MER Article "We Are the Only Real Threat to Khomeini" Masoud Rajavi was the only one of the original leadership of the Mojahedin-e Khalq to escape execution by the Shah. Imprisoned from 1971 until December 1978, he emerged to reorganize the Mojahedin. He ran for president in the election of January 1980 but Khomeini declared him ineligible. He escaped (Author not identified) • 11 min read
MER Article "I Defeated the Ideology of the Regime" Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr was elected president of the Islamic Republic of Iran in January 1980, but was subsequently impeached in June 1981. Fred Halliday interviewed him in France in August 1981, several weeks after he escaped from Iran. He has formed a government in exile, and is part of the Council (Author not identified) • 10 min read
MER Article Year Three of the Iranian Revolution The third year of the Iranian revolution saw the final breakup of the political coalition that initially brought Khomeini to power, and the emergence in exile of an opposition that groups together many of those who played a part in the overthrow of the monarchical dictatorship. On the basis of evide Fred Halliday • 7 min read
MER Article From the Editors (March/April 1982) When the history of the Iranian revolution is compiled, the third year of the Islamic Republic may stand out as particularly decisive. The alliance of left-leaning lay political elements with the Islamic Republican Party ruptured completely. Iranian forces scored important gains on the battlefield w The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Approaching the Islamic Revolution Shahrough Akhavi, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran: Clergy-State Relations in the Pahlavi Period (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1980). Michael M. J. Fischer, Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980). Michael Gilsenan • 7 min read
MER Article Ali Shariati: Ideologue of the Iranian Revolution Westerners commonly perceive the Iranian Revolution as an atavistic and xenophobic movement that rejects all things modern and non-Muslim, a view reinforced by the present leaders of Iran. They claim that the revolution spearheads the resurgence of Islam, and that the revolutionary movement is an au Ervand Abrahamian • 15 min read
MER Article "The Masses Speak the Language of Religion to Express Themselves Politically" Mohamed Sid Ahmed is an Egyptian journalist and left opposition leader. He is a member of the secretariat of Tagammu‘, the National Progressive Unionist Party, and is a representative of the party’s Marxist component. He was an editorial writer with al-Akhbar from 1965 to 1968 and chief political an Mohamed Sid-Ahmed • 17 min read
MER Article Religious Ritual and Political Struggle in an Iranian Village The villagers of Aliabad do not presume political stability. They were not especially surprised at the fall of the Shah, nor at the demise of the most powerful person in the village, Seyyid Ibn Ali Askari, some months after the Iranian revolution. “One day the saddle is on the horse, the next day th Mary Hegland • 25 min read
MER Article The Significance of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was born at Najaf in 1930 into an Arab family known for its learning through the Shi‘i world. His fundamental points of departure, and the chief clues to his entire work, are the traditional Muslim propositions that God is the source of all power, the only legislator, and the Hanna Batatu • 2 min read
MER Article Iraq's Underground Shi'i Movements This article is an abridgement, by Joe Stork, of a paper prepared by Hanna Batatu in May 1981 and published in the autumn 1981 issue of Middle East Journal. Two Shi’i parties are active in Iraq’s underground: al-Da‘wa al-Islamiyya (Islamic Call) and al-Mujahidin. The Da‘wa is the older movement. It Hanna Batatu • 21 min read
MER Article From the Editors (January/February 1982) It is no easy task to comprehend the significance of religion in its political dimension. Here in the US, for instance, Black churches have played a vital and progressive role in the struggle for political and civil rights. More recently, fundamentalist and revivalist Christian churches have partici The Editors • 4 min read
MER Article MERIP: The First Decade On a weekend late in October 1970, we were part of an informal group of seven meeting in a cabin in New Hampshire. All of us were active then in the broad movement against the US war in Indochina. Some of us had lived in the Middle East, working in church or Peace Corps volunteer programs. We all ha Peter Johnson, Joe Stork • 12 min read
