Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives - Islamic Books ...

8 6Islam i n World Cult u r e sthe Constitutionalists, who saw that a strong monarch was the only way to unitethe country. Reza Shah knew that the best way to consolidate his power was towin over the clerics, so he supported government-run religious rituals, metwith many major m u j t a h i ds to allay their fears that the government would becomeanti-Islamic, and in general promised that his rule would preserve “theprinciples of the religion and strengthen its foundations because [he] consider[ed]the complete reinforcing of religion one of the most effective meansof achieving national unity and strengthening the spirituality of Iranian society”(speech by Reza Shah, quoted in Arjomand 2000, 62–63, 81).H o w e v e r, after consolidating his power, Reza Shah began establishing modernizedand secularized institutions that disenfranchised the clerical class. Hetook away the checks and balances the clerics had over his power by centralizingthe government’s control over clerical juridical and educational institutionsand over the land trusts that were the source of the clergy’s wealth. Healso made secular education mandatory, making it difficult for clerics to teachin traditional schools, and he modernized the court system into a single, government-runsystem that ended separate clerical jurisdictions. Reza Shah’s totalitarianpolicies prevented any political liberalization or local autonomy,which greatly upset both the secularist liberals and the Shi’ite clergy. DuringWorld War II, he also alienated the Allied powers, which removed him fromcommand, replacing him with his twenty-two-year-old son, Muhammad Reza,who continued the earlier Westernizing, centralizing, and secularizing practicesof his father.In the 1950s, Muhammad Reza’s policies of kowtowing to the demands ofGreat Britain and the United States made him lose favor among the clericaland merchant classes, paving the way for various groups to unite under a newp a r t y, the Nationalist Front, headed by Mohammad Mosaddeq. After comingto power as prime minister, Mosaddeq attempted to bring about major economicand political reforms that eventually exiled Muhammad Reza Shah andnationalized the lucrative monopolistic Iranian oil company, which up till thenwas run by the British. Mosaddeq’s rise to power and reforms from 1950 to1953 ended up scaring not only the West but also the clerics, because bothfeared that his socialist tendencies would give rise to Communist rule in Iran.The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) maneuvered the overthrow of theMosaddeq rule and returned the shah, much to the delight and support of variouspowerful ayatollahs (Arjomand 2000, 81), some of whom contended thatrule by a king was more Islamic than rule by a socialist government or even ar e p u b l i c .Upon his return to power, Muhammad Reza Shah continued to implementmodernization policies in an absolutist manner, and he encouraged foreign,non-Muslim influences to enter into Iranian life. For example, his White Revolutionof 1963 advocated modern programs for land reform and women’s suf-