Revolt Against Theocracy

This book is the first in-depth account of the uprising in Iran that began on 16 September 2022, when a young woman, Mahsa Amini, was killed by the morality police. In the months that followed, protests and demonstrations erupted across Iran, representing the most serious challenge to the Iranian regime in decades.  Women have played a key role in these protests, refusing to wear a hijab and cutting their hair in public to chants of ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’. In Farhad Khosrokhavar’s account, these protests represent the first truly feminist movement in Iran, and one of the first in the Muslim world, where women have been in the vanguard. There have been many movements in the Muslim world in which women have taken part, but rarely have women – and especially young women – been the driving force. The Mahsa Movement also championed non-Islamic, secularized values, based on the joy of living, the assertion of bodily freedom and the quest for gender equality and democracy. Khosrokhavar gives a full account of the context of and background to the events triggered by the killing of Mahsa Amini, analyzes the character of the Mahsa Movement and the regime’s repressive response to it, and draws out its broader significance as one of the most significant feminist movements and political uprisings in the Islamic world. Now available as an audiobook.

Introduction 1. The mindset of the younger generation: The new culture of joie de vivre against Islamic Theocracy 2. Protest movements before the Mahsa Movement 3. The Mahsa Movement: The first sweeping feminist movement in Iran 4. The new intellectuals 5. The role of the Diaspora in the Mahsa Movement 6. From a theocratic state to a totalitarian one 7. Secularization counter to the Theocratic State Conclusion