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Liberty and Licence in the Constitutional Revolution of Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Homa Katouzian
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Extract

It is characteristic of Iranian revolts and rebellions that they usually occur when the state is perceived to be weak and unable to enforce its authority. Naser al-Din Shah was an arbitrary ruler like all his predecessors. But, the consequences of arbitrary rulers were not all alike either for themselves or for the country. Much depended on their personalities as well as the circumstances in which they lived. For example, the fall of the Safavid state and its dreadful consequences for Iranian society and economy were largely due to the personality traits of Shah Sultan Hosain which combined extreme promiscuity and intemperance with common superstition, susceptibility to influence, and timidity and indecisiveness at moments of crisis. Otherwise, the state would not have fallen so swiftly and miserably in the face of rebellion by some of the poorest and most backward nomads of the far eastern provinces of the empire.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , July 1998 , pp. 159 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1998

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References

1 See further, Katouzian, Homa, “Problem of political development in Iran: democracy, dictatorship or arbitrary government?”, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, XXIIGoogle Scholar; Estebdad, Demokrasi Va Nehzat-e Melli (London and Tehran, 1993/1372)Google Scholar, especially chapters one and five; “Arbitrary rule: a theory of state, politics and society in Iran”, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, XXIVGoogle Scholar; “The aridisolatic society: a model of long term social and economic development in Iran”, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 07 1983Google Scholar; The Political Economy of Modem Iran (London and New York, 1981), especially chapters 2–5Google Scholar. For a detailed description of events in the specific case of the collapse of the Safavid state, see, Lockhart, Lawrence, The Fall of the Safavid Dynasty and the Afghan Occupation of Persia (Cambridge, 1958)Google Scholar; Nadir Shah (London, 1938).Google Scholar

2 The picture in question has been published in Wright, Denis, The Persians amongst the English: Episodes in Anglo-Persian History (London, 1985).Google Scholar

3 When he had decided to back down, he wrote in his first letter to Hajj Mirza Hasan Mojtahed-e Ashtiyani: “As for the tobacco question, no-one is infallible, and – among human beings – perfect knowledge belongs to the pure person of our prophet, peace be unto him. There are times when one takes a decision which he later regrets. Just on this tobacco business I had already thought of withdrawing the domestic monopoly … such that they would not be able to complain and ask for a large compensation and, at the same time, the people be rid of the European monopoly of internal trade which was truly harmful. We were about to take action when the edict (hokm) of Mirza-ye Shirazi … was published in Isfahan and gradually reached Tehran … Would it not have been better if you had petitioned us – either individually or collectively to withdraw the monopoly … without all the noise and the stopping (tark) of qalian”. See Nazem al-Islam-e Kermani, , Tarikh-e Bidari-ye Iraniyan, ed., Sirjani, Sa'idi, (Tehran, 1362/1983), pp. 22–39.Google Scholar

4 After Sepahsalar-e Qazvini submitted his draft constitution to the Shah for the creation of a responsible Council of Ministers, the Shah wrote beneath it: “Jenab-e Sadr-e A 'zam: I very much approve of this account which you have written concerning the Council of Ministers. With God's blessings make the necessary arrangements and put it into action soon, since any delay would mean a loss to the state.” Quoted in Mostawfi, Abdullah, Sharh-e Zendegani-ye Man, i, (Tehran, 1360/1981), p. 123Google Scholar. See also Mostashar al-Dawleh's death-bed letter to the heir-designate, Mozaffar al-Din Mirza, in Nazem al-Islam-e Kermani, , Tarikh-e Bidari-ye Iraniyan, pp. 172–7Google Scholar. See further, Adamiyat, Feraidun-e, Fekr-e Ejtema 'i-ye Demokrasi dar Nehzat-e Mashrutiyat-e Iran (Tehran, 1354/1975).Google Scholar

5 See Nava'i, Abdolhosain, ed., Sharh-e Hal-e Abbas Mirza Molk Ara (Tehran, 1361/1982), p. 175, emphasis added.Google Scholar

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9 After Amin al-Dawleh's death, Talebof wrote in a private letter: “God immerse him in his blessings. It is extremely sad that he is not alive now to end the problem of our lack of statesmanship. A long time would have to pass before anyone of his calibre could emerge …” See Yaghma, vol. 15, no. 4, p. 179.Google Scholar

