The Iranian revolution is the first example of a successful political takeover by a religious institution in the Middle East. This volume traces the roots of the revolutionary powers of the ulama religious leaders and engages critically with their perspectives on an Islamic government and economy. The author argues that the uneasy alliance between the intelligentsia and the ulama which has fuelled two successful revolutions in twentieth-century Iran has always contained irresolvable tensions.

These continue to pull national politics in contradictory directions in the post-revolutionary period. On coming to power, the Islamic government has had to contend with these conflicting forces, as well as having to accommodate the loose collegial cooperation that had existed amongst religious leaders. In addition, the young, zealous revolutionaries have also extracted the right to dictate terms to the post-revolutionary state. The result has been a profusion of command structures with administrative units duplicating one another's duties.

Even the armed forces have been replicated with the creation of the revolutionary guard corps, and this has added an enormous burden of expenditure to the tottering budget.

It is the contention of the author that the failure to rationalise the administrative organisation has resulted in bureaucratic bungles and an increase in poverty. In the 1990s the government has reneged on its avowed Islamic promises and its commitment to remaining independent from the West. Iran has returned to the fold of the debtor nations, and, having borrowed from the World Bank, has had to agree to reorganise its economy and introduce some structural adjustments.

Less than fifteen years after the revolution there is little left of the original Islamic ideals sought by the theocracy in Iran. The only tokens of Islamification have been the imposition of the veil and the systematic exclusion of women from much of the public domain.