Abstract
In Iran today, when confusion, disillusionment, disorders and near-civil war have succeeded the euphoria of the revolution, there is a clear trend towards extreme attitudes and fanaticism — in morals as well as in politics. It is not only brothels, bars and ostentatious restaurants which have been closed down, but also many swimming pools. Mixed bathing, on the shores of the Caspian as well as in the hotel pools in the cities, is now considered shocking, and roving bands of licensed zealots enforce the new puritan morality wherever they can. Many Iranians find this extremism repugnant, and criticise the dominant Islamic Republican Party's rule as being neither truly Islamic, nor even essentially Iranian in character.