Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:34:51.021Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sur-i Israfil in Exile: Modern Definitions of Monarchy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Pardis Minucheher
Pardis Minucheher*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

After the bombardment of the Majlis in June of 1908, several Iranian constitutionalists were forced into exile—if not arrested and persecuted. An influential group of these constitutionalists continued the publication of the Persian paper Sur-i Israfil in exile, in Yverdon, Switzerland, explicitly opposing the monarch, Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar. This article examines the ways and means by which the exiled constitutionalists, in their writings, challenged the monarch and the previously indisputable office of monarchy, and how they proposed to re-define the institution of monarchy. Paradoxically, their marginal setting, writing from European exile, far away from the Iranian borders, did not preclude them from expressing views that were influential in shaping the modern political culture of Iran.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , June 2009 , pp. 389 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Sur-i Israfil (Yverdon), 8 March 1909, 3: 4–5.

2 Ibid.

3 Gossman, Lionel, “1697 Marginal Writing,” in A New History of French Literature, ed. Hollier, Denis (Cambridge, 1998): 379Google Scholar.

4 Ibid.

5 Gaonkar, Dilip Parameshwar, ed., Alternative Modernities. A Public Culture Book (Durham, 2001)Google Scholar.

6 “Monarchy,” Encyclopaedia Britannica: 683.

7 Khan, Mirza Yusuf, al-Dawlah, Mustashar, Yak Kalimah, ed. Sajjadi, Sadiq (Tehran, 1364/1985)Google Scholar. Also see Algar, Hamid, Mirza Malkum Khan: A Study in the History of Iranian Modernism (Berkeley, CA, 1973): 139CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ketabcheye Ettela'at from Mirza Yusuf Khan Mustashar al-Dawlah, about the affairs in Iran's domestic scene, was available for purchase in Habl al-Matin (Tehran), 30 July 1907, 78: 4. Also see Targhi, Mohamad Tavakkoli, Refashioning Iran: Orientalism, Occidentalism and Historiography. (Basingstoke, UK, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Kashani-Sabet, Firoozeh, “Hallmarks of Humanism: Hygiene and Love of Homeland in Qajar Iran,” The American Historical Review 105, no. 4 (October 2000): 29–30CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

9 Habl al-Matin (Calcutta), 18 November 1907, 17: 3. Also see Browne, Edward (trans.), The Persian Revolution of 1905–1909 (Cambridge, 1910): 377Google Scholar.

10 Habl al-Matin (Calcutta), 18 November 1907, 17: 4.

11 Ibid.

12 Yazdani, Sohrab. Sur-i Israfil: Nameh-yi Azadi (Tehran, 2007)Google Scholar. Also see Mozaffari, Nahid Nosrat, “Crafting Constitutionalism: Ali Akbar Dehkhoda and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution” (Unpublished diss. Harvard University, 2001)Google Scholar. Momeni, Baqer, Sur-i Israfil (Tehran, 1979)Google Scholar.

13 Adamiyyat, Fereydoun, Ideology–yi Nihzat-i Mashrutiyyat-i Iran: Majlis-i Avval va Bohran-i Azadi (Tehran, n.d.), 2; Afshar, Iraj, ed., Mobarezeh ba Mohammad Ali Shah: Asnadi az fa'aliyyatha-yi Azadikhahan-i Iran dar Orupa va Istanbul (Tehran, 1981)Google Scholar.

14 Sur-i Israfil (Tehran), 30 May 1907, 1:1.

15 Also see Mansoureh Ettehadiyyeh, ed., A Complete Collection of Sur-i Israfil. (Tehran, ):1.

16 The Qoran, 23: 101.

17 See Sanjabi, Maryam, “Re-reading the Enlightenment: Akhundzadeh and his Voltaire,” Iranian Studies 28, nos. 1–2 (winter/spring 1995): 56CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Masroori, Cyrus, “European Thought in the Nineteenth Century Iran: David Hume and Others,” Journal of the History of Ideas 61, no. 4 (October 2000): 657–674CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Subhdam, M., ed., Maktubat (n.p. [Germany], 1364/1985): 22Google Scholar.

