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A Topos and Its Dissolution: Japan in Some 20th-century Iranian Texts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Roxane Haag-Higuchi
Roxane Haag-Higuchi*
Affiliation:
Department of Iranian Studies, University of Bamberg
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Extract

Towards the end of the 19th century, different parts of the Islamic world, occupied with various attempts to cope with the European power play, became aware of a country that seemed to have “made it”: Japan, remote and in self-imposed, almost complete isolation from the Western world for more than 200 years up to 1853, fascinated Muslim viewers. In different aspects, Japan's situation lent itself to comparison. It had been a military confrontation with economic incentives that had forced Japan to come into contact with the West. In the first military confrontation with the American warships sent to force the opening of Japanese ports in 1853, Japan could not withstand the Western threat and thus confirmed the stereotype of the inferior traditional Oriental country retreating in the face of the superior, advanced West.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 1-2 , Spring Winter 1996 , pp. 71 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1996

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Footnotes

*

An earlier draft of this article was presented at the Third European Conference of Iranian Studies in Cambridge, September 1995. I am grateful to Dr. Anja Pistor-Hatam for the fruitful and inspiring cooperation in this—accidentally—shared subject. I would also like to thank Dr. Houchang Chehabi for his very helpful suggestions.

References

1. A vivid contemporary summary account is given in Farjenel, F., “Le Japon et l'lslam,” Revue du monde musulman 1 (1907): 101–114Google Scholar.

2. Kreiser, Klaus, “Der japanische Sieg über RuBland (1905) und sein Echo unter den Muslimen,” Die Welt des Islams 21 (1981): 209–239Google Scholar; Rajabzadeh, Hashem, “Russo-Japanese War As Told By Iranians,” Annals of Japan Association for Middle East Studies (JAMES) 3, no. 2 (1988): 144–66Google Scholar. For a bibliography of comparative studies on Japan and the Muslim world up to 1980 see Kreiser, “Der japanische Sieg,” 212, n. 6. Additionally, see also Ahmed, Akbar S., “Can Pakistan Be Japan? Social Factors in Economic Development,” Asian Affairs (London) 16 (o.s. 72/1985): 145–62Google Scholar; Breuilly, J., Nationalism and the State (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1982), 5Google Scholar (comparisons between Japan and Turkey, Turkey and China, 211–15); Hairi, Abdul-Hadi, “European and Asian Influences on the Persian Revolution of 1906,” Asian Affairs 62 (n.s. 6, 1975): 155–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hayashi, T., “The Modernisation of Japan and Turkey: Some Comparisons” in Kazancigil, A. and Özbudun, E., eds., Atatürk, Founder of A Modern State (London: Hurst, 1981), 221–34Google Scholar; Sasagawa, M., “Japan and the Middle East” in Spiegel, S. L., ed., The Middle East and the Western Alliance (London: Allen & Unwin, 1982), 33–46Google Scholar; Schölch, Alexander, “Ägypten in der ersten und Japan in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts: ein entwicklungsgeschichtlicher Vergleich,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 33 (1982): 333–46Google Scholar.

3. ”… das japanische ‘Modell’ mit seinem in der muslimischen Diskussion sehr ‘instrumentalen’ Einsatz… . Das Thema Japan zieht sich wie ein roter Faden durch das wissenschaftliche und religiöse Schrifttum. Doch die Ebene, auf der es behandelt wird, bleibt anspruchslos” (“Der japanische Sieg,” 234, 238).

4. “Es handelt sich mehr um die Simulation eines politischen Entscheidungsprozesses unter den Augen der Öffentlichkeit als um die Entscheidungsfindung selbst” (Faber, Hans-Georg, “Zur Instrumentalisierung historischen Wissens in der politischen Diskussion” in Koselleck, Reinhart, Mommsen, Wolfgang J., and Rüsen, Jörn, eds., Objektivitat und Parteilichkeit in der Geschichtswissenschaft [Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1977], 276Google Scholar). Kreiser refers to this article, but explicitly does not apply its findings to the case of Japan in the frame of his article, since the “original voices” had to be assessed first (“Der japanische Sieg,” 238, n. 105). Faber analyzes different modes of instrumentalized historical knowledge and their application in German parliamentary debates, distinguishing mainly between “history as a collection of examples,” dealing with famous historical “events,” and “(hi)stories as coherence of meaning and effect” (“Geschichten als Sinn- und Wirkungszusammenhang“), and dealing with the presentation of historical processes. The present article applies Faber's methods and findings, but only in limited fashion, because Faber's subject is German or German-related history in German parliamentary debates, whereas our case is characterized by the local distance and largely mutual historical irrelevance between Iran and Japan.

5. In contrast to the Tatar publicist Gaspïralï’ in Russia and and some critics in the Ottoman Empire. Cf. Kreiser, “Der japanische Sieg,” 335–38.

6. Ebrahim, Ebn Mohammad, The Ship of Sulaiman, trans. O'Kane, John, Persian Heritage Series, 11 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), 188–98Google Scholar.

