Iran Political System, Famous People, Animals and Plants

By | January 15, 2023

Iran: Political System

According to EQUZHOU.NET, Iran is an Islamic state of god in which the leader of the revolution is the head of state and the Council of Guardians is the supreme authority. See AbbreviationFinder for more information about Iran politics, and acronyms as well.

The official name of the country is:

Islamic Republic of Iran

The country’s president is elected directly by the people every four years. However, he has only limited powers. The parliament has 270 members elected by the people and is also elected by the people every four years. However, candidates for election must be approved by the Supreme Guardian Council. Whose candidacy is rejected by the Guardian Council cannot stand for election and of course cannot be elected.

The Supreme Guardian Council also reviews all laws passed by Parliament for compliance with the Constitution and the principles of the Republic and Islam. It consists of twelve members, of whom – six lawyers – are elected by parliament and six clergy are appointed by the supreme religious leader – the revolutionary leader. The Guardian Council thus has a function comparable to that of the German constitutional court. The leader of the revolution is elected by the 86-member council of experts and, if necessary, also voted out. The candidates for election to the Expert Council are checked by the Guardian Council for their compliance with the Iranian Constitution and Islamic teachings and are only allowed to vote if this examination is positive. The expert council – with the approved candidates – is elected by the people every 8 years.

National anthem

Today’s national anthem of Iran is the Sorood-e Jomhoori-e Eslami. It was introduced after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Original text

Sar Zad Az ofogh Mehr-e KhawaraanForugh-e Dedeh-ye Hagh-bawaraan

Bahman – Farr-e Iman-e Maast

Payaamat Ey Imam Esteghlal. Azaadi-naghsh-e jaan-e Maast

Shahidaan – Pichideh Dar Goosh-e Zamaan Faryaad-e Taan

Paayandeh Maani va javedaan

Jomhoori-ye Eslami-e Iran

And in the English translation

Upward on the horizon the eastern sun rises,The sight of true religion.

Bahman – the brightness of our faith.

Your message, O Imam, of independence and freedom will be imprinted on our souls.

O martyrs! The time your screams

the pain rings in our ears.

Endure, continue forever

The Islamic Republic of Iran.

National flag

The national flag of Iran consists of three horizontal stripes of equal length, in the colors green, white and red. Based on flag descriptions by Countryaah.com, these colors stand for Islam (green), peace (white) and courage (red). There is also an emblem which symbolizes Allah. In addition, the red and green stripes contain lettering with “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is great”). This flag has been valid since 1980.

  • Check top-mba-universities for public holidays, sports events, UNESCO world heritage sites and major places to visit in Iran.

Famous pepole

doctors

Abu Ali al-Husain Ibn Sina-e Balkhi (980-1037)

He is known in Europe as Avicenna. He was a doctor, physicist, philosopher and scientist. Philosophically, it can best be classified in the direction of Sufism.

Abu Bakr Mohammed Ibn Zakarya al-Razi or Rhazes or Rasis in Latin (approx. 864-930)

He was one of the most important Persian doctors, scientists, philosopher and writer.

Visual artist

Antoin Sevruguin (1830-1933)

Sevruguin was an Iranian photographer from Poland. His main focus was the presentation of the traditional and modern history of Iran.

Musician

Maryam Akhondy (born 1957)

Iranian singer.

Sussan Deyhim

Singer and composer who now lives in New York. Their music is a mixture of jazz and experimental music. In her latest album “Madman of God” she refers to the Sufi tradition of Iran.

Majid Derakhshani (born 1956)

Majid Derakhshan i is a contemporary Iranian composer.

Natural scientist, mathematician

Ulugh Beg (1393 – 1449)

Ulugh Berg was an astronomer and studied the Islamic calendar and the problem of leap years. He created the most famous astronomical tables that are still used today for calculations.

Miryam Mirzakhani (1977-2017)

mathematician. Mirzakhani was born on May 3, 1977 in Tehran. She attended the Farzanegan School there.

