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The Confessions of Dolgoruki: Fiction and Masternarrative in Twentieth-Century Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Mina Yazdani
Mina Yazdani*
Affiliation:
Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto
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Abstract

This paper is an in-depth study of The Confessions of Dolgoruki, the purported memoirs of a nineteenth-century Russian ambassador to Iran, long adduced as a document proving the claim that the Bahā'īs of Iran are spies of foreign powers. It unearths several early versions of the text, contextualizes the creation of The Confessions, exams the zeitgeist that produced it, and tracks the changes the text went through as the dominant socio-political discourse changed over time. In discussing the range of reactions The Confessions provoked, this paper traces the intriguing path through which this text created the masternarrative of Bahā'ī espionage. Finally, a hypothesis regarding the identity of the original creator of the text is advanced.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 2011 , pp. 25 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 The International Society for Iranian Studies

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Footnotes

I would like to express my thanks to Professor Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi (University of Toronto) for his many vital comments and insightful suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper.

References

1 As we shall see, this text has been published under several different titles, including, “Yāddāsht'hā-yi Dolgoruki,” “Guzārish-i Ginyāz Dolgoruki,” “I‘tirāfāt-i siyāsī,” “Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish-i maz¯hab-i Bāb va Bahā,” and “I‘tirāfāt-i Kinyāz Dolgoruki.” In the present study, it will be referred to as The Confessions of Dolgoruki or The Confessions.

2 See the first historiographical study of The Confessions of Dolgoruki in Mohamad, Tavakoli-Targhi, “Bahā’īsitīzī va Islamgarā'ī dar Iran,” Iran Nameh, 19, no. 1–2 (Winter/Spring 2001): 79–124Google Scholar; idem, “Anti-Baha'ism and Islamism in Iran,” trans. Ghaemmaghami, Omid, in The Baha'is of Iran: Socio-historical Studies, ed. Dominic Parviz, Brookshaw and Fazel, Seena B. (London, 2008), 200–231Google Scholar. For a discussion of The Confessions of Dolgoruki within the context of conspiracy theories, see Ashraf, Ahmad, “The Appeal of Conspiracy Theories to Persians,” Princeton Papers (Winter 1997): 55–88Google Scholar; idem, “Tavahhum-i tawṭi'ih,” Guftigū (Summer 1374/1995): 7–45; and Chehabi, Houchang E., “The Paranoid Style in Iranian Historiography,” in Iran in the 20th Century: Historiography and Political Culture, ed. Atabaki, Touraj (London, 2009), 155–176Google Scholar. For a study of The Confessions in relation to the persecution of the Bahā'īs of Iran, see [Moojan Momen], “Conspiracy Theories and Forgeries: The Bahā'ī Community of Iran and the Construction of an Internal Enemy,” forthcoming. See also Momen, Moojan, “Dolgorukov Memoirs,” Envyclopaedia-Iranica, VII: 477–479Google Scholar.

3 Kasravī, in 1322, wrote that the luck chain letter had appeared “three-four years” earlier. See Aḥmad, Kasravī, Bahā'ī'garī (Tehran, n.d), 70Google Scholar.

4 See Ḥasan I‘ẓām, Qudsī, Khāṭirāt-i man yā tārīkh-i ṣad sālah-i Iran, 2nd ed (Tehran, 1379/2000), 2: 910Google Scholar. Chain letters, i.e., letters that explicitly directed the recipient to make and distribute copies of them, were a phenomenon long prevalent in Europe. In the 1920s and 1930s, there was an upsurge of luck chain letters that appealed primarily to superstition, promising good luck if the letter was replicated and bad luck if it were not. See http://www.silcom.com/~barnowl/chain-letter/evolution.html (accessed 14 December 2009). Pointing to the dissemination of The Confessions at the beginning in the form of a luck chain letter, Kasravī correctly described such letters as an “afsānah-yi farangī” (European tale). Kasravī, , “Āftāb-i ḥaqāyiq yā durūgh-i rusvā,” Parcham, 1, no. 4 (Urdībihisht 1322/1943): 171Google Scholar. The first propagator of The Confessions, therefore, may have been familiar with this European phenomenon.

5 Our knowledge of its publication “in two–three newspapers” in 1322 is based on Kasravī's remarks. See Aḥmad, Kasravī, Bahā'īgari (Tehran, n.d), 119Google Scholar.

6 “Guzārish-i Ginyāz Dolgoruki,” in Sayyid Muḥammad Bāqir Ḥijāzī, Islām va mahdavīyat (Tehran, n.d), 109–147. Dating the publication of Islam va mahdavīyat (and hence The Confession included in it) is not an easy task. Neither the book itself, nor Khān Bābā Mushār's Fihrist-i kitāb'ha-yi chāpī mentions a date for publication of Islam va mahdavīyat. At one point in the book, Ḥijāzī refers to the year 1320/1941 as “last year,” but we do not know when it was published. Otherwise, we would expect Kasravī, who wrote on The Confessions in 1322, to refer to its publication and not just the appearance of it in the form of a chain letter. See Kasravī, “Āftāb-i ḥaqāyiq yā durūgh-i rusvā,” 169–177.

