however, in the 1980s and 1990s, this trend was reversed. in 1979, the modernizing monarch of iran, despite his oil revenues and apparently formidable security apparatus, was overthrown by an islamic revolution. the new revolutionary islamic republic was across the persian gulf from saudi oil fields and across from where most of saudi arabia's minority shiites—co-religionists of iran who also often worked in the oil industry—lived. there were several anti-government uprisings in the region in 1979 and 1980.