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The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran
 9780521687171, 9780521867627

Table of contents :
1. Introduction
2. An Iranian enlightenment
3. The age of extremes
4. The age of contestation.

Citation preview

The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran This sophisticated and challenging book by the distinguished historian Ali M. Ansari explores the idea of nationalism in the creation of modern Iran. It does so by considering the broader developments in national ideologies that took place following the emergence of the European Enlightenment and showing how these ideas were adopted by a nonEuropean state. Ansari charts a course through twentieth-century Iran, analyzing the growth of nationalistic ideas and their impact on the state and demonstrating the connections between historiographical and political developments. In so doing, he shows how Iran’s different regimes manipulated ideologies of nationalism and collective historical memory to suit their own ends. Firmly relocating Reza Shah within the context of the Constitutional Revolution, Ansari argues that Reza Pahlavi’s identification with a monarchy by divine right bore a greater resemblance to, and facilitated, the religious nationalism that catapulted Ayatollah Khomeini to power on the back of a populist and highly personalized mythology. Drawing on hitherto untapped sources, the book concludes that it was the revolutionary developments and changes that occurred during the first half of the twentieth century that paved the way for later radicalization. As the first book-length study of Iranian nationalism in nearly five decades, it will find an eager readership among scholars of the Middle East and those students more generally interested in questions of nationalism and ideology. Ali M. Ansari is a Professor of Iranian History at the University of St Andrews. His many publications include Iran under Ahmadinejad (2008); Iran, Islam and Democracy: The Politics of Managing Change (second edition, 2006); and Modern Iran since 1921: The Pahlavis and After (2003).

Dedicated to the memory of my father Mohammad Ali Massoud Ansari (1915–1979)

Cambridge Middle East Studies 40 Editorial Board Charles Tripp (general editor) Julia Clancy-Smith F. Gregory Gause Yezid Sayigh Avi Shlaim Judith E. Tucker Cambridge Middle East Studies has been established to publish books on the nineteenth- to twenty-first-century Middle East and North Africa. The aim of the series is to provide new and original interpretations of aspects of Middle Eastern societies and their histories. To achieve disciplinary diversity, books are solicited from authors writing in a wide range of fields including history, sociology, anthropology, political science, and political economy. The emphasis is on producing books offering an original approach along theoretical and empirical lines. The series is intended for students and academics, but the more accessible and wide-ranging studies will also appeal to the interested general reader. A list of books in the series can be found after the index.

For it is only when it is threatened with destruction from without or from within that a society is compelled to return to the very roots of its identity; to that mythical nucleus which ultimately grounds and determines it. Ricoeur, Myth as the Bearer of Possible Worlds in A Ricoeur Reader, 1991, M J Valdes (ed), University of Toronto Press, p. 484

I quite understand, my good friend, the contempt you bestow upon the nursery tales with which the Hajee and I have been entertaining each other; but, believe me, he who desires to be well acquainted with a people will not reject their popular stories or local superstitions. Depend upon it, that man is far too advanced into an artificial state of society who is a stranger to the effects which tales and stories like these have upon the feelings of a nation; and his opinion of its character are never likely to be more erroneous than when, in the pride of reason, he despises such means of forming his judgement. John Malcolm, Sketches of Persia, Longman 1827, pp. 190–1

The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran

Ali M. Ansari University of St Andrews

cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521687171 © Ali M. Ansari 2012 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2012 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Ansari, Ali M. The politics of nationalism in modern Iran / Ali M. Ansari. pages cm. – (Cambridge Middle East studies ; 40) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-521-86762-7 (hardback) 1.  Iran – Politics and government – 20th century.  2.  Nationalism – Iran – History – 20th century.  I.  Title. DS316.6.A67  2012 320.540955–dc23    2012007498 ISBN 978-0-521-86762-7 Hardback ISBN 978-0-521-68717-1 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Preface Acknowledgements A Note on Transliteration and Dates 1. Introduction Pervasiveness of ‘Nationalism’ The Logic of the West Nationalism, Myth, and History History, Myth, and Nationalism Persia in the Western Imagination The Aryan Myth Rediscovering Zoroaster History and Archaeology Encountering the West: An Age of Wonderment Managing the Transition Race and Ethnie The Disciplining of History An ‘Islamic World’ Conclusion Structure of the Study

2. An Iranian Enlightenment Introduction Framing a Movement Enlightened Nationalism A Republic of Letters Unfurling Kaveh Enlightened Despotism

page ix xi xiii 1 1 3 4 8 9 13 14 16 18 21 22 24 25 29 33 36 36 39 45 47 51 65 vii

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Contents The Myth of the Savior Towards the ‘Nation-State’ Centralization The Republican Narrative Constructing the ‘Nation-State’ A Republic of Laws Civil Nationalism and Public Education Farhangestan, Farhang-sazi, and the Idea of Iran

3. The Age of Extremes Legacy An ‘Unhappy Consciousness’? History and Narrative Mahabad, Azerbaijan, and the Challenge of Ethnic Nationalism Mosaddeq, the Left, and the Doctrine of Anti-Imperialism The Waning of Constitutionalism The Myth of the Saviour and the Construction of the Sacral Monarchy From Enlightenment to Cold War Towards the Great Civilisation The Cult of Cyrus the Great Narratives of Revolution The Turban for the Crown?

4. The Age of Contestation Introduction Religion and Nationalism The Return of the King History and Identity Iran for All Iranians Ideology, Utopia, and Myths of Salvation The Myth of the Saviour The Politics of History The Politics of Myth

Conclusion A Narrative of Centralisation Oriental Despotism The Logic of the West Iranian Narratives Islam and Marxism The Politics of Nationalism The Renewal of Iranshahr

Select Bibliography Index

65 67 73 78 83 86 91 97 110 110 113 115 119 124 140 152 157 165 166 179 194 198 198 201 216 221 230 249 256 262 272 285 286 289 290 291 294 295 298 301 321

Preface

A central feature of this study is to assess the complex relationship between ‘history’ and ‘myth’, and how they had fed into and helped define the idea of Iran and Iranian nationalism during the course of more than a century. Partly to reflect the complexity of the conceptual relationship I have avoided fixing analytic definitions which may serve to effectively prejudge the argument, but also give the impression of clarity which in practice rarely existed. At the same time, it will be of undoubted benefit to the reader if some frame of reference is outlined as well as some of the more important sources for the ideas and approach applied in the text. Readers who are interested are encouraged to peruse both the bibliography and the footnotes which detail my intellectual influences, but for immediate purposes, the ‘metanarrative’ of this text is informed by the works of Gramsci, Ricoeur, and John B Thompson for the operation of culture, ideas, and ideology; on Anderson and Smith, for my understanding of nationalism; and on Pocock and Israel for the development of the European Enlightenment. With respect to terminology, the study of ideas and ideology enjoys a characteristically rich vocabulary reflecting perhaps the richness of the debate and the important nuances which exist. In this text I have drawn on a variety of terms partly to reflect this nuance but also to relieve the reader of the tedium of reiteration. The application of the term ‘myth’ is drawn from a number of writers including Barthes, and is used as he defines it, in the sense of a ‘story’, or alternatively a ‘narrative’. Political myths and grand narratives are used in the sense conveyed by the Persian term ostureh, historical myths shaped to serve political ends and to help feed world-views and cultural outlooks. In Persian, afsaneh is used to ix

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denote a myth that is wholly false. Such a distinction does not exist in the English language, and I have avoided trying to create one, for example between myth and legend, in order in part to stress the conceptual continuity and essential ambiguity that exists. Some myths are palpably not real but contain truths of social value. Others are neither real nor of social value. I have tried to let the examples in the text speak for themselves. In addition I have used the term ‘metanarrative’, drawn of course from Hayden-White, to describe those mythologies and narratives that have become so effectively socialised that they have become part of the collective ‘common sense’. Two other terms also make an appearance according to context: discourse (as made popular by Foucault) and ‘persuasion’, as most recently introduced by Bentley. Both are applied in relation to ideologies.

Acknowledgements

The writing of this book has been both challenging and rewarding. Challenging inasmuch as I have tried to tackle a number of distinct if inter-related conceptual themes within what I hope has become a coherent, if at times complex, narrative argument; rewarding insofar as it has encouraged me to confront and clarify issues of nationalism and identity which have been very much part of my own intellectual growth ever since I entered university. In a concrete sense, it reflects a long overdue return to my doctoral research during which I sought to understand and explain the concept of political myth as one means of explaining the political development of late Pahlavi Iran. This interest, encouraged and stimulated by my supervisor, Charles Tripp, has never left me, and this text, as far removed from my original thesis as it undoubtedly is, owes much to those preliminary investigations and to the continued patient and generous support of Charles, for which I am immensely grateful. This text, which builds on my understanding of political myth, moves into broader territory reflecting my own interests in the relationship between history and myth and the nature and construction of nationalism as a product of the Enlightenment. My understanding and interpretation has benefitted immensely from the work of others, as I hope will become apparent from the extensive references and bibliography. A number of people, however, merit special mention for their generous insights, contributions and conversations which, to a greater or lesser extent, have informed my argument. I am particularly grateful to Houchang Chehabi for his meticulous and (very) patient reading of the first draft, and for his invaluable comments and encouragement. Lloyd Ridgeon and Paul Luft have patiently listened, challenged, and occasionally corrected some xi

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Acknowledgements

of my more wayward assertions, while Touraj Daryaee has been invaluable in helping me to understand the historiography of ancient Iran. Both David Morgan and Toby Dodge have helped to clarify my views, albeit from quite different perspectives. I am also grateful for the support offered by the British Institute of Persian Studies and the Iran Heritage Foundation, who funded a series of workshops and conferences on the theme of history and identity in Iran and allowed me to engage with a wider range of scholars and to benefit from their insights. I am also grateful to the National Archives for permission to cite the many official documents made available so efficiently by the archivists. In St Andrews I have benefitted enormously from working with some of the finest minds working in the disciplines of history, politics, and international relations. Colleagues working on British and European history have helped me to escape the narrow confines of what some might consider ‘area studies’ and helped to shape my views on the Enlightenment, nationalism, and historiography. I am especially grateful to Michael Bentley, Nick Rengger, Tim Greenwood, Robert Hoyland (now departed to Oxford), and Andrew Peacock for their comments, conversation, and support. I would also like to thank the secretarial and support staff at St Andrews, in particular Lorna and Andy, along with staff in IT and the Library who have put up with regular, if spontaneous, visits with unerring conviviality and patience. Patience is indeed a virtue long cultivated by those who deal with academics on a regular basis, and no acknowledgement would be complete without warm-felt thanks to Marigold Acland and her team at Cambridge University Press. It goes without saying that this manuscript was somewhat late in delivery, although I hope it is the better for it and that I have been able to smooth out at least some of the rough edges which undoubtedly exist. That I was eventually able to finish it at all owes much to my wife Marjon, whose encouragement and support have been unwavering. Without her, the challenges would have been considerably greater and the rewards much diminished.

A Note on Transliteration and Dates

A simplified form of Persian transliteration has been used throughout, making allowances for pronunciation. I have omitted diacritical marks, but have retained the ayn and ezafe. Thus Shah rather than Šāh; and Shahanshah-e Iran rather than Shahanshah Iran. Names of individuals are rendered in the way they are most commonly known or have been reflected in the sources. Thus ‘Mosaddeq’ throughout as opposed to Musaddiq, and the names Muhammad and Riza are rendered Mohammad and Reza, unless the names are quoted from a source, in which case the original transliteration is retained. With respect to dates, three different calendars are used in the sources, the Lunar Hejri, Solar Hejri, and Imperial calendars. The Solar calendar was revised and institutionalised by parliamentary legislation in 1924. The Imperial calendar was imposed by decree in March 1976 and withdrawn in 1978. All dates are provided with their Christian equivalent.

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1 Introduction

Pervasiveness of ‘Nationalism’ Nationalism is the determining ideology of modern Iran. Yet despite, or perhaps because of its pervasiveness in popular and political culture, and the ease with which it is evoked and resorted to by successive governments to secure political support and cement legitimacy, it remains ill-defined and vigorously contested. The emotional depth professed by its staunchest adherents betrays an analytical immaturity which some observers consider disingenuous.1 Yet whether the product of cynical manipulation, or a consequence of sincere adherence, there can be little doubt that ‘nationalism’ in all its manifestations has been the ideological reference point to which all competing ideologies have ultimately had to adhere, and within which most have been subsumed. Nothing exemplifies this process better than the ideological transformation of an Islamic Revolution which aspired to universality but within a decade had defined itself as an Iranian Islamic Revolution to distinguish itself from other movements emerging around the world, and to emphasise a pre-eminence and exclusivity most commonly associated with nationalist ideologies. It soon became apparent that the adjective ‘Iranian’ was not intended as a geographic distinction, but implied barely disguised allusions to superiority on the basis not only of apparent priority but cultural sophistication. This tendency towards elitism and a jealous guarding of a distinctive and particular culture would be familiar to theorists of nationalism, but it also reflects an internal process in the development of 1 See in this respect the comments by H Taqizadeh on the emergence of the ‘professional patriot’ – vatan-chi – in Kaveh, 17 July 1920, p. 3.

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nationalism. Nationalism in Iran can be viewed through two complementary processes. On one level, nationalism as an ideology and a means for securing legitimacy is contested by various factions and ideological groupings who seek to appropriate it to their own particular ends.2 For the purposes of clarity, four groups can be distinguished in modern Iran: secular nationalists, religious nationalists, the left, and the dynastic nationalists. These are by no means exclusive or rigid, but provide a grid against which the fluidity of ideological tendencies can be analysed.3 These ideological groupings provide narratives of historical descent which tend to emphasise their own role over the others in an unfolding grand narrative or ‘myth’ of progress and emancipation.4 This process of emancipation has been, in the modern era at least, largely defined against the West, although, as will be seen in this book, its roots go considerably deeper. On another level the debate on ideology revolves around the form of its articulation. By and large, and in contradiction to the theoretical aspirations of the ideologues themselves, ‘nationalism’ has been the preserve of the elites, who although eager to recruit the masses to their respective causes have always jealously protected their rights to define the precise parameters of the particular nationalism they espouse. This dialectical relationship between what may be termed the ‘lateral’ and ‘demotic’ tendencies in nationalism has arguably only recently tilted in favour of the latter, with the consequences of universal education, literacy, and the (electronic) mass media beginning to impact the way in which knowledge is produced and consumed.5 This last development has had and continues to have the most profound effect on the way in which nationalism has been interpreted, understood, and applied within Iran. J B Thompson, Ideology & Modern Culture, Cambridge, Polity Press 1990 p. 71. See also A Matin-Asgari, Marxism, Historiography and Historical Consciousness in Modern Iran, in T Atabaki (ed.) Iran in the Twentieth Century, London, I B Tauris, p. 201. 3 P Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences (ed. & trans. J Thompson), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 245–46. On the definition of ‘secular’ see N Keddie Secularism and the State: Towards Clarity and Global comparison, New Left Review, Vol 226, 1997, pp. 21–40 4 G Schopflin, Nations, Identity, Power, London, Hurst 2000, pp. 90–98. 5 On these concepts, see A D Smith, The Ethnic Origin of Nations, London, Blackwell, 1988, pp. 79–89. Smith argues that ‘lateral’ ethnie have proved more flexible in the absorption and appropriation of others; on the importance of the mass media on ideological development see Thompson, Ideology & Modern Culture, pp. 163–216; also B Anderson, Imagined Communities, London, Verso 1983, p. 224. 2

Introduction

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The Logic of the West One difficulty in analysing any ideological process is to know where to enter the debate.6 Because any ideational process is fluid and, to paraphrase Mannheim, ‘is in the process of becoming’, the moment of entry becomes an attempt to fix a dynamic, and in effect to create an artificial, though analytically necessary, point of reference from which an argument may proceed.7 Given the dominance of Western thought on the development of Iranian nationalism, it seems relevant to start with the impact of the West in the latter half of the nineteenth century.8 This is not to suggest that Iranian nationalism  – defined here as the political mobilisation of a particular identity  – was defined against Europe. Rather it is argued that the dominant narratives (along with the conceptual vocabulary) have been defined by a European intellectual tradition. This approach has a number of distinct advantages. In the first place it allows us to frame the argument within the broader context of developments in European nationalisms both on practical and intellectual levels and look in particular at the way in which Iranian intellectuals responded, reacted and interpreted trends established by their European counterparts. Often these interpretations were simplifications of debates taking place in Europe although these simplifications were in many cases supported and promoted by Western diplomats keen to emphasise the rational and scientific nature of European (Western) progress. As such, the perception matters more than the real complexity of the debate which evolved, and one of the more interesting developments lies in the way in which a broadening Iranian intellectual base, increasingly confident in itself, began to engage and interpret the knowledge base produced by Europe. Such an approach allows us to trace the development of both the concept and its application.9 One of the central tenets of this study is that nationalism as understood in Iran has largely been driven by and defined against a normative frame of reference established by European intellectual and political culture. In 6 The difficulties of the ‘hermeneutic circle’. 7 K Mannheim, Ideology & Utopia, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960, p. 135. 8 On another level, the vocabulary of modern knowledge is so dominated by the Western perspective that it is difficult to avoid engaging with this, hence Near & Middle East. 9 Iranian nationalists will tend to frame their myth of emancipation and awakening according to their ideological preferences. These can be quite fluid and are historically varied. Most nationalists look to the nineteenth century for the period of national awakening but there are those who have argued for the Abbasid Revolution, reflecting perhaps the continuing influence of Zarrinkub’s Two Centuries of Silence.

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other words, Iranian nationalists sought to remake their own history, but not in circumstances of their own choosing. That is, the grand narrative of progress, and the role of the ‘nation’ in articulating that progress, has been defined by Europe. Many of the myths which have permeated nationalist ideologies – decadence, decline, progress, feudalism, despotism, race, and the role of religion – have been appropriated from an idealised European model of development.10 Moreover, in the Iranian case, not only aspects of the metanarrative, but the grand narrative, have been appropriated from Europe.11 This logic of the West has been pervasive not only in the way in which states have reacted to the challenges posed by European powers, but more crucially in the way that intellectuals of whatever political hue have been vehicles of ideological dissemination. This is not to articulate an ‘orientalist’ argument about the intellectual colonisation of native elites, but to state the reality that whether integrated or opposed, most intellectuals related in some manner or form to the ideas which emanated from Europe.12 Nothing exemplifies this better than the influence of Marxist thought in Iran, or indeed the reaction of religious intellectuals to the challenges posed by the West. As a succession of Iranian intellectuals have argued, to greater or less effect, it is only by engaging with these ideas and building an indigenous knowledge base that the terms of reference can be gradually changed. It is this process which has gathered momentum in recent years and which is beginning to change our understanding of Iranian nationalism and the narratives it has engendered. Nationalism, Myth, and History Nationalism as generally understood today erupted into Europe during the French Revolution of 1789.13 Many of the parameters of nationalist 10 On the prominence of ‘progress’ and ‘decadence’ in historical narratives see P Nora, quoted in S Berger & C Lorenz (eds.), The Contested Nation: Ethnicity, Class, Religion and Gender in National Histories, Basingstoke, Palgrave 2008, p. 18. 11 For a discussion and definition of ‘myth’ see Roland Barthes, Mythologies, London, Paladin, 1973, pp. 118–155. In this sense all narratives, and by extension narrative history, incorporates mythologies. Ideologies and political myths are the means by which narratives, grand narratives, and metanarratives are constructed. For a fascinating discussion of the means and methods of narrative displacement see Kidd C, Subverting Scotland’s Past: Scottish Whig Historians and the Creation of an Anglo-British Identity, 1689–c. 1830, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 101–215. 12 One of the most acute statements regarding this negative aspects of this process was made by Sartre in his Preface to Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, New York, Grove Press, 2004, p. xliii. 13 A D Smith, Nationalism and Modernism, London, Routledge 1998, p. 17.

Introduction

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ideology which we recognise today were shaped and ultimately defined by the French revolutionaries and their heirs and interpreters, including secularism, standardisation, unification, centralisation, and of course conscription: the ability to recruit vast numbers of soldier-citizens on the basis of patriotism and ‘national’ allegiance alone. The causes and consequences of the French Revolution have spawned an extensive literature which has effectively challenged the dominant grand narrative of popular emancipation and progress through a national awakening. Historians have undermined the originality of the French Revolution and pointed to precursors both in Britain and North America, while the consequences of the Revolution, and the empire it generated, complicate the basic narrative.14 One of the earliest and most influential commentators of the French Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville, drew attention to the anomalies in the popular understanding of the Revolution, highlighting the important fact that there was nothing particularly ‘national’ about  the universalist aspirations of the ‘Great Revolution’ in France. Indeed the revolution in France was initially made French by opponents who sought to contain it, and as de Tocqueville astutely observed, the ambitions of the Revolutionaries were truly religious in scope.15 For our purposes, the influence of the French Revolution was not immediate but indirect. As Nikki Keddie observes, the immediate reaction among statesmen in the Ottoman Empire and Iran was not ­positive.16 The revolution was not only ‘Godless’, but in executing their king the French had chosen anarchy over order and were in consequence a force for instability. The real significance of the French Revolution was to come much later, with the foundation of the Napoleonic Empire, a development and a personality with which Middle Eastern statesmen could empathise and admire. With Napoleon, Middle Eastern statesmen, frustrated with the inadequacies of their own leaders, discovered a model ruler to emulate.17 14 See for example, Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 235. 15 Alexis de Tocqueville, The Ancien Regime and the French Revolution, Manchester, Fontana, 1966, p. 41. 16 N Keddie, The French Revolution and the Middle East, in Iran and the World Macmillan, London 1995, p. 239. 17 See A Amanat, Pivot of the Universe: Nasir al Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831–1896, London, I B Tauris 1997, p. 130, on Nasir al Din Shah’s admiration for Napoleon, an admiration which would continue with both Reza Shah and his son. An alternative role model that was to gain in prominence as the condition of Iran declined was Peter the Great. See M Ekhtiar, An Encounter with the Russian Czar: The Image of Peter the Great in Early Qajar Historical Writings, Iranian Studies, Vol 29(1/2), 1996, pp. 57–70. Peter the Great was a particular favourite among enlightenment thinkers in

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With French established as the language of diplomacy and the medium of ideological dissemination, it was to be French ideas that were first to penetrate intellectual life in the Orient.18 The avowed secularism of the revolution, and the distinct advantage that the French had not been, and were not, perceived as a political threat in Iran, also facilitated the process of appropriation. Of course, the process of appropriation took time and coincided with other intellectual developments which were transforming an industrialising Europe in the nineteenth century. Indeed, in intellectual terms, and in stark contrast with the romanticism which characterised the revolutionary era and its immediate aftermath, the impact of the French Revolution and the nationalism it promoted was carried to the East on a wave of scientific rationality and positivism. The confidence with which Europe expanded abroad was mirrored in an intellectual confidence which produced a narrative of progress shorn of many of the complications of the debate which surrounded it within European intellectual circles. Radical positivism and scientific rationality characterised the intellectual endeavour of Europe and explained its success.19 These modern myths of progress were encapsulated and socialised through a new grand narrative of progress unleashed through the eventual, and inevitable, realisation of the ‘nation’. It was given voice by the development of a new discipline of history, shorn of the traditional mythologies of the past, rigorously analytical and scientifically precise. This was most obviously identified with the German tradition of historiography established by Leopold von Ranke. Ranke reacted against the romanticism of his age, and was especially spurred onto action after reading the novels of Sir Walter Scott. As he uncompromisingly put it, “I found by comparison that the truth was more interesting and beautiful than romance. I turned away from it and resolved to avoid all invention and imagination in my works and stick to facts.”20 Ranke of course was not quite the dour radical empiricist that his subsequent renown would depict, conceding earlier in his career that myths had some merit in providing an insight into the ‘view of a people large part because of Voltaire’s sympathetic biography; see J G A Pocock, Barbarism and Religion: Barbarians, Savages and Empires, Vol 2, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 76. Peter is ‘Great’ because he is a legislator, unlike Charles XII of Sweden. 18 N Keddie, The French Revolution, p. 233. 19 As Hayden White notes, even challenges to the enlightenment ‘optimism’ remained themselves intrinsically optimistic in outlook; see Hayden White, Metahistory, Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins 1973, p. 47. 20 Quoted in J Mali, Mythistory, Chicago, University of Chicago Press 2003, p. 96.

Introduction

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of itself’,21 but posterity has credited him, not without justification, with having founded a discipline of history, regulated by method and distinct from mythology. Quite how incomplete this break would be was apparent to many writers and historians throughout the nineteenth century, not least Marx, whose opening salvo in his 18th Brumaire warned of the dangers of mythologising the present. Indeed if some writers saw merits and hidden truths in analysing the myths of antiquity, they were almost unanimous in their criticism of what was increasingly termed ‘political mythology’. As Joseph Mali notes, “after 1848 mythology had become a political, not just a historical problem.”22 Indeed it was clear to the more astute in academe that the rationalisation and professionalisation of society, far from eradicating the tendency to mythology, was paradoxically providing new outlets for its expression. Max Weber presciently observed in a lecture at the University of Munich in 1918: The fate of our times is characterised by rationalisation and intellectualisation and, above all, by the ‘disenchantment of the world’. Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human life . . . it is not accidental that today only within the smallest and intimate circles, in personal human situation, in pianissimo, that something is pulsating that corresponds to the prophetic pneuma, which in former times swept through the great communities like a firebrand, welding them together. If we attempt to force and to ‘invent’ a monumental style in art, such miserable monstrosities are produced as the many monuments of the last twenty years. If one tries intellectually to construe new religions without a new and genuine prophecy, then, in an inner sense, something similar will result but with still worse effects. And an academic prophecy, finally, will create only fanatical sects but never genuine community.23

That the march of reason and modernity could in fact engender a new fertile environment for myths and their political exploitation became increasingly prominent in the nationalistic fervour which galvanised European society in the run up to the Great War. Marxist intellectuals were among 21 Quoted in J Mali, Mythistory, p. 97; see also A Grafton, The Footnote: A Curious History, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press 1997, pp. 225–26. For the juxtaposition of ‘scientific history’ and ‘memory’ see S Berger & C Lorenz (eds.), The Contested Nation, pp. 14–17 22 J Mali, Mythistory, p. 88. See also the comment of David Strauss, quoted in Mythistory, p. 93, “The boundary line between the mythical and the historical . . . will ever remain fluctuating and unsusceptible of precise attainment.” 23 M Weber, Science as a Vocation, in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, London, Routledge 1970, p. 155; Weber continues: “many old gods ascend from their graves; they are disenchanted and hence take the form of impersonal forces. They strive to gain power over our lives and again they resume their eternal struggle with one another.”

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the harshest critics of nationalist ideology and its ethnic-racial stereotypes, but the Great War, far from diminishing national allegiances, reinforced and polarised them. Indeed the post-war settlement not only multiplied the number of new nations in Europe, but institutionalised and legitimised them through a League of Nations. The ultimate expression of the trend towards biological determinism – scientific nationalism heavily clothed in myth24 – was to be found in Nazi Germany, where nationalism was to be defined within a racial stereotype of the Aryan myth. With the destruction wrought by the Second World War, intellectuals who had hitherto sympathised with its utility condemned it outright as the scourge of the age.25 History, Myth, and Nationalism The complex dialectical relationship between myth and history, and the vigorous debates which engaged European academics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, did not extend beyond Europe’s intellectual frontiers. As far as Iranians were concerned, Europe was supremely and ‘rationally’ self-confident; there were no doubts. Yet the European rediscovery of Iran, or ‘Persia’ as they called the country, provides a good example of the way in which myth and history were integrated and manipulated for political gain. In its most serious manifestation, the ultimate legacy of this encounter would be a new grand narrative of Iranian history culminating in the Aryan Myth.26 The theory and ideology of nationalism, and the discipline of history have arguably enjoyed a symbiotic relationship.27 Never was this 24 M Bloch in 1934 noted, “I am terrified of every scientific nationalism.” Quoted in J Mali, Mythistory, p. 133. ‘Scientism’ is of course recognised as one of the means of engendering myth. See Hayden White, Metahistory, p. 20. See also in this regard T W Adorno & M Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, London, Verso 1997, p. 258, first published in 1944. 25 The most obvious and influential example of this was E Cassirer who before the war had shown an ambivalence towards the usefulness or otherwise of myth. In 1946 he published The Myth of the State, Yale University Press. Henry Tudor commented that “[t]he theorist who, more than any other, has drawn attention to the use of myths in contemporary politics is Ernest Cassirer. Indeed, as a study of political myths, his The Myth of the State has yet to be superseded,” in Political Myth, London, Praeger, p. 31. Joseph Mali’s discussion of Cassirer’s awkward appreciation of the role of myth is illuminating; see Mythistory, pp. 187–90. The deconstruction of ‘nationalism’ as an (extremist) ideology also began in earnest after 1945. ‘Myth’ has of course returned with a vengeance through the medium of mass communications; see Thompson, Ideology & Modern Culture. 26 Another lasting legacy would be the literary myth produced by Morier’s Hajji Baba of Isfahan. 27 See the discussion by A D Smith, ch. 1, Nationalism and the Historians, in Myths and Memories of the Nation, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 29–55. Also

Introduction

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relationship tighter than during the late nineteenth century and its determined search for national origins and roots. The debate, as has been suggested earlier, was complex and variegated, with criticism of the ways in which ‘national histories’ were vulnerable to mythologising and in essence proved rich breeding grounds for the promulgation of new (political) myths. These fears would come to fruition during the Fascist dictatorships of the inter-war years, and the reaction against the racist Aryan ideology of the Nazis was, unsurprisingly, uncompromising. The consequences of this intellectual quarantine were that the roots of the ideology were marginalised and ignored. Yet the development of the Aryan myth and the search for common European (white) roots was an intellectual inquiry which was intimately connected to the European rediscovery of Iran and was to have consequences for that country which far outlived its utility within European intellectual circles. Persia in the Western Imagination For centuries, European literary culture had been familiar with ‘Persia’ through the medium of classical and Biblical texts. With the advent of printing and the development of the book, this familiarity grew exponentially and was complimented by the expansion of trade routes east in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.28 Indeed by the turn of the seventeenth century Europeans had begun establishing trade and diplomatic missions in Iran, and there are intriguing indications that Iranian merchants likewise established trading houses in European capitals.29 These travellers and merchants came to Iran rich in cultural preconceptions and ideas about the Persians they would find. Among the myths they would bring with them was that of ‘decadence’, and underlying many of their otherwise sympathetic and interesting observations was the belief that although the Persians might be materially wealthy, this wealth was destructive to their social and political well-being. Such ideas were also married to a belief that the Persians of the day were clearly not the Berger & Lorenz, Ethnicity, Class, Religion and Gender in National Histories, p. 1. see also, S Meskoob, Nationalism, Centralisation of Power and Culture in the Twilight of the Qajars and the Dawn of the Pahlavis, Iran-Nameh, Vol 12 (3), Summer 1994, p. 482. 28 On the question of literary dissemination, see M T Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, London, Blackwell, 1979, p. 21. See also N Wheale, Writing & Society: Literacy, Print and Politics in Britain 1590–1660, London, Routledge, 1999, p. 6. 29 See Diary of Samuel Pepys – Complete, London, George Bell & Sons 1893 (iBook edition), p. 3175, entry dated 10 January 1667/1668. See also John Evelyn, Diary, London, Everyman Library, 2006, dated 18 October 1666, p. 454, which notes the adoption of the ‘Persian mode’ of dress at court.

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‘noble Persians’ described by Herodotus, but had clearly been ethnically/ racially diluted by repeated invasions. Ideas of decadence were particularly favoured by Protestant writers who sought to use their Persians as a tableau against which they could criticise the social and religious malaise of Catholicism, although they were not alone in applying this method, as seen by Montesquieu and his imitators.30 Of particular interest in this regard was the notion of ‘despotism’; a term which had classical roots, but was initially applied by early modern intellectuals against the absolute monarchs of Europe (by and large Catholic) before being subsequently reapplied with a vengeance to the Orient.31 Nonetheless by the time Montesquieu’s Persian Letters had entered into literary circulation, the collapse and the apparent dismemberment of the Safavid state in Iran appeared to lend credence to European fears of the dangers of decadence. That European knowledge of Iran, even in the early eighteenth century, was keen is reflected in the detailed cartographical changes which were made in light of the political upheaval following the Afghan uprising in 1722, and the temporary Russian annexation of Caspian Sea territories. Indeed one of the earliest European academic theses was written on the ‘Current Revolutions in Persia’ and defended at the University of Uppsala in 1725; this occurring three years after the collapse of the Safavid State shows an intellectual diligence few contemporaries could achieve.32 For much of the eighteenth century Iran 30 See in this regard Sir Anthony Sherley, His Relation of His Travels into Persia, London, Nathaniell Butter & Joseph Bagset, 1613; Sir John Chardin, Travels in Persia (ed. Sir Percy Sykes), London, The Argonaut Press, 1927. Chardin’s travels were originally published in 1686 and subsequently reprinted. This Huguenot account, although rich in detail, carries within it a distinct message. Montesquieu’s Persian Letters, which were themselves deeply anticlerical – see in this regard, M Mosher’s review of ‘Radical Enlightenment’, Political Theory, Vol 32 (3), June 2004, p. 429 – spawned a number of imitators. See for example the English equivalent, the second edition of which was published in 1735 (author’s collection). Earlier enlightenment writers used Persia as a positive tableau with which to contrast the ills of their own societies, in large part because ‘Persia’ qualified as a ‘civilised’ nation. Enlightenment thinkers, drawing on the classics, tended to categorise people as ‘barbarian’ or ‘civilised’, with a third category, ‘savage’, added in the later eighteenth century. These were processes rather than fixed states, aspirational and fluid. The ‘Persians’ were arguably regarded as having succumbed to ‘over-civilisation’, a product of decadence that had resulted in barbarism. This latter category was quite distinct and different from savagery in the enlightenment imagination. See in this respect F Furet, Civilization and Barbarism in Gibbon’s History Daedalus, Vol 105 (3), 1976, pp. 213–14. 31 For the modern genealogy of this idea, see P Springborg, Western Republicanism and the Oriental Prince, Cambridge, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1992. 32 See map by Homann dated to approximately 1730. The thesis was submitted by one Isaac Isaacson, who according to the supporting documentation had never actually visited Iran. Copies of both are owned by the author.

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was in political turmoil, and although the rule and extensive conquests of Nader Shah (1736–1747) brought admirers in its wake, the dominant image among European writers as we enter the nineteenth century was of a country and of a nation which had lost some of its lustre, and which was prone to ‘corruption’ in its many and varied forms. Persia therefore remained a salutary lesson of how overindulgence could lead to decadence, weakness, and ultimately moral if not political collapse.33 Virtue, to return to Montesquieu, was in limited supply, and the consequences of this were a political and social stupor.34 The myth of Persian decadence was to be rationalised in the nineteenth century through the application of new methods and the development of new disciplines of scholarship. This development has been alluded to earlier in this section, but it is worth looking at the process and its particular impact on Iran. This myth was articulated in two distinct but related ways. One process, arguably the more durable in terms See for example Gibbon’s view of the Persians; see J G A Pocock, Barbarism and Religion: Barbarians, Savages and Empires Vol 4, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 11. The Germanic tribes were ‘barbarian’ in the sense that they were not civilised, whereas the Persians, though ‘barbarians’, are not merely civilized, but ‘civilised and corrupted’. The decadence of the ‘metropole’ was a factor in both the American and French Revolutions, although interestingly there is evidence that the Xenophon’s Cyropaedia was popular with a number of the Founding Fathers (Jefferson had two copies). Although almost wholly fictitious it nevertheless provided a positive account of the ‘Persians’. 34 For a discussion of the enlightenment encounter with ‘Islam and ‘Persia’, see Jonathan I Israel, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity & the Emancipation of Man, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 615–40. Of particular note here is Pierre Bayle’s interest in the ‘Zindikites’ (zandik), a sect of ‘free-thinkers’ in the early Islamic period who drew heavily on heterodox Zoroastrian ideas and was therefore more prevalent among intellectuals and bureaucrats in the Persianate world. Bayle was keen to situate the enlightenment within a humanistic narrative that was international. The myth of Zoroaster also populated masonic ideas and ritual, a development which was enthusiastically adopted among Iranian masons; see H Algar, An Introduction to the History of Freemansonry (sic), in Iran Middle Eastern Studies, Vol 6 (3), 1970, p. 289. What is striking is that Bayle sought to connect the ‘Zindikite’ tendency to Spinoza. What early enlightenment thinkers had discovered was what might be best described as a ‘humanist’ tendency among Persian bureaucrats which would later be continued by Jamal Al Din Al Afghani and Hasan Taqizadeh among others, albeit inherited now through the Western ‘Radical’ enlightenment. For Taqizadeh’s reading of the Zandikites as Manicheans, see his Az Parviz ta Changiz, Tehran, Donya-ye Ketab, 1382 / 2003, p. 31. See also A Milani, Sadi and the Kings, in Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Modernity in Iran, Washington DC, Mage, 2004, pp. 37–50, which draws attention to the tremendous burst of rational humanism in tenth- to thirteenth–century Iran. For the discovery of Spinoza in Iran, see Jon Lee Anderson, After the Crackdown, The New Yorker, 16 August 2010, p. 3. See also in this respect, Abdolkarim Soroush’s claim in 2008 that he saw himself as a ‘neo-mutazilite’, http://www.drsoroush.com/English/Interviews/E-INT-Neo-Mutazilite_July2008.html. 33

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of perceptions, witnessed the active production of mythologies through the medium of literature.35 The other, arguably more dangerous, reflected the rationalisation of myth into potent ideology, providing a ‘scientific’ explanation and solution to the problem of Iranian decay. Both processes were to have a significant impact on the way in which Iranian nationalists defined their new project. Both processes were also indicative of the epistemological proximity of mythologies to ‘rational’ enquiry, and the truth of Weber’s observation that the dominance of ‘reason’ simply provided new outlets for myths. The different processes are also revealing for the manner in which they were received by European scholars. The Aryan myth, as a product of rationalisation, arguably penetrated far more deeply into the European intellectual consciousness, and the controversy it would generate would be far more polarised. The literary caricature of Iranian decadence and hypocrisy provided by James Morier in his highly popular ‘The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Isfahan’, was likewise criticised by scholars of Iran, including many of his own colleagues, horrified at the ease with which Morier’s characterisation was taking hold among the English reading public. A number countered with their own memoirs in a bid to challenge the narrative embedded by Morier’s book among the educated public, including many who were to serve in Iran.36 For these, the source of the problem was political, not social. One, Harford Jones-Brydges even went so far as to place a warning in the preface to his recollections: That which I am most anxious to prove to you, is, that if the Persians as a nation, are accused to being addicted to some heavy vices, they nevertheless possess many, and great virtues. One may allow oneself to smile at some of the pages of Hajee Baba, but it would be just as wise to estimate the national character of the Persians, from the adventures of that fictitious person, as it would be to estimate the national character of the Spaniards, from those of Don Raphael, or his worthy coadjutor, Ambrose de Lamela. 35 Itself a medium adopted from the Orient, see Robert Irwin, The Arabian Night and the Origins of the Western Novel (forthcoming). For the importance of historical literature to the development of narratives, see R Irwin, Saladin & the Third Crusade: A Case Study in Historiography and the Historical Novel, in M Bentley (ed.) Companion to Historiography, London, Routledge, 1997, pp. 139–52. 36 See for example, C J Wills, In the Land of the Lion and the Sun, Washington DC, Mage, 2004, first published in 1893, p. 3: ‘Colonel G  . . .  taking me out to lunch with him, bought me Morier’s “Hadji Baba”, saying, “When you read this you will know more of Persia and the Persians than you will had you lived there with your eyes open for twenty years.” This is going a long way; it is seventeen years since I went to Persia, and I read “Hadji Baba” now, and still learn something new from it; and, though one sees plenty of decay, there is very little change’.

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For Harford Jones-Brydges, as with Malcolm before him and Browne after him, the problems were not biological but political. In short: knowing the Persians as I do, I will boldly say the greater part of their vices originate in the vices of their Government; whilst such virtues as they do possess, proceed from qualities of the mind, which in all countries, render human nature amiable and agreeable to others, and essentially contribute to make it respectable to ourselves.37

It was the absolute power of the monarch, later to be articulated and embellished in a theory of ‘oriental despotism’, which was defined as the source of decay and ‘backwardness’, and this political model was to influence greatly the development and justification for nationalist ideology which in its more extreme manifestations sought to combine the relativistic and deterministic arguments. The Aryan Myth The development of the Aryan myth had its roots in the Europe’s intellectual discovery of India in the eighteenth century. With the discovery of Sanskrit, European scholars who had been searching for common linguistic roots suddenly found a language so ancient yet familiar that interest grew in the discovery of an ‘Indo-European’ origin.38 Among the first European scholars to engage with the issues which Sanskrit raised was the British linguist Sir William Jones, who in his search for origins had concluded that ‘all of humanity was descended from an original couple and [Jones] was “absolutely certain” that Iran was the post-Diluvian centre from where the “whole race of man proceeded”’.39 This linguistic turn was to be further rationalised and developed into a theory of race which sought to argue for a common and noble Aryan origin from which Europe could trace its roots.40 Although ridiculed today this 37 Sir Harford Jones-Brydges, An Account of the Transactions of His Majesty’s Mission to the Court of Persia in the Years 1807–11, London, James Bohn, 1834, p. viii. 38 For a summary, see J P Mallory, In Search of the Indo-Europeans, London, Thames and Hudson, 1991, pp. 9–23. On the significance of the Indian route and the influence of Iranian intellectual émigrés, see M Tavakoli-Targhi, Contested Memories: Narrative Structures and Allegorical Meanings of Iran’s Pre-Islamic History, in Iranian Studies Vol. 29 (1/2), Winter-Spring 1996, pp. 149–75. 39 T Ballantyne, Orientalism & Race: Aryanism and the British Empire, New York, Palgrave, 2002, p. 28; on the importance of the Aryan myth to India, see also Romila Thapar, The Theory of Aryan Race and India: History and Politics, in Social Scientist, Vol 24 (1/3) (January–March 1996), pp. 3–29. 40 Probably the most explicit exposition of this racial theory was that of Count de Gobineau, The Inequality of the Human Races (trans. A Collin) New York, Howard Fertig, 1967.

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The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran

search for a common Aryan ancestry was taken very seriously by the scholars of the period.41 Iran and the Iranians thus came to play an altogether different purpose in the developing European foundation myth.42 If they had since become decadent, their relevance for the Europeans had now been reinforced by the fact that in sharing the same roots, they had in effect become family. The radical racism of the Aryan myth was not to reach political fruition till the twentieth century, but the notion of an extended kinship tie with the Iranians was one which permeated widely among the European educated elite. Lord Curzon in the introduction to his monumental study of late nineteenth century Iran explained the importance of his study to his English readership, not only in geopolitical terms: It ought not to be difficult to interest Englishmen in the Persian people. They have the same lineage as ourselves. Three thousand years ago their forefathers left the uplands of that mysterious Aryan home from which our ancestral stock had already gone forth, and the locality of which is still a frequent, if also the most futile battlefield of science. They were the first of the Indo-European family to embrace a purely monotheistic faith. Among them appeared Zarathustra, or Zoroaster, the second in date of the great religious teachers of the past . . . Thence sprang the ennobling creed of Ormuzd and Ahriman43

Rediscovering Zoroaster As Curzon indicates, the recognition of kinship was matched by a vigorous interest in religious roots, which led to a complementary if no less important interest in Zoroaster. The influence of ‘Zoroaster’, as imagined by Europeans, has gone largely unnoticed by contemporary scholars despite the weight of the evidence.44 Although arguably we are The specifically racial doctrine of the Aryan race was first to be articulated by the Danish Orientalist Christian Lassen; see David Motadel, Iran and the Aryan Myth (forthcoming), p. 4. 41 T Ballantyne, Orientalism & Race, p. 38. See also the fascinating article by Mansour Bonakdarian, Erin and Iran Resurgent: Irish Nationalists and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, in H E Chehabi & V Martin (eds.) Iran’s Constitutional Revolution, London, I B Tauris, 2010, pp. 303–08. 42 On this seeming paradox, see F Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (trans. S Whiteside) Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1993, pp. 109–10. 43 G N Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, London, Frank Cass, 1966 (first published 1892), Vol I, pp. 5–6. 44 See Michael Stausberg, Zoroaster: As Perceived in Western Europe after Antiquity, http:// www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/ot_grp9/ot_zoreur_20050829.html, dated 29 August 2005, accessed 25 August 2008. See also his Faszination Zarathushtra. Zoroaster und die Europäische Religionsgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit. 2 Bde. Mit einem Geleitwort von Carsten Colpe. Berlin/New York, de Gruyter, 1998 (xl, 1084). Zoroaster was popularly

Introduction

15

now in the throes of a second rediscovery,45 the initial ‘rediscovery’ of the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has largely been purged from the (popular) historical record, and the influence of Zoroastrian theology on the Abrahamic religions has retreated into specialist scholarly enclaves. Yet as early as the turn of the eighteenth century, with the publication of Thomas Hyde’s Religio Veterum Persarum (1700), European intellectuals were introduced to the idea of Zoroaster as an individual of comparable stature to the prophets of the Abrahamic tradition. Interest gathered momentum through to the nineteenth century, with the successful interpretation of the Avestan texts which allowed for a reinvigorated critique of Christian orthodoxy. Indeed, in the words of one commentator Zoroastrianism was “the most pure and rational of all religions.”46 Ironically, ‘Zoroastrianism’ became one means by which Western intellectuals sought to encourage secularism by showing how ‘unoriginal’ Christian (and to a lesser extent Judaic) belief was. Zoroastrianism along with Aryanism became heavily mythologised as the century proceeded as earlier popular perceptions were reinterpreted, rationalised and most famously given a philosophical renaissance by Nietzsche, in his Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Although subsequent scholarship has sought to diminish any real Zoroastrian connection in the development of the book – as if Nietzsche had simply plucked the name from obscurity in order to give his text a more exotic feel – it is quite held to be the founder of magic as practised by the ‘magi’, an esoteric interpretation which was subsequently transferred to Masonic ritual and immortalised by Mozart in The Magic Flute. See J Rose, The Image of Zoroaster: The Persian Mage through European Eyes, New York, Bibliotheca Persica, 2000, p. 110, pp. 120–47 Zoroaster first made his operatic debut in Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Zoroaster, 1749. In the nineteenth century this fascination was expressed both in writing by Nietzsche and subsequently by Richard Strauss in music. Operas based on Iranian myths and stories were also produced, most obviously Puccini’s Turandot (i.e. Turandokht, daughter of Turan). Less known is Richard Wagner’s intention to write an opera based on the tragedy of Rostam and Sohrab. 45 In this vein, see Norman Cohn Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Vision, New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 2001. 46 Samuel Laing (1862), quoted in T Ballantyne, Orientalism & Race, p. 48. Laing added for good measure that there ‘was no such thing as a stupid Arian (sic) nation.’ See also J Israel, Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution and Human Rights 1750– 1790, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 603. For an excellent discussion of the European reception and reinvention of Zoroaster, see J Rose, Image of Zoroaster, pp. 85–195 Zoroaster makes an early entrance in Voltaire’s excursion into ‘Oriental’ tales (influenced clearly by the Arabian Nights), Zadig or L’Ingenu (trans. John Butt), London, Penguin, 1964, p. 18. Voltaire’s views on Zoroastrians are clear in his Essai sur les Moeurs, in which he contrasts the Parsis favourably with the Jews; see J G A Pocock, Barbarism & Religion, Vol 2, p. 106.

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clear from the motivations for the text and the form in which it took that Nietzsche was writing within an intellectual milieu which was familiar with Zoroastrianism and the Avesta.47 Not only is it written in the style of a recitation and with considerable poetic licence, effectively mimicking the oral nature of original Zoroastrian liturgy, but Nietzsche’s Zarathustra is recognised as the prophet who introduced morality to the world, and who has come to regret his innovation.48 It was in short an engagement with one of the major intellectual debates of the day, not a random invention of Nietzsche’s eclectic mind. At the same time Nietzsche’s Zarathustra was a timely reminder of the pervasive and recurrent tendency towards myth even as to an author who had come to qualify its utility.49 History and Archaeology While the development of the Aryan Myth was ongoing and the fascination with Zoroaster keenly debated  – to the extent that, as Curzon conceded, some doubted Zoroaster had ever existed  – developments in linguistics and archaeology were having a far more immediate impact on Iranian identity and historical consciousness. Along with Sanskrit and Avestan, European scholars also sought to discover the historical foundations (or otherwise) of the stories and myths contained within their classical literary heritage and more especially the Bible. This led them to Mesopotamia and of course Iran, the Persians having played a pivotal role in the Biblical narrative and in many of the stories considered part of the Western foundation myth. In essence Western historians went in search of a ‘Persia’ which was very much part of their narrative of descent, with the consequence that emphasis was laid on excavating the truth or otherwise of Ancient ‘Achaemenid’ Persians. Interest in this particular era was not only supported by biblical and classical references, but also benefited from more contemporary endorsements. Hegel had for instance included the Ancient Persians in his Philosophy of History as the peoples with which the process of historical progress had begun.50 Inasmuch as they initiated the process and then handed on the baton to the Greeks and Romans 47 For Zoroaster in German orientalism, see Suzanne Marchand, German Orientalism in the Age of Empire, New York, CUP, 2009, pp. 279–84. On Nietzsche’s use of Zarathustra, see J Rose, Image of Zoroaster, pp. 173–200, see also p. 5, ‘It is a wonderful affair; I have challenged all religions and made a new “Holy Book”’. 48 J Rose, Image of Zoroaster, p. 175. 49 J Mali, Mythistory, p. 121. 50 G W F Hegel, Philosophy of History, New York, Dover, 1956, pp. 173–4.

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(in a process to be completed by the Germans), these Persians (though not their descendants) seemed especially worthy of study. The intellectual breakthrough came with the seminal work of Henry Rawlinson, who succeeded in translating the Bisitun inscriptions of Darius I.51 The translations of cuneiform and the further development of archaeology (and epigraphy) endorsed and legitimised the historical narratives inherited from the Bible and the classical authors. In conjunction with the enormous political and intellectual power of the Europeans by the second half of the nineteenth century, these developments ensured that the European narrative of Persian history would supplant that which had been understood and appreciated within Iran itself. So complete was this process by the turn of the twentieth century, at least among the educated, that it was endorsed in turn by a singularly destructive political myth: the belief that the Iranians had forgotten their history until the Europeans had reminded them of it. Given the importance of history to identity, especially in the development of a distinctive national identity, the notion that the Iranians had been devoid of any historical consciousness of their pre-Islamic past, this in effect was a myth of the profoundest political consequences for the future and for the development of nationalist narratives.52 Of course the Iranians had not forgotten their past; they had simply remembered it differently. But the methods they had used were no longer deemed suitable for a rational scientific age, and their histories were relegated to the realm of literature, redeemed only by their artistic and aesthetic qualities. It is a supreme irony that at the very time when Nietzsche spoke of Zarathustra and Wagner considered writing an opera on the story of Rostam, Iranians were being told to replace their myths with facts. That Iranians proved receptive to this historical transplant had much to do with the attractiveness of the history being narrated. 51 For further details on this process, see K Abdi, Nationalism, Politics, and the Development of Archaeology in Iran, in American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 105 (1), January 2001, pp. 51–76. For Rawlinson’s achievement, see L Adkins, Empires of the Plains, London, Harper Collins, 2003. Of the Bisitun inscription she concludes that it would, ‘shape the life of Henry Rawlinson, and provide the catalyst for discoveries that would change our perception of history and the very roots of civilisation itself’ (p 370). Rawlinson provided a new Persian translation to Mohammad Shah, which is now lodged in the National Library in Tehran. 52 See B Lewis, Reflections on Islamic Historiography, in Middle Eastern Lectures, 2, 1997, p. 75. For an interesting comparative process, see Kidd Subverting Scotland’s Past, p. 209, where Kidd argues that, “Scotland’s lietrati rendered their native country in a sense a ‘historyless’ nation.”

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The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran

Encountering the West: An Age of Wonderment Iran in the nineteenth century was an empire in decline. Not that the Iranians themselves were quick to appreciate the steep nature of this particular fall and the difficulties which would be involved in reversing it. As a state, they had experienced political reverses before only to re-emerge, usually under the direction of charismatic leadership and with considerable dramatic flair. In short, precipitate decline was regularly followed by dramatic rises in power, often in such rapid succession that the underlying structural weaknesses of the state were ignored, neglected, and denied. In the eighteenth century for example, the collapse of the Safavid state and the assumption of power in Isfahan by Afghan tribal rebels had resulted in a fragmentation of the empire and its reduction at the hands of the Russians and the Ottomans. As noted in the previous section, Europeans appeared well appraised of these turbulent developments and would have drawn parallels with similar developments on their own continent. The sudden resurrection of Iranian power under Nader Shah therefore would have appeared all the more impressive and suggestive of the fact that for all the volatility of power in the region, there remained a certain consistency. Nader Shah’s extensive conquests, especially his dramatic descent on Delhi in 1739, captivated the European imagination; some were convinced that a new Alexander had appeared on the world stage.53 Yet the subsequent excesses of his brief career also reinforced a sense of decadence and social malaise brought on by the corruption of power. This sense was all the more acute because the spread of enlightenment ideas was changing European moral perceptions. Brutality which may have been all too familiar to Europeans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was no longer acceptable to those who prided themselves on being the torch-bearers of the enlightenment.54 Montesquieu’s late-eighteenth century heirs would not have chosen Persians to be the sophisticated mirrors against which European society could be measured and criticised. Nader Shah’s murder in 1747 resulted in another precipitate collapse, a brief period of respite under the comparatively liberal rule of Karim 53 An early admirer was James Fraser, History of Nadir Shah, London, Millar,1742, (reprinted by Gregg International Publishers, Westmead 1971) p. 234. Joseph Hanway was a good deal less sympathetic. Some European commentators argued that Nader Shah – originally known as ‘Tahmasp Quli Beg’, was really an Irish adventurer by the name of ‘Thomas O’Kelly’, see L Lockhart, ‘Persia as Seen by the West’, A J Arberry The Legacy of Persia, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1953, pp. 357–58. 54 On this point, and especially the Victorian reaction to Nader Shah, see Michael Axworthy, Sword of Persia, London, I B Tauris, 2007, p. xvi.