18 Ibid: 9.

19 Ibid: 44. Also see Sanjabi, “Rereading the Enlightenment”: 56.

20 Bashir, Hassan, “Iran and Political Modernisation in the Nineteenth Century: Parliamentarianism, Constitutionalism and Feminism in the Newspaper Sur-i Israfil,” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, 5 (2003–2004): 130Google Scholar.

21 For further information about the Tehran Sur-i Israfil also see Afary's, Janet, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906–1911: Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, and the Origins of Feminism (New York, 1996)Google Scholar.

22 Ettehadiyyeh, Mansoureh, ed. A Complete Collection of Sur-i Israfil. (Tehran, 1987):1Google Scholar.

23 “Constitutional Revolution,” Encyclopaedia Iranica: 166.

24 ‘Kawakebi, Abd al-Rahman, Tabaya’ al-Istibdad, trans. ‘Qajar, Abd al-Hossein, ed. Sajjadi, Sadeq, (Tehran, 1364/1985): 11Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., 150–157.

26 Baqer Momeni: 36.

27 Afshar, Iraj, ed., Namah-ha-yi Siyasi-yi Dehkhoda (Tehran, 1358/1979)Google Scholar.

28 Afshar, Iraj, ed., Mohammad, Mobareze ba, ‘Ali Shah: Asnadi az Fa'aliyyatha-yi Azadikhwahan-i Iran dar salha-yi 1326–1328 Qamari, with a foreword by Hossein Pirniya (Tehran, 1980): 14Google Scholar. Also see pp. 445–452.

29 Ettehadiyyeh, Mansoureh, ed., A Complete Collection of Sur-i Israfil (Tehran, 1361/1992):1Google Scholar; Kuchi, Shahnaz Moradi and Golharani, Fathollah Esmaili, eds., Mu'arifi va Shinakht-i ‘Ali Akbar Dehkhoda (Tehran, 1382/2003)Google Scholar; Siyaqi, Mohammad Dabir, Khatirat-i Dehkhoda az Zaban-i Dehkhoda (Tehran, 1359/1980)Google Scholar; Aryanpour, Yahya, Az Saba ta Nima, vol. 2 (Tehran, 1350/1971)Google Scholar; Najmi, Nassir, Mohammad Ali Shah va Mashrutiyyat (Tehran, 1377/1998)Google Scholar; Ahmad Kasravi, Tarikh-i Mashrutah-yi Iran (Tehran, n.d.); Nazem al-Islam Kermani, Tarikh-i Bidari-yi Iranian; Mirza ‘Abd al-Amir Shaykh al-Islam. Do Sanad az Inqilab-I Mashrutah-yi Iran (Tehran, 1977); Thierry Zarcone and Fariba Zarinebaf-Shahr, eds., Les Iraniens D'Istanbul (Paris, 1993); Yahya Dawlatabadi, Tarikh-i Mu'asir ya Hayat-i Yahya (Tehran, n.d.); Mehdi Malakzadeh, Tarikh-i Inqilab-i Mashrutiyyat-i Iran: Istibdad-i Saghir, vol. 5, (Tehran, n.d.)

30 Iraj Afshar, Mobareze ba Mohammad ‘Ali Shah: 17.

31 Sur-i Israfil (Yverdon), 8 March 1909, 3: 4–5.

32 Ibid: 4.

33 A full translation of this poem appears in Browne, Edward G., The Press and Poetry of Modern Persia, with a new preface by Amin Banani (Los Angeles, CA, 1983): 203–204Google Scholar. Also see ‘Nosrati, Abdollah, Yad Ar ze Sham’-i Mordeh, Yad Ar: Tahlil-i Ejtema'ii-yi She'ri Mashrutiyyat (Hamedan, 2000)Google Scholar.

