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Which anticlerical policies did Reza Shah impose in Iran?
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Mashhad
Shrine of the imam ʿAlī al-Riḍā, Mashhad, Iran.
During his reign (1925–1941), Reza Shah Pahlavi implemented a series of anticlerical policies aimed at modernizing Iran and reducing the influence of the ulama (religious scholars) in state affairs. These measures included:
- Administrative and Judicial Reform: He removed religious scholars from their positions within the Ministries of Education and Justice. Many legal matters previously under the jurisdiction of Shi'i religious courts were transferred to secular courts or state bureaucracies.12
- Educational Secularization: The government increased the number of secular schools and established the University of Tehran in 1934, effectively eroding the clerical monopoly on education.2
- Social Restrictions: Reza Shah banned the wearing of veils by women in public and mandated that men wear European-style hats. He also raised the minimum age for marriage and reformed divorce laws to be more equitable.12
- Direct Suppression: The state took over clerical assets, defrocked clergymen, and conscripted them into the army.1
These policies faced significant resistance, most notably in 1935 when troops fired on a crowd in Mashhad that had gathered to protest these secularizing mandates.1