7 See Vaẓīfah, No. 41(18 Mihr 1323/1944). Ḥijāzī did not clarify who had published The Confessions or where he had published it.

8 “I‘tirāfāt-i siyāsī: yāddāshthā-yi Kinyāz Dolgoruki,” in Sālnāmah-yi Khurāsān (Mashhad, 1322), 129–160.

9 Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish-i maz¯hab-i Bābī va Bahā’ī dar Iran (Tehran, n.d.).

10 For example, “Bāz ham bikhānīd tā ḥaqīqat rā bidīnīd: asrār-i Bāb va Bahā yā i‘tirāfāt-i Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i fāsh shudah” 10th ed. (Esfahan, n.d.); and “Yāddāsht'hā-yi ‘Kinyāz Dolgoruki’ yā asrār-i fāsh shudah,” 11th ed. (Mashhad, n.d.).

11 “Yāddāsht'hā-yi Dolgoruki,” in Ḥasan I‘ẓām Qudsī, Khāṭirāt-i man yā tārīkh-i ṣad sālah-yi Iran. 2nd edition (Tehran, 1379/2000), 2: 911–929.

12 “Yāddāsht'ha-yi Dolgoruki,” 915; “Guzārish-i Ginyāz Dolgoruki,” 118–119.

13 “I‘tirāfāt-i siyāsī,” 137–138.

14 Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish, 18.

15 This ‘final’ version was also published with a long introduction and footnotes added by Ayatollah Shaykh Muḥammad Khāliṣī. In the introduction, Khāliṣī alleged that the Russian conspiracy included Shaykh Aḥmad Ahsā'ī and Sayyid Kāẓim Rashtī, the intellectual predecessors of the Bābī movement. See I‘tirāfāt-i Kinyāz Dolgoruki, safīr-i rūsīyah dar ‘ahd-i tizār, bih inḥimām-i muqaddamah-yi bisyār jālib az marḥūm-i Ayatollah Khāliṣī (Tehran, n.d). In addition to writing the introduction and footnotes that were published posthumously, Khāliṣī also had a role in publishing The Confessions. See Abedi, Mehdi, “Shī‘īte Socialization in Pahlavi Iran: Autobiographical Sondages in a Postmodern World,” in Debating Muslims: Cultural Dialogues in Postmodernity and Tradition, ed. Fischer, Michael M.J. and Abedi, Mehdi (Madison, 1990), 51Google Scholar. Since we know that Khāliṣī published The Confessions during his lifetime and wrote an introduction and footnotes that were published posthumously, it is plausible that he also redacted the text: perhaps the “final” version is his work, which he preferred to publish on its own during his lifetime.

16 On these errors and internal tensions, see Aḥmad Kasravī, “Āftāb-i ḥaqāyiq yā durūgh-i rusvā,” 170–172; Mujtabá, Mīnuvī, “Intiqād-i kitāb: sharḥ-i zindigānī-i man,” Rāhnamā-yi kitāb 6, no. 1–2 (Farvardīn va Urdībihisht 1342): 25–26Google Scholar; Lajnah-yi Millī-i Nashr-i Ās¯ār-i Amrī, Baḥs¯ī dar i‘tirāfāt-i maj‘ūl muntasab bih Kinyāz Dolgoruki (Tehran, 1352/1973), 23–109; [Momen, Moojan], “Conspiracies and Forgeries: The Attack upon the Bahā’ī Community in Iran: A Response to Dr. David Yazdan's Article, Muslim Brotherhood—Part VIII,” Persian Heritage, 9, no. 35 (2004): 27–29Google Scholar.

17 Lajnah-yi Millī-i Nashr-i Ās¯ār-i Amrī, No Title (Tehran, 1324/1945). This booklet was republished in 1352/1973, under the title Baḥ¯sī dar i‘tirāfāt-i maj‘ūl muntasab bih Kinyāz Dolgoruki, with an introduction incorporating the words of Iqbāl-Āshtiyānī, Kasravī and Mīnuvī refuting the authenticity of The Confessions.

18 During the Qājār period, three different Russian ambassadors by the name Dolgorukov came to Iran: the first was Nikolai Andreevich (d. 1847), during the reign of Fatḥ-‘Alī Shah. See Aleksandr, Aleksandrovich Polovtsov, Russikii Biografischeski Slovar (St. Petersburg, 1905), 6: 553–554Google Scholar; the second, Dimitry Ivanovich (d. 1867) (the one to whom The Confessions is ascribed), a contemporary of Muḥammad Shah and Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah. See Polovtsov, , Russikii Biografischeski Slovar, 6:533Google Scholar; and finally the third, Nikolai Sergeevich (d. 1913) who came to Iran during the last years of the reign of Nāṣir al-Dīn shah. P.Kh. Dvor'i‘anskie rody Rossiiskoi imperii [Noble Families of Imperial Russia] vol.1 (IPK “Vesti,” 1993): 196.