7. Rajabzadeh, Hashem, “Īrān va Īrānīān az negāh-e Yuūshīda, nakhostīn ferestādeh-ye Zhāpūn be darbār-e Qājār,” Iranshenasi 5, no. 2 (Summer 1372 Sh./1993): 381–97Google Scholar and 5, no. 3 (Autumn 1372 Sh./1993): 566–79 (in two parts).

8. Kreiser, “Der japanische Sieg,” 213.

9. Mohammad ‘Ali b. Aqa Mohammad Reza Mahallati Hajj Sayyah, Khāṭerāt-e Ḥājj Sayyāḥ yā dawreh-ye khawfva vaḥshat, ed. Hamid Sayyah and Sayfollah Golkar (Tehran: Ebn-e Sina, 1346 Sh./1967–68), containing his travels in Iran and his political involvement. Hajj Sayyah's travelogue about his world tour has been only partially edited as Safarnāmeh-ye Ḥājj Sayyāḥ be Farang, ed. ‘Ali Dehbashi (Tehran: Nasher, 1363 Sh./1984).

10. Sahhafbashi, Ebrahim, Safarnāmeh, ed. Moshiri, M. (Tehran, 1357 Sh./1978)Google Scholar.

11. Rajabzadeh, “Russo-Japanese War,” 145.

12. See, for example, the travelogue of Mahdiqoli Hedayat (Mokhber al-Saltaneh), Safarnāmeh-ye tasharrof be Makkeh-ye mo'aẓẓameh az ṭarīq-e Chīn, Zhāpon va Emrikā (Tehran, n.d.), and Mirza Hosayn ‘Ali's Shāhnāmeh-type poem, Mīkādo-nāmeh, lithograph (Calcutta, 1323/1905–1906); cf. Kreiser, “Der japanische Sieg,” which gives a vast bibliography of sources from the Muslim world, encompassing the Ottoman Empire and Egypt, the Caucasus, Iran, Afghanistan and India.

13. Rajabzadeh, “Russo-Japanese War,” 148. See also Kreiser, “Der japanische Sieg,” 222, which mentions the high number of war reports.

14. This newspaper (its main period being 29 April 1907 to 27 July 1908, when the Majles was bombed) was headed by Mirza Sayyed Hasan Kashani, the younger brother of the famous Calcutta Ḥabl al-matīn editor. Browne, E. G. calls it “the most important daily newspaper of the Constitutional period” (The Press and Poetry of Modern Persia [Cambridge, 1914; repr. Los Angeles: Kalimat, 1983], nos. 137Google Scholar, 74). See also Hashemi, Mohammad Sadr, Tārīkh-e jarāyed va majallāt-e Īrān, 4 vols. (2nd ed. Isfahan: Kamal, 1363 Sh./1984), 2:208–213Google Scholar, no. 468; Bayat, Mangol, Iran's First Revolution (New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991), 71Google Scholar, 168, 231.

15. Ḥabl al-matīn (Tehran), 8 May 1907, 1.

16. Ibid., 1 f.

17. Ibid., 2.

18. Ḥabl al-matīn (Tehran), 8 February 1908, 1.

19. Ḥabl al-matīn (Tehran), 8 May 1907, 2.

20. “Was dem Historiker oft schmerzhaft bewußt ist, daß nämlich ‘Ereignis'-Namen, indem sie ein Stück Geschichte als Ganzes repräsentieren, den wissenschaftlichen Aussagen leicht etwas Definitives gibt und damit die weitere Beschäftigung mit den bezeichneten Sachverhalten abblockt, das wird in der politischen Debatte ein Vorzug” (Faber, “Zur Instrumentalisierung,” 290 f.).

21. Ḥabl al-matīn (Tehran), 8 May 1907, 2.

22. Cf. Kreiser, “Der japanische Sieg,” 209 f., the poem of Mehmed ‘Aqif. Mehmed ‘Aqif has been influenced by the Tatar author ‘Abd al-Rashid Ibrahim, whose “main interest was the conversion of the Japanese to Islam” (ibid., 332) and who considered them, notwithstanding the question of religion, to be the leaders of the Orientals (sharqhlar) (ibid., 234). Kreiser sees in ‘Abd al-Rashid Ibrahim's attitude different allegiances: pan-Turanian, pan-Islamic and pan-Asiatic (ibid., 233). For Muslim activities in Japan see Farjenel, “Le Japon et l'lslam,” 105–108.

23. Kermani, Nazem al-Eslam, Tārīkh-e bīdārlī-yā Īrāniyān yā tārīkh-e mashrūḥ va ḥaqīqī-ye mashrūṭīyat-e Īrān, 4th repr. (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1371 Sh./1992), 392Google Scholar.

24. Cf. Faber's analysis of historical items used in German political discussions, in which he calls them metaphors: “Die Metaphernfunktion von wertbesetzten Ereignisnamen, ohne die auch der Historiker nicht auskommt, weil sie einen kognitiven Wert besitzen, erleichtert ihre Verwendung im politischen Wortstreit” (“Zur Instrumentalisierung,” 292).