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Khan Zand – the bar had not been set high – followed by further political turmoil, until the empire was reunited by the ruthless Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar. It is worth pausing at this moment to establish one important frame of reference which has tended to be diminished by subsequent historians prone to see much of Iranian history through the prism of tribal and/or ethnic lenses.55 The turmoil of the eighteenth century and the fluidity of the dynastic upheavals coupled with a methodological disposition among European observers to regard premodern states as essentially dynastic and personal has ensured that the various empires have been defined by the dynasty which happened to rule at the time. Thus the Safavid empire/state was ultimately to be replaced by the Qajar State. The fact that Iran’s neighbours, especially the Ottoman Empire, were identified by the ruling dynasty made this label easier to digest. Paradoxically it was the Europeans who labelled the Ottoman Empire ‘Turkish’, a description the political elite of the Ottoman Empire (Osmanlis) would not have recognised and most likely would have rejected. Meanwhile in Iran, the dynastic adjective ‘Qajar’, although liberally applied, was never actually adopted in quite the same way. The official title of the Qajar state was ‘The Guarded Domains of Iran’. What this means is that the idea of Iran quite clearly predated the rise of a distinct nationalist ideology.56 What mattered was how this idea was to be interpreted. Indeed what is more remarkable about the Iranians encountered by the Europeans in the nineteenth century was not so much an absence of historical consciousness, but an excess of it.57 The Iranian elites appeared 55 The other tendency is to see Iranian history through an Islamic lens. 56 A revealing passage in this regard is found in Malcolm’s Sketches of Persia London, Murray, 1827, in which he notes that Haji Ibrahim, Agha Mohammad Khan’s vizier, had told Malcolm that it mattered little to the vizier which dynasty succeeded to power, only that stability be returned to the state; ‘My object [. . .] has been to give my country one king; I cared not whether he was a Zend or a Kajir, so that there was an end to internal distraction. I have seen enough of these scenes of blood; I will be concerned in no more of them. I hope I have made my peace with God, and shall therefore die contented’ (pp 222–23). It is worth noting that the Ottomans also termed their state the ‘Guarded Domains’, although apparently without territorial definition. The argument is not that the dynastic appellation was never used: Dynasties regularly eschewed any territorial limitations to their rule. The point is to stress that a territorially delimited idea of Iran predated the rise of nationalism. 57 An indication of this is revealed in the semantics: The Persian term for ‘history’ is tarikh; myth is generally translated as afsaneh. However in Persian there is another distinction: ostureh, a word derived from the Greek historia, but which in Iranian usage signifies ‘historical myth’. Interestingly, Kermani misread the etymology of ‘histoire’, providing it with a Persian root; see M Tavakoli-Targhi, Historiography, p. 12. See also in this regard the comments of Itimad al Saltaneh, who criticised an ‘excess of composition’, quoted in

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supremely self-confident and convinced of the importance and longevity of their kingdom, which they declared was the ‘oldest seat of dominion’.58 Sir John Malcolm, when he came to write his monumental History of Persia, the first attempt at such a comprehensive history in the English language, likewise availed himself of numerous indigenous sources, including the ubiquitous Shahnameh, or Book of Kings of Ferdowsi.59 Many of these ‘mythological’ sources would later be discarded as unreliable by those armed with the new methods of the discipline of history – dependent as they were on archival sources – but their existence gives lie to the subsequent assumption that Iranians had no history of their own beyond a very specifically religious history.60 On the contrary, this surplus of historical consciousness carried with it a conceit and a social conservatism which worked against any conception of progress.61 As Nietzsche has argued: The oversaturation of an age with history seems to me to be hostile and dangerous to life in five respects: such an excess creates that contrast between inner and outer . . . and thereby weakens the personality; it leads an age to imagine that it possesses the rarest of virtues, justice, to a greater degree than any other age; it disrupts the instincts of a people, and hinders the individual no less than the whole in the attainment of maturity; it implants the belief, harmful at any time, in the old age of mankind, the belief that one is a latecomer and epigone; it leads an age into a dangerous mood of irony in regard to itself and subsequently into the even more dangerous mood of cynicism: in this mood, however, it develops more and more a prudent practical egoism through which the forces of life are paralysed and at last destroyed.62 F Adamiyat, Problems in Iranian Historiography (trans. T Ricks), in Iranian Studies, Vol 4 (4), Autumn 1971, p. 139. 58 For an early assessment of Iranian historical perspectives, see Sir John Chardin, Travels in Persia, pp. 183–97. Tavakoli-Targhi makes a strong case for a ‘neo-Mazdaen renaissance’ which sought to recentre Iran into the historical narrative, albeit it was by Iranian intellectuals who relocated to India during the Safavid period. Contested Memories, pp. 162–73. 59 J Malcolm, The History of Persia from the Most Early Period to the Present Time Vol 1, London, John Murray, 2nd Edition, 1829, pp. 476–90. Gibbon had also become aware of the existence of a native historical narrative, E Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vol 1, London, Folio Society, 1983, pp. 187–200. The first volume was published in 1776 and the final in 1788. 60 See E Abrahamian, Oriental Despotism: The Case of Qajar Iran, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol 5(1), 1974, p. 5. With respect to the new fashion for ‘archival research’ and the accumulation of ‘facts’, see M Bentley, Modernising England’s Past, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 194–218. 61 J Malcolm, Sketches of Persia, p. 208 (on the demand that he approach in Elizabethan costume). Malcolm noted that few countries had experienced so many revolutions but had changed so little. J Malcolm, History of Persia, Vol II p. 451. 62 F Nietzsche, On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life, in Untimely Meditations (ed. D Breazeale), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007, p. 83. Furthermore,

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Managing the Transition The ease with which this transition from mythical to ‘scientific’ history reflected a number of political and intellectual realities, but also as noted in the section ‘History & Archaeology’, the transition was made easier by the fact that the new narrative had its own attractions for Iranian intellectuals. The discovery of the archaeological bases for the Achaemenids provided Iranians with a ‘factual’ past which in many ways was no less illustrious than the one they had been taught. Moreover, this particular narrative had the added attraction of integrating Iran more explicitly within the Western historical canon. It was true that the ‘Persians’ were identified as the opposition, but at least they were part of the historical panoply, and as was just noted, the Achaemenids at least were seen as part of a broader ‘Aryan’ family.63 This had contemporary political relevance and attractions. Furthermore, if aspects of ancient Iran were less than illustrious, all seemed to agree that the biblical Cyrus the Great had indeed been ‘the Lord’s Anointed’, and was a ruler worthy of praise, as the Greeks had themselves noted. With the discovery of the ‘Cyrus cylinder’ in Mesopotamia in 1879 reinforcing the image of Cyrus presented in the Old Testament, it appeared as if Iranians had discovered an iconic charismatic who was familiar and acceptable to all. The Iranian rediscovery of their ancient past was therefore not an unpleasant experience, and unlike the rulers of ancient Iraq or the Pharaohs of Egypt, Iranian kings, as personified by Cyrus, were not only religiously benign but also a key part of God’s plan. Cyrus after all was only the second ruler after King David to be given the epithet ‘Messiah’ by the Jews. If all this was new to Iranians, it was not unfamiliar: Iranians had been raised on a historical diet of heroes (royal or otherwise) with strong religious associations and a sense of mission normally related to the establishment of justice and order. The name thus might be new; the narrative (myth of Nietzsche argued that ‘the unhistorical and the historical are necessary in equal measure for the health of an individual, of a people and of a culture’ (p 63). 63 The popularity within Western culture of the myth of Cyrus is striking. Much of this came from biblical and classical sources, especially Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, two copies of which (one in Latin and one in Greek) were owned by Thomas Jefferson. Another Founding Father, James Madison, was also an enthusiast. Cyrus remains a comparatively popular name among American protestants  – much more so than among their European co-religionists – and may be linked to its popularity among Puritans. In 1812 Rossini composed an opera entitled Cyrus in Babylon in honour of Napoleon I, drawing parallels between the two men’s tolerant religious policies. Handel had of course composed an opera entitled Xerxes in 1738 and a previous one on Cyrus – Siroe Re di Persia – in 1728.

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the saviour) was not.64 The cult of Cyrus grew slowly from the end of the nineteenth century and was to become a central part of state ideology under the Pahlavis, but it worth noting that Western commentators were already flattering the Qajar ruler Nasir al Din Shah by describing him as ‘a descendent of Cyrus’, a lineage which the British scholar Edward Browne contemptuously dismissed as the equivalent of describing ‘our own Prince of Wales as a descendant of King Arthur’.65 Race and Ethnie The development of new mythologies aside, Browne’s comments also revealed the costs of adopting this new narrative of historical descent. Whereas previous historians had sought to reconcile the conflicting traditions, by the end of the nineteenth century it was clear that the revisionism was to be wholesale. Browne noted that Nasir al Din Shah could not be a lineal descendent of Cyrus because he was of Turkish stock, adding for good measure that the entire mythological history of Iran turned on the cyclical contest between the Iranians and the Turanians, or Turks. Edward Browne’s explanation is worth quoting in full: The whole history of Persia, from the legendary wars between the Kiyanian kings and Afrasiyab down the present day, is the story of a struggle between the Turkish races whose primitive home is in the region east of the Caspian Sea and north of Khurasan on the one hand, and the southern Persians, of almost pure Aryan race, on the other. The distinction is well marked even now, and the old antipathy still exists, finding expression in verses . . . and in anecdotes illustrative of Turkish stupidity and dullness of wit . . . Ethnologically, therefore, there is a marked distinction between the people of the north and the people of the south – a distinction which may be most readily apprehended by comparing the sullen, moody, dull witted, fanatical, violent inhabitants of Adharbayjan with the bright, versatile, clever, sceptical, rather timid townsfolk of Kirman . . . Since the downfall of the Caliphate and the lapse of the Arabian supremacy, the Turkish has generally been the dominant race; for in the physical world it is commonly physical force which wins the day, and dull, dogged courage bears down versatile and subtle wit. Thus it happens that today the Kajars rule over the kinsmen of Cyrus and Shahpur.66

What is most remarkable about this passage, quite apart from its overt racism, is that its author was among the most liberal of British academics 64 Just how familiar Iranians were with the existence of Cyrus (Persian: Korush) will be discussed later. 65 E G Browne, A Year among the Persians, London, A C Black 1893, p. 109. 66 E G Browne, A Year among the Persians, p. 109; interestingly, Browne was not an admirer of the Shahnameh from a literary perspective. See his Literary History of Persia.

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and the founder of Persian studies in the United Kingdom. Browne could barely be considered a supporter of the racial doctrines of Aryanism as defined by Gobineau and his successors, but this passage shows how far racial-nationalism had become part of the fabric of even liberal intellectual life.67 Moreover Browne succumbed to the temptation of applying current social science theory to the historical record and effectively deployed the ideology of race to debunk that of inclusive continuity. Both approaches suffered from the fallacy of race and ethnie as a biological and determined distinction, rather than approaching the matter from a cultural and fluid direction.68 It is not at all clear that the inhabitants of the Guarded Domains of Iran in the nineteenth century distinguished each other in racial terms or regarded these distinctions as greater than the whole. Nor is it by any means certain that the contemptuous and dismissive way in which ‘Turks’ were addressed related to Turks as an ethnic rather than socio-economic group.69 The association of language as the exclusive prerogative of a particular (political) identity was not yet fixed in the Middle East. Among the elites in particular it was not uncommon for a variety of languages to be spoken as the need demanded. So for example, although the Qajars came to be regarded by nationalist ideologues as guilty by virtue of their Turkish ethnicity, such exclusivity would not have been immediately apparent to Agha Mohammad Khan as he exhorted his troops to greater bravery by having the Shahnameh read out in battles, and having a Kayanid crown constructed for his coronation.70 This is not to 67 On the background to this transformation of the meaning of ‘race’, see E Beasley, The Victorian Reinvention of Race, Oxford, Routledge, 2010. Beasley argues that biological ideas about race were more prominent in France (c.f. Gobineau) and were increasingly adopted in British intellectual circles after 1850. Among the key proponents of Aryanism was Walter Bagehot, the editor of The Economist (see pp. 63–97). For a more traditional and fluid view of the concept of ‘race’, see W Dalrymple, White Mughals, London, Harper Collins, 2003, pp. xlvi–xlix. 68 See H Enayat, The Politics of Iranology, Iranian Studies, Vol 6 (1), Winter 1973, pp. 9–10 69 A far more persuasive case would be to argue that the antipathy existed between urban and rural, bureaucrat and nomad, and that the Iranian-Turanian (later Turkicized) can better be understood as the tension between sedentary and nomadic groups from the same ethnie. See also in this respect T Atabaki, From Multilingual Empire to Modern State, in H Katouzian and H Shahidi (eds.), Iran in the 21st Century, London, Routledge 2008, p. 42. 70 J Malcolm, History of Persia Vol 2, 1829, p. 193. For Agha Mohammad Khan’s affectation for the Shahnameh, see also Azudullah Soltan Ahmad Mirza, Tarikh-e Azudi (The Azudi History), Tehran, Meharat, 1376 / 1997, pp. 162–63, which provides a particularly unfortunate example of the consequences of a Shahnameh recital. See also the list

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argue against distinction, even of the ethnic variety (an imperial state by implication and desire is composed of multiple communities), but it is to caution against biological determinism and the exclusivity which accompanied it. The Turkification of the Qajars would be magnified with the growth of distinct ethnic nationalism in the twentieth century, including that of Turkish nationalism in the Ottoman Empire; under the Pahlavis, this process would extend, somewhat awkwardly, over the entire Qajar political establishment, thereby consigning the entire era to the historical margins, much in the same way as the Arab nationalists would define the Ottoman centuries as a ‘dark age’. The process was of course not unusual: Succeeding dynasties had always sought to erase any positive memory of those they had overthrown. But the emphasis in this case was different. The Disciplining of History There were two other consequences of importance to the development of modern Iranian nationalism. One, which has received relatively little attention, was the way in which history, and its retelling, was henceforth removed from the popular realm and relocated as a prerogative of the intellectuals and professional historians. This process mirrors that which took place in the West, where folkloric, literary history was replaced by a discipline practised by professionals. But the consequences for a country with far lower levels of literacy were to be much more striking. The new histories which were gradually emerging were by and large dryer and less engaging than their predecessors, and were replete with a vocabulary which would have meant little to ordinary Iranians. Much like the change of alphabet in Turkey during the early Republic, the professionalisation of history left the Iranian historical consciousness emasculated and bewildered.71 The process of transition of course took some time to unfold, and Sykes wrote, with barely disguised irritation, that names of Fath Ali Shah’s sons (pp 360–65). Of the 60 sons listed 15 have Iranian names; the known-names are also interesting. Moreover, it was a disaffected Qajar Prince, Jalal al Din Mirza (1832–1871), who arguably wrote the first consciously ‘Persian’ history of the modern era, the Name-ye Khosravan (Book of Kings), covering the pre-Islamic period through to the nineteenth century, in which he deliberately eschewed the use of Arabic words; see also M Kia, Persian Nationalism and the Campaign for Language Purification in Middle Eastern Studies, Vol 34 (2), 1998, pp. 11–13. 71 For an interesting assessment of the new historiography, see F Kazemzadeh, Iranian Historiography, in B Lewis & P M Holt (eds.) Historians of the Middle East, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1962, pp. 430–34; see also the masterful analysis provided by Fereydoun Adamiyat, Problems in Iranian Historiography, trans. T Ricks, Iranian Studies, Vol 4 (4) Autumn 1971, pp. 132–56.

Introduction

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the Shahnameh remained the only history many Iranians were willing to believe.72 Tales from the Shahnameh were later to be selectively appropriated by the emergent left in Iran. But in the first instance the space vacated by these popular stories and narratives was to be increasingly occupied by religion. An ‘Islamic World’ The religion of Shi’a Islam, of course, was the other great influence on Iranian identity in the nineteenth century and a factor which drew considerable attention from Western observers, not least Edward Browne. As witnessed at that time, and juxtaposed against the weakness of the Qajar state machinery, religious orthodoxy and the Shia ulema establishment was generally regarded as antithetical to the progress and modernisation of the country. This analysis conformed to the model of progress identified in Europe and established by the French Revolution, and was further facilitated by the fact that the organisation of Islam in Iran more closely approximated a ‘church’ in the Western sense than the equivalent structures in the Sunni Ottoman Empire.73 There was in short an organisation and an emerging doctrine that was identifiable and distinct. For Iran’s nascent nationalists, the Shia ulema were an inviting target. Yet in several ways, the later crystallisation of this perspective disguised the real fluidity and pluralism which characterised nineteenth-century Iranian Shi’ism, and characteristically, many contemporary assessments were retrospectively applied. Shi’ism, which had become the state religion under the Safavids (1501–1736), had undergone a number of permutations, and whereas the ulema had gained in profile and strength under the patronage of the Safavids, the faith as practised is now generally understood as having been considerably more eclectic than previously appreciated. Indeed modern scholars have had occasion to question the Shia credentials of the founder of the dynasty  – Shah Ismail  – whose views appeared more millenarian than orthodox, and although religion was an important aspect of his ideology, it was neither clear nor exclusive.74 Nevertheless, despite evidence that the Safavids were at best 72 Percy Sykes, A History of Persia, London, RoutledgeCurzon, 2004, (first published by Macmillan 1915) p. 133; see also Vita Sackville-West, Passenger to Teheran, London, Hogarth Press, 1926, p. 105, p. 121. On this see also R Cottam, Nationalism in Iran, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1979, p. 27. 73 See the comments of H Enayat, Politics of Iranology, p. 6. 74 It is worth bearing in mind in this context that the Safavid dynasty is one of the few Islamic-era dynasties in Iran to have espoused a throne name derived from the Shahnameh – ‘Tahmasp’, and certainly the only since 1500.

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unorthodox adherents, the perception that the dynasty was founded and defined by orthodox Shi’ism remains a common view. Such a belief of course conveniently fits the narrative of modernisation which sees premodern states as dynastic and religious. Such a perspective has resulted in the unsurprising reaction which defines the emergence of the Safavid state as a national renaissance. Inasmuch as this argument is predicated on an assessment which is itself simplistic, both interpretations can be recognised as shedding more heat than light: Both are products of an historical (political) agenda. The development of the Shia orthodoxy and hierarchy with which we are familiar today was in large part a product of the political turmoil of the eighteenth century in the first instance and the consolidation of doctrine which proceeded in the nineteenth century, a process which in many ways was catalysed and defined against the Babi Revolt. The revolt threatened to undermine the entire Shia hierarchy and helps to explain the intense antipathy which exists between the ulema and the Bahais to this day.75 Indeed it was the very vulnerability of Shia orthodoxy at this stage and the pluralism which existed in its theology which facilitated the emergence of a radical millenarian movement and exposed the political weaknesses of the Shia clergy. Significantly, state repression of the Babi movement only began once the state itself felt under threat. Arcane matters of theological dispute were of little interest to the Qajar authorities until the Babi movement was perceived as undermining the political legitimacy of the state. The vulnerabilities of the ulema at both a theological and practical level were of course challenged by others, including the religious intellectual, Jamal al Din al Afghani. Afghani himself is a good example of how narratives have been formed through the selective use of evidence. In the first place, it is now apparent that despite the surname he adopted, Afghani was in fact born in Iran – near Asaadabad – and his theological and intellectual upbringing was thoroughly Shia and Iranian.76 Moreover, his renown as the father of modern political Islam is a result not only of his activism throughout the Islamic world but the dissemination of his ideas by his Arab disciples (Mohammad Abduh in particular), and to a lesser extent by the way in which he was represented by Edward Browne in Browne’s book The Persian Revolution. 75 An alternative reading is that the Sheikhi and Babi movements were in fact a reaction to the developing orthodoxy that was emerging. 76 The standard biography in English remains N Keddie, Sayyid Jamāl ad-Dı̄n ‘al-Afghānı ’̄ : A Political Biography, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1972, p. 479. On Afghani’s / Asaadabadi’s relevance to Iran, see Ayandeh, Vol 2 (5), (July 1927).

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In these ways, Afghani was introduced to the world as the quintessential religious activist, the forerunner of modern political Islamists, who sought the reunification of the Islamic world through the ideology of pan-Islamism.77 There is little doubt that Afghani recognised Islam as a means through which the countries of the Islamic world could be rejuvenated and politically awoken. But his writings do not betray an individual resolutely convinced of the superiority of his faith. On the contrary, a large part of Afghani’s attraction to his followers was innovation, which not infrequently veered into iconoclasm.78 These latter excursions were suppressed by his Arab disciples who regarded them as embarrassing and difficult to reconcile with his reputation as an Islamic activist, but Afghani’s apparent open-minded attitude to the strengths and weaknesses of organised religion won him admirers among European intellectuals who, significantly, considered Afghani a fellow traveller. Afghani, who had travelled and lived in both Paris and London, was sufficiently interested in an article by the French philosopher Ernest Renan which had been critical of the contribution of the Arabs, and by extension Islam, to history that he felt obliged to respond. Renan’s criticism was of course symptomatic of the age in diminishing the contribution of Arab ‘Semites’, and explaining the failures of Islam to adapt to the modern age as a consequence of its association with the Arabs. Such arguments were to be staples of nationalistic thought among both Turks and Iranians (and to a lesser extent Arab nationalists). However, the close association of the Arabs with Islam also ensured that Turkish and Iranian contributions to Islamic civilisation were marginalised if not ignored altogether.79 Afghani’s response bears careful scrutiny for both its subtlety and the care with which he picked apart Renan’s arguments. He does not reject

77 Afghani’s interests were in fact far more eclectic; he even found time to write a brief history of Iran from Kayumars to Nasir al Din Shah; see Mohammad Tavakoli-Targhi, Historiography and Crafting Iranian National Identity, in T Atabaki (ed.), Iran in the 20th Century, p. 13. 78 E Kedourie goes so far as to suggest that Afghani was in fact a closet atheist. See also Mangol Bayat, The Rowshanfekr in the Constitutional Period, in H E Chehabi & V Martin (eds.) Iran’s Constitutional Revolution, p. 169. 79 For example, the view that the Islamic world went into terminal decline following the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258 (an argument championed in part by H A R Gibb), has cast a long shadow. Enayat complained that much of the subsequent Iranian contributions to Islamic thought were by extension ignored, with a consensus emerging that there had in fact been no thought of value. See H Enayat, Politics of Iranology, p 11.

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Renan’s criticisms in their entirety but argues very firmly for a belief in progress and reason: If it is true that the Muslim religion is an obstacle to the development of the sciences, can one affirm that this obstacle will not disappear one day? How does the Muslim religion differ on this point from other religions? All religions are intolerant, each one in its way. The Christian religion, I mean the society that follows its inspirations and its teachings and is formed in its image, has emerged from the first period to which I have just alluded; thenceforth free and independent, it seems to advance rapidly on the road to progress and science . . . I cannot keep from hoping that Muhammadan [sic] society will succeed some day in breaking its bonds and marching resolutely in the path of civilisation after the manner of Western society, for which the Christian faith, despite its rigours and intolerance, was not at all an invincible obstacle.80

Moreover, Afghani challenged the predominant thesis on race by arguing that “if one is willing to consider that human races are only distinguished by their languages and that if this distinction should disappear, nations would not take long to forget their diverse origins.”81 Afghani took care to acknowledge the importance of Persian scholars to the dissemination of science and knowledge in the Caliphate, but resisted the temptation of ascribing this to some sort of biological superiority as Renan appeared to have suggested. Afghani did nonetheless end with a statement which could leave his readers in no doubt of his sympathies and which ironically would only have reinforced their prejudices regarding the superior intellect of the ‘Aryans’; an opinion, it should be remembered, which was promoted by Browne:82 Whenever religion will have the upper hand, it will eliminate philosophy; and the contrary happens when it is philosophy that reigns as sovereign mistress. So long as humanity exists, the struggle will not cease between dogma and free investigation, between religion and philosophy; a desperate struggle in which I fear, the triumph will not be for free thought, because the masses dislike reason, and its teachings are only understood by some intelligences of the elite, and because also, science, however beautiful it is, does not completely satisfy humanity, which 80 Jamal al Din al Afghani, Answer of Jamal al Din to Renan, ‘Journal des Debats’ May 18 1883, reprinted in N. Keddie (ed) An Islamic Response to Imperialism, Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal al Din al Afghani, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1986, p. 183. 81 Jamal al Din al Afghani, Answer of Jamal al Din to Renan, p. 186. 82 E G Browne, The Persian Revolution, Browne was both an admirer of Jamal al Din, and the quick wittedness of the Persians. (See Harford Jones’s comments above) Even assuming, as some did at the time, that Jamal al Din was from Afghanistan, this would still have placed him within the ‘Aryan’ orbit.

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thirsts for the ideal and which likes to exist in dark and distant regions that the philosophers and scholars can neither perceive nor explore.83

This insightful statement in many ways foretold the continuing influence religious myths would have on the masses, especially in the absence of indigenous challenges. But Afghani’s views and influence also reflect the heterogeneous nature of religious life in Iran in this period. That Iranian life and identity was influenced by religion and spirituality cannot be in any doubt; that it was dominated by a well defined orthodoxy is less clear. Religious identities, as is true of other forms of identity, are of course often shaped by competition, and as will be shown the development of a clearly identifiable religious narrative was the product not only of the politicised ulema, but also of their opponents who sought to ascribe all ills to the pervasiveness of Islam, which became increasingly identified as an ‘Arab’ religion. The nuances of Afghani’s arguments were largely lost in the bitter ideological disputes which were to shape much of the next century, in no small part because, ‘the masses dislike reason’. Yet perhaps more important than this in terms of the development of ideology was the reaction of Iran’s intellectuals, and their interpretation and understanding of intellectual currents within Europe. This was not a dialogue of equals, at least not in quantitative terms; Afghani’s engagement with European intellectuals was proof enough of that. But the number of Iranian intellectuals in the nineteenth century who were comfortable with the language of European intellectualism, let alone able to adapt it for their own environment, were in a distinct minority. The critical mass for engagement and a coherent translation of ideas simply did not exist, and what resulted was a simplification of the intellectual corpus into digestible morsels which often bore little relation to the complex realities of intellectual life in the West. Intellectual currents were simplified into reassuring and consistent ideological certainties. In this sense, the fundamental problem of the relationship between East and West was ‘Occidentalism’, not ‘Orientalism’. Conclusion Social and political change, imposed and defined by the West, was to result in a hardening of ideological perspectives as political factions competed to redefine the idea of Iran. By the turn of the twentieth century the blueprint 83 Jamal al Din al Afghani, Answer of Jamal al Din to Renan, p. 187.

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of ‘national emancipation’ drawn from European intellectuals was in the ascendant. Emergent Iranian nationalists drank enthusiastically from the well. Centralisation; modernisation; retreat of religion from the public sphere; and development of a nation-state founded on a single biologically determined, exclusive, ethnic group were all apparently appropriated with enthusiasm. In contrast to the more nuanced analyses of Jamal al Din al Afghani, other early writers and commentators, increasingly frustrated by the visible weakness of the Iranian state and the failure of political elites to grapple with the problem of decline, took to defining its causes in increasingly extreme language which openly echoed the vocabulary of race emanating from European nationalists, more so because the distinction they sought to create brought them closer to the Europeans they sought to emulate. Indeed, Iran was almost unique among non-European countries in being able to ideologically integrate itself within a European frame of reference. Unlike the Arabs or the Turks, European doctrines of ethnic nationalism did not implicitly exclude the Iranians. On the contrary, ‘Iranians’ as a national idea were very much part of the European family. Although some Europeans might consider Iranians a rather embarrassing distant relation, Iranian nationalists were keen to position Iran as the prodigal ‘father’ eagerly anxious to return to the family fold. In both cases, the intimacy of the perceived relationship should not be ignored, especially in light of the chequered history of Iran’s relations with the West in the modern era. Early nationalists were agreed on the cause of the wayward behaviour – the Arabs. Writers such as Akhundzadeh condemned the Arabs in no uncertain terms as the authors of Iran’s destruction.84 Likewise, his contemporary Mirza Agha Khan Kermani wrote that ‘The root of each of the branches of the tree of ugly character of Persia that we touch was planted by the Arabs and its fruit [sprang from] the seed sown from the Arabs. All the despicable habits and customs of the Persians are either the legacy and testament of the Arab nation or the fruit and influence of the invasions that have occurred in Persia.’85 Such comments have come 84 Fereydun Adamiyat, Andisheh-haye Mirza Fathali Akhundzadeh, Tehran, Khwarazmi, 1349 / 1970, p. 123. For a wider discussion of Akhundzadeh’s enlightenment inheritance and debt to Voltaire, see Maryam B Sanjabi, Rereading the Enlightenment: Akhundzada and His Voltaire, Iranian Studies, Vol 28 (1/2), Winter-Spring 1995, pp. 39–60. Sanjabi makes the point that Akhundzadeh would have become familiar with French enlightenment thinking in Russian translations (p 39). 85 Quoted in S Bakhash, Iran: Monarchy, Bureaucracy & Reform under the Qajars: 1858–1896, London, Ithaca Press, 1978, p. 345. Kermani had published a poetic history of ancient history in 1316/1898. In this text he discusses the rise of the Aryan nation (mellat-e aryana). His admiration for the Shahnameh is obvious. For a discussion of

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to characterise the ideology of Iranian nationalism as it emerged to dominate state policy in the early twentieth century. Yet just as Iranian writers tended to simplify their inheritance from the West, so too the process of appropriation and development had tended to be simplified into a narrative of emulation which did justice neither to the complexity of the process nor of the ideas which emerged.86 As argued in the section ‘Logic of the West,’ Iranian nationalists sought to remake their own history but found themselves in circumstances not of their own choosing. These circumstances were twofold: the first most obviously was the political reality of European power and Iranian decline; the second, more complex and arguably more profound circumstance relates to the intellectual frame of reference, the metanarrative and subtext within they operated and occasionally confronted. This metanarrative and its associated grand narratives were defined by Europeans at the crest of their imperial power and intellectual confidence. Disseminated largely, although as will be seen not exclusively, through the medium of French culture, language, and civilisation, they betrayed a certainty which disguised the very real conflicts and contradictions of intellectual growth and dynamism which continued to shape European (and Western) ideas.87 The length of time it took for these ideas to be absorbed within Iranian intellectual life more often than not resulted in an incongruity with the source of the ideas, which by then had challenged, reviewed, and occasionally discarded the original concept.88 This dynamism further complicated the absorption of ideas and lent a sense of urgency to their dissemination, frequently resulting in a radicalization whose paradoxical effect was to pervert the Kermani’s political views and his adoption of a European discourse on race, see M Bayat Philipp, Mı̄rzā Āqā Khān Kirmānı :̄ A Nineteenth Century Persian Nationalist, in IJMES, Vol 10 (1), 1974, p. 40. 86 See in this respect Sorour Soroudi, Persian Literature and Judeo-Persian Culture (H Chehabi ed.), Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 2010, pp. 338–57. From this reading it is not at all clear that either Akhundzadeh or Kermani fully absorbed the racial dimensions of their anti-Arab diatribes. For all their adherence to an ‘Iranian race’, they did not necessarily oppose this to a Semitic race, and Kermani limited his disdain for the ‘ancient Chaldeans and Arabs’ (p 344). 87 See in respect to Kermani and Akhundzadeh Mohammad, Tavakoli-Targhi, Historiography and Crafting Iranian National Identity in T Atabaki (ed.), Iran in the 20th Century, pp. 11–13. 88 See in this regard the excellent essay by Y Sadowski, The New Orientalism and Democracy, Debate Middle East Report, Vol 183, 1993, p. 41. See also p. 36 for the continuing debate on state and society and the effects of ‘Islam’. See also Schopflin, Nations, Identity, Power, p. 1. See also H Dabashi, The Poetics of Politics: Commitment in Modern Persian Literature, Iranian Studies, Vol 18 (2/4), Spring-Autumn 1985, p. 159.

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original message.89 In effect Iranian nationalists had to struggle with the reality that complicated messages took too long to absorb. In many ways this proved the single most difficult intellectual problem of imposing a nationalist ideology from above. Nationalism dictated a move from the ‘lateral’ to the ‘demotic’. Yet the attempt to extend and disseminate this complex new narrative of nationalism coincided with the adoption of the new ‘scientific’ discipline of history. The traditional popular vehicles of dissemination and social penetration were discarded in favour of methods that even the new elite had difficulty in acquiring. In the words of one of Iran’s earliest ‘modern’ historians: This noble art has been weak and frail due to the excess of composition in Iran. Unsubstantiated information and strange superstitions have caused [Persian] history from the beginning of its creation to the emergence of Islamic government to lose credibility and acceptance among the learned. Among the ancient Persian dynasties, many names of kings have been lost. Now in this present immortal age, the books of the ancient history of Iran have been compared with the books of the European historians, both the ancient historians in the time of Herodotus and the moderns, most of whom are still living. The histories of the Arabs, Persians, Greeks, Egyptians and Europeans have been compared with one another, and also with the coins of past kings, and the other writings, scripts, inscriptions, and symbols which give information about bygone ages. Mistakes, omissions, legends, and superstitions have been sifted from the authentic information and explicit documents.90

As noted at the beginning of this chapter, one of the major difficulties in charting the history of an idea is to know where to enter the debate. This is particularly important and problematic in a study of historiography and political myth when one can never effectively stand ‘outside’ the debate. One approach, as the noted Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci argued, is to review the progress of ideas and ideologies in historical perspective, defining eras in terms of ‘historical blocs’, during which particular ideas (of domination) were pervasive.91 However, as attractive and practical as such an approach is, it is not without its problems. In deconstructing one narrative arc one soon finds oneself replacing it with another.92 The key is to start with that which is familiar, drawing out its 89 For a discussion of a problem which plagued H Taqizadeh all his life, see Gholamreza Vatandoust, Sayyid Hasan Taqizadah and Kaveh: Modernism in Post-Constitutional Iran (1916–21). Unpublished thesis, SOAS, 1977, p. 53. 90 Itimad al Saltaneh, quoted in Adamiyat, Problems in Iranian Historiography, p. 139. 91 See A Gramsci, A Gramsci Reader (ed. D Forgacs), London, Lawrence & Wishart, 1988, pp. 189–221. 92 Readers will soon discern three distinct themes in the text that follows: constitutionalism and enlightenment nationalism, the dialectic between history and myth, and the transition from lateral to demotic forms of nationalism.

Introduction

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contested nature, from where one can move on to reshape the narrative arc, not with the aim of providing a definitive replacement, but more simply, with the view of disturbing the traditional perspective and challenging assumptions. Consequently just as this chapter has begun with the impact of Europe – while drawing attention to the contested nature of that impact – so too the historical section of this study will begin with the Constitutional Movement and the revolution in politics and ideas which it spawned. But the focus will rest not on the narrative history of that movement but on its political and intellectual legacy, the manner in which it would frame the debate that was to follow. Structure of the Study This study avoids the standard categorizations of Iranian political history by defining the Constitutional era – the era of Iran’s ‘radical enlightenment’  – as extending from the onset of the Constitutional Revolution in 1905 through to the launch of the White Revolution in the early 1960s.93 This ‘historical bloc’ was defined by the writings and experiences of a generation of politicians and thinkers whose roots lay deep in the Constitutional Movement. The parameters are neither exact, nor were the ideas uncontested or evenly applied. Certainly by the end of the era in question, ‘enlightened’ (secular) nationalism was on the wane, being replaced by something altogether more hard-headed. Indeed from the early 1960s through to 1991, a more extreme ideological era came to the fore, with perhaps greater clarity but less nuance and depth. It was framed internationally by the Cold War and internally by an increasingly powerful state with more resources, one confronting a better-educated society of its own making. This ‘age of extremes’ was characterized by an ideological and political ruthlessness, in which competing narratives brooked no opposition. Nationalism, in its dynastic and religious forms, took what was 93 The term ‘radical enlightenment’ is taken from Jonathan Israel. Israel defines this movement as: “Radical enlightenment is the system of ideas that, historically, has principally shaped the Western World’s most basic social and cultural values in the post-Christian age. This in itself lends the history of the movement great importance. But this type of thought  – especially in many Asian and African countries, as well as contemporary Russia  – has also become the chief hope and inspiration of numerous besieged and harassed humanists, egalitarian, and defenders of human rights, who, often against great odds, heroically champion basic human freedom and dignity, including that of women, minorities, homosexuals, and religious apostates, in the face of resurgent forms of bigotry, oppression, and prejudice that in much of the world today appear inexorably to be extending their grip.” A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy, Princeton, NJ, 2010, p. xi.

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worst from the previous generation, stripping nationalist ideology of its humanist pretensions and rationalizing it often to the point of nonsense.94 This was the apogee of the myth of the saviour: the omniscient, omnipotent, and sagacious leader who could – with some divine inspiration and assistance – solve the nation’s problems and lead it into an earthly utopia. Both Mohammad Reza Shah (the Shah) and Ayatollah Khomeini (the Imam) came to symbolise particular moments and to personalise the ideologies they sought to represent.95 Although apparently antithetical, they operated within familiar structures, and as will be argued here, reflected more continuity than change. The period coincides with the dominance of positivism in historical writing in its least constructive form. Iran’s new historians had been arguing for some time that the discipline of historical writing had to be more rigorously adhered to, and they condemned colleagues who took dramatic licence with the facts and indulged in excessive prose. This tendency was however taken to such extremes that historical writing was either stripped of all narrative prose (becoming, effectively, modern chronicles), or alternatively polemical and overtly propagandistic. Indeed, as far as the state was concerned, history became too serious to be left to historians with the consequence that this period experienced a poverty in analytical and discursive historical writing. Indeed for an era preoccupied with facts, a great deal of time and effort was expended on pre-Islamic Iran (specifically Achaemenid Iran), whose very paucity of available indigenous sources resulted in a greater reliance on Western sources and speculation. The best work proved to be so particular, it did little to inform the public about nation and identity. Perhaps the best indication of this emblematic shift was symbolised by the contrasting commemorations for the millennium of Ferdowsi’s birth in 1934 and the 2500th anniversary of the accession of Cyrus the Great in 1971. Whereas earlier nationalists emphasised the importance of the Shahnameh in providing meaning to identity, Mohammad Reza Shah largely ignored it until very late in his reign when his pronounced association with the myths of the Shahnameh was regarded as simplistic 94 The problems of the ethical dimension in Iranian education were not new, as earlier writers had sought to tackle it. See D Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press 1992, pp. 110–13, also p. 123. 95 See G W F Hegel, The German Constitution (1802), in Hegel’s Political Writings (trans. T M Knox), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1964, p. 216: ‘And herein lies political genius, in the identification of an individual with a principle. Given this linkage, the individual must carry off the victory.’

Introduction

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and ridiculous.96 In such circumstances, it is not surprising that people turned increasingly to the resplendent reservoir of myths in Shi’ism. There were two areas in which Mohammad Reza Shah’s reign were however to have profound social consequences. One was in the sphere of education, begun in earnest under his father and accelerated during the 1960s and 1970s following the dramatic injection of oil revenues. The other was in the investment in archival resources, manuscripts, and publishing.97 Both these developments were given a further boost following the advent of the Islamic Revolution and Republic. Literacy rates improved dramatically, and this was paralleled by a demographic surge which vastly expanded Iran’s literary and educational base. Moreover, the authorities in the Islamic Republic, convinced of the providence of their mission and anxious to prove the iniquities of the monarchy, enthusiastically took control and expanded archival resources, while private publishers joined state enterprises in publishing historical texts and memoirs. Indeed the disempowerment and in some cases, flight of an entire elite in 1979 meant that the state suddenly found itself in control of extensive papers and documents. Combined with the trauma of revolution and war, these developments ensured that in the 1990s, a new social dimension was added to the debate: a literate public with a voracious appetite for explanation as well as an interest in the romance of the past as an escape from the trials of the present. These developments – in many ways the intellectual summation of all that had preceded them – were to make the final stage of this study perhaps the most contested and dynamic as state and society grappled for ownership of what it meant to be Iranian.

96 See M Karanjia, The Mind of a Monarch. Far from extracting meaning from the text, the Shah appears to have approached it literally. 97 K Bayat, The Pahlavi School of Historiography on the Pahlavi Era, in T Atabaki (ed.) Iran in the 20th Century, p. 118.

2 An Iranian Enlightenment

..Cyrus founded the Iranian monarchy, Darius ordered Iranian politics, Ardeshir Papagan renewed the Iranian state, Zoroaster founded the ancient Iranian religion and Ferdowsi restored (revived) the Iranian nation. Foroughi Real patriotism [nationalism] is built on the foundations of freedom and justice. Imposed nationalism cannot take root Taqizadeh

Introduction At this stage it is worth reviewing the circumstances in which Iran’s philosophers of nationalism found themselves at the turn of the twentieth century, both materially and intellectually. The political reality has been well charted, and although contemporary historians may debate the details and extent of Iran’s decline in the late Qajar period, reformers and statesmen were in little doubt that a serious malaise had set in. This may not have approached the sense of terminal decline which populated some European assessments and which was to later serve to marginalise the Qajars within Pahlavi historiography, but there was nonetheless an increasing sense of urgency about the weakness of the state and the necessity for some remedy.1 Territorial losses and European economic encroachments combined with the crown’s seeming inability to do anything constructive, all served to create distance between the government 1 Even Curzon thought some remedial action possible, just! See G N Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, London, Longman, 1892, p. 633.

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and the reform-minded intellectual elite.2 In numerical terms this elite was small, but given that politics remained unequivocally the preserve of the few, numbers bore little immediate relation to effect and impact. What mattered was the reach of this elite, their penetration of relevant parts of society and the cohesion of any movement, along with crucially, the ability of the government to resist and/or to impose its will. In many ways the durability of the Qajar state was a function of the incoherence of its opposition, not its own ability to exercise the tools of administration and coercion – even if these had existed.3 Yet these practical limitations did not translate immediately into intellectual discussions which were, as indicated earlier, heavily reliant on Western interpretations of political development, and which remained to a large extent state-centric.4 For early Iranian nationalists therefore, the focus of these analyses remained the ‘state’, and within that, the consequences of ‘despotism’.5 An alternative approach would have been to accept, as some foreign observers were tempted to do, that decline was the product of a deeper social, even biological malaise. However, having defined the problem as essentially political, Iran’s ‘enlightened nationalists’ determined that solutions had to be found in political reform, extending participation (more ‘republican’ than ­‘democratic’),6 the rule of law, and crucially, the invocation of a patriotic, national ethos, among the population. This latter aim in itself was a tacit recognition of the existence of social incohesion, and it would be inaccurate to argue that the early nationalists neglected this aspect of the equation. Far from it: Educating the public at large and inculcating them with civic pride and patriotism was an essential part of the solution. But it would be fair to say that as originally conceived, the source and origin of the problem was regarded as political, not social, and that 2 E G Browne, A Year among the Persians, London, Adam and Charles Black, 1893, pp. 98–99. 3 See E Abrahamian, Oriental Despotism: The Case of Qajar Iran, IJMES, Vol 5 (1), 1974, p 6. 4 Politics remained an elite preoccupation. Perhaps the one exception to this rule was Marx; see Abrahamian, Oriental Despotism, p. 5. 5 Akhundzadeh appropriated the French term, defining it in terms of arbitrary power. Maryam B Sanjabi, Rereading the Enlightenment: Akhundzada and His Voltaire, Iranian Studies, Vol 28 (½) Winter-Spring, 1995, p. 56. 6 This distinction is important particularly in the context of the nineteenth century when even European intellectuals were ill disposed to the idea of ‘democracy’. The rule of the masses was not regarded as positive, and it is worth noting that when the classically trained Curzon described Iran as possibly the most democratic country in the world, this was not necessarily meant as a compliment.

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the former had to be addressed before one could realistically turn one’s attention to the latter. Significantly, for all that a greater part of the vocabulary of reform was drawn from the West, many of the myths and motifs, including those of decline and decadence, were willingly adopted and generally accepted as an accurate reflection of the reality on the ground. James Morier’s satire, Hajji Baba of Isfahan, was translated and distributed in Persian with some success in 1892, and only caused consternation when readers realized that the original had been penned by a foreigner.7 Subsequently, Iranian nationalists would surpass Morier in their self-deprecating social witticisms, and the criticisms they themselves drew mirrored those directed at Morier by his fellow Orientalists who lamented that the satire was being accepted as serious scholarship.8 But their agenda was quite different from that of Morier’s. Far from seeking to entertain their readers, their intention was to shock them out of political stupor. They too shared the view that the core of the problem was political and revolved around the arbitrary power of the monarch, with all that this implied, arguing that it was the lack of stable, transparent laws, and consequently of personal security, which had encouraged the less savory aspects of Iranian culture, including the much-vaunted propensity towards mendacity.9 This generally positive view of ‘Iranians’, as opposed to their political leaders, was one which was to be enthusiastically taken up by Edward Browne, the Professor of Arabic at Cambridge, and the father of Persian Studies in the United Kingdom. Browne had spent one year in Iran (1887–1888) after which he wrote an account entitled A Year amongst the Persians, which was published within a year of Curzon’s monumental Persia and the Persian Question. Browne and Curzon in many ways serve as useful emblems of Britain’s complex and often contradictory attitude towards Iran, with Curzon occupying the role of villain. Yet Curzon’s affection for Iran and the ‘Persians’ was not insignificant and arguably led him later in life to make misjudgements which belied his pragmatic and dutiful loyalty to British interests.10 Browne had no such political 7 Gholamreza Vatandoust, Sayyid Hasan Taqizadah and Kaveh: Modernism in PostConstitutional Iran (1916–21). Unpublished thesis, SOAS, 1977, p. 129. 8 See Sir Harford Jones Brydges in the preface to his study, quoted in Chapter 1 in the section ‘Persian in the Western Imagination,’ Sir Harford Jones Brydges, An Account of the Transactions of His Majesty’s Mission to the Court of Persia in the Years 1807–11, London, James Bohn, 1834, p. viii. 9 On this propensity, see Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, Vol II p. 632 10 For an excellent discussion of this, see Christopher Ross, Lord Curzon and E G Browne Confront the Persian Question, The Historical Journal, Vol 52, 2009, pp. 385–411.

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constraints and was able to make his case for Iranian ‘liberty’ and ‘emancipation’ with considerably more energy and emotion.11 Yet if Browne can be accused of being one of the first ‘Whig’ historians of Iran, criticized for his idealistic conviction in the capacity for Iranians for change, his views were not a world away from those of his compatriots in the British embassy in Tehran.12 Framing a Movement On the eve of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran, the British diplomat Arthur Hardinge submitted his assessment of the political situation in the country and the possibilities of upheaval. Noting the continuing ‘decay’ of the Qajar state apparatus, Hardinge sketched out the various opposition forces, from the clerical hierarchy to the various secular groups which had modelled themselves, in part, on the Young Turks in the Ottoman Empire, along with the tribal elements whose political leanings were indistinct but nevertheless posed a threat to the central government in Tehran. For Hardinge, writing his assessment in December 1905, one of the more striking catalysts for political change came from events beyond Iran’s borders: The spectacle of the fall of the most powerful of autocracies [Russia] is being watched with keen interest in Persia, not merely, I think because of its possible effect on the future relations of the two countries, but also because of the feeling that what has taken place in Russia might take place in Persia likewise, and because of the overthrow of the autocratic power at St Petersburgh [sic] the Kajar dynasty really loses its most powerful temporary prop against an attack from within. These anti-dynastic groups are, on the whole, anti-Russian, as is generally speaking, the larger, so called Young Persian party, which, without desiring the fall of the dynasty, seeks its political ideals in the liberal west. The late commander of the Cossack brigade, Colonel Kosokofski, who knows Persia well, often told me that one of the most dangerous factors, from a Russian point of view, was ‘la jeune Perse’, and though I am inclined to suspect that he exaggerated this danger, there is, I believe, a good deal to be said for his view. I am certainly of the opinion that it is in our interest that the younger generation of Persians should learn French and become imbued with the spirit of Liberalism, and I have always from this point of view done my best to encourage the ‘Alliance Françaises’, the Persian, ‘Ècole des Sciences Politiques’, and other similar institutions existing in 11 For a useful discussion of Browne’s influence, see Mansour Bonakdarian, Edward G Browne and the Iranian Constitutional Struggle: From Academic Orientalism to Political Activism, Iranian Studies, Vol 26 (1/2), Winter-Spring 1993, pp. 7–31. For the emotional exhaustion of it all, see p. 23 n 42. 12 Bonakdarian, Browne and the Iranian Constitutional Struggle, p. 30.

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Tehran for the diffusion of Western culture under the French form in which alone it has much chance of spreading in Persian.13

Quite apart from situating the political ferment within the imperial rivalry between Britain and Russia, the most interesting aspect of this passage is the fact that a British diplomat would deliberately advocate the use of French culture and language to disseminate ‘liberal’ ideas as against Russian influenced autocracy. Hardinge continued that perhaps the most powerful anti-government organization was represented by the ulema, whose authority and power could only grow as the Shah grew weaker. It was they, argued the diplomat, who had been pivotal in orchestrating the Tobacco Boycott of 1891–1892, which had forced Nasir al Din Shah to cancel the concession which had been awarded to the British subject Major Talbott. Only their own persistent fractiousness prevented them from exercising real political power, though Hardinge warned, ‘if any man of real capacity or statesman like qualities were to arise . . . who were to be recognised . . . as their undisputed head, it is conceivable that he might in the present state of Persia, effect a revolution and even hurl the Shah from his throne.’14 This proved remarkably prescient – especially in light of what was to transpire later in the century – but in its explanations of political developments it also anticipated the narrative of the Constitutional Revolution which would be firmly established by Edward Browne some five years later. If it proved a less dramatic analysis, it was nonetheless acute, and although it attested to the Tobacco Revolt as an event of importance, it clearly lacked the advantage of hindsight which would secure for the Tobacco Revolt the crucial status of harbinger of revolution. Indeed it was only posterity that granted it this pivotal status in the nationalist narrative, and of course the publication of Browne’s ‘Persian Revolution (1910) crystallised this narrative arc. As Amanat argues, ‘Most secondary literature utilising a limited range of primary sources remained loyal to a monolithic “master narrative” that was crafted early in the century in Edward Browne’s seminal The Persian Revolution and later streamlined by such works as Kasravi’s Tarikh-i Mashruteh-ye Iran.’15 As a precursor 13 Sir A Hardinge to Sir Edward Grey, dated 23 December 1905, p. 10, reproduced in M Burrell (ed.) Iran Political Diaries, Vol II Slough, Archive Editions, p. 494. 14 Sir A Hardinge to Sir Edward Grey, p. 8, p. 492. 15 See Abbas Amanat, Memory and Amnesia in the Historiography of the Constitutional Revolution, in T Atabaki (ed.) Iran in the 20th Century, London, I B Tauris, 2009, p. 24. See also Bonakdarian, Browne and the Iranian Constitutional Struggle, p. 13. In light of Browne’s description of the Constitutional Movement as the ‘Persian Risorgimento’, it

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to the main event, the Tobacco Revolt was also distinguished by a number of characteristics which appeared to situate it as a template for later movements. It appeared to be a popular and nationwide revolt, instigated by the ulema in alliance with the bazaar, and facilitated by the presence of a new form of communications: in this case, the telegraph. Moreover, it was defined against the reckless and hubristic will of the despot. Although Browne sought to situate these developments within the context of Imperial rivalry in Iran, and in this particular case, the economic encroachments of Great Britain, he was in no doubt that the Tobacco Revolt marked a seminal moment in the emergence of Iranian nationalism: Only one great and good thing came out of all this wretched business. The Persian people, led by their spiritual guides, and led, moreover, on the whole with wonderful wisdom and self restraint, had shown that there was a limit to what they would endure, that they were not the spiritless creatures which they had been supposed to be, and that henceforth they would have to be reckoned with. From that time especially, as I believe, dates the national awakening of which we are still watching the development.16

If the details of Browne’s assessment were to be debated among historians, a consensus nonetheless emerged which accepted the Tobacco Revolt as the ‘moment’ of awakening.17 If some sought to situate the roots of this development further back in the century (see Taqizadeh discussed in the next section), Browne was inclined to go little further than the establishment of the concession of the Imperial Bank, which could itself be extended back to the notorious Reuters concession of 1872.18 What this did of course was to firmly situate the process in opposition to Western, and in this case, British, encroachments upon Iranian sovereignty, and it was this emphasis which would stick. It helped that such an assessment facilitated a useful retrospective comparison. In broad terms, the Tobacco may be worth conjecturing whether his own narrative frame was the Italian experience. The Italians had after all pursued a tobacco boycott of their own against the Austrians in 1848. E G Browne, The Persian Revolution 1905–1909, London, Frank Cass, 1966 p. 2. The importance of Browne to Iranian intellectuals is reflected in the fact that the noted journal Ayandeh presented a portrait of Browne, describing him as an Orientalist and friend of Iran, and urging readers to cut out and frame the picture, Ayandeh, 1, Tir 1304 / June 1925. 16 E G Browne, Persian Revolution, p. 57. 17 Nazim al Islami Kermani, Tarikh-e Bidari-e Iraniyan (The History of the Iranian Awakening), Tehran, Chapkhaneh-ye Majlis, 1953 (first published 1910). 18 Even Curzon was moved to condemn this particular concession; see Persia and the Persian Question, p. 480.

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Revolt occurred at a similar time and ‘era’ as the granting of the Ottoman Constitution (1876) and the Urabi Revolt in Egypt (1881–1882), and if anything conveniently took place after these events, thereby reinforcing the didactic position that this was a regional process in which each state proceeded according to its relative proximity to Western ideas and influence. If this particular model did not work particularly well for the events of 1906, it was nonetheless possible and again extremely useful to emphasize its revolutionary nature by situating it within the context of the failed Russian revolution of 1905. Neither of these comparative approaches were necessarily wrong, and they did much to convey the importance of events in Iran to an otherwise disinterested British public, but one of the inadvertent consequences was to situate Iran chronologically and culturally as the poor neighbour to the Ottomans and subsequently the Turks.19 Other evidence points to different lineage, and of particular importance here was the position of the Babi Revolt. Generally understood as a ‘millenarian’ and therefore premodern religious uprising, it has been viewed as the tail end of tradition rather than an event of consequence for the future. Few if any have drawn parallels between the Babi revolt and the revolutions which shook Europe in 1848. Yet, if only in a negative sense, Babism and the dissident religious views it generated appeared to be influential in shaping the views of a number of intellectuals who at the very least were profoundly shocked at the brutality meted out to Babi ‘heretics’. But it is also increasingly clear that if the religious claims of the Babis were treated with equal disdain as the product of anachronistic religious belief, their intellectual methods in seeking to deconstruct the narrow exclusivity of Shia orthodoxy was to prove attractive to ­others.20 A definitive assessment would be difficult to reach given the controversy and consequent secrecy which surrounded the adherents of Babism. In this respect they were not dissimilar to the Freemasons who could count among their adherents almost every single enlightened nationalist intellectual of the Constitutional era.21 What this suggests is that the intellectual 19 See in this respect, Mangol Bayat, Iran’s First Revolution: Shi’ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1909, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 7. 20 Sanjabi, Rereading the Enlightenment, p. 48. On this subject, see Abbas Amanat, Memory and Amnesia, p. 31. See also N Keddie, Religion and Irreligion in Early Iranian Nationalism, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol 4 (3) 1962, pp. 271–73. 21 Mangol Bayat, The Rowshanfekr in the Constitutional Period, in H E Chehabi & V Martin (eds.) Iran’s Constitutional Revolution: Popular Politics, Cultural Transformations and Transnational Connections, London, I B Tauris, 2010, p. 179. See also in this respect Journal of a Residence in England (no publisher), dated c1835, being a diary of the

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lineage of the Constitutional Movement far predated the Tobacco Revolt and was also deeper and more international in its networks than traditional histories would indicate. This was not in essence a little local national awakening but in many ways the product of an enlightenment project with obvious parallels to the processes which bound together the eighteenth-century intellectual elite of Europe.22 The standard narrative frame of the Constitutional Movement and Revolution tended to disguise these influences, in part because secret societies are naturally more difficult to unearth and research, but also because many adherents stopped shy of drawing attention to their association either on religious grounds or nationalist grounds.23 The notion that a nationalist movement might have religious antecedents did not conform to orthodox understandings of the emergence of nationalism as the concept was promoted by European intellectuals, despite the fact, as noted in Chapter 1, that this ‘secularization thesis’ was retrospectively reinforced to a nineteenth-century European milieu which was a good deal more complex.24 Similarly, association with a transnational network such as the Freemasons was regarded by purists as contradictory to the nationalist ethos and ideology, especially when this network promoted ideas which contravened the authoritarianism of the day.25 visit of three Qajar princes to Britain in which they recount in some detail joining the Freemasons, pp. 123–24. It may not be without significance that Hardinge, quoted in the ‘Framing a Movement’ section, was also a Freemason; see Hamid Algar, Freemasonry ii. In the Qajar Period, EIr, 2000, p. 6. See also H Algar, An Introduction to the History of Freemansonry [sic], Iran Middle Eastern Studies, Vol 6 (3), pp. 276–96. On the interesting etymology of the Persian translation of Freemason as faramushkhane, see p. 279. The most comprehensive, if profoundly controversial, Persian history of freemasonry is the three-volume study by Ismail Rain, Faramushkhanah va Faramasonari dar Iran (House of Forgetfulness and Freemasonry in Iran), Tehran, Amir Kabir, 1357 / 1978. The text tends towards the sensationalist and is by no means definitive. It provides a list of all the members of the ‘Iran Awakening’ lodge in Tehran, which includes among many others, Taqizadeh. 22 On the influence of the masonic movement on the enlightenment in Europe, see M Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans, Lafayette LA, Cornerstone 2006 (first published 1981), p. 277. Jacob makes the point that eighteenthcentury Freemasonry bears little relation to some of its twentieth-century varieties. 23 Amanat, Memory and Amnesia, p. 33. 24 See in this regard M Bentley Modernising Englan’s Past: English Historiography in the Age of Modernism 1870–1970, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005 p. 45: ‘It is clear enough that a simple model of secularization among European historians, familiar from Owen Chadwick’s path breaking work on the secularization of the European mind and more recently from ecclesiastical histories of Britain in the twentieth century . . . will not work for the English as compellingly as it does for the French and the Germans.’ 25 See for example H Algar, Introduction to the History of Freemansonry, p. 283.