19 The supporters of The Confessions were quick to include a reference to the title and edition of a real journal (the “August 1924/1925” issue of the Russian journal Novyi Vostok) in the introduction of later editions, claiming that the original text of The Confessions had been published there. With the help of Dr. Marta Simidchieva of York University and the University of Toronto in Mississauga, the present writer reviewed all the 1924 and 1925 issues of the journal and found no references to Dolgoruki or anything written by him. I wish to record my thanks to Dr. Simidchieva for her assistance.

20 Aleksander Tumanskii, Valentin A. Zhukovski, Aleksander Kasumovich Kazembek and Edward Browne were specifically mentioned. Lajnah-yi Millī-i Nashr-i Ās¯ār-i Amrī, Baḥs¯ī dar i‘tirāfāt, 21.

21 “Excerpts from Dispatches Written During 1848–1852 by Prince Dolgorukov, Russian Minister to Persia,” World Order (Fall 1966): 17–24. According to World Order, a person “employed as an Oriental secretary by the Russian Legation” was a Bābī. Moojan Momen tells us, however, that this person, Mīrzā Majīd Āhī was not himself a Bābī, and he may have been regarded as such because he was the brother-in-law of Bahā'u'llāh, a prominent Bābī who would later found the Bahā'ī religion. See Momen, Moojan, The Bābī and Bahā'ī Religions, 1844–1944: Some Contemporary Western Accounts (Oxford, 1981), 6Google Scholar. In 1952, when the latter was imprisoned along with many other Bābīs in Tehran, Mīrzā Majīd urged Dolgorouki to press the government to release him. See Balyuzi, H.M., Bahā'u'llāh: The King of Glory (Oxford, 1980), 99Google Scholar.

For more on Dolgoruki's dispatches, see Momen, The Bābī and Bahā'ī Religions, 1844–1944, 4, 5, 9–10,75,77–78, 92–95, and passim. The dispatches were first published in Mikhail Sergeevich Ivanov, The Bābī Uprisings in Iran [Bābīdskie vosstaniia v Irane] (1848–1852) (Moskva, 1939). An expanded version of this book was published with some revisions under the title, Anti-feudal Uprising in Iran in Mid-19th Century [Antifeodal'nye vosstaniia v Irane v seredine XIX] (Moskva, 1982). We do not have data on whether the existence of the real dispatches had been an inspiration for the author of The Confessions. Ivanov's short biography does not reveal whether he traveled to Iran before 1939 when his book was published or whether he was in touch with Iranians while preparing the dissertation on which the book was based. See http://www.mgimo.ru/content1.asp.

22 For example: [Moojan Momen], “Conspiracies and Forgeries,” which was submitted by Katherine Bigelow, Director, Office of External Affairs, The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahā'īs of the United States; and Bahman Nīkandīsh, “Mubārizah-'i nājavānmardānah: Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish-i maz¯hab-i Bāb va Bahā' dar Iran,” Payām-i Bahā'ī, No. 309–310 (2005): 43–49.

23 Aḥmad Kasravī, “Āftāb-i ḥaqāyiq yā durūgh-i rusvā,” 172.

24 Aḥmad Kasravī, Bahā'īgarī (Tehran, n.d.), 70.

25 ‘Abbās Iqbāl-Āshtiyānī, “Mā va khvānandigān,” Yādigār, 5, no. 8–9 (Farvardīn va Urdībihisht 1328): 148Google Scholar.

26 Maḥmūd, Maḥmūd, Tārīkh-i ravābiṭ-i siyāsī-i Iran va Inglīs dar qarn-i nūzdahum-i milādī (Tehran, 1954), 8:143Google Scholar. For Taqīzadah's words, see ‘Abbās Zaryāb, Khu'ī, “Taqīzadah ānchinān kih man mīshinākhtam,” in Yādnāmah-yi Taqīzadah, ed. Ḥabīb, Yaghmāyī (Tehran, 1349), 166Google Scholar.

27 Mujtabá Mīnuvī, “Intiqād-i kitāb: sharḥ-i zindigānī-yi man,” 25–26.

28 MacEoin, Denise, The Sources for Early Bābī Doctrine and History: A Survey (Leiden, 1992), 171CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Ashraf, “Tavahhum-i Tawṭi'ah,” 35.

30 Tavakoli-Targhi, “Bahā’īsitīzī,” 85–86.

31 Firaydūn, Ādamīyat, Amīr Kabīr va Iran yā varaqī az tārīkh-i siyāsī-i Iran (Tehran, 1323), 233–244Google Scholar.

32 Firaydūn Ādamīyat, Amīr Kabīr va Iran, 3rd ed. (Tehran, 1348), 450.

33 ‘Abd Allāh, Shahbāzī, “Justār'hā’ī az tārīkh-i Bahā'īgarī dar Iran,” Tārīkh-i mu‘āṣir-i Iran, 7, no. 27 (1382/2003)Google Scholar; available at http://www.shahbazi.org/pages/bahaism1.htm.

