Fadā'iyān-e Islam ( fa, فدائیان اسلام, also spelled as ''Fadayan-e Islam'' or in English "Fedayeen of Islam" or "Devotees of Islam" or literally "Self-Sacrificers of Islam"
) is a
Shia
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest Islamic schools and branches, branch of Islam. It holds that the Prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad designated Ali, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his S ...
fundamentalist
Fundamentalism is a tendency among certain groups and individuals that is characterized by the application of a strict literal interpretation to scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, along with a strong belief in the importance of distinguishing ...
group in
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
with a strong activist political orientation. The group was founded in 1946, and registered as a
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...
in 1989.
An alleged
terrorist
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
organization,
[FEDĀʾĪĀN-E ESLĀM. (1999). In Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved from http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/fedaian-e-esla ''The Fedāʾīān’s importance in Persian politics was due to several related factors. First, they were exceptionally successful as a rebel organization''] it was founded by a theology student nicknamed
Navvab Safavi
Sayyid Mojtaba Mir-Lohi ( fa, سيد مجتبی میرلوحی, 1924 – 18 January 1956), more commonly known as Navvab Safavi ( fa, نواب صفوی), was an Iranian Shia cleric and founder of the Fada'iyan-e Islam group. He played a role in ...
. Safavi sought to purify Islam in Iran by ridding it of 'corrupting individuals' by means of carefully planned assassinations of certain leading intellectual and political figures.
[Taheri, ''The Spirit of Allah'', (1985), p. 98] After a series of successful killings and the freeing of some of its assassins from punishment with the help of the group's powerful clerical supporters, the group was suppressed and Safavi executed by the Iranian government in the mid-1950s. The group survived as supporters of the Ayatollah
Khomeini
Ruhollah Khomeini, Ayatollah Khomeini, Imam Khomeini ( , ; ; 17 May 1900 – 3 June 1989) was an Iranian political and religious leader who served as the first supreme leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989. He was the founder of ...
and the
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...
.
Background
![Navvad Safavi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Navvad_Safavi.jpg)
The group was part of a "growing
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
mobilization against foreign domination" in the Middle East after World War II, and has been said to presage more famous
Islamist terrorist groups. Its membership is said to have been made up of youth employed in "the lower echelons of the Tehran bazaar." Its program went beyond generalities about following the
sharia
Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the H ...
to demand prohibitions of alcohol, tobacco, opium, films, gambling, wearing of foreign clothing, the enforcement of amputation of hands of thieves, and the
veiling
A veil is an article of clothing or hanging cloth that is intended to cover some part of the head or face, or an object of some significance. Veiling has a long history in European, Asian, and African societies. The practice has been prominent i ...
of women, and an elimination from school curriculum of all non-Muslim subjects such as music.
History
Rise
Its first assassination was of a
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
,
anti-clerical
Anti-clericalism is opposition to religious authority, typically in social or political matters. Historical anti-clericalism has mainly been opposed to the influence of Roman Catholicism. Anti-clericalism is related to secularism, which seeks to ...
author named
Ahmad Kasravi
Ahmad Hokmabadi Tabrizi ( fa, سید احمد حکمآبادی تبریزی, Ahmad-e Hokmabadi-ye Tabrizi; 29 September 1890 – 11 March 1946), later known as Ahmad Kasravi ( fa, احمد کسروی, Ahmad-e Kasravi), was a pre-eminent Irani ...
, who was stabbed and killed in 1946. Kasravi is said to have been the target of Ayatollah Khomeini's demand in his first book, ''Kashf al Asrar'' (Key to the Secrets), that "all those who criticized Islam" are
mahdur ad-damm, (meaning that their blood must be shed by the faithful).
Secularist Iranian author
Amir Taheri
Amir Taheri ( fa, امیر طاهری; born 9 June 1942) is an Iranian-born columnist and activist author based in Europe. His writings focus on the Middle East affairs and topics related to Islamic terrorism. He has been the subject of many c ...
argues that Khomeini was closely associated with Navvab Safavi and his ideas, and that Khomeini's assertion "amounted to a virtual death sentence on Kasravi."
Hussein Emami, the assassin and a founding member of the Fada'iyan, was promptly arrested and sentenced to death for the crime. The Iranian intelligentsia united in calling for an example to be made of him. Emami, however, was spared the gallows. According to Taheri, he roused religious defenders and used his prestige as a
seyyed
''Sayyid'' (, ; ar, سيد ; ; meaning 'sir', 'Lord', 'Master'; Arabic plural: ; feminine: ; ) is a surname of people descending from the Islamic prophet Muhammad through his grandsons, Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali, sons of Muhammad' ...
, or descendant of the
Islamic prophet
Prophets in Islam ( ar, الأنبياء في الإسلام, translit=al-ʾAnbiyāʾ fī al-ʾIslām) are individuals in Islam who are believed to spread God in Islam, God's message on Earth and to serve as models of ideal human behaviour. So ...
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...
, to demand he be tried by a religious court. Khomeini and many of the Shia clergy pressured the Shah to give Emami a pardon, taking advantage of the Shah's political difficulties at that time, such as the occupation of
Azerbaijan province by
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
troops. Khomeini himself asked the Shah for the pardon.