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Significantly Browne was keen in his explanations of the Revolution and its antecedents to restore, as he saw it, the role of the ulema to the narrative, criticizing Iranian nationalists for an overdependence on French secular thought.26 Arguably he overcompensated in part because of his determination to integrate Iran into a broader comparative process of Muslim awakening, an association which might strengthen both his own position as a lobbyist for the Iranian cause, and the cause itself in the minds of British politicians.27 Be that as it may the narrative which Browne succeeded in impressing upon the public consciousness did not differ dramatically in its basic elements and key facts from other contemporary observations, including that of the Foreign Office. Indeed if Browne’s ‘master-narrative’ has become standard, it has as much to do with the ubiquity of his defense of the Iranian cause as with the fluency of his pen.28 Browne’s passion for the cause of Iranian Constitutionalism increased as the movement faltered and, as he feared, British official interest began to wane in the light of broader imperial interests and the détente with Russia which had been brokered by France. What matters here is not so much the political justification and consequences of the Anglo-Russian convention of 1907, but the intellectual rationale which was used to underpin it. As has been noted above, British officials were not averse to sympathising with liberal movements in Iran especially when this was seen to chime with broader British imperial interests. Indeed for British officials who served or visited Iran (including Curzon), sympathies often ran deeper. Indeed the movement is unlikely to have succeeded without the sanctuary offered by the British legation in Tehran. What is most remarkable about this intervention was how little the British actually had to do. In his methodical and occasionally sardonic account of the events of 1906, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice made the following observation of the bast in the British legation: On the evening of the 9th fifty Mullahs and merchants appeared at the legation and took up their quarters for the night. Their numbers soon increased, and on 26 Mansour Bonakdarian, Browne and the Iranian Constitutional Struggle, p. 20, n 32; see also n. 26 on his silence with respect to on the Babi influence. These arguments were be later challenged most vigorously by Fereydun Adamiyat. 27 At the same time Browne’s understanding of Islam in Iran was decidedly unorthodox and significantly, similar to the enlightenment thinkers before him, he was drawn to the ‘pantheistic idealism’ aspects of Iranian religion and literature; see Browne quoted in Lloyd Ridgeon, Ahmad Kasravi’s Criticisms of Edward Granville Browne, Iran, Vol 42 (2004), p 224. 28 Bonakdarian, Browne and the Iranian Constitutional Struggle, p. 10, n 12.

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the 2nd of September there were about 14,000 persons in the Legation garden. Their conduct was most orderly. The crowd of refugees were organised by the heads of the guilds, who took measures to prevent any unauthorised person from entering the legation grounds. Tents were put up and regular feeding places and times of feeding were provided for. The expense was borne by the principle merchants. No damage of a wilful character was done to the garden, although, of course, every semblance of a bed was trampled out of existence, and the trees still bear pious inscriptions cut in the bark. Colonel Douglas, the Military Attaché, kept watch over the Legation buildings, but no watch was needed. Discipline and order were maintained by the refugees themselves.29

Spring-Rice was clearly not only sympathetic; he was impressed by the ‘discipline and order’. Such an account sits awkwardly with the subsequent accounts of the (inevitable) chaotic ‘failure’ of the movement, and suggests that to some extent narratives were developed and reinforced – retrospectively – to justify policy. This is precisely what Browne feared: that disinterest and boredom would translate into a rationalisation of the irredeemable quality of the ‘Persians’, and that the problem at hand was not one simply of political failure but of profound social malaise bordering on biological degeneration. Significantly for Browne, whose views on ‘ethnic’ distinctions could scarcely be called progressive,30 this was simply unacceptable. The ‘Persians’ could not be so condemned because ‘However grievous their fate and however cruel their destiny, [Iranians were] a chosen people, unique and apart from all other nations’.31 Enlightened Nationalism Reflecting on the origins of the Constitutional Revolution in lectures delivered while at Columbia University in 1958, Hasan Taqizadeh, the noted revolutionary, nationalist, and man of letters, opined that although 29 Sir Cecil Spring-Rice to Sir Edward Grey, General Report on Persia for the Year 1906, dated 29 January 1907, p. 5. A less generous description of Muzaffar al Din’s final days is provided later in the text: ‘The Shah lingered on, and finally sank into a state of lethargy, from which he only revived at intervals. His medical attendants expressed their astonishment at his extraordinary vitality. His death was announced on several occasions. At last he consented to appoint his son Regent and agreed though with some demur, after a grave and earnest remonstrance from the Chief Mujtahids, to sign the Constitution. He finally expired on the 8th January.’ (pp 12–13). 30 See earlier in the chapter. 31 Quoted in Bonakdarian, Browne and the Iranian Constitutional Struggle, p. 22. Curzon’s assessment of this tendency, though less dramatic, was similar. He too lamented the British tendency to blow hot and cold, and retained the hope, as he famously said, that ‘History suggests, the Persians will insist upon surviving themselves’. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, p. 633 and pp. 605–06.

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the history of modern Iran could indeed be sourced to the events of 1906, the roots of developments could be traced to Iran’s encounter with the West in the nineteenth century, and specifically, the humiliating defeat at the hands of the Russians in two consecutive wars culminating in the Treaty of Turkmenchai of 1828.32 The lecture was the first in a series looking at the history of modern Iran; it essentially followed a narrative arc which would be familiar to most students today: the repeated failures of reform in the late Qajar state, and the launch of economic concessions, especially those to Baron Julius de Reuter, which led immediately to the Tobacco Revolt of 1892. Central to this narrative was the figure of Jamal al Din al Afghani and another pivotal influence on Taqizadeh’s thinking, Mirza Malkom Khan, whose ‘eloquent and penetrating writings’ were in the words of Taqizadeh, ‘incomparable’.33 Mirza Malkom Khan had been minister in London for some seventeen years until his dismissal, and had been the editor of the highly influential newspaper Qanun (the Law). Brief as this summary was, other notable intellectuals were conspicuous by their absence while Taqizadeh took pains to stress three rather orthodox positions. In the first place he dismissed the influence of foreign powers in the success of the Constitutional Movement, taking special care to diminish the role of the British. Moreover, he rejected any significant Babi influence, even negatively, and added for good measure that ‘The democratic regime was, in the beginning very Islamic and, as a matter of fact, was supported mainly by the great mujtahids’.34 A reading of these lectures reminds us, as Croce said, that ‘all history is contemporary’, and that above all context is paramount. Taqizadeh is both revered and reviled, depending on one’s ideological persuasion, as one of the founding ideologues of Iranian nationalism, especially through his editorship of the seminal newspaper Kaveh, and because of his regularly quoted pronouncement that Iranians must become Europeanized both ‘inside and out’.35 The emphatic and uncompromising nature of this last statement is taken as evidence by opponents of his extremist views and his tendency to fawn over and eulogize the West: the quintessential 32 S H Taqizadeh, Opera Minor: Unpublished Writings in European Languages (ed. I Afshar), Tehran, Shekufan, 1979, p. 203. 33 S H Taqizadeh, Opera Minor, p. 207. 34 S H Taqizadeh, Opera Minor, pp. 210–11. 35 Taqizadeh gained an early notoriety on account of his zealous activism. This was not limited to Iran. Browne was warned against depending too much on Taqizadeh as a source on account of his reputation as a ‘violent anarchist’. See M Bonakdarian, Browne & the Constitutional Revolution p. 13, n. 17.

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West-toxicated intellectual.36 Indeed even his supporters tended to want to brush this particular statement under the carpet and excuse it on the grounds of youthful zeal, whereas Taqizadeh himself, in older and seemingly wiser times, regretted his words, ascribing them to excessive exuberance.37 Be that as it may, Taqizadeh’s clarion call and blueprint for a national renaissance and resurrection was not only more detailed and thorough than the quotation reveals, it reflected both politically and intellectually the context within which it was written. A Republic of Letters Born in 1878, Taqizadeh in his formative years was shaped by both the immediacy of the decline of Iran as a political and economic power and the intellectual milieu in which the ideas of the European (principally French) enlightenment were penetrating Iran’s cultural and literary elite. The high tide of European power gave additional potency to their ideas although the rigour, and perhaps the conceit of the French model of modernization was not adopted without question by Iranian intellectuals. Afghani’s dialogue with Renan – which earned him the praise of the French philosopher – was evidence enough of the subtleties and nuances of this intellectual engagement, even if later accounts were to simplify this process of appropriation.38 Indeed Afghani’s dialogue and the relative ease with which Iranian intellectuals both engaged with the ideas of the enlightenment and moreover mixed in the salons of European intellectual culture reflected a receptiveness and familiarity which betrayed not only a culture of mutual respect, but an appreciation of the intellectual lineage. It has already been noted above that Pierre Bayle had sought to situate and site the enlightenment within the broader canvas of history, with one parallel in the bureaucratic and scientific tradition of the early Abbasid Caliphate.39 These philosophical and humanistic traditions would have been familiar to Afghani, as well as to other contemporary Iranian intellectuals (trained as they invariably were within the country’s religious seminaries), as being representative of the philosophical 36 See for example the introduction to Hasan Taqizadeh, Aghaz-e tamadon-e khareji (tasahol va tasmeh, azadi, vatan, mellat) (Acquiring Foreign Civilisation: Political Tolerance, Freedom, Patriotism, Nation), Tehran, Ramin, 1379 / 2000, pp. 14–15. 37 Hasan Taqizadeh, Aghaz-e tamadon-e khareji, pp. 30–31. According to one writer, Taqizadeh was continually frustrated by the ease with which he was consistently misunderstood; see Gholamreza Vatandoust, Sayyid Hasan Taqizadah and Kaveh, p. 53. 38 See Chapter One. 39 See Chapter One, ft. 34.

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tradition in Islamic thought. One might indeed go further and define this as a distinctly Persianate humanist tradition.40 This tradition would not have found itself alien to those which populated the enlightenment, even one which drew its inspiration from aspects of the French enlightenment, with an emphasis on constitutionalism and a ‘republic of letters’. This inherently elitist movement would have found an enthusiastic ideological bedfellow in its Iranian counterpart, and its comparative political conservatism would have facilitated its entrance into Iranian political culture.41 However the emphasis on French culture has also encouraged the tendency for one to see this intellectual dialogue almost exclusively within a narrative frame of the French Revolution and its aftermath. There is no doubt, as Sadeq Hedayat (somewhat disparagingly) noted of returning Iranian students from Europe in the late-nineteenth century, that many saw themselves as effectively reliving the French revolutionary narrative.42 Indeed Kasravi was even more scathing about this unfortunate political tendency: ‘In Tabriz during the Constitutional Revolution, as in Paris during the French Revolution, the sans-culottes reared their ugly heads. The driving force of these men was towards anarchy. First the overthrow of the despotic order, and then to turn upon the rich and propertied classes. It was with the backing of these men that Danton and Robespierre rose to power. In Tabriz no Dantons and Robespierres appeared, but if they had we would also have had a “reign of terror”.’43 But as the tone of these comments suggest, the preoccupation with the French revolutionary narrative has tended to disguise the complex nature of the intellectual inheritance, and the enlightenment project which had been intended. This is all the more so because the term ‘democratic’, as used by Taqizadeh above, had itself undergone a number of semantic shifts since it entered the lexicon of Iranian politics. This distinction is important to bear in mind when one considers the impact of the West and what Iranian intellectuals at the turn of the twentieth century understood 40 A useful example of this tradition is described by Al Jahiz in his account of scribes in the Abbasid Caliphate, On Secretaries. in C Pellat (trans.) The Life and Works of Al Jahiz London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969, pp. 273–75. See also in this respect Abbas Milani, Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Modernity in Iran, Washington DC, Mage, 2004. 41 See also in this respect, M Boroujerdi, Authoritarian Modernisation in Iran, in S Cronin, The Making of Modern Iran, London, Routledge, 2004, p. 151. 42 Quoted in David Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran, New York, Cornell University Press, 1992, p. 73. 43 Quoted in Ervand Abrahamian, The Crowd in Iranian Politics, Past & Present, Vol 41, Dec 1968, pp. 184–210.

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as ‘the West’. Although many were undoubtedly radical in the context of their times, their real revolution was of the mind. All ideas mutate with transition and interpretation, and although the linguistic medium of the enlightenment was French, even this process was occasionally mediated through the Russian experience. At the same time, this French mediation naturally tended to focus minds on the revolution the French enlightenment ostensibly caused, even if this causal relationship is not as direct or transparent as nationalist historians might contend. If activists, and later historians of the Constitutional Revolution, tended to see the French revolution in their actions, this was not something to which the advocates of an Iranian enlightenment were attracted. For them, raised on the ideas of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Bayle, what mattered was constitutionalism and republicanism. This was a revolution about natural rights, the pre-eminence of the law, and individual freedom. Nationalism and pride in one’s country was part of a broader package of resurrection, and could not be understood as a means in itself. As Taqizadeh later stressed, ‘Real patriotism [nationalism] is built on the foundations of freedom and justice. Imposed nationalism cannot take root.’44 ‘Republicanism’ was as much an ideal of behaviour, the political expression of Montesquieu’s concept of ‘virtue’, as it was a formal political structure. As one prominent historian of the American Revolution argues, ‘a republic represented not so much the formal structure of government as it did its spirit, pure Whigs could even describe the English mixed monarchy as ideally a republic.’45 The mood might best be described as rational constitutionalism modelled on the virtues of Republican Rome and contrasted with the decadence of an over-civilising and luxuriated metropole.46 Such themes would have been very familiar to Iranian intellectuals, and there are ample echoes in the writings of a number of them, including perhaps the most radical, Ali Akbar Dehkhoda (1879–1956).47 Dehkhoda spent the better part of his intellectual efforts trying to educate 44 Hasan Taqizadeh, Aghaz tamadon khareji, p. 73. 45 Gordon S Wood, The Creation of the American Republic 1776–1787, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1969, p. 49. See also in this respect Gibbon’s concept of Europe as a ‘great republic’, F. Furet, Civilization and Barbarism in Gibbon’s History, Daedalus, Vol 105 (3), 1976, p. 212. 46 Wood, Creation of the American Republic, pp. 35–36. 47 Another important intellectual was Mahmoud Afshar, the editor of the influential and didactic journal Ayandeh. For an interesting exploration of Afshar’s ideas, see R Parsi, In Search of Caravans Lost: Iranian Intellectuals and Nationalist Discourse in the Inter-War Years. Unpublished thesis, 2009.

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his compatriots as to the meaning of a variety of political concepts, including constitutionalism. Acutely aware of the difficulties of translating European concepts into Persian, Dehkhoda lamented the confusion caused by literal translations which conveyed no meaning and therefore effectively only bore a superficial relation to the intent of the concept.48 The elitism is palpable, and Taqizadeh, another member of this Iranian ‘republic of letters’, found that in translating these ideas into practice he encountered the friction of reality. The overthrow of the monarchy was not the raison d’être of these thinkers; a constitutional monarchy in which a clear social contract existed between ruler and ruled would serve just as well, if not better, to achieve their aims, and the legal framework it guaranteed distinguished it from despotism. Interestingly, Dehkhoda used the deposition of the last Safavid monarch, Shah Tahmasp, and his replacement by Nader Shah as an example of this ‘contract’ in practice. When a king proved incompetent, he forsook the loyalty which bound his people to him.49 With this in mind, it becomes easier to understand that the support of intellectuals for the ‘man on horseback’ was not simply the consequence of desperation and failure, but in many ways the natural outcome of an ideology. From this perspective, the rise of Reza Shah did not represent the failure of the Constitutional Revolution, but rather as he was the first monarch to acquire his throne through parliamentary legislation, its extension and continuation. Moreover, in their emphasis on individual rights, the rule of law, and the spirit of patriotism, Iran’s enlightened nationalists had more in common with the Founding Fathers of the American Revolution than the progenitors of the French. Certainly the deism of the former had more in common with the tradition of Iranian humanism than the atheism of the latter, a religious convergence of ideas which would be alluded to later in the century in somewhat different circumstances. But most important perhaps, this extension of the Republic of Letters represented an intellectual aristocracy – a gentlemen’s club – which transcended national boundaries while paradoxically at the same time seeking to reinforce them.50 48 Nahid Mozaffari, An Iranian Modernist Project: Ali Akbar Dehkhoda’s Writings in the Constitutional Period, in Houchang Chehabi & Vanessa Martin (eds.) Iran’s Constitutional Revolution: Popular Politics, Cultural Transformations and Transnational Connections, London, I B Tauris, 2010, p. 197. 49 There are parallels here with the traditional concept of the farr-e izadi. 50 I draw extensively here from Wood, Creation of the American Republic, pp. 46–125. One possible route for the influence of American ideas was of course the American

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If there can be no democracy without democrats, then there certainly could be no republic without virtue, and like their enlightenment forebears, Iran’s intellectuals sought to reinvigorate, recast, and remake the moral core and fibre of the country. And like their predecessors, they were to discover that translating a republic of letters into a republic of laws was an altogether different proposition. Unfurling Kaveh Like many of his colleagues, Taqizadeh had begun his intellectual career in a religious seminary. This was not unusual given that at the time, formal training in human sciences would not have been available within Iran other than in the great Shia educational institutions. Not only did this give him a familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of traditional forms of religious education, but he effectively understood its flaws from the inside out. In this he shared much in common with other members of the intellectual enlightenment (most notably Afghani),51 explaining in part the mutual antipathy which was to emerge between the religious establishment and those who the latter felt had betrayed their roots. Taqizadeh was active in the movement for the establishment of what was initially known as a ‘house of justice’, later to be translated into Iran’s first ‘national’ legislature. The Constitution and its supplemental laws, which were eventually, and somewhat fortuitously, approved by a dying monarch,52 had all the hallmarks of an enlightenment project. Although it institutionalized important elements of Shia legal oversight, much to the consternation of allies (and opponents) among the ulema, these were never implemented.53 Indeed for all the religious qualifications to the document, the liberal tenor of the Constitution is striking. This was above all a legal exercise which sought to guarantee rights for all peoples within the state and remove the possibility of arbitrary punishments.54 The monarchy was to be limited, and ‘No King can ascend the Throne unless, before his coronation, he appears before the National Consultative assembly, missionaries. See in this regard Michael P Zirinsky, Imperial Power and Dictatorship: Britain and the Rise of Reza Shah 1921–1926 IJMES vol 24, 1992, p. 648. 51 Another notable member being Ahmad Kasravi, who likewise started his educational life in a seminary. 52 See Cecil Spring-Rice, General Report on Persia, n 25. 53 Article 2, The Supplementary Fundamental Laws of October 7, 1907, reprinted in Browne, Persian Revolution, p. 373. 54 Supplementary Fundamental Laws of October, Articles 8–21, pp. 374–75.

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in the presence of Members of the Assembly and the Senate, and of the Cabinet of Ministers, and repeat the following oath’.55 Moreover, and perhaps most controversially, the authors of the Constitution ensured that ‘sovereignty is a trust (as a Divine gift) by the people to the person of the king’;56 and just to make the point, ‘The powers of the realm are all derived from the people.’57 For good measure, the authors noted in the preamble to the Fundamental Laws that the establishment of a National Council was for the purposes of promoting the ‘happiness and progress’ of the kingdom, in a clear allusion to the opening line of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.58 Such terms are indicative of the influences on the framers of this particular constitution. These influences are further apparent in the definition of the electorate  – propertied  – and the limited nature of the franchise. The framers of the Constitution were seeking a ‘republic’ with representative institutions regulated by laws. Above all the monarch, previously arbitrary and despotic, would be constitutional and limited by laws. The prerogatives of the king, as defined by the Constitution, remained relatively generous, but as befits a constitution which ultimately derived from the (unwritten) English Constitution, every effort was made to emphasize the king in Parliament, whose powers were part of wider process. Most keenly felt, as far as Iranians were concerned, were the clauses delimiting judicial and financial functions. Perhaps the only explicitly nationalistic reference was a requirement that the Iranian king be born of an Iranian mother of royal lineage and that all ministers be Iranian by birth. At this stage at least, given that the “Constitutional Monarchy of [Iran] is vested in the person of His Imperial Majesty Sultan Muhammad Shah Qajar and in his heirs,” the definition of the Qajars as ‘Turks’ did not arise.59 For all the good intentions, this new ‘republic’ sat on precarious foundations made weaker by the enthusiasm of the first deputies. Taqizadeh 55 Supplementary Fundamental Laws of October, Article 39, p. 377; it should be noted that the ‘senate’ was another institution that was not formed until some time later, in the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah. 56 Supplementary Fundamental Laws of October, Article 35, p. 377. 57 Supplementary Fundamental Laws of October, Article 26, p. 375. 58 Fundamental Law of December 30th 1906, in E G Browne, The Persian Constitution 1905–1909, Washington DC, Mage, 1995, (first published in 1910), p. 362. The original Persian reads, taraghi va sa’adat. Browne goes on to translate omur-e umum as ‘commonwealth’, which is a generous translation, perhaps targeted to his English readers. This phrase might be better translated as ‘common’ or ‘public affairs’. ‘Fundamental Law’ is the translation of nizamnameh-ye asasi. 59 Supplementary Fundamental Law, Article 36, Browne The Persian Revolution p. 377.

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would later argue, with some justification, that the First Majlis, for all its faults, represented a real ‘radical revolution’ insofar as its function was twofold. Not only was it meant to be a parliament in the traditional sense, it also occupied the role of a constituent assembly whose function was to write, develop, and institutionalize the Constitution.60 But given this importance, it has to be a matter of regret that the deputies from Tehran proceeded to convene the Parliament without awaiting the arrival of the deputies from other provinces.61 Given that the electoral map provided Tehran with a disproportionately high number of deputies, the scale of the imbalance became even more apparent, and the legitimacy of the entire operation could be brought under question. Taqizadeh was naturally defensive about the First Majlis and its procedural flaws, and was scathing about the subsequent Anglo-Russian Convention (1907) which effectively gave Tsarist Russia a free hand to interfere in domestic politics and to undermine the Constitutional Movement. Yet if Taqizadeh was damning of the Russians, there can be little doubt that he felt betrayed by the actions (or inactions) of the British Government. With Russian encouragement, Mohammad Ali Shah closed the first Majlis and arrested many of the prominent revolutionaries. Taqizadeh was himself exiled and promptly went to Britain where in collaboration with Browne he set himself earnestly to the task of lobbying the British government to change its position to one of proactive support. Part of this process was to make himself culturally intelligible to his British audience by changing his appearance by adopting Western clothing, a change which Browne reportedly found disappointing.62 Hitherto, Taqizadeh has always appeared in the traditional clothing of the seminary. He then launched into a passionate plea for British support in language which would later draw criticism, but which also reflected that the needs of practical politics were often very different from the demands of academic politics. In a privately printed pamphlet entitled ‘Appeal to England’ (October 1908), Taqizadeh sought to make the Constitutional cause and British interests one and the same, defining the contest as part of a broader struggle between Britain and Russia, freedom and autocracy.63 ‘While at the Persian Court Russian influence reigned supreme, 60 S H Taqizadeh, Opera Minor, pp. 212–13. 61 S H Taqizadeh, p. 212. 62 See Bonakdarian, Browne and the Iranian Constitutional Struggle p. 20, n 34. The ease with which Taqizadeh was able to cross cultural and intellectual divides both makes him fascinating and explains why some found him so difficult to pin down and understand. 63 The parallels with the later narratives are striking.

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England had the sympathy and admiration of the Persian ­people, who had an ancient and almost hereditary belief in the civilization of the French and the English, while they regarded the Russians as semi-­civilized ­barbarians.’64 He added, ‘It is hardly necessary to emphasize the obvious fact Russia is the enemy of freedom’, while berating Britain for its betrayal of trust and its naïve assumption that Russia was not intervening in Iran.65 He concluded energetically: The Persian Constitution came into being under the auspices of England, and is England’s spiritual child. For a century the Persians have regarded England as their friend, and today their hopes are fixed on her alone. And so we, a little while ago like yourselves Members of a National Assembly (now alas! destroyed by violence), but now exiles who can only hope to help our country by arousing your sympathy, to seek which we have come so long a journey, make our appeal to you on behalf of our beloved land, and on behalf of the liberties and laws whereby alone her welfare and even her independent existence can be secured, in this place whither for so long the oppressed have turned for help, and which is the fulcrum of all free institutions and the ancient home of Liberty. We entreat you not to allow the Russians to intervene in Persia to support the Shah and his reactionary courtiers, or to invade our land; and we pray your Ministers and Statesmen, in the name of humanity, not to dishonour the solemn promises they gave us only a year ago as to the non-intervention of England and Russia in our country.66

Although Taqizadeh was subsequently criticized for what may best be described as ‘Anglo-philia’, his appeal was no different from the American appeal to the French during their war of independence from Britain and ideologically it was more comprehensible. There was, in sum, no contradiction in a nationalist seeking the help of a foreign power, especially if that power was both influential and appeared to share the same convictions. It was all the more understandable when the two peoples in question apparently shared some common ancestry. The intimacy which justified such an appeal made its rejection all the more bitter to swallow. Although the Constitutional Movement succeeded in overturning the ‘coup’ of Mohammad Ali Shah and in electing a second Majlis, this movement in turn ground to a halt in the political morass of infighting and foreign disinterest, along with blatant, and often violent, Russian intervention. The American banker Morgan Shuster was astonished at the random violence used by the Russians in Tabriz, and in many ways, 64 Hasan Taqizadeh, Persia’s Appeal to England (1908), in Maqallat Taqizadeh Vol 7, Tehran, Shokufan, 1356 / 1977, p. 452. 65 Hasan Taqizadeh, Persia’s Appeal to England, p. 454 & p. 462. 66 Hasan Taqizadeh, Persia’s Appeal to England, p. 463.

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the Americans appeared as the most likely candidates to replace Britain as the sponsor of choice.67 For the increasingly disillusioned Taqizadeh, however, hope lay not across the Atlantic but in the heart of Europe. German rivalry with both Britain and Russia made Germany a natural choice for disaffected Iranian nationalists, not least because the Germans not only pursued policies sympathetic to local nationalists in the Islamic world, but also because there was a tradition of oriental and Iranian studies which could be built upon and reinforced. Moreover, Germany was a relatively new nation, and its experience with nation building would prove useful, both intellectually and practically. Indeed for Iranians bred on French intellectualism, the German model would not have been unfamiliar, although the effect, as with the impact of French positivism, would be to reinforce the tendency towards the science of history which was beginning to permeate Iranian historical thinking.68 Taqizadeh was in many ways no exception, as the establishment of the journal Kaveh was to suggest; Taqizadeh and his ideological bedfellows had yet to fully digest the implications of this approach to history. Although they berated the lack of knowledge among Iranians of their real history, they were not yet ready to dispatch Iran’s mythical and legendary past to the realms of literature. Myth had its uses, not only in terms of political mobilization but crucially in educating the public in the virtues of patriotism and civil duty. If the debacle of the first phase of the Constitutional Movement had taught Taqizadeh and his fellow contributors anything it was that a republic without virtue was meaningless. The journal Kaveh would be the means by which this virtue could be disseminated and cultivated within the wider public, and Iran was fortunate in having a repository of myths – encapsulated within, though not limited to, the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi – through which virtuous practice could be conveyed.69 Viewed through a contemporary lens, Taqizadeh’s decision to use the Shahnameh in such an overtly political manner may appear radical and even revolutionary. But it is important to bear in mind that he was not the first to employ the myths of the Shahnameh in this 67 W. Morgan Shuster, The Strangling of Persia: Story of the European Diplomacy and Oriental Intrigue That Resulted in the Denationalization of Twelve Million Mohammedans, Washington DC, Mage, 1987 / 1912, pp. 219–20. 68 According to Vatandoust, “Although the political orientation of Kaveh, especially in the old series, was indisputably toward Germany, its language affiliation was with France.” Sayyid Hasan Taqizadah and Kaveh, p. 50. 69 For an excellent discussion of the role of Kaveh, see Abbas Milani, Majale-ye Kaveh va masale-ye tajjadod (The Journal Kaveh and the Question of Progress), Iranshenasi, 2, 3, Autumn 1369 / 1990, pp. 504–19.

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way,70 and that moreover, his choosing to use these motifs reflected the fact that they were the best means to convey certain messages. In other words Taqizadeh did not intend to educate his public about the myths of the Shahnameh; On the contrary, he assumed his public were already familiar with them.71 The point was to interpret them in such a manner that their political and ethical message was emphasized.72 It is important to stress at this stage that popular (mis)conception of the text as a paean to kings is misplaced. Although the narrative thread of the text revolves around succeeding dynasties (Pishdadian Kiyanid, Parthian, and Sasanian), the individual kings are rarely paragons of moral virtue and are frequently undone by their stupidity, pettiness, and hubris. Although a number of kings stand out and are praised accordingly, this happens in part because of the contrast with their less-successful forebears or successors. The real heroes of the text are in many ways the various champions (pahlavans) led by the figure of Rostam, who are generally epitomes of a chivalric ethos, even occasionally suffering from the deceit of their sovereigns. A fair few monarchs abdicate, whereas a number suffer the indignity of regicide. In short, the text is a far more complex investigation of moral virtue than first impressions suggest, and the myths, taken as a whole and including sources beyond the Ferdowsi’s poem, provide a different reading of traditional kingship than that provided by the concept of ‘Oriental Despotism’. All this made the Shahnameh and its associated myths a rich reservoir of information from which to work. Indeed if the only history worth knowing was the history of ‘civilization’, then arguably the Shahnameh provided the best example, for this was quintessentially a narration of a civilization from its creation.73 The journal was published in two series from 1916. The first series, published during the Great War, was more obviously propagandistic, 70 See John Malcolm on Agha Mohammad Khan, in J Malcolm, History of Persia, 1829, Vol II, p. 191 71 See in this respect the comment by Percy Sykes, History of Persia, London, Routledge, 1969 / 1915, p. 131: ‘the Shahnameh . . . is practically the only early history ever read or believed by the Persians.’ See also Vita Sackville-West, Passenger to Teheran, London, Hogarth Press, 1926, p. 105, p. 121. 72 On reading the epic as an ethical text, see the introduction by Dick Davis of his translation of the Shahnameh, New York, Viking Penguin, 2006 p. xv. It is also worth remembering that in rendering this history as a poem, Ferdowsi was facilitating its dissemination in a predominantly illiterate society. 73 See Mohammad Ali Zaka ol Molk, Maqallat-e Foroughi Vol I, Tehran, Tus, Tehran 1384 / 2005, p. 284. Foroughi was an enthusiastic advocate of the Shahnameh; see below in the section, Farhangestan, Farhang-sazi and the idea of Iran.. In many ways there is a danger of reducing the Shahnameh to the status of a ‘national’ epic.

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and although important aspects of history and politics were discussed, Taqizadeh took the opportunity to stress the enlightened beneficence of Germany. This could take the form of congratulating the Kaiser on his birthday, or the more serious point of emphasizing Germany’s mastery of the sciences as evidenced by the fact they topped the European league table in Nobel prizes, a significant achievement, given as noted earlier in this section that Germany was a young nation.74 The second series, published after the war, was increasingly targeted towards the construction and cultivation of a civil nationalism and was far more willing to indulge in what might best be described as ‘shock therapy’, applying often quite stinging self-criticism of the Iranian tendency to exaggeration. Both series nonetheless sought to educate their public by disseminating knowledge about Iran’s past and present even if that meant presenting the information ‘warts and all’. Echoing Nietzsche’s warning about the perils of being ‘over-saturated’ with history, Taqizadeh had little time for an Iranian nationalism that sought an uncritical and unblemished rendition of history. As Marashi notes, ‘In an important sense the history of Iranian nationalism began with the publication of Kaveh, which combined the political commitment born of the Constitutional Movement with the promotion of an “organic” cultural conception of Iranian identity.’75 The design and structure of Kaveh have been discussed at length elsewhere,76 but two points in particular are worth highlighting. In the first place is the choice of the title from the eponymous hero of the epic, Kaveh the Blacksmith, who instigates an uprising against the ‘demon’ king Zahhak, resulting in Zahhak’s defeat and overthrow by the legitimate king, Fereydun. The details of this particular myth need not concern us now,77 but suffice to say Kaveh represents one of the few ‘commoners’ to play a pivotal role in the Shahnameh, although it should be added that in aiding the overthrow of the tyrant king, the position he occupies is almost unique. In selecting this figure, Taqizadeh is consciously populist in his 74 Kaveh, 8 February 1916, p. 8; 15 February 1918, p. 12. By contrast Britain and France only had three Nobel prizes each, and the French illiteracy rate far outstripped both Germany and Britain. A good number of the articles on Germany concentrated on its educational success; see Kaveh, 22 January 1920, pp. 6–9; see also Kaveh, 7 July 1921, pp. 4–7 on Karl Marx. 75 Afshin Marashi, Nationalizing Iran, London, University of Washington Press, 2008, p. 53. See also Jamalzadeh’s account in Taqizadeh, Tel Que je l’ai Connu, in Hasan Taqizadeh, Maqallat Taqizadeh Vol 7, pp. 743–60, which also lists a full set of the main articles. 76 Gholamreza Vatandoust, Sayyid Hasan Taqizadah and Kaveh, 1977. 77 This will be discussed in more detail later in chapter four, in the section Return of the King.

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approach to a national renaissance. In the myth, Kaveh is the individual who finally stands against the oppression of the king by denouncing the king’s injustice and drawing a very vocal line in the sand, at a time when courtiers and members of the aristocracy remain obsequious in their praise. Kaveh’s shout of ‘enough’ effectively awakens Iranians from their slumber of ‘false consciousness’ and sets them on the path to liberation. As a myth it had immediate resonance. To leave no one in any doubt of this message, each title page incorporated a dramatic lithographic image of the blacksmith with his famous banner  – the derafsh-e kaviyani78  – held aloft. Zahhak was also alternatively known as the ‘Arab’ tyrant, more so, it has been argued, after the reality of the Arab conquest in the seventh century. He was the epitome of the thoroughly foreign, alien king, and this association in the popular mind made it all the more easier for modern nationalists, such as Akhundzadeh and Kermani, to see the other in the Arab. The other point worth noting is the dating used by Taqizadeh, who was a keen scholar of calendars and understood the importance of distinctive ones for distinguishing civilizations.79 He made the point of dating the journal using three calendars: first the Iranian calendar complete with Iranian-Zoroastrian month names, then the Muslim lunar calendar, and finally the Christian date. What is perhaps most striking about his use of the Iranian calendar – quite apart from the fact that it predated and undoubtedly influenced the decision in 1924 to officially adopt the Iranian calendar – is that it is explicitly termed the “Yazdegerdi” year, adopting the traditional Iranian practice of dating the years form the accession of the last king. In this case it was the last Sasanian Shah before the Arab Muslim conquest. The implications of this dating are interesting, because they suggest that every subsequent monarch was ­illegitimate.80 It certainly betrayed the attitude of the board of Kaveh towards the Qajars. 78 According to the myth, the flag of Kaveh originated when the blacksmith took off his apron and held it aloft. According to tradition it was subsequently adorned with decoration and gems. A German artist called Richter appears to have drawn the work. 79 See for example the series of articles in Hasan Taqizadeh, Maqallat Taqizadeh, Vol IX, Tehran, Shokufan, 2536 / 1977, pp. 3–56. 80 How widely known and used this calendar was is debated though the solar calendar year it seems to have been in more widespread use than is generally accepted. See in this regard Stephen P Blake, History & Chronology in Early Modern Iran: The Safavid Empire in Comparative Perspective (forthcoming). The (re-) application of the term ‘Yazdegerdi’ may have been a more recent innovation, although a book on Zoroastrianism published in 1909 for instance also cites the ‘Yazdegerdi’ year, Kay-khosrav Shāhrokh Kermānı̄,

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Aside from accounts of the war – which as noted earlier in this section are largely supportive of Germany – the pieces in Kaveh broadly fall into three categories: educational pieces largely dealing with the history and geography of Iran, which draw heavily on the most recent work being done by Western Orientalists, which are closely followed by parallel pieces bemoaning the comparative ignorance of Iranians and the urgent need to address this deficiency; and lastly prescriptive pieces which outline how this must be done. The last two types – critical and prescriptive – have proved to be the most controversial if the most influential pieces in the journal, and are certainly the pieces that are most often remembered and (selectively) quoted. The educational articles mix a good deal of mythological history drawn from the Shahnameh with pieces on recent historical work largely but not exclusively covering the Achaemenids and the Sasanians, the latter receiving almost as much attention as the Achaemenids.81 Occasionally pieces draw on both traditions, as during a discussion of Iran-Russia relations, delving into the mythical depths of history and attempting to reconcile traditions drawn from Ferdowsi, the Avesta, and classical accounts of the Achaemenids.82 There are also cultural historical pieces on the origins and longevity of festivals such as Noruz and discussions on the importance of Ferdowsi, drawing in this case on Browne.83 Indeed Edward Browne is probably the one British Orientalist who is regularly quoted and held in esteem.84 By and large however, allusion to the extended works on Iran by European Orientalists is emphasized for the avowed purpose of highlighting the absence of comparable work among Iranian scholars. Taqizadeh bemoans the fact that few if any Iranians actually know or can be bothered to learn ancient Iranian languages, but adds that the situation is considerably more serious insofar as knowledge of more contemporary history is not much better. Iranians did not so much practice Forūgh-e mazdayasnı̄ 1909; a copy resides in the Royal Danish Archives and can be accessed online at: http://www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/manus/382/eng/. On the impact of the fall of the Sasanians on Iranian nationalist consciousness, see also S Meskoob, Nationalism, Centralisation of Power and Culture in the Twilight of the Qajars and the Dawn of the Pahlavis, Iran Nameh, Vol 12 (3), Summer 1994, p. 483. 81 See for example Kaveh, 21 March 1920, pp. 5–11, which is the first of a two-part piece on nationalism in ancient Iran, and draws analogies between Mazdak and Bolshevism. Also Kaveh, 13 November 1920, pp. 4–7, which reproduces the Letter of Tansar; an analysis of the Shahnameh is discussed (pp 7–12). 82 Kaveh, 22 January 1920, appendices. 83 For example, on the importance of chess, and how to play, Kaveh, 13 December 1920, pp. 5–7. 84 Kaveh 13 December 1920, p. 12 See also Kaveh, 15 April 1918, pp. 5–6.

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history as indulge in it, with willful exaggerations intended to glorify the nation in the most absurd manner. In one particularly memorable piece, Taqizadeh took to task those scholars who inflated numbers, especially at battles. In one case he argued, an author had suggested that that the number of combatants at the battle of Kerbala numbered 1,630,000, of which Taqizadeh added incredulously, some 600,000 were apparently cavalry. But the award for the most ludicrous calculation had gone to the writer who had assessed the age of the Iranian nation as being 10,001,010,908,314 years! This figure had somehow been reached by calculating the reigns of the various kings listed in the Shahnameh. Taqizadeh protested that the history of Iran was not even the assumed 6,000 years, a figure which was popular among the traditional intelligentsia,85 but just 2480 years. Iranians, argued Taqizadeh, must make the distinction between myth (afsaneh) and proper history (tavarikh saheehe).86 For Taqizadeh and his colleagues it was the confusion between myth and history which was the problem, not ‘myth’ in itself, which had a utility. Kaveh was itself evidence of that, even if the distinction was never as clear as Taqizadeh asserted For an advocate of nationalism, Taqizadeh could barely suppress his frustration at the stubborn superficiality of his compatriots. A decade after the Constitutional Revolution, neither the political life of the country nor its intellectual discourse appeared to be improving. The frustration this caused was palpable. Taqizadeh was particularly irritated by what he termed ‘professional patriots’ (vatan-chi / vatan-parasti kazeb87) who boasted of their love of country and indulged in the most extraordinary historical claims about the glories of Iran, while at the same time enthusiastically adopting every foreign word (usually French) as a sign of superior education.88 Perhaps the most biting criticism was penned by his colleague Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh. Jamalzadeh had written a number of witty 85 See A Amanat, The Pivot of the Universe: Nasir al Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831–1896m London, I B Tauris, 1997, p. 97. Mirza Masud Khan Ansari argued notably that ‘For five thousand years the Persian monarchy has remained uninterrupted.’ This figure of 6000 years would make a return some years later during the state visit of President Nixon. 86 Kaveh, 10 February 1921, p. 3. The writer in question was Jalal al Din Mirza and his Name-ye khosravan. 87 Literally, ‘false nation worship’. 88 Kaveh, 17 July 1920, p. 3. Various estimates put the number of French loan words at anything between 820 and 1700 words; see Guitty Deyhime, France: xvi. Loanwords in Persian, EIr, 2000, p. 3.

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if searing satires on Iranian behavior which appeared both in the journal and elsewhere. The collection was eventually published as a book entitled Yeki bud, Yeki Nabud (which approximates to ‘Once Upon a Time’); it was not well received among Iranians.89 In one story, about a man who claimed to be a ‘Foreign Advisor’ in Iran, Jamalzadeh not only has him quote Hajji Baba of Isfahan on the propensity for mendacity among Iranians, but in an distant echoing of Morier, has this ‘foreign advisor’ produce his notebook on the ‘People and State of Iran’. Written in the style of an innocent abroad, the criticism the notebooks convey are barely disguised: Another point well worth mentioning is that Esperanto, which I am told is composed of words from various languages and ought to become the international language and which they try so hard to popularise and spread among us in Europe, is already spoken in Iran. All the Faux Colis speak nothing but Esperanto. Understanding their language, which is composed of words from various European languages and even, on occasion, words from Persian, Arabic, and Turkish, presents absolutely no problem for us.90

Moreover, for all the bragging of these vatan-chis, they were quick to dismiss the achievements of the West if these threatened to disturb their complacency.91 It was the failure to engage in any profound sense with the issues and the concepts involved which most appeared to grate, and Taqizadeh had some shock therapy for his compatriots. This was to be first unveiled in January 1920 and subsequently revised a year later in the now-famous list of prescriptions, in Kaveh on 11 January 1921.92 In the first rendition, an obviously angry Taqizadeh berates his countrymen for ignorant self-satisfaction, urging them to spend all their efforts to 89 For the initial reaction see M A Jamalzadeh, Once Upon a Time (trans. Heshmat Moayyad & Paul Sprachman), New York, Bibliotheca Persica, 1985 p. 10. 90 Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh, Yeki Bud Yeki Nabud, Berlin, Kavyani, 1340 / 1960 (first published in 1922), pp. 110–11. This translation taken from M A Jamalzadeh, Once Upon a Time (trans. Heshmat Moayyad & Paul Sprachman), New York, Bibliotheca Persica, 1985, p. 102. Faux Colis, literally ‘fake collars’, was the term applied to those Iranians who aspired to all things foreign. In asking what the ‘Black Heads’ (clerics) do, Jamalzadeh mirrors Morier’s satire (in Hajji Baba) about the dervish. 91 Kaveh, 18 June 1920, p. 3. Taqizadeh was especially incensed by the way in which European technical achievement was dismissed with the considered view that the Europeans could nonetheless not match the Iranians for poetry! These views were echoed by Ahmad Kasravi later; see Lloyd Ridgeon, Ahmad Kasravi’s Criticisms of Edward Granville Browne, p. 227. 92 Kaveh, 22 January 1920, p. 2; Kaveh, 11 January 1921, p. 2. The list is reproduced in French with commentary by Jamalzadeh in Taqizadeh, Tel Que je l’ai Connu, in Hasan Taqizadeh, Maqallat Taqizadeh Vol 7, Tehran, Shokufan, 1356 / 1977, pp. 751–52.

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acquire, and indeed to an ‘absolute surrender’ to European civilization (other than the Persian language and literature) in all its aspects; it ends on the controversial statement that Iran must outwardly and inwardly, materially and mentally, become European.93 These exhortations, a manifesto for renewal, were later expanded and modified, and to some extent qualified, although the anger clearly remained. By 1921 there were some twenty-three prescriptions in all (seventeen essential, an additional six desirable), which Taqizadeh argued would be adopted if people were genuine about reform: 1. A universal public education (taleem) and self-awareness/analysis (khod-keshi). 2. The publication of useful books, the translation of European books and their publication. 3. The taking and accepting without reservation the principles, manners, and customs of European civilisation.94 4. The extensive and maximum promotion of physical exercise according to European standards. 5. The preservation and unity of the nation of Iran. 6. The preservation of the national language, meaning Persian, from corruption. 93 The phrase used is Iran bayad zaheran va batenan, jesman va roha farangi maab. This has regularly been translated as ‘physically and spiritually’, but could alternatively and perhaps in the context of the education Taqizadeh is so keen on (Taqizadeh argues that all the country’s resources be directed towards education), be translated as ‘mentally’. See T Atabaki, From Multilingual Empire to Modern State, in H Katouzian & H Shahidi, Iran in the 21st Century, London, Routledge, 2008, p. 48. More curious is his use of the word ma’ab, an Arabic term which implies ‘return’, and which may suggest that Taqizadeh understood European civilization to be common to Iran, which has simply forsaken it; arguably this is a thoroughly enlightenment narrative. 94 Taqizadeh later claimed that he had adopted this idea from an Ottoman thinker, Abdullah Jodat, who was himself a Kurd. Hasan Taqizadeh, Aghaz tamadon khareji, p. 30. This is perhaps borne out by the fact that the phrase is highlighted in bold and set apart from the regular script. A succession of writers have condemned Taqizadeh for his demand that Iranians emulate the West, especially with respect to the extreme language used in the initial articulation, although few have quoted him in context (still fewer have referenced the particular quote), and most have limited themselves to one or two particular phrases. See for example, Yahya Aryanpur, Az Saba ta Nima (From Saba till Nima), Tehran, Shirkat-i Sahāmı̄-i Kitābhāy-i Jı b ̄ ı̄ 1350 / 1971, p. 232. Aryanpur’s vitriolic condemnation and assessment of Taqizadeh’s contribution barely lasts a page. Certainly the terms applied by Taqizadeh would come to haunt him, and he came to regret the choice of words if not the sentiment. Such are the consequences of mixing politics with scholarship, and indeed Taqizadeh’s activism regularly invited controversy. For the context, see Gholamreza Vatandoust, Sayyid Hasan Taqizadah and Kaveh, pp. 73–87.

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7. A declaration of war without mercy against opium and alcohol. 8. The war against ignorant prejudice and the [implementation] of complete equality between religions. 9. The war against disease, especially malaria, genital illnesses, tuberculosis, typhus, and polio. 10. The preservation of the independence of Iran. 11. The cultivation (abadi) of the country in the European manner especially through the import of industry (mashin). 12. The freedom of women, and the education and instruction of their rights and privileges. 13. A vigorous war against lying. 14. The endeavour to rid ourselves of the wicked quality of ambiguity and ‘diplomacy’ which of late has unfortunately taken hold and even is considered to be positive. 15. The ridding of ourselves of the shameful practice of unnatural love which has historically been one of the worst practices of our people and which is a major obstacle to civilisation. 16. The fight against frivolous, lewd behaviour, and exaggeration, and the cultivation of seriousness among the population. 17. The revival of the ancient traditions and customs of the Iranian nation. 18. The settlement of the tribes and their disarmament. 19. The eradication of banditry and the elimination of the roots of theft. 20. The existence of political freedom and equality (democracy).95 21. The enforcement of penalties against public officials who abuse their power. 22. A confrontation of the parasites on the government payroll. 23. The reinforcement of government authority and provision of security.96 This somewhat eclectic list, which has come to define Taqizadeh and all that he stood for, was an awkward mix of practical prescriptions and idealistic aspiration, which like many ideological blueprints for national regeneration tended to contradict itself. Whereas on the one hand he might call for the unconditional adoption of European culture, a few lines down he would insist upon the preservation of the nation and language of Iran. 95 Interestingly, the word ‘democracy’ is used in the Persian. 96 See also Gholamreza Vatandoust, Sayyid Hasan Taqizadah and Kaveh, pp. 194–5; numbers 21–22 are adapted from Vatandoust. The numbering in the original is unclear.

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Moreover, this particular demand for ‘Europeanization’ sits oddly with the persistent criticisms of the faux colis and others who adopt (albeit superficially) Western norms at the expense of their native traditions. These contradictions may however be more easily reconciled if one appreciates that Taqizadeh specifically uses the phrase ‘European civilisation’. For thinkers such as Taqizadeh, the principals of European civilisation, in its essence, meant the enlightenment, and the enlightenment did not belong to any one culture but was a constant thread in the history of humanity, to which the Iranians themselves could lay fair claim. This was after all, what a number of enlightenment thinkers had themselves sought to argue. In this sense the call for the adoption of European civilization was in its own peculiar way a return to the self, and a submission sooner or later to the inevitable cunning of Reason.97 Fundamental to realizing this was the education of the public – a phrase repeated and highlighted throughout the text.98 To delay or retard this process was to court disaster, and it was this belief which contributed to Taqizadeh’s sense of urgency, and, (perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the entire article), the totality of the project he had in mind.99 Indeed, seen in this way the piece was undoubtedly extreme in character, more so because Taqizadeh was uncompromising in his articulation of an idealized and ‘enlightened’ narrative of the ascent of the West – bearing in mind that the phrase he uses is ‘European civilization’ – as the West sought to present itself.100 Yet this blunt – almost Manichean – dichotomy was perhaps the only way this particular revolutionary was going to get his point across. This was fundamentally a passionate and angry piece. Taqizadeh was clearly frustrated about the lackluster approach to reforms and had decided that Iran had to be revolutionized not only from top to bottom, but from society upwards. Indeed, he argued that the most significant of his prescriptions could not be imposed by the state but had to be willingly 97 Gholamreza Vatandoust, Sayyid Hasan Taqizadah and Kaveh, p. 93; see also in this regard, Abbas Milani, Majale-ye Kaveh va masale-ye tajjadod (The Journal Kaveh and the Question of Progress), Iranshenasi, 2, 3, Autumn 1369 / 1990, p. 511: ‘Progress was the decree of history.’ See also p. 509. Milani points out that Taqizadeh was preoccupied with the distinct development of Eastern and Western thought and considered that although Iran had adopted Eastern ‘spiritualism’, the West, and the Greek school (Athens), had gone down the route of materialism. 98 Kaveh, 11 January 1921, p. 4; in this he echoed Akhundzadeh. 99 Kaveh, 11 January 1921, p. 3. 100 This is perhaps no more obvious in his condemnation of ‘un-natural love’. For the process by which European morality defined Iranian sexual practices, see Afsaneh Najmabadi, Gendered Transformations: Beauty, Love and Sexuality in Qajar Iran, Iranian Studies, Vol 34 (1/4), (2001), pp. 97–101.

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absorbed by the populace at large. This was the task at hand, the education of the public which was the means by which Iran could free itself from the superficial elite politics by which various factions manipulated the populace for particular and often meaningless causes.101 In many ways the article marked a significant shift from the ‘constitutional republican’ to the revolutionary ‘social democrat,’ and it was clearly directed against a (reactionary) elite which he believed had failed the country.102 Somewhat paradoxically therefore (though not unprecedentedly), the first stage in this social democratic revolution was to transform, if not replace, this failed elite.103 With almost impeccable timing, within six weeks of the publication of this article, on 21 February 1921, Reza Khan, the commander of the Cossack Brigade, in collaboration with the liberal journalist Seyyed Zia Tabatabai, led his troops into Tehran and arrested the members of the government.104 Enlightened Despotism The Myth of the Saviour The rise of Reza Khan and the establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925 is often regarded as signalling not only the end but the failure of 101 Kaveh, 11 January 1921, p. 2. 102 Kaveh, 11 January 1921, p. 1; the terms used are: kohneh parastan (literally ‘worshippers of decay’), kaj beenan (those who do not see straight), ashkhas va tabaqati ke talab bazaar ashofteh hastand (people and classes who are after disrupted markets, i.e., capitalists). All these people are deemed corrupt (fesad). 103 The themes outlined by Kaveh would be subsequently taken up by a new journal, Iranshahr, edited by one of Taqizadeh’s colleagues in Berlin, Hossein Kazemzadeh. The editorial line was if anything more secular although by no means irreligious; see S Meskoob, Nationalism, Centralisation of Power and Culture, p. 487. 104 The Young Iran party had published a manifesto in March 1921 listing a number aims which were similar to those outlined by Taqizadeh, to whit: abolition of the capitulation; construction of a railway; independence of the country’s customs; sending male and female students to Europe; women’s emancipation; review of the penal laws; development of primary education; establishment of secondary schools and technical and industrial schools; restricting voting rights for the uneducated; establishment of museums, libraries, and theatres; and adoption (aghaz) and acquisition (eqtebas) of the good parts of European civilisation. This last statement is remarkably similar to that used by Taqizadeh. What is striking is that one of the authors, Ali Akbar Siassi, later claimed in 1931 that Reza Khan, as prime minister, had demanded to see both the members of the association and their manifesto, commenting that ‘it was good’. Whatever the veracity of this particular claim, it does suggest that Reza Khan paid attention to political writings; see S Meskoob, Nationalism, Centralisation of Power and Culture, p. 499, and p. 507 ft. 50.