34 ‘Abd Allāh, Shabāzī, “Sir Shapour Reporter va kūditā-yi 28 Murdād va shabakah'hā-yi iṭṭilā‘ātī-yi Brīṭāniyā va Iyālāt-i Muttahidah-yi Āmrīkā da Iran (1320–1332),” Faṣlnāmah-yi takhaṣṣusī-i tārīkh-i mu‘āṣir-i Iran, 6, no. 23 (Fall 1381/2002): 103–204Google Scholar; available at http://www.shahbazi.org/pages/Reporter0.htm.

35 Abū Turāb, Hudā'ī, Bahā'īyat dīn nīst, 3rd ed. (Tehran, n.d.), 30Google Scholar.

36 See Ayatollah, Kāshānī's introduction in Anvar, Wadūd, Sākhtah'hā-yi Bahā'īyat dar ṣaḥnah-yi dīn va siyāsat (Tehran, 1326)Google Scholar.

37 Ḥusayn-i, Khurāsānī, Fāji‘ah-yi Bahā’īyat yā vāqi‘ah-yi qatl-i Abarqū (Tehran, 1331), 3Google Scholar.

38 ‘Alī Davānī, trans. and ed., Mahdī maw‘ūd: tarjumah-yi jild-i sīzdah-i biḥār al-anwār-i ‘allamah Majlisī (Qom, 1339), 817. On his discussion of the ḥadīth, see Omid Ghaemmaghami, “The Year Sixty: Notes on the Intertextuality of the Ḥadīth of Mufaḍḍal ibn ‘Umar al-Ju‘fī,” forthcoming.

39 Murtaḥá, Aḥmad A. Prince Dolgoruki, 3rd ed. (Tehran, 1346/1967), 36Google Scholar.

40 Akbar Hāshimī, Rafsānjānī, Amīr Kabīr yā qahramān-i mubārizah bā isti‘mār, 2nd ed. (Tehran, 1364), 209Google Scholar.

41 See Partridge, Christopher and Geaves, Ron, “Antisemitism, Conspiracy Culture, Christianity, and Islam: the History and Contemporary Religious Significance of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” in The Invention of Sacred Tradition, ed. Lewis, James R. and Hammer, Olav (Cambridge, 2007), 75–95Google Scholar, quote from page 84. Partridge and Geaves explain the reason for this phenomenon as such: “[O]ne of the problems with conspiracies is that they are difficult to disprove to those committed to them. Cognitive dissonance is quickly and almost instinctively assuaged by incorporating contrary evidence in the theory itself.” This mechanism, they believe, is why in case of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion the conspiracy element contributed most significantly to its longevity. Ibid.

42 See Sayyid Muḥammad, Bāqir Najafī, Bahā'īyān (Tehran, 1357/1978), 619–622Google Scholar. Bahrām, Afrāsiyābī, Tārīkh-i jāmi‘i Bahā’īyat: Nawmasūnī, 3rd ed. (Tehran, 1368/1989), 342–358Google Scholar; idem, Tārīkh-i jāmi‘i Bahā’īyat (kālbudshikāfī-i Bahā'īyat), 10th ed. (Tehran, 1382), 271–283Google Scholar.

43 ‘Imād al-Dīn, Bāqī, Dar shinākht-i ḥizb-i qā‘idīn-i zamān (Tehran, 1362), 28Google Scholar.

44 See Ashraf, “Tavahhum-i tawṭi'ah,” 35–36.

45 Sa‘īd, Zāhid Zāhidānī, Bahā’īyat dar Iran (Tehran, 1380), 19Google Scholar.

46 See ‘Alī, Abū al-Ḥasanī (Munz¯ir), “Iẓhārāt va khāṭirāt-i Ayatollah Ḥājj Shaykh Ḥusayn Lankarānī dabārah-yi Bābīgarī va Bahā’īgarī,” Faṣlnamah-yi muṭāli‘āt-i tārīkhī, vīzhahnāmah-yi Bahā’īyat 4, no. 17 (Tabistan 1386/Summer 2007): 91–97Google Scholar.

47 Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish, 8–17.

48 The Khurāsān edition mentions only “the Jews,” and not “the Mazdakīs.” See “I‘tirāfāt-i siyāsī,”132.

49 Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish, 21. The Khurāsān edition has “Iranian race” (nizhād-i īrānī) rather than Aryan. “I‘tirāfāt-i siyāsī,” 140.

50 This is a reference to the ideology of Qur'anism which formed an integral component of the thought current from which the author of The Confessions emerged.

51 “I‘tirāfāt-i siyāsī” (Khurāsān), 137–138.

52 “Yāddāsht'hā-yi Dolgoruki,” 915; “Guzārish-i Ginyāz Dolgoruki,” 119; “I‘tirāfāt-i siyāsī,” 138.

