Iran: Empire of the Mind

by Michael Axworthy

  Fig. 11. Naser od-Din Shah was an intelligent, cultured man but failed to support reforming ministers who might have upheld Persian interests against the growing interference of Britain and Russia.

  Jamal al-Din al-Afghani

  By the latter part of the nineteenth century some thinkers in Iran and in the Middle East more generally had gone from an initial response to the West of bafflement, reactionary resentment or uncritical admiration to more sophisticated attitudes of adaptation, resistance or reform. Notable among these was Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, who despite his name was probably born in Iran and brought up as a Shi‘a in the 1830s and 40s. Later he travelled widely, including in India, Afghanistan, Europe and Egypt, and lived in Egypt for some years in the 1870s. It is thought that he adopted the name al-Afghani in order to be accepted more easily in a Sunni milieu. In all these places he attracted a following and strongly advocated resistance to European influences. He was energetic and charismatic, with a talent for getting access to powerful people in a variety of countries; but tended to be bumptious and seems to have disliked women.

  More specifically, al-Afghani opposed British influence, whether in Afghanistan, Egypt, Sudan or Iran; he was more ambivalent about the Russians, for example. He wanted to see a revival in the Islamic world, and believed that the message of Islam had to be revised in the light of reason, to adapt to different conditions in different times. He asserted that there was nothing inconsistent between Islam and reform, or Islam and science. The scientific and technological achievements of the West could be equalled or surpassed by a science based on Islam. But al-Afghani’s attitude even to Islam was ambivalent, and his message was different for different audiences at different times. There are undercurrents of Shaykhism and mysticism in his thinking that probably reflect his traditional education, but he was a politician and a pragmatist rather than an ascetic, or religious dogmatist, and did not have a reputation for personal holiness. He had flirtations with various contemporary governments in Islamic countries, which usually ended badly, but was a major influence on later thinkers of Islamism, especially in Egypt and in Iran (though his ideas were too boldly innovatory to be accepted by the classically-trained ulema, whether Shi‘a or Sunni15).

  Afghani returned to Iran in the 1880s at the invitation of the Shah, but when they met there was no meeting of minds; his ideas being too strongly anti-British for the Shah, at least at that stage. He left and returned again, but was forced-marched out of the country to Iraq in 1891 after pamphlets appeared, apparently under his influence, attacking concessions to foreigners.

  From Iraq al-Afghani was an influence in the campaign against the tobacco concession, corresponding in particular with Hajji Mirza Hasan Shirazi before he ordered the tobacco boycott; and was active thereafter with the two main Persian newspapers printed overseas, Qanun and Akhtar, printed in London and Istanbul respectively. While he was in Istanbul in 1895, he was visited by an ex-prisoner called Mirza Reza Kermani and they discussed future plans. Kermani returned to Iran, and on 1 May 1896 he shot and killed Naser od-Din Shah, having approached him with the appearance of wanting to present a petition while the Shah was visiting the shrine at Shah Abd ol-Azim. Naser od-Din was buried there shortly afterwards. Kermani was executed by public hanging the following August, and Al-Afghani died of cancer in 1897.

  One aspect of the assassination illustrates the complexity of attitudes towards Jews in Iran. Apparently in his interrogation Kermani said that he had had an earlier opportunity to kill the Shah, while he was walking in a park, and had not done so, despite the fact that he could easily have escaped, because he knew that a number of Jews had been in the park that day, and that they would be blamed for the killing. Kermani did not want the assassination to be blamed on the Jews, and did not want to be responsible for the riots and attacks on Jews that might follow.16 For every anti-Semitic preacher or rabble-rouser there were many educated, humane Iranians, clerics and others, for whom it was a matter of conscience to do what they could to help the Jews and other minorities (irrespective of the radicalism or otherwise of their other beliefs).

  The sudden death of the Shah could have brought disorder and confusion, but for a time courtiers were able to conceal what had happened, and the Cossack brigade kept order in Tehran until Naser od-Din’s appointed successor, Mozaffar od-Din, could arrive from Tabriz and assume the throne.

