Word: bazargan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Some observers distinguish two stages in the entire upheaval: the first a popular revolt that overthrew the Shah, then a "Khomeini coup" that concentrated all power in the clergy. The Ayatullah's main instrument was a stream of elamiehs (directives) from Qum, many issued without consulting Bazargan's nominal government. Banks and heavy industry were nationalized and turned over to government managers. Many of the elamiehs were concerned with imposing a strict Islamic...
Khomeini withdrew to the holy city of Qum, appointed a government headed by Mehdi Bazargan, an engineer by training and veteran of Mossadegh's Cabinet, and announced that he would confine his own role during "the one or two years left to me" to making sure that Iran followed "in the image of Muhammad." It quickly became apparent that real power resided in the revolutionary komitehs that sprang up all over the country, and the komitehs took orders only from the 15-man Revolutionary Council headed by Khomeini (the names of its other members were long kept secret). Bazargan...