53 Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish, 19. The history of the notion that Shī‘ism constitutes the fifth legal school of Islam sheds light on understanding the context of the author's Weltanschauung. This idea was proposed for the first time during the reign of Nader Shah who suppressed Shī‘ism but he did allow the Shī‘ah to practice their tradition by granting them status as the fifth legal school. See Said Amir, Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order and Societal Change in Shī‘ite Iran from the Beginning to 1890 (Chicago, 1984), 216Google Scholar. However, the issue was soon forgotten with the fall of Nādir Shah. Following late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century attempts at rapprochement, in 1911, six of the Shī‘ī ulama residing in Iraq signed a fatwa urging unity among Muslims. In the text of this fatwa, Shī‘ism was referred to as “one of the five Islamic legal schools” whose conflicts had led to “the decline (inḥiṭāṭ) of Islamic states” and “the dominance of foreigners (ajānib)”. See “Ahamm al-akhbār wa-al-ārā’,” al-‘Irfān 3, no. 4 (February 1911): 159–160. See also: Brunner, Rainer, Islamic Ecumenism in the 20th Century: The Azhar and Shiism between Rapprochement and Restraint, trans. Greenman, Joseph (Leiden, 2004), 43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish, 10.

55 “Guzārish-i Ginyāz Dolgoruki,” 113, “Yāddāsht'hā-yi Dolgoruki,” 913.

56 Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish, 10.

57 Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish, 15.

58 Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish, 43.

59 “Yāddāsht'hā-yi Dolgoruki,” 912; “Guzārish-i Ginyāz Dolgoruki,” 111.

60 “I‘tirāfāt-i siyāsī,” 132.

61 Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish, 8.

62 Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish, 43.

63 Shāhrukh, Miskūb, “Millīgarā’ī, tamarkuz, va farhang dar ghurūb-i Qājārīyah va ṭulū‘-i ‘aṣr-i Pahlavī,” in Dāstān-i adabīyat va sar guz¯asht-i ijtimā‘ (Tehran, 1373/1994), 5–38Google Scholar, quotes from page 8. Miskūb avers that in many places in the world, nationalism looks for a scapegoat among ethnic, racial, cultural, or religious minorities to blame for all national disappointments, to invoke or direct the anger and hatred of the masses to in order to convince them of its own ideals. He then goes on to state that in Iran, the Arabs and the Imperialist powers have been the “scapegoat”(s). Miskūb, “Millīgarā’ī,” 9.

64 See Mohamad, Tavakoli-Targhi, “Narrative Identity in the Works of Hedayat and his Contemporaries,” in Sadeq Hedayat, His Works and His Wondrous World, ed. Katouzian, Homa (London, 2008), 107–128Google Scholar, quote from pages 107–108. This nationalist memory project, Tavakoli tells us, was configured in the nineteenth century based on “a late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century neo-Zoroastrian identity narrative that sought to dissociate Iran from Islam.” This Iran-centered historical memory, “constituted the pre-Islamic age as an archaetopia—an idealized and memorialized historical period.” Tavakoli-Targhi, “Narrative Identity,” 108–109. See also Mohamad, Tavakoli-Targhi, Refashioning Iran: Orientalism, Occidentalism and Nationalist Historiography (Basingstoke, 2001)Google Scholar.

65 See Rasūl Ja‘fariyān, Jaryān'ha va sāzmān'hā-yi maz¯habī-siyāsī-yi Iran: az rūy-i kār āmadan-i Muḥammad Riz¯ā Shah tā pirūzī-i inqilāb-i islāmī, 1320–1357, 6th repr. (Qum, 1385/2006), 703–721. A discussion of the legitimacy of such categorization and labelling is beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice it to say that there were several reform oriented theologians whose major lines of thought had much in common with proponents of the Salafīyah. The most prominent of these theologians were Sayyid Asad Allāh Kharaqānī (d. 1315/1936) and Sharī‘at Sangalajī. Ja‘fariyān, Jaryān'ha, 706–716. On the Salafīyah, see Brunner, Rainer, Islamic Ecumenism in the 20th Century: The Azhar and Shiism between Rapprochement and Restraint, trans. Greenman, Joseph (Leiden, 2004), 18, 39, 72CrossRefGoogle Scholar and passim; Jakob, Skovgaard-Petersen, Defining Islam for the Modern Egyptian State: Muftis and Fatwas of the Dār al-Iftā (Leiden, 1997)Google Scholar; Ende, W., “Salafiyya 2. In Egypt and Syria,” Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed. VIII: 906–909Google Scholar. For a discussion of the historical and theological background of Islamic reform movements, see Merad, A., “Iṣlāḥ i. The Arab World,” Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed. IV/1: 141–163Google Scholar and Algar, Hamid, “Iṣlāḥ ii. Iran,” Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed. IV/1: 163–167Google Scholar. For the related concept of Wahhābism see Peskes, Esther, “Wahhābiyya 1. The 18th and 19th Centuries,” Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed. XI: 40–45Google Scholar and Ende, W., “Wahhābiyya 2. The 20th Century,” Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed. XI: 45–47Google Scholar. For a concise but useful discussion of the similarities and differences between Salafī and Wahhābī thought, see Atay, Tayfun, “The Significance of the Other in Islam: Reflections on the discourse of a Naqshbandi Circle of Turkish Origin in London,” The Muslim World, no. 89 (July–October 1999): 455–477CrossRefGoogle Scholar, particularly 467–477.

