This is a list of women who have served as members of the Cabinet of Iran.
Iran, also known as Persia and officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Iraq to the west and Turkey to the northwest, Azerbaijan, Armenia, the Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan to the north, Afghanistan to the east, Pakistan to the southeast, the Gulf of Oman & the Persian Gulf to the south. With almost 90 million people in an area of 1.648 million square kilometres, Iran ranks 17th in the world in both geographic size and population. The country is divided into five regions with 31 provinces. The nation's capital and most populous city is Tehran, with around 16 million people in its metropolitan area, other major urban centres include Mashhad, Isfahan, Karaj, and Shiraz.
Ayatollah 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 leader of the Iranian Revolution, which overthrew Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and ended the Iranian monarchy.
The Guardian Council is an appointed and constitutionally mandated 12-member council that wields considerable power and influence in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), also known as Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) or Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), is an Iranian dissident organization that was previously armed but has now transitioned primarily into a political advocacy group. Its headquarters are currently in Albania. The group's ideology is rooted in "Islam with revolutionary Marxism," but after the Iranian Revolution became about overthrowing the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and installing its own government. At one point the MEK was Iran's "largest and most active armed dissident group," and it is still sometimes presented by Western political backers as a major Iranian opposition group, but it is also deeply unpopular today within Iran, largely due to its siding with Iraq in the Iran–Iraq War.
The Iranian Revolution, also known as the Islamic Revolution, was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution also 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State of Iran by the present-day Islamic Republic of Iran, as the monarchical government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was superseded by the theocratic government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a religious cleric who had headed one of the rebel factions.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.
The White Revolution or the Shah and People Revolution was a far-reaching series of reforms resulting in aggressive modernization in the Imperial State of Iran launched on 26 January 1963 by the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, which lasted until 1979. The reforms resulted in a great redistribution of wealth to Iran's working class, explosive economic growth in subsequent decades, rapid urbanization, and deconstruction of Iran's feudalist customs.
The Islamic Consultative Assembly, also called the Iranian Parliament, the Iranian Majles or ICA, is the national legislative body of Iran. The Parliament currently consists of 290 representatives, an increase from the previous 272 seats since the 18 February 2000 election.
Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei is an Iranian Twelver Shia marja' and politician who has been the second supreme leader of Iran since 1989. He previously served as third president of Iran from 1981 to 1989. Khamenei is 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.
The Assembly of Experts, also translated as the Assembly of Experts of the Leadership or as the Council of Experts, is the deliberative body empowered to appoint the Supreme Leader of Iran. All directly elected members must first be vetted by the Guardian Council.
Zahra Rahnavard is an Iranian academic, artist and politician. Rahnavard is a university professor, artist, and intellectual who was under house arrest from February 2011 to May 2018. In 2009, Foreign Policy magazine named her one of the world's most distinguished thinkers. She is the wife of former Iran Prime Minister Mir Hussein Musavi. In part of her work, she has underlined the need for men to respect the laws of the hijab in the same way as women, as well as a general activist for women's rights in the Middle East.
Liberalism in Iran or Iranian liberalism is a political ideology that traces its beginnings to the 20th century.
Throughout history, women in Iran have played numerous roles, and contributed in many ways, to Iranian society. Historically, tradition maintained that women be confined to their homes to manage the household and raise children. During the Pahlavi era, there was a drastic social change towards women's desegregation such as ban of the veil, right to vote, right to education, equal salaries for men and women, and the right to hold public office. Women were active participants in the Islamic Revolution. Iran's constitution, adopted after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, proclaims equality for men and women under Article 20, while mandating legal code adhering to Sharia law. Article 21 of the constitution as well as a few parliament-passed laws give women rights such as being allowed to drive, hold public office, and attend university but not wearing a veil in public can be punished by law; and when in public, all hair and skin except the face and hands must be covered. However, this is often not enforced; notably in recent years, Iranian women have started a number of groups to rebel against the government's oppressive policies and reclaim their independence and rights.
Haleh Afshar, Baroness Afshar, was a British life peer in the House of Lords. She had a life-long interest in women's rights and Islamic law. She was a professor at the University of York and she wrote over a dozen scholarly books.
Maryam Rajavi is an Iranian dissident politician and the leader of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), an organization advocating the overthrow of the Iranian government, and president-elect of its National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). She is married to Massoud Rajavi, who is the co-leader of MEK.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an Iranian principlist and nationalist politician who served as the sixth president of Iran from 2005 to 2013. He is currently a member of the Expediency Discernment Council. He was known for his hardline views and nuclearisation of Iran. He was also the main political leader of the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, a coalition of conservative political groups in the country, and served as mayor of Tehran from 2003 to 2005, reversing many of his predecessor's reforms.
Nazanin Boniadi is a British actress and activist. Born in Tehran and raised in London, she went to university in the United States, where she landed her first major acting role as Leyla Mir in the medical drama General Hospital (2007–2009) and its spin-off General Hospital: Night Shift (2007). Since then, Boniadi has played Nora in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2011), Fara Sherazi in the spy thriller series Homeland (2013–2014), Esther in the historical drama film Ben-Hur (2016), Clare Quayle in the sci-fi thriller series Counterpart (2017–2018), Zahra Kashani in the action thriller film Hotel Mumbai (2018), and Bronwyn in the fantasy series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022–present).
The Cabinet of Iran is a formal body composed of government officials, ministers, chosen and led by a President. Its composition must be approved by a vote in the Parliament. According to the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the President may dismiss members of the cabinet, but must do so in writing, and new appointees must again be approved by the Parliament. The cabinet meets weekly on Saturdays in Tehran. There may be additional meetings if circumstances require it. The president chairs the meetings. The Supreme Leader has the power to dismiss cabinet members like ministers and vice presidents, as well as the President, at any time, regardless of the Parliament's decisions.
The Supreme Leader of Iran ), also referred to as Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, but officially called the Supreme Leadership Authority, is the head of state and the highest political and religious authority of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The armed forces, judiciary, state television, and other key government organizations such as the Guardian Council and Expediency Discernment Council are subject to the Supreme Leader. According to the constitution, the Supreme Leader delineates the general policies of the Islamic Republic, supervising the legislature, the judiciary, and the executive branches. The current lifetime officeholder, Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khameneh known as Ali Khamenei, has issued decrees and made the final decisions on the economy, the environment, foreign policy, education, national planning, and other aspects of governance in Iran. Khamenei also makes the final decisions on the amount of transparency in elections, and has dismissed and reinstated presidential cabinet appointees. The Supreme Leader is legally considered "inviolable", with Iranians being routinely punished for questioning or insulting him.
Hassan Rouhani is an Iranian Islamist politician who served as the seventh president of Iran from 2013 to 2021. He is also a sharia lawyer ("Wakil"), academic, former diplomat and Islamic cleric. He has been a member of Iran's Assembly of Experts since 1999. He was a member of the Expediency Council from 1991 to 2021, and also was a member of the Supreme National Security Council from 1989 to 2021. Rouhani was deputy speaker of the fourth and fifth terms of the Parliament of Iran (Majlis) and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council from 1989 to 2005. In the latter capacity, he was the country's top negotiator with the EU three, UK, France, and Germany, on nuclear technology in Iran, and has also served as a Shia mujtahid, and economic trade negotiator.
Civil unrest and protests against the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran associated with the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini began on 16 September 2022 and carried on into 2023, but were said to have "dwindled" or "died down" by spring of 2023. As of September 2023, the "ruling elite" of Iran was said to remain "deeply entrenched" in power. The protests were described as "unlike any the country had seen before", the "biggest challenge" to the government, and "most widespread revolt", since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