34 Afshar, Iraj, ed. Namah ha-yi Siyasi-yi Dehkhoda (Tehran, 1979): 33Google Scholar.

35 Sur-i Israfil (Yverdon).

36 Sur-i Israfil (Yverdon), 23 January 1909, 1: 1.

37 Sur-i Israfil (Yverdon), 23 January 1909, 1: 5.

38 Mirza Hossein Ali Tajir-i Shirazi, Mikadaw-Namah (Calcutta, 1325/1908). This book of war poetry, “jang-namah” was published by the Government of Hindustan under the direction of Habl al-Matin's editor, Mu'ayyid al-Islam. It includes 58 photographs: reproductions of Japanese and Russian emperors and generals. Its poetry is written in the masnavi form, starting with the story of Kayumars, followed by Houshang, Tahmouras, Jamshid and so forth. The following chapter praises the Russian emperor Peter the Great, and later the Japanese emperor.

39 Ibid.: 2.

40 Ibid.: 1.

41 Sur-i Israfil (Yverdon), 6 February 1909, 2.

42 Ibid.

43 See Minuchehr, Pardis. “The Exile Press and Pro-constitutionalist ‘Ulama of the ‘Atabat,” in Religion and Society in Qajar Iran, ed. Gleave, Robert (London, 2005)Google Scholar. For discussion on another member of the clergy justifying and defining constitutionalism see Martin, Vanessa, “Aqa Najafi, Haj Aqa Nurullah, and the Emergence of Islamism in Isfahan 1889–1908,” Iranian Studies, 41, no. 2 (April 2008)Google Scholar. Also see Zargary-Nejad, Gholamhossain, ed., Rasa'il-i Mashrutiyyat (18 Risalah va Layiha Darbarah-yi Mashrutiyyat) (Tehran, 1374)Google Scholar.

44 Hassan Bashir, “Iran and Political Modernisation in the Nineteenth Century”: 131.

45 Abolqasem Ferdowsi. Shahnameh.

46 Ibid.

47 Sur-i Israfil (Yverdon), 6 February 1909.

48 Ibid.

49 Edward G. Browne, Press and Poetry. Also see Mozaffari, Nahid Nosrat. “Crafting Constitutionalism: Ali Akbar Dehkhoda and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution.” (Unpublished diss., Harvard University, 2001)Google Scholar.

50 See Minuchehr, Pardis, “The Exile Persian Press and the Pro-Constitutionalist ’Ulama of the ‘Atabat” in Religion and Society in Qajar Iran, ed. Gleave, Robert (London, 2005)Google Scholar. For more on the Shi'ite ‘Ulama of the ‘Atabat see ‘Abdul-Hadi Ha'iri. Shi'ism and Constitutionalism in Iran: A Study of the Role Played by the Persian Residents of Iraq in Iranian Politics (Leiden, 1977).

51 Sur-i Israfil (Yverdon), 23 January 1909, 1: 8.

52 Ibid.

53 Ali Davani, Nehzat-i Ruhaniyyun-i Iran (Tehran, n.d.) 1: 205. I thank Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet for offering me a copy of this unpublished manuscript.

54 Browne, Press and Poetry: 115–16.

55 Ibid.: 25.

56 Bashir, “Iran and Political Modernisation”: 131.

57 Bonakdarian, Mansour, Britain and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906–1911. Foreign Policy, Imperialism and Dissent (2006): 162–163Google Scholar.

58 Browne, Press and Poetry: 116.

59 See Mansoureh Ettehadieh, ed. Sur-i Israfil.

60 Kuchi, Shahnaz Moradi and Golharani, Fathollah Esmaili, eds., Mu'arifi va Shinakht-i ‘Ali Akbar Dehkhoda (Tehran, 1382/2003)Google Scholar; Iraj Afshar, “Sur-i Israfil”: 135.

61 Ibid.: 25.

62 Ibid.: 18.

63 Ibid.: 24.

64 Ibid.: 22–23.

65 Yahya Dawlatabadi, Tarikh-i Mu'asir ya Hayat-i Yahya (Tehran, n.d.): 101.

66 Chelkowski, Peter, “Edward G. Browne's Turkish Connexion,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 49, no. 1 (1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.