  The Slide to Revolution

  Mozaffar od-Din was sick when he became Shah and was surrounded by a gaggle of greedy courtiers and hangers-on. They had waited a long time with him in Tabriz for their chance to take over in Tehran, and the Shah did not have the energy or force of personality to keep them in check. Initially he had a reforming prime minister, Amin od-Dowleh, who was especially active for improving education, encouraging the opening of many new schools, including schools for girls. Censorship was lifted, and the Shah permitted the formation of cultural and educational associations. Most of this new activity was independent of the state and had little financial cost to the government, but the Shah had to pay more for the court than his father had, and in addition for frequent and expensive trips to Europe for medical treatment. With the exception of the debt incurred after the cancellation of the tobacco concession, his father had succeeded in keeping the state finances in order, but despite Amin od-Dowleh’s efforts to restrain spending, state debt accumulated under Mozaffar od-Din Shah, necessitating new loans from the Russians and the granting of new monopolistic concessions. One of Amin od-Dowleh’s money-raising innovations was the introduction of Belgian customs administrators, but in 1898 the Shah dismissed him after he failed to secure a British loan. A new prime minister, Amin ol-Sultan, took his place and set up Joseph Naus, a Belgian, as customs minister. As time went on Naus effectively became finance minister.17

  The new customs arrangements were unpopular with many bazaar merchants, who seemed to be paying more than before and more than foreign traders; and were paying the money to foreigners. The Russian loans were unpopular; the ulema disliked the new schools, which weakened their traditional grip on education, and also the Shah’s trips to Europe. The lifting of censorship and the freedom to form associations made criticism of the government easier and more public, and gratified the inclinations of a new intelligentsia, with a diversity of liberal, nationalist, socialist and Islamic reformist elements, all of whom tended to be hostile to the monarchy, for different or overlapping reasons. It was a time of change and ferment, but also of resentment and unease.

  Among other concessions granted around this time, for fisheries and other rights, was one in 1901 to another British entrepreneur, William Knox D’Arcy. This concession was to prove much more important than was apparent initially: he was allowed to explore the southern part of the country for oil.

  The British, feeling their loss of the latest round in the Great Game, decided in 1902/1903 to liaise with some members of the ulema (notably Ayatollah Abdollah Behbehani) to encourage their opposition to the customs arrangements, the Belgians and the Russian loans. Money changed hands. There was agitation by the ulema in several cities, but it turned against foreigners and non-Muslims in general. There were riots in Isfahan and Yazd in the summer of 1903 that led to the killing of several Baha’is, and there were attacks on Jews and Christian minorities too.

  The following year the harvest was bad, and the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war, followed by the 1905 revolution in Russia, interrupted imports from the north and made them more expensive. The significance of the outcome of the war, in which the Japanese inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Russians (albeit with the help of British-built battleships), was eagerly taken in by Iranian intellectuals, for whom it demonstrated that the dominance of the imperialist Europeans was not unshakeable. Meanwhile the disruption of commerce meant that wheat prices went up by 90 per cent and sugar prices by 33 per cent in northern cities like Tabriz and Tehran in the early months of 1905. The government was hit because its customs revenues went down. The Shah tried for anothe
r Russian loan and was offered £350,000; but the condition was that he should accept Russian commanders to lead all his military units. The Shah rejected these terms, and instead raised internal tariffs and postponed payments to local creditors, increasing yet further the pressure on the bazaar merchants.18 The government’s financial problems also meant that the salaries of some ulema went unpaid.

  In Tehran in June 1905 there was a demonstration in the mourning month of Moharram that fused economic and religious elements in a way that was to become typical. Two hundred shopkeepers and moneylenders closed their businesses and walked to the shrine of Shah Abd ol-Azim, protesting against the latest damaging government measures and demanding the removal of M. Naus, the Belgian customs chief. The demonstrators passed around offensive pictures of Naus dressed as a mullah at a fancy-dress party. The Shah, still sick and suffering, talked to the protestors, and promised to satisfy their demands when he came back from his imminent trip to Europe. But this did not happen, and a more serious protest broke out in December 1905 after two sugar merchants from the Tehran bazaar were given beatings on the feet (the bastinado or falake) at the orders of the governor of Tehran for charging too much for sugar. One of them was a revered elder of the bazaar who had paid to repair the bazaar itself and three mosques. His protests that he was not profiteering and that the prices were high because of the situation in Russia availed him nothing.

