Since its inception, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been shaped not only by politics and power struggles but also by messianic ideas and apocalyptic motifs. Moments of crisis and confrontation – from the 1979 Revolution to the recent war with Israel – have always been accompanied by a sense that history is moving toward a cosmic reckoning.
I would like to point to four key milestones in which messianism evolved from a purely religious notion into a formative political mechanism.
Eve of the revolution (1978-1979)
The collapse of the shah’s regime during the Islamic Revolution in 1979 was more than a political change. For millions of Iranians, the return of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini from his exile in Paris to Tehran marked a messianic moment. He was not merely a religious-political leader but a figure radiating redemption.
Crowds flooded the airport and city squares as if welcoming a savior destined to lead them into a new era of justice. Popular tales spread at the time spoke of his face appearing on the moon, of his supernatural powers, and of the belief that he was the “hidden imam” returning to rescue the nation from darkness.
Khomeini never suggested he was that imam, but neither did he bother to reject such allusions regarding his role as a spiritual and political guide.
Still, apocalyptic themes – the end of an era, the dawn of a new order – provided not only legitimacy for toppling the monarchy but also a collective sense of mission.
This gave the new regime the strength to pursue sweeping transformations and to establish a state that embodied a religious vision. The Islamic Republic was conceived not only as a government but as a prophetic project, in which every citizen was part of a higher historical design.
Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988)
Almost immediately after its birth, the Islamic Republic was thrust into a war of survival with Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s invasion offered the newly created regime a unique opportunity: to transform the war into a struggle of both patriotism and redemption. It was framed not as a border dispute but as a clash between faith and corruption, between the chosen nation and the forces of evil.
At the front, teenagers as young as 14 or 15 were seen wearing red headbands inscribed with religious slogans, charging across minefields with the conviction that their sacrifice would guarantee paradise and hasten the appearance of the hidden imam.
The ideological leadership actively encouraged this sacrifice as an act of messianism: Those who fell did not die in vain, but ascended as shuhada (martyrs) in a divine struggle. Posters and prayers alike emphasized that this was a battle of the End of Times, a cosmic showdown between the righteous believers and their adversaries, the infidels.
The prolonged and bloody war ultimately consolidated the regime. It justified repression at home, mass mobilization, and the preservation of unity around a “historic mission.” The messianic fervor subsided only when the war ended, after eight exhausting years, but it left a deep imprint on Iran’s collective memory.
Iran’s diplomatic isolation during the war years, coupled with its massive losses in both human lives and resources, proved that it is a modern version of the Shi’ite imams, some of whom lost their lives defending their claim for divine destiny.
The 1990s and 2000s
With the end of the war with Iraq and the recognition of the devastation it had brought upon Iran, revolutionary zeal gave way to fatigue.
Disillusionment grew as the revolutionary promise of justice and prosperity turned instead into shortages, corruption, and unemployment. By the 1990s, under president Mohammad Khatami, a spirit of reform and cautious liberalization emerged. Apocalyptic expectations receded to the margins, and the revolutionary ideology itself seemed like a distant backdrop.
However, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election in 2005 reignited the fervor.
Unlike the reformists, Ahmadinejad openly spoke of the Mahdi – the hidden imam awaited by Shi‘a muslims. He portrayed himself and his government as paving the way for the imam zaman (“the awaited imam”), even funding symbolic projects tied to his return, such as the Jamkaran Mosque near Qom and a special road said to be prepared for him from Tehran’s airport.
In a well-known speech at the United Nations, Ahmadinejad invoked apocalyptic motifs, declaring that the West was in decline and Islam was about to usher in a new age, even claiming to have had personal visions affirming that.
For some, this was an attempt to revitalize a weary republic; for others, especially within the clerical establishment, it was dangerous. Messianic rhetoric risked slipping out of control and undermining the authority of the entrenched religious hierarchy.
After all, the great achievement of Khomeini further consolidated by his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was ridding the supreme leader of the need to be charismatic or popular, establishing his power by dogma and control of the religious establishment. Thus, a rift emerged between popular mysticism and institutional religious hierarchy.
After October 7, 2023
The recent confrontation between Iran, Israel, and the United States once again unleashed the messianic spirit – this time from within Iran’s military and security elite.
In April 2024, when Iran launched its first missile barrage toward Israel, the televised scene resembled a quasi-religious ritual: senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and air force recited invocations to purify their intentions as they prepared for jihad.
Iranian media wrapped the conflict in apocalyptic language. Israel was depicted as the “army of Satan,” while Iranian missiles were hailed as “arrows of salvation.”
Preachers in mosques declared that this was not just another regional clash, but a stage in a divine plan. The religious establishment cast the war as a tool of unity, despite its heavy costs.
Even inside Iran, where many citizens were weary of conflict, a temporary sense of cosmic mission was rekindled. The war with Israel retroactively confirmed what regime ideologues had long suggested: that the 1979 Islamic Revolution was not merely a political upheaval but a divine event disguised as one.
On the battlefield, results were mixed at best. Yet ideologically, the regime succeeded in channeling religious tension to serve a dual purpose: to rally the nation against an external foe, and to preserve internal cohesion despite mounting public discontent over economic hardship and the lack of personal freedoms.
The writer is a lecturer and senior researcher in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at the Harry S. Truman Institute of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Shalem College.