From ancient to modern times, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, has reminded people how good governance combines knowledge and strength. In modern France, Marianne stands as a symbol of liberty, equality and fraternity, displayed on official seals and money, manifesting the three pillars of “Frenchness.” In Norway, the story of the all-seeing god, Odin, who traded one eye for wisdom, reflects the nation’s deep respect for knowledge, planning and careful resource management, virtues held in high regard within Nordic societies. Around the world, a culture’s inherited mythology — or its religious narratives — can influence its modern-day politics and help shape its collective identity. Authoritarian regimes are no exception, and neither are the populations that resist them. Iran is one such example, where myths and religion have become central to both the regime’s hold on power and the principles and tactics embraced by those who resist it.
The regime has conjured up a direct line of authority from God to the supreme leader, claiming both the late Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei as infallible and sacred imams.
Since its inception in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has strategically usurped religious ideas to maintain its grip on power, utilizing them to maintain legitimacy and control dissent. Perhaps most central to this is the regime’s successful attempt to root its legitimacy in divinity, namely the doctrine of the “guardianship of the jurisprudent” (“velayat-e faqih”). In this, the regime frames the supreme leader as God’s representative on Earth, with the mandate to rule as the representative of the hidden imam, who is ultimately the representative of the Prophet Muhammad, the last prophet sent by God to guide humanity, according to Islamic tradition. The regime has conjured up a direct line of authority from God to the supreme leader, claiming both the late Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei as infallible and sacred imams. This theological claim elevates the supreme leader’s authority above human scrutiny or institutional accountability. From this comes the idea of the “mohareb,” meaning “one who wages war” — in this instance, against God. The regime uses this concept to silence anybody who opposes the regime, equating such dissent with blasphemy, which it punishes by death.
The way that the regime has appropriated the religious story of Ashura, also known as the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, illustrates the point. In Shiite Islam, Hussein is considered the third imam. A grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, he revolted against the Sunni Caliph Yazid and was killed in 680 at the Battle of Karbala, in present-day Iraq, after refusing to pledge allegiance to the Damascus-based Umayyad ruler, whom he saw as corrupt and unjust. He died on Ashura, the 10th day of Muharram, the first month in the Islamic calendar. For devout Shiites, Karbala is a reminder to stand against oppression, even when the cost is sacrificing one’s life, an idea that predates the Islamic Republic. “Every day is Ashura and every place is Karbala” became a slogan for Shiite Islamists in their fight against the Shah of Iran in the 1970s, whom they saw — like Yazid — as corrupt and unjust.
Similarly, under the Islamic Republic, the regime has positioned itself as the heir to Hussein’s righteous cause, while its opponents — be they foreign powers or domestic dissidents — are cast, like the shah, as modern-day Yazids, archetypal oppressors imagined as medieval Sunni caliphs.
Another powerful religious narrative is that of martyrdom, which the state has institutionalized through education, media and ritual commemoration.
Another powerful religious narrative is that of martyrdom, which the state has institutionalized through education, media and ritual commemoration. The regime glorifies death in defense of the Islamic Republic as the ultimate act of devotion, which has helped build a culture of obedience and self-sacrifice, especially within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Basij militia, and continues to inspire support for Iran’s military adventures abroad. Martyrdom, particularly during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88, is presented not merely as a noble and sometimes necessary sacrifice by a citizen for the homeland but as the highest form of religious devotion to which one ought to aspire. The regime elevates fallen soldiers and bestows upon them an eternal divinity, plastering images of them smiling and content, surrounded by halos, on large billboards in public squares throughout the country.
One example of this martyrdom glorification is the story of Hossein Fahmideh, a 13-year-old boy who reportedly “sacrificed himself” by jumping under an Iraqi tank with a grenade, thus destroying the tank and earning himself the title of a martyr. This act, though wholly disputed in its details and very much existing in the realm of mythology rather than hard fact, became a potent symbol of the Islamic Republic’s religious devotion and sacrifice during the war.
Another example is the myths related to the Jamkaran Mosque, near the city of Qom. According to cultural tradition, the Twelver Shiite hidden imam, or Mahdi, appeared to a villager in a dream and instructed him to build a mosque at a specific site. People believed that if they wrote wishes and dropped them into the mosque’s “well of requests,” the hidden imam would answer their letters. Then regime hard-liners swooped in and suggested that Khamenei himself receives guidance from the hidden imam when he cannot make decisions or needs direction. By extension, therefore, anyone who defies the supreme leader’s will is defying the hidden imam.
In the last decade, the decline of political Islam has led the Islamic Republic to shift its focus, causing it to fall back on more nationalist, sometimes pre-Islamic myths to manipulate Iranians and maintain power. This was on full display following the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran in June, when the IRGC’s cultural branch created numerous billboards showcasing its alignment with pre-Islamic mythology that it had gone out of its way to dissociate from in the past.