10 Yaddasht-ha-ye Malek al-Movarrkhin va Mer'at al-Vaqaye'-e Mozajfari, Nava'i, Abdolhosain, ed. (Tehran, 1368/1989)Google Scholar. See Mer'at, pp. 127–247Google Scholar. It is worth emphasizing that evidence of increasing disorder and chaos may be found in almost all contemporary sources and the sources written later by and with first-hand experience of the events. Indeed, in his voluminous memoirs Abdullah Mostawfi occasionally refers to the period between the turn of the twentieth century and the coup d'etat of 1921 as “die twenty-year chaos”. Here we shall cite the evidence from Malek al-Movarrekhin's two books because they have almost just come to light, they cover die years immediately before the onset of the revolution, and they have systematically recorded the events at the time of their happening. For corroborating evidence, see for example, Mostawfi, Abdullah, Shah-e Zendegani-ye Man …, ii & iii (Tehran, 1360–1981)Google Scholar; Dawlat-Abadi, Yahya, Hayat-e Yahya, iii & iv (Tehran, 1372/1902)Google Scholar; Mokhber al-Saltaneh, Haj, Khaterat va Khatarat (Tehran, 1363/1984); Khaterat-e Ehtesham al-Saltaneh.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., p. 267.

12 Ibid., p. 270.

13 Ibid., pp. 306–7.

14 See Yaddasht-ha, pp. 20–2.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., pp. 23–6.

16 Ibid., pp. 26–7.

17 Ibid., pp. 27–8.

18 Ibid., p. 29.

19 Ibid., pp. 30–2.

20 Ibid., p. 92.

21 Ibid., pp. 102–3.

22 Ibid., p. 113.

23 Ibid., p. 121.

24 Ibid., p. 184.

25 Ibid., p. 231.

26 Ibid., p. 241.

27 Ibid., pp. 251–2.

28 Ibid., p. 260. Incidentally this should end speculation about whether or not the term mashruteh had had currency before the constitution was granted. The traditional term, of course, was qonstitusiun. This became a matter of dispute between Mohammad Ali Shah and the Majlis when the former insisted that his father's farman which he too had endorsed at the time had specifically granted qonstitusiun not mashruteh. See, for example, al-Saltaneh, Mokhber (Cozaresh-e Iran: Qajariyeh va Mashrutiyat, Tehran, 1363/1984) who had told the Shah that the former could have a more radical meaning than the latter.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., p. 269.

30 Ibid., p. 271.

31 Ibid., pp. 271–2.

32 Ibid., p. 273.

33 See Khaterat-e Ehtesham al-Saltaneh, Nazem al-Islam-e Kermani, Tarikh-e Bidari-ye Iraniyan, and Kasravi, Ahmad, Tarikh-e Mashruteh-ye Iran (Tehran, 1346/1967).Google Scholar

34 See, among other sources, Marcuse, Herbert, Reason and Revolution, second edition (London, 1955)Google Scholar. Kaufman, W. A., Hegel (New York, 1957)Google Scholar; and From Shakespeare to Existentialism (New York, 1960)Google Scholar. McLellan, David, Young Hegelians and Karl Marx (London, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Russell, Bertrand, Philosophy and Politics (Cambridge, 1947).Google Scholar

35 See, Katouzian, Homa, Ideology and Method in Economics (London and New York, 1980), pp. 151–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 See, for example, Engels, Friedrich, Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science: Anti-Dühring, ed., Dutt, C. P. (London, 1943)Google Scholar; Dialectics of Nature (Moscow, 1964)Google Scholar; Bukharin, Nikkoli, Historical Materialism (New York, 1928)Google Scholar; Stalin, Joseph, Dialectical and Historical Materialism (London, 1941).Google Scholar

37 See, for example, Katouzian, Homa, Ideology and Method in Economics. George Lichtheim, Marxism (London, 1962)Google Scholar. Plamenatz, John, German Marxism and Russian Communism (London, 1954)Google Scholar. Berlin, Isaiah, Karl Marx (Oxford, third edition, 1963)Google Scholar; McLellan, David, Karl Marx (London, 1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 The more important primary references are to be found in Marx's contributions to the American newspaper Daily Tribune in the 1850sGoogle Scholar, and his brief analytical classification of societies in the Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)Google Scholar. For detailed bibliographical references, see anderson, Perry, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London, 1974)Google Scholar; and Wittfogel, Karl, Oriental Despotism (New Haven, 1957).Google Scholar

39 See, Homa Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modem Iran, Chapter 2, text as well as the appendix.

40 See, Ibid., tables 3.2 to 3.8. The structural change in favour of primary production and exports, and against manufacturing, may be seen particularly from table 3.7.

