#islamic-republic

#islamic-republic

In his treatise on Islamic governance, Iran's revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, raged at the idea of political leadership passing down through family lines. Monarchy and hereditary succession were "sinister" and "evil" and "invalid," he wrote. They "have no place in Islam." The revolution that he led, in 1979, centered on ending dynastic rule in Iran, specifically of the U.S.-backed Pahlavi family.

Tehran, the heart of the Islamic Republic, is revealed to be a city of modernity and concealed resistance, once hidden beneath layers of theocratic governance.