Background and causes of the Iranian Revolution

Part of a series on the
History of the Iranian Revolution
Topics Timeline Background Consolidation Casualties Ideology Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists
Revolutionary leaders Mohammad Javad Bahonar Abulhassan Banisadr Mehdi Bazargan Mohammad Beheshti Mostafa Chamran Sadegh Ghotbzadeh Hassan Habibi Hashemi Rafsanjani Ali Khamenei Ahmad Khomeini Ruhollah Khomeini Mahdavi Kani Hussein-Ali Montazeri Morteza Motahhari Mousavi Ardabili Mohammad Ali Rajai Ezzatollah Sahabi Yadollah Sahabi Ali Shariati Mahmoud Taleghani Ebrahim Yazdi
Parties and organizations CCA Guerrilla groups Freedom Movement Fedai Islamic Republic Party MIRO Student Followers of the Imam's Line OIPFG MKO Tudeh
Official institutions The Interim Government Islamic republic Sepah Basij Assembly of Experts for Constitution
Events Movement of 15 Khordad Black Friday Ruhollah Khomeini's return to Iran Hostage crisis Cultural Revolution
See also Human rights in Iran
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The Iranian Revolution was the Shia Islamic revolution that replaced the secular monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with a theocratic Islamic Republic led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Its causes continue to be the subject of historical debate and are believed to have stemmed partly from a conservative backlash opposing the westernization and secularization efforts of the Western-backed Shah,^[1] as well as from a more popular reaction to social injustice and other shortcomings of the ancien régime.^[2]