In 1979, after the deposition of the government of Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar in February of that year, an interim government was established under Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan which sought to establish a nationalist Islamic democratic government with pro-free market economic policy, in opposition to the wishes of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his pro-Islamic Republic faction. Bazargan's government resigned en masse in November 1979 immediately after the US Embassy takeover by radicalist students. The end of Bazargan's government officially marked the end of state-directed secularism in Iran. In February 1980 the Islamic Republican Party established the current theocratic government of Iran, with Ayatollah Khomeini as Supreme Leader of Iran. Secular opposition to the Islamist government of the Islamic Republic of Iran had been active in the country up until 1984, afterwards they were branded heretics and apostates by the clerical hierarchy, and eventually jailed, executed or exiled. A 2020 Online Survey by Gamaan found that 8.8% Iranians identifying as Atheist and a large fraction (22.2%) identifying as not following an organized religion and only 40% self identified as Muslims. This has been noted as a transition of Iranians towards secularism Secularist politicians and figures of Iran Reza Shah Mohammad Mosaddegh Ahmad Kasravi Dariush Forouhar Shapour Bakhtiar Fazlollah Zahedi Dariush Homayoon Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Amir-Abbas Hoveyda Reza Pahlavi, Crown Prince of Iran See also Irreligion in Iran References Politics of Iran Iran Secularism in the Middle East