The Iranian people, who have become increasingly disconnected from the regime, are also starting to use pre-Islamic mythology as a tool of resistance and dissent.
One such myth now resurrected by the regime is the story of Arash Kanmadar, from the religious texts of Zoroastrianism. The legend, commemorated in the poem “Arash the Archer” by Iranian poet Siavash Kasrai in 1959, some two decades before the Islamic Revolution, features a brave Iranian archer who, to end a devastating war between Iran and Turan, is chosen to shoot an arrow that will determine the new border between the two kingdoms. Arash climbs Mount Damavand and releases a single arrow that miraculously travels a vast distance, guided by divine will, before landing far away and setting the boundary, bringing peace to his people. Arash dies from the effort, becoming a timeless symbol of heroic self-sacrifice, national unity and ultimate devotion to the homeland in Iranian culture. In the regime’s propaganda, Arash is now shown shooting missiles toward Israel, creating continuity between the regime’s conflicts with its enemies and those in pre-Islamic Iran.
The Iranian people, who have become increasingly disconnected from the regime, are also starting to use pre-Islamic mythology as a tool of resistance and dissent.
One of the pre-Islamic myths often used by Iranians to delegitimize the regime is that of Zahak. The story of Zahak (or Zahhak), told in Ferdowsi’s “Shahnameh” (“Book of Kings”), is one of the most famous political allegories in Iranian history. Zahak is a tyrant king who comes to power through a pact with evil, sealed by two kisses from the devil on his shoulders. Two snakes grow on his shoulders, which have to be fed every day with the brains of young Iranian men. Each day, he kills the youth of the country to feed his snakes. His reign is marked by cruelty, lies and fear, until a popular uprising led by Kaveh the Blacksmith, a symbol of the ordinary people’s fight against tyranny, rises against him. In the myth, Kaveh chains Zahak and imprisons him in Mount Damavand. In Iranian political culture, Zahak became a symbol —a bloodthirsty dictator who keeps his hold on power through repression and by sacrificing the youth of the nation.
During periods of heightened political unrest, many Iranians have invoked the figure of Zahak to symbolize Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s authoritarian rule. This analogy has gained traction among the younger generations, especially in the aftermath of crackdowns on mass protests such as the 2009 Green Movement, the 2019 fuel protests and the 2022-2023 uprising following the death of Mahsa Amini. For example, during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests, one of the important slogans chanted was “Khamenei the Zahak, We’ll Take You Down to the Grave.” In graffiti, protest slogans and art on social media, Zahak is reborn in the image of Khamenei, suggesting that the regime’s reliance on violence and ideological indoctrination mirrors Zahak’s serpentine hunger. By framing Khamenei as a modern-day Zahak, critics tap into a powerful reservoir of national mythology that casts authoritarianism as both illegitimate and historically doomed.
Myths are also essential tools for academics and policymakers to help explain how political symbols gain meaning and how power is maintained. Ultimately, mythology and folklore create a hidden grammar that connects culture to political action.
The survival of the Islamic Republic has been a puzzle to many scholars, who try to explain it through institutional or political-economic approaches. But myths and their place in political culture may also help to explain the regime’s authority. One such myth is that of the davalpa, a strange man whose legs are not made of bones and muscle, but rather long straps of flesh or leather. These beings, known as “strap-legged,” appear in several epic and romantic works, including the “Iskandarnameh” (“Book of Alexander”). Their bodies resemble those of humans, but they move by dragging themselves along with these straps, sometimes even using them to entangle others. In folklore, davalpas are often parasitic, wrapping their legs around the necks of unsuspecting victims and riding them like beasts.
Myths are also essential tools for academics and policymakers to help explain how political symbols gain meaning and how power is maintained.
One famous example is the tale of the “Old Man of the Sea” in the Sinbad cycle. In that story, a frail older man asks Sinbad to carry him across a river, since he is weak and cannot walk. Sinbad kindly agrees but later realizes the old man doesn’t want to get off his shoulders. Instead, he tightens his legs around the neck of his carrier, enslaving him. Sinbad is forced to do the creature’s bidding until he finally escapes by intoxicating it with wine and killing it.
This forgotten story offers a powerful metaphor for understanding the Islamic Republic of Iran. Like the davalpa, the regime does not walk on the solid ground of mass legitimacy or a social contract. Instead, it moves forward on two elongated, unnatural supports: the strap of religion and the belt of repression. These legs are not organic; they have been constructed over decades through clerical networks and coercive institutions. And like the mythic davalpa, the regime entangles society: promising divine guidance or security, it wraps itself around the neck of the Iranian nation, constraining its movement and extracting obedience. The regime’s survival depends on these supports remaining tight and unbroken.
