Black Wave

Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Forty-year Rivalry that Unraveled Culture, Religion and Collective Memory in the Middle East by Kim Ghattas, Henry Holt, 2021. 

Shia Muslims

In the 1970s and 1980s, there were several political groups involved with Lebanon and Iran:

• Amal Movement (Lebanon)

• Liberation Movement of Iran

• Islamic Republican Party

• National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI),

• Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps 

Amal

Amal was a political group in Lebanon which looked out for the interests of the Shia minority. It was founded in 1974  by Imam Musa al-Sadr (who had been born in Iran) and Hussein el-Husseini, a Lebanese politician. 

Liberation Movement of Iran

The Liberation Movement of Iran was a long-standing and moderate political party that was trying to replace the monarchy by a more democratic government. It enjoyed as members: 

• Mehdi Bazergan

• Mostafa Charman, friend of Musa al-Sadr

• Sadegh Ghotbzadeh

• Abraham Yasdi

• Mohsen Sazegara,

Islamic Republican Party

The Islamic Republican Party was a radical Islamist party. It enjoyed as members:

• Mohammad Beheshti, 

• Akbar Hashemia Rafsanjani

• Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali (the hanging judge)

Pasdaran

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (Pasdaran) was founded by Mohsen Sazegara. 

Ayatollah Khomeini

Liberation Movement of Iran orchestrated the return of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini from exile in France to Iran. But after he arrived in Iran, the LMI lost control of him. He instead joined the Islamic Republican Party, which was full of fundamentalist clerics. Beheshti replaced the proposed constitution drafted by the Liberation Movement of Iran with rule by jurist (wilayat al-faqih), with Ayatollah Khomeini as jurist.