The foundations of Iran tie into its long and rich religious history and development, starting from ancient times and the presence of Zoroastrianism up through the spread of Islam and then into the modern day, Dr. Menahem Merhavy of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Harry S. Truman Research Institute, told Sarah Ben-Nun on The Jerusalem Post Podcast.
“You can say the story of Iran, or at least the way Iranians imagine it to be, starts with Cyrus the Great,” Merhavy said. “He founded what we call the Achaemenid Empire, which is really the empire during which time we have the story of Purim. Regardless of the question of whether the story is historical or some kind of fictional story. It’s the setting.”
Zoroastrianism is an ancient religious belief that centers on dualism, with a good god and an evil god. Doing good deeds strengthens one side while evil deeds empower the other.
This religion is thought to have been highly influential in the development of Judaism, with Merhavy noting the many references to Zoroastrianism in the Talmud.
It is unclear exactly when and for how long Persia was predominantly Zoroastrian, and it is unclear if Cyrus the Great was in fact Zoroastrian himself, though that was certainly the opinion of Iranians in the 20th century.
“This religion, in a way, made way for Islam in the seventh century,” Merhavy explained.
The arrival of Islam in Iran
Like many other countries, Islam was brought to the region by war and conquest. However, the spread of Islam in Persia was different from other parts of the Middle East.
“What’s quite unique to Iran is that Iran retained its civilization and its language, while other languages made way for Arabic,” Merhavy said. “Egypt and Lebanon and Syria – all these countries had different languages, right? But these languages became extinct with the coming of Arabic with Islam. They Arabized when Persia did not.”
This was not some quirk of fate, however. Merhavy explained that there was a very dedicated, proactive effort within the country. This is despite the fact that Islam relies so heavily on Arabic, which is what helped push Arabic as the lingua franca of the Muslim world. But in Iran, this never succeded, and this is a major factor in their cultural development.
“Language is much more than just words,” Merhavy said. “It’s definitely an important ocmponent of the Persian civilization. There’s an element of resilience there.”
It took several centuries for Islam to actually cement itself in Iran – and even then, Zoroastrianism never fully died out. Though they remain a small minority, “Iran has retained some elements from the Zoroastrian period into the coming of Islam, and this becomes more apparent when Iran became Shi’ite.”
Today, Iran is known for being the epicenter of Shi’ite Islam. However, this shift only happened in the 16th century. Before that, Persia was mostly Sunni Muslim.
There are quite a few differences between Sunnis and Shi’ites, though according to Merhavy, the big difference is that Sunnis think the Quran should be viewed at face value and is perfect, whereas Shi’ites believe the Quran needs to have more esoteric interpretations and that some of the caliphs and their allies edited the Quran from its original wording and content.
Persia became Shi’ite under the rule of the Safavid Dynasty, who were devout Shi’ites themselves and whose chief geopolitical rival was the Sunni-led Ottoman Empire. This helped spur the mass conversion to Shi’ite Islam.
“It’s hard to have a jihad when both sides are on the same,” Merhavy said in describing the motivations to mass convert the populace to Shi’ite Islam.
Eventually, Iran was taken over by the Qajar Dynasty, which was of Turkish origin.
“They had this kind of, let’s say, a give and take with the Ulama, the clerics of Iran,” Merhavy said.
In Iran, the clerics had a uniquely powerful position compared to their contemporaries in the Ottoman Empire. According to Merhavy, this was because in Shi’ite Islam, clerics were far more important and necessary than in Sunni Islam, though the reasons for this are incredibly complicated. But ultimately, it gives them a position of being able to interpret the law and maneuver in a way that Sunni clerics can’t.
“So that lends the Shi’ite clerics more power and more direct connection with their believers,” Merhavy said.
“The predominant dynamic is that the cleric is a state official in the Shi’ite world. He has his own flock, so that gives him a lot of power. He could move these people. He could make them rebel against the state. You could arm them. You could make them boycott a product, for example, if you believe that’s bad for the people to consume. And actually, these kinds of things happened in the late Qajar period.”
In practice, clerics in the Shi’ite world often toe the line with the government, so long as it doesn’t ignore Islam. Clerical support, in fact, can help lend a regime legitimacy – something the Qajars themselves did, Merhavy explained.
“They received legitimacy from the clerics, and they gave a lot of power to the clerics,” he said. “But towards the end of the Qajar period, we see, time and again, a phenomenon where the Shah, the king, sells some rights and some economic contract to foreign businessmen, from Britain, from France, from other places, and then he actually faces a rebellion led by clerics who say ‘This is wrong.’ Why? Because you’re hurting the Iranian people. You are hurting the believers. And we are the face of the believers in front of you. We are the ones who represent the believers.”
When the Qajar regime collapsed at a time when the country was heavily influenced by foreign powers, Iran was taken over by Reza Khan, who became a dictator. Under his regime, Merhavy said, the state became more active in the lives of the populace and Nazi-sympathetic ideology began to become more prominent.
However, Iran also began to harken back to their past, calling themselves Iran rather than Persia to cut itself from the recent history of being influenced by foreign powers. Merhavy described some of this recalling of cultural heritage from the Achaemenid era. This was further helped by the regime controlling education, teaching about the Achaemenids whereas clerics normally wouldn’t go into the country’s pagan past.
“There’s a whole shift in relation to everything that had been before Muhammad, before Islam,” Merhavy said.
Then when Mohammad Reza takes over as Shah, the regime’s brutality became more apparent and sparked a major rebellion, eventually resulting in the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
During the leadup to the birth of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini became a national figure who everyone against the Shah rallied behind.
“This is the moment when he becomes the leader of all Iranians,” Merhavy said.
Upon taking power, the new regime instituted Khomeini’s ideology, such has espousing anti-monarchy views and comparing monarchs with pagans.
And it was this shift that led to the Iran we know today.
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