The Death of an Ayatollah and the Trajectory of Iranian Modernization

While Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani will now miss the next phase of Iranian modernization, his greatest achievement is that he will undoubtedly be responsible for it.

by Ghoncheh Tazmini

Introduction

The enigmatic Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was a political phenomenon and, as one of the figureheads of the Iranian revolution, left an indelible impact on Iran’s political landscape. Like all such larger-than-life personalities, Rafsanjani elicited no lukewarm opinions; people were almost invariably for or against h…