The reaction of the clergy to Pahlavi's dominationover the endowments (relying on documents)

First Pahlavi period (1304-1320 SH) sought to modernize all pillars and components of the society. The endowment considered as one of the components of society and the most important sources of income for the clergy. Reza Khan tried to dominate the endowments by changing the mastery of endowments, changing the managing methods, supervision, exploitation and in some cases, seizing endowments. By the rise of the second Pahlavi period (1320-1357 SH), domination over the endowments pursued to a greater level and with more acceleration. Therefore, Pahlavi dynasty weakened the clergy financially, and in return, the clergy also resisted politically, culturally and socially against the Pahlavi dynasty. The main question of the study is what effect the Pahlavi dynasty domination over the endowments had on relationships of the clergy with the government? The present study by using historical method and library and documentary approach tries to show a comprehensive picture from the challenges between Pahlavi dynasty and the clergy in economy and transformation of endowment functions due to modernization by examining the dependent variable of endowments. The results of this study indicate that the increase of government domination over endowments, reduction of annual incomes of the seminaries and the loss of lands of some of the clergy during the land reform, caused relative economic deprivation and dissatisfaction of the clergy. This policy of Pahlavi and the economic bottleneck of the clergy made them take a stand against the Pahlavi dynasty. Eventually, it seems that the union of different groups of the clergy with other social forces has led to the formation of the Islamic revolution under the leadership of Imam Khomeini in Iran.