[Taheri, ''The Spirit of Allah'', (1985), pp. 107-8]
In November 1949 the group killed court minister (and former prime minister)
Abdolhossein Hazhir
Abdolhossein Hazhir ( fa, عبدالحسین هژیر; 4 June 1902 – 5 November 1949) was an Iranian politician who served as the Prime Minister of Iran under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1948, having been a minister 10 times. One of his post ...
. On 7 March 1951, the Prime Minister
Haj Ali Razmara
Ali Razmara, also known as Haj Ali Razmara ( fa, حاجیعلی رزمآرا, Ḥājī`alī Razmārā; 30 March 1901 – 7 March 1951), was a military leader and prime minister of Iran.
He was assassinated by 26-year-old Khalil Tahmasse ...
was assassinated, in retaliation for his advice against nationalizing the oil industry.
[ Three weeks later the former education minister Abdul Hamid Zangeneh was assassinated by the group. Razmara's assassination was said to have moved Iran "further away from a spirit of compromise and moderation in relation to the oil problem" and "so frightened the ruling classes that concession after concession was made to nationalist demands in an attempt to pacify the intensely aroused public indignation." An assassination attempt on Shah ]Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
, title = Shahanshah Aryamehr Bozorg Arteshtaran
, image = File:Shah_fullsize.jpg
, caption = Shah in 1973
, succession = Shah of Iran
, reign = 16 September 1941 – 11 February 1979
, coronation = 26 October ...
, on 4 February 1949, was carried out by Fakhr-Arai; Fakhr-Arai was first attributed to be a member of the communist Tudeh Party of Iran
The Tudeh Party of Iran ( fa-at, حزب تودۀ ایران, Ḥezb-e Tūde-ye Īrān, lit=Party of the Masses of Iran) is an Iranian communist party. Formed in 1941, with Soleiman Mirza Eskandari as its head, it had considerable influence in i ...
, but he was later found to more likely be a religious fundamentalist member of Fada'iyan-e Islam.
In addition to Emami, Khalil Tahmasebi
Khalil Tahmasebi (14 February 1924 – 1955) was a carpenter and member of the Iranian fundamentalist group Fadayan-e Islam ("Self-Sacrificers of Islam"), which has been described as "the first Shiite Islamist organization to employ terrorism as ...
, the assassin of Razmara, was also pardoned by the Iranian Parliament during the premiership of Mohammad Mossadegh
Mohammad Mosaddegh ( fa, محمد مصدق, ; 16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967) was an Iranian politician, author, and lawyer who served as the 35th Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, after appointment by the 16th Majlis. He was a member of ...
. Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani, a powerful member of parliament and a supporter of the Fadayan, "arranged for a special Act to be passed quashing the death sentence on Tahamsebi and declaring him (Tahamsebi) to be a soldier of Islam," to the further consternation of Iranian secularists. However, following the fall of Mossaddegh Tahmasebi was arrested again and tried in 1952.[ He was sentenced to death and executed in 1955.][ In addition, Ayatollah Kashani ended his alliance with Mossadegh and become close to the Shah after the assassination.][
Although the Fada'iyan strongly supported the nationalization of Iran's foreign-owned oil industry, they turned against the leader of the nationalization movement, ]Mohammad Mossadeq
Mohammad Mosaddegh ( fa, محمد مصدق, ; 16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967) was an Iranian politician, author, and lawyer who served as the 35th Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, after appointment by the 16th Majlis. He was a member of ...
, when he became prime minister, because of his refusal to implement sharia
Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the H ...
law and appoint strict Islamists to high positions. The danger from the Fada'iyan "was one of the primary factors accounting for Mosaddeq's decision to move the prime minister's office to his own residence." Another assassination attempt on 15 February 1952 badly wounded Hossein Fatemi
Hossein Fatemi ( fa, حسین فاطمی; also Romanized as Hoseyn Fātemi; 10 February 1917 – 10 November 1954) was an Iranian scholar. A close associate of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, he proposed nationalization of Iranian oil and gas ...
, "Mosaddeq's dynamic and capable aide" and foreign minister. That left Fatemi "badly wounded and effectively disabled for almost eight months." The attempted assassination was planned by the group's second in command, Abolhossein Vahedi, and carried out by a teenage member of the group.[''Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran'', Mark j. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne (Eds.), Syracuse University Press, 2004, p. 66]
Crackdown
In 1955, Navvab Safavi and "other members of the Fedayeen of Islam, including Emami," were finally executed. The group continued however, turning, according to author Baqer Moin
Baqer Moin ( fa, باقر معین) is a BBC journalist and author. He has been described as "a specialist on Iran and Islam and is head of the BBC's Persian Service" (in 1999) and as "BBC's Central Asia specialist" (2001)
According to the Ameri ...
, to Ayatollah Khomeini as a new spiritual leader, and reportedly being "reconstructed" by Khomeini disciple, and later controversial "hanging judge," Sadegh Khalkhali
Mohammed Sadeq Givi Khalkhali (27 July 1926 – 26 November 2003) ( fa, صادق خلخالی) was an Iranian Shia cleric who is said to have "brought to his job as Chief Justice of the revolutionary courts a relish for summary execution" that ...