  Again the bazaar closed, and this time 2000 or more merchants, religious students, ulema and others met in the central mosque, and again went from there to the shrine of Shah Abd ol-Azim, led by the mojtaheds Behbehani and Seyyed Mohammad Tabataba’i, and took sanctuary (bast) there. From the shrine they demanded the removal of the governor who had ordered the beatings, enforcement of sharia law, dismissal of Naus and the establishment of an adalatkhaneh (House of Justice—a representative assembly). Initially the government was defiant but the bazaar stayed closed and after a month the Shah dismissed the governor and accepted the protestors’ demands.

  Figs 12 & 13. Ayatollahs Behbehani (left) and Tabataba’i (right) supported the Constitutional revolution, believing that the ideas of constitutional government and democratic representation, despite their western origin, were nonetheless compatible with Islam.

  But there was no attempt to convene the House of Justice in the following months and in the summer of 1906 there were further street protests by theological students when the government tried to take action against some radical preachers; and one of them, a seyyed (someone believed to be descended from the Prophet Mohammad) was shot dead by the police. This killing created a huge uproar. Behbehani, Tabataba’i, two thousand ulema and their students left Tehran for Qom (then as now the main centre for theological study in the country) and a larger group of merchants, mullahs and others took sanctuary in the grounds of the summer residence of the British legation at Golhak, then north of Tehran (having established that the British chargé d’affaires would respect the tradition of bast). Their number there eventually reached 14,000, and their accommodation and other needs were organised by the bazaar merchants’ guilds. This meant that both the ulema and the bazaar were on strike, which effectively brought the capital to a standstill; and the Golhak compound became a hotbed of political discussion and speculation, with liberal and nationalist intellectuals joining in and addressing the assembled crowds. Many of these began to speak of the need to limit the powers of the Shah by establishing a constitution (mashruteh), and the demand for a House of Justice became more specific, shifting to call for a properly representative national assembly (Majles). Coordinated by the ulema, similar groups sent many telegrams in support to the Shah from the provinces.

  Mashruteh

  On 5 August, nearly a month after the first protestors took refuge in Golhak, and menaced by a potential mutiny among the Cossack brigade, whom he had been unable to pay, Mozaffar od-Din Shah gave in and signed an order for the convening of a national assembly. The Majles convened for the first time in October 1906, and rapidly set about drafting a constitution, the central structure of which, in the form of what were called the Fundamental Laws, were ratified by Mozaffar od-Din Shah on 30 December. The Shah died only five days later. The Constitution was a major event, not just in Iranian history, but in regional and world history. A movement often called the Young Ottomans had established a kind of national assembly in an attempt to recast the Ottoman Empire as a constitutional monarchy in the 1870s, but the experiment had only lasted for a couple of years. The Constitutional movement in Iran had a more enduring effect and even though its revolution is often described as a failure, the Majles itself survived and the movement’s achievements influenced events throughout the rest of the twentieth century. And the initial success of the revolution was achieved by peaceful, dignified protest; almost wholly without bloodshed.

