Islamic Republic of Iran

Established by the 1979 Revolution under Khomeini; heir to a Persianate Islamic civilisation Islamised after the 7th-century Arab conquest and made predominantly Twelver Shīʿa under the Safavids (from 1501), a synthesis of Persian culture and Shīʿi Islam that marks the country still.

☾ The Coming of Islam

The Arab conquest and the Persian Islamic revival

The Arab conquest overthrew the Sāsānid empire in the mid-7th century, and Islam spread across the Iranian plateau over the following generations. From the 9th century a Persian cultural renaissance produced native Muslim dynasties — the Ṭāhirids, Ṣaffārids and Sāmānids — and a New-Persian literature written in Arabic script.

☾ Religious Composition

A Twelver-Shīʿa majority with Sunni and other minorities

Iran is overwhelmingly Muslim, and the great majority are Twelver (Ithnā ʿAsharī) Shīʿa — the state religion — with a Sunni minority (many of them Kurds, Baloch and Turkmen) and small non-Muslim communities.

Population shares are approximate.

▤ Scholars & Institutions

The Safavid transformation and the Shīʿa seminaries

In Twelver Shīʿa tradition the Safavids' establishment of Shīʿism as the state religion after 1501 is the decisive turn that fused Persian culture with Shīʿi Islam; it fostered a Persian-based Shīʿi clergy and the great seminaries (ḥawzas) of Qom and Mashhad, centres of Shīʿa learning to this day.

In Twelver Shīʿa historiography the Safavid establishment of Shīʿism is remembered as decisive; the process also involved coercion, described variously by different sources.

⌂ Contemporary Muslim Life

An Islamic republic under velāyat-e faqīh

The 1979 Revolution established an Islamic republic whose constitution is built on Khomeini's doctrine of velāyat-e faqīh (guardianship of the jurist). This clerical model of governance is itself debated among Shīʿa scholars, some of whom favour a more quietist role for the clergy.

The velāyat-e faqīh model is contested among Shīʿa jurists themselves; it is presented here as the basis of the current state, not as an agreed Shīʿa position.

At a glance