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the Constitutional Revolution. Yet at the time, Reza Khan was hailed by intellectuals and those of a progressive persuasion as the saviour of the nation and the individual most likely to provide the secure political framework for the pursuit of reforms and the cultivation of a reinvigorated ‘nation-state’.105 For the enlightened elite, he represented the ‘enlightened despot’, constrained by a constitution, legally minded, but essential nonetheless to drag an otherwise reactionary and inherently conservative people into the modern age. For those intellectuals imbued with the narrative of the French Revolution, Reza Khan was the man on horseback who could reconcile the revolution with the past and fulfill its promise.106 For those steeped in traditional Iranian historical narratives – both mythical and modern – he was simply the hero destined to rescue his people at their hour of need. Naturally, none of these narrative explanations were exclusive nor was Reza Khan particularly resistant to any of them. Yet ironically, despite being a product of his age and a consequence of the Constitutional Revolution, the transformation of Reza Khan into Reza Shah Pahlavi ensured that a gradual but ultimately decisive distinction would emerge between himself – and his dynasty – and the context that bore him. The need for a ‘charismatic’ saviour to propel the agenda of the Constitutional Revolution effectively ensured the alienation of the immediate past. The Constitutional Revolution was therefore increasingly characterized as a well-intentioned failure, in urgent need of rescuing.107 The Qajars on the other hand, were not only not well-intentioned, they were emphatically defined as ‘Turks’; this racial classification in effect eliminated them from the national narrative. See Malek ol Shoara Bahar’s reflections on his initial support for a strong central authority in S Meskoob, Nationalism, Centralisation of Power and Culture, pp. 496–97. Bahar complains that Vosuq had not had the courage to consolidate power like an ‘Ataturk or Mussolini’, and consequently it was left to a ‘cossack’ to do this. See also Kasravi’s comments (p 497). 106 See Kaveh, 4 September 1921; the lead commentary, written some months after the coup of February 1921, explicitly argues for the benefits of and necessity of enlightened despotism (estebdad monavar) for Iran, stressing the need for elite direction and using Peter the Great as a model (p 3). The article even draws attention to the fact that Peter the Great forbade beards, a forerunner of dress codes changes imposed by Reza Shah. The distinction is made against traditional regressive despotism, and for good measure the article adds that the editorial policy of the newspapers remains firmly wedded to the idea of constitutionalism as the best type of government. This may reflect Taqizadeh’s attempt to distinguish between enlightened ‘despotism’ and ‘absolutism’ in Persian. Voltaire, in his biography of Louis XIV, makes clear that the French king was a positive force because he enacted enlightened ‘absolutism’; see J G A Pocock, Barbarism & Religion Vol. II, p. 83. 107 See Abbas Amanat, Memory and Amnesia, p. 25. 105

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Charismatic authority and the belief in the myth of the saviour could be reinforced through ‘a devotion born of distress and enthusiasm.’108 The more the despair, the greater the devotion to the individual who ostensibly did the rescuing. Naturally therefore, the more the saviour wished to emphasize his extraordinary abilities, the more he tended to denigrate that which preceded his emergence. Reza Shah’s rule would not see the apogee of this process, but his reign reintroduced the motif. Reza Shah paid heed to the historical lessons of both Napoleon, and importantly within an Iranian context, Nader Shah. According to the British, ‘Reza Khan’s great hero is Nadir Shah: it would not be surprising if he were to model his career on that of Nadir.’109 Both individuals personalized different narratives and addressed the needs of different constituents. There were of course other consequences of this trend that were to impact the way in which national narratives were to be constructed. In demeaning the achievements of the Constitutionalists such narratives tended to replace the collective ‘incoherence’ with the ‘will’ of the individual, further fuelling the myth of the saviour and encouraging the belief in the virtues of autocracy. As such it was a development which appealed across the political divide to those who might have been opposed to the Constitutional Movement, and moreover confirmed prejudices abroad that authoritarian rule was the only type that could succeed in an ‘oriental world’. The experience of the Pahlavi autocracy was often read back into the history of monarchical government as a whole, a narrative construction which would be fully supported by the revolutionaries of 1979. However, even the more limited narrative thread which seeks to bind the two Pahlavi monarchs into a seamless whole is misplaced because, as argued above in ‘A Republic of Letters,’ Reza Shah was a product of the Constitutional Movement and was above all served by those for whom the revolution and its aspirations were recent and genuine. Towards the ‘Nation-State’ Nationalism has been defined as the process by which a nation seeks political expression through the development or acquisition of statehood. ‘Nation-ism’ on the other hand has been characterized as the determination Max Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building: Selected Papers (ed. S. N. Eisenstadt), Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1968, p. 23. This process was common in the history of dynastic succession in Iran, but could also be seen in the more emphatic break Mustapha Kemal made with the Ottoman past and the Young Turks in particular. 109 British diplomat Victor Mallet, quoted in Michael P. Zirinsky, Imperial Power and Dictatorship, p. 656. 108

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of an existing state to forge for itself a nation. For Taqizadeh there can be no doubt that the former was the process which enjoyed integrity and durability. It was in essence an organic process which emerged from society to dictate the nature of the state. The latter was inherently more fragile because anything which had to be imposed could not be sustained. Yet in seeking to transform Iran from an imperial idea to a national idea, many had reluctantly come to the view that some sort of state encouragement would be not only required but desirable. This compromise was however predicated on the understanding that the policy of nation-ism would facilitate nationalism, which would in turn ultimately provide for the ‘commonwealth’ aspired to in the preamble to the Fundamental Law of 1906.110 The decision to move in this direction was born of bitter experience: not only the immediate failure of the Constitutional Revolution to cohere around a working government, but the degeneration of that revolution into faction fighting which ultimately paralyzed the central government. This paralysis coincided with the onset of the Great War in Europe which succeeded in relegating Iran and its domestic problems to the realm of irrelevancy, such that foreign armies were contesting Iranian territory with little regard for the official neutrality of the country. Indeed the situation became so incoherent that even members of the government bartered their neutrality for factional and individual gain. The impact of the Great War added socio-economic dislocation and widespread public hardship to the political paralysis.111 Britain, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire all competed for regional primacy while the Iranians themselves could do little more than observe. For Britain, with the discovery of oil in south-west Iran in 1908, the stakes had become tangibly higher, although one must be careful not to exaggerate the impact of oil on British strategy at this early stage.112 For many nationalists including Taqizadeh, the experience of Anglo-Russian rivalry had left them with little choice but to seek succour from the Central Powers; hence Taqizadeh decided to relocate to See supra note 58. 111 See British Minister to the Foreign Office, Annual Report for 1914, FO 371/Persia 1915/34–2059. On the limits of this paralysis and the prevalent ‘discourse of disintegration’, see Oliver Bast, Disintegrating the ‘Discourse of Disintegration’: Some Reflections on the Historiography of the Late Qajar Period and Iranian Cultural Memory, in Touraj Atabaki, Iran in the 20th Century: Historiography & Political Culture, London, I B Tauris, 2009, pp. 60–63. 112 Although the decision had been taken to transfer the Royal Navy to oil, the refitting of ships was a slow process. Moreover, production of oil from Khuzestan was not yet significant. 110

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Berlin and to publish Kaveh from there. However as the war reached its end, and with Russia itself in the grip of revolution, it became apparent that the real victor, as far as Iran was concerned, would be Britain, who would be left with no rival to challenge its regional hegemony. With the Peace Conference scheduled for Paris in 1919, and new nations emerging to statehood from the ashes of the Ottoman, Russian, and Habsburg empires, Iran’s nationalists were at once happy to have survived and at the same time anxious that the same dismemberment should not befall them. Taqizadeh took the opportunity to issue a detailed ‘Memorandum on Persia’s Wishes and Her Aspirations’ which sought to address these hopes and fears; it offers a useful insight into the manner in which Iranian intellectuals sought to present Iran to the world.113 After first emphasizing the importance of Iran for world peace, the memorandum goes on to stress that the nation is homogenous, ‘belonging nearly all to the same race and having the same culture, habits and faith and almost the same language throughout.’114 The key of course was to make Iran relevant to the Western powers, and Taqizadeh wasted no time in listing a number of eminent Iranians drawn from biblical and classical history, along with notable poets. He describes Mazdak as ‘the first socialist in history.’115 Moreover he stresses the important of the delivery of the Jews from captivity by Cyrus and adds for good measure that the birth of Jesus was greeted by ‘the Wise men of the East’. He then adds, ‘Today this people, with her hereditary genius and resourcefulness, is more than ever capable of joining her Western Indo-European brothers, if she can only be liberated from political and economic bondage.’116 Having laid out the case for support, Taqizadeh then proceeds to detail what Iran wants from the Peace Conference: essentially a right to be heard, a right to join the League of Nations, the definitive evacuation of foreign troops, and above all, a revision of economic relations, including the abolition of all capitulations and a generous loan of some $100 million, free of any political conditions, from the League with a view to servicing outstanding debts and constructing the state. He adds, ‘The proper spending of the sum must be assured by the indispensable control of the Persian Parliament; secondly, several bodies of foreign advisors with the absolute free choice of Persia, to be lent to her for the purposes of instituting the Dated April 1919, The Hague, in Hasan Taqizadeh, Maqallat Taqizadeh Vol 7, Tehran, Shokufan, 1356 / 1977, pp. 722–28. 114 Taqizadeh op cit p. 723 115 Ibid p. 724 116 Ibid p. 725 113

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necessary reforms in the different administrative departments of the state. These missions should be engaged for a comparatively long period (say ten years) and be given executive powers.’117 This last paragraph is striking not only for the extent of the loan requested but executive powers which are to be given to foreign advisors. Whatever the justification for such a request – and one must be that the assessment of the internal situation was desperate – it does put the subsequent Anglo-Persian Agreement into a slightly different light. For the genesis of this Agreement – the cause of much subsequent ire among nationalists – we must turn to the person of George Nathanial Curzon, the contemporary of Edward Browne. Patrician to the core, Curzon, as an avowedly imperial foreign secretary, has often been unfavourably contrasted with the more sympathetic Browne, although a comparison of their correspondence on the matter of Iran shows more coincidence than is at first apparent. Curzon like Browne had spent time in Iran, and their accounts of their experiences were published within a year. Curzon undoubtedly had a deep affection for the Iranians, albeit paternalistic, although in this his approach was not much different from those he considered less well off than himself in his own country.118 Where he differed markedly from Browne was his perspective as a British statesman and politician, which meant that duty and British interest would always take priority, and for this, he unsurprisingly came in for criticism from Browne. At the same time, for Curzon, British interests were tied quite intimately with those of Iran, and he was highly critical of the influence and encroachments of the Russians, who he quite categorically felt were antithetical to the welfare of Iran. During the war, he had spoken of the rise in nationalist feeling in Iran – arguably he exaggerated it – and seemed fully appraised of the changes in sentiment taking place.119 It seems highly contradictory and somewhat naïve that he should then impose an agreement seen by many Iranians as an affront to national dignity. It has been suggested that the offence caused emerged somewhat after the event and was subsequently reinforced to suit a particular nationalist narrative which was being being articulated in the aftermath of the coup 117 Ibid p. 727 118 One may conjecture that this was pretty much everyone! 119 On Curzon’s views when out of office see the excellent article by Christopher Ross, Lord Curzon and E G Browne Confront the Persian Question, The Historical Journal Vol 52, 2009, pp. 402–3. Curzon rarely strayed away from what he considered to be ‘British interests’ but the occasions in which he did are revealing.

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of 1921.120 Certainly the details of the Agreement, which envisaged the delivery of loan and the dispatch of foreign advisors, was not substantively different from the request to the League of Nations. In one area of course, it did have Curzon’s imprint, and this was the exclusivity. Whereas Iran had been requesting collective assistance, Curzon saw no reason to allow others onto what he regarded as Britain’s imperial patch. The Agreement which was finally arranged with the then– Iranian prime minister, Vosuq al Dawleh, was signed in 1919. From the British perspective it sought to fulfill two main objectives: the establishment of order to what they considered to be a chaotic situation; and its achievement with the minimum of expense and by extension, delay. The sense of urgency was in many ways dictated by the poverty of the imperial coffers after the Great War, and this demand, more than any sense of altruism, undoubtedly shaped Britain’s determination to achieve a speedy solution. Curzon, interestingly, had wanted the Agreement to be ratified by the Majlis, so as to provide it with legal legitimacy and hence durability.121 Vosuq was of a different mind, perhaps aware of the reaction which might be engendered and the time which would be involved in discussion. Whatever the motives, the Majlis was not called and the Agreement remained, much to Curzon’s frustration, stillborn. The British need for a solution and anxieties over continued chaos in a country which was vulnerable not only to Russian influence but now Bolshevik ideology, now neatly dovetailed with Iranian nationalist anxieties. Each required order (for its own priorities), and each had a perception of chaos which reinforced and justified the need for an urgent solution.122 This coincidence of interests has led critics of the coup of 1921 to argue that this was entirely a British plan intended to compensate for the failure of the Anglo-Persian Agreement. Not only does such an assessment ignore Iranian motives but it also neglects the fact that by 1921, policymakers in Britain were (yet again) losing interest in Iran. It 120 See in this respect O Bast Disintegrating the ‘Discourse of Disintegration’: Some Reflections on the Historiography of the Late Qajar Period in Iranian Cultural Memory, in Atabaki (ed.) Iran in the 20th Century, pp. 55–68. 121 This was in stark contrast to the approach of the Americans in 1964 with the Status of Forces convention. 122 Zirinsky notes interestingly, ‘Britain saw Iran as chaotic, a result especially of British bureaucratic disorganisation. In addition to the legation, London received often conflicting reports on Iran from consuls, military attaches, the government of India, the Imperial Bank of Persia, the Indo-European Telegraph company, and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC). Michael P Zirinsky, Imperial Power and Dictatorship, p. 649.

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is difficult to deny, given the position of Britain in Iran after the Great War, and the attitude and perceptions of Iranians towards the British, that these policymakers did not play some role, even if at times an unwitting one, in the coup. But it is also increasingly clear that the British role was both local – reliant on individual personalities on the ground who later informed London of their actions  – and as facilitator rather than conspirator.123 Be that as it may, once the coup became a de facto reality, the rise of Reza Khan to prominence was undoubtedly assisted by the appointment of Sir Percy Lorraine as British Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Iran. The coup which overthrew the government in February 1921 was led and organized by the political journalist, Seyyed Zia Tabatabai, a man known to have British sympathies. His co-conspirator, Reza Khan, was the commander of the Cossack Brigade, one of the few organized Iranian military forces in the country;124 his main function was to provide the requisite force should opposition be encountered. In any event, the coup appears to have succeeded largely unnoticed by the populace at large for whom a change in government, even one by force, was not especially dramatic or new. The declarations of the conspirators laying the blame for the malaise squarely at the door of the government were heavily redolent of nationalistic phrases and language, and echoed Taqizadeh’s call in demanding that ‘The government of this class should terminate’.125 Both were careful to proclaim loyalty to the Shah and Seyyed Zia, and for good measure condemned the Anglo-Persian Agreement, while at the same time held out the hand of friendship to Britain. When Lorraine arrived later that year to take up his post, he was suitably impressed with the change in mood compared to what he had experienced during his first posting to Tehran in the aftermath of the Constitutional Revolution: ‘[I]t seems to me that that there is a far more effective and coherent public opinion than when I formerly knew this country and it is intensely nationalist.’126 Lorraine may have been swept along by the enthusiasm Perhaps the best analysis of the British role is by Michael P Zirinsky, Imperial Power and Dictatorship, pp. 639–63. For those determined to see the British hand in the rise of Reza Khan, it is worth noting that the ambitious commander had originally approached the Germans in 1917; see Ahmad Ashraf, Conspiracy Theories, Encyclopedia Iranica Online, 15 December 1992. See also in this respect the memoirs of Abolqasem Khan Kamalzadeh, quoted in S Meskoob, Nationalism, Centralisation of Power and Culture, p. 501 ft 7. 124 The other arguably being the Gendermarie. 125 FO 371 6403 E4906, Manifestos of Reza Khan and Seyyed Zia, dated April 1921. 126 FO 371 6408 E14290, Lorraine’s first impressions, dated 23 December 1921. 123

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of his new posting but his comparison is nonetheless revealing, as was his suggestion that the British government treat the people of Iran more generously than their government. Lorraine clearly subscribed to the Browne thesis (and for that matter most nationalists’) that the problems in Iran were primarily political, and that the solution had to start from the top. Indeed as Lorraine’s mission progressed (he was to serve through to 1926), his despair at the political class – and their abuse of patriotism  – was matched only by his growing view that Reza Khan, who had moved steadily from commander of the armed forces, to minister of war, and finally prime minister in 1923 – speedily disposing of his ally Seyyed Zia in the process – provided the only effective solution. The parties are not parties because they have no tenets, no principles, no watchwords, no political programme; they are merely clubs of conspirators . . . If a Persian becomes unpopular with his compatriots, all he need do to revive belief in the purity of his patriotism is to start some disgusting slander against a foreigner, and preferably the English . . . The whole country is in the hands of an upper class numbering a few thousands of mostly ravenous Mulks, Sultanehs and Dowlehs; there is practically no middle class, and the mass of the population takes no interest in what happens . . . and merely asks not to starve . . . dealing with the Persian government is like prodding a pat of butter, for their seems to be nothing to which it reacts.127

Centralization In the years between 1921 and 1924, the chief characteristic of the new government being formed around the person of Reza Khan was that of order through increasing centralization. Although these concepts are not synonymous, they became so in the minds of many Iranian nationalists, centred as they were themselves in Tehran, and anxious about the various provincial movements which had emerged in the vacuum left behind by the absence of central government. That some of these movements were armed made matters all the more urgent. That moreover, some sought support from the Soviets made the issue one of treason. The narrative of treason articulated by Reza Khan and his supporters has been challenged with some justification, although the opposite view is likewise simplistic. It is easy to romanticize over what may have been, but the Jangali Movement, and its leader Mirza Kuchik Khan, were undeniably tainted by their fateful decision to declare the Soviet Republic of Gilan, whereas Mohammad Taqi Khan Pasyan may have ultimately followed a similar FO 371 9024 E6353, dated 4 July 1923. 127

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autocratic path to that of his nemesis, Reza Khan.128 These individuals have gained in stature as history has sought to diminish that of Reza Khan, but the truth is, at the time, as Lorraine pointed out, Iranian politicians were very much in favour of Reza Khan’s policy of centralized control.129 It was not only the politicians: Many intellectuals and artists had found their saviour, and they were grateful.130 The poet Arif for example wrote that “The winds of the Sardar Sepah [Reza Khan] will revive this country from the verge of destruction.”131 For the British, in the person of Lorraine, perhaps the greatest service to Reza Khan’s rise was the handling of the Sheikh of Mohammerah. The Sheikh had basically acquired the status of autonomous ruler, dealing directly with the British in matters pertaining to the oil-rich areas of Khuzestan. It was in short a matter of conjecture whether the British would support the Sheikh in a bid for independence. Reza Khan was determined to prevent any such thoughts and to bring the Sheikh back into line. Lorraine fatefully advised the British government to throw in their lot with Reza Khan, sweetening his argument with the pointed remark that in any event he was achieving what the Anglo-Persian Agreement had intended.132 The restoration of order through the establishment of a working central government was music to the ears of the Constitutionalists, who had not only experienced the ineffectiveness of central government but had concluded that its firm establishment was a necessary prerequisite for the reform of the state and the revolutionising of society.133 This necessity was all the more important because of the fear of centrifugal forces which may result in the dismemberment of the state. The aim, as has been noted above, was to manage to transition from and imperial idea to a national idea, and in the aftermath of the Great War, and the collapse of so many imperial states, it was vital that Iran be conceived of as an homogenous For a discussion of the role of these two individuals, see Stephanie Cronin, An Experiment in Revolutionary Nationalism: The Rebellion of Colonel Muhammad Taqi Khan Pasyan in Mashhad April–October 1921, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol 33 (4), October 1997, pp. 693–750; and Janet Afary, The Contentious Historiography of the Gilan Republic in Iran: A Critical Exploration, Iranian Studies, Vol. 28 (1/2) Winter–Spring 1995, pp. 3–24. 129 FO 371 9024 E4612, Reza Khan and Centralisation, dated 7 May 1923. 130 See S R Shafeq, Patriotic Poetry in Modern Iran, Middle East Journal, Vol 4, 1952, pp. 426–28. 131 Quoted in M R Ghods, Iranian Nationalism and Reza Shah, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol 27 (1) 1991, p. 42. 132 FO 371 9024 E4612, dated 7 May 1923, and E5312 dated 19 June 1923. 133 See the comments of Bahar quoted in M Reza Ghods, Iranian Nationalism and Reza Shah, p. 36. 128

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nation-state. This political expediency however bore within it the seeds of future trouble. It may have been important to project this image to foreign powers with aspirations over one’s territorial integrity, but a powerful central state should not have necessarily translated into a doctrine of unremitting centralisation and standardisation. In short, a centralised state did not imply a standardised society.134 Moreover the belief in a single unified nation did not inherently preclude internal differences  – especially if one’s concept of nation was essentially cultural and born of a shared historical experience  – unless one was tending towards an acceptance of the racial and biological doctrine of the nation. This was certainly a growing feature in the contemporary politics of Europe, and would increasingly make itself felt in Iran, although it is important to bear in mind that this ideological perspective probably took second place that the concept of the French State had on Iranian state builders, many of whom became acquainted with European political ideas through the medium of the French language.135 Even here however a measure of caution is warranted. In the first place, it is worth remembering that the appropriation of the idea of the modern state was often simplistically adopted and implemented with little appreciation of a social contract. Such uneven acquisition of European norms would continue to plague Iranian politics and frustrate Iranian nationalists. On the other hand there is also a tendency to read into the early Pahlavi state a measure of its own propaganda. A good example of how simplistic analogies could have unforeseen consequences was the presentation of the Sasanian Empire and its use as a role model. The pre-Islamic Sasanian Empire, far more than the Achaemenid Empire, provided the template for the revived national state under Reza Khan, soon to adopt the surname ‘Pahlavi’.136 The traditional narrative of the Sasanian state as inherited from the Shahnameh and reinforced by later more ‘scientific’ studies such as the influential interpretation by the Danish Orientalist Arthur Christensen, who published his first account in 1907, was of a strong centralised state succeeding the The boundaries between the imperial and national idea were of course resolutely ambiguous. 135 The Faculty of Political Science which was first established in 1899 to train diplomats had as part of its curriculum training in the French language. See Mohammad Ali Foroughi, The Modernization of Law, Journal of Persianate Studies, Vol 3, 2010, p. 38. 136 The Sasanian association is explicitly made in a text by ‘Nobakht’ entitled Shahanshah-e Pahlavi dated 25 Zahije 1342, corresponding with the solar date 1303, and the Gregorian date 12 July 1924 (p 5). See also Hasan Arfa, Under Five Shahs, London, John Murray 1964, p. 279. 134

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weak feudal state of the Parthians.137 This narrative arc of feudal vulnerability and redemption through the construction of a strong centralised state – based on a powerful king, and a powerful military – was one that appealed to the supporters of the new Pahlavi state. Christensen himself was known to be impressed by the achievements of the Pahlavi state.138 But although it was certainly true that the Sasanian state was more centralised than that of its predecessor, it must also be true that the meaning of centralisation was quite different in the world of late antiquity as compared to its experience in the early twentieth century. In reality neither state was quite as centralised, or standardised, as was often believed.139 Redefining the monarchy was not however the immediate concern of the new regime. Whatever Reza Khan’s ambitions, the motivating ideals of his political supporters remained those of the Constitutional Revolution, a strong state bound by laws. That Reza Khan was proving to be an energetic and proactive prime minister (from 1923) was as commendable as the fact that the reigning Qajar monarch was so inactive, that he had become by default a constitutional monarch. If Reza Khan and his supporters were at times considered overzealous in their pursuit of their political agenda – especially with regard to his preoccupation with the army – this was regarded by some as the price that had to be paid for years of inactivity. Moreover, as with the suppression of provincial ‘­dissident’ movements, success was its own justification. Indeed, for all Christensen published several editions of his influential text. L’empire des Sassanides: le people, l’etat, la cour was published in Copenhagen in 1907. Subsequent editions were published in 1936 and 1944. A Persian translation was first published in 1938. More interesting perhaps was his publication in 1932 of a book entitled Les Kayanides, a remarkable text which sought to situate the Kayanids within both a Zoroastrian liturgical and historical frame of reference. This was perhaps the last time a Western scholar would attempt such a reconciliation (Sir John Malcolm having tried in his monumental History of Persia, 1815). A Persian translation was published in 1957. The popularity of Christensen is testified to in the positive review in Ayandeh, Vol 2 (11), Esfand 1306 / March 1928. 138 See L P Elwell-Sutton, Arthur Emanuel Christensen, The Bulletin of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, Vol 10 (1), 1983, p. 61. 139 One enthusiastic supporter of centralisation based on the Sasanian model was the founder of the Iranian communist party, Taqi Arani; see M Kia, Persian Nationalism and the Campaign for Language Purification, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol 34 (2), 1998, pp. 18–19. Arani, like Taqizadeh and Kasravi, was a keen promoter of Persian over Azeri. A regularly cited example of Sasanian centralised authority was the adoption of orthodox Zoroastrianism as the ‘state’ religion. Quite apart form begging the question of what amounted to orthodox Zoroastrianism, this assumption simply does not stand up to historical scrutiny. Interestingly, this interpretation of the Sasanian state was later used to justify the theocratic structure of the Islamic Republic. 137

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that the elections to the fifth Majlis were manipulated to ensure a pliant set of deputies, the legislative program proved amongst the most radical yet durable of the modern era, going some way to fulfilling the promise of the Constitutional Revolution and establishing the foundations of the modern Iranian state, which remained unchanged to this day. The fifth Majlis convened on 11 February 1924140 and succeeded in ratifying a dramatic legislative programme which included compulsory two-year military service, a cut in the court budget, and the abolition of the decorative court titles which had become the hallmark of the Qajar court (i.e., al-mamalek, al-Saltaneh). The programme also made it a statutory obligation for all citizens to obtain birth certificates and register family names;, levied taxes on tea, sugar and income for the proposed trans-Iranian railway; standardised weights and measures, and reformed the country’s calendar, establishing the Iranian solar calendar (still dated from the flight to Medina) as the official calendar complete with Iranian (Zoroastrian) month names.141 The durability of some of the changes, especially the institutionalisation of a new official calendar, can of course be partly explained by it being neither as new nor as radical as some proponents suggested. Indeed, the fact that this calendar remains in use to this day is an indication of how far this calendar had remained part of the historical fabric of society. Other changes, despite occasional resistance, became part of the fabric, including conscription and the adoption 140 FO 371 [..] E2431/455/34 dated 16 February 16 1924. 141 The calendar used by Taqizadeh on the front page of Kaveh was dated from the accession of Yazdegerd III (632); this one more sensitively adopted the Hejra of the Prophet Mohammad in 622, thereby adding ten years. Old habits nonetheless died hard: As late as 1314/1935, the government still had to issue a directive insisting on the use of the solar months in place of the lunar months in official documentation; see Hussein Makki, Tarikh-e Bist Sale ye Iran (A Twenty Year History of Iran) Vol 6, Tehran, Elmi 1374 / 1995, p. 324. Standard time throughout the country on the basis of the time in Tehran was only decreed on 31 Tir 1314 / 22 July 1935 (see however below) p. 231 (Hussein Makki was a prominent politician during the Oil Nationalisation period, and was not inclined to be sympathetic to Reza Shah. Later in life he wrote a sympathetic account of Mudarris, the main clerical opponent to Reza Shah. His ‘Twenty Year History’ remains a staple source for historians of the Reza Shah period but characteristically lacks footnotes and references. For one of the first ‘modern’ histories, it also retains the structure of a chronicle and richness of detail which must nevertheless be approached with a degree of caution.) See also M Roostai, Tarikh nokhostin farhangestan-e iran beh ravayet asnad (A documentary history of the first Farhangestan), Tehran, Nashreney, 1385 / 2006, pp. 84–85; the new calendar was to be adopted on 31 March 1925, with another edict to state organisations issued in March 1935. Here it is noted that the habitual use of the Turkish calendar was as much the target as the use of the lunar calendar.

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of surnames, a full ten years before this administrative innovation was adopted in Turkey.142 The Republican Narrative However if a number of the more progressive aspirations of the Constitutionalists had yet to be articulated, one revolutionary idea was increasingly being voiced: republicanism. The impetus for this may indeed have been the example of Turkey, and there were politicians who considered the Qajar Shah so inconsequential that the transition to a republic seemed to be the natural and timely extension of the Constitutional project. It helped of course that the Qajar monarch was neither liked any longer nor seen as native, increasingly characterised (as noted above) as Turkish, and therefore alien to the ‘Iranian’ body politic. Reza Khan’s motives in toying with the idea of republicanism are unclear, although it is unlikely he pursued the idea through ideological conviction. He tended to publicly prevaricate, before dismissing the idea altogether following a visit to the senior ulema in Qom.143 If there was method in his pursuit, it was more likely to do with the opportunity it provided his supporters to further degrade the Qajars. Indeed, given his admiration of Nader Shah, who had carefully cultivated the delegitimization of the Safavids before seizing the throne in 1736, it is most likely that Reza Khan was likewise biding his time and letting the corrosive effects of persistent criticism take its toll. Every attack on the decadent Qajars was matched by unremitting praise for the vigour of the Prime Minister, who the papers, according to one British report, ‘proposed to elect President of the new republic’.144 Most revealingly, in seeking a model to emulate, the deputies of the Majlis pored over copies of the American Constitution.145 On the adoption and impact of surnames, see H E Chehabi, Reforming Nomencalture in Iran: The Abolition of Titles and Introduction of Family Names under Reza Shah Pahlavi (forthcoming). Chehabi points out that the impetus for this change predates Reza Khan’s assumption of the premiership and was clearly part of the Constitutional inheritance. 143 FO 371 10145 E3748 proclamation dated 29 April 1923; Foroughi had been a keen supporter of the Republican agenda. 144 FO 371 [..] E3743/455/34 which includes a useful diary of events on the republican movement, dated 1 April 1924. 145 See Vanessa Martin, Mudarris, Republicanism and the Rise to Power of Riza Khan, Sardar Sipah, Brismes Journal, Vol 21 (2), 1994, p. 203, and Donald Wilber, Riza Shah Pahlavi: The Resurrection and Reconstruction of Iran, New York, Exposition Press, 1975, p. 77. Martin in particular provides a useful discussion and analysis of the republican debate. 142

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If ultimately these discussions came to nothing it should not diminish the passion with which republican ideas (in the broadest sense) were held. They failed to materialise at this stage in part because of the objection of the traditional ulema who saw republicanism as a vehicle for secularism, in part because of the likely determination of Reza Khan to secure for himself the crown, but also in no small measure because of the acquiescence of an intelligentsia who believed that the essential period of transition had yet to be traversed. For these people, a rejuvenated Iranian monarchy, even an autocratic one, under the energetic guidance of someone of the calibre of Reza Khan, could be just the catalyst required for the rapid transition of Iran from a traditional monarchy to a working modern republic.146 It could not have escaped their notice that the European experience showed just this development: Enlightened despots had succeeded in making themselves ultimately irrelevant to the process, but they had been essential factors in leading an otherwise conservative population, inherently resistant to change, towards reform. For them, Reza Khan was a means to an end; he served the nation, not the other way round. This remained very much a collective endeavour in which the individual may symbolise (and personalise) the process, but he was not (as yet) solely identified with the principle.147 Indeed the tendency to identify this era with the person of Reza Khan has disguised the varied influences which impacted on the period and shaped it in ways which belie its characterisation as a brutal autocracy masquerading as a constitutional monarchy.148 Yet on a number of different levels the influence of the Constitutionalists was pervasive, and the achievements of the period, taken as a whole, were impressive. A good example is the person of Abdolhussein Teymourtash. Born into an aristocratic family from Khorasan, Teymourtash was sent for his education The coronation of Reza Shah in 1926 was suitably deferential to tradition; see FO 371 T6376/191/379, Shah’s speech from the throne, dated 1 May 1926. See also H Makki, Tarikh-e Bist Sale ye Iran Vol 4, p. 40. Reza Shah makes clear his duty to protect and extend the principles of religion. 147 See in this respect Hegel’s comments in The German Constitution 1802, in Hegel’s Political Writings (trans. T M Knox), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1964, p. 216. On Taqizadeh’s views, see Gholamreza Vatandoust, Sayyid Hasan Taqizadah and Kaveh, p. 205: ‘The only two realistic choices for Iran were therefore bad despotism or defective constitutionalism. The latter according to Taqizadeh, was a far better choice.’ 148 A crack in this pervasive image is afforded by the otherwise unsympathetic Hussein Makki who writes that though few people ever saw Reza Shah smile, when his son returned from Switzerland, the aging Shah was not only visibly overjoyed at seeing the Crown Prince, but hugged him close; see H Makki, Tarikh-e Bist Sale ye Iran, Vol 6, p 328. 146

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to Russia, where he also learned German and French. Returning to Iran, contrary to his father’s royalist leanings, and at the relatively young age of twenty-six, he became embroiled in the Constitutional Revolution and served as a deputy in six successive parliaments. In 1925 he was appointed Minister of Court to the newly elevated Reza Shah Pahlavi. What is perhaps less well known is that Seyyed Zia had been a close associate of Teymourtash and that according to one early biographer, the coup had in fact first ‘been discussed in Teymourtash’s house.’149 What this suggests of course is that Teymourtash did not consider himself incidental to the process which was driving Reza Khan towards the throne, and subsequently, until his untimely death in 1933, Teymourtash’s influence was to grow. Teymourtash himself was not shy about privately conceding that he was the effective head of government, and in due course rumours circulated not only as to the intimate nature of his influence on Reza Shah’s lifestyle, but perhaps more damagingly with respect to his tenure, that he was the natural successor.150 Teymourtash, along with the minister of Justice, Ali Akbar Davar, and the Minister of Finance, Prince Firuz, were widely known to have dominated government collectively for the first five years of Reza Shah’s reign and individually for some time longer.151 Certainly their legacy has been profound. If Firuz and Teymourtash represented the patrician aristocracy, Davar represented the new professional technocrat, emerging from a comparatively humble background to secure one of the most influential ministries in the country. A noted radical, Davar nonetheless opted to vote for the change in dynasty in 1925 which would see Reza Khan seize the mantle of the monarchy.152 Yet even this procedure, constitutional as it may have been, and inevi­ table as it may have been seen with hindsight, was one fraught with debate and dissent. Reza Khan may have encouraged discussion of a republic in order to weaken the legitimacy of the Qajars, but the prospects were real enough to create consternation among some members of the senior ulema and to force him to make a public declaration to Mohammad Essad-Bey, quoted in Miron Rezun, Reza Shah’s Court Minister: Teymourtash, in International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol 12 (2), Sept. 1980, p 134, n 7. 150 FO 371 16941 E879/47/34, Dispatch from Hoare, dated 28 January 1933; FO 371 13782 E6245, dated 2 December 1929, also Rezun, Reza Shah’s Court Minister, p. 127. 151 FO 371 13782 E4703, dated 16 September 1929. 152 See FO 371 9024 E6348 ‘Davar’s Political Party’, dated 14 May 1923. Davar subsequently dissolved his own party and joined along with Teymourtash the decidedly loyalist Iran-e No party, FO 371 12293 E3909, dated 13 September 1927. 149

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the contrary.153 Even so the debate in the Majlis itself revealed differences amongst the deputies about the role of the monarch. Some, such as the youthful Mohammad Mosaddeq, argued against the change in dynasty because as a constitutional, and hence limited monarch, Reza Khan would no longer be able to actively use his energies in pursuit of reform, and consequently, to elevate him was to limit him. Mosaddeq above all objected to the concentration of power in the hands of a single individual, noting that in elevating Reza Khan to the throne, the Majlis was effectively combining the office of monarch with that of Prime Minister, and importantly confusing the Constitutional responsibility of ministers with that of the Shah, who by law was not meant to interfere in politics.154 The noted cleric Mudarris absented himself from the debate because he considered the entire discussion illegal.155 Such views remained nonetheless in the minority. Some conjectured that such was the state of the country that a powerful personality in a traditional office, familiar to the people, was just the means by which an otherwise socially conservative people could be catapulted towards modernity. In other words tradition would facilitate modernisation.156 Moreover, supporters of the change in dynasty such as Davar sought to allay fears by arguing that the sceptics under-estimated the intelligence of their colleagues, and that of course power would not be unlimited.157 But even here there were disputes over whether the new dynasty should be limited to the single individual of Reza Shah, who would be more of a Lord Protector, regally endowed, but not allowed to provide for hereditary succession.158 One notable vote against the change in dynasty came from Hasan Taqizadeh, who argued against the vote on procedural grounds. This would after all be a Constitutional change, and the Constitution The ulema remained divided oon the issue of republicanism as with many other issues; see Martin, Mudarris, Republicanism and the Rise to Power of Riza Khan, pp. 206–09. 154 H Makki, Tarikh-e Bist Sale ye Iran Vol 3, pp. 485–90; Mosaddeq’s intervention is otherwise notable for his somewhat melodramatic expressions of piety. 155 Martin, Mudarris, Republicanism and the Rise to Power of Riza Khan, p. 209. 156 One can draw parallels between the debates among the Republicans and Federalists in the early American Republic as well as the debate on the powers of the Executive and how ‘regal’ they had to be to command respect. In the end Congress rejected the proposition that regal titles (i.e. ‘Majesty’) would be required in order to command authority. 157 H Makki, Tarikh-e Bist Sale ye Iran, Vol 3 p. 493. 158 FO 371 10840 E7540 dated 21 November 1925. See H Makki, Tarikh-e Bist Sale ye Iran, Vol 3. Makki argues that Reza Khan agreed to the proposition in order to get enough votes to abolish the Qajar dynasty, and then reneged on the deal. 153

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as granted had invested the crown in the Qajar family. It was not for the Majlis to single-handedly deliver such a significant change to the Constitution. Taqizadeh argued that for future stability and legitimacy it would better if a special Constitutional Commission were established to study the matter and make recommendations.159 It is unclear as to quite how far the new Shah absorbed and understood this vocabulary. There is little doubt that Reza Shah understood his monarchy as something quite new from that which had preceded it, if for no other reason than his dynasty had been ‘legislated’ into office by the Majlis. Moreover, for all his impatience with constitutional procedure and his frequent disregard of legal process, Reza Shah never closed the Parliament as Mohammad Ali Shah had done in 1908, preferring at the very least to maintain the fiction of its centrality to his monarchy. In addition, his rule oversaw the most dramatic overhaul of the legal structure of the country for several centuries, along with the greatest expansion in education to date, and a quite novel, indeed enlightened, approach to crime and punishment. An indication of how Reza Shah perceived his role may be gleaned from the way in which he understood his surname, selected in 1924 as dictated by law. There have been suggestions that Reza Shah did not know the origins of the term ‘Pahlavi’ and had to seek advice from the German Orientalist Herzfeld.160 Although it is entirely possible that he may have inquired about the academic interpretation of the term, it seems unlikely that he was unfamiliar with the term altogether and unaware of its pre-Islamic associations. Reza Shah clearly wanted to link himself with the pre-Islamic past and to present a genealogy which was thoroughly Iranian, although the extent of the association was a good deal more explicit than has often been appreciated.161 In the highly propagandist text, Shahanshah Pahlavi, which intriguingly was published a full year before his elevation to the throne, the etymology of ‘Pahlavi’ is discussed in some detail. The term is not only associated with the Middle 159 S H Taqizadeh, Opera Minor: Unpublished Writings in European Languages (ed. I Afshar), Tehran, Shekufan, 1979, p. 227. See H Makki, Tarikh-e Bist Sale ye Iran, Vol 3 pp. 475–76. In the event it was Ali Akbar Davar who headed the commission in charge of amending the Constitutional law, see B Aqeli, Davar, EIr Online, 15 December 1994. 160 Donald Wilber, Riza Shah Pahlavi, p. 229; see also M Roostai, Tarikh nokhostin farhangestan-e iran beh ravayet asnad, p. 84. On the provenance of the name, see also H E Chehabi, Reforming Nomenclature in Iran, pp. 18–20. 161 FO 371 10840 E7677 14 December 1925 notes that the succession is henceforth to be fixed in a son born of ‘a Persian mother’, a stipulation that would be subsequently contradicted by the decision to wed the crown prince to an Egyptian princess.

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Persian language but more important is an epithet ascribed to the most noble of Iranians, most obviously in this case the most outstanding of the Sasanian monarchs. But fundamentally, ‘Pahlavi’ is defined as civilised as as opposed to barbaric, and settled as opposed to nomadic: In sum, the text argues that ‘Pahlav’ is synonymous with ‘city’, ‘civilisation’, and ‘freedom’ – a thoroughly enlightened form of despotism.162 Constructing the ‘Nation-State’ Unsurprisingly, the construction of the ‘nation-state’ as envisaged by Reza Shah and his ministers closely reflected the ambitions and ideas of the Constitutionalists and in many ways followed closely the list of prescriptions noted by Taqizadeh. There were to be sure, vulgar and unsubtle acquisitions of European civilisation, in particular the changes to the dress code, and the clumsy attempts to ‘modernise’ Iranian towns and cities.163 Both of these were applied with an enthusiasm which was to prove counterproductive, and in the restrictions on clothing they were to have the unforeseen consequence of effectively identifying the ulema as a distinct class in the body politics by virtue of their traditional dress.164 The imposition of European dress codes – reportedly justified in part on the dubious basis that by dressing like Europeans, people would begin to think like Europeans  – would have undoubtedly appealed to Taqizadeh, although it is worth noting that it was not among his specific list of actions.165 The unveiling of women was another matter. Here there was clear agitation for greater equality between the sexes, and the unveiling of women was part of this process.166 That said, the practical and immediate motives were probably dictated more by prestige and the need to appear comparatively ‘civilised’. Interestingly, the impetus as far as women’s unveiling was concerned came less from the ‘Europeanizing’ Nobakht, Shahanshah-e Pahlavi, pp. 5–9. The language and date of this book, which essentially outlines the achievements of the ‘commander of the army’ from 1921 to 1924, and has an overall military emphasis, is striking for its immediate association of ‘Pahlav’ with freedom and civilisation. Makki alludes to this text in Tarikh-e Bist Sale ye Iran Vol 3, p. 434. See also in this respect Prime Minister Foroughi’s speech on the occasion of Reza Shah’s coronation, quoted in H Makki, Tarikh-e Bist Sale ye Iran Vol 4, pp. 41–45. 163 FO 371 13071 E5964, dated 17 December 1928. 164 FO 371 13781 E1406, European Dress law, dated 18 March 1929. 165 FO 371 20048 E3172, ‘New Dress Regulations’, dated 15 April 1936. 166 See in this respect Jamalzadeh, Yeki Bud, Yeki Nabud, p. 93 [Kanoon Marefat edition undated]. 162

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Turkish Republic and more from the shock of the visit of the Afghan king and queen in 1928, during which time she appeared unveiled.167 Even here however, the speed and means of imposition caused concern among members of the elite for whom the notion of imposition at all was counterproductive.168 As far as dress codes for men were concerned, Reza Shah himself seems to have been motivated as much by the appeal of uniformity as by the appearance of civility.169 For him, the new dress code had much to do with imposing discipline and standardisation – the development of a uniform nation. In this of course he was in conflict with the Constitutionalists for whom adopting the customs of European civilisation may have incorporated discipline but was not intended to deliver uniformity, either in style or in thought. This type of thinking of course emanated from the parade ground and was driven by Reza Shah’s affection for all things military.170 For him the nation had to be built on the basis of a specifically military discipline, and this was reflected not only in the dress code (the early adoption of the Pahlavi cap), but in the encouragement of drill for students, the development of scouting, and a regimen of public physical exercise.171 Although such an approach to modernisation may appear awkward from our (post–Second World War) perspective, it was not considered unduly strange in the inter-war years – in form if not in substance – and of course there is much literature on the role of the military (and the military revolution) as a catalyst for modernization.172 If some were critical of the enthusiasm exhibited by the state or applicability of such ideas to Iranians, few at the time were critical of the underlying approach. It was important to cultivate a new sense of discipline so 167 FO 371 13071 E4672, dated 24 September 1928. 168 FO 371 20048 E476 ‘New Dress Regulations’, dated 11 January 1936; also, FO 371 18992 E4628/608/34, dated 12 July 1935. 169 FO 371 18992 E4041/608/34, Pahlavi Hat and Language Academy, dated 14 June 1935; for a comprehensive discussion of dress reform, see Houchang Chehabi, Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes: Dress Codes and Nation Building under Reza Shah, Iranian Studies, 26, 3–4, 1993, pp. 209–33. 170 The military remained a privileged caste in Reza Shah’s Iran; see FO 371 13542 E6707, dated 3 December 1930. Reza Shah’s relationship with his military is probably best encapsulated by Hasan Arfa, Under Five Shahs, p. 279. 171 FO 371 18988 E616/308/34, dated 12 January 1935; FO 371 21895 E4635/167/34, dated 16 July 1938; FO 371 20048 E3172, dated 15 April 1936; for a comprehensive analysis see Cyrus Schayegh, Sport, Health, and the Iranian Middle Class in the 1920s and 1930s, Iranian Studies, Vol 35 (4), Autumn 2002, pp. 341–69. 172 The most obvious being Foucault’s Discipline & Punish. The notion of enforcing ‘military’ discipline on the nation’s youth can be seen expressed in the formation of the Scout movement, and at the other end of the spectrum, the Hitler Youth.

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that Iranians might eventually reap the benefits of their enlightenment. There was similar support for the settlement of the tribes: The methods may have been harsh and the cost in personal lives high, but the process was necessary.173 Quite apart from the view that civilisation meant settlement and towns, there were sound practical reasons of administration (and taxation) which required the population to be settled and easily located. Antipathy towards the tribes was fuelled not only by anxieties about internal security and a determination to monopolise the means of coercion but also by their increasing characterisation as being beyond the pale of normative civilisation, not only by European standards but by Iranian standards which identified them with the traditional enemy of the Iranians, the Turanians. This centre-versus-periphery argument was to furthermore be increasingly defined in racial terms such that the ‘tribes’ were frequently, if incorrectly characterised as ‘Turkic’ (for all practical purposes and common usage, Turks). Such views were reinforced by the Qashqai revolts in the early 1930s, and of course the association with the Qajars who were likewise ‘tribal’ and ‘Turkic’.174 The vocabulary of tribalisation could easily be juxtaposed against modernisation as the epitome of all that was primitive and above all weak. The negative connotations of ‘tribe’ can be more easily appreciated when juxtaposed with the term ‘clan’, used of course widely in Scotland. There is in practical terms and consequences not much difference between the settlement of the tribes in Iran in the early twentieth century and the eighteenth-century Scottish Highland clearances.175 The narrative was also reinforced by the historical analogy of the new Pahlavi state as a Sasanian successor to its weak – feudal/tribal – Parthian predecessor. See Kaveh Bayat, Reza Shah and the Tribes: An Overview, in S Cronin (ed.), The Making of Modern Iran, London, Routledge, 2003, p. 217–18. For a thorough discussion, see Stephanie Cronin, Tribal Politics in Iran: Rural Conflict and the New State 1921–41, London, Routledge, 2010 p. 258. See also Kamran Dadkhah, Ahmad Kasravi on Economics, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol 34 (2), 1998, p. 43. 174 See also in this respect K Bayat, op cit pp. 213. On the other hand, the other major tribal revolt by the Bakhtiyari was emphatically not Turkic. For a contemporary working definition of ‘Turk’, see Mahmud Afshar, the editor of Ayandeh, quoted in R Parsi, In Search of Caravans Lost: Iranian Intellectuals and Nationalist Discourse in the Inter-War Years. Unpublished thesis, 2009, pp. 199–200. See also M Afshar quoted in E Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1982, pp. 124–25. 175 They were both arguably products of an enlightenment! The parallels are indeed striking, both the justification for the settlement and removal of tribal/clan authority, and their subsequent romanticisation and rehabilitation into ‘civilized’ society. One may conjecture that the British state was far more successful at both procedures. 173

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This was also reflected in the bureaucratic centralism being developed around the person of the Shah. Here, the military and civil administrative regions were not only rationalized but began to mirror each with the twenty-eight governorships being subsumed within six larger ostans (provinces) in similar fashion to the military division of the country into six army groups, each with its own distinct command structure. This rigorously rational division and subdivision echoed not only the French model of post-revolutionary departments but also the Sasanian practice, applied by Khosrow I Anoushiravan (the Immortal Soul), of dividing the empire into four distinct military districts with their own command structure. In addition to the traditional quadripartite structure, Reza Shah split the northern command into North Western and North Eastern, and added an additional central command.176 Khosrow I’s other great achievement and reputation was the wise administration of justice.177 A Republic of Laws In order to administer justice, one has to develop the structures to support and sustain it. In essence, for Iran this meant not only the adoption of new legal codes adapted to the Iranian circumstance, but the effective creation of a working judicial system within a functioning state. This enormous task was to fall upon Ali Akbar Davar, the Swiss-educated lawyer who had established the Radical Party and subsequently joined Teymourtash and Firuz as one part of the triumvirate who defined the modern Iranian state. What is perhaps most remarkable about their collective achievement, and that of Davar in particular, was that it was accomplished in the space of a decade, with only the Constitutional precedence on which to build.178 This was in stark contrast to the Turkish experience, which not only had some structural antecedents but arguably was more ideationally prepared for the changes which were to emerge. Indeed, in the Iranian Nobakht, Shahanshah-e Pahlavi, p. 206; for the civil administration, see FO 371 20833 E7456/560/34, dated 4 December 1937. 177 The myth of Khosrow I as the epitome of the just king was a powerful one not only in the Iranian world but in the Islamic world; see Sir John Malcolm, Sketches of Persia, London, John Murray, 1827, pp. 135–41. 178 Recent researchers have argued that Davar had much more to build on from the Constitutional era; see Hadi Enayat, Law, State and Society in Iran: From the Qajars to the Pahlavis. Unpublished thesis, London, 2011. In this context, Davar’s success owes more to his facility in being able to anchor the new judiciary within the framework of a coherent state structure, something conspicuously lacking in the previous attempt, which of course was the reason many intellectuals threw their weight behind the ‘enlightened’ autocracy of Reza Shah. 176

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case, it was not only the structures which had to be built but a new mentality which had to be cultivated. Seen in this light, both the achievements and the limitations of what could realistically be achieved within the time frame become apparent.179 It is worth pausing here to consider the monumental task that was at hand and the extraordinary – anomalous – situation within which Iran’s enlightenment moment found itself. Here was a state and a society which lauded the idea of justice, to the extent that its most heroic figures were closely associated with its dispensation, but which had no bureaucratic machinery from which to administer it, other than that which had traditionally been provided by the religious courts – a highly personal and personalized process.180 In fact as Foroughi points out, at the turn of the twentieth century, there was no commonly used term in Persian for the ‘Law’ other that the religious term fiqh. The term hoquq is a new idiom in our language. It might be said that the currency of this term in Persian dates approximately from the time that the School of Political Science was established, imitating and adapting the French model. In no European country is such a term used to convey this concept. In France the term for the legal code and regulations governing social interactions of the people is droit. This word has been translated into Persian as haqq [right]; therefore we used the plural of haqq [i.e. huquq] to signify that concept. It is the right term indeed, because once obligatory laws and regulations are set, people enjoy certain inviolable rights vis-à-vis each other. In short, when we use the term hoquq, we mean the laws of the country.181

The paradoxical nature of this situation was made even more apparent when the Constitutional Revolution was launched in 1905–1906. The original aim of the collected revolutionaries was for the establishment of a ‘House of Justice’, which in practice became a parliament for the purpose It is an indication of the importance of the idea of ‘Justice’ to the Pahlavi state that in stamps issued in 1935 to commemorate the achievements of the reign of Reza Shah, the first and cheapest stamp commemorated ‘Justice & Judgement’; see FO 371 18988 E1616/308/34, dated 11 March 1935. Just how far Iran had to come is excellently described by Mohammad Ali Foroughi, Modernization of Law, pp. 32–33; the lecture was originally published in 1937. On the state of the courts in 1927 see the description provided by the Persian daily Istakhr quoted in FO 248/1383 File 6553789, dated 21 March 1927. 180 From a historical point of view, there is no tradition of constitutional history, outside religious history, in Iranian historiography, although there is ample material on the idea and examples of ‘justice’. This is a remarkable and telling absence which arguably continues to this day. For all that Davar revolutionized the Iranian judicial system, there is a remarkable absence of serious studies on this. 181 Mohammad Ali Foroughi, Modernization of Law, p. 34. 179

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of passing legislation. In the immediate aftermath of the adoption of the Constitution, moves were taken to establish a judicial ­system.182 But two problems, one practical and one theoretical, immediately became apparent. As explained by Foroughi some years later: Religious leaders argued that with the existence of religious laws another law would not be necessary or even permissible, and, what is more, nothing other than religious ordinances can be defined as law. That is why it was difficult, or even impossible, to enact any law in the parliament. In other words the judicial system could not be provided with a solid foundation. But at the same time, exigencies of the era made the enactment of laws necessary, an idea maintained by modernized individuals.183

On the other hand there were not a sufficient number of individuals experienced in the designing of laws, or indeed in their administration, to make any legislative program feasible.184 This in turn ensured that the prospect of training Iranian lawyers was meaningless. In Foroughi’s words, ‘It should [. . .] be noted that the country had no real laws and there was no point teaching European laws to Iranians’.185 The task at hand therefore was to create a judicial system that would be relatively easily understood and recognized as impartial. The sense of urgency was twofold: first, to satisfy an imperative of national dignity, and second (not unrelated), to allow the state to move quickly towards the abolition of the ‘capitulations’ which the Qajars had offered to foreign powers in return for skills, investment, and capital.186 Originating as preferential trade agreements, these capitulations eventually encompassed a series of legal exemptions, often extended to local employees of the foreign company or government. Consequently employees, frequently Iranian nationals, could be tried under another judicial system. The justification of this was that no foreign company or individual would be willing to live and operate in a country whose laws were at best opaque, and 182 Baqer Aqeli, Davar, EI, Vol VII, 1996, p. 134. 183 Foroughi, Modernization of Law, p. 42. 184 See Moshir al Dawla’s comments quoted in Foroughi, Modernization of Law, pp. 42–43. This problem would recur during the Islamic Republic. 185 Foroughi, Modernization of Law, p. 38. 186 See FO 371[. . .] E2316/526/34 dated 5 May 1927; FO 371 12293 E1225, dated 14 March 1927. It is worth bearing in mind that the question of judicial exemptions and privileges was a common feature of European judicial systems of the ‘ancien regime’, and their extension into the non-European world was neither exceptional nor a particular aspect of colonial penetration. They became anachronisms as national sovereignty and jurisdictions replaced dynastic and sectarian ones. They were not conceived as a deliberate act of colonial exploitation. For an enlightening contemporary discussion, see M Afshar, Masaleh-ye capitulasion (The issue of capitulations), Ayandeh, Vol 2 (4), March 1926.

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at worst non-existent, in the European understanding of the term. More obviously, if few comprehended the legal process, even fewer appreciated the system of physical and often violent punishments. Indeed, in Iran the practice of inflicting physical pain and judicial torture was both relatively widespread and considered socially acceptable.187 The system of crime and punishment which prevailed in the country can be defined as essentially ‘premodern’ in that it was characterized by the ‘law of vengeance’ with no transparent code of crime and punishment, but rather by a system in which a magistrate might define (and negotiate) a particular punishment according to a crime on a case-by-case basis, and in which the victims could themselves negotiate with the perpetrators for suitable compensation. Where the state might be involved, essentially the crown, the punishments could be unusually severe in order to both deter and impress, although in individual cases financial compensation might be sufficient. But both systems were characterized by a certain personal flexibility in the administration of justice, and because the state in the modern sense was comparatively weak in its systematic penetration of society, when the state was involved the punishments tended to incorporate an important symbolic value. Public floggings, for example, were routinely used to admonish wayward merchants and officials as a means not only of impressing royal authority but satiating a public grievance. Moreover, in the absence of a prison system, punishments had to be immediate and direct – a thief for example could not be incarcerated, therefore one had to inflict some immediate physical punishment, including ultimately, amputation of the offending hand. Although in the aftermath of the Constitutional revolution, measures were taken to curb the worst excesses, no systematic review was ever done. The Constitutionalists, imbibing as they had been, the fruits of Enlightenment thought, were like their European predecessors appalled at the use of torture and corporal punishment. As noted above, this sense was all the more acute after they witnessed the pogroms against the Bahais. There are regrettably few literary examples of texts dealing specifically and systematically with the issue of crime and punishment (as opposed to the idea of justice), one of the few being the survey of Firuz Mirza entitled ‘Penal Codes’.188 This is an interesting and important text, 187 For a particularly graphic description of the imaginative punishments meted out, see Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, Vol I, pp. 456–57. 188 Nosrat al Dawlah Firuz Mirza, Majmu’ah-i mukatibat, asnad, khatirat va asar-i Firuz Mirza Vol 2 (The collected writings, documents, memoirs and legacies of Firuz Mirza), Tehran, Nashre Tarikh Iran, 1375 / 1996, pp. 121–68.

