ABSTRACT
The Islamic Republic today has the backing of a wider segment of the bazaari community than the monarchy did in prerevolutionary Iran. In prerevolutionary Iran, the bazaars were able to mobilize against the shah by utilizing the mosque network and taking full advantage of the reduced governmental repression resulting from the Reza shah's liberalization policy. As the biggest losers of the revolution, they have become estranged from the clerical order, with their sense of disenchantment aggravated by the regime's paternalistic and meddlesome demeanor. Effective, coordinated action entails, above all, the formation of a broadly based revolutionary coalition of the opposition groups that represent the society's major classes. During the revolutionary process, the role and personality of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in holding the revolution's disparate supporters together became all the more important because the movement's ideological appeals were highly incoherent and diffuse.