41 For the extent and effects of debasement, depreciation, inflation, etc., see, Ibid., text as well as tables 3.2–3.5,

42 For detailed analysis and evidence, see Ibid.

43 They were many among the nobles and notables who raised the issue of law and responsible government before younger middle class intellectuals stepped in, including Abbas Mirza Molk Ara, Sepahsalar-e Qazvini, Malkam Khan, Mostashar al-Dawleh, Amin al-Dawleh, E'temad al-Saltaneh, Sa'd al-Dawleh, Mokhber al-Sal- taneh, Sani 'al-Dawleh and Ehtesham al-Saltaneh.

44 For an especially uncompromising academic example of the revisionist account see, Mangol Bayat, Iran's First Revolution, Shi'ism and the Constitutional Revolution 0/1905–1909. Vanessa Martin has examined the new view against the evidence and found that about two-thirds of the ulema supported constitutional government. See her Islam and Modernism: The Iranian Revolution of 1906 (London, 1989). However, as will be seen in the text below, no-one but Nuri among the mashru'eh supporters could compete qualitatively even with Behbahani and Tabataba'i, let alone the great ulema at Najaf.Google Scholar 44a For a very recent study of the role of democrats, women, etc., Afari, Janet, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution 1906–1911: Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, and the Origins of Feminism. (New York, 1996).Google Scholar

45 See, Kasravi, Ahmad, Tarikh-e Mashruteh-ye Iran, pp. 415–23.Google Scholar

46 Ibid., pp. 415–16.

47 Ibid., pp. 416–17.

48 Ibid., pp. 432–8.

49 See, al-Islam-e Kermani, Nazem, Tarikh-e Bidari-ye Imniyan, pp. 241–3.Google Scholar

50 See their numerous statements, their correspondence with the ulema in Iran, and their aggressive and uncompromising letters to the Shah himself in Kasravi's Tarikh-e Mashruteh and Nazem al-Islam's Tarikh-e Bidari. Here is a small sample from the latter (Tarikh-e Bidari, ii, p. 214) quoted from a telegram by Tehrani, Khorasani, and Mazandarani to Behbahani, Tabataba'i and Afjeh'i: “Now we openly declare [to all the armed forces] that following orders, and shooting at the people and the supporters of the Majlis is the same as taking orders from Yazid son of Mo 'avia, and is a negation of Islam.”Google Scholar

51 See, Ibid., pp. 365–71.

52 Ibid., pp. 365–7.

53 Ibid., pp. 367–71.

54 For the full fatva, see Katouzian, Homa, The Political Economy of Modem Iran, p. 64.Google Scholar

55 See, for example, Korngold, Ralph, Robespierre (London, 1937)Google Scholar. Valentin, Antonia, Mirabeau, Voice of The Revolution (London, 1948)Google Scholar. SirWoodward, Llewelyn, French Revolutions (Oxford, 1965).Google Scholar

56 See, Algar, Hamid, Mirza Malkam Khan, A Study in the History of Iranian Modernism (Berkeley, 1973)Google Scholar. Many contemporary sources are – at times highly – uncomplimentary about Malkam Khan's ethics; see, for example, Khaterat-e Ehtesham al-Saltaneh. According to E'temad al-Saltaneh, Reuter had paid large bribes to Sepahsalar-e Qazvini and Malkam – among others – for obtaining the Reuter Concession. See, Shaikholeslami, Javad, “Emtiyaz-e Este 'mari-ye Reuter” in Qatl-e Atabak va Shanzdah Maqaleh-ye Tahqiqi-ye Digar (Tehran, 1367/1988).Google Scholar

57 See, for example, Wedgewood, C. V., The King's Peace, 1637–1641 (London, 1955)Google Scholar; The King's War, 1641–1647 (London, 1958)Google Scholar; The Trial of Charles I (London, 1964)Google Scholar. Hill, Christopher, The English Revolution (London, 1955)Google Scholar; The Century of Revolution, 1603–1714 (London, 1988).Google Scholar

58 See, for example, the sources mentioned in note (55), above, as well as Leo Gershoy, The Era of the French Revolution (1789–1799) (Princeton, 1957)Google Scholar; From Despotism to Revolution (New York, 1963).Google Scholar

59 The most famous of them are some of the leading social contract theorists such as John Locke and liberal economists such as Adam Smith, David Hume and the French Physiocrats.