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if for no other reason than its topical scarcity. The text, which runs to some forty-seven pages, is divided into two sections: the first deals with the situation to the end of the eighteenth century, whereas the second takes the narrative forward through to the nineteenth, looking at the philosophical roots of penal reform with the development of the modern state. It is useful, not only for charting the development of codes of punishment from the patriarchal system of the family, but through to the clan, the tribe, and ultimately the nation, and its development henceforth into a systematized and transparent penal code under the authority of a centralized government.189 This legal journey takes the reader from Roman law, to the concept of ‘weregild’190 in the early Middle Ages, to the development of French law and the ‘revolution in thought’ in the eighteenth century which led to the systematic criticism of the ‘unjust’ use of physical punishment.191 The second section focuses on this revolution by drawing attention to the ideas of such philosophers as Rousseau, Kant, and Bentham, leading triumphantly  – if somewhat awkwardly in the circumstances  – to the success of the French Revolution.192 The focus of the discussion remains the state, its powers and limitations, and as Abrahamian points out, scant attention is paid to the specificities of individual rights.193 But in the context of its time, it remains a remarkable excursus and draws a direct connection between the ideas of the European Enlightenment and their Iranian heirs. It was these ideas which determined the revolution in the Iranian judicial system. Davar was appointed Minister of Justice in February 1927; confronted with the need to provide a working judiciary in order to facilitate the abolition of the capitulations, the new minister moved with breath-taking speed. He appointed specialist committees to oversee the adoption of various codes of law drawn in the main from Italy and Switzerland  – including a new Civil Code, Criminal Code, and Commercial Code – and the new codes were collated, systematized, and inaugurated by the end of April of that same year. In the words of one biographer, ‘In the seven years that he served as minister of justice Davar founded new courts throughout Persia and selected suitable judges, both from among those already serving and from qualified religious jurists and See also in this regard Foroughi, Modernization of Law, p. 35. 190 Firuz Mirza, Majmu’ah-i mukatibat, asnad, khatirat va asar-i Firuz Mirza, p. 126. 191 Ibid., p. 137. 192 Ibid., pp. 142–49. 193 Ervand Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions: Prisons and Public Recantations in Iran, Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1999, p. 26. 189

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government employees. It was also he who organized the recording of documents and properties in appropriate registries.’194 These laws applied to all Iranians irrespective of their religious affiliation. But perhaps the most remarkable achievement of this period, and the one that runs counter to the image of the monarch who defined the era, was the relative absence of torture and physical punishment.195 Few realities define the enlightenment narrative quite so emphatically as this striking development, even if the concomitant growth in prisons and the rise in political prisoners reflected on quite how paradoxical this inheritance was becoming.196 It is perhaps only from the vantage of the present that the progressive aspects of incarceration in the early Pahlavi state become apparent, especially when one appreciates their relative proximity to the brutalities of the earlier age. But Iran’s new magistrates and police officers were apparently of a new pedigree; they often interacted cordially with their political detainees, and in the words of one prisoner, were on occasion ‘European-trained products of the Constitutional Revolution.’197 Ironically, if there were more prisoners to deal with, this reflected in part the other great social revolution of Iran’s encounter with enlightened nationalism, the dramatic growth in mass education. Civil Nationalism and Public Education Davar was widely regarded as among the best and most hard-working of Reza Shah’s ministers. When he died of a suspected opium overdose, even his enemies were generous in their praise.198 But even Davar, for 194 Baqer Aqeli, Davar, p. 134. According to Mohammadi, Davar introduced some ‘120 drafts on judicial affairs to parliament’, Judicial Reform and Reorganisation in 20th Century Iran: State Building, Modernisation and Islamicisation, New York, Routledge, p. 94. Along with abrogation of capitulations went the cancellation of a series of concessions including those dealing with archaeological rights. A new antiquities law was ratified in 1930, see Kamyar Abdi, Nationalism, Politics and the Development of Archaeology in Iran, American Journal of Archaeology 105, 2001, p. 59. 195 Abrahamian notes that petty criminals, spies, and suspected regicides were still subject to physical punishments, see Tortured Confessions p. 41, he adds that the regime may have been ‘brutal and even deadly, but [was] not one that tortured.’ (p 72). It should be borne in mind that this was a society in which schools still inflicted corporal punishment in the form of the ‘bastinado’, which today would be considered arduous physical punishment if not torture. 196 This narrative of course has been well charted by Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish. 197 Ovanessian quoted in Abrahamian Tortured Confessions p. 39. 198 Reza Shah’s respect for his minister is noted in Makki’s comment that Reza Shah would always tell subsequent ministers of finance that they should not think themselves to be Davar just because they are sitting in his chair. H Makki, Tarikh-e Bist Sale ye Iran, Vol 6, p. 370.

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all his organizational genius, reflected the complex and often contradictory inheritance of Iranian nationalism as it sought to define itself with a vocabulary which had been determined by the European experience. One of the more entertaining vignettes of life under Reza Shah, described by Hussein Makki, was an encounter Davar had with an irritable monarch near the end of Davar’s life. Davar had by this stage left the Ministry of Justice and had been appointed Minister of Finance. As recounted by the then–prime minister Mahmud Jam, Reza Shah was furious because he was unable to get a straight answer from the head of the National Bank – Amir Khosravi – as to the state of an agreement with the Soviet Union. On seeing the approaching prime minister, Reza Shah bemoaned that all morning he had been seeking an explanation from the head of the National Bank who ‘only responded, it is “surmanage.” What is surmanage? Aren’t you Iranian? Don’t you know Persian!’ At this point, according to Jam, the Shah calmed down and went into deep thought. Jam explained that the term ‘surmanage’ was French and implied extreme behavior, and that Khosravi was suggesting that problems had arisen because of intemperate negotiations.199 Davar was summoned to shed further light on the matter but was rattled by the Shah’s anger. Jam explained that the Shah’s anger was not directed at him personally but had been caused by the use of French. Departing from the audience, an agitated Davar commented that ‘I have never seen His Majesty so angry. I don’t know if His Majesty is aware that the difficulté are great or not?’.200 The fact that ministers of state, and one of the foremost reformers of that state, should resort to Western (in this case French) words to articulate their thoughts reflects the complexities involved in the acquisition of modernization and the development of nationalism. One may surmise that Khosravi’s use of the French term was indicative of the use Although the Persian transliteration of the word uses an alef, this must be surmenage, which means ‘overwork’. Some of the meaning has clearly been lost in translation. 200 H Makki, Tarikh-e Bist Sale ye Iran, Vol 6, pp. 366–67, Makki, quoting Jam, is good enough to insert the Persian word – eshkalat – in brackets. (An alternative narrative is given on pp. 358–59. In this account the Shah’s fury is not as quickly satiated; he berates his ministers for having ignored the point of the Farhangistan, which he had established to ‘teach them their mother tongue’, and his rage increases when Davar inadvertently uses the French word ‘difficulte’ in front of the Shah). Another interesting example of the acquisition of French pronunciation is Makki’s suggestion that Davar’s children would call out ‘papa-joon’ as opposed to ‘baba-joon’. Of course this might also reflect the replacement of the Arabic ‘b’ with the available Persian ‘p’, the former having been adopted because Arabic has no ‘p’ in its alphabet. A similar more recent development can be seen with the use of ‘parsi’ (Persian) as opposed to ‘farsi’. This also reflects that this particular linguistic turn can have more than one cause or justification, p. 380. 199

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of ambiguous terms when the wrath of the Shah might be expected. In this case, this linguistic tactic backfired badly. But Davar’s reported use of the term ‘difficulte’ is wholly indulgent and not a little pretentious. The filtering through of foreign words was of course nothing new, and ‘new Persian’ in particular is replete with loan-words – not least from Arabic – which arguably enrich it as a literary language. What was particularly problematic in this case was that such adoptions contradicted the spirit of high nationalism, and moreover, that there appeared to be no regulation, rhyme, or reason for the particular usages. Nationalism, modernization, and discipline all dictated that education, in the broadest sense of the term, had to be both promoted and regulated. The promotion of education had been one of the pillars of the Constitutional Movement and figured highly on Taqizadeh’s list of prescriptions. A modern powerful and independent state required educated and literate people to operate and administer it; the ministries needed staff, the new judiciary had to be populated, and lawyers had to be trained to navigate the new rules. At a much more basic social level, literacy and comprehension were essential for the new bureaucratic state to be able to operate effectively and for state-society relations to be cemented. Scientific literacy was particularly attractive in providing the engineers and technicians to operate Iran’s new industries, most obviously the burgeoning oil industry, which with growing anachronism remained under the control of a distinctly foreign oil company. The continued existence of such institutions as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and the British Imperial Bank of Persia not only contradicted the acute and growing sense of Iranian sovereignty but clearly contradicted also the nationalist ethos which a complimentary instruction in the humanities and social sciences sought to engender.201 At a fundamental level of course, education was vital for the development of a modern political society and the cultivation and popular dissemination of what may defined as republican virtue. As with the development of the modern judiciary, problems and tensions soon made themselves apparent. On the one hand Iran needed a highly trained elite to manage the state and its economy; on the other there was a pressing need to promote literacy and elementary education, which for many were the foundations of a modern education system. But to promote and develop mass education one needed trained teachers. In 1932 the Iranian government had unilaterally abrogated the concession for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and Davar had successfully defended Iran’s case against a British appeal to the Council of the League of Nations. Political circumstances however ensured that on this occasion a accommodation with Britain was reached. 201

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Ultimately, those who emphasized the establishment of nationwide elementary education  – most obviously Taqizadeh  – won the argument, using as their case study, the successful experience of Japan.202 The structure which was to be adopted and applied was that of the French system of lycees. Crucially, education was to be provided for all, including girls. In any event the shortage of qualified teachers was to slow progress in the development of elementary and secondary education considerably, all the more so because the profession was not regarded as sufficiently prestigious by a new generation of Iranians increasingly tempted by the more lucrative and socially acceptable positions in government. Consequently growth in the numbers of students in primary and secondary education – although relatively dramatic – remained a small percentage of the population as a whole. Indeed Menashri calculates that the percentage of students in primary and secondary education rose from 0.47 per cent of the population in 1922/3 to 2.41 per cent of the population in 1940/1941.203 Moreover, there were some contention regarding the method of education. The government had sought, similar to the development of the judiciary, to secularise the educational system and bring under central government supervision the various religious schools that continued to be the pillar of basic education. Indeed as noted above, most of the early ideologues were products of the religious seminaries, and as a consequence they had an acute sense of its strengths and deficiencies.204 Among these deficiencies was the method of transmitting knowledge, which was held to be heavily fact based and by rote. Interestingly, in the debate on the relative merits of amuzesh and parvaresh (essentially ‘teaching’ and ‘learning’), there appeared to be a general consensus that the purpose of education was to encourage the acquisition of knowledge through learning rather than its simple infiltration through teaching. The purpose, all agreed, was for the development and encouragement of a national ethos. To this end a syllabus was developed and standardised textbooks were distributed emphasising the use of Persian and stressing national unity on the basis of a common historical heritage.205 202 David Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran, p. 117. 203 David Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran, p. 121. See also in this respect, R Mathee, Education in the Reza Shah Period, in S Cronin (ed.) The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society under Riza Shah, 1921–1941, London, RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, pp. 140–41. Mathee makes the point that ‘for all their flaws, the reforms instituted in the 1920s and 1930s stand out for their radical character.’ 204 Amongst the most critical was Jamal al Din al Afghani. 205 David Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran, pp. 95–96; see also the Shah’s speech at the opening of the 9th Majlis, FO 371 16941 E1878/47/34, dated 25 March 1933.

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Where the Shah and his educational advisors tended to drift apart was the means by which such ‘virtue’ could be encouraged. Paradoxically, the Shah – betraying a certain martial bias – felt these values could be developed in a (heavily) regulated manner; his advisors were inclined to argue that a more durable development of virtue could be achieved by facilitating self-awareness.206 Indeed, as Taqizadeh had argued emphatically in 1921, the revolution had to come from within and could not be realistically and effectively imposed from above. Only through such critical self-awareness could ‘real’ patriotism develop.207 In any event, practical limitations ensured that the principle of learning gave way to rote teaching, in large part to accommodate the reality of both the shortage of teachers and a lack of quality among the emergent teaching profession. Because the best graduates chose alternative professions, teaching entry standards were lowered to ensure a sufficient intake, with all the concomitant problems this brought.208 Consequently, for all that the structures of elementary and secondary education were established, and access to all established in principle, the methods used to impart the new knowledge fell far short of ambitions, and in many ways mirrored the traditional system they had sought to displace.209 Ironically, given the preference of mass over elite education, it was at the higher tiers that the most significant and consequential impacts were to be felt. Here perhaps, the state benefitted from the fact that it had some  – albeit limited  – foundations to build upon. The first college of higher education, the Dar al Fonun, had been established by Amir Kabir in 1851 with the aim of providing technical training for Iranians who intended military and government service. Staffed by a mixture of European and Iranian academics, the polytechnic was a bold if limited innovation. In 1899, the School of Political Science was founded with the aim of training civil servants for the Foreign Ministry. Students studied for four years, and along with courses in Islamic Law, international law, and French (essential for a diplomatic career), they also had to take courses in history, geography, and Persian literature.210 This latter component was considered essential, in part according to Foroughi because there were growing anxieties that knowledge and interest in Persian literature was declining. The curriculum at the school 206 David Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran, pp. 110–13. 207 Hasan Taqizadeh, Aghaz tamadon khareji, p. 73. 208 David Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran, pp. 121–22. 209 Partly for this reason, the missionary and foreign schools, before they were eventually nationalised, continued to provide attractive alternative options. 210 Foroughi, Modernization of Law, p. 38.

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was heavily indebted to the French example, and partly as a result of, ‘political science’ was increasingly twinned and eventually dominated by legal studies.211 This heavily vocational bent to higher education was finally broken by the decision in 1934, with an alacrity comparable to that which presaged the establishment of a new judiciary in 1927, to draft legislation for the foundation of a university for Tehran. As noted above the original debate over where best to invest had been decided against the development of a university on the rational basis that such a development would be premature. Those in favour of a domestic university had never completely given up hope however and ultimately national prestige, a desire to educate one’s elite at home rather than abroad, and a measure of political opportunism ensured that the plans for a university would go ahead. By all accounts Reza Shah, once persuaded, was enthusiastic about the idea, and the speed with which the legislation was ratified and the university formally inaugurated was in large part due to the energy and determination shown by the king. Reza Shah of course was principally captivated by the prospect of scientific advancement, and although students would still be sent abroad, there was a palpable sense that the establishment of a university meant that Iran could once again engage with the international scientific community as an equal. There can be little doubt that at the back of the Shah’s mind was the legacy of the Sasanians, and in particular the popular image of Khosrow I as a patron of the philosophical sciences.212 So enthusiastic did the Shah become by the project that according to Menashri, he involved himself at all stages of the development, ‘decided on the size and location of the campus’, and ‘against the advice of some of his ministers, he gave instructions to allocate to the campus a size large enough to accommodate its future expansion.’ When, a day before the inauguration, it was suggested that the continuing bad weather might dissuade him from attending the opening, Reza Shah retorted, ‘Even if stones fall from the sky, I will be there.’213 The University of Tehran opened in 1935 with six faculties reflecting the priorities of the day as well as the various colleges – such as the School of Political Science  – which had been subsumed under the auspices of the new university. Perhaps most controversially it included a 211 Hamid Enayat, The State of the Social Sciences, Iran Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Vol 8 (3), (1974), p. 1. 212 On the prevalence of this particular myth, see for example Hasan Taqizadeh, Maqallat Taqizadeh Vol VII, p. 724. 213 Quoted in David Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran, p. 147.

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Faculty of Theology, an obvious challenge to the monopoly of the seminaries over religious education. The initial intake totalled just over 1000 students, with the majority enrolling for subjects in Arts, Medicine, and Law. Registration was to double in the five years to Reza Shah’s abdication in 1941. Significantly, the university had little difficulty in recruiting staff, which grew fivefold in the same period. Some foreign staff were hired for scientific subjects such as Engineering, but unlike the teaching profession, there was no social stigma and considerable prestige in being appointed a professor at the university.214 The foundation of few institutions can have had as significant impact on the history of modern Iran as that of the University of Tehran. It epitomised Iran’s enlightenment moment, and if its legacy was not exactly what the Shah had ordered, this should neither detract from the achievement it represented nor Reza Shah’s role as anxious royal midwife. If he was not the author of the plan, he could fairly lay claim to having hastened its birth. Farhangestan, Farhang-sazi, and the Idea of Iran One of the significant changes which accompanied the establishment of the University of Tehran was the change in terminology. The legislation was the first time that a new distinctly Persian word was used for the ‘university’: daneshgah (place of knowledge), whereas faculties were termed daneshkade.215 The coining of the new words reflected a wider trend of language ‘purification’ common among nationalist movements, and in any event were to prove less dramatic in Iran than in other comparable countries such as Turkey.216 Although the idea of changing the alphabet altogether had been floated, it was never considered seriously, and the aim of language reform, which is what the process of ‘purification’ became in practice, was to refine, define, and regulate a language which to some observers had an unhealthy appetite for adopting foreign words. For many nationalist veterans, as noted, this had less to do with ridding the language of Arabic loan-words and more with regulating the acquisition of European words.217 The new word for university was a 214 David Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran, pp. 151–52. 215 David Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran, p. 147. 216 The movement for language reform was long in gestation; see M Kia, Persian Nationalism, pp. 11–18. 217 There are estimated to be anything between 800 and 1200 French loan words in Persian; see Guitty Deyhime, France xvi. Loanwords in Persian. Arabic influences are estimated at around 30–40% of the vocabulary although this depends on the historical period and area of discussion; see A A Sadeqi, Arabic Language i. Arabic Elements in Persian, EIr Online. Perry calculates some 8000 Arabic loan-words, Arabic Language v. Arabic

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case in point. The emphasis on the use of distinctly Persian words was only enthusiastically pursued, and ultimately proved durable, where such a word existed. New words were coined in the main to anticipate and prevent the use of European loan-words, although even this proved difficult where technical and scientific terms were being used. But in very few cases – despite some peculiarly zealous attempts – were Arabic loanwords which had basically become staples of the Persian lexicon (especially when they were used and pronounced in ways different to their original meaning) replaced with Persian words. The most obvious example of this is the retention of the Arabic pronunciation of Persian farsi, when it would have required relatively little effort to change this to parsi. The only real exception in this regard was the application of place names where it was felt that Arabized names offended sovereign sensibilities, especially acute in border areas. The use of the term ‘Arabistan’ for example for south-western Iran, a relatively recent innovation as it happened, was emphatically restated as Khuzestan.218 The immediate and practical impetus for wider language reform appears to have originated in the army, where the Ministry of War had replaced traditional terms with distinctly Persian terminology. The term for ‘army’ for example switched from Qushun to Artesh, whereas the Commander-in-chief became Artesh-bud (from Farmandeh-i-kul-quva). Other terms were also encouraged such as keshvar in place of mamlekat (for country), and mihan in place of vatan for motherland. In some cases, the new word  – parcham (flag)  – easily supplanted the former, beiraq; in other cases, including a number noted above, both phrases remained in common usage. Given the criticism of language reform and the undoubted excesses of some young zealots, it is remarkable how many of the new words did in fact settle into the popular vocabulary. Words for prime minister (nokhost vazir), mayor, governor, Ministry of Interior and Judiciary, all succeeded in supplanting the previous terms, as did many educational terms including dabestan, dabirestan, and of course daneshgah.219 Elements in Persian, EIr Online, 20 July 2002. See also A Tafazzoli, Arabic Language ii. Iranian Loanwords in Arabic, EIr Online. On replacements for French words, see M Roostai, Tarikh nokhostin farhangestan-e iran beh ravayet asnad, pp. 89–90. 218 The term ‘Arabistan’ had traditionally been used for a portion of Khuzestan/Susistan, but since the 1880s, on British maps at least, the area had grown to encompass much of the province itself. When the Sheikh of Mohammerah was dispatched in 1923, the name ‘Arabistan’ was likewise effectively discarded. 219 See H Makki, Tarikh-e Bist Sale ye Iran, Vol 6 pp. 233–34; see also FO 371 18989 E4358/308/34, dated 1 June 1935.

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The establishment of the Farhangestan (the Language Academy) was nonetheless not without its problems, and the excesses of some of its officials came in for some staunch criticism. Indeed one may divine an ‘old’ and ‘new’ school at work, with the veterans appalled at the way in which some of the younger adherents of language purity sought to outshine their elders. Some criticisms came from unexpected quarters. According to one account, when Reza Shah was presented with new legislation to sign, he noticed that the word at the bottom of the document had been changed. Expecting to see the word for signature (emza), he saw something else instead. ‘His Majesty was surprised and asked Shoku ul Mulk, who was the head of the Imperial Secretariat, “What’s the meaning of ‘dastineh’? What does it mean?” Shoku ul Mulk responded, they say its meaning is signature. His Majesty instructed, “What is this ridiculous word they have enacted? Henceforth bring [these words] to me to see first.”’ As a result of this imperial intervention a great many excesses were curbed, and Arabic words which had a utility and purpose, and were very much part of the fabric of the Persian language, were retained.220 What vexed many of the traditional nationalists, situated as they were firmly within their native milieu, was that the younger generation appeared to be becoming carried away with the dogma of nationalist ideology rather than its spirit. A new generation of faux colis was seemingly determined to push the ideological boundaries of Iranian nationalism such that it reflected less of the enlightenment ideals of an earlier generation and more the uncompromising  – even racial  – doctrines of the contemporary cycle of European nationalisms. If the new language technocrats proved enthusiastic about the removal of Arabic loan-words, irrespective of merit, they were less punctilious about the appropriation of European terms. As one critic argued, whereas Latin and Greek words remained relatively untouched, Arabic words because of their ostensible association with Islam were recklessly targeted, and for reasons which had little to do with the refinement and simplification of the language. It was not as if, complained Mokhbar ol Saltaneh Hekmat, the Europeans were divesting their languages of any word associated with Judaism and Christianity. Things at one stage got so bad that even Ferdowsi was being criticized for having used Arabic words!221 H Makki, Tarikh-e Bist Sale ye Iran, Vol 6 p. 235; for a wider discussion of the Farhangestan, see the article of the same name by M A Jazayeri, in EIr Online, 15 December 1999. 221 On the number of Arabic loan-words, see John Perry, Sah-Nama v. Arabic Words, EIr Online, updated 23 June 2010. 220

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The traditionalists (as we may now call them) were championed by the then–prime minister, Mohammad Ali Foroughi Zoka ol Molk.222 Foroughi was a passionate supporter of the Farhangestan  – becoming its first director – and the cultivation of cultural and civic nationalism, for which in his view the Farhangestan had been conceived and inaugurated.223 Indeed its primary function, in his view, was never meant to be simply the reform of the Persian language, and much like Taqizadeh before him, Foroughi objected to the simplistic and mechanical way in which ‘professional patriots’ sought to ingratiate themselves with the dogma of the day by dismissing Arabic words and accommodating those from European languages.224 Far from being an end in itself, language reform was meant to serve as a means to a broader cultural end which had little to do with the elimination of Arabic words and everything to do with enhancing Iranian civilisation and developing national and civic culture. It was above all an educational process.225 For Foroughi, Persian language, culture, and civilisation were inherently cosmopolitan, not particular, inclusive not exclusive. The national idea he identified with reflected the ‘commonwealth’ of the Constitutional Revolution in which ‘many’ might combine into ‘one’.226 But the strength of the unity was underpinned and underwritten by the support of the many. A good way of articulating this was through the adoption of the title Shahanshah.227 The decision to emphasize this title in 1933 was the cause of much mirth among British diplomatic staff who wondered ‘which kings is Reza king over’. But the title of ‘king of kings’ was neither wholly new nor unprecedented even in recent Iranian history.228 It has generally Mohammad Ali Foroughi, Zoka ol Molk (1877–1943) was educated at the Dar al Fonun and became director of the School of Political Science in 1907. He first entered Parliament in 1909. He served as Prime Minister on three occasions: 1925–1926 (Reza Shah’s first Prime Minister), 1933–1935 and finally 1941–1942, when he managed the crucial transition following the abdication of Reza Shah. Considering his importance to the history of modern Iran and nationalism in particular, there is a remarkable dearth of biographical material. Foroughi was one of the leading supporters of the establishment of a republic in 1924. See I Afshar, Forugi, EIr, 15 December 1999. 223 Mohammad Ali Zaka ol Molk, Farhangestan Cheest? (What is the Farhangestan?), in Maqallat-e Foroughi Vol 1, Tehran, Tus, 1384 / 2005, p. 175. 224 Mohammad Ali Zaka ol Molk, Farhangestan Cheest?, p. 175; see also Farsi nevisi op cit p. 321; see also in the same volume Tarjomeh-ye loghat farangi (Translating foreign words), pp. 1–11; also in this respect H Makki, Tarikh-e Bist Sale ye Iran, Vol 6 p. 235. 225 Mohammad Ali Zaka ol Molk, p. 180. 226 That is, E pluribus unum. 227 FO 371 17890 E56/56/34, dated 6 December 1933. 228 Fath Ali Shah had for instance commissioned an epic Shahanshah-nameh to rival that of Ferdowsi, which was of course largely about Fath Ali Shah himself. 222

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been defined in terms of imperial power understood in thoroughly modern terms. But if the model was to be understood in terms of the preIslamic Iranian empires  – or better still confederacies  – the title could be understood as the summit of a rather broad and diverse pyramid of power in which local kings enjoyed relative autonomy. In other words the concept of a king of kings did not in itself contradict a belief in a multiple of legally (not necessarily absolutely) subservient power centres. Not everyone of course either understood or supported this interpretation, and the logic of an ideology, especially in the process of popularization, is towards simplification, and in practical terms, monopolization.229 Another example of this inherent and growing tension could be seen in the decision to enforce the use of the name ‘Iran’ as the official name of the country in all international correspondence. This was not a change as some have since mistakenly assumed, simply an insistence that the international community (essentially in this case, the West, because an earlier request had already been sent to the Turkish Republic) call the country by the same name as its inhabitants did.230 Yet this seemingly simple issue of clarification hinted at a far deeper contest to define the idea of Iran for the modern age. The circular issued by the Iranian Foreign Ministry in 1935 to try and explain the decision is worth quoting in full:

1. ‘Pars’ was the name of a section of the large country which at various epochs was in possession of the Persian Kings; but as the Greeks happened to come into contact with Persia at a time when Pars was the place of residence of the rulers of Persia, they called ‘Iran’ ‘Persia’ and other European countries have followed their example and given us the same appellation with a slight change.



2. Iran geographically comprises all the vast area the whole of which or a part of which has at various epochs been included in the territory reigned over by Irani rulers; we are therefore entitled to adopt the word ‘Iran’ for our country.

P Ricoeur, Science & Ideology, in Hermenutics & the Human Sciences, (Ed. and Trans. J B Thompson), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, p. 226. 230 See also M Roostai, Tarikh nokhostin farhangestan-e iran beh ravayet asnad, p. 83, which notes the request in 1924 (1302) to Turkey to stop calling the country ‘Ajam’ and instead to refer to it as ‘Iran’, after which Iran agreed not to call Turkey the ‘Ottoman state’. Despite this apparent agreement, habits apparently died hard, and Afshar in an article in Ayandeh dated Esfand 1306 / February 1928, still describes Turkey as the ‘Ottoman Republic’. This of course suggests that the motivation to have the international nomenclature recognised as ‘Iran’ predated Nazi encouragement by nearly a decade. It also indicates that the terms ‘Turk’ and ‘Turkish’ were neither common nor acceptable for an educated elite that considered the state Ottoman. 229

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3. From the racial standpoint, as Iran (Persia) was the birthplace and cradle of the Aryan race, it is natural that we should make use of this name particularly today when some of the great countries of the world are making claims for the Aryan race which are significant of the grandeur of the race and the civilisation of the old Persia, and when certain nations are boasting of being of Aryan race.



4. Another point of great importance is the fact that whenever the word ‘Perse’ is spoken or written, it immediately recalls to foreigners the weakness, ignorance, misery, lack of independence, disorderly conditions and incapacity which marked the last century of Persian history, whereas in view of the change in the situation of the country brought about under the care and guidance of his Imperial majesty, and the progress achieved in recent years, it is fitting to abandon the term ‘Perse’ which always calls to mind past conditions, and to adopt the real name of the country, namely ‘Iran’.

For the above reasons, the Imperial Legation in Berlin some time ago put forward a proposal asking for steps to be taken that in foreign speech and writing, ‘Iran’ and ‘Irani’ should be used.231

There was of course nothing new in the use of the term ‘Iran’. European travellers for at least the seventeenth century had pointed out that the Persians called their country Iran in their native tongue, and the concept of the land of Iran (Iran-shahr, Iran zamin) had a long pedigree in literary and bureaucratic circles.232 The notion of the ‘Iranians’ as a distinct people was also commonly used in the Shahnameh. This is not to suggest that the meanings remained the same, but simply that the concept had existed long before some Europeans appeared to think it had been reinvented. During the Qajar period it may have enjoyed a more geographical rather than political emphasis, although the evidence suggests that the political importance of the term was not by any means negligible.233 What was striking here was not only the insistence on the exclusive use of the term ‘Iran’ and ‘Iranian’, on the basis that the term ‘Persia’ carried with it the burden of negative connotation, and moreover was a ‘Western’ term, but that for the first time, an explicitly racial association was being made. The term ‘race’ had been used frequently by European writers, effectively as a synonym for ‘nation’ (e.g., FO 371 18988 E952/305/34, dated 23 January 1935. 232 See for example, Chardin and Malcolm, both of whom were aware that for the inhabitants the name of the country was ‘Iran’. 233 Three kings who explicitly used the Iranian connection are Nader Shah, Agha Mohammad Shah, and Fath Ali Shah. Although the importance has been disputed, it is a fact that Nader Shah’s coronation coin describes him as Nader-e Irani. 231

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the British race), and it was a short step from there to a more blatant biological implication. In this particular case, given the association with developments in Germany, there can be little doubt that a new interpretation was being gradually absorbed. Of course the ‘Aryan myth’ had been popular in European intellectual circles since the nineteenth century, but as argued above many intellectuals did not adopt or in some cases fully appreciate the racial implications. For them the attraction was in Iran, through the Achaemenids, functioning as ‘the cradle of the Aryan race’. A new generation however were increasingly drawn to this racial association, which served the perfect function of providing a biological relationship between Iranians and their European cousins  – not least because of its emphasis of the Aryans as a ‘master race’. Not for the last time however, Iranian enthusiasts for this racial identification found themselves out of step with their European counterparts. Indeed, their ‘Aryan brethren’ in Third Reich had since articulated a Nordic concept of Aryanism for which the modern Iranians had little to contribute, other than as a useful example of the consequences of miscegenation.234 These ideas, and the historical narrative of the Achaemenids, had gained wider social traction through the expansion and support of archaeology, and the publication of the first Persian language histories which fully exploited this new research.235 Principally among these texts was the highly influential history by Hasan Pirnia which appropriated the Western narrative of Persian history at the expense of Iranian mythological and legendary history.236 Although the reign of Reza Shah is seen as the period in which one master narrative of Iranian history (drawn from See D Motadel, Iran and the Aryan Myth, in Perceptions of Iran, History, Myths and Nationalism from Medieval Persia to the Islamic Republic, London, I B Tauris (forthcoming) p. 8; this argument for the degeneration of the Iranian ‘race’ was not without precedent. Such chauvinistic views would become much more prominent in the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah, see Kamyar Abdi, Nationalism, Politics and the Development of Archaeology, p. 64 on the establishment of the Anjoman-e Iranvij (Society of the Land of Iran). One of its principal members, Mohammad Sadeq-Kia, is reported to have been the driving force behind the title Aryamehr granted to Mohammad Reza Shah in 1965. 235 The best assessment and analysis of archaeology and nationalism remains Abdi, Nationalism, Politics, and the Development of Archaeology, pp. 51–76. 236 H Pirnia, Iran Bastan (Ancient Iran), was first published in 1927 and reprinted many times since. See Kamyar Abdi. Nationalism, Politics and the Development of Archaeology, p. 56; See also See also S Meskoob, Nationalism, Centralisation of Power and Culture, p 485. 234

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the West) transplanted the indigenous Iranian narrative  – increasingly displaced to the sphere of literature  – this displacement took time and arguably was never effectively or comprehensively disseminated among the wider population for whom the archaeological reality of Cyrus the Great could never be quite as relevant as the literary reality of Jamshid. A good example of this social conservatism may be gleaned by the fact that Iranians persisted in calling the greatest site of Achaemenid archaeology  – Persepolis  – by the traditional, mythological name of Takhte Jamshid (the throne of Jamshid). Even those who were obviously aware of the historical providence of the site retained the traditional name along with the new designation, reflecting perhaps that not only was displacement of this nature unnecessary, but on the contrary, that each tradition enjoyed a purpose and a function. Arguably the most prominent proponent of this thesis of complementarity was Mohammad Ali Foroughi.237 For Foroughi, an important aspect of the idea of Iran was predicated on a particular interpretation of the Shahnameh as the poetic repository of the nation’s myths. It may no longer be regarded as history but it was part of the overall historical inheritance and it was of cultural importance.238 During the millennial celebrations for Ferdowsi’s birth in 1934, Foroughi was clear about the poet’s centrality to the development of the idea of Iran and the Iranian nation, ‘One can count Ferdowsi among such distinguished individuals as Cyrus, Darius, Ardeshir Papagan, and Zoroaster because Cyrus founded the Iranian monarchy, Darius ordered Iranian politics, Ardeshir Papagan renewed the Iranian state, Zoroaster founded the ancient Iranian religion and Ferdowsi revived the Iranian nation.’239 He then proceeded to outline what he considered to be the basis of national identity: Foroughi had written one of the earliest textbook histories of Iran (1901) in which he had sought to juxtapose the historical and legendary dynasties; see Kamyar Abdi, Nationalism, Politics and the Development of Archaeology, p. 105. In order to increase public accessibility to a broad range of the myths of the Shahnameh, Foroughi published a ‘Summary of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh’ in 1933. For all that it represents a selection, it is comprehensive. A new edition was published by Majid Press in Tehran, 1378 / 1999. One of the best examples of Foroughi’s admixture of myth and history in the service of politics is his speech to the throne on the occasion of Reza Shah’s coronation. 238 Mohammad Ali Zaka ol Molk, Maqam arjomand Ferdowsi (The esteemed position of Ferdowsi) Maqallat-e Foroughi Vol 2, Tehran, Tus, 1387 / 2008, p. 311; on the power of myths and their utility Foroughi draws an interesting comparison to the narratives of Kerbala. 239 Mohammad Ali Zaka ol Molk, Maqam arjomand Ferdowsi Vol 2, p. 317; see also, S Meskoob, Nationalism, Centralisation of Power and Culture, pp. 495–96. 237

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What is nationality unity? Intellectuals have discussed this a great deal and have come up with different points of view. Is the result of their discussions that national unity is based on race? Is it based on subjection to one monarchy? Is it to do with a common provincial or geographic affiliation? Does it come from a shared religion? Does it come from sharing the same language? Or is it all of these things? Of course all of these factors play a role in national unity but none of these on their own are the author of national unity nor of an ethnic group, or indeed of a race. We cannot go back further than twelve generations, how can we know what race we are from? Of course there are differences between the black and the white race, the yellow race may have a difference with these two but in a state which is all white with all the mixing of blood which occurs in millions of years, how is it possible to know from which branch they come? Is it possible to say that everyone in this room is from one race? No!240

Having emphatically, and one suspects quite deliberately come out against race as a signal factor in defining identity, Foroughi then proceeded to show how the other influences he had highlighted were not definitive, drawing on a variety of examples, including Britain, America and Switzerland for the role of language. For Foroughi, the defining characteristic of national unity and identity was a shared history. An ethnic group with shared experiences and a shared history, whatever their race, language, and religion, would qualify as a nation. Of course a shared language and religion would help in cementing that unity, but the basis of that unity is founded in history. Foroughi then outlined Ferdowsi’s role in reviving the ideals and language of Iran in the aftermath of the Arab conquest, adding for good measure that in his opinion after a shared history, a shared language was probably the most important contributing influence to national unity. For these reasons, Ferdowsi ranked amongst the highest historic personages in the history of Iran. Moreover, the Shahnameh was essential reading for all Iranians not only because of the lessons it contained but because of the positive contribution it made to the idea and sense of Iranian-ness. Specifically, reading the Shahnameh would inculcate positive feelings and a sense of national pride, bravery, and patriotism among Iranians.241 Foroughi’s passion for the Shahnameh as a moral compass for Iranians was palpable and

Mohammad Ali Zaka ol Molk, Maqam arjomand Ferdowsi, pp. 317–18; the phrase used is vahdat-e melli, which may be better translated as ‘national identity’. Similar views were also reflected in an earlier article by Mahmoud Afshar in Ayandeh, Vol 2 (8), dated December 1927, entitled Masaleh-ye melliat va vahdat melli Iran (The issue of the nation and the national unity of Iran), in which Afshar argues that it is impossible to talk of a common ‘race’ in Iran (p. 1). 241 Mohammad Ali Zaka ol Molk, Maqam arjomand Ferdowsi, p. 320. 240

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barely disguised, and he was enthusiastic about incorporating aspects of the text within the school curricula, acutely aware that the length of the poem would naturally mean that most Iranians would never read it in its entirety. It was important nonetheless to select passages and to provide summaries which would adequately convey the stories and the history they contained.242 There was almost a sense of urgency in his writings and declarations on the Shahnameh, perhaps coming from the realisation that the reality of social development and national consciousness was not what he would like. In a private letter he expressed his anxiety that the greatest single weakness of Iranians was their love for money and the fact that they would do almost anything to collect it. Indeed he was scathing about what he regarded as a moral malaise in the body politic. Asked what must be done, he answered emphatically that ‘We must educate the nation.’243 The education of the nation required more than the development of the school curricula and the textual propagation of Ferdowsi. Foroughi, among others, recognised that the process of national education had to be continuing, extensive – adult education was among the more successful developments in this period244 – and visual. Iran and the Iranians had to celebrate their history, and if the popular enthusiasm towards archaeological discoveries had yet to gain traction, the state thought it important not only to exhibit these discoveries through the foundation of museums, but to build monuments to the significant Iranians of the past. Museums served the purpose of exhibiting the past in a manner which would be accessible to commoners and useful to specialists in

242 Mohammad Ali Zaka ol Molk, Maqallat-e Foroughi Vol 2, p. 331, in a letter responding to the a question of what feelings he has towards the Shahnameh, Foroughi replies quite simply that he ‘loves’ it (ashegham); Baraye Dabirestan (For Secondary School), p. 351. 243 Maqallat-e Foroughi Vol 2 Tasir-e rafter-e shah dar tarbiat Irani (The role of the Shah in the Education of Iranians), pp. 68–69; among the many parts of the poem which are frequently cited are: tavana bovad har ki dana bovad (he is able who knows); mayazar moori ke danekesh ast, ke jan darad va jan shirin va khosh ast (do not harm the ant who carries the grain, because he had a life and life is sweet and good); and perhaps most politically, Cho Iran nabashad tan man mabad (if Iran does not exist neither do I). This last quote is particularly beloved of nationalists – see Hasan Arfa, Under Five Shahs, p. 279 – but few can locate it within the text. Moreover it has been embellished, and much more extensive versions exist. Foroughi’s educational remit reportedly went all the way to the Court; see Ibrahim Fiaz in E’telaf morteza Motahhari va hossein nasr: rajat gerayi dar dore Pahlavi dar goftego ba Ibrahim fiaz (The alliance of Morteza Motahhari and Hossein Nasr: historical nostalgia during the Pahlavi era in a discussion with Ibrahim Fiaz), Jameh Shenasi Tarkihi, Vol 6, Aban 1389 / November 2010, p. 104. 244 David Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran, pp. 96–98.

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that it provided ‘facts’ which could complement and correct texts which tended to reflect the biases of the author.245 Perhaps in an effort to stress that all countries had myths and that not all myths served a moral purpose, Foroughi chose to make his point the example of Herodotus and the fiction of the million-man Persian army which had been defeated by the Greeks.246 Archaeology could disprove such nonsense and give a voice whose literary legacy may not have been as extensive or as internalised – it could be a necessary corrective to the Western master-narrative, and moreover, could expose its flaws. Iran was rich in archaeological evidence and should use it.247 For Foroughi, like his Constitutionalist compatriots, the consideration of importance was the acquisition, cultivation, and development of civilisation. But perhaps more transparently than for instance Taqizadeh before him, Foroughi stressed the need for discipline in this development and the need for it to be framed within a cultural vocabulary that was distinctly and recognizably ‘Iranian’.248 Moreover Foroughi, perhaps with the benefit of experience and with a renewed sense of political and cultural security, was able to be both more comfortable and explicit in his dissection of the West and the meaning of civilisation. For Foroughi the epitome of ‘Iranian’ civilisation was the Shahnameh, and the proof of its ethical value lay in the fact that the epic transcended its Iranian narrative frame and belonged to humanity as a whole.249 Moreover, it was through such cultural vehicles that the true bond between East and West could be cemented, not through some awkward and nonsensical racial relationship. The wisdom of this approach was witnessed during the millennial celebrations for the birth of Ferdowsi in 1934. Indeed, given the lukewarm response of the ideologues of Aryanism in the Third Reich to their apparent racial bonds with contemporary Iranians, the Nazis were more enthusiastic about the mythical and narrative confluences, taking the 245 The museum of ancient Iran (bastan) was officially opened in 1937. 246 Mohammad Ali Zaka ol Molk, Muze cheest va baraye cheest? (What is a Museum and what is its purpose?), Maqallat-e Foroghi Vol I, Tus, Tehran 1384 / 2005, p. 282; the word actually used is dorough (lie). 247 Reza Shah was especially keen on and increasingly frustrated about the way in which European excavators used Iran’s archaeological riches for their own purposes; see Kamyar Abdi, Nationalism, Politics and the Development of Archaeology, p. 105, no 46, on the French excavations at Susa. 248 Maqallat-e Foroughi Vol 2, Esteghlal e farhangi melat-ha (The cultural independence of nations), p. 60. 249 Maqallat-e Foroughi Vol 2 Maqam-e Arjomand Ferdowsi, (The Illustrious status of Ferdowsi) p. 320, see also in the same volume, Hakim Abolqasem Ferdowsi, (The Master Abolqasem Ferdowsi) p. 359.

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opportunity of the anniversary celebrations to open a Persische Strasse in Berlin complete with the mayor ‘intoning a triple Sieg Heil to Reza Shah’.250 The decision to commemorate the millennium of Ferdowsi was long in gestation and subject to considerable discussion and debate among intellectuals. The location of Ferdowsi’s burial place had been discovered and confirmed in the nineteenth century, but no monument of sufficient stature had been erected. Reflecting the spirit of the times, it was decided that money for a new more aesthetically ‘Iranian’ tomb would be raised by a collective effort through a national lottery, and ultimately the money was secured through a combination of private and public donations. A four-day conference was held in Tehran with invitations going to leading Orientalists including Arthur Christensen, and messages of goodwill were read out from foreign dignitaries. The Germans provided a special copy of an index of every word in the Shahnameh,251 whereas the Soviets, not to be outdone, gave Foroughi (as prime minister) an illustrated copy of a manuscript of the Shahnameh held in Russia.252 Curiously, the British were by all (lack of) accounts, underwhelmed by the commemoration. The inauguration of the new tomb in Tus, Khorasan was held in the presence of Reza Shah on 12 October 1934. We are very pleased that along with the one thousandth birthday of Ferdowsi we can also accomplish on of the other enduring desires of the Iranian nation, that is the establishment of this structure as a measure of our appreciation and gratitude for the pains which Ferdowsi bore to revive the language and history of this nation . . . Although the appreciation for this man had not been adequately expressed it was always the case that the people of Iran held the Shahnameh in their hearts as a memorial to him. However it was necessary to take some action and create an adorned structure which in a visual way will mark the public gratitude of this nation. It was with this idea that we gave the decree to create this historical memorial, this exalted structure which will not be harmed by wind, rain, nor circumstance. [Ferdowsi] has already immortalized his name and this ceremony and monument are unnecessary, but appreciation for those who have given service is the moral duty of a nation and we must not back down from this responsibility.253 D Motadel, Iran and the Aryan Myth, p. 11. Motadel notes that the Third Reich downplayed the racial incongruities they had originally raised. 251 Kasravi was particularly critical of such exertions; see Ridgeon, Ahmad Kasravi’s Criticisms of Edward Granville Browne, p. 223. 252 Afshin Marashi, The Nation’s Poet: Ferdowsi and the Iranian National Imagination, in Touraj Atabaki (ed.) Iran in the 20th Century, pp. 104–06. Reza Shah’s inquiries as to the character of Alexander and his representation in the Shahnameh are entertainingly related in Makki Tarikh-e bist sale ye Iran, Vol 6 p. 202. 253 Quoted in Marashi, The Nation’s Poet p. 108. 250

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Six years later, the new ‘national state’ appeared to crumble in the face of an allied invasion led by the Soviet Union and Great Britain. Reza Shah’s much-vaunted army and his state-sponsored nationalism had appeared to come to nothing. One poet even described the dispirited Shah as the Zahak of the age, and urged Iranians to rejoice in his overthrow.254 Appearances, however, were to prove deceptive.

Donald Wilber, Reza Shah Pahlavi, p. 207. A more interesting use of the Shahnameh was made by the British who commissioned cartoons in the style of Persian miniatures portraying Hitler as Zahhak with Mussolini and Tojo as the snakes emanating from his shoulders. Fereidun is represented by a likeness of Churchill. The original cartoons by the artist ‘Kem’ are held by the University of Kent. See V Holman, Kem’s Cartoons in the Second World War: Valerie Holman describes the little-known role played by the cartoonist Kem in assisting the British Propaganda effort aimed at Iran, History Today, 1 March 2002. 254

3 The Age of Extremes

O Cyrus, great King, King of Kings, Emperor of the Achaemenians, monarch of the land of Iran. I, the Shahanshah of Iran, offer thee salutations from myself and from our nation. We are here to acclaim Cyrus, the Great, the immortal of Iran, the founder of the most ancient empire of the World; to praise Cyrus, the extraordinary emancipator of History; and to declare that he was one of the most noble sons of the Humanity. Cyrus, we gather today around the tomb in which you eternally rest to tell you: Rest in Peace, for we are well awake and we will always be alert in order to preserve your proud legacy. We promise to preserve forever the traditions of humanism and goodwill, with which you founded the Persian Empire: traditions which made our people be the carrier of message transmitted everywhere, professing fraternity and truth. Mohammad Reza Shah, eulogy at the tomb of Cyrus the Great, Pasargadae, 12 October 1971 People are beginning to look with greater nostalgia on the myth of the good times of Reza Shah and an efficient authoritarian government would probably be welcomed, inwardly if not outwardly1

Legacy The decade from 1924 through to 1934 can fairly lay claim to marking the high point of enlightenment nationalism as defined by the Constitutionalists. Many of the ideas that had been developed and considered over the previous three decades had finally been realized under the direction, if not the inspiration of Reza Shah. By all accounts it was a remarkably productive period combining the consolidation of the state 1 FO 248 1514 – Internal Situation 1951, 10101/68/51, dated 12 March 1951.

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with its development and extension in ways the Constitutionalists could only have aspired to, and it was very much a collective achievement. If some had compromised regarding the form of government and the continuation of the monarchy in the family of Reza Khan, this was regarded at the time as a price worth paying to effect the national renaissance. The collective genius of Taqizadeh, Firuz, Davar, Teymourtash, and Foroughi among many others ensured the development of a state which bore many of the hallmarks of the enlightenment ideal: public education, a renewed and modernized judiciary, the settlement of the tribes, the emancipation of women, clothing and language reform, bureaucratization, conscription, the beginnings of industrial development, patriotism, and the cultivation of civic nationalism.2 None of these developments could be considered complete, and they were not without cost. As Foroughi lamented near the end of his life, there was much that remained wanting in the pursuit of a civic nationalism in which a balance had been achieved between East and West, the moral and the material. No transition was going to be easy, and the social consequences of such a dramatic reform were likely to be extensive. There can be little doubt that the consequences of rapid ‘modernization’ in the guise of dress reform, tribal settlement, and the more garish urban redevelopments caused considerable hardship and came at a comparatively high social cost, especially when the Shah was increasingly perceived as distant and uncaring towards the majority of his subjects. There is little doubt that in his later years he grew increasingly suspicious of even his closest allies.3 But such criticisms, however justified, often ignore the broader canvas, and the reality that these developments were not the inspiration of an individual but reflective of a collective ideological era.4 European criticisms of the rush to modernize were often regarded as misplaced romanticism addressing the misjudged demands of Western guilt rather than the progressive needs of the revived Iranian state. 2 See in this regard Octave Aubry’s judgment on Napoleon which may be appropriate here, ‘This is his [Napoleon’s] distinction, and, if necessary, his excuse. When an achievement lasts so long and bears such fruit, it provides its own justification.’ Aubry, Napoleon, (trans. M Crosland and S Road), London, Paul Hamlyn 1964, p. 376. See also the statement of Sharif Arani quoted in Michael M J Fischer, Legal Postulate in Flux: Justice, Wit, and Hierarchy in Iran, in D H Dwyer (ed.) Law & Islam in the Middle East, New York, Bergin and Garvey (Kindle Edition), 1990, loc. 1791. 3 Position of Shah and Press Campaign in Persia (FO 371 16941 E879/47/34), dated 28 January 1933. 4 In later reflections, Taqizadeh had high praise for the development of the country under Reza Shah, regretting that the process had been cut short, Opera Minor: Unpublished Writings in European Languages, Tehran, Shekufan, 1979, pp. 226–32.

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Moreover, these criticisms tended to reinforce an analytical and historiographical trend to identify the age with the person of the Shah. This was of course a trend encouraged by both supporters and detractors, and although it might have served to simplify and summarize, it does little in the end to accurately represent the complexity of the era. This applies both to the apportioning of credit and blame and the characterization of the era as one of a wasted opportunity which by some measure sowed the seed of religious revolution some forty years later. Quite apart from being over-deterministic, such arguments have often served the purpose of shifting blame for later failures on a generation that could no longer answer for itself. Of course, this failure to take responsibility, and the continuing enthusiasm to blame others – internal or external – perhaps represents the clearest evidence of the failure of Iran’s radical enlightenment. What is also clear however is that the Constitutional generation were acutely aware of their failings and the partial nature of their collective achievement, a partiality made all the more acute by the realization that expectations, particularly among the new educated professionals, were rapidly exceeding what could realistically be achieved. In this sense, success could not keep pace with itself. A good example of this can be seen in the development of the judiciary and the legal profession, perhaps the greatest single achievement of the era and yet one that remained dangerously incomplete. As Foroughi late in life reminisced about the developments of legal education and reform during his own lifetime, he felt bound to stress to a new generation of graduates just how far Iran had come in the space of thirty years, almost as a means of explaining and perhaps even excusing the failures which remained.5 For all that had been achieved, the failure to secure an independent judiciary – despite the best attempts of a number of judges – remained a weakness that became all the more exposed when one appreciates that the reforms had concentrated on institution building at the expense of individual rights. Unsurprisingly, the one person who remained jealous of his ‘rights’ was the monarch himself, and as the years proceeded, it became increasingly apparent that Reza Shah’s interpretation of constitutionalism differed from that of his supporters.6 Increasing disillusion, among the elite in particular, translated in due course into open opprobrium heaped on Reza Shah. But this

5 Foroughi, The Modernization of Law, Journal of Persianate Studies 3, 2010, pp. 32–33. 6 For Reza Shah’s interference, see M Mohammadi, Judicial Reform and Reorganisation in 20th Century Iran: State Building, Modernisation and Islamicisation, New York, Routledge 2010, p. 90.

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would take time to grow into the historical dogma it would later become. On the eve of the Allied invasion and his subsequent abdication, Reza Shah had yet to become the iconic ‘tyrant’ universally despised by his people. Something of the myth of the saviour remained, and strikingly, despite later characterizations of him as a modern incarnation of the ‘oriental despot’, what resentment existed seemed to be directed towards the government in general rather than the Shah himself. Indeed as one acute observer of Iran noted in a dispatch, ‘[The Shah] it seems to me [has] a very good understanding of the mentality of his own people. There is moreover a general feeling that the Shah has done a great deal for the country.’7 An ‘Unhappy Consciousness’? Reza Shah’s departure in 1941 unleashed mixed emotions. Fatigue mixed with relief, elation with disillusion, and anger with depression. If the stoicism of the nineteenth century had given way to the scepticism of the Constitutionalists, this was all too soon followed by what might best be described as a deeply unhappy (political) consciousness.8 This political consciousness was expanding not only as a consequence of the growth in education, but perhaps of more immediate importance, because of the relative freedom to operate provided by the Allied occupation, and the competition that engendered. Indeed the Anglo-Soviet occupation – soon to be joined by the Americans – not only added an international layer to the political dynamic, but gave Iranians a foretaste of the ideological contest that was to characterize the Cold War. The unhappy consciousness produced by Iran’s encounter with the ideas of the enlightenment found itself confronted by a more earnest global imperative9 in which compromise 7 FO 371 24570 E139/2/34, letter from A K S Lambton, dated 21 December 1940; see also her earlier observations, E587, dated 23 January 1940. The important observation here is Lambton’s note that the Shah had a good understanding of the mentality of his own people. It is perhaps noteworthy that for all his accumulation of land and money his personal wealth was estimated at £129,317 on his death in exile in 1944. See M Boroujerdi Triumphs and Travails of Authoritarian Modernisation in Iran in Cronin Authoritarian Modernisation, p. 154, n 37. 8 The concept of the unhappy consciousness as presented by Hegel, understood in terms of an unresolved consciousness, approximates to the more technical ‘contradictory consciousness’ used by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. However, Hegel’s conceptualization is perhaps more evocative of the spirit of an age. It is probably epitomized by the life, writings, and subsequent suicide of the novelist Sadeq Hedayat. In analyzing the poetry of Omar Khayam, Hedayat comments interestingly that ‘he is overtaken by pessimism and disillusionment which leads him to skepticism.’ Quoted in H Katouzian, Sadeq Hedayat: The Life and Legend of an Iranian Writer, London, I B Tauris, 1991, p. 23. 9 (Ditto in 2001 following 9/11).

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was not an option, and when added to the general ideological malaise which appeared to be afflicting the country in the aftermath of the high tide of ‘imposed’ constitutionalism, encouraged a polarization of views: the tendency, as Ricoeur argues, towards ‘ideological closure’.10 This process was further reinforced by the expansion of political consciousness and the extension of ideas from the lateral to the demotic; the popularization of ideas and the need to disseminate them widely was resulting in a simplification and standardization that many of the Constitutionalists found difficult to comprehend and confront.11 The nuance and the subtlety so beloved of the elite club of the republic of letters was finding the transition to reality difficult. It was all very well to seek to educate one’s public, but the products of this education were proving more disgruntled than enlightened, and the liberal Constitutional centre found itself increasingly under siege by the polarizing wings of the left and right. Indeed, if the reign of Reza Shah can be credited with creating the modern (nation) state in Iran, then the enlightened thinkers (rowshanfekr) can be credited with creating the intellectual space, but both, like the enlightened despots of eighteenth-century Europe soon found themselves surplus to requirements.12 The transition from the radical enlightenment to the age of extremes was naturally a process that took time to progress and develop, and there is little doubt that the seeds of the transition were already sown in the reign of Reza Shah. But it would be likewise incorrect, as argued in the previous section, to regard this process in an overly deterministic fashion, and to regard the transition as an inevitable consequence of, for example, rapid modernization. Rapid change and social tension may result in radicalization, but it is a wholly different matter for that process to move from the margins to the centre and to dominate the political narrative for the better part of a generation. That this should have occurred was the result of a number of contributing factors as noted in the previous section, but it was also a slow and resisted transition which took time 10 P Ricoeur, Science & Ideology, in Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1981, pp. 227–28. 11 The noted educationalist Isa Sadeq argued that the franchise ought to be restricted by an educational test; see FO 248 1474 – Persian Government & Internal Situation 1947, file 13/43/47, dated 14 June 1947. 12 Nabavi argues for a distinction to be made between the two generations of Constitutional and post-Constitutional intellectuals, reserving the term rowshanfekr for the latter. The distinction made is in terms of political radicalization, although perhaps more significant is the introduction of Marxist ideas. See N Nabavi, The Changing Concept of the Intellectual in Iran of the 1960s, Iranian Studies, Vol 32 (3), 1999, pp. 333–50.