  The Majles was not elected on the basis of full, but partial suffrage, on a two-stage system, and represented primarily the middle and upper classes who had headed the protests in the first place. The electors were landowners (only above a middling size), ulema and theological students, merchants and bazaar guild-members with businesses of average size or above. In each region these electors elected delegates to regional assemblies, and those delegates nominated the 156 Majles members (except in Tehran where they were elected directly). Numerically the Majles was dominated by the bazaar merchants and guild elders, and it divided roughly into liberal, moderate and royalist groupings, of which the moderates were the most numerous by a large margin. Behbehani and Tabataba’i supported the moderates but were not themselves Majles members. Outside the Majles, both in the capital and in the regional centres, the elections stimulated the creation of further political societies (anjoman), some of which grew powerful and influenced the deliberations of the Majles itself. Some represented occupations, others regions like Azerbaijan, others ethnic or religious groups like the Jews and Armenians. There were anjoman for women for the first time. There was a great upsurge in political activity and debate across the country, which was shown also by the expansion in the number of newspapers; from just six before the revolution began to over one hundred.19 This upsurge was disturbing in itself to the more traditional-minded; especially to the more conservative members of the ulema.

  The Majles expected to govern, and to govern on new principles. The constitution (which remained formally in force until 1979, and was based on the Belgian constitution) stated explicitly that the Shah’s sovereignty derived from the people, as a power given to him in trust; not as a right bestowed directly by God. The power of the ulema, and their frame of thought, was also manifest in the constitution. Shi‘ism was declared to be the state religion, shari‘a law was recognised, clerical courts were given a significant role and there was to be a five-man committee of senior ulema to scrutinise legislation passed by the Majles, to confirm its spiritual legitimacy; until the Hidden Emam—whose proper responsibility this was—should reappear. But the civil rights of non-Shi‘a minorities were also protected, reflecting the involvement of many Jews, Babis, Armenians and others in the constitutional project. Jews and Armenians had their own, protected seats for their representatives in the Majles (though the first Jewish representative withdrew after encountering anti-Semitism from other members of the Majles, and the Jews thereafter chose Behbehani to represent them—another important example of a mojtahed sympathetic to the Jewish minority20).

  All revolutions are about movement and change—that is obvious. They are also about leadership. The Constitutional Revolution marked the effective end of the Qajar era of government, and promised to usher in a period of government under more regular, legitimate, modern principles. Instead, for a variety of reasons, many of which had nothing to do with the revolution itself, it inaugurated a period of conflict and uncertainty. It was still a major change, a watershed. But in addition to that kind of change, most revolutions also bring their own dynamic of change, change within the human groupings and systems of values involved in the revolution. Th
e players in the revolution find their expectations, assumptions and illusions challenged, and in some cases subverted or overturned, by the progress of the revolution itself. As with other revolutions (notably the French) the constitutional revolution provided a playground for the law of unintended consequences.

  The prime revolutionary classes were the ulema and the bazaari merchants, and their motivations, if not their mode of expressing them, were at root conservative. They wanted the removal of foreign interference and a restoration of traditional patterns of commerce and religious authority. In the earliest phase of the revolution the ulema were in charge. It was their authority that gave the protests authority, and it was their hierarchy and their system of relationships that organised and coordinated the protest. But once installed in the British legation, it was a question of ‘where next’, and the ulema had no clear answer. It was plain that the simple removal of ministers and objectionable Qajar initiatives was not enough; the Shah’s good faith could not be relied upon, and previous protests had failed to secure future good behaviour. The call for a constitution was not just for a vague construct, the pet project of Westernisers: it was manifest that the country needed to commit itself to a permanent change of direction more definitive than anything tried before. The constitution really was an idea whose time had arrived—even the leaders of the ulema initially embraced it, despite it being plainly a western-inspired idea. But their acceptance (whether or not they realised it straight away) effectively handed over the initiative, and therefore the leadership, to the owners of the constitutional idea—the liberals and nationalists, whose models were secular, western models. Many of these men were members of the state bureaucracy, spiritual heirs of Amir Kabir, eager for reform of the state (especially state finance, but also education and justice) along Western lines. One could think of them as a new intelligentsia, suddenly grown into importance to rival the traditional intelligentsia, the ulema. They were to be found disproportionally among the Majles delegates from Azerbaijan and Tabriz, and one of their most prominent leaders, Seyyed Hasan Taqizadeh, was from that region. Their agenda extended further than just a constitution. It soon became increasingly clear to many ulema that the revolution was taking a direction they had neither anticipated nor wanted.