The Making of Post-Islamist Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran experienced the first Islamic revolution in the modern times. It has equally developed the most deep-rooted post-Islamist trend in the country. This chapter chronicles the birth, development, and the coming to partial power of a post-Islamist movement. It shows how and why post-Islamism emerged as a critical paradigm to serve as alternative to the Islamist project by rejecting the idea of a religious state, but embracing electoral democracy, notion of civil society, coexistence, and tolerance. Pushed originally by the movements of women, youth, intellectuals and other social groups, post-Islamism manifested itself first in the Reform Movement of the late 1990s, then partly in the government of the Mohammad Khatami, and finally in the Green Movement of the 2009. But it has yet to materialize its objective of democratizing the Islamic Republic within a pious society.