Abbas Amanat

Somewhat rather naive and very nationalistic in a crude fashion.

And what happened is that as a result, there was built up some kind of a resistance from the intellectuals, from the left, eventually resulting in a kind of a protest movement, as I said, by 1977, 1978.

Then, of course, the question that comes to mind, and that probably you would like to know about, is the fact that white becomes religious, white become Islamic, if it's the popular, you know, nationalist, liberal tendency of opening up the political space.

and allowing greater participation, going back to the constitution of 1906, 1907, why it's all of a sudden it becomes Khomeini, where does he come from?

The reason for that, at least in a concise fashion, is the fact that on one area that after the greater suppression of all the other voices remained

open was religion.

Mosques, the mullahs on the pulpit, and the message that gradually shifted from the old traditional message of the sharia of Islam,

I mean, all the rules and regulations of how one has to live into something very political.

And not only political, but also radical political.

So,

In the whole period from the Constitutional Revolution to the Revolution of 1979, basically the religious establishment gradually was pushed to the opposition.

They were not originally very conservative supporters of state, as the Catholic Church, for instance, was supporter of majority of the authoritarian governments around the world.

but the politicization was the result of isolation, because they were left out of the system.

And while in isolation, they were not successful in,

trying to reform themselves, to try to find answers to many of the questions of modern times.

What happens to women?

What happens to civil rights?

What happens to a civil society?

How modern law and individual freedoms have to be defined in Islamic terms.

How to separate religion and state.