25. Nazem al-Eslam Kermani quotes a letter written by Naser al-Molk to Sayyed Mohammad Tabataba'i to convince him not to fight for the Constitution before the implementation of a functioning educational system. He evolves his argumentation around a historical survey of the modern history of Japan, displaying good knowledge on the Meiji restauration. In his argumentation, he stresses especially the first element of the dualism, backwardness-progress: “Turning to history, there is no country more savage than Japan” (mellatī vaḥshītar az Zhāpon dīdeh nemīshavad). This grievance is remedied by the immediate, split-second implementation of an effective educational system, initiated by the emperor immediately (fawran), with utmost haste (bā kamāl-e ‘ajalleh) and with lightning speed (beh sor'at-e barq) (Kermani, Tārīkh-e bīdārī, 385 f.).

26. ”… das Ereignisfeld ‘Geschichte’ [ist] im Bereich der engeren und weiteren Vorgeschichte des zur Entscheidung anstehenden Komplexes sehr dicht, darüber hinaus immer sporadischer, wenn auch mit gelegentlichen, von der ‘Sache’ her gegebenen Kumulationen besetzt” (Faber, “Zur Instrumentalisierung,” 281).

27. Terminology according to Faber, “Zur Instrumentalisierung“; cf. above, n. 3.

28. Ḥabl al-matīn (Tehran), 25 March 1908, 2.

29. Paymān 1, no. 13 (Khordad 1313/1934): 3, 9. Dated before the Anti-Comintern Pact, the commentary may be connected to the visit of a Japanese naval squadron to Germany. After this visit there were rumors about a German-Japanese entente. See Presseisen, Ernst L., Germany and Japan: A Study in Totalitarian Diplomacy, 1933–1941 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1958), 62CrossRefGoogle Scholar f.

30. Paymān 3, no. 3 (Farvardin 1315/1936): 199–200.

31. Paymān 1, no. 2 (Mordad 1320/1941): 141.

32. One of the rare exceptions is an interview with the foreign minister of Japan, Admiral Teijiro Toyoda, given to some Italian and German reporters and published in 1942 in Paymān in Persian translation. These words, however, come from Toyoda himself, and again the civilization-related taraqqī is closely linked to military pīshraft. Toyoda states: “Japan … is determined to make complete progress in the war in China (jang rā dar Chīn pīshraft-e kāmel dahad) by any means and to create in East Asia a common zone of welfare and progress (rafāhiyyat va taraqqī).”

33. Paymān 7, no. 6 (Azar 1320/1941): 422 and no. 3 (Shahrivar 1320/1941): 210.

34. Paymān 1, no. 6 (Bahman 1312/1944): 2.

35. This is a general feature of the writings of Kasravi, who “put the blame not on the masses but on their leaders.” See Afshari, M. Reza, “The Historians of the Constitutional Movement and the Making of the Iranian Populist Tradition,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 25 (1993): 481CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36. Kreiser, “Der japanische Sieg,” 234. According to Kreiser, the Tatars emigrated only in 1938.

37. Paymān 2, no. 7 (Tir 1314/1935): 404 and no. 8 (Mordad 1314/1935): 508.

38. Shari'ati, ‘Ali, Man and Islam, trans. Marjani, Fatollah (Houston: Free Islamic Lit, 1981), 261Google Scholar.

39. Kreiser, “Der japanische Sieg,” 228 f. Kasravi voices the same thing in the 1930s: “Take the sciences and inventions from Europe but don't follow them in their way of life and their laws” (Paymān 1, no. 8 [Esfand 1312/1934]: 6).

40. Ahmad, Jalal Al-e, Plagued by the West (Gharbzadegi), trans. Sprachman, Paul (Delmar, N.Y.: Caravan Books, 1982), 95Google Scholar.

41. Eṭṭelā'āt, 20 Mehr 1366/12 October 1987, 3. For the column “Do kalameh ḥarf-e ḥesāb” (“Gol Āqā“) see Mitra Sharifi and Roxane Haag-Higuchi, “Leserbriefe und Satire: Die Kolumne von ‘Gol Āqā’ in der iranischen Tageszeitung Eṭṭelā'āt 1363–1371 (1985–1992),” in Herzog, Christoph, Motika, Raoul and Pistor-Hatam, Anja, eds., Presse und Öffentlichkeit im Nahen Osten (Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag, 1995), 131–42Google Scholar.

42. Zayn al-'Abedin Maragheh'i, Siyāḥat-nāmeh-ye Ebrāhīm Beg yā balā-ye ta'aṣṣob-e ū, 3 vols., vol. 1 (Cairo, n.d.); vol. 2 written 1905, pub. Calcutta 1907; vol. 3 (Istanbul, 1909), 3:190, cited in Kreiser, “Der japanische Sieg,” 219, 225.

43. The literary periodical Gardūn published a survey of Japanese literature in its first year, nos. 19–20 (Mehr 1370/Sept. 1991): 32–39. Kelk is planning to dedicate a complete number to Japan in 1996 (information from editor ‘Ali Dehbashi). On Japanese women see “Zan-e Zhāponī va moshkel-e eshteghāl,” Zan-e rūz (14 Bahman 1368/3 February 1980): 12–13, 51.