Introduction

Iran has gone through two major socio-political changes in the Twentieth Century: The Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909 and the Islamic Revolution of 1977-1979. Islam in Iran, as a socio-cultural phenomena, has blended over fourteen centuries with the old Persian culture and shaped the everyday life of the people. The Islamic Revolution of Iran has been referred to as 'traditional' or 'fundamentalist'. These labels refer not only to the Revolution's religious ideology and leadership, but also to religiously affected postrevolutionary political and social institutions. The concept of Iranian, and more generally Islamic, civil society is controversial. Among others, Gellner has rejected the idea of civil society in Islamic societies as incompatible with the notion of umma, or Muslim community. The new educated groups, such as bureaucrats, students, and teachers played a role, but most important were the 'dispossessed', the rural migrants to Iranian cities, marginalized, and unincorporated into the industrial and bureaucratic sectors.