In 1994, Mirzakhani became the first Iranian woman to achieve the gold medal in the International Mathematical Olympiad. At the 1995 International Mathematical Olympiad, she became the first Iranian female student to win two gold medals.

She graduated from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran in 1999. Shortly afterwards she went to the United States, where she completed her doctorate in 2004 at Harvard University in Cambridge in the US state of Massachusetts.

She then worked at the Clay Mathematics Institute and then as a professor at Princeton University in Princeton in the US state of New Jersey.

In 2008 she became a professor at Stanford University in Stanford, California. In 2014, she was awarded the Fields Medal in Seoul, the Nobel Prize in Mathematics, so to speak.

She was only 40 years old on July 14, 2017 died in a hospital in California of complications from breast cancer diagnosed in 2013. She left a husband and a three-year-old daughter.

Politicians and rulers

Mahmud Ahmadinejad (born 1956)

politician. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was born on October 28, 1956. The strictly conservative politician was Mayor of Tehran between 2003 and 2005 and the sixth President of the Islamic Republic of Iran from August 3, 2005 to August 3, 2013.

His successor is the incumbent President Hassan Rohani.

Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (born 1934)

is a clergyman and politician. He was a student of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He was an opposition member under the Shah’s government and was involved in his overthrow. From 1980 to 1989 he was President of Parliament and from 1989 to 1997 President. He is considered a moderate Islamist.

Mohammed Resa Pahlewi (1919-1980)

took power in Iran in 1944. He mercilessly carried out his plan of a “revolution from above” with an authoritarian regime based on the military and secret service and made Iran into a modern industrial nation within a short time. There were violent protests against his style of government and in 1978 he was overthrown by an opposition group under Khomeini.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Musawi Chomeini (1902-1989)

The Shiite clergyman and political as well as spiritual leader of the Islamic revolution in Iran (1979) was Iran’s top legal scholar until his death. He died in Tehran, where his imposing tomb is located. Khomeini is considered one of the most outstanding and charismatic people of the 20th century. In 1922 Khomeini studied in Qom at the Islamic Law School under Abdolkarim Haeri Yazdi. In 1936 he received the qualification of a so-called Mudjtahid (religious lawyer in Iran) and the religious title of Hodjatoleslam in the city.

Abþ l-Hasan Banïsadr, (born 1934)

was President of the country from 1980 to 1981

Mohammad Alï Radschàï (1933-1981)

was only president of the country for a short time, as he was killed in a bomb attack on August 30, 1981.

Seyyed Ali Khamene’i (born 1939)

from 1981 to 1989 he was the country’s president. He is currently the highest secular and religious authority in the country, succeeding Khomeini

Mohammad Chàtemie (born 1943)

5th President from 1997 to 2005

Mahmþd Ahmadï-Nežàd (born 1956)

Mahmþd Ahmadï-Nežàd was from August 2005 until the 6th freely elected President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He is considered a representative of an orthodox and very conservative direction. His remark in a public speech that the State of Israel must go off the map had caused a great sensation and concern around the world.

Hassan Rohani (born 1948)

politician. Hassan Rohani was born on November 13, 1948 in Sorkheh, Semnan Province.

In 1978 he followed Ruhollah Khomeini into his French exile in Neauphle-le-Château, but returned to Iran after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and became a member of the Islamic Republican Party (IRP).

From 1980 he was a member of the Iranian parliament. After the dissolution of the IRP in 1987, he became a member of Ali Chamene’i’s party, Association of Warring Clergy.

In the First Gulf War (1980–1988) he was a member of the Supreme Defense Council from 1983 to 1988 and from 1985 to 1991 was the commander of the national air defense and from 1988 to 1989 adjutant of the deputy commander in chief of the armed forces.

Under President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, he was Secretary of the National Security Council from 1989 to 2005. In addition, the nuclear agreement was passed under his leadership. He resigned from this position in 2005.

On August 3, 2013, he was elected President of Iran, succeeding Ahmedinejah. He was re-elected on May 20, 2017.

