfer of power that many educated Iranians had been hoping for. Rules around women and men and their relations and clothes become much more traditional and become enforced by the morality police. From 1979 to 1981, the American embassy workers were held hostage by a group of students in what we now call the Iranian hostage crisis. They were released after 444 days.

Ronald Reagan was elected president in the United States. Okay, let's talk about takeaways. There's so much. Where do you even begin? One of the things that strikes me the most in studying now so many revolutions is how differently things... pan out than what the initial idea was in the case of iran we have a country with a relatively highly educated populace in many ways a deeply beautiful cultural heritage who

truly from what I could gather wanted freedom and the ability to speak out and be able to criticize without being in fear of for their lives and we have communists and liberals and conservatives and religious and secularists and lots of different people participating in a revolution and different ideas on what that's going to look like when the revolution is over. Call this revolutionary fervor.

It's very common. It happens in every revolution. And essentially what happened in this case and what happens in many cases is that they traded one form of control for another. And to me, just my personal opinion, I find that very tragic. It happens all the time. We see it happened in China. It's happened in many other countries we've studied. And revolutions that end with more freedom for the average person are actually quite rare. I think that's just something to keep in mind and to stew on.

I also think it's important to recognize the role of foreign affairs in the political systems here in the United States, at least where I'm coming from. I think sometimes I see friends and family get very tunnel vision. in terms of American politics being in a vacuum.

But it's not. And I think after studying more of the history, especially of the Iranian hostage crisis, there are many reasons why Jimmy Carter wasn't reelected. It's not just because of Iran, but Iran definitely had some sway in that election. So I think. it's just something to be aware of. And remember that because the United States and many other democratic countries have such frequent elections, such short timelines to get things done, other countries are watching and

want influence. And that's something to just keep in mind, especially in election seasons. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and stop there. Listen to part three next. That's going to cover modern Iran right now, what's going on. I hope that you share. I hope you've enjoyed it. And let's go out and make the world a little wiser.