. It is thought to have carried out the assassination of Iranian Prime Minister Hassan Ali Mansour
Hasan Ali Mansur ( fa, حسن علی منصور; 13 April 1923 – 26 January 1965) was an Iranian politician who served as Prime Minister from 1964 to 1965. He served during the White Revolution of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and was a ...
in 1965. Mansour is reported to have been "tried" by a secret Islamic court, made up of Khomeini followers Morteza Motahhari
Morteza Motahhari ( fa, مرتضی مطهری, also Romanized as "Mortezā Motahharī"; 31 January 1919 – 1 May 1979) was an Iranian Twelver Shia scholar, philosopher, lecturer. Motahhari is considered to have an important influence on th ...
and Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, and sentenced to death "on a charge of 'warring on Allah' as symbolized by the decision" to send Khomeini into exile. The three men who carried out the "sentence" - Mohammad Bokara'i, Morteza Niknezhad and Reza Saffar-Harandi - "were arrested and charged as accomplices", but the story of both the trial and the sentence was not revealed until after the revolution.
Revolution and Islamic Republic
During the 1979 Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...
, some of the Fada'iyan's objectives were practiced by Islamic Republic of Iran, though in a modified way. Meaning there are similarities between Islamic Republic of Iran and Fada'iyan's views on issues like Islamic justice, the right of minorities and women, the place of poor, the cleric's position in the Islamic society, attitude toward foreign powers, etc. Fada'iyan's mentality in these issues is best served by some organizations in new Iran, such as Foundation of the Impoverished (Bonyād-e mostażʿafān), Revolutionary Guard (Sepāh-e pāsdārān-e enqelāb-e Eslāmī), the chair of the Discretionary Council (Šūrā-ye maṣleḥat-e neẓām), etc.
Members of the group
These persons are main member of the group:
* Navab Safavi
Sayyid Mojtaba Mir-Lohi ( fa, سيد مجتبی میرلوحی, 1924 – 18 January 1956), more commonly known as Navvab Safavi ( fa, نواب صفوی), was an Iranian Shia cleric and founder of the Fada'iyan-e Islam group. He played a role in a ...
, leader of the group Fadayan-e Islam
* Mozafar Zolghadr: He was from Karasf
, native_name_lang = fa
, settlement_type = City
, image_skyline =
, imagesize =
, image_alt =
, image_caption =
, image_flag =
, flag_alt =
, im ...
city, in the Khodabandeh County
Khodabandeh County ( fa, شهرستان خدابنده) is in Zanjan province, Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turk ...
, Zanjan Province. Mozafar was born in a rural and religious family. Mozafar Zolghadr decided to murder Hossein Ala'
Hosein Alā ( fa, حسین علاء; 13 December 1881 – 12 July 1964) was an Iranian politician who served as Prime Minister in 1951 and from 1955 to 1957.
Background
He was born in 1882 in Tehran and spent his early years in London. He was ed ...
but his gun did not fire. After that he arrested and executed.
* Seyyed Muhammad Vahedi
* Khalil Tahmasebi
Khalil Tahmasebi (14 February 1924 – 1955) was a carpenter and member of the Iranian fundamentalist group Fadayan-e Islam ("Self-Sacrificers of Islam"), which has been described as "the first Shiite Islamist organization to employ terrorism as ...
, the member of Fada'iyan-e Islam who assassinated Iranian Prime Minister Haj Ali Razmara
Ali Razmara, also known as Haj Ali Razmara ( fa, حاجیعلی رزمآرا, Ḥājī`alī Razmārā; 30 March 1901 – 7 March 1951), was a military leader and prime minister of Iran.
He was assassinated by 26-year-old Khalil Tahmasse ...
in March 1951. He was described as a "religious fanatic" by ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' and was executed in 1955.
* Jafar Shojouni
Jafar Shojouni ( fa, جعفر شجونی) was an Iranian Shia cleric and conservative politician who served a member of the Parliament of Iran from 1980 to 1984, representing Karaj. He was a member of Islamic Coalition Party’s Central Council, as ...
* Seyyed Mehdi Tabatabaei
Seyyed Mehdi Tabatabaei Shirazi ( fa, سید مهدی طباطبایی شیرازی, March 21, 1936 — May 17, 2018) was an Iranian Shia cleric and conservative politician who served as member of the Parliament of Iran from 2004 to 2008, represen ...
See also
* Terrorism in Iran
Numerous civilians, including men, women, children, government officials, activists, secular intellectuals and clerics have been victims of assassination, terrorism, or violence against non-combatants, over the course of modern Iranian history.
...
References
Further reading
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fada'Iyan-E Islam
Militant opposition to the Pahlavi dynasty
Organisations of the Iranian Revolution
Iranian neoconservatism
Islamist insurgent groups
1946 establishments in Iran
Political parties established in 1989
Principlist political groups in Iran
Shia Islamist groups
Secret societies
Islamic fundamentalism
Iranian clerical political groups