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to unfold. Indeed, arguably it was not until the dismissal of Ali Amini as prime minister in 1962 that the Constitutional era was closed and a new, revolutionary era was inaugurated. One of the reasons for this ideological resistance was the continued dominance of the Constitutionalists among the political and more important, the literary elite of the country. This literary and historiographical legacy ensured a presence in the political landscape long after their banishment to the political margins. Yet, this like their political legacy was to have mixed results and occasionally unpleasant consequences. History and Narrative The narrative frame of the Constitutional Revolution and the role of Edward Browne have been discussed in the previous chapter. Attention has also been drawn to the emergence of historical writing in the late nineteenth century and attempts by early Iranian nationalists to provide a narrative arc for Iranian nationalism located firmly within the historical discoveries of the era – both in terms of method and a new awareness of pre-Islamic history. A growing interest in the character of Cyrus, for example, was emerging among intellectuals keen to reintroduce Iranians to a history that was just as glorious as that which they had learned through the epic of the Shahnameh, but which had the added advantage of ‘scientific’ credibility, and by extension, access into European intellectual circles. Foroughi was among the first to attempt to write a history of Iran from earliest times in 1901. Taqizadeh later condemned those who sought to extend Iran’s historical lineage far into the mists of time. Yet the process of displacement, as with the transition between enlightenment to extremes, was a slow one. Afghani for example contributed a history that traced the origin of Iran’s kings to Kayomars. Both Taqizadeh and of course Foroughi liberally drew on the myths and motifs of Iran’s legendary history regarding them as distinct although complementary. Foroughi, as noted above, was especially keen that the myths of Iran serve to provide a moral frame of reference to better manage the difficult transition to modernity – as he would have seen it. It is also worth remembering that interest in the mythical and legendary past was not limited to Iranian intellectuals: The great historian of Sasanian Iran, Arthur Christensen, considered it worthwhile to research and write a study on the ‘Kayanids’. But it would be fair to say that the intellectual trend was increasingly in the direction of marginalizing the Shahnameh and its corpus of historical myths in favour of the ‘new’ history. This is not to suggest that the myths of the Shahnameh were removed from public discourse

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altogether, but simply that they played a less prominent role in official discourse while remaining important in literary and in some oppositional circles. As will be seen, they were to make a somewhat awkward return in official discourse by the end of the Pahlavi period, most obviously by Mohammad Reza Shah himself. Moreover, if mythology in this particular form were to find itself side-lined, mythologies in a variety of other forms were to remain very much centre stage in Iranian political discourse and the discourse of nationalism in particular. Indeed, the new scientific history, in service to the ‘modern’ more vigorous nationalism, was to prove almost as rich a repository for political myth-making as its traditional precursor. Amongst the earliest and most prominent examples of these was the ‘myth of the saviour’, identified originally with the figure of Reza Khan, and which soon bifurcated according to ideological leanings and perspective, on his assumption of the crown, and later in disputes regarding his legacy. Staunch monarchists, and those who may be categorized as ‘dynastic nationalists’ (those who broadly saw the ‘nation’ bound with the ‘dynasty’) were the most active agents in protecting this positive historical legacy, most obviously in designating Reza Shah as ‘the Great’ by parliamentary legislation in 1949. In commenting on the decision, the British ambassador in Tehran, noted that, ‘the attempt to elevate the reputation of Reza Shah by conferring him the title of “the Great” has offended the Persian sense of propriety. Especially of late the Persians have been favourably inclined towards achievements of the late Shah, but they do not consider that this is the moment to honour him with the title which has so far been reserved for such venerated figures as Cyrus and Shah Abbas.’13 It should come as little surprise that amongst those vehemently against the elevation of the late Shah to the status of ‘Great’, an epithet as Le Rougetel notes that was somewhat sparsely applied to Iranian dynasts, were members of the ulema, who made a point of being difficult about the location of Reza Shah’s final resting place. Less noticeable but perhaps more significant for the future was that Reza Shah’s son and successor, Mohammad Reza Shah, should have sought either Qom or Mashhad as a suitable resting place for his father, thereby betraying a religious sensitivity which may have escaped Reza Shah.14 At the same time, for all the son’s enthusiasm for his father’s legacy and attempts to 13 FO 371 75504, – Royal Family Affairs, file 1944, Le Rougetel, dated 1949. 14 FO 248 1478 – Royal Family Affairs, file 83, Le Rougetel, file no. 83/19/47, dated 8 May 1947.

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portray him in the best possible light – not an unusual development for a young monarch and institution feeling distinctly vulnerable in light of the imposed abdication15 – a broad sympathy for Reza Shah’s achievements (or more accurately for the achievements of the reign) remained. Indeed one of the most striking aspects of the fall of Reza Shah was just how limited in practice the reaction against his rule proved to be. Once the trauma of the invasion and abdication had passed, and the sense of liberation from the ‘tyrant’ had subsided, the rush to criticise similarly proved short-lived, and for some of the political elite, distinctly counterproductive. After all, many had been part and parcel of the broad process and nationalism, as a mood, could not and should not be identified with the person of the fallen king.16 The first indications of this tendency came with the swift rehabilitation of the army that by all accounts had performed poorly in the face of the Anglo-Soviet invasion. As the institutional standard-bearer for the Pahlavi state, the army’s swift capitulation (within six days) augured ill for the accomplishments of the preceding reign. Blame was rapidly apportioned towards Reza Shah, his dynasty, and all that it represented for fatally weakening the Iranian state that it should succumb so easily to foreign attack. However, further demoralisation of the armed forces soon seemed ill judged and counter-productive in light of the centrifugal forces that threatened to tear the country apart.17 These forces were most obviously represented by the newly empowered ‘tribes’ who had been so forcefully resettled, with considerable hardship, by Reza Shah. The tribal chiefs had initially been treated as prodigal sons who had been unjustly dispossessed, and who formed the true military backbone of the country.18 This somewhat romantic idealisation was swiftly discarded when it became apparent that the cost of ‘rehabilitating’ the tribes, even within the national narrative, entailed potentially disastrous consequences for the sovereignty of the centralised state that had become a sine qua non of the Constitutionalists. Indeed, 15 FO 248 1427 – Persian Govt. file 544, conversation with Minister of Interior Bahramy, dated 22 February 1943; see also FO 248 1426  – Interviews with the Shah, memo dated February 1943; FO 248 1478 – Royal Family Affairs, file 83, Le Rougetel, file no. 83/7/47, dated 2 February 1947. 16 FO 248 1409 file 49, internal situation Fars; Deputy Anwar quoted in a press summary dated 13 April 1942. 17 See in this respect the comments by a Democrat politician quoted in E. Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1982, p. 209. 18 FO 248 1409 – Internal Situation: Fars file 39, dated 12 February 1942; FO 248 1409 file 39, dated 4 November 1942; FO 248 1409 file 39, dated 17 January 1942; FO 248 1409, file 39, dated 13 April 1942. See also letter to Asr-i Azadi dated 20 April 1942.

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nothing better illustrates the underlying consensus behind the narrative of nationalism than the rapidity by which the army was reintegrated and the tribes rebanished. The failures of the army were therefore put into context and attention was quickly drawn to the fact that other ‘modern’ armies, through technical inadequacies and poor mechanisation, had likewise suffered rapid defeats.19 The tribes and their leaders meanwhile, far from being unappreciated champions of national integrity, were soon reacquainted with their characterisation as threats to national security who were ‘prone to looting’.20 Centralization and standardization were to remain hallmarks of the national narrative, and perhaps no one waved this particular flag more passionately than Ahmad Kasravi, for whom unity was paramount. This passion has seen him labelled an extreme nationalist, a characterisation that has been reinforced by those Islamists who sought to justify his assassination in 1946 at the hands of the Fedayin-e Islam, a radical religious organisation who applied themselves to murdering those who were deemed to have blasphemed against Islam. Kasravi would not have necessarily disagreed with the charge, given his staunch Constitutionalist pedigree and his struggle – indeed jihad – against what he identified as the curse of superstition, although he probably would have countered that it was the ulema who had lost their way and perverted the true course of the faith.21 That his opponents sought their salvation in his murder only served to prove his point. Kasravi, like Taqizadeh before him, was a product of the seminary, and arguably his passion for the cause and his zeal for unity at all costs betrayed this particular inheritance. But, like Taqizadeh, Kasravi was above all a passionate believer in the Constitutionalist project and the national narrative that was central to it.22 If his history of the Constitutional Revolution owed much to the narrative frame laid out by Browne, Kasravi was highly critical of 19 FO 248 1409 file 49, internal situation Fars; press summary dated 13 April 1942. 20 FO 248 1409, file 39, dated 13 April 1942; FO 248 1409, file 39 – Letter from the Boir Ahmadis, dated 7 April 1944. 21 Lloyd Ridgeon, Ahmad Kasravi’s Criticisms of Edward Granville Browne, Iran, Vol 42, 2004, p. 222 In his publication On Islam, Kasravi opens his critique by making clear that there are ‘two’ Islams, one pure and constructive, the other corrupted and destructive; see On Islam & Shiism (trans. M Ghanoonparvar), Costa Mesa, CA, Mazda, 1990, p. 61. On the pervasive dogma and ignorance, Kasravi records with incredulity a conversation with a merchant who praised Hitler and argued that all that was now needed was Hitler’s conversion to ‘bring Islam to the height of its glory.’ (p 69) 22 See Kamran Dadkhah, Ahmad Kasravi on Economics, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol 34 (2), 1998, p. 42 for Kasravi’s debt to Rousseau. See also Mohammadi, Judicial Reform and Reorganisation, p. 88.

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the plurality and cosmopolitanism, especially in religious affairs, which Browne sought to outline. For Kasravi, this was not only disruptive to the national narrative of unity, it was a romantic distraction and at worst an intellectual preoccupation encouraged by Western orientalists determined to keep Iran, and Iranians, divided.23 Kasravi was particularly incensed at the tendency to understand Iran as a mosaic of racially distinctive ethnicities, and his determination to counter this by emphasising a common Iranian heritage has occasionally – if ironically – been interpreted as support for the Aryan myth. Nothing could be further from the truth: Unlike Browne, Kasravi did not espouse an ethnic interpretation of Iranian nationalism either in its generality (Aryanism) or particularities (ethnic nationalisms).24 The integrated whole was always greater than the sum of its parts.25 Mahabad, Azerbaijan, and the Challenge of Ethnic Nationalism If Kasravi’s solutions to the problems of cosmopolitanism and diversity within Iranian society appeared more dramatic and radical than those of his intellectual peers, the underlying philosophy should be immediately recognizable. Like Foroughi, Kasravi saw in the myths of the Shahnameh the means by which the diversity could be consolidated and unified under a single banner.26 This did not entail the elimination of diversity, but simply the establishment of a dominant, binding narrative of descent. Kasravi’s anger and energy can be explained by the realization that it was not only the superstition of old which had to be deconstructed, but new political myths  – the inadvertent consequence of enlightenment  – that had to be challenged. To leave them unchallenged was to risk the development, through exclusion, of irreconcilable ‘racial’ distinctions, which would ultimately lead to the disintegration of the national polity they sought to reinforce. But these processes, although seeded in the later years of Reza Shah’s rule, had yet to become institutionalized within official nationalist discourse. If anything, the events in Mahabad and Azerbaijan in 1946, long used by proponents of ethnic nationalism as evidence of 23 For a discussion of Kasravi’s views on Browne and his penchant for religion and poetry see L Ridgeon, Admad Kasravi’s Criticisms, pp. 220–21. On Kasravi’s possible debt to Kermani in his criticism of poetic and religious romanticism, see K Dadkhah, Ahmad Kasravi on Economics, p. 42. 24 Lloyd Ridgeon, Ahmad Kasravi’s Criticisms, p. 222. 25 E Abrahamian, Kasravi, the Integrative Nationalist of Iran, Middle East Studies, Vol 9 (3), 1973, pp. 111–14. 26 L Ridgeon, Ahmad Kasravi’s Criticisms, p. 222.

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existing competing nationalisms, show that as yet the problem remained, as Kasravi had assessed, one of centre-periphery relations. This was at heart a problem of governance and the establishment of a harmonious balance between the growing power of the centre and the rights of the periphery. This dialectical relationship had to be properly balanced as otherwise the tendency would be for the centre to reinforce its power by encouraging the fragmentation of the periphery.27 Seen from this perspective, the regional uprisings that followed the abdication of Reza Shah were less a response to Iranian nationalism, and more a product of peripheral resistance to the encroachments of the central government. Here of course, method and meaning play a role in shaping our understanding of events, and a ‘tribal’ insurrection can lead effortlessly to ethnic distinction. Yet when Nasir Khan, the leader of the Qashqai protested that ‘O Iranian nation! I have put everything I have, my life, my honour and my tribe for your sake and am prepared to make all sacrifice for my country,’28 it was clear that his objections were to the nature of the state not the character of the ‘nation’; a point made more forcefully by the fact that he addressed his compatriots when he was dressed in the European manner, and could easily have passed ‘as a young and prosperous English farmer.’29 The Kurds offered a more convincing case for ethnic distinction and regional nationalism, but even here the distinction proved more imposed than real, a consequence of Soviet attempts to impose national classifications rather than an indigenous impetus.30 This is not to suggest that the ethnic roots of a distinct nationalist sentiment did not exist, but that in 1946 this had not developed beyond a critical threshold. For the present, the Kurds were reacting, as they had done previously, to the pretensions of central authority, and if they might be assisted in their bid for regional autonomy by the occupying Soviet forces, such support was not necessarily to be rejected. But the Soviets arguably went too far in 27 Kasravi similarly also regarded autocracy and dictatorship as a by-product of social and civil weakness; see E Abrahamian, Kasravi, p. 112. The reluctance of the periphery to be governed and to ‘insulate’ themselves from the centre is also explored in E Abrahamian & F Kazemi, The Non-Revolutionary Peasantry of Modern Iran, Iranian Studies, Vol 11 (1/4), p. 275. 28 FO 248 1409 – Internal Situation: Fars file 39, dated 12 February 1942. See also letter from Nasir to Ghulam Hussein Muhazzab, dated 17 March 1942. 29 FO 248 1347/1348, file 64  – Internal Situation in Fars; file no. 64/329/44, dated 9 October 1944. 30 FO 371 45503  – Kurdish Demonstrations  – file 2495; E3660, dated 16 May 1945; E8663, dated 12 November 1945.

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imposing a distinctive identity whose paradoxical price involved submission to a much more oppressive central government than that emanating from Tehran. Indeed, as the title of the fledgling ‘Mahabad Republic’ suggested, the Kurds retained a cultural confluence with the broader Iranian national project, while remaining jealous of their particular distinctions.31 But distinction did not necessarily entail separation. In the words of one British observer, ‘There is no genuine demand from Kurds . . . for independence.’32 Far better known and more serious as far as Iranian territorial integrity was concerned was the movement that emerged under Soviet protection in Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijan Crisis of 1946, as it became known, introduced Iranians in no uncertain terms to the vicissitudes of the Cold War and the narrative that accompanied it. But at the time Iranian politicians regarded it primarily as a continuation of Russian territorial aggrandizement which had begun in the early nineteenth century and which had been symbolized by the Treaty of Turkmenchai in 1828 – a treaty that had since acquired a totemic character within the national narrative.33 Iranians were acutely aware that the territories ceded to Russia in 1828 included Georgia, Armenia, and Shirvan, the last territory having acquired the name Azerbaijan informally in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and then formally in the aftermath of the Great War, despite vigorous protests from Iranian statesmen aware of the irredentist seed that was being sowed. The dispute has of course been embellished by increasingly passionate arguments from both sides of the debate, and in particular from a vocal intellectual elite in Baku following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.34 The events as they unfolded however tend to support the view that this was a struggle of the periphery against the centre, not a move towards ‘national’ independence. Azerbaijan, and Tabriz in particular, had been at the forefront of Constitutional Revolution, and formed the second, if not the primary axis, along with Tehran, for political activity, agitation, and importance. That this was so reflected not only that Azerbaijan had traditionally been 31 See in this respect, John Malcolm’s History of Persia, 2nd Edition,1829, p. 6, (reprinted Adamant Media Corporation 2004). In some early sources, such as the Dabistan, the Kingdom of Mahabad was recognized as the first Iranian kingdom. 32 FO 248 1410 file 144, reports dated 24 May 1942, 22 May 1942. 33 The Times, 28 January 1946. 34 For a useful summary of the views of the Baku elite, see Brenda Schaffer, Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2002. For a response see the review by Touraj Atabaki, in Slavic Review, 63, 1, 2004, pp. 178–79.

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the seat of the heir apparent to the Qajar throne, and therefore in royal terms was second only to the capital in importance, but perhaps more important, its location as a frontier province bordering both the Ottoman and Russian empires. More than a trading entrepôt, it was the gateway for new ideas and a refuge for failed revolutionaries.35 At the same time, its position on the frontier undoubtedly helped refine and sharpen issues of identity, especially when combined with the reality that whatever its commercial, political, and intellectual importance, it was bound to play a distinctly junior role to that of the capital Tehran. Unsurprisingly therefore, the people of Tabriz and its environs came to play a pivotal role in the development of the Constitutional Movement, and a number of its more famous sons went on to define Iranian nationalism, not least of them Hasan Taqizadeh and Ahmad Kasravi. It was overwhelmingly Shia in religious affiliation but was distinguished by the dominance of Azeri Turkish as the vulgate. This would not have been considered a mark of ethnic distinction any more than the Qajars as a Turkic-speaking dynasty would have considered themselves non-Iranian. Nor would the use of Azeri as the vulgate preclude the use of Persian in official or literary culture. Certainly neither Taqizadeh nor Kasravi would have been aware of the importance of the distinction or of any inherent exclusivity, though the latter was more passionate in his determination to ensure that Persian became the lingua franca of a nationalism that was transitioning from its lateral to its demotic phase.36 Indeed if Iranian nationalism was to be more than an elite pastime, and if it was to successfully penetrate society, a single coherent and universally comprehensible language would have to be adopted and disseminated. All the inhabitants of Iran might not yet speak Persian as a first language, but it was certainly the second-preferred language of most, and it was the language of government and high culture. Where the distinctiveness of Azerbaijan would come to be felt was not in its linguistic differences, but more from a sense of disenfranchisement from the centre of power. Ironically, this would only get worse as the Constitutional Movement proceeded and to some extent succeeded, for although it raised expectations, it failed to deliver on its promises, and for the revolutionaries of Tabriz, the disappointment came early. Not only did

35 See in this respect, Houri Berberain, Armenians in the Constitutional Revolution oif 1905–1911, Oxford, Westview Press, 2001, pp. 226. 36 For Kasravi’s views, see E Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, p. 218. On this transition, see below.

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the early drafts of the electoral law give undue weight and preference to Tehran, but also, so earnest were the deputies from Tehran that they proceeded with parliamentary business without so much as waiting for the deputies from the provinces, including Azerbaijan, to arrive. Moreover, injury was added to insult when in the ensuing political turmoil, Russian troops, eager to suffocate Constitutional sentiment, occupied Tabriz and brutally suppressed any alleged revolutionary in sight.37 Subsequently it would be the north and west of the country that would bear the brunt of the occupation and fighting during the Great War, whereas the rise and rule of Reza Shah witnessed the replacement of Azerbaijan by Mazandaran as the provincial object of the dynasty’s affection. By the time the Russians returned in 1941, the people of Azerbaijan, like much of the rest of the country, were thirsting for rights and a greater role in the administration of the state. These sentiments, which Kasravi would have understood and sympathized with, were nurtured under Russian protection into an apparent yearning for autonomy and ultimately independence. Under the terms of the occupation, the Allied powers had agreed to leave Iran within six months of the end of hostilities, which was designated as 2 March 1946. Although the United States and Great Britain adhered to the agreement, the Soviet Union demurred, and remained in Iran until a combination of UN resolutions and some deft diplomacy from the then–prime minister Ahmad Qavam ensured their withdrawal in May 1946. Their extended stay seemed calculated to provide shelter and protection to the ‘Democratic Party’ of Azerbaijan, under the leadership of Jafar Pishevari, who from October 1945 on was busy acquiring institutional and governmental control over the province. Pishevari moved cautiously, emphasizing autonomy over independence, although Azeri émigrés to Tehran were quick to point to a more subversive agenda.38 But what is most striking about the experience in Azerbaijan is the manner in which Pishevari effectively lifted the nationalist blueprint from Tehran and sought to reapply it from Tabriz. Indeed the methods used would have been immediately familiar to the ‘Iranian’ nationalists in Tehran (and elsewhere), and the popular reaction reflected the fact that the problem, as suggested above, was one of governance, not one of 37 See Morgan Shuster, The Strangling of Persia:Story of the European Diplomacy and Oriental Intrigue That Resulted in the Denationalization of Twelve Million Mohammedans, Washington DC, Mage 1987 [first published 1912], pp. 216–20. 38 FO 248 1410 – Internal Situation Azerbaijan, file 144, dated 20 February 1942. With respect to Pishevari’s initial caution, see FO 248 1463 file 69; Summary of Pishevari Speech, file 69/191/46, dated 17 May 1946.

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national identity. Thus, Pishevari might indulge in all the symbolism of national identity, including the establishment of distinctive festivals and the issuance of postage stamps and banknotes along with the adoption of a distinctive flag.39 But when he decided to impose conscription so that the patriotic citizens of Azerbaijan might better defend their homeland against the Iranians to the south, the reaction was characteristically lukewarm.40 In this case, imitation was the sincerest form of flattery. The status of Azerbaijan remained a sensitive issue because Iranians had learned to their cost that the country was vulnerable to penetration and manipulation from their northern neighbour. But the threat in 1946 was not one of an emergent ethnic separatism but that of calculated territorial aggrandizement tinged in this particular case by the ideological conflict of the emergent Cold War. Pishevari was the first Iranian political leader to have emerged from a self-professed communist background and to have exercised power.41 His political convictions may be disputed, but he represented and reflected a new development in the discourse of nationalism – one that was to have profound consequences both in the application and narrative understanding of Iranian national identity. Mosaddeq, the Left, and the Doctrine of Anti-Imperialism Few figures in the history of modern Iran are as iconic to the ideology of Iranian nationalism as that of Dr Mohammad Mosaddeq. To him may be applied Hegel’s dictum that political genius lies in the identification of an individual with a principle.42 Yet, contrary to Hegel’s argument, Mosaddeq did not (in any immediate sense at least), ‘carry off the victory’. Moreover, as an individual who has effectively transcended history into the realms of political myth, Mosaddeq has been identified with ‘principles’ that may reflect the aspirations of his supporters, but accord less well with his own ideas. Mosaddeq, as a historical actor, was not 39 FO 248 1463 – Internal Situation, Azerbaijan; report on Noruz celebrations file 69/90/46, dated 23 March 1946. FO 248 1462 – Persian Govt. & Internal Situation file 65; summary of article from Havanan newspaper dated 6 October 1946. 40 FO 248 1463 file 69, Situation report 69/50/46, dated 23 February 1946. 41 The Democratic Party had originally been known as Tudeh Azerbaijan; see FO 248 1410 file 144, article 1 of the Azerbaijan Workers Committee, dated 26 February 1942. See also Tabriz consulate commentary dated 16 March 1942. Some might argue that Mirza Kuchek Khan deserves this accolade, although it might equally be said that his declaration of the Soviet Republic of Gilan was born more of tactical necessity than conviction. 42 G W F Hegel, The German Constitution 1802, in Hegel’s Political Writings (trans T M Knox), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1964, p. 216.

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only a more complex political figure than the mythology suggests, but may have been less comfortable with the anti-imperialist mantra that has been applied to him. Dr Mohammad Mosaddeq became prime minister in 1951 at the age of sixty-nine.43 He was by then a veteran politician who had begun his political career in the Constitutional Revolution having been elected as a deputy for Isfahan at the age of twenty-four. He was, consequently, very much a product of the Constitutional era, and epitomized many of its ideals and aspirations, even if at times his rhetorical flourishes laid him open to the accusation  – from the British in particular  – of ­demagoguery.44 Trained as a lawyer, his attention to detail and procedure, even to the point of appearing too clever for his own good, came to prominence when he argued against Reza Khan being elevated to the throne.45 He was subsequently marginalized from political life and only returned to the fray on Reza Shah’s abdication, securing a seat from Tehran in 1944. The world to which Mosaddeq returned in 1944 was quite different from that in which he had begun his career some forty years earlier. Social and economic change as well as the introduction of technology all ensured a changing political environment that was less the preserve of the elites, even if they continued to dominate its processes, and more reliant on an increasingly aware political public, as well one that had a broader awareness of the global environment within which Iran was becoming integrated.46 Iranian statesmen had had to contend for the better part of a century with the integration of Iran within an international system of power 43 A useful comparison might be made with Winston Churchill, who became prime minister at the age of sixty-three, but arguably remained very much a product of the Victorian age. 44 See for example FO 371 E 2181/2181/34, dated 3 May 1932, Report on Leading Personalities in Persia, no 28. This characterisation appears to have settled into the British narrative relatively early. The 1927 personalities list states that Mosaddeq ‘poses as a jurist and talks a lot of nonsense. Is nothing but a demoagogue.’ 45 See earlier discussion in chapter two. An indicative article from the younger Mosaddeq was one comparing elections in Iran and Europe for the journal Ayandeh, Vol 2 (4), March 1926. 46 On continued elite domination of politics, see Elwell-Sutton, Political Parties in Iran, Middle East Journal, 3 (1), 1949, pp. 45–62. Also, FO 248 1435 22/181/44, dated 22 September 1944. For detailed backgrounds of Azerbaijani deputies, see file 22/151/44, dated 18 May 1944; for Fars, see file 22/38/44, dated 19/4/44; Hamadan & Malayer file 22/126/44, dated 31 March 1944; and Khorasan file 22/103/44, dated 23 February 1944. For a not untypical character assessment of the foremost deputy from Kermanshah, see FO 248 1428, dated 7 June 1943. See also comments by Senator Khajehnuri, FO 248 1493 – General Political Situation 1950, 101/2/98/50, dated 26 May 1950.

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politics dominated in their case by Russia and Great Britain. But the level of social penetration, at least until the Tobacco Protests of 1892, was limited. Even then, contact between Iranians and the outside remained very much a case of elite interaction, whether it was Iranian politicians and statesmen, or their counterparts in the various diplomatic missions. Indeed, it is worth remembering that for most Iranians, ‘Britain’ meant in practice, British diplomats, and in rare cases their wives. While foreign intervention became more widespread in the post-Constitutional period, (most obviously in this case by the Russians), and especially in the First World War, it was the experience of occupation in the Second World War that dramatically escalated the social encounter. In this case the military occupation involved not only government by foreign powers but also the billeting of soldiers throughout the country. Preoccupied with their war aims, the Allied powers released the valve that had suffocated political activity in the latter years of Reza Shah’s rule, and politics effectively erupted back into life. But the impact of the occupation was further heightened by the fact that the occupying powers engaged in a competitive campaign to win hearts and minds. The Soviet Union was very keen to engender a sense of social grievance for which they had the ideological solution, whilst the Anglo-Americans were equally determined to counter the dissemination, as they saw it, of communist propaganda.47 Throw into this explosive mix the advent of new technology in the form of wireless radio sets – distributed generously by the Red Army – and one had a political environment which was more dynamic, more socially penetrated, and more prone to radicalization than before.48 Politicization through the medium of the radio had begun in earnest with the onset of war. Tehran radio was inaugurated in May 1940.49 BBC Persian service radio was established as a counterweight to the influence of Radio Berlin, and was used to some effect in undermining support for Reza Shah in the run up to the invasion. Interestingly, as noted above, one of the characterizations employed by the BBC was to define Reza Shah as the Zahhak of the age, a usage which must have reflected the fact that the Shahnameh and its motifs remained popular.50 Added to this was Radio Moscow along with other aspects of cultural penetration, in particular

47 FO 248 1410 – report of the British Consul in Tabriz, dated 29 December 1941. 48 See F Machalski, Political Parties in Iran in the Years 1941–1946 Folia Orientalia Vol 3 1961, p. 169. 49 Radio station in Tehran (FO 371 24583 E2093/2093/34, dated 10 May 1940). 50 Wilber op cit. p. 207

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theatre and cinema. The latter had an especially unexpected consequence on the minds of impressionable Iranian youth.51 Perhaps the most significant change was the extension of political consciousness. This was a process which had its roots in the educational reforms of the Constitutional era, and most immediately in the foundation of the University of Tehran, but which was catapulted forward with the introduction of the radio, which no longer required a literate public.52 This proved a dramatic intervention in political life inasmuch as it changed the nature of communication and by extension the character of discourse.53 It was a change that sat uneasily with many members of the ‘Republic of Letters’, reassuringly patrician and elite in their outlook. It sat more easily with a new generation of politicians trained and versed in the ideologies of the left. Marxism, as a system of political thought and action, had the peculiar advantage of being both intellectual and popular, and of appealing to both parts of the political equation. It became particularly potent when its ideas discovered synergies with Islamist thought. Marxism in its various forms had a long pedigree in Iran, in large part because of the proximity of Russia, and what might be recognized as socialist ideas peppered the thought of Taqizadeh who at one stage even argued that ‘socialism’ could be traced back to the Sasanian rebel leader, Mazdak.54 Taqizadeh’s appeal was probably as much opportunistic as born of conviction, an attempt to show synergy and connection between the ideas of the West and Iran. The growth of Marxist ideas emerged in tandem with the growth in education, and with the gradual industrialization of Iran in the 1930s, with the development of an urban workforce.

51 N C Crook, The Theatre and Ballet Arts of Iran, Middle East Journal, Vol 3, October 1946, p. 408. 52 T Cuyler-Young, The Problem of Westernisation in Modern Iran, Middle East Journal Vol 2, 1948, p. 130, notes that papers were often read aloud to groups. See also FO 248 1410; copy of a notice placed upon a wall in Tabriz, dated 24 February 1942; FO 371 75485 E6175, dated 13 May 1949 – includes translation of report by H Naficy – Statistics for the Principal Industries of Iran for the Year 1326 [1947–48]. Taqizadeh estimated that in the 1950s, only 20–30% of Iranians were literate, although he suggested that the figure could be as high as 80% in Tehran; see his notes in S H Taqizadeh, Opera Minor, p. 277. 53 FO 248 1531 10105/50  – Memorandum by Pyman, dated 28 January 1950; FO 248 1494 101/5/15/50, dated 18 February 1950, on government attempts to broadcast to minorities in their own language. Initially at least the new form of mass media did not assist standardisation. 54 Taqizadeh, Memorandum on Persia’s Wishes and her Aspirations addressed to the Peace Conference of Paris, 1919, reprinted in Maqalat-e Taqizadeh Vol VII, (ed. I Afshar), Tehran, Shokufan, 1356 / 1977, p. 724.

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Under Reza Shah, socialists were regarded as a problem – largely because they undermined the philosophical justification for the monarchy – but not yet as an existential threat.55 It took the Cold War to alter that particular dynamic. The immediate consequence of these developments, however, was a broadening of the political base and the inclusion of new groups within the political equation who were neither as literate nor as educated in political ideas as the generation that had mobilized for the Constitution. In terms of the ideology of nationalism and its dissemination, this broadening of political consciousness – a direct consequence of the nationalist imperative of broadening access to education and developing civic culture and national pride – represented the transition from the lateral to the demotic; this was a transition which the early nationalists had sought, but for which they seemed singularly unprepared. If they had found it difficult to explain their ideas before, the situation had now become all the more difficult. This is all the more ironic, because they were in the process of deconstructing and marginalizing the one medium of popular communication they had at their disposal – the moral framework provided by the Shahnameh. Moreover they lacked an organizational framework to manage and harness the new political environment. Political parties might have mushroomed in the aftermath of the abdication, but structurally these remained highly personal and elitist with little social base or consequently, stability. The left provided the one exception to this rule. As noted above, Marxist ideas could appeal both to the intellectuals and the masses. An early indication of the intellectual appeal came with the trial of Arani and the fifty-three, in 1937. Arani, who was born in Tabriz in 1903, was arrested as the leader of a communist group and later died in prison at the age of thirty-seven. His ideas and platform have been regarded as foreshadowing the development of the Tudeh (masses) Party in 1941, ostensibly under the protection of the occupying Soviet forces. Although heavily criticized for its association with the Soviet Union, and its somewhat dogmatic and simplistic interpretation of Marxism (some would argue Stalinist interpretation), it nevertheless represented the first genuine attempt to organize a disciplined party with a clear membership. In form if not in substance therefore, it was highly influential. Its dogmatic inflexibility reflected in part the need to maintain ideological discipline, rigour, and clarity as the party broadened its popular base. In this respect it provided a very clear and practical lesson of the consequences 55 Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, p. 38.

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of popularity on discourse and the dissemination of ideas. Its most significant weakness remained of course its association with a foreign power, a reality that would always make it vulnerable to charges of treason, and in 1949 following an assassination attempt on the Shah, the party was outlawed. The Tudeh Party was in any case the organized tip of a far wider and amorphous iceberg. Marxist and broadly socialist ideas, in offering a useful intellectual bridge between the elite and the masses, were here to stay, and permeated thinking throughout the political spectrum, not least what might be understood as mainstream nationalist thought. The nationalist desire was for universal education, employment, and welfare, all ideas that cohered easily with those from the left. Moreover, for the new Iranian left, adherence to these ideas seemed to offer membership to a new international brotherhood, as in the aftermath of the Second World War, and the defeat of fascism, new socialist governments were achieving power in Europe, not least of course in Britain. This then was the brave new world in which Mosaddeq re-entered politics, and it was one which arguably was particularly suited to his theatrical style. An indication that Mosaddeq could be carried away by the vulgarization of politics rather than confront it came with his ambiguous response to the assassination of Prime Minister Razmara. The Shah had appointed General Razmara prime minister in 1950, with a view to securing a satisfactory resolution to the brewing oil nationalization dispute with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the last of the great concessions. Under Reza Shah, attempts had been made to revise the lucrative agreement signed with William Knox-D’Arcy in 1901, an agreement which, almost without precedent, had set Iran’s royalties on the basis of ‘profits’ made by the company.56 Although Reza Shah had succeeded in abolishing most other capitulations on the basis that judicial reform would be implemented, the agreements with Great Britain were regarded, not least by Britain, as bona fide commercial contracts. They may have not been favourable to Iran, but they were legal agreements. Following a protracted dispute in which Reza Shah went as far as cancelling the old concession, resulting in a British appeal to the League of Nations, a revised agreement was signed in 1933 which sought to address some of Iran’s concerns. However the nationalist grievance continued to fester.

56 The original concession document ranks amongst the most peculiar contracts agreed upon because it suggests that Muzaffar al Din Shah thought that Knox D’Arcy was unlikely to find anything. I am grateful to British Petroleum for providing a copy of the original agreement.

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The two principle targets of nationalist anger were the British Imperial Bank of Persia, established as part of a compensation package to Baron Julius de Reuter in 1888, and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), founded in 1908 following the discovery of oil in Khuzestan. Both were regarded as vestiges of an earlier age – that of the discredited Qajars – and unhelpful reminders of Iranian impotence. This impression was not helped by the fact that both companies were managed by British administrators who took a distinctly colonial attitude towards the native Iranians, even those who happened to be well educated. Interestingly, this anachronistic approach to management was privately condemned by officials in London, who regarded it as unnecessarily provocative.57 This official ambivalence (bordering on distaste) could clearly be seen in the lackluster response to the dismantling of the Imperial Bank of Persia by a former employee of the bank, Abolhasan Ebtehaj, whose methodical deconstruction of the Bank’s activities effectively ensured its redundancy shortly after the end of the war. Ebtehaj’s achievement, conducted with little fanfare, showed what could be done without succumbing to populist hysteria and the temptations of ego. The AIOC was a qualitatively different matter in that it continued to represent Britain’s largest and most lucrative overseas asset at a time when the country had effectively been bankrupted fighting a world war. Moreover, oil remained a vital strategic asset. From the Iranian point of view, the nationalization of AIOC was the holy grail of the nationalist project; the last capitulation that had to be reversed, and such was the mood of possibility  – especially after the successful rejection of an oil concession for the Soviet Union in 1946 – that it would have required exceptional statesmanship to successfully ride if not tame this particular tiger. Mosaddeq’s qualifications seemed well suited to the age. A constitutionalist to the core, and a lawyer by training, his rhetorical skills appeared apposite to the time. He was in sum, both a patrician and a populist. The mood was becoming increasingly radicalized such that rational discussion on the future of AIOC was becoming difficult if not impossible. The National Front, a coalition of different political parties ranging from the left to the religious right, was actively agitating against any form of

57 See in this regard Bostock and G Jones, Planning and Power in Iran: Ebtehaj and Economic Development under the Shah, London, Cass, 1989, p. 73. Also G Jones, Banking and Empire in Iran: The History of the British Bank of the Middle East, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 318–19.

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compromise while more radical groups – in particular the Fadayin e Islam, had been responsible for the murder of Kasravi in 1946.58 Abdulhussein Hazhir, a former prime minister and Minister of Court was assassinated in 1949, the same year as the failed attempt on the Shah’s life, and it must have been with some trepidation that General Ali Razmara took office as prime minister in 1950. Razmara has been overshadowed both by the manner of his death and by the tumultuous events which surrounded the premiership of his successor, Mohammad Mosaddeq. Razmara was widely, and swiftly condemned for his opposition to outright nationalization which he considered impractical, and has been tainted by the accusation of treason. But contemporary accounts portrayed him as a staunch nationalist, a graduate of the French military academy at St Cyr, and someone with clear personal convictions.59 Perhaps most striking, given his military background, was Razmara’s view that power needed to be devolved away from the centre, a position that found no sympathy with the Shah, or indeed with members of the National Front.60 Indeed Razmara’s program on attaining office was very much in line with that of the Constitutionalists.61 His real problem appeared to lie not so much with his program – although there were obvious objections towards his overly pragmatic approach to the AIOC – but his manner and his roots in the army, despite the fact that he had resigned his commission and insisted on being addressed as Mr Razmara.62 Razmara was unduly dismissive of the populist mood and appeared to approach Parliament as a nuisance, very much in the manner of Reza Shah.63 Not only did this 58 FO 248 1493  – General Political Situation 1950, 101/2/261/50, dated 31 December 1950. 59 FO 248 1442 – Persian Govt. & Internal Situation 1944, 150/67/44, dated 12 June 1944. See also FO 371 82356 – Annual report on the army for 1949, File 1202, dated 1950 (no specific date). 60 FO 248 1493 – General Political Situation 1950, 101/2/152/50, dated 1 July 1950. A month earlier the Shah appears to have been supportive of the idea of decentralization, and his objections may have had more to do with the fact that they had, on this occasion, originated from Razmara, see FO 248 1493  – General Political Situation 1950, 101/2/118/50, dated 10 June 1950. On the National Front’s position, see FO 248 1493 – General Political Situation 1950, 101/2/170/50, dated 29 July 1950. 61 FO 248 1493  – General Political Situation 1950, 101/2/137/50, dated 28 June 1950. Razmara’s program included: devolution of authority to the people, execution of a seven-year plan, revision of obsolete laws and the independence of the judiciary, reduction in the cost of living, development of social justice, and special attention to health and education. 62 FO 248 1493 – General Political Situation 1950, 101/2/154/50, dated 10 July 1950. 63 FO 248 1507 – Ambassadors Conversations 1950, 101/48/16/50, dated 30 December 1950.

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obviously irritate the deputies, but it encouraged them to respond by characterizing Razmara as a stooge of the British. Indeed what is striking about the genesis of the dispute between Britain and Iran in this period is how the problem was contextualized as an internal Constitutional issue about the powers of parliament and the role of the monarch. Oil nationalization and the dispute with Great Britain was a test case of the power of parliament to legislate for the nation and was very much a by-product of a far more important struggle. The comments of a newspaper editor, Jalal Naimi, to a British diplomat are revealing: The National Front point of view was put to me very strongly this morning by Jalal Naimi, editor of the newspaper Keshvar . . . He said that the main object of the National Front was to prevent the interference of the shah in matters which should be dealt with by Parliament and to ensure that Persia should not again suffer under a dictatorship. He and his friends had sampled a dictatorship under Reza Shah and, despite the benefits which the latter had conferred on the country, were absolutely determined not to submit to a dictatorship again. The maintenance of individual and parliamentary liberties must appeal to the British people and their representatives.

He added for good measure, ‘If there were once a government acceptable to parliament the National Front would be very glad to come to terms with the Oil Company and this would not be at all difficult.’64 Moreover, Razmara himself was of the view that Mosaddeq’s popularity had less to do with his support of nationalization per se, and more because of his perceived opposition to the power of the Shah, which for Mosaddeq had to be limited.65 In a speech to parliament in 1950, Mosaddeq made his priorities very clear: the Shah, he professed, was a young patriot and a true democrat, who should refrain from intervening in politics. He commended Princess Shams for her Constitutional behaviour in contrast to Princess Ashraf, and according to the British observer, held up England as a good example of a democratic and constitutional government.66 This view, that the impending contest was principally one about the nature of monarchical government and rule, was reinforced by comments made privately by the leading landowner and court confidante, Asadollah Alam, to the British embassy, that what the country really needed was the 64 FO 248 1514 – Internal Situation 1951, 10101/2/51, dated 2 January 1951; the importance of achieving the aims of the Constitutional Revolution can also be seen in the manifesto of the Toiler’s Party; see FO 248 1514, 10101/240/51, dated 23 July 1951. 65 FO 248 1493 – General Political Situation 1950, 101/2/45/50, dated 15 March 1950. 66 FO 248 1493 file 101/2/109/50, dated 30 May 1950; see also his earlier comments on the role of the Shah, FO 248 1442 – Persian Govt. & Internal Situation 1944, file 150/118/44, dated 17 October 1944. See also Katouzian, Musaddiq, London, I B Tauris, 1990, p. x.

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‘guidance’ of the ‘will of a single personality’,67 a view later reinforced by the Shah’s own comments to the British Ambassador, Sir Francis Shepherd, when Shepherd showed himself ‘contemptuous’ about the ‘achievements of democracy’ in Iran.68 That the young monarch was jealous of his prerogatives and keen to be seen as both the authority and the power in the country had become evident during the liberation of Azerbaijan in 1946, a development which undoubtedly owed more to the wily machinations of Ahmad Qavam, but for which the Shah took full credit. Ironically it was then-general Razmara who spared no effort in painting the Shah as the hero of the hour – a new saviour for the country – whereas Prime Minister Razmara, in his enthusiasm to seize the political initiative, was clearly testing the Shah’s patience.69 Razmara, unfortunately, was caught between the irritations of his monarch and the frustrations of the parliament, both of whom were agitating for a particular reading of the Constitution. The issue of oil nationalization was the battleground over which this contest was fought, and the real tragedy of the events that unfolded Britain ultimately opted for economic interest over political leanings. That this should have been so should have been familiar to those Constitutionalists who had studied British behaviour between 1906 and 1907 (the signing of the Anglo-Russian Convention). Where once imperial priorities took precedence over domestic imperatives, now international imperatives, in the guise of the Cold War, likewise took precedence over domestic contests. One might say that the Iranians failed to see the forest for the trees when they gazed admiringly at the activities of Britain’s new nationalizing Labour government. Britain had just emerged bankrupted from a victorious war, which had threatened the country’s very existence, and it was now determined to reap the reward by constructing for itself a welfare state.70 It might equally be argued that the Anglo-Americans failed to appreciate the importance of the particular over the general, and the consequences for the radicalization of national politics in Iran. At the time, however, it is important to recognize that oil nationalization was 67 FO 248 1493, file 101/2/56/50, dated 25 March 1950. 68 FO 248 1493, file 101/2/119/50, dated 12 June 1950, Conversations with the Shah. 69 FO 248 1493  – General Political Situation 1950, 101/2/152/50, dated 1 July 1950. See also FO 248 1442 – Persian Govt. & Internal Situation 1944, 150/174/44, dated 2 December 1944; FO 248 1463 – Internal Situation Azerbaijan 1946, 69/467/46, dated 28 December 1946, Le Rougetel to Bevin. 70 The contradictions of a Labour government defending imperial assets in order to build a new socialist order at home may be set aside for the moment.

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not regarded as essentially anti-British as much as it being against a particular type of relationship. For many Iranians, the process of nationalization simply emulated the revolution in social and economic relations that was transpiring in post-war Britain. Khalil Maliki’s account of his visit to Britain in 1946 was full of optimism for the future: I have come to know their qualities and their love of freedom and democracy in a way I could never before. It is my belief that if British policy in Persia were interpreted according to the will of the people of this country and if the democratic and human tendencies of the average Briton were to be the active agents of British policy in Persia then many of the present difficulties of my dear country would be resolved.71

The notion that the people of Britain, as distinct from their government, might support a reforming, ‘democratic’ government would have been lent credence by the commentaries in the British media, some of which, emanating from the left of the political spectrum, viewed Razmara’s government as nothing short of a military regime imposed by coup d’état.72 Be that as it may, the manner of Razmara’s departure augured ill for the Constitutionalist project. Razmara had opposed outright nationalization on the basis of its impracticability. But that position combined with his brusque manner in dealing with parliament, and the jealousy with which the Shah guarded his own image, all ensured that the prime minister was politically isolated. His assassination, on the way to a meeting at a mosque, may have reflected the unfortunate propensities of an emerging era, but it remains depressing nonetheless that rather than encourage pause for thought and reflection, it was simply treated as another event, with the President of the Senate adding simply that it had been ‘unexpected’. Most, including members of the outlawed Tudeh Party, condemned the act itself, but there was little sympathy for the man, and the perpetrators, members of the extremist Fedayin, openly reveled in their triumph, while parts of the bazaar ‘rejoiced’ and members of the ulema demurred at the prospect at delivering the oration at Razmara’s funeral.73 It was the clearest indication that the authors of constitutional nationalism were losing 71 FO 371 52704, File 133 – Khalil Maliki’s visit to England 1946. 72 FO 248 1493 – General Political Situation 1950, 101/2/182/50, dated 15 August 1950, New Statesman article. 73 FO 248 1514 – Internal Situation 1951, 10101/78/51, dated 11 March 1951. See also file 10101/65/51, dated 12 March 1951. Sir Francis Shepherd notes, ‘It is however surprising that that he [the assassin] could so easily have succeeded in his design. Mr Alam did not see him break through the police cordon but he must have done so.’ For the position of the Fedayin, see file 10101/75/51, dated 10 March 1951.

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control over their progeny, which in the popular imagination was becoming increasingly identified with the ‘anti-imperialist/colonialist’ struggle, and at worst simple xenophobia. Such was the environment within which Dr Mohammad Mosaddeq found himself, finally in the position to be invited to form a government. Even now, carried away by the tide of populism, he showed himself a reluctant convert to the doctrine of antiimperialism, a doctrine that was in danger of becoming an end in itself. Addressing a crowd at the height of his popularity, Mosaddeq remained acutely aware of the dangers of populist nationalism: Here where you people are assembled is true Majlis. You know that we have done our utmost to reach agreement with them over oil but they do not want it. (Crowd – Death to them). Persian people will not surrender their rights through force. (Musaddiq and spectators began to cry). AIOC plundered us for 40 years but we were prepared to settle matter equitably, to employ British technicians and pay compensation. We were prepared to give Britain for several years 50% revenues . . . But British government would not accept this fair offer by you people of Persia. (Crowd – death to Britain). No, I will not have you say ‘Death to Britain’; we want God to guide British government to recognise our undoubted rights. (More tears). Britain rendered Persia great service with Constitution but then signed agreement with Tsarist Russia. She failed to impose 1919 Treaty but imposed dictatorship for 20 years.74

Quite apart from the theatrics and the familiar outline of Anglo-Iranian relations, Mosaddeq was keen to manage the populism and not let the crowd dictate the agenda. It was important to be seen to be reasonable and above all, legal. All staff from AIOC would be allowed to carry on working subject to their recognition that ownership had changed, and Mosaddeq was willing to provide the requisite compensation. Nationalism and populism had its merits and its uses, but the contest with Britain was a means to an end, not an end in itself, and ultimately relations would have to be re-established, hopefully on a more equitable and durable footing.75 To achieve this goal, it was important not to close any doors, not to be led by one’s rhetoric, and not to be both confined and defined by a myth of anti-imperialism whose ultimate effect would be to emasculate not empower. Concluding a report on Mosaddeq’s popularity and growing identification with Iranian nationalism, a British diplomat observed acutely that 74 FO 248 1514 – Internal Situation 1951, 10101/368/51, dated 28 September 1951. 75 See in this regard FO 371 104567, 1015/157, dated 24 April 1953, which notes that dissension in National Front ranks grew following the expulsion of British diplomats and the absence of a physical British presence.

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I do not think that Dr Musaddiq himself has any strong illusions about the vitality of his movement. I may be excused for relating an incident in which the wife of the American ambassador in a burst of not unwonted enthusiasm congratulated the Prime Minister on the spirit which animated the Persian nation and expressed the hope that it would continue and increase. To this Dr Musaddiq replied ‘Vous voulez que je traine la question du petrole?’76

Far more central to the contest was the relationship between the prime minister and his king, and it was ultimately this relationship which would arguably undo Mosaddeq. Indeed both sides in the dispute recognized the centrality of the position of the Shah because much of the debate about Mosaddeq’s longevity, and the orchestration of the coup which ultimately deposed him, centred on the Constitutional prerogatives of the Shah. Indeed the coup, which resulted in Mosaddeq’s removal from office in August 1953, was in its form, if not substance, a thoroughly Constitutional procedure that was predicated on the Shah’s Constitutional right to dismiss a prime minister. From the British point of view – and latterly that of the United States – the key to success was to persuade the prevaricating Shah that his dynasty was under threat. As the MI6 station officer in Tehran, Sam Falle, noted, ‘we must use all our influence, particularly with the Americans, to stir the shah into at least expressing an opinion . . . It can be pointed out that a continuation of the present situation is dangerous for the dynasty.’77 Mosaddeq sought to counter this by reiterating that he had no objections to the monarchy, but that the Shah must reign and not rule. The Shah meanwhile, remained convinced that only foreign powers could be maintaining Mosaddeq in power.78 For his part, Mosaddeq certainly grew to regard the United States as a source of salvation for the very reasons that the Constitutionalists had originally sought British support. In many ways the United States represented an uncorrupted version of British ideals, the ‘Republic of Laws’ writ large. Mosaddeq was provided the opportunity to communicate directly with the American people when Britain decided, unwisely as it turned out, to raise the stakes by seeking international condemnation at the UN Security Council. As the British were to subsequently concede, the

76 FO 248 1514 – Internal Situation 1951, 10101/277/51, dated 4 September 1951. 77 FO 248 1531 – Internal Situation 1952, 10105/230, dated 12 June 1952. 78 FO 248 1531  – Internal Situation 1952, 10105/54, interview with Alam, dated 15 January 1952, ‘the shah was puzzled as to where Musaddiq could be obtaining outside backing; although the shah did not say so, Alam thought that he probably believed the popular theory that he has secret British support; he was quite certain that the shah suspected Musaddiq still had American support.’

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lawyer in Mosaddeq reveled in the chance to make his country’s case in this most international of forums, whereas the politician in him played to a sympathetic American public – an American public which he stressed could empathize with the Iranian people’s desire to rid themselves of British imperialism.79 This was a thoroughly historical argument, which would have sat well with the likes of Shuster. But times had changed, and the British recognized that the priority for the United States was the Cold War and the challenge of communism. In the post-World War II world, gripped by another war in Korea, the myth of the communist bogey would likely trump the myth of the British bogey, and as much as American popular sympathies might lie with the battling Iranian prime minister, U.S. priorities lay firmly with Britain. Mosaddeq struggled to shake the notion that because of his apparent and increasing reliance on the support of the banned Tudeh Party, he was a Trojan horse for communist infiltration. Mosaddeq was undoubtedly sensitive to this charge, but as his premiership proceeded he became increasingly vulnerable to the accusation that populism was marginalizing his Constitutionalist platform. Under increasing pressure both economically and politically, and failing to see a way out of the dispute, Mosaddeq retrenched, turning a political tactic into a virtue and seeking extraordinary measures for exceptional times. But this resulted in the alienation of allies, both from the left and the right.80 Some feared the growth of revolutionary Marxism; others disputed his apparent abandonment of Constitutional procedure.81 The ends could not justify the means because it was the process and means by which the ends were achieved which mattered. Mosaddeq was soon accused, however unjustly, of using the very methods he decried in Reza Shah.82 Indeed, it should be remembered that Mosaddeq’s tenure as Prime Minister was turbulent, and it was this protracted sense of political malaise and perceived radicalization which perhaps more than any single factor proved his undoing. It was above all his failure to deliver on a Constitutionalist platform and his resort to populism, and in the eyes of some, the mob. This became especially apparent in his moment 79 FO 248 1531  – Internal Situation 1952, 10105/124, dated 24 March 1952; see also, 10105/184/52, dated 22 April 1952. 80 See for example the assessment, FO 248 1531 – Internal Situation 1952, 10105/187/52, dated 9 May 1952. See also, FO 371 104563, 1015/61, dated 2 March 1953. 81 FO 371 104562, 1015/30, dated 26 January 1953, letter from Mosaddeq to Majlis requesting extension of plenary powers. 82 FO 248 1531 – Internal Situation 1952, 10105/296, dated 7 August 1952.

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of triumph, when having tendered his resignation and having had it accepted by the Shah, he was returned to office on the back of a populist and cheering crowd.83 Supporters of Mosaddeq have interpreted these events as a successful forestalling of a coup, but Ahmad Qavam’s speech on the assuming of the premiership (however briefly) offers an interesting insight into the anxieties, certainly of the political elites: I condemn political demagogy as much as I condemn hypocrisy in religion. Those who under the pretence of fighting red extremists, are strengthening black reaction, have dealt a mortal blow to freedom and have destroyed the work done by the leaders of our constitution. I have a deep regard for our religious teaching, but I shall keep religion away from politics, and shall put an end to the spread of outdated superstitions.84

Indeed for much of the last year, rumours abounded about the possibilities of a coup, such that the continuing atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty eventually resulted in what amounted to a self-fulfilling prophecy.85 Characteristically the contest as it unfolded revolved around the position of the Shah, and those erstwhile political allies who had since grown disillusioned with Mosaddeq showed their displeasure by taking a more active posture in defence of the Shah’s Constitutional prerogatives.86 Particular anxiety was generated by the belief that the Shah was being encouraged to leave the country – a cataclysm which some argued was tantamount to an enforced abdication.87 Such were the sensitivities over the Shah’s position that Mosaddeq felt it wise to elaborate and explain his own position in a radio broadcast where he stressed that he had no hidden agenda with respect to the Shah and certainly did not want him to leave.88 If such attention was intended to reassure the Shah of his continued popularity, or more accurately of the continued appeal of the institution, it was taking time to take effect. Indeed the Shah continued through 83 FO 248 1531 – Internal Situation 1952, 10105/278, dated 22 July 1952. 84 FO 248 1539–17th Majlis Reports 1952, 10140/24, dated 19 July 1952. It is worth remembering that Qavam was arguably the most astute politician of his age and would have chosen his words carefully. See also Kashani’s accusation that Qavam sought to separate religion from politics, file 10105/268, dated 21 July 1952. 85 FO 248 1531 – Internal Situation 1952, 10105/341/52, dated 20 October 1952. See also FO 371 104565, 1015/124, dated 30 April 1953, Mosaddeq’s comments to the New York Herald Tribune about the possibility of a right wing coup. 86 FO 371 104563, file 1015/61, dated 2 March 1953; see also FO 371 104566, file 1015/141, dated 13 May 1953 which notes growing clerical support for the Shah in Mashhad. On general disillusion among the intellectual elite, see FO 371 104568, file 1015/181, dated 19 June 1953. 87 FO 371 104567, file 1015/157, dated 24 April 1953. 88 FO 371 104564, file 1015/104, dated 6 April 1953.

