The Islamic Republic of Iran is located in southwestern Asia. Iran contains many mountains where most of its inhabitants settle on the edges. The capital of Iran is Tehran located in the Elburz Mountains. Iran consist of 77,555,000 inhabitants and is a unitary theocracy. The official language is Farsi and the official religion is Islam. The Supreme Leader, Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, head of state and government, is more powerful than Iran’s president, President Hassan Rouhani, and effectively oversees Iran’s economic, political and social systems. Iran has a theocratic form of government and a parliamentary system which is overseen by the cleric, the Rahbar. The legislature is a unicameral islamic consultative assembly. This assembly …show more content…
Iran’s main religion is Shia Islam, which make up 89% of the population and Sunni Islam with 9%. The predominant ethnic group is Persians, so the official language in Iran is Persian. Iran has other small minorities, consisting of Armenians, Assyrians, Jews, Brahuis and others. Iran can be considered both homogenous and heterogeneous in the sense that most Iranians are of Persian descent, but their ancestry is ethnically and culturally diverse. For example, Persians, Kurds, and other Indo-European language speakers are Aryan descendants that migrated from Central Asia in the 2nd millennium. Turkic ancestry are progeny of tribes from Central Asia since the 11th century CE. The advantages to having a cleric oversee all government aspects leads having a united community under one law, but it also leads to bias and discrimination towards differences that go against the Islamic …show more content…
Iran’s low development is due to its isolation from the rest of the community which has allowed growth of its markets, restricted the country’s high technology, and affected foreign investment. They have conservative politicians and xenophobia, and the U.S. accused Iran of supporting terrorism and their sanctions. In 1996, Iran and Libya expanded the U.S. embargo on Iran’s petroleum imports. Iranian petroleum development and exports of technology were also prohibited. The economy of Iran is divided into 3 sections: public (banks, insurance companies, utilities, communications, foreign trade, transportation), cooperative (production and distribution of goods and services), and private (these support the first two.) There are specific economic and financial guidelines that restrict charging interest on loans and illegal actions against Islamic law. These limit types of financial speculation. Iran relies heavily on local markets because of their restrictions. Islamic leftists pushed for nationalization and an expanding welfare state but conservatives have insisted on maintaining privatization, but generally support restrictions on Western banking practices. After the Iran Iraq War of 1980-1988, Iran increased state intervention in the economy by nationalizing private banks and