7. Some of His Policies Were Considered an Affront to Islam
One of the Shah’s reforms included replacing the Islamic lunar calendar with a solar one, a move that made Iran’s calendar the same as many Western calendars. However, this change meant that time was no longer measured according to Islamic tradition, something that many clerics chafed at. He also reformed education so that it was no longer in the hands of the clerics, and secularized it, so much so that women were now able to study at Tehran University. Islam was quickly losing influence in the country, and the Muslim clerics were losing power.
Clerics had long earned their salaries through religious endowments; the Shah brought these endowments under state control so that he now effectively was able to decide who could and couldn’t work as a cleric. The shah also banned women from wearing a hijab and encouraged, sometimes forced, them to wear Western dress; clerics were forbidden from wearing the traditional robe and turban. Sharia courts were replaced with secular courts, which were run by secular lawyers and judges who may not have been friendly to Islam.
Perhaps the greatest insult, though, was that the Shah licensed a liquor store to run in the holy city of Qom. Many clerics were incensed at how he was taking Iran, which had long been a nesting ground for Shi’a Islam, was falling under increasing Western influence and its people were falling prey to Western materialism and lack of morals. APOC; the new, secular constitution; and the reforms implemented by the Pahlavi regime made Westernization and secularization an inescapable aspect of Iranian life.