Writer and poet

Firdusi (932 – 1020)

The poet Firdusi wrote the famous Iranian hero song, the Schanahme (King’s Book), about the history of Iran from the beginnings to the 11th century.

Khayyam (1048 – 1131)

Khayyam was a poet, mathematician and astronomer and internationally famous for his robbiyaat (quatrains).

Nezāmi also Nizami (born around 1141 to 1209)

Nezāmi was an important representative of Persian literature of his time, but he spent a large part of his life in Azerbaijan. But he was also active in mathematics, astronomy and medicine.

UNESCO declared 1991 Nezāmi year.

Sa’di (1181 – 1292)

Sa’di is one of the Iranian mystics. He traveled extensively in the Muslim countries and is famous for his didactic and popular literary works.

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad ar-Rūmī (1207-1273)

theologian, writer and poet. Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad ar-Rūmī – Rumi for short – was born on September 30, 1207 in Balch in what is now Afghanistan and what was then the Persian Empire.

He was a Persian representative of Sufism, one of the mystical currents of Islam. He was also a scholar and one of the most important Persian-speaking poets of the Middle Ages.

One of his most important works was the “Matnavi” – in German double verse – which comprises around 26,000 verses and illuminates the main theme of Sufism, mystical love, in the form of anecdotes, stories and narratives.

Around 1243 he moved to Konja in what is now Turkey, where he lived and worked until his death.

The Mevlevi Dervish Order is named after him.

It should be mentioned that Martin Schulz, the SPD’s candidate for Chancellor in the 2017 Bundestag election, quoted the following sentence from him in a TV program:

“Beyond right and wrong is a place where we meet”

He was on December 17th Died in Konya in what is now Turkey in 1273.

His mausoleum in the city is the symbol of Konja and also a place of pilgrimage for Muslims.

Hafiz (1320 – 1389)

Hafiz is probably the most famous of the Persian poets. His poems were collected in a “divan”, which later inspired Goethe to create his west-eastern divan.

Nima Yooshij (1875-1959)

is considered to be the author of modern Iranian poetry.

Shamlu (born 1925)

Shamlu was an opposition member of the Shah regime from an early age and was therefore repeatedly banned from publishing. He revolutionized the classical form of poetry and was a producer of film documents.

Bahman Nirumand (born 1936).

The writer fled under the government of the Shah in 1965. Today he lives as a writer and publicist in Berlin.

Actors, directors

Abbas Kiarostami (born 1940)

is a director, photographer and poet. In 1997, he received the golden palm in Cannes for his film “The Taste of the Cherry”.

Abolfazl Jalili (born 1957)

Director. After initially making short films, he became one of the most important directors in Iran with his films “Dance of Dust”, “Daan” and “Delbaran” (2001). In Locarno he won the silver leopard for “Dance of Dust”.

Jafar Panahi (born 1960)

The director won the Golden Palm in Cannes in 1995 for his film “The white balloo”. Due to his critical attitude towards the regime in Iran, he cannot go back there and lives abroad. His latest international success was the film “Der Kreis”.

Majid Majidi (born 1959)

film director. He was a winner at the Cannes festivals and his film “The Children of Heaven” was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film.

Theologians, clergymen and philosophers

Zarathustra (between 1000 and 500 BC)

Aaltiran priest and prophet. He created the religious doctrine of Parsism, which was the state religion of the Sassanid Empire and still has followers to this day.

Nietzsche used the figure of Zarathustra in his work “Also sprach Zarathustra”, but this figure has little in common with the historical Zarathustra.

Abu Bakr Mohammed Ibn Zakarya al-Razi (864 – 930)

see: Doctors.

Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Sina-e Balkhi (980-1037)

see also: Doctors.

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad ar-Rūmī (1207-1273)

theologian, writer and poet. Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad ar-Rūmī – Rumi for short – was born on September 30, 1207 in Balch in what is now Afghanistan and what was then the Persian Empire.

