طاغوتی

What it means

طاغوتی (tâghuti) means “of the tâghut,” the tâghut being a Quranic term for false god, idol, or tyrant. As a 1979-era political label it named anyone associated with the Pahlavi monarchy or with secular bourgeois life. As a 2025 label it still circulates, used to smear secular Iranians, returning emigrants, women without hijab, and anyone the regime wants to brand as nostalgic for a banned past.

Where it comes from

The Quran uses tâghut as a contrast to tawhid, the worship of the one God. Khomeini’s pre-revolution sermons hammered the word against the Shah’s regime, framing the Pahlavis as idolaters of Western modernity, capitalism, secular law, and unveiled women. After 1979 the suffix -i turned it into a person-noun: a tâghuti is “one of them,” whoever “them” is at the moment.

Who deploys it

State broadcaster IRIB, regime-loyal newspapers, hardline clerics, IRGC commanders giving political speeches, parliament hardliners attacking reformists, and Twitter/X accounts run by basij-aligned propagandists. Also family members of all generations, when arguing about who is and is not “Iranian enough.”

Who it targets

Originally: monarchists, anyone who worked in the Pahlavi government, businesspeople with Western ties, women who wore Western fashion, men in neckties. Today: secular Iranians, monarchists, returning emigrants, women without hijab, NCRI/MEK supporters, and any “Westoxified” Iranian whose lifestyle the regime wants to denigrate. The label is portable; the targets are recyclable.

The mechanics

Tâghuti does not carry a criminal sentence the way mofsed and mohareb do, but it does political work upstream of those charges. It is the rhetorical setup that makes the legal case easier. Once a person is publicly tâghuti, the path to prosecution under more lethal charges is shorter. The state still confiscates property, denies passports, and bars employment under the implicit umbrella of who counts as tâghuti.

Editorial note (in our voice)

It tells you something that a slur invented to attack the Shah is now used against women shopping unveiled in Tehran. Tâghuti is wheeled out whenever the regime needs to delegitimize someone for not being austere enough. The word survived the people it was originally built to bury, and that is the Islamic Republic’s project condensed into one suffix.

Why it’s in the glossary

Because reading Iranian state media without recognizing tâghuti as a smear leaves you hearing it as description. We mark it as the slur it has always been.

How you’ll hear it

• Friday prayer: «این تاغوتی‌ها» (in tâghuti-hâ) “these tâghutis.”
• State commentator on a returning emigrant: «تاغوتی برگشته» (tâghuti bargashte) “a tâghuti has come back.”
• Hardline MP on a uncovered woman: «رفتار تاغوتی» (raftâr-e tâghuti) “tâghuti behavior.”

References

• Wikipedia: Tâghut (concept and political usage)
• IranWire: usage of tâghuti in regime discourse
• Dehkhoda Dictionary: طاغوت