Some Angles on the Islamic Revolution
(Ivor Benson)

An exploration of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and its meaning for the rest of the world can begin with three wide-ranging generalizations:

1. The Islamic Revolution showed that religion can still be a more potent mobilizer of mass political action than can secular ideologies;

2. The revolution challenges the cultural hegemony of Western ideas, not only as a religion but as an alternative social model and way of life;

3. The Islamic Revolution thus can be regarded as one of the most important happenings in modern history, comparable to the French Revolution in the 18th century and the Russian Revolution in this century.

There are innumerable reasons for believing that the emergence of highly dynamic Islamic fundamentalism in Iran is a development of incalculable worldwide consequence. The Center for International Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had this comment:

"The Iranian Revolution has highlighted one of the principal religious and political developments of our time: the revival of Islamic fundamentalism from Indonesia to Morocco and from Turkey to Central Africa."

Dr. Algar, professor of Persian and Islamic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, observes:

"The subject of the Islamic Revolution in Iran is one whose importance hardly needs underlining. With the passage of time, its importance will become even clearer, as being the most significant and profound event in the entirety of contemporary Islamic history. Already we see the impact of the Islamic Revolution manifested in different ways across the length and breadth of the Islamic world from Morocco to Indonesia, from Bosnia to the heart of Europe down to Africa."

Dr. Kalim Siddiqui, director of the Muslim Institute, London, offers this assessment:

"Since the revolution in Iran I have been moving around some of the Sunni countries, some of the most reactionary if I might put it that way; I can assure you that the people in those countries have been absolutely galvanized and their imaginations have been captured ... Some of them take the precaution of locking their doors before they talk about it. If national boundaries were taken away, probably Ayatollah Khomeini would be elected by acclamation by the Ummah as a whole as the leader of the Muslim world today."


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