He was a Persian representative of Sufism, one of the mystical currents of Islam. He was also a scholar and one of the most important Persian-speaking poets of the Middle Ages.

One of his most important works was the “Matnavi” – in German double verse – which comprises around 26,000 verses and illuminates the main theme of Sufism, mystical love, in the form of anecdotes, stories and narratives.

Around 1243 he moved to Konja in what is now Turkey, where he lived and worked until his death.

The Mevlevi Dervish Order is named after him.

It should be mentioned that Martin Schulz, the SPD’s candidate for Chancellor in the 2017 Bundestag election, quoted the following sentence from him in a TV program:

“Beyond right and wrong is a place where we meet”

He was on December 17th Died in Konya in what is now Turkey in 1273.

His mausoleum in the city is the symbol of Konja and also a place of pilgrimage for Muslims.

Ghasali, Abu Hamid (1058-1111)

was an Islamic scholar and Sufis. He is considered one of the innovators of Islam because he wanted to lead it to a new spirituality.

Shihabuddin Yahya as-Suhrawardi ‘ (1153 – 1191)

was an Islamic mystic and follower of the philosophy of enlightenment. He held the view that God is present as light everywhere in his creation. He is also called the “master of enlightenment” by his followers.

Mulla Sadra (1571-1640)

philosopher. He is mainly considered a Gnostic and represented their idea of the reality of being.

Others

Schirin Ebadi (born 1947)

Iranian lawyer. In 2003 she was the first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her commitment to human rights in Iran.

Plants

Trees, bushes

Most of the forests are in the mountains in the west of the country.

Mulberry trees, beeches, oaks, conifer species

Here, mulberry trees are widespread, but beeches and oaks are also among the dominant species. Various species of conifers have found a home in the Elburz Mountains.

Tamarisks

Tamarisks, which exist as small trees as well as 1-15 m high shrubs, thrive on the edges of Dasht-e Kavir. They are resistant to sandstorms and have very long roots that reach into the groundwater. So they can also thrive on salt and limestone soils.

Silk trees The silk tree (Albizia julibrissin) – also known as the sleeping tree, folds its leaves together during drought or at night, giving the impression of sleeping.

It belongs to the legume family and here to the genus Albizia.

This plant can reach a height of 6 to 8 m. Its treetop is broad and arched. Its leaves are 20 to 30 cm long.

The yellowish to light brown legume is between 7 and 12 cm long and about 1.5 to 2.5 cm wide. It contains eight to twelve seeds.

The silk tree does not usually get older than thirty years.

It occurs from Iran to eastern China and can withstand temperatures down to approx. – 15 °C.

In the USA you can find the silk tree as an ornamental plant in parks and gardens.

Other plants

Most of the vegetation is concentrated in the mountains and the coast of Iran. The rest of the country is dominated by deserts and semi-deserts with sparse to no vegetation, as well as cultivated landscapes. In the north of the country you can also find some plants that are well known in Europe, such as the gentian and the snowdrop. The prophet flower, which is around 10 cm tall and is only found in Turkey and the Caucasus, also grows here. Its bright yellow flowers with the brown dots on the petals are striking.

Various climbing plants, ferns, berry bushes and even figs have chosen the lowlands as their preferred habitat.

Crops

Like all other trees, the trees belonging to the useful plants occur in the Elburz and Zagros Mountains. These include almond, pear, pomegranate, walnut and especially the pistachio trees. Alongside rice, tea and cotton, a wide variety of citrus fruits are grown on the coast of the Caspian Sea.

The Turkmen mandrake is a non-native plant that is popular because the leaves and fruits are used as food. Nevertheless, it is threatened with extinction both in Iran and in its home country Turkmenistan.

Medicinal plants

The alkaloids of the highly poisonous deadly nightshade have an effect on the central nervous system and are sometimes used for nausea and vomiting, a certain alkaloid is also used to dilate the pupil. In homeopathy it is used for febrile illnesses. However, all drugs require a prescription.

