3 - The Era of Reconstruction and Reform

Summary

Chapter 3 examines the 1993 (Rafsanjani), 1997 and 2001 (Khatami) elections, with a view to highlighting the departure from the three elements of Khomeini’s revolutionary religiosity. This shift was evidently influenced by major events of the time: the end of Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq, the death of Khomeini in 1989 and the rise of his successor, Ali Khamenei. These major events opened up Iran’s socio-political environment beyond the contours Khomeini’s revolutionary discourses of jihad, martyrdom, the afterlife and ascetic equality. During this period, and in line with the processes of secularization, the meaning of Islam was reappropriated and infused with new meaning. It was conveyed as a religion of free-thinking, welfare, prosperity, peace and life, as opposed to jihad, martyrdom and poverty as expressed in the revolution’s first decade.