Hezbollah of Iran

The Hezbollah, or Party of God, (also HizbAllah or Hizbullah) is an Iranian movement formed at the time of the Iranian Revolution to assist the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his forces in consolidating power. References in the media or writing are usually made to members of the group — or Hezbollahi — rather than Hezbollah, as Hezbollah is/was not a tightly structured independent organisation, but more a movement of loosely bound groups, usually centered on a mosque.

Hezbollahi are said to "generally act without meaningful police restraint or fear of persecution," and initially attacked demonstrations and offices of newspapers that were critical of the Ayatollah Khomeini. They are said to have "played an important role on the street at crucial moments in the early days of the revolution by confronting those the regime regarded as counter-revolutionaries."

Once political challenges to the regime had died down, Hezbollahi attacks expanded to include a wide variety of activities found to be undesirable for "moral" or "cultural" reasons, such as poor hijab, mixing of the sexes and consumption of alcohol.Mojtaba Bigdeli is a spokesman for the Iranian Hezbollah.

According to scholar Moojan Momen, the association of toughs and clerics became common during the era of weak government of the Qajar period, when "it became normal for the prominent" members of the ulama in any town "to surround themselves with a band of the town's ruffians, known as lutis, to their mutual benefit". The ulama had "a ready band" to take to the street to oppose what the ulama opposed, while "the lutis in turn had a protector with whom they could take refuge if the government moved against them." The Hezbollahi which appeared after the Islamic revolution, according to Momen, were "in fact only an new name for the street roughs who had always had a close relationahip with the ulama."

The name Hezbollah, or party of Allah, is generic, coming from the rallying cry used by its "members": "Only one party - of Allah; only one leader - Ruhollah." The phrase party of Allah came from a verse in the Quran ...

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