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to the summer of 1953 to be reluctant to openly challenge the myth of Mosaddeq’s ‘greatness’.89 The catalyst and arguably the final straw that broke the camel’s back was Mosaddeq’s decision, in a climate of economic austerity, to reduce the military budget through the forcible retirement of officers.90 Ironically this had been encouraged by his belief that the military remained all too keen to intervene in politics, and needed to be brought under tighter control. The reduction in the budget combined with the allegation that Mosaddeq was intending to strip the Shah of even limited Constitutional powers, and most controversially, the Shah’s role as Commander-in-chief of the armed forces, accentuated rather than diminished the sense of consternation. When the Deputy Speaker of the Majlis, Ahmad Razavi, a staunch supporter of Mosaddeq, sought to quell anxieties among the officer corps, he discovered that he faced an uphill struggle: Not until he reached the final phase was there any marked reaction from his audience, but at the first mention of the word Shah, the officers chorused ‘Zendebad Shahinshah Iran’. . . Razavi attempted to explain that the committee Report was merely a clarification of the Constitution, not an attempt to interpret it, but each time he tried to justify the government’s position, the officers stopped him with their pro-Shah cheering which interrupted the speaker at least six times. When he referred to the desirability of the shah’s ‘reigning but not ruling’ in order to maintain his ‘popularity’, the officers are said to have shouted their ‘Long Live the King’s’ with wild enthusiasm. Unable to get a hearing for the important parts of his speech, Razavi allegedly left the hall in a huff, much to the embarrassment of the Chief of Staff Riahi.91

In the circumstances, and within the context of Anglo-American agitation, it seemed a matter of time before an opportunity raised itself, to be eagerly seized by Mosaddeq’s opponents. The coup as it unfolded was a haphazard affair that exploited the Constitutional ambiguities Mosaddeq had himself allowed to develop.92 The procedure itself was Constitutional – the Shah after all was legally entitled to dismiss his prime minister – but it was reinforced by unconstitutional methods, the threat of military force, and above all the spectre of mob violence. The pervasive 89 FO 371 104564, file 1015/82, dated 19 March 1953. 90 FO 371 104566, 1015/133, dated 10 April 1953. 91 FO 371 104567, file 1015/163, dated 21 May 1953. 92 For a spirited defence of Mosaddeq’s approach to the Constitution and the view that he was as much a victim of circumstance as a facilitator of constitutional ambiguity, see H Ladjevardi, Constitutional Government and Reform under Musaddiq, in James A Bill & William Roger Louis (eds.) Musaddiq, Iranian Nationalism, and Oil, London, I B Tauris, 1988, pp. 69–90.

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social fear of anarchy facilitated a broad acquiescence to Mosaddeq’s dismissal. This uncomfortable reality would soon lend itself to the construction of a pervasive and pernicious myth of anti-imperialism, a myth that sought to exculpate Iranians of any guilt and any responsibility in this particular act of nationalist martyrdom. Indeed the oil nationalization crisis may be considered the first lens through which the ideology of Iranian nationalism was refracted and arguably perverted. No longer primarily a constructive exercise, it was increasingly defined through a confrontational posture against the other, and this exclusivity was as much against internal as external foes. This is the real tragedy of the rise and fall of Dr Mohammad Mosaddeq: the failure of the Constitutionalist experiment and the deep penetration of a narrative of anti-imperialism – in both form and substance93 – into nationalist discourse, whose singular effect was to contradict the very purpose of the Constitutionalists in cultivating civic and national responsibility. The doctrine of anti-imperialism would grow to acquire the function of a secular substitute for religious fatalism, and rather than be a means for national empowerment, became an explanatory tool and a justification for what amounted to a collective failure.94 The ‘capitalist West’ was no longer an actor among many, as the Constitutionalists would have liked; instead its position as the actor in political affairs had become reinforced and strengthened. It augured ill for the future that among the most influential proponents of this view was the very man the coup had intended to empower. The Waning of Constitutionalism The experience of oil nationalization was undoubtedly a blow to the Constitutionalist project and the construction of civic nationalism. Both Mosaddeq’s handling of the crisis and the complicity of the AngloAmericans in facilitating his dismissal cast a long shadow on the politics of Iran, and perhaps more importantly on interpretations of the past. The generation of the Constitutional Revolution – the acknowledged members of the republic of letters – were increasingly regarded as dangerously 93 The doctrine as understood here brought with it not only an absence of responsibility but confrontation, and by extension an exclusivity (with us or against us), which contradicted the Constitutionalist project. 94 It would in time become particularly potent when married to the Shi’a-inspired doctrine of martyrdom. In many ways the influence of Iranian Marxism can be defined in three interrelated themes: anti-imperialism, economic determinism, and a culture of resistance.

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naïve in their engagement not only with Western powers but with the very ideas that underpinned the idea of the West Younger Iranian nationalists sought refuge in the explanatory narratives of both Islam and the Left.95 Yet there is also a case to be made that this criticism and the conclusions that were drawn were themselves naïve, and that a basic reading of recent history would have shown that international actors regularly behaved in ways which paid little heed to the interests of Iranians. This was a reality of international politics which had to be learned, absorbed, and overcome. It should have come as no surprise that Britain would act in its own interests; the events of the Constitutional Revolution were evidence enough of this, and Taqizadeh clearly felt betrayed by British actions in signing the Anglo-Russian convention and effectively abandoning the Constitutional Movement.96 But the key for Taqizadeh and his generation was to recognize this, and to work towards ways of overcoming this particular obstacle. Above all, the responsibility lay with the Iranians, and if the British, or any other foreign power, had managed to manipulate the Iranians it was because they had taken advantage of Iranian weakness. The solution to this therefore was not to bemoan the actions of the other, but to take responsibility, and put one’s own house in order, so that such situations and opportunities could not arise again.97 Similar views were more vigorously expressed by Kasravi, who lamented the tendency to see all the ills of the country blamed on the cunning of foreigners. Iran’s weaknesses were not a product of foreign oppression but of poor government, and in Kasravi’s opinion, a reflection of social incoherence and division.98 In sum, the cultivation of civic nationalism, so central to the Constitutionalist program, had yet to take effective root within society. The consequence of this deficiency was an acute lack of depth in political understanding, exacerbated by the dramatic extension of political 95 For Katouzian, ‘Nihilism and the cult of death became popular among intellectuals and educated young people’. See his Sadeq Hedayat, p. 264. A particularly interesting letter, which was unfortunately anonymously sent to the British embassy, articulates remarkably well the sense of desperation and the consequent radicalization of views; see FO 248 1462 – Persian Govt. & Internal Situation, 1946, file 65/149a/46, dated 17 August 1946. It states, ‘About 2/3rds of the population of Iran is composed of peasants and tribesmen who are illiterate, ignorant, poor and wretched. Their only interest in life is to get enough to eat, which they seldom do . . . In recent years the Tudeh party has conducted a campaign against their exploitation, which has made them more conscious of this aim, which is for them their only interest in politics. Otherwise their apathy is unbounded’. 96 S H Taqizadeh, Opera Minor, pp. 291–92. 97 Hasan Taqizadeh, Maqallat Taqizadeh Vol 5, Tehran, Shokufan, 2536 / 1977, p. 216. 98 See Abrahamian, Kasravi, pp. 111–12.

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consciousness through education and the application of new forms of technology. As argued in the section ‘An “Unhappy” “Consciousness”?’, the transition of nationalism from its lateral to its demotic phase, the deliberate desire to disseminate through society a belief in nationalism and patriotism, brought in its wake the problem of ideological dilution. Complex ideas had to be simplified, subtleties discarded in favour of clarity. It should have come as little surprise that the scientific rigour of ‘Marxism’ and the uncompromising clarity of ‘Islam’ held attractions for a new generation of dispirited and ‘unhappy’ nationalists. But even their explanatory power was arguably poorly understood inasmuch as it was simplistically applied and adopted, and arguably one of the distinctions between the first and second generation of nationalists was their management of failure. At the same time, it is worth considering how the Constitutionalists, in seeking refuge in intellectual discourse and the development of historical narratives, themselves failed to fully challenge the radicalization (and simplification) that was taking place. There can be little doubt that they often struggled to make themselves fully understood, and Taqizadeh in particular complained that he had been misinterpreted, especially with respect to his earlier pronouncements on the bounties of the West. But as noted above, some of that misreading had been promulgated by the Constitutionalists themselves, including Kasravi. In fact for all the determination to adopt ‘scientific’ history, it is remarkable how a distinct lack of rigour remained in many historical works. As late as 1967, the noted historian of modern Iran, Fereydoun Adamiyat – himself a diplomat by profession – could complain of ‘basic deficiencies’ in historical research, contrasting the poverty of historical research with that of Europe, and adding that in his opinion the primary cause of this lay in the ‘fact that the writers (except in a few specific cases) are not trained historians or specialists in the discipline of history . . . They are heirs of the past literary tradition in which science, literature, history, poetry, literary historiography, and biography were all considered a single discipline, and historiography was not regarded as an independent science.’99 The problem was twofold. Not only was there fault in the methods used, but the production of historical knowledge remained deficient such that whereas British and European historians were busy compiling the new Cambridge Modern history – ‘which have little similarity to the former 99 Fereydoun Adamiyat, Problems in Iranian Historiography, trans. Thomas M. Ricks, Iranian Studies, Vol. 4 (4), Autumn 1971, p. 142.

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ones’ – Iranians had yet to produce one definitive study of the history of Iran.100 This was all the more problematic because as noted above, a number of constitutionalists (most obviously Taqizadeh) and doubtless Adamiyat himself, in their enthusiasm for the new methods, were quick to dismiss traditional poetic histories as little more that literary indulgences that added nothing to the sum of historical knowledge.101 Foroughi’s determination to retain the myths of the Shahnameh as a moral compass for the construction of civic nationalism did not long outlast his own passing. What effectively took place was a gradual process of narrative displacement, and henceforth Iranians would have to relearn their history. The Constitutionalists were certainly not averse to the undertaking but as Adamiyat suggests, they may have been unaware of the enormity of the task they had set themselves.102 Perhaps the only popular history of Iran which was available to the general reading public was that produced by Hasan Pirnia, and which nonetheless limited itself to a narrative of ancient Iranian history, drawn in the main from classical and Western secondary sources. The longevity of Pirnia’s history is testament both to his narrative eloquence and accessibility, but also undoubtedly to the absence of serious competition. Other contributors to the field included Taqizadeh himself, who sought to extend Pirnia’s history to the emergence of the Mongols, whereas Abdolhussein Zarrinkub provided a much more academic and intense study of early Islamic history in Iran.103 Zarrinkub and Adamiyat were probably the only two new historians of modern Iran F Adamiyat, Problems in Iranian Historiography, p. 146. He added for good measure that there was little point awaiting Western historians whose methodological progress was not matched by their knowledge of Iranian history. 101 Taqizadeh was quite clear on this; see Aghaz tamadon khareji (tasahol va tasmeh, azadi, vatan, mellat) (Acquiring Foreign Civilisation: Political Tolerance, Freedom, Patriotism, Nation), Tehran, Ramin, Tehran, 1379 / 2000, pp. 97–98. 102 Taqizadeh asserts, in correction notes written after the Second World War that ‘Educated Persians today know of the Achaemenians but the greater majority are ignorant of their existence.’ Human Relations Area Files: Iran, reprinted in S H Taqizadeh, Opera Minor, p. 277. 103 Hasan Pirnia’s history has been repeatedly published under various titles and occasionally combined with a less satisfactory history of Iran after the Islamic conquest. The copy referenced here is Tarikh-e Iran ghabl az Islam, Tehran, Namak 1373 / 1994. The other texts are Hasan Taqizadeh, Az Parviz ta Changiz, Tehran, Donya-ye Ketab, 1382 / 2003, p. 235; and Abdolhussein Zarrinkub, Do Qarn Sokut (Two Centuries of Silence), Tehran, Sokhan 1384 / 2006, p. 372. This was effectively rewritten in much more detail and with more qualifications as Hasan Pirnia, Tarikh-e Iran bad az Islam, p. 685. Almost unique among modern Iranian historians, Zarrinkub spends more than 20 per cent of his study (pp 17–154) on source criticism. 100

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who approached their discipline with a professionalism that would have been familiar to Western practitioners of the discipline, although even here their work was not without occasional lapses in objectivity.104 Both were subsequently criticized for not subscribing to the high standards they set themselves and others, although this should not detract from their overall contribution to the development of the field, which remains substantial. Certainly both sought to preface their studies with a rigorous investigation of sources, and crucially the use of Persian sources wherever possible. This was of course less possible for the narration of ancient history, and most writers were dependent on the traditional classical Greek and Roman sources used by Western historians. One area for which Taqizadeh may be held to task was his thoroughly orthodox and arguably Eurocentric understanding of the history of ideas, which elevated the Classical Greek experience and established it as the founding narrative of enlightenment and humanism. The idea of freedom was formulated in the classical world and could trace it intellectual lineage through the Magna Carta and the French Revolution.105 This, of course, reflected the state of the field and the fact that non-European contributions had yet to be explored. Nevertheless, it was not so much his adherence to this narrative, which in many ways continues to resists criticism, at least in popular circles, but his resolute and somewhat rigid commitment to it, and not surprisingly it rankled with a number of Iranians who thought such a view diminished the achievements of the ancient Persians and the Achaemenids in particular. Indeed just as the Shahnameh retreated from the centre of the historical stage, so too did the Sasanians, as Iranians anxious to reacquaint themselves with their real ‘historical’ identity sought succour with the Achaemenids. Ironically, given the criticism directed Zarrinkub, Do Qarn Sokut, p. 372. This edition, which happened to be the twentieth, is testament to the continued popularity of what proved to be a highly contentious interpretation of early Islamic history in Iran, and it may come as little surprise that it is prefaced by what amounts to a ‘government health warning’ from Ayatollah Motahhari. It is perhaps worth pausing for thought that a study of an event 1400 years old can be considered politically dangerous, an achievement which has made the text all the more popular among Iranians. For all its controversy, Zarrinkub’s work, including two preambles, one of which accompanied the first edition, is testament to his own methodological humility, as he warns readers that he is providing an interpretation, not a definitive history (pp. 23–24). 105 Taqizadeh, Aghaz-e tammadon khareji p. 63; A later articulation was provided by Saeed Hajarian in Jomhuriyyat: Afsoon-zadai az ghodrat, (Republicanism: Demystification of Power), Tehran, Tarh-e No, 1379/2000, pp. 381–82. Unfortunately in this case Hajarian confuses King John with Charles II. 104

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towards Taqizadeh, this made them all the more dependent on Western sources, as would become apparent later when attempts were made to provide an ‘authentic’ historical narrative. Be that as it may, Taqizadeh continued to articulate an inclusive and organic concept of nationalism, intimately bound with the idea of justice that nurtured it, and provided it with foundations for longevity.106 An imposed nationalism lacked roots and could not last.107 He also recognized that ‘nationalism’ had increasingly acquired negative connotations in part because Western powers had sought to identify the concept with extremism in order to discredit the various anti-colonial movements they were encountering. Extreme nationalism, and ‘playing’ at nationalism – mellat bazi – had to be condemned for encouraging chauvinism and even at times racism.108 Such developments were not to Iran’s advantage and simply accentuated and exaggerated the ethnic cosmopolitanism of Iranian identity.109 In revealing personal notes, Taqizadeh vented his frustration at the growing tendency to distinguish race and ethnicity especially as it related to his own home province: Persians not an ethnic group . . . Iranians do not understand this . . . culture and geographic area is binding force . . . language and religion is not important . . . culture is the most important . . . persian always taught in Azerbaijan . . . everyone 100% Iranian even when speaking other languages . . . can’t call Turkish speaking people Turks . . . they consider themselves Iranian . . . language impose upon them from the past . . . no Turkish . . . don’t read or write it . . . only Persian . . . everyone learns only Persian.110

A similar if somewhat distinct and more consequential argument was made against those whose nationalism was defined against the Arabs. This was a tendency, which likewise grew with the wider dissemination and acceptance, certainly by younger nationalists, of theories of Aryanism, but was a good deal more complicated because of the obvious association of the Arabs with Islam. The situation was further complicated by the fact that anti-Arab animosity enjoyed an authentic and traditional pedigree which not only drew on traditional historical myths, such as the Shahnameh, but Taqizadeh draws on examples from France, Habsburg Austria, Britain, and Egypt to argue that ‘nations’ are constructed from often quite disparate constituent parts; Taqizadeh, Aghaz-e Tammadon, pp. 69–76. 107 Taqizadeh, Aghaz Tammadon, p. 73 108 Taqizadeh, op cit. p. 77, the phrase used is mellat bazi-e efrati, ‘playing at extreme nationalism. This is obviously a variation on a theme expressed earlier in the pages of Kaveh. 109 Taqizadeh, op cit. p. 100. 110 S H Taqizadeh, Opera Minor p. 10. 106

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had been embedded within Iranian Shi’ism in traditional rituals such as the cursing of the Caliph Omar and the general dismissal of the first three Caliphs as illegitimate. Early nationalist thinkers, as noted above, also had a tendency to blame the Arabs, and to some extent Islam, for all the ills that had befallen the Iranians, though arguably this tendency has been exaggerated by later nationalists and commentators seeking an explanation for the radicalization of Islamic thought which followed. Indeed, although the Constitutionalists remained vociferous opponents of ‘superstition’ and the incompetence and intellectual incoherence of organized religion, as represented by the orthodox ulema, they likewise resisted the temptation to turn this into a dogmatic attack upon religion as a whole. This was in essence a practical problem of overcoming ingrained conservatism, and not at heart an ideological confrontation. It should come as little surprise that a movement that was antithetical to organized religion and its influence should have been characterized by those under threat as ‘irreligious’. There is sound historical precedent for this, and it should by extension come as little surprise that the individual who came to characterize the age – Reza Shah – should, along with his dynasty, come to be identified with radically secular and anti-religious sentiment. If such a view had some merit with the father, it was much less justified when it came to the son. Mohammad Reza Shah, in stark contrast to his father, appeared to embrace a profound spirituality and certainly was not shy about expressing religious sentiments, even if its primary function was to shore up what amounted to an acute lack of self-confidence. This has commonly been ascribed to a fear of his father, although as with much else that has been ascribed and blamed on the rule of Reza Shah, this has probably been exaggerated, and there is evidence that the relationship was a good deal more constructive and paternal.111 There is little doubt that Mohammad Reza Shah, as he grew into his position after a distinctly inauspicious beginning to his reign, regarded his father and his father’s achievements with awe, and was encouraged to emulate him in taking charge, but was also keen to distinguish himself from his predecessor. Reza Shah had sent his son to be educated in Switzerland, in large part because he believed that ‘modern’ Iran required a new type of monarch, essentially a constitutional monarch, albeit one who could navigate

Marvin Zonis, in his Majestic Failure, argues for a deeply antagonistic relationship. An alternative view is presented by Gholamreza Afkhami, The Shah, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2009, pp. 24–34, and certainly the facts suggest a more complex relationship. 111

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and manage the politics of a country in the throes of a political, social, and economic revolution. Mohammad Reza Shah’s educational sojourn in the West has sometimes been blamed for his lack of understanding and appreciation of his people, but in his understanding of religion, his determination to cultivate the ulema, and indeed his views and attitude seemed rooted in tradition and contrary to the views of the Constitutionalists.112 The new king espoused a belief in destiny that bordered on fatalism, and an appreciation of dreams  – which he regularly expressed  – that could easily be characterized as dangerously superstitious.113 Thus the young shah would recount that as a child suffering from an illness he dreamt of a visitation by one of the Imams, and subsequently ‘miraculously’ recovered. Later he would suggest that his miraculous escape from a series of assassination attempts (it may be added here that the Shah was remarkably fortunate to escape his first assassination attempt in 1949) reinforced his conviction that he had a destiny to fulfill if not a religious mission to accomplish. Such sentiments were undoubtedly tolerated in a youthful monarch seeking to find his feet following the forced abdication of his father, but they would have an altogether different impact on the political direction of the country once the youth became more confident and certain of his position, and perhaps more importantly when the moderating influence of the Constitutionalists had been dismissed, marginalized, or simply passed on. In the meantime, many of the ideologues of constitutionalism, anxious to stem the flow of radical, racist Aryanism, increasingly articulated an ambivalent and comparatively tolerant interpretation of the role of religion and of Islam in particular. This stood in some contrast to earlier criticisms and reflected not only the fact that the political terrain had shifted, but the reality of the possibilities of a religious backlash (Kasravi it should be remembered had been assassinated in 1946 and the Fedayin e Islam remained active), as well as an appreciation that religion remain an important social force for cohesion and a potential useful ally in the struggle for constitutionalism, and perhaps more importantly, as a counterweight to communism.114 Ayatollah Kashani after all had been pivotal FO 248 1514 – Internal Situation 1951, file 10101/214/51, dated 14 June 1951. 113 For a detailed account of the Shah’s supernatural pretensions, see A Rahnema, Superstition as Ideology in Iranian Politics: From Majlesi to Ahmadinejad, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 114–36. See also Afkhami, The Shah, pp. 25–26. 114 See for example FO 248 1444 – Internal Situation in Azerbaijan 1944, file 439/6/44, dated 6 April 1944, which notes the murder of the mayor of Maragha by religious extremists. See also FO 371 98720 – Attacks on Christians 1952, file 1782, E17802, dated 3 May 1952. Sir Denis Wright noted astutely in conversation with the Shah ‘that 112

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in mobilizing the traditional poor behind the National Front, and his subsequent withdrawal of support from Dr Mosaddeq was an equally significant blow to the cohesion of the movement and arguably was instrumental in facilitating Mosaddeq’s fall.115 But it would be likewise important not to read back into history the importance which religion would play in affecting Iranian nationalist sentiment. Kashani’s attempts at this stage to mobilize Iranians around a distinctly Islamic narrative of resistance invariably failed  – Shiism had yet to be revolutionized.116 In some respects therefore, it may be argued that the social function of religion appeared battered and bruised and was in need of some respite and succor.117 How this was administered of course, remains controversial and was arguably counter-productive. If historical narratives were to be shorn of their myths and reconstructed utilizing the methodological rigour of a new professionalism, this was poorly applied to religion, which even for some Constitutionalists, remained sacrosanct. At one level this could be seen in the sketching of the new grand narrative of Iranian history from the Achaemenids through the present with particular sensitivities towards interpretations of the fall of the Sasanians and the rise of Islam. Traditional histories, reflected in the Shahnameh, had tended to skirt the issue although no one could have read the letter of the Sasanian commander Rostam Farrokhzad with his tragic prognostications for the future without sensing a tremendous sense of lament for a lost civilization. Only Zarrinkub among the new historians appears to have tackled this problem with energy and a degree of historical rigour (in his ‘Two Centuries of Silence’), although as noted above he was subsequently to moderate his argument in the face of considerable criticism from the ulema. Others proved more sanguine and were prone to take Islamic historical accounts communism flourished in Italy in spite, or because of, the Catholic Church.’ FO 371 114811 EP1018 /46, dated 29 September 1955. 115 FO 248 1531 – Internal Situation 1952, file 10105/296, dated 7 August 1952; FO 371 104562, file 1015/51, dated 2 March 1953. On Kashani’s influence, see FO 371 104565, file 1015/126, dated 1 May 1953. 116 FO 248 1531 – Internal Situation 1952, file 10105/76, dated 21 February 1952; see also file 10105/325, dated 28 August 1952; file 10105/330, dated 30 September 1952; see also FO 371 68722 – Persian sympathy with Palestine 1948, file 520, E6689 dated 19 May 1949, E7338 dated 26 May 1948; FO 371 98719 – Kashani’s activities 1952, file 1781, E1781, dated 18 December 1952. 117 It says something of the depth of religious feeling that according to one diplomat as late as 1960, ‘it would probably be true to say that very few people, even in religious circles, care whether Iran has diplomatic relations with Israel or not. . . .’ FO 371 149777 EP1072/18, dated 2 August 1960.

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of the conquest almost at face value, reinforcing the view that the fall of the Sasanians was due to the ossification of the Sasanian polity, the vitality of emergent Islam, and crucially, the general receptiveness of Iranians to the new religion. One repeated example of Sasanian decay, decadence, and weakness was the suggestion, drawn from Muslim futuh (conquest) traditions, that the Iranians had to chain their foot soldiers together in order to ensure that they did not run away. It is drawn from the famous Battle of the Chains, fought between the Muslims and the Iranians, and is repeated uncritically, and without much explanation, by Taqizadeh.118 Interestingly, Pirnia is more sceptical, and although he mentions the battle, he argues, drawing his evidence reportedly from Tabari, that the name was given because the Iranians, in their overconfidence, had brought chains for all their anticipated Arab prisoners.119 The ‘chain topos’, as it has become known, is of course a literary device, and for all practical purposes, nonsense. As one recent historian has pointed out, the ‘absurdity’ of chaining together troops in battle should be ‘perfectly obvious’.120 That such myths should endure and indeed be reinvented is testament to the complexity of the relationship between history and myth, and a salutary reminder that myths have not been banished to the literary margins of historical discourse.121 Hasan Taqizadeh, Az Parviz ta Changiz, p. 185. It cannot be without significance that Taqizadeh seeks to manage the narrative transition by spending some 40 pages on explaining Sasanian decay, and some 130 pages simply providing the background to the rise of the Arabs and Islam. 119 Hasan Pirnia, Tarikh-e Iran ghabl az Islam, p. 228. Tabari appears to have used the topos for later battles. Zarrinkub in his piece for the Cambridge History of Iran Vol 4, p. 7, points out that the title of the battle was derived from ‘the resemblance of the ranks of the armoured Iranian cavalrymen to an iron chain.’ The battle does not appear to make it into his Do Qarn Sokut. It is briefly discussed in his Tarikh-e Iran bad az Islam, pp. 297–98, where he notes that the reference to ‘chains’ most likely refers to a misunderstanding by the Arabs of Iranian armour. 120 Lawrence I Conrad, The Chain Topos, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, Vol 31, 2006, p. 7. Both Byzantines and Sasanians were afflicted with this peculiar tactic. Conrad makes the important point that the original meaning of the Arabic term ‘salasil’ was probably lost in transmission insofar as the retelling of the story resulted in a description of armour being interpreted as leg chains. A more nuanced representation of this myth which sought to distinguish between the nobility of the Persian aristocracy (cavalry) over the obvious servility of the foot-soldier forced into battle was developed by Gibbon to reconcile the incongruity between Persian ‘civilisation’ and ‘barbarism’; see J G A Pocock, Barabarism and Religion Vol IV, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 23–25. 121 A much more recent example was provided by the noted historian of Iran, and Taqizadeh protégé, Ehsan Yarshater, who argued in 2008 that Sasanian collapse was a consequence of ‘old age’ and ‘biological processes’, adding somewhat worryingly that 118

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The metanarrative being supported and encouraged was in essence one of inevitable decay and decline followed by a national renaissance facilitated by the adoption of Islam.122 Indeed, henceforth the collapse of the Sasanian state was taken for granted, almost as if it was something of an embarrassment on which Iranians should not unduly dwell, and debate instead focused on whether the subsequent ‘national’ renaissance had been facilitated by the conquest or defined against it. Taqizadeh was certainly of the view that Iranians had been enriched by Islam, and he was critical of those who sought to define Iranian identity against Islam and to effectively exorcise it from the national body politic.123 He condemned those who sought to vilify the Arabs, and noted rather prosaically that the Egyptians did not vilify the Iranians for the Achaemenid conquest of their country and the removal of the Pharaohs.124 As for more recent history, Islam had most definitely played a very constructive role. Thus, Taqizadeh stressed the importance of Afghani as an intellectual and political precursor to the Constitutional Revolution (echoing Browne), while adding for good measure that the ulema had been vital to the success of the Constitutional Movement. More controversially, and in contrast to Browne, he dismissed as merely incidental the influence of the Babi movement in its various manifestations, or indeed the Bahais.125 Taken together with his rejection of foreign support or influence for the Constitutional Revolution, this may be seen as an attempt to protect the legitimacy of the Constitutional Movement by sheering it of any uncomfortable associations. That these sensitivities needed to be addressed can nonetheless be understood as a weakness of ‘it is not possible to offer a convincing biological explanation with the present state of our knowledge of genetics.’! See E Yarshater, Re-Emergence of Iranian Identity after Conversion to Islam, in Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis & Sarah Stewart (eds.) The Rise of Islam, The Idea of Iran Vol 4, London, I B Tauris, London, 2009, p. 10. 122 Yarshater, Re-Emergence of Iranian Identity, p. 11. Richard Frye also argues this in his Golden Age of Persia:The Arabs in the East, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1993, p. 289. 123 On Taqizadeh’s philosophy of history, see Gholamreza Vatandoust, Sayyid Hasan Taqizadah and Kaveh: Modernism in Post-Constitutional Iran (1916–21). Unpublished thesis, SOAS, 1977 p. 93. 124 Hasan Taqizadeh, Aghaz tamadon khareji, p. 83. Taqizadeh added for good measure, ‘the unfortunate Arabic loan words in Persian which have existed for 1000 years in the bosom of the Persian language, which we consider foreign but “tirboon”, “biografy”, and “bibliografy” and “consoltation”, and “parantez”, and “enstale” and “sujet” and “geramer” and “protest” and “cadeau” and “tiraj” and “giyomeh” and “titre” and “sen” and “klass” and “komiteh” and “commission” and “control” and another 50 European words, we don’t consider foreign.’ 125 S H Taqizadeh, The History of Modern Iran: Lectures Given at Columbia University, in Opera Minor, pp. 205–11.

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the Constitutionalists in the face of growing, indeed rebounding confidence among the senior ulema. Nothing better exemplified this than the government-endorsed Bahai pogrom that took place in Tehran in 1955, during which no less a figure than the Chief of Staff took a pickaxe to the demolition of the National Bahai Centre.126 By all accounts such a development flatly contradicted the ethos by which the Constitutionalists had sought to define the national project: an enlightenment project, which had in many ways been catalyzed into political action by the horrified reaction to the violent persecution of the Babis some sixty years earlier. The one signal and depressing difference was that if the bigotry of the nineteenth century could be laid at the door of a ‘reactionary’ clergy and ignorant populace, the pogrom of the twentieth century had been officially sanctioned by a government that professed adherence to the ideals of civilization and tolerance.127 That the Shah had reportedly acquiesced to the pogrom in order to assuage criticism from hard-line clerics did him no credit, and at least one diplomatic observer lamented that the Shah’s father would have never conceded such ground to the ulema.128 According to the British ambassador: Reza Shah must have been spinning in his grave at Rey. To see the arrogance and effrontery of the Mullahs once again rampant in the holy city! How the old tyrant must despise the weakness of his son, who has allowed these turbulent priests to regain so much of their reactionary influence . . . The modern record is indeed a sorry one, culminating in the Shah’s tolerance (if not encouragement) of the outbreak against the Bahai two years ago. When it got out of hand, and world opinion was aroused against the murder of innocent men . . . the Shah regretted his pandering and would have gone back on it: but by then it was too late and he has never got the mullahs back to heel again.129

It was not the end of constitutionalism, but it was perhaps the beginning of the end of a distinct phase, and it reflected how far the project to construct an inclusive and tolerant civic nationalism had yet to go to become firmly institutionalized within the body politic. Many had put their faith in Mohammad Reza Shah to continue, and fulfil the promise 126 FO 371 114863 Persecution of the Bahais file, EP 1781/6, dated 26 May 1955. 127 Some suggested, to the considerable scepticism of the British diplomat who recorded the conversation, that it was the Bahai affectation for internationalism which had resulted in a nationalist backlash. FO 371 114863 Persecution of the Bahais file, EP 1781/1 dated 12 May 1955. 128 FO 371 114810 EP 1018/20, dated 23 June 1955; EP 1018/29, dated 7 July 1955. The motives for this have been alternatively suggested as the Shah’s desire to avoid being blackmailed by ulema who had evidence of his playboy lifestyle and/or payback for clerical support in the overthrow of Mosaddeq. 129 FO 371 127075 EP 1015/30, dated 27 June 1957.

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of Constitutionalism begun in the early part of the twentieth century. He was young, progressive, and Western educated and although his reign may have begun in turbulent circumstances, the fall of Mosaddeq might offer a period of stability within which the achievements of the previous era could be consolidated and its failings addressed. But the nature of Mosaddeq’s demise cast a long shadow, and the stigma of illegitimacy hung low on the political horizon. Iranians may choose to forget or indeed blame others for the debacle – and the Shah would in time seek to erase the personality of Mosaddeq from the official historical record130 – but the truth was that a new narrative mythology was being eagerly constructed in which the Shah was being identified as the villain of the piece. In order to challenge and counter this narrative the Shah and his supporters had to reconcile the contradictions and construct a new, more persuasive narrative. There were a number of options on the table. But in the decade after 1953, the decisions taken were more ominous than encouraging, and the open persecution of the Bahais was a signal warning of the reactionary sentiments that remained close to the surface of ‘modern’ Iran, not least within the personality of the new Shah.131 Such sentiments augured ill for the future and not least for the Shah himself. As Akhundzadeh warned over half a century earlier, ‘So long as such absurd beliefs are entrenched in people’s minds, either a shrewd Bab will appear or a cunning religious master (sahib-i mazhab) will come and, in the space of an hour, will lure all these unenlightened people (who believe in jinn and satan and angels and miracles and blessings) and will overthrow the despot.’132 The Myth of the Saviour and the Construction of the Sacral Monarchy In his seminal study of the rise and rule of Napoleon, Jean Tulard argues that the myth of the saviour was a construct of the French bourgeoisie 130 See Shoja ad Din Shafa, Gahnameh-ye Panjah Saleh-ye Shahanshahi-ye Pahlavi (Chronicle of 50 years of the Pahlavi monarchy) Tehran, 1978. 131 FO 248 1442 – Persian Govt. & Internal Situation 1944, file 150/18/44, dated 1 February 1944, Bullard’s impressions of the Shah’s character. The personal nature of politics at the court is nicely summed up by Prince Ali Reza’s (the Shah’s half- brother) belief that the dynasty might be secured by joining the Freemasons, which would provide for a close personal link to the British Royal Family. The connection was understood to be practical not ideological. See FO 248 1513 – Royal Family Affairs 1950, file 10101/41/51, dated 19 February 1951. 132 Maryam B Sanjabi, Rereading the Enlightenment: Akhundzada and His Voltaire, Iranian Studies, Vol 28 (1/2), Winter-Spring 1995, p. 57.

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anxious to move on from the depredations and instability of the French Revolution. Napoleon may have been the author of his own success but he was helped by a receptive political elite and a French nation eager and willing to be ‘rescued’ from the miseries of their turbulent environment.133 The resultant political system, known eponymously, and critically, as ‘Bonapartism’ is generally understood as populist authoritarianism supported by a grateful peasantry and emerging middle class in an era of industrialization.134 The other characteristic which is often less cited is the rigorous ‘enlightenment’ rationalism that accompanied Napoleonic government and which was in many ways an extension of the Revolution. The myth of Napoleon was widely digested among the political elites of the Middle East, not least in Iran, where Napoleon was frequently cited in both in the Qajar and Pahlavi courts as the epitome of strong effective government.135 But like all myths this was a highly selective reading of history perpetrated in the main by the interpreters themselves who were impressed and not a little awed by the power, glory, and military conquest, and less affected by the political and legal genius which underpinned this. As Napoleon himself would have conceded, his greatest legacy was his codification of French law, an achievement which cemented the foundations of the French state and bound together the Empire which followed.136 Unfortunately much of this was lost on most of his admirers, and Mohammad Reza Shah was no exception.137 J Tulard, Napoleon – The Myth of the Saviour (trans. Waugh), London, Methuen, 1984, p. 350. One might add that in an Iranian context, these miseries had been, in large measure, self-inflicted. 134 Its critical appreciation of course owes much to K Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, of Louis Bonaparte, Peking, Foreign Language Press, 1978. It should be noted that a Persian translation exists. A good discussion of the malleability of this concept can be found in Jost Dulffer, Bonapartism, Fascism, and National Socialism, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol 11, 1976, pp. 109–28. Dulffer notes that although Marx introduced the term, he did not define it. 135 Naser al Din Shah was admonished to learn from the ‘great Napoleon’; see A Amanat, The Pivot of the Universe, London, I B Tauris, 1997, pp. 286–87. Amanat notes that he also admired Peter the Great (p. 431). Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza Shah were known to be admirers, although arguably the latter had a greater affectation. Bullard noticed a prominent statuette in the young monarch’s study, FO 248 1442  – Persian Govt. & Internal Situation 1944, file 150/18/44, dated 1 February 1944. 136 ‘There are only two forces in the world: the sword and the spirit; by spirit I mean the civil and religious institutions: in the long run the sword is always defeated by the spirit.’ Quoted in V Cronin, Napoleon, London, Penguin, London, 1971, p. 202. 137 This admiration would soon be overtaken by the Shah’s admiration for Charles de Gaulle, who according to Tulard was the modern expression of the Napoleonic myth of the saviour. 133

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Mohammad Reza Shah’s succession to the throne was by no means certain. Many Constitutionalists themselves were not convinced that a dynastic succession was in fact necessary. The despotism of the Qajars may have required the enlightened despotism of Reza Shah to direct and manage the transition towards modern nation-state, but that job being completed, some had conjectured that the time would inevitably come for the establishment of a republic, if not a democracy. The abdication of Reza Shah and the Allied occupation complicated this tidy progression, and widespread anxiety over instability or indeed a political regression  – symbolized by the rumour that Churchill was keen to reinstate the Qajar dynasty – ensured that the Constitutionalists rallied round the twenty-one-year-old heir apparent. It is of no small significance that the man brought back to manage this delicate matter was Mohammad Ali Foroughi. Foroughi was by then very much the elder statesman (he died soon afterwards in 1943), and his function was not only to manage the transition but arguably to mentor the nervous new king. Significantly, the first procedure to be completed was to ensure that that the new Shah read the oath of office in the Parliament, effectively being constitutionally sworn in as king. There was no ceremonial coronation; this was purely a legal procedure. The next stage was to effectively protect and nurture the monarchy, and to some extent the dynasty as the symbol of continuity, stability, and the constitutional order. Anarchy and instability, for the generation of the Constitution, could only remind them of the wasted opportunities and political losses of the post-revolutionary period. The Shah therefore, had to be retained as the ordered centre of the system.138 Unfortunately, for all his nerves and uncertainty the young Shah was often less willing to listen to the wisdom of his elders.139 As noted above he was frequently encouraged to emulate his father, and he may have got a taste for leadership from the front following the collapse of Pishevari’s government in Azerbaijan.140 Certainly the Shah seems to have enjoyed See the comments of the influential educationalist Isa Sadeq in this regard, FO 248 1474  – Persian Government & Internal Situation 1947, file 13/43/47, dated 14 June 1947. Sadeq comments that two thousand years of history had shown Iranians prospered only when there was a strong central ruler. 139 See for example FO 248 1485 – Persian Government & Internal Situation, file 21/25/49, dated 8 February 1949. One intriguing document dated 9 July 1942 suggests that Foroughi had a conflict with the Shah over the assumption of ‘dictatorial’ powers, although curiously it was Foroughi who was rumoured to be suggesting and the Shah resisting. The note is labeled ‘most secret’; see FO 248 1407 dated 9 July 1942 – HM Minister’s Relations with Shah, file 628. 140 See Razmara’s encouragement noted in the section ‘Mosaddeq, the Left, and the Doctrine of Anti-Imperialism’ and Ebtehaj’s warnings that the Shah’s mind was being poisoned 138

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a degree of popularity among the people, especially in rural areas, where traditional deference bordering on reverence for the mystique of the monarchy remained strong.141 Such sentiments had undoubtedly been broadened and enhanced by the failed assassination attempt in 1949, which resulted in considerable popular sympathy.142 But support for the institution of the monarchy was regularly mistaken by the Shah for personal affection, and from an early stage he failed to make what might be considered the modern, or constitutional, distinction between the office and the man. Indeed for all the apparent respect for the monarchy, there was growing irritation at the constant interference of the Shah in politics, combined with a disdain for his inability to make decisions or indeed perform the role to which he appeared to aspire. For some elder statesmen, he was simply incapable; others regarded him as a ‘weak man in a strong position’,143 determined to emulate his father but singularly incapable of the task.144 There can be little doubt that the Shah found his father a difficult act to follow. Even if Reza Shah was not liked, he was respected. In stark, somewhat frustrating contrast, the new king was finding it difficult to be taken seriously at all, especially by a generation of Constitutionalists, who regarded the new Shah as at best well-meaning, and at worst a parvenu.145 This frustration was compounded by the fact that a mixture of ideological and personal dislike ensured that he drew criticism from both the left and the orthodox clergy, for whom his lifestyle left much to be desired. Indeed the young Shah’s personal popularity became so contested by courtiers, FO 248 1442 – Persian Govt. & Internal Situation 1944, file 150/83/44, dated 16 September 1944. See also FO 248 1491 – Internal Situation Khorasan 1949, file 113/25/49, dated 31 August 1949. On the Shah’s idealization of his father, see File 150/81/44, dated 27 July 1944. On the continuation of sycophancy, see FO 248 1491 – Internal Situation Khorasan 1949, 113/25/49, dated 31 August 1949. Lambton notes that one admirer has become ‘shahparast’. 141 FO 248 1493 – General Political Situation 1950, file 101/2/196/50, dated 16 September 1950. See also Lambton’s comments, FO 248 1485 – Persian Government & Internal Situation, file 21/133/49, dated 13 April 1949. 142 For reaction, see FO 248 1485  – Persian Government & Internal Situation, files, 21/46/49, dated 11 February 1949; 21/44/49, dated 14 February 1949; 21/36/49, dated 7 February 1949. 143 FO 248 1485 – Persian Government & Internal Situation, file 21/163/149, dated 10 July 1949. 144 See Lambton’s assessment, FO 248 1485 – Persian Government & Internal Situation, file 21/13/49, dated 27 January 1949; also Conversation with Seyyed Zia, file 21/63/49, dated 12 February 1949; FO 248 1426: Interviews with the Shah 1943, undated. 145 FO 248 1474 – Persian Government & Internal Situation 1947, file 13/36/47, dated 26 April 1947.

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that even his more progressive gestures – the distribution of some of the crown lands – a move which drew plaudits from a number of liberals, drew equal derision and anxiety from landowners (one of the traditional pillars of the monarchy), for being dangerously naïve and populist.146 Moreover, contrary to his ‘Western’ education, the Shah early on exhibited a clear distaste for the processes of democratic and constitutional government such that he agitated for reform of the Constitution and limitations on the power of the Parliament with the addition of an upper house, the Senate, in which half the members would be appointed by the Shah.147 There were undeniably sound constitutional reasons for such a reform, and the Shah argued that the addition of an upper house would bring Iran closer to the constitutional monarchies of the West. But in private the Shah was more ambivalent about the usefulness of democratic practice for a country such as Iran, which he argued, simply was not ready. His sentiments, which revealed an early conviction of destiny, betrayed a shah less inclined to strengthen the Constitution and more eager to shed its constraints.148 If these ambitions were interrupted by the Oil Nationalisation, and arguably usurped by Dr Mosaddeq, they were firmly back on track following Mosaddeq’s overthrow. The Iranian ‘bourgeoisie’ may have invented their saviour, but the Shah, returning from a brief exile, grew to interpret these developments somewhat differently. Convinced that his people loved him, the Shah understood these sentiments as a mandate for the sort of government he yearned for: popular authoritarianism, where the king was mandated by a grateful people over the heads of the ‘reactionary’ establishment. He was emperor by popular mandate, much in the mold of Napoleon III.149 The Shah therefore made much of his first 146 FO 371 91519 – Shah’s Sale of Crown Lands 1951, file E1461, dated 12 February 1951. 147 FO 248 1474 – Persian Government & Internal Situation 1947, file 13/124/47, dated 13 November 1947. FO 248 1485  – Persian Government & Internal Situation, file 21/145/49, dated 3 May 1949. On the Shah’s inclination for dictatorial powers as early as 1944, see FO 248 1347/1438 – Internal Situation in Fars 1944, file 150/97/44, dated 5 September 1944, file 150/85/44, dated 14 August 1944. See also Gordon B Baldwin, The Legal System of Iran, International Lawyer, Vol 7 (2), 1973, p. 496. 148 FO 248 1493 – General Political Situation 1950, file 101/2/196/50, dated 16 September 1950. The conversations with Lawford, who went on a five-day camping trip with the Shah, are particularly revealing. Interestingly, sometime after the assassination attempt on the Shah, Seyyid Zia agreed that the Shah was ‘man of destiny’, but qualified this by saying his time had not yet come, and ‘the worst thing that could happen would be that he should go off at half cock’, FO 248 1491 – Internal Situation Khorasan 1949, file 21/290/49, dated 12 December 1949. 149 As Victor Hugo might say, ‘Napoleon le Petit’. Modern Iranian history is arguably littered with many variations on this theme.

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decade following the overthrow of Mosaddeq, identifying himself as a ‘democratic monarch’, even if all the while he was busy attempting to strip away the Constitutional constraints on his powers.150 The establishment may have invented its saviour, but the ‘myth’ was eagerly charting a direction of its own making.151 From Enlightenment to Cold War The aftermath of the coup provided a sympathetic environment for this approach as the monarchy and the Shah found themselves, briefly at least, in the political ascendant. It is testament perhaps to the depth of the achievements of the Constitutionalists that the process of consolidation would take the better part of a decade, but it was undoubtedly assisted by a change in the international environment which placed Iran firmly within the wider context of a Cold War narrative. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union differed from the Anglo-Russian rivalry of the past in that it was an ideological as well as a geopolitical struggle. If the British and the Russians had political differences, pragmatism might and usually did overcome them. The Cold War however was increasingly defined in existential terms which provided less room for manoeuvre and tended to excuse behaviour that might otherwise have been frowned upon. The Shah was acutely aware that his own position – if not the stability of his throne – depended in part on his being able to situate himself squarely within this narrative, and to be seen as indispensable to it. On the other hand the stability of the throne was arguably undermined by this association. It would be going too far, and indeed mistaken to lay the blame for the developments which were to follow on the international context. To do so would be to fall victim to the dogma of anti-imperialism criticized above. But just as the rise of Iranian nationalism must be understood and was shaped by the vocabulary of the Western Enlightenment, so too did the framework of the Cold War provide a new, more radicalized and uncompromising vocabulary. If the Shah sought to emulate his father in particularly acute areas, he fell well short. Torture, as noted above, had been largely eradicated in the case of political prisoners, who may have endured long periods of FO 371 Internal Political Situation 140787 file, EP 1015/2, dated 7 January 1959, Shah’s Interview with the New York Post, dated 3 November 1958. 151 Something of the Shah’s attitude towards politics can be discerned by the following statement he made in conversation with the British ambassador, ‘They [the people] might perhaps serve as clay: who then was the potter?’ FO 371 133006 file, EP 1015/50, dated 30 September 1958. 150

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incarceration but were spared the torment of physical abuse and punishment. Socialists they may be, but as one prison guard pointed out to his sovereign, this did not make them criminals, and they remained essential parts of an inclusive Iranian national fabric. This was the enlightenment project at its best, and even if Reza Shah himself might not appreciate the philosophy behind it, he probably could understand how it might favourably distinguish his reign from those of the Qajars. Torture does not appear to have been reinstated, certainly as an aspect of government policy, until after the fall of Mosaddeq and the installation of General Bakhtiar as military governor of Tehran. Although rumours had existed about torture under the military government – the existence of the euphemistically termed hamam (bath house) was generally popularly acknowledged – it took a lunch between General Bakhtiar and a local employee of the British embassy to effectively confirm that such behaviour was taking place. Ironically General Bakhtiar had called the lunch to refute the exaggerated claims of the public and the ‘Tudeh’ party in particular, which he argued were part of its propaganda campaign. General Bakhtiar was determined to set the record straight: For example, the bear had only been used once. (I understand this to be fullgrown specimen which is kept in a cage in the grounds of the Second (Armoured) Division of which general Bakhtiar is the commanding officer). Even then the bear had not been allowed to molest the person concerned. This had been a man who, at the time of the Murdad troubles of 1953, had sent a telegram to Mosaddeq strongly supporting his policy, attacking the Shah and suggesting that the grounds of the Royal Palaces should be turned into zoological gardens. They thought the bear would be an appropriate punishment for such sentiments and the man had been put in the cage, much to his terror, but taken out after he had expressed rapid repentance and before the bear had actually got its claws on him.152

Bakhtiar then conceded that the main tool of physical punishment had been flogging, which nonetheless had been used less in recent months. This report, quite apart from the consternation it caused among British diplomats, who now agonized on whether to act on the information, also pointed to a number of other important points: firstly that the Shah must have been aware of these activities, secondly that he was determined to stamp out the Tudeh (communist) menace once and for all, and that clearly all measures were justified in seeking this end. But perhaps the most striking development was the use of torture to terrorize, humiliate and break political opponents: a thoroughly modern twist on FO 248/1569, Torture in Iran, file 10117/1/56, dated March 11 1956. This extraordinary document is worth reading in full, including the notes in the margin. 152

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an old practice. There was no attempt to extract a confession, simply to strike fear. Quite apart from the change in attitude this reflected from his father’s reign, it also indicated – as could be read in the marginal comments of some British diplomats – that the Cold War brought with it a new set of exigencies. As far as the nationalist ethos was concerned, as with the Bahai Pogrom in 1955, the frontiers of what now qualified as treason were being increasingly tightly defined. The inclusive collective of the previous generation was being discarded in favour of an exclusive definition that placed increasing numbers of Iranians, on religious or political grounds, beyond the pale of national acceptability. This acceptability was increasingly understood in relation to the institution of the monarchy but latterly was being identified with the person of the Shah, to whose functions were being added the right to define the boundaries of Iranian nationalism.153 This was a deeply controversial position and its dangers became more acute as the Shah became more exclusive in his demands, not only defining treason in relation to himself but also assuming the prerogative to define Iranian nationalism. This was a crucial shift in emphasis because it tended to reverse, in political terms at least, the process by which an elite ideology (lateral nationalism) was becoming socialised (demotic nationalism). This was a process that would culminate in the sacral monarchy he would attempt to reinvent in the 1970s, and for much of the 1950s he moved awkwardly towards a consolidation of power and security for his throne. Ultimately the Shah would become the ‘nation’ in a process of ideological personalisation and identification which was arguably the only means by which he could reconcile the myriad contradictions of his rule. He sought at once to tacitly accommodate disaffected sympathizers of the National Front154 – a move which arguably led to further irritation among staunch loyalists – while at the same time attempting to diminish Mosaddeq’s stature as an icon of nationalism. Mosaddeq was not only unduly deferential to the British but was increasingly characterized as a promoter of ‘negative nationalism’.155 The abolition of the military government in Tehran was matched See for example FO 371 133006, file EP 1015/47, dated 24 September 1958; see also file 1015/34, dated 15 August 1958. 154 FO 371 120714, file EP1015/33, dated 29 September 1956. The Mardom party, ostensibly representing the left in Iranian politics and led by Asadollah Alam, was reportedly full of former members of the Tudeh Party, although this does beg the question of what membership of the party meant and whether it was generally used as a term of abuse against anyone who expressed left wing ideas. See FO 371 140790, file EP1015/78, dated 4 November 1959. 155 FO 371 133006, file EP 1015/47, dated 24 September 1958, Shah’s Press Conference. 153

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with the formation of the State security services, henceforth to be known by its Persian acronym SAVAK. The Eqbal administration was widely regarded as far too deferential to the Shah to enjoy either popular support or respect, and finally the elections of 1960 collapsed into farce and had to be rerun.156 Indeed by the end of the 1950s the Shah found himself just as unpopular as he had been at the end of the 1940s – an unpopularity that was opportunely staved off by a failed assassination attempt. At the end of the 1950s, the Shah’s unpopularity now extended to his foreign backers, specifically the Americans who grew to discover what the British had already concluded: that the Shah was more pretension than action.157 If the Shah could be excused such behaviour on account of the byzantine nature of Iranian politics, he would nonetheless have enjoyed more sympathy had he been less enthusiastic about occupying the centre of the political stage. Indeed, as it would reveal itself later in his reign, the Shah was keener on the acquisition and concentration of power than on the responsibility that came with it, and in this respect he sought to retain those parts of the Constitutional settlement that absolved the monarch of political responsibility while ignoring the important qualification about reigning and not ruling. At the same time one suspects that had the Shah shown himself to be decisive, much would have been forgiven. As it was he appeared to offer the worst of both worlds, a king who craved power but refused to exercise it.158 By the end of the 1950s even some of his staunchest supporters were beginning to appreciate that something needed to be done to reinforce the Shah’s position and provide him with some political momentum. Minds were concentrated by the bloody revolution in Iraq in 1958 and the subsequent military coup in Turkey in 1960. What was required, according to one of his closest associates, Asadollah Alam, was a bold move to seize the political initiative by launching a revolution from above, a bloodless revolution that would at once take the wind out of the sails of the Shah’s critics and place the Shah firmly at the centre of the political stage, as a champion of the people and a focus of ‘some patriotic aspiration’.159 Characteristically, although perhaps in this FO 371 149759, file EP 1015/105, dated 10 September 1960; FO 371 149760 EP 1015/121, dated 10 October 1960, and file 1015/123, dated 19 October 1960. FO 371 149758, file EP 1015/86, dated 29 August 1960. 157 Reference Qarani affair; see also in this respect, FO 371 133055 EP1671/5, Spectator Article, dated 3 October 1958. 158 In Lambton’s words, ‘There is nothing worse than a dictator who does not dictate.’ FO 371 114810 EP 1018/30, dated 18 July 1955. 159 FO 371 133006 EP 1015/34, dated 15 August 1958. Interestingly Alam recounts a conversation with a youth who states that he is for ‘nationalism without the Shah’. 156

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case not without some justification, the Shah was not enthusiastic about leading a revolution, and in any event his hesitation resulted in the baton being passed to Ali Amini, a former ambassador to the United States, in what might be considered the swansong of the Constitutional Era. Ali Amini was the last prime minister who sought to govern while the Shah reigned. Amini was perhaps the last to try and govern as the Constitution envisaged but it was perhaps a reflection of the degeneration of processes and institutions that his administration proved such a haphazard affair, so that much like Mosaddeq’s before him, he became vulnerable to the charge of acting in an unconstitutional manner. Amini was seen as someone who had the political authority and manner to push through what many regarded as essential reforms to the social, economic, and by extension, political system of the country. Along with his energetic Minister of Agriculture, Hasan Arsanjani, Amini promulgated a thorough process of land reform without waiting for ratification from the Parliament. It was in many ways truly revolutionary in its ambition; at its roots lay the belief that a civic nationalism could not be adequately inculcated if the peasantry (it should be remembered that Iran remained overwhelmingly rural) did not at once have a stake in the land they tilled and a more egalitarian relationship with their peers.160 By transforming the structure of economic relations, one could both anticipate and prevent the threat of communist infiltration and create in its wake a powerful sense of national belonging. Unfortunately, as with all such political panaceas, the ambition fell short in practice, not least because a number of assumptions on which it was based proved inaccurate, but more so because an economic program soon succumbed to the dictates of political exigency. It says something of the thorough penetration of Marxist ideas that one of the justifications for the program of land reform was that as a ‘feudal’ country, Iran was vulnerable to communist agitation and revolt.161 For all the frequent FO 371 140856 EP 1461/2, dated 15 January 1959; see also FO 371 157610 EP 1015/229, dated 1 August 1961; see also FO 248 1588, Arsanjani conversation with Kellas, dated 17 March 1962. Arsanjani had a characteristically caustic view of the tribes, describing them as a ‘vestige of the dark ages’, FO 248 1589, dated 4 December 1962; interestingly, ‘the revival of peasant proprietorship’ would have chimed with Kasravi, who according to Dadgah drew his economic ideas from the French Enlightenment thinker Simonde de Sismondi, Kamran Dadkhah Ahmad Kasravi on Economics p. 43. 161 An article in the Manchester Guardian for instance argued that Iran must be ‘defeudalised’. FO 371 133055 EP1671/13, dated 15 December 1958. See also FO 248 1580, dated 30 May 1960, Dr Ram in conversation with Kellas. See also the comments of the USOM adviser Webster Johnson, in an undated memo from 1960, in FO 248 1580. 160

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exactions of the landlords, Iran was a long way from being a feudal society as traditionally understood.162 Even Marx recognised this, having devised a somewhat unsatisfactory ‘Asiatic mode of production’ for all non-European societies. The notion of binding reciprocal legal arrangements between lord and vassal did not strictly speaking exist in Iran even if in many cases unspoken, informal agreements were practiced. The point was that a simplistic application of a concept led to a simplistic and standardised imposition of a remedy which in many cases made matters worse. For example, not all peasants by virtue of definition were poor; some indeed enjoyed quite extensive land holdings of their own.163 But perhaps more problematic was the sudden transition from a personal and immediate form of governance and mediation to one which was impersonal, distant, and distinctly unprepared. If the immediacy of the landlord, whatever his failings, was to be replaced by the rational bureaucrat, then a functioning ‘legal-rational’ bureaucracy had to be in place. The reality was to be somewhat different: Although such a revolution in economic relations concentrated power, it did so ultimately, not within the bureaucratic state, but with the personal face of the state, the Shah. Matters were to become even more problematic with the fall of the Amini administration and the decision of the Shah to finally and decisively seize the reigns of power. If Arsanjani had proved revolutionary in his ambitions and rhetoric, the Shah was not shy of continuing the process, seizing the mantle of revolution in much the same way as Mirabeau had sought to persuade Louis XVI to do.164 The Shah recognised the opportunity land reform presented to consolidate and centralise power in his own person through the disenfranchisement of the landed elite or aristocracy.165 Rid of these forces of conservatism, the Shah could henceforth build a new elite supported by the gratitude of an empowered and patriotic peasantry. It also signified the end of the traditional style in Iranian monarchy, and the beginning of the Shah’s experiment with a form of Bonapartism, albeit without the institutional and legal order to reinforce it.166 162 FO 248 1580; Ibrahim Mahdavi, dated 21 September 1960. 163 FO 248 1585 1461, dated 14 July 1961. 164 Quoted in Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the Revolution, Manchester, Fontana 1966, p. 52. 165 For an interesting account of Arsanjani’s views and the debate on ‘feudalization’, see the interview with Abbas Salvar in Tarikh-e Moaser Iran (Iranian Contemporary History), 1 (4), 1998, pp. 243–76. 166 See Ali Rahnema, An Islamic Utopian: A Political Biography of Ali Shahriati, London, I B Tauris, 1998, pp. 212–13.