66 See Kharaqānī, , Maḥw al-mawhūm, 38–39Google Scholar. The inclination of these reformists towards Sunnī Islam can be said to have been first and foremost rooted in their subscription to a belief in what has been called Qur'anism—that is to say, a wholesale rejection of most, though not all, of the ḥadīth in favor of the Qur'an as the principal source of religious authority. This in itself would distance them from a normative Shī‘ī approach to Islam.

67 The Protocols have been described as 'one of the most important forgeries of modern times.' Levy, Richard S., “Introduction: The Political Career of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” in A Lie and a Libel: A History of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, by Segal, Benjamin W., trans. and ed. Levy, R.S. (Lincoln, NE, 1995), 3–47Google Scholar. See also Cohn, Norman, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Michigan, 1969)Google Scholar; Partridge, Christopher and Geaves, Ron, “Antisemitism, Conspiracy Culture, Christianity, and Islam: the History and Contemporary Religious Significance of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” in The Invention of Sacred Tradition, ed. Lewis, James R. and Olav, Hammer (Cambridge, 2007), 75–95Google Scholar. For a comparison between The Protocols and The Confessions, see Moshe Sharon, “The ‘Memoires of Dolgorukov’ and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” Honestly-Concerned, http://honestlyconcerned.info/bin/articles.cgi?ID=IR12607&Category=ir&Subcategory=19 (accessed 10 February 2009).

68 The Arabic translation of The Protocols was available as early as 1920; therefore, the creator of The Confessions could have been well aware of it. See Sharon, “The ‘Memoires of Dolgorukov’ and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” For the Persian translation of The Protocols, see: Ghulam-Riḥā, Sa‘īdī, Khaṭar-i jahūd barāyi jahān- Islam (Tehran, 1335/1956), 116–120Google Scholar.

69 While The Confessions of Dolgoruki was inspired by The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, it itself seems to have been a source of inspiration for the forgery of other documents. Nearly ten years after the publication of The Confessions there appeared in Iran the forged memoirs of Abū al-Qāsim Lāhūtī. See Ahmad, Ashraf, “Conspiracy Theories,” Encyclopaedia Iranica VI: 138–147Google Scholar.

70 See Ahmad, Ashraf, “The Appeal of Conspiracy Theories to Persians,” Princeton Papers (Winter 1997), 57–88Google Scholar, quote from page 18. In a book published around the same time as The Confessions, Ḥusayn Kūhī Kirmānī the editor of the newspaper Nasim-i Sabā, despite indicating in a footnote that The Testament of Peter the Great was “created in the name of Peter after him,” in the main text refers to The Testament as drawing the main guidelines of Russian politics and foreign policy and then quotes an item from that document: “Do your best to get close to Istanbul as much as you can … Facilitate the demise of Iran, and penetrate up to the Persian gulf.” He then adds, “Almost all the successors of Peter, the Imperialists of Russia, have followed the guidelines set in this document.” Ḥusayn Kūhī Kirmānī, Az Shahrīvar 1320 tā fāji‘ah-yi Āz¯arbāyjān va Zanjān: tārīkh-i ravābiṭ-i Rūs va Iran (Tehran, 1942), 20–21.

71 See section 1 of this article.

72 Ḥijāzī, Islam va Mahdavīyat, 93.

73 Murtaḥá, Aḥmad A. Prince Dolgoruki, 3rd ed. (Tehran, 1346/1967), 38Google Scholar.

74 ‘Abd al-Raḥīm Talibov, Siyāsat-i Ṭālibī (Tehran, 1329 A.H/1290S/1911). Talibov wrote Siyāsat-i Ṭālibī in 1320Q/1902. The book was published posthumously in 1329Q/1911. See Firaydūn, Ādamīyat, Andīshah'hā-yi Talibov-i Tabrīzī (Tehran, 1363/1984), 4Google Scholar.

75 Talibov, Siyāsat-i Ṭālibī, 3–4.

76 Talibov, Siyāsat-i Ṭālibī, 5.

77 Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish, 15. In this specific example, the Ẓill al-Sulṭān that the author of The Confessions had in mind was the son of Fatḥ ‘Alī Shah who crowned himself in Tehran under the title ‘Ādil Shah (See ‘Abd Allāh, Mustawfī, Sharḥ-i zindigānī-i man yā tārīkh-i ijtimā‘ī va idārī-i dawrah-yi Qājārīyah, 2 vols (Tehran, 1341), 1:42)Google Scholar; whereas the Ẓill al-Sulṭān of Talibov's Siyāsat-i Ṭālibī was Mas‘ūd Mīrzā, the son of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah.

78 Muḥammad Bāqir Ḥijāzī, “Mu‘arrifī-i kitāb-i Islam va Mahdavīyat,” Vaẓīfah 41(18 Mihr 1323/10 October 1944).

79 Along the same lines, Chehabi writes, “For obvious reasons, the Allied invasion of Iran in 1941 and the country's occupation by British, Soviet and American forces led Iranians to interpret subsequent events in light of conspiracies.” Chehabi, “The Paranoid Style,” 161.

80 Popper, Karl R., “Critiques of the Classical Theories of History,” in Theories of History, ed. Patrick, Gardiner (Clencoe, IL, 1959), 281Google Scholar.

