1. Ulama and the Resurgence Party
The Resurgence Party also carried out a simultaneous assault on the clerical establishment. For instance, the shah sent special investigators to scrutinize the accounts of the religious endowments, announced that only state-sanctioned institutions could publish religious books, and created religious corps to spread its own brand of Islam.
The ulama reacted sharply against the Resurgence Party and the shah’s policies. For instance, the main seminary in the city of Qom closed down in protest. Some 250 of its students were conscripted into the army and one died in the prison.

3. Ayatollah Khomeini
For twelve centuries, the Shii ulama, including Khomeini, had accepted the monarchy- either as desirable, or, at least, as necessary to prevent worse calamities. They had deemed one day anarchy to be worse than ten years of autocracy. Khomeini, however, broke with this tradition, arguing that Muslims had the sacred duty to carry out a root-and-branch destruction of the monarchy.
some of his slogans: “Islam belongs to the oppressed, not to the oppressors,” “Islam originates from the masses, not from the rich,” “Islam represents the slum-dwellers, not the palace dwellers.”

4. Massive Protests
On January 7, 1978, a government controlled newspaper published an article about Ayatollah Khomeini. The article denounced Khomeini in particular and clergy in general as black reactionaries who were in cooperation with feudalism, imperialism and of course, communism.
On the following two days (January 8 and 9), theological students and bazaaris in the city of Qom took to the streets. Some of the protestors were killed.
Then, in accordance with Shii ritual, memorial demonstrations were held after forty days. The government broke these up as well, again with loss of life. Thus a cycle was initiated: a demonstration, a massacre, a memorial demonstration, another massacre, and so on.

5. The End of 1978
In September 1978, the shah had declared martial law, banned all street meetings, and ordered the arrest of opposition leaders. Despite these efforts, however, the opposition showed more of its clout on December 1979.
In Ashura day, it was estimated that, there were two million demonstrators in the streets of Tehran, and they were calling for the establishment of an Islamic Republic, the return of Khomeini, the expulsion of imperial powers, and the implementation of social justice for the deprived masses. For many foreign journalists and diplomats, the rally was a referendum and the crowds gave the message: “the Shah must go.”
He went into the exile in January 1979 for the second time.

6. Strikes
The ulama and the bazaaris were not the only segments of society to rebel. The revolution succeeded in part because of strikes in colleges, high schools and industrial enterprises. For instance, by the first week of November, virtually the entire country had stopped work, including newspapers and magazines. The national airline and railroad were on strike. The banks were open some days and striking others. However, the most important strike occurred in the oil fields that supplied the regime’s financial lifeblood.