Ayatollah is a special religious title in certain branches of Islam, bestowed upon Islamic clerics and scholars who are considered to have advanced knowledge and expertise in various aspects of Islam. In Iran, it is used to designate the Shia clergy who are considered experts in religious and legal matters. While there is technically more than one ayatollah in Iran at any given time, Nafisi’s references in the memoir to “the Ayatollah” allude specifically to Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic revolutionary regime.

The Iran-Iraq War, sometimes known as the First Gulf War, lasted from 1980 until 1988. It pit the forces of the Iranian Islamic regime against those of Saddam Hussein, who was then the dictator of Iraq. The war had many causes, both in terms of territorial disputes and ideological differences between the two regimes. The conflict ended in defeat for the Iranian regime, which was forced to accept a ceasefire in August 1988. The Iran-Iraq War forms an important backdrop to Part 3 of Reading Lolita in Tehran.