But this rope-leg of religion is not symbolic alone; it is institutionalized in every aspect of Iranian society. Clerical networks control seminaries, mosques, religious endowments, Friday prayers, media outlets and ideological education centers. Clerics are embedded in schools, ministries, courts and military structures. Religious broadcasting floods state TV and radio. Textbooks, children’s shows and even public murals deliver a moral message shaped by the state’s official theology.
This clerical structure has served two central functions. First, it provides religious justification for the regime’s policies, whether for repression at home or interventions abroad. Second, it creates an image of sacred authority, suggesting the regime is not merely political but divinely sanctioned. In the early years, this rope-leg was strong. Many Iranians believed in the revolutionary promises of justice, piety and independence.
But over time, this rope has frayed. After Khomeini died in 1989, clerical charisma declined. Younger generations, especially women and urban youth, turned away from religious institutions. Many clerics became entangled in corruption, business deals and factional politics. The “secularization from below” deepened. Still, the leg has not broken. The regime reinvested in ideological control, monitoring seminaries, purging dissenters and flooding public space with Islamic slogans and rituals.
Today, the religious leg functions less as a source of belief and more as a mechanism of control. The regime no longer expects the people to believe; it demands they obey. Clerics now act as ideological enforcers, bureaucratic watchdogs and cultural police. Like a stretched rope, this leg remains functional but is under increasing pressure.
The regime no longer expects the people to believe; it demands they obey. Clerics now act as ideological enforcers, bureaucratic watchdogs and cultural police.
The second leg of the regime, the leg of force and repression, is more visible, feared and embedded. The Islamic Republic has developed one of the most elaborate security apparatuses in the Middle East. From the revolution’s early days, repression was central to regime survival, but it has grown more layered and institutionalized over time.
Among all the regime’s security forces, the IRGC is the regime’s primary coercive arm. Originally a revolutionary militia, it now commands significant military, economic and intelligence capacities. It controls Iran’s missile program, cyber warfare and proxy networks across the region, and vast portions of the economy through its business holdings. The IRGC also has its intelligence branch, overlapping with and sometimes rivaling the Ministry of Intelligence.
Supporting this structure is the Basij, a volunteer paramilitary force that acts as the regime’s grassroots enforcer. With more than 50,000 offices throughout the country and 22 different suborganizations, the Basij recruits pro-regime individuals and trains, organizes and mobilizes them in support of the regime. Basijis monitor neighborhoods, schools and universities, suppress protests and enforce moral codes. They are joined by the national police, internal surveillance, riot police and plainclothes agents. These layers form a dense network of control.
What makes this rope-leg powerful is its integration into daily life. Security forces are rewarded with housing, salaries, schooling for their children and political access. Loyalty becomes a ladder of mobility. In many cities, entire neighborhoods are built for security forces’ families, such as Shahid Mahalati township in the north of Tehran. The regime thus turns repression into a system of incentives.
Yet this leg, too, shows signs of stress. The economic crisis, deepened by sanctions, corruption and mismanagement, has hit even security families. Recent waves of protest, especially in 2019 and 2022, have required more brutality and surveillance. Low-level defections, burnout and reliance on heavy surveillance — thanks to Chinese surveillance technology that is readily available to the regime — all point to rising pressure. The rope still holds, but it stretches further with each crisis.
The religious rope is fraying, young Iranians mock clerics, boycott mosques and reject the supreme leader’s divine mandate.
Just as the mythical davalpa moved by shifting its strange legs in unnatural directions, the Islamic Republic adjusts its balance between religion and repression. This is not a weakness, but a strategy. When it feels confident, the regime leans on religion, staging elections, invoking morality and calling for unity. When it feels threatened, it leans on violence, arresting dissenters, shutting down the internet and deploying riot units.
The regime’s flexibility comes from its asymmetry. One leg compensates when the other falters. In repressing any protest, such as in 2009, during the Green Movement, it used both legs: religious discourse labeled protesters as seditionists, while the IRGC and Basij crushed demonstrations. This dual-leg system allows the regime to move without legitimacy. It walks strangely, but it walks. And like the davalpa, it survives not through natural balance, but through tension.
The same qualities that give the regime its stability also make it vulnerable. A rope is only strong under tension. If one leg weakens too much, the other cannot save the system. The religious rope is fraying, young Iranians mock clerics, boycott mosques and reject the supreme leader’s divine mandate. The repressive rope is overstretched; rising costs, public resentment and technological arms races increase the strain.
The French Revolution, which lasted for a decade and was followed by several further decades of upheaval, gave the free world invocations of liberty, equality and fraternity, inspiring nations and redefining the political order. In Iran today, mythology still energizes both the regime and its opposition. Whether these forces and the myths upon which they rely to wage their war against each other will someday help Iranians reshape their political future is a question only time can answer.
Published originally on September 16, 2025.
