The Feyziyeh attack radicalizes religious opposition

The monarchy announced overwhelming approval for its reform programme. Opposition figures disputed whether voting under authoritarian conditions represented popular consent.

Women’s suffrage formed part of the programme. Revolutionary debates later distinguished support for women’s public participation from opposition to the Shah’s political control and elite model of...

He urged mourning rather than celebration to protest the government’s policies and threats against religious institutions.

The Nowruz boycott helped link seminaries, bazaars and households through a shared nonviolent act of protest.

Government agents and security forces assaulted students and clerics at the seminary in Qom, killing and injuring an uncertain number.

Clerics, students and bazaar networks circulated accounts of the attack beyond Qom despite censorship.

In a major statement, he accused the state of serving American and Israeli interests and pledged continued resistance.

Commemoration transformed grief into renewed organization, a pattern that would become central during the revolutionary cycle of 1978.

He compared the Shah’s rule with the tyranny of Yazid and warned that the people would one day celebrate the monarch’s departure.

Khomeini linked the monarchy to American and Israeli influence, presenting political resistance as both national and religious duty.