81 Leonidas, Donkins, “The Conspiracy Theory, Demonization of the Other,” Innovations, 11, no. 3 (1998): 349–360Google Scholar, quotation from page 354.

82 For the postmodern notion of identity being contingent, only existing in relation to something else (the Other); and the Other conditioning the existence of any given identity see: Judith, Butler, Giving an Account of Oneself (New York, 2005)Google Scholar; Kevin, Hetherington, Expressions of Identity: Space, Performance, Politics (London, 1998)Google Scholar. Alberto, Melucci, The Playing Self (Cambridge, 1996)Google Scholar. For a case study on the identification of self through an Other in a Muslim community, see Tayfun, Atay, “The Significance of the Other in Islam: Reflections of the Discourse of a Naqshbandi Circle of Turkish Origin in London,” The Muslim World, 89, no. 3–4 (July–October 1999): 455–477Google Scholar.

For a discussion of the internal Other and the external Other, and their demonization see Ziva, Amishai-Maisels, “The Demonization of the ‘Other’ in the Visual Arts,” in Demonizing the Other: Antisemitism, Racism and Xenophobia, ed. Wistrich, Robert S. (Amsteldijk, The Netherlands, 1999), 44–72Google Scholar.

83 Abbas, Amanat, “The historical roots of the persecution of Babis and Baha'is in Iran,” in The Baha'is of Iran: Socio-Historical Studies, ed. Dominic, Brookshaw and Fazel, Seena B. (London and New York, 2007), 180–181Google Scholar.

84 The same type of melded national identity has been in order, at least for some Islamists, in post-revolutionary Iran, who have given a central position to “Iran and the Iranian nation but identified both with Islam.” For this “Iranian nationalist form of Islamism,” then, “deviant religion and treason to the nation” have collapsed into one another in Bahā'īs as the nation's internal Other. It has been alleged “not only that they were spies for foreign powers, but also that they were national apostates, defectors from the Iranian Muslim nation.” See Cole, Juan R.I., “The Bahā'ī Minority and Nationalism in Contemporary Iran,” in Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies, ed. Maya, Shatzmiller (Montreal, Quebec, 2005), 127–63Google Scholar, quotes from pages 150, 157.

85 Tavakoli-Targhi, “Anti-Baha'ism,” 202, original Persian in idem, “Bahā'īsitīzī,” 81. Negar Mottahedeh has also discussed the ways in which “the Bābī” constituted the “negative stereotype and fetishized image against which the modern nation identified itself.” Negar, Mottahedeh, “The Mutilated Body of the Modern Nation: Qurrat al-‘Ayn Tahirah's Unveiling and the Iranian Massacre of the Babis,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, XVIII, no. 2 (1998): 38–47Google Scholar. See also idem, Representing the Unrepresentable: Historical Images of National Reform From the Qajars to the Islamic Republic of Iran (New York, 2008).

86 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments, 113, also discussed in Cole, “The Bahā'ī Minority,” 159.

87 This connection that The Confessions of Dolgoruki makes between Bahā'īs and the foreign power has been interpreted as a way to appeal to the changes of mentality of younger members of the upper class for whom the earlier purely theological anti-Bahā'ī polemics were no more attractive. See Firuz, Kazemzadeh, “The Bahā'īs of Iran: Twenty Years of Repression,” Social Research, 67, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 537–558Google Scholar. While this specific alleged link with the imperialists was a phenomenon of the modern world, the practice of associating the ostracized with enemies outside the community is one “familiar in other times and places.” See Bernard, Lewis, “Some Observations on the Significance of Heresy in the History of Islam,” Studia Islamica, no. 1 (1953): 43–63Google Scholar.

88 See the section on Kharaqānī in this paper.

89 Kharaqānī, Maḥw al-mawhūm 2.

90 Kharqani, Maḥw al-mawhūm, 2–3, see also 34.

91 See Jacob, Torfing, New Theories of Discourse : Laclau, Mouffe, and Zizek (Oxford, 1999), 301Google Scholar.

92 See Cole's discussion of Hobsbawm's comparison between civic nations that make a place for their minorities, and the exclusionary ones that achieve their unity through singling out their minorities: Cole, “The Bahā'ī Minority,” 159; and Hobsbawm, E. J., Nations and nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

93 On Shaykh Ibrāhīm Zanjānī, see Mahdī Bāmdād, Tārīkh-i rijāl-i Iran (Tehran, 1347), 1: 15; Abū al-Ḥasan ‘Alavī, “Rijāl-i ṣadr-i mashrūṭīyat,” Yaghmā, 5, no. 3 (Khurdād 1331): 133; and his autobiography: Shaykh Ibrāhīm Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt-i Shaykh Ibrāhīm Zanjānī (Sarguz¯asht-i zindigānī-i man), ed. Ghulām Ḥusayn Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ (Tehran, 1379). Regarding the latter, see Mahdī Khalajī, “Naqd-i darūnī-i rawḥānīyat, guzārishī dar secularism,” Iran Nameh, 4 (Winter 1383): 489–511. According to Homa Nateq, the original copy of Zanjānī's autobiography kept in the library of the parliament in Iran differs markedly from the published version of the book. See Homa Nateq, “Rawḥānīyat az parākandigī ta qudrat 1828–1909” Rahāvard 83 (Summer 2008): 95. On Zanjānī as the prosecutor of the revolutionary court that condemned Shaykh Faḥl Allāh Nūrī to death, see Browne, Edward G., The Persian Revolution of 1905–1909 (London, 1966), 444Google Scholar; Janet, Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906–1911: Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, and the Origins of Feminism (New York, 1996), 258Google Scholar, 265.

