Ahmadabad, Monday 5 March 1979

On 21 December 1953, a military court sentenced Mohammad Mossadegh, the deposed prime minister, to three years of solitary confinement, sparing him the death penalty the prosecution had sought. He received the verdict with calm irony, declaring that it had only added to his place in history.*

After his release, Mossadegh lived under house arrest on his estate at Ahmadabad until his death on 5 March 1967. He was denied a public funeral. Instead of being laid to rest, as he had wished, beside the victims of the uprising of 30 Tir 1331 (21 July 1952), he was buried in his own home.

Twelve years later, on the anniversary of his death in 1979, crowds flocked to Ahmadabad. The vast fields around his place of exile and burial filled with people who hoped the revolution they had just won would carry on his legacy.

In the first weeks after the revolution, Mossadegh’s memory was openly honoured, and Pahlavi Avenue was briefly renamed Mossadegh Avenue. The new authorities soon distanced themselves from his secular nationalist heritage, however, and Mossadegh was pushed back into the shadows of history.

But for one cold Monday in March, Iranians were free to honour the prime minister they had loved. In these photographs, Rana Javadi captures the fervent crowds moving across the fields and grounds of the Ahmadabad estate. The first two images show demonstrations around Tehran University.