Iran

At midnight on May 14, 1948, the Provisional Government of Israel proclaimed a new State of Israel, a proclamation that both established…

QOM. A small provincial town south of Tehran, Qom (or Qum) is the site of Hazrat-i Ma’sumah, the shrine of…

NA’INI, MUHAMMAD HUSAYN (May 25, 1860-1936), the leading theoretician of the 1905-1909 Persian constitutional movement and the leading clergyman who…

LIBERATION MOVEMENT OF IRAN. A political party whose program is based on a modernist interpretation of Islam, the Liberation Movement…

IRAN. Iranians have always called their country Iran (Land of the Aryans, or “noble people”), but outsiders long used the…

BAZARGAN, MEHDI (1 September 1907 – 20 January 1995), Iranian Muslim modernist and reformer, regarded as one of the major…

AYATOLLAH. Derived from the terms dyat (sign, testimony, miracle, verses of the Qur’an) and Allah (God), ayatollah (“sign of God”),…