94 Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, 242, 239, 245.

95 For a thorough study of Zanjānī's views on the successorship of Muḥammad and his Islamic political theory, see Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, 30–50. He firmly believed that Islam had been corrupted and he was responsible for establishing “Islam-i ḥaqīqī” (real Islam). See Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, 51, 53, 55, 76, 85, 89, 94–95.

96 Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, 46.

97 On Zanjānī's extensive criticism of the clerics, see Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, 53–76 and passim.

98 As examples, compare the dialogue between a Sunnī and a Shī‘ī in Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, 42–50, with the dialogues between the narrator of The Confessions and Ḥakīm Aḥmad Gīlānī in Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish, 8–12.

99 The proverb “yik murīd-i khar bihtar az yik dih-i shish dang ast” (an imbecile is worth more than the possession of a whole village) appear in both texts in the context of the critique of the clerics. See the oldest published version of The Confessions: I‘ẓām Qudsī, Khāṭirāt-i man, 925; Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, 116. For passages with strikingly similar prose, compare Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish, 17, with Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, 124; and Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish, 10–11, with Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, 51.

100 Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish, 54.

101 Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, 148.

102 For his interest in reading novels see Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, 149, 182, 195. On his novel-like works see ‘Abd Allāh, Shahbāzī, “Zindigī va zamānah-yi Ibrāhīm Zanjānī, justar'hā’ī az tārīkh-i tajaddudgarā'ī-i Īrānī,” part 1 Zamānah 2:10 (Tīr 1382):13–19, part 2, Zamānah 2:11 (Murdād 1382): 25–28Google Scholar, part 3, Zamānah 2:12 (Shahrīvar 1382): 15–18. Based on the information Shahbāzī provides in these articles, it can be said that Zanjānī's novel-like works share with The Confessions a melding of fact and fiction and an authorial preference to remain anonymous.

103 Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, 195.

104 Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, 133–139.

105 Rajm al-dajjāl fī radd-i Bāb al-ḥalāl, 2 vols, 1313 Q, Manuscript in private hands. See ‘Alī Abū al-Ḥasanī (Munz¯ir), Shaykh Ibrāhīm Zanjānī: zamān, zindigī, khāṭirāt, bih ḥamīmah-yi baḥs¯i dar “vilāyat-i takvīnī-i” payāmbar va a'immah-yi ma‘ṣumīn (‘as). 2nd ed. (Tehran, 1387), 23. See also, Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, 149.

106 Zanjānī was closely associated with Z¯ukā' al-Mulk Furūghī and Ṣadr al-Ulama, See Iraj, Afshar, ed., Awrāq-i tāzihyāb-i mashrūṭīyat, marbūṭ bih sāl'hā-yi 1325–1330 (Tehran, 1359), 335–345Google Scholar. He was also a close friend of and Ḥājj Sayyāḥ Maḥallātī who was closely connected with Azalīs and may have himself been one. See Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, On Sayyāḥ's Azalī connections, see Mangol, Bayat, Iran's First Revolution: Shī‘īsm and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1909 (New York, 1991), 67–68Google Scholar.

107 Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, 124, 148.

108 Zanjānī, Khāṭirāt, 185, 202, 204, 209.

109 See Zanjānī, , Khāṭirāt, 155, 195Google Scholar. For ‘scientific’ passages in The Confessions, see the words of ‘Ḥakīm Aḥmad Gīlānī’ on the influence of narcotics and wine. Kinyāz Dolgoruki yā asrār-i paydāyish, 37–38, 41.

110 See Vaẓīfah, No. 41 (18 Mihr 1323/1944). See also the section ‘Different Editions’ in this article.

111 See Ḥijāzī, Islam va Mahdavīyat, 4. See also references to Ḥijāzī in the section of this paper on the socio-historical context of the appearance of The Confessions.

112 Ḥijāzī, Islam va Mahdavīyat, 32–33, 57.

113 He wrote a number of novels including: Darvīsh qurbān, Ṭūfān-i balā, and Fīrūzah.

114 Kasravī's reference to a bī māyah (unremarkable) man having created The Confessions could well have been made about Ḥijāzī, given the latter's romance novels and the former's aversion to such novels in general. See Kasravī, Bahā'īgarī, 70. For Kasravī's view on novels, see Aḥmad, Kasravī, “Yikum-i Daymāh va dāstānash,” Parcham, 1, no. 1 (Farvardīn 1322): 1–7Google Scholar.

115 See Partridge and Geaves, ““Antisemitism, Conspiracy Culture,” 84.

116 Donkins, “The Conspiracy Theory,” 360.