Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was an Iranian Islamic revolutionary, politician, and religious leader who served as the first Supreme Leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989. He was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the main leader of the Iranian Revolution, which overthrew Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and ended the Iranian monarchy.
The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic standoff between Iran and the United States. Fifty-three American diplomats and citizens were held hostage in Iran after a group of armed Iranian college students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who supported the Iranian Revolution, including Hossein Dehghan, Mohammad Ali Jafari and Mohammad Bagheri, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took them as hostages. The hostages were held for 444 days, from November 4, 1979 to their release on January 20, 1981. The crisis is considered a pivotal episode in the history of Iran–United States relations.
Anti-Americanism is a term that can describe several sentiments and positions including opposition to, fear of, distrust of, prejudice against or hatred toward the United States, its government, its foreign policy, or Americans in general. Anti-Americanism can be contrasted with pro-Americanism, which refers to support, love, or admiration for the United States.
The Iranian Revolution, also known as the 1979 Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution, was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Imperial State of Iran by the present-day Islamic Republic of Iran, as the monarchical government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was superseded by the theocratic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a religious cleric who had headed one of the rebel factions. The ousting of Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, formally marked the end of Iran's historical monarchy.
Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei is an Iranian Twelver Shia marja' and politician who has served as the second Supreme Leader of Iran since 1989. He previously served as the third president of Iran from 1981 to 1989. Khamenei's 35-year-long rule makes him the longest-serving head of state in the Middle East, as well as the second-longest-serving Iranian leader of the last century after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri was an Iranian Shia Islamic theologian, Islamic democracy advocate, writer and human rights activist. He was one of the leaders of the Iranian Revolution and one of the highest-ranking authorities in Shīʿite Islam. He was once the designated successor to the revolution's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, but they had a falling-out in 1989 over government policies that Montazeri claimed infringed on people's freedom and denied them their rights, especially after the 1988 mass execution of political prisoners. Montazeri spent his later years in Qom and remained politically influential in Iran, but was placed in house arrest in 1997 for questioning "the unaccountable rule exercised by the supreme leader", Ali Khamenei, who succeeded Khomeini in his stead. He was known as the most knowledgeable senior Islamic scholar in Iran and a grand marja of Shia Islam. Ayatollah Montazeri was said to be one of Khamenei's teachers.
The "Great Satan" is a derogatory epithet used in some Muslim-majority countries to refer to the United States. Alongside the "Death to America" slogan, it originated in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. While it is primarily an expression of anti-American sentiment, it has occasionally been used to refer to the United Kingdom, although the term "old fox" is more popular as a dedicated expression of anti-British sentiment.
On 31 July 1987, during the Hajj in Mecca, a clash between Shia pilgrim demonstrators and the Saudi Arabian security forces resulted in the death of more than 400 people. The event has been variously described as a "riot" or a "massacre". It developed from increasing tensions between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Since 1981, Iranian pilgrims have held a political demonstration against Israel and the United States every year at Hajj, but in 1987, a cordon of Saudi police and the Saudi Arabian National Guard sealed part of the planned demonstration route, resulting in a confrontation between them and the pilgrims. This escalated into a violent clash, followed by a deadly stampede.
Mohammad Yazdi was an Iranian conservative and principlist cleric who served as the head of Judiciary System of Iran between 1989 and 1999. In 2015, he was elected to lead Iran's Assembly of Experts, defeating Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president, by a vote count of 47 to 24.
Ahmad Jannati is an Iranian conservative politician. Jannati is known for his anti-LGBT rhetoric and opposition to secularism. He is also a founding member of the Haghani school of thought.
Death to America is an anti-American political slogan widely used in North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and Pakistan. Originally used by North Korea since the Korean War, Ruhollah Khomeini, the first supreme leader of Iran, popularized the term. He opposed the chant for radio and television, but not for protests and other occasions.
Khomeinism refers to the religious and political ideas of the leader of the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution, Ruhollah Khomeini. In addition, Khomeinism may also refer to the ideology of the clerical class which has ruled the Islamic Republic of Iran, founded by Khomeini. It can also be used to refer to the "radicalization" of segments of the Twelver Shia populations of Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, and the Iranian government's "recruitment" of Shia minorities in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Africa. The words Khomeinist and Khomeinists, derived from Khomeinism, can also be used to describe members of Iran's clerical rulers and attempt to differentiate them from "regular" Shia Muslim clerics.
Mehdi Hashemi was an Iranian Shia cleric who after the 1979 Iranian Revolution became a senior official in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. He was defrocked by the Special Clerical Court and executed by the Islamic Republic in 1987. Officially he was guilty of sedition, murder, and related charges, but others suspect his true crime was opposition to the regime's secret dealings with the United States within the Iran–Contra affair.
Following the Iranian Revolution, which overthrew the Shah of Iran, in February 1979, Iran was in a "revolutionary crisis mode" from this time until 1982 or 1983 when forces loyal to the revolution's leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, consolidated power. During this period, Iran's economy and the apparatus of government collapsed; its military and security forces were in disarray.
Anti-British sentiment is the prejudice against, persecution of, discrimination against, fear of, dislike of, or hatred against the British Government, British people, or the culture of the United Kingdom.
Anti-Western sentiment, also known as anti-Atlanticism or Westernophobia, refers to broad opposition, bias, or hostility towards the people, culture, or policies of the Western world.
The Iran hostage crisis negotiations were negotiations in 1980 and 1981 between the United States Government and the Iranian Government to end the Iranian hostage crisis. The 52 American hostages, seized from the US Embassy in Tehran in November 1979, were finally released on 20 January 1981. A detailed account of the hostage crisis and the Algiers Accords is found in American Hostages In Iran: The Conduct of a Crisis [Yale 1985] put together by the Council on Foreign Relations.
Anti-Sunnism is hatred of, prejudice against, discrimination against, persecution of, and violence against Sunni Muslims.
"Little Satan" is an anti-Zionist derogatory epithet used especially by Iranian leaders for Israel.
"Island of Stability" is a phrase that became the namesake for a 1977 speech by American president Jimmy Carter, while he was being hosted by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi at the Niavaran Complex in the city of Tehran, Iran. It was a reflection of Iran's circumstances — regarded as a stable country and a bastion of the Western Bloc in what was otherwise an unstable Middle East under the influence of the Eastern Bloc — and the importance placed on Pahlavi's rule by the United States. Carter's speech was made one year before the Islamic Revolution, in which Pahlavi's monarchical state was overthrown and replaced by the Islamic Republic.
