Word: shahs
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...defiance of the mullahs, the Shah ordered widespread land reforms, divesting the Shi'ite clergy of their vast holdings. The Shah scheduled a referendum on land reform and won his way by a wide margin. He decreed new privileges for women, including the right to vote and to attend institutions of higher learning. In June 1963 the mullahs, having failed to block the Shah's reforms, called their people into the streets. Demonstrations turned into riots, and the Shah sent in his troops. When the rioting stopped several days later, 200 people were dead, and the leader of the mullah...
Khomeini lives in Iraq and still leads the opposition against the Shah. "The people will not rest," he declared last month, "until the Pahlavi rule has been swept away and all traces of tyranny have disappeared." Scoffing at the Shah's promise to allow free elections next year, Khomeini said: "As long as the Shah's satanic power prevails, not a single true representative of the people can possibly be elected...
...more about the Shah...
Among the mullahs inside Iran, the most powerful is Ayatullah Sharietmadari, a revered Islamic scholar who condemns violence but strongly opposes the Shah on constitutional and religious grounds (see box). Parliament, claims Sharietmadari, too often violates the precepts of Islamic law to the detriment of Shi'ite sensibilities. Gambling, prostitution and pornography are all viewed as typical manifestations of modernism. The Shah's widespread curtailment of civil liberties, freedom of the press and political assembly are looked upon as only further evidence of his determination to deprive the Shi'ites of their power and to transform the nation into...
After the mullahs, the most visible opposition to the Shah has come from the universities, where there is frequent agitation. Some students are Marxists who preach outright revolution. Many are Muslim activists, following the mullahs in their demands for an Islamic state. Vast numbers of others are caught up in the revolution of rising expectations; growing up in an atmosphere of increasing affluence, they are frustrated by the slow pace of economic and political change...