60 See, in particular, his famous essay, On Liberty (London, 1938).Google Scholar

61 Berlin, Isaiah, Two Concepts of Liberty (Oxford, 1959).Google Scholar

62 Laski, Harold, A Grammar of Politics (London, 1963).Google Scholar

63 See, Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty.

64 See, Homa Katouzian, “Demokrasi, Diktatori va mas'uliyyat-e Mellat” in Estebdad, Demokrasi va Nehzat-e Melli.

65 See, Ariyanpur, Yahya, Az Saba ta Nima, i (Tehran, 1351/1972), pp. 289–90.Google Scholar

66 Ibid., p. 290.

67 Ibid.

68 Ibid., p. 291.

69 See, Katouzian, Homa, Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran (London and New York, 1990)Google Scholar; “Introduction” to Musaddiq's Memoirs, ed. Katouzian, Homa (London, 1988)Google Scholar; and The Political Economy of Modem Iran.

70 Of the contemporary sources, Hajj Mokhber al-Saltaneh (Khaterat va Khatarat, and Gozaresh-e Iran: Qajariyeh va Mashrutiyat) believed that Atabak had been murdered by the Shah's hatchet men – Movaqqar al-Saltaneh, Mafakher al-Molk and Modabber al-Sultan – who were certainly around when the Majlis adjourned on that fateful night; Abadi, Dawlat (Hayat-e Yahya, ii)Google Scholar, points out that the Shah did not want Atabak and hints that he may have been planning to have him assassinated, but still believes that Abbas Aqa was the sole assailant; Nazem al-Islam, too (Tarikh-e Bidari, ii), says that Arshad al-Dawleh was intent on arranging Atabak's assassination on behalf of the Shah when Abbas Aqa relieved him of the task. Of the later historians, Kasravi (Tarikh-e Mashruteh) insists that it was the work of the young revolutionary and none other, although he too is aware of the Shah's dislike of Atabak; Shaikholeslami (“Majera-ye Qatl-e Atabak” in Qatl-e Atabak va Shanzdah Maqaleh-ye Tahqiqi-ye Digar) also believes that it was the work of the young man and the secret committee behind him but emphasizes – along Nazem al-Islam's line – that the Shah, too, was intent on ridding himself of Atabak. The argument between him and Taqizadeh over this subject has been published in full, where the latter has emphatically and categorically denied any previous knowledge of the assassination of Atabak, and – somewhat unconvincingly – added that he even disapproved of it when it happened.Google Scholar

71 To this author's knowledge, the fact that the Shah was a maternal grandson of Amir Nezam-e Farahani (Amir Kabir) has been mentioned nowhere in the contemporary sources or in later historiography of the period. Kasravi (Tarikh-e Mashruteh) cites some evidence of the personal attacks on the Shah published in Sayyed Mohammad Reza Shirazi's newspaper Mosavat (a direct translation of the French Revolution slogan égalité), and says that when the Shah turned to the courts for protection, Sayyed refused to answer the summons of the court and published a special issue making fun of it. Kasravi the moralist has the better of Kasravi the revolutionary when he comments (pp. 593–5) that “if some in the ranks of the freedom party deserved to be killed this man was the first among them”. He does however mention that not even Sur Esrafil was immune from this kind of transgression. For obscene personal attacks on the Shah see also Mostawfi, Abdullah, Sharh-e Zendegani-ye Man, ii, p. 258.Google Scholar

72 See Zendegi-ye Tufani-ye Taqizadeh, ed. Afshar, Iraj (Tehran, 1368–1989). Taqizadeh probably did not know of the plan to assassinate Behbahani before the event, but it is not very likely that he regretted it when it happened. His own later development into a sophisticated modem politician earned him the suspicion and distrust of all the main parties, and that – as he had told Iraj Afshar in his old age – must have reminded him of his own radical idealism as a leader of the Constitutional Revolution.Google Scholar