The lovage, native to Iran, grows as a perennial up to 2 m in size and can be easily recognized by its characteristic celery-like smell. Parts of the plant, such as the roots and seeds, are used both in the kitchen as a spice and in folk medicine as an antispasmodic and diuretic. The plant is also said to help with gas, constipation and kidney diseases.

Poisonous plants

The home of the deadly nightshade is not only Iran but also all of Europe, the Balkans, North Africa, Sweden and Ireland. It reaches a height of 1–2 m and blooms from June to August with purple and bell-shaped flowers. The cherry-sized fruits are still green at the beginning, but turn black over time. Due to the alkaloids contained in all parts of the plant, this plant is very poisonous, so that even small amounts can be fatal. However, deadly nightshade is also used in medicine.

The oleander from the dog poison family is also poisonous. It grows both as a tree and as a shrub and reaches a size of up to 5 m. The leathery evergreen leaves and the white or pink flowers are characteristic. All parts of the plant are poisonous, but especially the fresh leaves. After consumption, stomach pain, headaches, nausea, cramps and diarrhea can occur. In severe poisoning, cardiac arrhythmias can also be among the symptoms. In very bad cases, death from respiratory or cardiac paralysis can even result. Contact can cause skin irritation.

Introduced plants

The home of the Turkmen mandrake is, as the name suggests, the Kopet Dagh Mountains in Turkmenistan.

Iran: animals

Mammals

There is a very good chance of encountering large mammals such as brown bears, wolves and foxes in the forests of Iran. The Persian leopard, on the other hand, can only be admired in the Golestân National Park, and the Caspian tiger, which used to be native to Iran, has been considered extinct since the 1980s. The Asian cheetah and the Persian half donkey are also rare. The endangered species include the lynx, the gazelle and all three deer species native to Iran. Mountain goats, gerbils, white-tailed porcupines as well as stone and pine martens are somewhat more common. Golden jackals and striped hyenas are also represented, although not as common as the smaller mammals.

The dromedaries are at home in the desert regions, and for the most part they are also used as work animals.

Reptiles

Geckos are among the most widespread reptiles in Iran, but a wide variety of lizard species are also represented here.

Snakes (not poisonous)

The grass snake, which is also widespread in Germany, is one of the harmless specimens.

Poisonous animals

The Elburs mountain otters have so far only been found in the Elburs Mountains. It has effective tubular poison teeth whose poison should not be underestimated. The Armenian mountain otter is also highly poisonous, but also occurs in Turkey and Iraq. The 75 cm long Transcaucasian horned viper is widespread in northwestern Iran and, like the other two snakes, has a strong venom.

Birds

Most of the birds are migratory birds and are only guests in the country. You can watch spoonbills, pelicans and flamingos brooding in the Persian Gulf. The latter form a family of their own and are also common in Africa, western Asia and southern France. The up to 130 cm tall birds are immediately recognizable by their long and thin neck, by their thin legs and by their thick, downward-curved pink beak with a black tip. This is used as a sieve when searching for food. The menu includes worms, algae and, above all, small crustaceans. They are also responsible for the pink plumage of the flamingos. The red dye absorbed with the crabs is stored in the feathers. After all, the more crabs the birds have eaten, the more pink they are. The famous one-legged standing is used to store heat, since one leg is hidden in the warm plumage and thus less heat loss occurs. This feat is not strenuous for the flamingos (as well as for storks).

Birds of prey are represented by various species of eagle and vulture, including the griffon vulture. It belongs to the Old World vulture family, is 97-104 cm tall and has a wingspan of around 2.50 m. The plumage is sand-colored except for the white head and neck. The yellowish-white ruff is characteristic. The griffon vulture feeds exclusively on carrion and never attacks animals that are still alive. In addition to Iran, it also occurs in Croatia, Slovenia, Morocco, Algeria, Spain, Sardinia, Greece and Turkey.

Underwater world

Sturgeons used to be very common in the Caspian Sea. They are still here today, but their numbers have declined significantly.

Iran Politics