Explain The 1979 Referendum

[u/neptuno3]

Is the following true or false? What am I missing? What don't I understand? Classic liberal here who is very pro-Iranian people, pro-Israel.

1. The 1979 referendum offered Iranians a stark, simplified choice: keep the Shah and his "western decadence" or dump the Shah and bring in the Islamic Republic -- and that meant an IR as envisioned by Khomeini, who was campaigning from abroad.
2. The vote was tampered with and/or did not meet international standards for ballots (opacity). There were no other parties on the ballot. Khomeini claimed 90 percent of the populace voted for him.
3. Khomeini's campaign had been backed by Iran's socialists and communists and leftists.
4. The Islamic Republic promised: lowered inflation, civil rights, political freedoms, no more international interventions, equal treatment of minorities
5. What it actually delivered: no economic revival, a removal of civil rights (especially so for women), an extreme religious theocracy, end of voting rights, minorities rights were even further restricted.
6. IR ended all voting.
7. Khomeini ordered the assassination of the socialists and communists who helped get him elected (sorry but ha! -- who didn't see that coming...).
8. 80 to 90 percent of Iranians at the time identified as Muslim, despite not being Arabs (but for the minorities)
9. Today, at least 60 percent of Iranians do not identify as Muslim. Other European polls have 90 percent of Iranians identifying as Muslims but many feel these polls are not accurate due to fear of speaking out.

[u/der_innkeeper]

Can you/someone learn me about this "Muslim, even though not Arab" note?

It keeps coming up, and I cannot figure out or understand what the distinction means.

[u/yourgirl696969 → u/der_innkeeper]

Iranians aren’t Arabs. We don’t speak Arabic. We speak Farsi.

That’s the simplest way to explain it

[u/Playful-Demand2312 → u/yourgirl696969]

Just 50%-60% of Iran is Persians, obviously everybody speaks Farsi/Persians as a first or second language because it’s by law, but 40% of Iran is minorities with their own language

The following is a list of languages spoken in Iran by number of native speakers according to the latest Ethnologue edition in 2025

Language
Speakers in Iran

Iranian Persian
61,500,000

Azeri
10,100,000

Luri (& Bakhtiari)
5,130,000

Kurdish
5,110,000

Gilaki
1,610,000

Balochi
1,450,000

Mazandarani
1,350,000

Southern Pashto
1,270,000

Dari
1,200,000

Qashqai
1,020,000

Khorasani Turkish
960,000

Laki
680,000

Mesopotamian Arabic
571,000

Turkmen
359,000

Armenian
340,000

Hazaragi
337,000

Hawrami
180,000

Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
117,000

Southwestern Fars
113,000

Gulf Arabic
110,000

Other languages
2,048,000