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The Iranian landed elite (secular and clerical) were unsurprisingly unenamoured with this latest development. They were quick to see the hand of the United States in this latest apparent attempt to stem the tide of communism.167 There can be little doubt that the United States was anxious to encourage the reform of social and economic relations with a view to ‘modernizing’ the country and inoculating it against communist infiltration. But even in this respect the flaws were twofold. The idea that economic development could drive reform was one that not only echoed Marxist tendency to economic determinism, but also ironically shaped American policy within the overall frame of the Cold War contest against the Soviet Union. To quote Samuel Huntington, “In American thinking the causal chain was: economic assistance promotes economic development, economic development promotes political stability. This dogma was enshrined in legislation and, perhaps more important, it was ingrained in the thinking of officials in AID and other agencies concerned with foreign assistance programs.”168 One of the main reasons for this approach, continued Huntington, was that Americans had never had to develop government as they had effectively inherited institutions from seventeenth-century England.169 The consequence of this particular historical inheritance was that American policymakers spent insufficient time thinking about institution building. Matters were made considerably worse when economic aid was increasingly focused on the development of military and security structures. For the economic architect of post-war Iran, Abolhasan Ebtehaj, such short-sightedness not only perverted Iran’s economic development but also undermined its embryonic institutions.170 The most significant development in this regard, and the event which proved a nail in the coffin of the Constitutional project, was the decision by the Iranian government to ratify the Status of Forces Convention, providing extraterritorial judicial rights for all American government FO 371 149804 EP 1461/6, dated 8 March 1960; also FO 248 1589, dated 10 September 1962; FO 371 140856 EP 1461/1, dated 10 December 1959. 168 Samuel P Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1968, p. 6. Huntington is popularly held in Iran to have been the theoretical author of the ‘White Revolution’, which is ironic given the centrality of institutions and governance to his overall argument. 169 Samuel P Huntington, Political Order, p. 7. 170 Ebtehaj made his most damning critique of U.S. financial aid during a speech at a conference in San Francisco, after which, on his return to Iran, he was thrown into prison. See Bostock & Smith, Planning and Power, pp. 160–61. See also FO 371 149756 EP 1015/23, dated 8 March 1960. 167

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personnel working in Iran. The extensive reach of this convention reflected the size of the military mission and its associated organisations. The general indignation and anger provided a timely platform to one Ruhollah Khomeini, and effectively launched his political career, especially when the Shah saw fit to have him exiled. Yet Khomeini’s intervention, and the impact of the subsequent Islamic Revolution, has served to elevate his particular protest in the historical narrative and to hide the much more widespread discontent which existed. Convinced that ratification in Parliament would be smooth and inconsequential, the then–prime minister, Ali Mansur, persuaded the Shah that it would be better to have such an arrangement constitutionally and legally ratified. In any event, although the Senate did approve the convention, its passage through the Parliament proved stormy and a cause of major embarrassment to the Shah, not least because it coincided with a $200 million loan for the purchase of military equipment. In the words of one parliamentary deputy: I just cannot understand why does the Prime Minister insist that this bill has to be approved just in the way it is . . . You should know it for certain that the common people of this country hold higher respect for the Majlis than for the Senate. No such discussions took place there. They were then sorry that they approved such an important bill with all that hurry . . . The people disapprove what the Senators have done . . . This bill is applicable to all the personnel of the advisory missions . . . There are many on these advisory missions and most of them are sergeants. Now, it is all of these sergeants that the people complain . . . They say that if they go out with their wives and an American sergeant happens to pinch one of their wives there will be no place for us to file our complaint and follow up the matter. That is how people get mad. You read in the papers yesterday that an American sergeant killed three people running over them in his car. I had a similar case during my office in the Justice Department and you want to approve such a Bill. How can you do it without a guilty conscience? . . . why cannot we make it limited. We can say that officers of the American advisory missions since those may commit such felonies less than their sergeants . . . they get drunk less and offend less . . . that is all right but let us not extend the privileges to their sergeants. That is dangerous . . . If my child is overrun by an American sergeant and there is no court to take up the case, what am I to do? I will go and kill that American and that is going to be to the disadvantage of them as well.171

In the words of the British ambassador, Sir Denis Wright, ‘the grant of such privileges to foreigners . . . is even talked of openly as a reversion to Intervention of Sadegh-Ahmadi in the Official Gazette of the Majlis discussions, reproduced in Documents from the US Espionage Den (71), Tehran, Centre for the Publication of the US Espionage Den’s Documents [nd.] pp. 63–64; see also U.S. attempts to offer reassurances over such hypothetical cases, Memorandum: Immunities of American Personnel, in Documents from the US Espionage Den (72), p. 89. 171

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Capitulations.’172 Here lay the root of the offence caused by the Shah to a generation of Constitutionalists who had sought to construct a ‘republic of laws’ founded on an inclusive civic nationalism. In 1927, when Reza Shah has sought to abolish the capitulations, the foreign beneficiaries argued that they would do so only if Iran’s legal system were modernised, so it could be trusted and respected. The result was the dramatic legal reforms overseen by Davar. It may have been incomplete, but at the very least the foundations and been laid, and the expectation was that to the rights of the State would be added in due course the rights of the citizen. Faced with his own challenge in 1964, Mohammad Reza Shah was not only seen to have failed the legacy of his father but to have betrayed the Constitutional inheritance. The solution would have been to complete the reforms, but this was not done. Instead the Shah chose to pursue the consolidation of his authority with a view to radical economic development as a means of securing his particular vision of a nation-state. But this ‘nation’ lacked structure, it lacked institutions, and to paraphrase Huntington, it lacked order.173 Towards the Great Civilisation Commenting on the popular mood at the end of the 1950s, one British businessman noted that ‘Most Iranians resent being called Middle Easterners and are positively insulted when compared or identified with Arabs. They regard themselves as members of the Aryan family and therefore, related racially to ourselves. The subjects most likely to be welcomed by Iranians in ‘information’ literature are not the achievements of the British but the glories of Persia in the past and their present revival.’174 On one level there was nothing remarkable about this statement inasmuch as Iranians, certainly of the political and literary classes, had tended to see themselves as culturally distinct from the region they occupied. More awkward perhaps was the persistence of the racial association and identification which contrary to the intentions of the Constitutionalists, was becoming increasingly embedded within the ideational world-view of a new generation of nationalists. In amongst the anti-Arabism that Taqizadeh was so critical of was a renewed and reinvigorated faith in the achievements of pre-Islamic Iran which was not only simplistic and romanticised but reinforced a narrative of decay and decline which stretched to the FO 371 175712 EP 1015/27, dated 29 October 1964. 173 That Huntington is popularly seen in Iran as the author of the Shah’s authoritarianism, is another case of ‘Occidentalism’. A better term might be governance and regulation. 174 FO 371 140788 EP1015/33, dated 21 May 1959. 172

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moment of the Arab conquest. In this view, pre-Islamic Iran could do very little wrong. Khosrow Anoushiravan remained the model for ‘Just’ kingship, a view that would have in fact resonated among his Muslim successors and been popularised by the Shahnameh, but a recognition, which Taqizadeh argued, could not be applied to the modern age.175 The idea of justice, pointed out Taqizadeh, was quite different in the sixth century and was quite different to that development in the Enlightenment. But the Sasanians were receding out of view. Of more interest were the Achaemenids, of which considerably less was known beyond what was provided by Western and classical sources, but for which recent archaeological studies and research were providing new vistas for Iranian nationalists to populate. Although if some Iranian nationalists (or mellat-chis, to borrow from Taqizadeh’s lexicon) were to be believed, because these classical authors operated within an ‘Iranian world’ – such was the dominance of the Achaemenid empire – they were as much a product of Persian as of Greek culture and intellectual life.176 The Achaemenids were in many ways much safer than the Sasanians: they were suitably distant; they provided a much blanker template on which to project ideals and images; they offered a nemesis in Alexander the Great with no domestic complications; they were both familiar and to some extent popular within the Western imagination; and perhaps most important they provided a hero-figure who everyone could agree was a political titan of the ancient world, and, as if that were not enough, could lay claim to being the Lord’s Anointed, only one of two identified as such in the Old Testament. The figure Cyrus the Great, therefore, somewhat admirably ticked off all the relevant boxes. Most importantly, Cyrus provided a perfect model for the Shah to emulate and identify with. The Cult of Cyrus the Great As noted earlier, the fascination with ‘Cyrus the Great’ was largely a phenomenon of Western historiography until its reintroduction into Iranian historical consciousness at the end of the nineteenth century.177 The character of Cyrus, albeit mythologized, had featured prominently in both Hasan Taqizadeh, Aghaz-e tammadon-e khareji, pp. 101–03. Taqizadeh’s point would also be relevant to the later identification of Cyrus the Great as a champion of human rights. 176 Taqizadeh Aghaz-e Tammadon-e Khareji. p. 94. 177 I will distinguish here between the character of ‘Cyrus’ and that of Korosh (the old Persian pronunciation). The figure of Koresh, reflecting the Hebrew pronunciation, does appear in some Persian historical texts, including Mirkhwand, albeit much reduced in rank. 175

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Greek and Jewish histories  – most obviously the Old Testament  – and had been effectively reintroduced into Western political discourse by Renaissance writers such as Machiavelli.178 During the enlightenment, ‘Cyrus’ featured both in the cultural and political life of the European world, and Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, a highly romanticised and essentially fictional biography of Cyrus featured prominently in the library of Thomas Jefferson. The name ‘Cyrus’ (pronounced ‘Sirus’) also featured much more prominently as a first name among American Protestants, although much less so among their co-religionists in Europe. With the emergence of the disciplines of history and archaeology, the character of Cyrus was gradually reintroduced into Iranian intellectual and nationalist circles and hailed as the epitome of leadership and kingship. More important, his reign was seen to signify a historical moment, not only the grandeur of the first Persian empire but effectively the beginning of Iranian history and the birth of the Iranian nation. In Pirnia’s history, largely drawn from Herodotus but also utilising new archaeological evidence such as the Cyrus Cylinder, much is made of Cyrus’s exemplary qualities, his humanity, and the fact that in Pirnia’s view, he effectively revolutionised ethics.179 If Cyrus’s new role as the father of the Iranian nation was never in doubt, his role as the progenitor of Iranian history was more problematic, especially for those Iranians who discovered their history had been rudely truncated by his reinstalment. Rather than extending some five or six thousand years, the kingdom of Iran was considerably younger at some 2500 years (a view that Taqizadeh would of course have approved) and no amount of talking about Medes and Elamites (the latter were not strictly Aryans in any case) would resolve this chronological crisis. Indeed for many Iranians the problem was not so much the invention of a fictitious dynastic continuity from Cyrus, but the elimination of some sort of dynastic continuity to him. The adoption and reintegration of Cyrus and the Achaemenids effectively removed the Kayanids from the national narrative, a process which resulted not only in an obvious chronological transplantation but the removal of all the associated mythologies and the moral universe that went with them. These had to be replaced, and one of the tasks of a new generation of nationalist scholars – largely government sponsored – was to populate the sparse Achaemenid landscape with new N Machiavelli, The Prince, London, Penguin [iBook ed.], 2003, p. 58. Here for instance Machiavelli situates Cyrus with Moses. 179 Hassan Pirnia, Tarikh-e Iran ghabl az Islam, pp. 80–82. 178

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narratives which would provide it with meaning and purpose. Indeed, if men such as Foroughi and Pirnia could be regarded as intellectual partners in the nationalist project which was as yet relatively diffuse, the new generation was much more tightly beholden to the centre, and most obviously to the person of the Shah himself. What this meant was that the literature not only dealt with the broader parameters of Achaemenid history but more particularly focused on the role of monarchy – as symbolised by Cyrus – in the construction and development of the nation. One of the important if unforeseen consequences of this was a retrenchment and indeed reversal of the lateral transition to demotic nationalism such that not only were the people excluded from any discussion of national identity, but this right was increasingly and exclusively reserved for the Shah himself. This was effectively nationalism without any nationalists, in which the idea of the ‘nation’ was reified – and identified in the person of the Shah – and had rights which were regularly and vigorously championed, whereas those rights of the Iranians themselves were neglected.180 Thus the ideology of nationalism not only reflected the realities of rigorous centralisation under the White Revolution and the legal neglect of the renewed ‘capitulations’, but reinforced and sought to legitimise them. If the Reza Shah’s reforms had remained dangerously incomplete, his son sought to complete them, but in a direction utterly alien to the Constitutionalists who had politically underwritten the Pahlavi dynasty. Oil, and the economic growth it encouraged, facilitated this important shift in emphasis. Control over oil revenue allowed Mohammad Reza Shah a degree of cultural patronage his father could not have imagined,181 although it is worth bearing in mind that this growth began well before the dramatic rise in oil prices which were imposed at the end of 1973, and in fact was timed to coincide with the Shah’s coronation in 1967. The great paradox of Mohammad Reza Shah’s rule was that although the quantity of cultural production expanded exponentially, the consolidation of power which facilitated this renewed ‘oversaturation with history’ also constrained and stifled any creative space for imaginative and intellectually stimulating interpretations. The consequence of this was an extraordinary range in the quality of material produced, some of which was of undoubted value  – such as the Journal of Historical Research, produced by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but much of which alternated 180 One might say that for the Shah, la nation c’est moi. 181 See Kamyar Abdi, Nationalism, Politics and the Development of Archaeology in Iran, American Journal of Archaeology Vol 105 (2001) p. 66.

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between the vacuous and the banal. Moreover for all the energy directed towards putting flesh on Achaemenid bones, the source material was almost exclusively Western, and even here not necessarily the classical or scholarly sources used by nationalists a generation earlier, but secondary sources; all of which tended to be used uncritically. What it did shed light on however was the particular type of sacral monarchy which the Shah was trying to develop and to justify on the basis of historical precedent, albeit, and somewhat curiously, with very little direct reference to specifically Iranian (particularly the Shahnameh) traditions or indeed standard Islamic sources. In this respect Mohammad Reza Shah had more in common with his successor and heir, Ayatollah Khomeini, than he did with the secularism which had defined his inheritance.182 The more comprehensive and general historical studies sought to provide depth and relevancy to the Achaemenid empire, looking for instance at the wars of the Achaemenids from a distinctly Persian perspective in an effort to rebalance the standard Greek accounts. Dependant as these studies are on Herodotus, the focus remains on the first three kings of the Achaemenid dynasty, and the emphasis is on lessons learnt. To take one example, the failure of the Xerxes expedition to Greece in 480 BC is put down to a number of errors, including an apparent failure to appreciate that ‘war is the continuation of politics by an admixture of other means’, but crucially at no stage did the author address the political differences The texts include Majalleh-ye Baresi-ye Tarikhi (Historical Research Magazine) published by the Armed Forces, 13 volumes, 1967–1978. This was arguably the most interesting of the publications inaugurated in this period, with a good mix of articles. The other more ideologically driven publications include Shoja ad Din Shafa, Gahnameh-ye Panjah Saleh-ye Shahanshahi-ye Pahlavi (Chronicle of fifty Years of the Pahlavi Monarchy), Tehran, 3 Volumes, 1978, p. 3159; Manouchehr Honarmand, Pahlavism: Maktab no (Pahlavism, a New Ideology), Tehran, (no publisher), 1345 / 1966. (Vol 1), p. 135; Manouchehr Honarmand, Shahanshahi mashruteh-ye do hezar va pansad saleh-ye Iran (The 2500-Year Constitutional Monarchy of Iran), Tehran, M A Elmi,1346 / 1967, Vol 2, p. 125; Manouchehr Honarmand, Avalin va akharin hokumat jahani ya hokomat atefi (The First and Last World Government or Empathetic Government), Tehran Ofogh, 1972, Vol 4, p. 127; M R Pahlavi, Be Sooye Tamadun-e Bozorg (Towards the Great Civilisation), Tehran 1978; Nosratollah Bakhturtash, Diplomasi dowlat hakhameneshi (The Diplomacy of the Achaemenid State), Tehran, Army Chief of Staff, undated, p. 174; Nosratollah Bakhturtash, Bonyad-e strategi dar shahanshahi-e hakhameneshi (The Foundations of Strategy in the Achaemenid Empire), Tehran, Army Chief of Staff, undated, p. 404; Nosratollah Meshkati, Janghaye dowran-i mad va hakhameneshi (The Wars of the Era of the Medes and the Achaemenids), Tehran, Army Chief of Staff, undated, p. 440. Another notable journal that enjoyed a more general remit was Honar va Mardom published between 1962–1979. This contained a number of articles derived from the Shahnameh. 182

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suggested by Herodotus, instead concentrating purely on technical and military matters.183 The desire to apply modern theories retrospectively to the Achaemenids was especially apparent in the studies on strategy and diplomacy. What they shared is an attempt to root Iranian identity and behaviour in the distant past, a golden age which must be rediscovered and emulated, in which the monarchy, personified by the political genius of Cyrus the Great, was pivotal to the success of the Iranian nation. The notion that longevity brings authority and legitimacy was reflected in the pointed, anti-Western statement that governments of the American continent are so new as to enjoy only ‘1/13 of the lifespan of the Iranian monarchy’.184 But perhaps the most interesting developments in these texts revolve around the discussion and analyses of cultures and religion. Far from simply analysing the geopolitical realities of war and diplomacy – however inadequate these may be  – the authors tend to argue that Iranian success was due to an ethical and indeed spiritual superiority grounded in a Zoroastrian moral universe.185 One must not exaggerate the impact of such a development inasmuch as the Zoroastrian roots of an Iranian moral identity had been suggested by nationalists before and would have been familiar and to some extent popular in intellectual circles. But their use in such prescriptive texts indicated a broadening dissemination, and they were clearly more functional than the more abstract discussions of the past. Moreover, given the period being addressed, there was no comparative discussion of Islam. Perhaps the most interesting application of these ideas came from a writer by the name of Manouchehr Honarmand,186 who wrote a series of volumes on the broad theme of ‘Pahlavism’, seeking to situate it as a distinct and authentically Iranian ideology. Given the simplicity of this text and the implication that it must have been written for a wider audience, it is worth outlining its positions in more detail.187 The introduction to the text makes it clear that the monarchy is the centre-piece of the Iranian political system, and not surprisingly, the first Nosratollah Meshkati, Janghaye dowran-i mad va hakhameneshi, p. 342. 184 Nosratollah Bakhturtash, Diplomasi dowlat hakhameneshi, p. 1. 185 Nosratollah Bakhturtash, Bonyad-e strategi dar shahanshai-e hakhameneshi, pp. 329–43. 186 Despite my best attempts to situate this individual, there is no apparent record of him within a university or military context. It may therefore be a pseudonym. 187 The author for instance seems unaware that the ‘St.’ in St Augustine stands for saint, and instead has it reprinted as ‘S.T.’; see Honarmand Pahlavism: Maktab-e No p. 52. 183

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sentence begins with the Achaemenids, noting that 2500 years ago they brought about the largest monarchy in the world, adding for good measure that it was this monarchy which laid the foundations for Iranian culture and arts which has allowed Iran to retain its identity throughout the turbulence of history.188 Honarmand then proceeds to draw on Herodotus’ dubious account of the discussion by several Persian noblemen on the virtues of various political systems, with Darius eventually succeeding in persuading everyone that the monarchy is the best form. This hypothetical discussion has since been discredited by classical scholars as a creation of Herodotus himself; here it is presented as somewhat precarious justification for the monarchy.189 This story is indeed used to argue that a monarchy is the natural form of government for the Iranian nation, and that every system of government eventually and naturally returns to a monarchy. As Darius apparently says, Iranians must not ‘trample’ on the laws of their country – the implication here being ‘natural’ laws. Honarmand then concedes that this reading of Herodotus was actually taken from a Persian translation and summary of Will Durant’s general history of the world but this nonetheless does not stop him from arguing that the Achaemenids possessed a ‘pure’ ideology, adding that ‘The pages of history show that the Iranian nation has been offered other forms of government apart from monarchy, but that they always chose monarchy.’190 The underlying narrative is that the spirit of Iran has somehow resisted and/or assimilated all that have challenged it, and that real strength has tended to coincide with the existence of a just, centralised monarchy. Much of this could be regarded as an orthodox if not sophisticated nationalistic narrative although in its preoccupation with the past it tended to abuse rather than use historical narratives to the service of nationalism. This was increasingly a nationalism whose gaze was firmly fixed backwards, not so much to learn from that experience and move forward, but to very much hold in awe all that had been gained and lost. It could hinder the ‘attainment of maturity’, and inculcate a ‘dangerous mood of cynicism’.191 What Honarmand turns to subsequently both in this text and in a later volume was however considerably more interesting. First of all he refers to Zoroastrian scripture in praise of cultivators and farmers, in a clear M Honarmand, Pahlavism – Maktab-e No (Pahlavism: A New Ideology) Ordibehesht 1345 / April/May 1966, p. 1. 189 M Honarmand, Pahlavism – Maktab-e No, p. 3. 190 M Honarmand, Pahlavism – Maktab-e No, p. 7. 191 See Nietzsche above Chapter One, p. 24. 188

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allusion to the White Revolution (mentioned explicitly later in the text), and the Shah’s experiment in Bonapartism, circumventing the old elites in favour of the loyal peasantry and hard-working labourers. In a later volume entitled ‘Two and Half Thousand Years of Iran’s Constitutional Monarchy’ (Volume two of ‘Pahlavism), Honarmand takes issue with a Western reading of the Iranian monarchy, which has sought, in his words, to misinterpret a ‘constitutional religious government’ (hokumate mashruteh-ye mazhabi) into a ‘totalitarian’ absolute one (hokumat-e motlaqe-ye fardi).192 Iran’s monarchy is constitutional because it is inherently religious and intimately tied to religious structures which provide an ethical frame of reference for the monarch. This is not a monarchy constitutionally limited by law – certainly not laws made by man. The success of the ancient Iranian monarchy was defined by its adherence to this moral universe, authored in the first instance by Zoroastrianism, the introduction of which ensured that Iran enjoyed the oldest such political system,193 whereas the later dilution of the Zoroastrian ethos predicated the collapse of the Sasanian state.194 If Honarmand’s critique of the Western concept of Oriental despotism and its application to Iran was justified, his solution was altogether more problematic. In juxtaposing ‘religion’ with ‘constitutionalism’ he was drawing on two quite antithetical traditions which implied a Divine Right monarchy unrestricted by any legal framework beyond what might be considered a loosely ethical one, which would be interpreted largely by the monarch himself. This mystical monarch in spiritual union with his people bore a closer resemblance to the doctrine of velayat-e faqih than to the Constitutional monarchy envisaged in 1906.195 Indeed the Shah’s conviction that he was enacting God’s Will frequently drew ridicule from his critics, and such was the esoteric nature of his understanding that it often proved difficult to articulate.196 He came closest in a book entitled ‘Towards the Great Civilisation’: An important point to note is the real meaning of the word shahanshahi, which cannot be explained in ordinary historical terms. When it is necessary to translate Honarmand, Shahanshahi-ye Mashruteh, p. 7. Interestingly enough, he cites John Malcolm as the source of this error. 193 Honarmand. Shahanshahi-ye Mashruteh p. 66. 194 Honarmand Shahanshahi-ye Mashruteh pp. 50–51. 195 Khomeini’s theory was published in 1971 but must have been gestating for some years before that, making it synchronous with the Shah’s concept of empathetic, Divinely Guided monarchy. 196 BBC SWB ME/4203/D/1 dated 25 January 1973 – Tehran Radio dated 23 January 1973. Continued in ME/4204/D/1 dated 26 January 1973. BBC SWB ME/4423/D/2 dated 13 October 1973, Radio Iran Courier dated 5 October 1973. 192

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into a foreign language, it is normal to translate it as ‘Imperial’, but the meaning of the Western term Imperial is simply political and geographic, whereas from the Iranian perspective, the term shahanshahi has more than the normal meaning, it has a spiritual, philosophical, symbolic, and to a great extent, a sentimental aspect, in other words, just as it has a rational and thoughtful relevance, so too it has a moral and emotional dimension. In Iranian culture, the Iranian monarchy means the political and geographic unity of Iran in addition to the special national identity and all those unchangeable values which this national identity has brought forth. For this reason no fundamental change is possible in this country unless it is in tune with the fundamental principles of the monarchical system.197

Two ceremonies framed these historiographical and ideological developments: the long overdue coronation of the Shah in 1967, some twentysix years after he had been constitutionally sworn in at Parliament and the extensive ceremonies to commemorate the foundation of the Achaemenid monarchy by Cyrus the Great, which culminated in the Shah delivering in 1971 a eulogy at the tomb of his long dead predecessor at Pasargad. Both events reflected the rather eclectic mix of European and Iranian influences, although as reflected in the texts above, even the Iranian influences had been drawn through a distinctly European sieve. For all the efforts to imply a thoroughly authentic and Iranian coronation ceremony, with an extensive supporting literature,198 the coronation ceremony of Mohammad Reza Shah differed in some distinct ways from that of his father, which in its own way had marked a break from the immediate past.199 For the first time, certainly in recent history, an Empress consort had been crowned, a move that was widely regarded as progressive – although this symbolic development was not apparently matched by a change in the Shah’s own attitudes towards women and their influence.200 But as much as this development caught the attention of observers, it served to disguise other trends. One was the almost-explicit debt to the visual style of British coronations;201 another, M R Pahlavi, Be Sooye Tamadun-e Bozorg, p. 244. See also the Shah’s use of Arthur Christensen in The White Revolution, Tehran, Imperial Pahlavi Library, 1967, p. 1, ‘a real king in Iran is not so much a political head of a nation as a teacher and leader.’ 198 Khan Malek Yazdi, Shast Qarn-e Tarikh va Taj-Gozari, Tehran, (no publisher) 1967. 199 F Pahlavi, My Thousand and one days. London, W H Allen, 1978, p. 62. 200 F Pahlavi, My Thousand and One Days, p. 63; O Fallaci, Mosahebeh ba Tarikh (Interview with History), Tehran, Amir Kabir, 1978. The original in Italian was published earlier but was censored in Iran. The interview with the Shah was conducted in October 1973. In this interview, among other things he argued that although women may be equal under the law, they were not equal in ability (p 10). 201 Interview with Sir Denis Wright  – October 1996; Wright’s formal dispatch dated 30 November 1967 was more generous in stressing the ‘Persian-ness’ of the ceremonies although even here he acknowledges, among other things, that the Crown Prince was 197

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almost a corollary, was a relative absence of traditional Iranian forms.202 Foroughi, it will be remembered, had drawn heavily on the imagery of the Shahnameh to paint a picture of regnal longevity, justice, and inclusivity in Iranian monarchical traditions, complete with the presence of representatives from a variety of Iranian ethnic and tribal groups. This was the Shahanshah as king over kings. By 1967 this had been translated in a distinctly imperial direction. With ‘feudalism’ abolished and the aristocracy emasculated, there were no longer kings to be sovereign over; the Shah had become ‘Emperor’. As if to emphasise this distinctive interpretation, a seemingly grateful Parliament had earlier awarded the Shah the title of Aryamehr – Light of the Aryans.203 Quite apart it being a title awarded during the Shah’s lifetime, this title exemplified the way in which the new ideologues of Iranian nationalism were out of step with international trends in intellectual life. Even at the height of Reza Shah’s rule and the propensity of some to ingratiate themselves with the Aryan myth, it is unlikely that any such title would have been seriously considered let alone accepted by the monarch. Yet some twenty-two years after the defeat of Nazi Germany and the intellectual deconstruction of ideologies of nationalism that followed, far beyond the discrediting of racial theories viewed with such suspicion by Iran’s constitutionalists, Mohammad Reza Shah had decided to accept a title that suggested his leadership of a racially defined ethnic group. At the very least it should have been appreciated that the title would be open to misinterpretation. In being the source of ‘enlightenment’ for the ‘Aryans’, the Shah also appropriated and married two concepts that were ill suited to each other, to say nothing of the fact that in functioning as

encouraged to watch films of the coronation of Elizabeth II to be able to better model himself on Prince Charles, FCO 17/403 EP18/3. 202 The Shah’s speech on the occasion of his coronation is comparatively short and refers much to service, happiness, and progress. He notes for good measure that he has ascended the throne of the most ancient monarchy in the world (a turn of phrase that would not have been out of place in Chardin); Notgh-e Shahanshah dar hengam tajgozari (The Shahansha’s speech during the Coronation), dated 4 Aban 1346 / 26 October 1967, in Majmoeh talifaat, notqha, payamha, mosahebehha, va bayanat e olihazrat homayun Mohammad Reza shah Pahlavi aryamehr shahanshah Iran. (The collection of the publications, speeches, messages, interviews, and statements by His Imperial Majesty Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi Aryamehr Shahanshah of Iran), undated, Vol 5, pp. 4405–06. 203 The title was reportedly created by the scholar of ancient Iran, Mohammad-Sadeq Kia. It was granted in 1965. On the etymology of the term, see P Filippani-Ronconi, The Tradition of Sacred Kingship in Iran, in G Lenczowski (ed.) Iran under the Pahlavis, Stanford CA, Hoover Institution Press, p. 486, n 65.

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the source, the Shah appeared to be personalising the enlightenment, and identifying himself with this particular principle. This process was perhaps best reflected in the lavish ceremonies to commemorate the accession of Cyrus the Great and the establishment of the Iranian monarchy. The date of the ceremony itself was moved a number of times, having originally been scheduled for the end of the 1950s and conceived as something akin to the ‘Festival of Britain’, a moral boosting exercise to celebrate a national resurgence. By the end of the 1960s, when the date was settled on 1971, the celebrations had been refocused on the idea of monarchy as the pillar of national identity.204 This should not disguise the fact that the celebrations proved a major catalysts for the collation and publication of a wide range of materials on Iranian history, although the fruits of this development would not be realised until long after the fall of the Shah, but in the immediate term, the attention of both international and national opinion was on the scale and nature of the celebrations to be held at Persepolis and Pasargad. Much has been written about the event, especially the ill-judged juxtaposition of a national celebration apparently dependent on French cuisine, and the fact that the main event had failed to accommodate Iranians themselves – a very real manifestation of the trend towards prioritizing ‘Iran’ over the Iranians themselves. Similarly, much ridicule was heaped on the Shah, by Iranians themselves, for his oration at the tomb of Cyrus, in which he urged the founder of the Achaemenid empire to rest easy, for Iranians were awake. But a closer look at the speech also reveals to what extent the Shah had sought to transfer the ideals of the enlightenment onto the relatively blank template that was Cyrus the Great. According to the Shah, ‘We promise to preserve forever the traditions of humanism and goodwill, with which you founded the Persian Empire: traditions which made our people be the carrier of message transmitted everywhere, professing fraternity and truth.’ The belief that Cyrus the Great was the harbinger of the distinctly enlightened principles of humanism, fraternity, and truth, like all myths, enjoys some comparative merit.205 By all contemporary accounts, Cyrus was a remarkable political leader exhibiting a FO 371 175743 EP 1961/8, dated 4 August 1964; FO 371 140887 EP 1961/1, dated 1 January 1959, FO 371 175743 EP 1961/21, dated 21 September 1964. 205 This point was also made in an article in The Times dated 25 September 1971, which considered that Cyrus had founded a tradition of ‘humanitarianism’. The Shah’s conception echoes Hegel in his supposition that all history begins with the Persians. Hegel adds of course that with the fall of the Persian Empire to Alexander, the torch is passed onto the Greeks and Romans. See also Ramsbotham, FCO 57/323 2/324/1 ‘The 2500th Anniversary of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great’, dated 22 October 1971, p. 6. 204

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degree of compassion in government, which clearly struck contemporaries as something quite different. Yet as Taqizadeh might have pointed out, everything had to be understood in context, and the concept of justice and humanism in the ancient world, however commendable, could not be transferred to the modern age. This process was most obviously seen in the growing fetishism of the Cyrus Cylinder as a founding charter of human rights. As impressive a political text as it represents, to describe it as a ‘charter of human rights’ must by definition be wholly anachronistic. For all that it professed religious toleration, this was not framed in the language of ‘rights’ or indeed as a social contract between king and subjects, but as an act of political compassion and astuteness granted by a monarch to a grateful people. The fact that within a generation his successors would adopt different policies belies its efficacy as a charter with any legal consequence. As we shall see, the Cyrus Cylinder continues to captivate the Iranian (nationalist) imagination to this day. Along with the Iranian people, that repository of the nation’s myths and legendary history, the Shahnameh, had likewise not been invited to the celebrations. In stark contrast to the commemoration in 1934 (or indeed Reza Shah’s coronation), the myth of the Shahnameh had largely been side-lined from the official rhetoric of the state. There were a number of reasons for this quite apart from the dominance of the Cyrus narrative and the transition of historical myth to the realms of literature, including the salient fact that for the highly sensitive Mohammad Reza Shah, the text was not wholly sympathetic to the kings it portrayed. Not only did it sanction regicide in particular cases, but few of the kings were truly heroic in character, this motif being reserved for the panoply of heroes and ‘paladins’ which littered the literary landscape.206 Ironically therefore, the ‘Book of Kings’ was absent from this singular commemoration of the cult of Iranian kingship, and largely reappeared as a political tool among members of the left wing opposition. ‘Kaveh’ in particular, proved an extremely popular name among Iranians sympathetic to left wing politics, whereas the myth of Arash the Archer (not itself within the corpus of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh) was popularised in a modern poetic rendition by Siavosh Kasrai in 1959.207 Another popular figure in literary It is worth considering here the changing interpretation of the title of the text. ‘Shah’ in traditional Persian usage simply means ‘best’ or ‘huge’, and is often affixed to various commodities to denote such. In other words the title ‘Shahnameh’ could have simply implied the majesty of the text rather than its subject matter. 207 Other literary renditions of the myth came from Bahram Beyzai, reference Saied-Reza Talajooy. The figure of Arash appears in other ‘historical’ texts including Tabari’s history, a useful case of the ambiguous boundaries of ‘myth’ and ‘history’. 206

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and opposition circles was that of Siavash, whose ­selfless martyrdom was to incrementally transition and merge, for political purposes, into the increasingly ubiquitous myth of the martyrdom of Hussein.208 Indeed in vacating this mythological space, the Pahlavi state left it open to uninterrupted use and abuse by its opponents, and if the left sought to retain these myths for political purpose, the Islamists increasingly argued for the replacement of one mythology in the political consciousness by a rigorously Islamic one. The most influential progenitor of this process, as will be discussed later, was not a cleric but the lay religious thinker, Ali Shariati, whose writing and lectures played a fundamental role in revolutionising and politicising Shia Islam and its corpus of myths.209 At the same time, for all Mohammad Reza Shah’s apparent disinterest in the Shahnameh, the myths never receded entirely out of focus and indeed made something of dramatic and unexpected comeback in a series of interviews he provided to the Indian journalist Karanjia, published as a book in 1976. Here the Shah appeared to make characteristically esoteric allusions to his family’s connections with the mythological heroes and kings of the Shahnameh, intimating a view which had never really disappeared – despite the commemorations of 1971 – that Iranian history was 6000 years old, a figure that can only have been derived from an appreciations of the Shahnameh.210 In fact the most startling expression of this came from President Richard Nixon on his state visit to Iran in 1972.211 Indeed Nixon’s comments reflected another striking aspect in the development of these narratives: the (re) absorption of Iranian sponsored narratives by the West. It is of course important to distinguish between the ‘official’ Western response and those developed in the main by Marxist and liberal intellectuals (broadly and by no means rigidly defined) who See in this regard Peter Chelkowski and Hamid Dabashi, Staging a Revolution, New York, New York University Press, 1999, pp. 52–53. 209 Of course the more puritanical supporters would not regard the history of early Islam and Shiism as remotely mythological, any more than fundamentalist Christians regard Genesis as anything other than the literal truth. In this sense I challenge Shariati’s own assertion, which his own work did much to extenuate, that Islam had cut the people off from their pre-Islamic past. Even a cursory look at medieval texts eulogising the achievements of Anoushiravan show this to be historical nonsense. See E Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, p. 470. 210 R K Karanjia, Mind of a Monarch, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1977, p. 30. The Shah here suggests that kings such as Jamshid and Fereidoon were real historical personages. For his belief that Iranian history was 6000 years old, see FO 248 1485 21/143/49, dated 11 May 1949; file 21/275/49, dated 22 November 1949. 211 See ‘Toasts of the President and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, at State Dinner in Tehran’, 30 May 1972, Nixon Library, document number 181. 208

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tended to be more sceptical of the Shah’s claims of dynastic continuity (to say nothing of his new title, ‘Light of the Aryans’), much in the same vein as Edward Browne a century earlier; however, others much like Curzon were publicly at least willing to play along. The difference in the 1970s was that that the Shah was empowered by growing oil wealth and a capacity of patronage his predecessors could only envy. A significant amount of good and useful research emanated from this, with a dramatic growth in research journals and publications focusing in the main, although not exclusively on pre-Islamic Iran.212 But this new vibrant intellectual landscape was also populated by its fair share of sycophancy. Although the commemorations for the millennium of Ferdowsi’s birth in 1934 did not even warrant a mention in British diplomatic dispatches, the celebrations for the 2500th anniversary of the Persian monarchy were headline news. If the dedicated diplomatic dispatch proved reassuringly caustic and occasionally acute in its assessment of the Shah’s motives and overwhelming sense of destiny, the overall tone was nonetheless positive.213 Sections of the media meanwhile had few reservations. A special supplement in The Times for instance enthused that: To the people of Iran, the Institution of Monarchy is not a mode of government but is rather a way of life which has become an essential part of the nation’s very existence. This is at should be, for since the birth of their nationhood, the Iranians . . . have always considered monarchy and nationhood to be synonymous . . . the institution of monarchy has run like a connecting thread, even like a lifeline through twenty five centuries of eventful history, and has been the most effective factor in ensuring the Iranian people’s survival as a nation, with its own identity, characteristics, art and civilisation. It is often said that the Iranians owe the continuity of their nationhood . . . to their ability to adapt and to adopt . . . The real secret of this continuity lies in the institution of monarchy, which since the founding of the Persian Empire, has stood for nationhood, independence and unity. This has given the Monarch a unique role in the nation’s life, for he is not only the Head of State and the country’s foremost citizen but also the spiritual leader, mentor and paragon of virtue. He provides guidance in all the nation’s major activities and is the ultimate source of justice . . . In short he is looked upon as the supreme authority for ensuring the nation a happy prosperous life.214

Here were narratives of Iranian history and nationalism appropriated originally from the West, redefined, and effectively re-exported. The 212 A notable addition being the Cambridge History of Iran. 213 FCO 57/323, ‘The Dynasty Blessed by the Gods’, dated 11 October 1971. 214 The Times  – special supplement, dated 25 September 1971; see also G Lenczowski, Political Process and Institutions in Iran: The Second Pahlavi Kingship, in G Lenczowski (ed.) Iran under the Pahlavis, pp. 433–76.

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consequence was a peculiarly internalised semiological chain of mutual assurance and reinforcement which tended to exclude and deter even the most constructive criticism.215 It was difficult, as one former Iranian diplomat reflected, to criticise the King of Kings, Light of the Aryans, when the ‘West’ appeared to be endorsing his views.216 Narratives of Revolution The 25th Centenary Celebrations were in danger of producing a surfeit of publicity  – what is now left for the next 2,500 years, let alone the next decade?; ‘only the coming of the 12th Imam!’, as one Persian journalist put it. But, for the present, the Shah has undoubtedly made 20th century history. After all: ‘Is it not passing brave to be a king and ride in triumph through Persepolis?’217

The official narrative of the Islamic revolution of 1979 sources the origins of the movement to the street protests which had followed the vocal condemnation of the ‘White Revolution’ by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1963. The narrative of struggle, which has been refined over the years to gradually exclude all other contributory elements to the movement against the Shah, was, according to this particular interpretation, long in gestation, planning, and calculation to such an extent that it was, somewhat paradoxically, inevitable. This narrative of inevitability, the product of destiny, religious, or otherwise (structural causes made obvious in retrospect), has become so pervasive in the explanatory exegesis of the revolution that in the words of one historian, the history of Pahlavi Iran, indeed the entire narrative structure of modern Iran, has become ‘an exercise in retrospective prediction, leading all too often to the tempting but logically flawed conclusion that the fall of the dynasty was foredoomed.’218 Curiously, most sides in this historical debate have succumbed to this epistemological

This phrase is borrowed from Roland Barthes, Mythologies, London, Paladin, 1970, p 147. 216 Parviz Radji, the Shah’s last ambassador in London, argues that it was difficult to confront the myth when foreign leaders were competing to praise the Shah; transcript from interview conducted for BBC2 documentary ‘Reputations’ April 1996. It is worth noting here that the Shah’s opinions on the ‘decadence’ of the West and the failures of the British economy in particular would not have been out of place with those of Milton Friedman. 217 Ramsbotham, FCO 57/323 2/324/1 ‘The 2500th Anniversary of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great’, dated 22 October 1971, p. 14. 218 H Chehabi, The Pahlavi Period, Iranian Studies, Vol 31 (3–4), 1998, p. 495. See also with respect to the narratives of revolution the excellent study by Charles Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press (Kindle Edition), 2004. 215

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fallacy in large part because in de-personalising the process and removing agency, it absolved responsibility, removed guilt where necessary (intellectual and practical), and in one positive sense, could assist in the healing process. Even the Shah himself could become a ‘victim’ of destiny, and consequently not in control of events which somehow, and inexplicably, overcame him. Although the pervasiveness of ‘secular superstitions’ might lay blame on the mysterious machinations of foreign powers, in particular the British (a view the Shah and members of his family were not shy of voicing), or indeed to the intellectual incoherence of the Iranians themselves (a view both the Shah and Western observers were not shy in expressing), it was far easier for all concerned to ascribe the cause of this particular trauma to something altogether more grand and esoteric. This essentially religious frame of reference, in which agency and personal responsibility was largely subsumed under an uncompromising belief in the Divine Will, was as noted in the section ‘The Cult of Cyrus the Great’ a view as well suited to Mohammad Reza Shah, as it would have been alien to those of his father’s generation.219 In this sense, 1963 did mark the beginning of the Islamic Revolutionary movement, but the prime mover in this reinfusion of the religious and revolutionary thought into the political culture of Iran was not Ayatollah Khomeini but the Shah himself. It was the Shah, as we have seen, who introduced the notion of religious, empathetic monarchy, limited not by legal, or constitutional procedure, but by some vague spiritual ethic which situated the monarch as the lynchpin of the chain connecting the Iranian people to the Divine, arguably identified in the oath, Khoda, Shah, Mihan (God, King, and Country). Even if the Shah’s critics tended to exaggerate this oath for effect – it was after all borrowed from Western practice – the notion that staunch royalists might define themselves with the phrase Shah-parast (literally, one who worships the Shah), at the very least made them vulnerable to the charge of blasphemy.220 But far more than rhetoric, the For one of the Shah’s most explicit references to the ‘Divine hand guiding me to me destiny’, see R K Karanjia, Mind of a Monarch, pp. 89–90. 220 The phrase had been recorded by Lambton in 1949, although perhaps reflecting the overall mentality of the age, was neither as widespread nor open to the literal interpretation it would later acquire. Indeed the suffix ‘parast’ was appended to a range of words, not least ‘vatan’ and ‘mihan’ to denote patriotism, and in one case ‘almanparast’ (lover of Germans). The growing sensitivity to its use under Mohammad Reza Shah must reflect the increasingly religious sensitivities of the political culture and the Shah’s own spiritual pretensions. See FO 248 1491 Internal Situation Khorasan 1949, 113/25/49, dated 31 August 1949. For ‘almanparast’ see FO 248 1428: Majlis Elections, 1943, file 636, dated 7 June 1943. 219

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Shah effectively provided the ideational and material infrastructure for the revolution that would ultimately topple him. In this, the dramatic expansion in education, forms of mass media, and government patronage released by the tremendous expansion in oil revenues by the 1970s meant that the means of dissemination, social penetration, and impact grew exponentially.221 This demotic surge not only facilitated the penetration of ideas but it also widened the base of interpretation. Thus it was the Shah’s government that promoted the concept of continuous revolution, sought to mobilise people in a basij,222 encouraged the description of Iranian servicemen killed in action as ‘martyrs’, and increasingly identified Iran as a regional power with local interests and beholden to neither ‘East nor West’.223 It was the Shah, flush with oil money, who encouraged the development of an extensive religious network, financed sections of the ulema, and alternatively promoted and tolerated religious thinkers such as Ali Shariati. Religion was not regarded by the Shah as the problem; communism was the threat, and Shi’ism was not only a useful tool to combat communism, it fulfilled the Shah’s own sense of religious purpose. It was the Shah who encouraged the regression to highly personalised politics, centred on his person, and fatally it was Mohammad Reza Shah who failed to build upon the constitutional foundations of his father’s generation. Not only was Iran ‘not troubled by an overabundance of lawyers,’ there was a distinct absence of procedure with legal practice, much like political practice that depends more on who one knew rather than what one knew. As one generally sympathetic contemporary assessment observer noted, ‘it is no surprise that a large part of an Iranian lawyer’s work involves finding paths for clients through the labyrinth of government ministries, offices and corporate organisations. A lawyer’s skill must include knowledge of the personalities of officials, familiarity with family relationships, sensitivity to the aspirations of employees, University education expanded dramatically with another university for Tehran (The National University, 1959), and perhaps the most successful foundation, Aryamehr Technical University (later renamed Sharif), in 1965. 222 Rastakhiz, 26 Bahman 1355/2535 / 14 February 1977, p. 4. 223 FO 371 180804 EP 1942/6, dated 12 April 1965; Rastakhiz 6 Bahman 2535/1355 / 22 January 1977, p. 1; Rastakhiz 14 Mehr 1355/2535 / 5 October 1976, pp. 13–14. The use of the term ‘martyr’ was of course popular in both religious and left wing circles. On neither East nor West, see BBC SWB ME/3562/D/1, dated 17 December 1970, Hoveida’s speech to the Central Committee of the Iran Novin Party, dated 15 December 1970. See also BBC SWB ME/3568/D/1, dated 28 December 1970 – Hoveida’s statement to Iran Novin Party meeting, dated 22 December 1970; its Iranian intellectual pedigree can be traced to the ‘Third Way’ outlined by Khalil Maliki during the Oil Nationalisation Crisis. 221

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and tact. Iranians treasure friendships, and family ties are extensive and strong.’224 This was a long way from the Republic of Laws envisaged by the Constitutionalists. Indeed the Shah went further in seeking to place distance between himself and his achievements as he understood them, and those of his father’s generation. Although the Shah had facilitated the designation of the suffix ‘Great’ for his father, buoyed by oil wealth and dramatic economic expansion, the Shah now sought to rewrite the historical record to place himself firmly at the centre of all developments.225 Whereas it might not come as a surprise to learn that leading Constitutionalists had been removed from the official historical narrative – most obviously Mosaddeq, who by the 1970s had been effectively airbrushed out – more striking was the diminution of Reza Shah’s achievements in comparison to that of the son. The official chronicle of the Pahlavi dynasty  – Gah-Nameh-ye Panjah Sal-e Shahanshahi-e Pahlavi  – was published in 1976 to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the dynasty.226 The Chronicle, totalling some three volumes and 3159 pages, is remarkable for reasons of both form and substance. Here, in stark contrast to the developing discipline of historical writing was an official royal chronicle, listing dates and events, intended purely to praise the sitting monarch and consisting in the main of selectively embellished facts. The narrative arc, if it could be described as such, focused almost exclusively on the achievements of Mohammad Reza Shah and the appreciation heaped on him not only by a grateful people but by a clearly impressed international community. Leading Iranian statesmen who may be expected to populate such a large and extensive chronicle were largely missing or swiftly dismissed, and Mosaddeq was fortunate to be mentioned, if only as a villain who had acted unconstitutionally. Most striking however was the fact that the rule of Reza Shah occupied the first two hundred pages, followed by 800 pages through to 1956, the next thousand pages to the coronation, and the last thousand pages to cover the period 1967–1977. The narrative intent was clear, and it is perhaps worth remembering that it was Mohammad Reza Shah, not the 224 G Baldwin, The Legal System of Iran, p. 503. 225 Curiously, one writer in the heyday of Pahlavi grandeur suggested that this conferment effectively sacralised Reza Shah’s monarchy by placing on a par with the Roman concept of ‘Divus Imperator’! Filappani-Ronconi, The Tradition of Sacred Kingship in Iran, p. 485, n. 63. 226 Shoja ad Din Shafa, Gahnameh-ye Panjah Saleh-ye Shahanshahi-ye Pahlavi, Tehran, 1978.

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Islamic Revolutionaries, who first sought to relegate the achievements of the Constitutional era to the status of footnote. This process would be reinforced following the revolution, when the sins of the son were visited upon the father. Among the most egregious of these sins was the decision announced by imperial decree and applied in the Chronicle to introduce a new ‘Imperial’ calendar dated from the accession of Cyrus the Great in 559 BC. The motives behind such a dramatic and extraordinary gesture have never been fully articulated although it could be regarded as a logical if reckless extension of the Shah’s general preoccupation with Cyrus the Great. That Iranians found themselves in March 1976 suddenly living in the year 2535 when five years earlier, they had witnessed the 2500th anniversary of the Persian monarchy, must also have caused some confusion. The dating was on this occasion in fact more accurate, and it cannot have escaped the esoteric nature of the Shah’s character that the 2500th anniversary of Cyrus’s accession coincided with the Shah’s own accession to the throne in 1941. His reign thus fortuitously marked the beginning of the next 2500 years. It may also be speculated that the Shah sought to outdo his father’s achievements by imposing a more purely ‘Iranian’ calendar, but if so it was a poor reading of that achievement and one that ironically sought to institutionalise a Western dating of ‘Persian’ history onto Iran. It also simplified and misunderstood the nationalist agenda of the Constitutional era. But if some nationalists remained ambivalent towards the change in calendar they found themselves more easily offended by the Shah’s decision to abolish the two-party system – however fictional the distinction had become in reality – and replace it with a single party, the Resurrection Party (Rastakhiz). If the Shah’s haughty pronouncements on the reason he had decided to move in the direction of a one-party state were not enough, his subsequent announcement that those who declined to join the party were clearly traitors and could pick up their passports and leave the country enraged many nationalists who should have been the Shah’s natural constituents.227 Indeed with the establishment of the one-party state, the Shah took to describing himself as the commander (farmandeh) who issued decrees (farmans), arguably liberating himself from whatever Constitutional limits remained.228 The reality therefore is that by the 1970s, invigorated by growing oil revenues, the Shah had BBC SWB ME/4845/D/1 dated 4 March 1975, Shah’s press conference, dated 2 March 1975. 228 Falsafe-ye enghelab-e Iran (The Philosophy of the Iranian Revolution), in Rastakhiz Newspaper no 452, Wednesday 5 Aban 2535 / 26 October 1976. 227

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effectively dismantled the Constitutional infrastructure he had inherited, in favour of a far more personalised style of rule founded on a belief in the centrality of economic growth administered by dedicated technocrats unfamiliar with the arts of politics, history, and law, in which the national ideal was invested in a single individual who identified himself with the reified nation known as ‘Iran’. The nation was everywhere, but it was not populated; it had no rights. This was the preserve of the King of Kings, Light of the Aryans, the spiritual father and symbol of his nation, to whom all rights accrued. This was the context of the revolution of 1979, not the Pahlavi state, or the Constitutional project, or still less 2500 years of Iranian monarchy. This was fundamentally a political revolt against a peculiarly religious monarchical autocracy invented, complete with a fictional lineage, by Mohammad Reza Shah and his acolytes to satisfy his spiritual sympathies and his sense of destiny, and to provide a specifically religious legitimacy to his rule. If his opponents dismissed these pretensions, their critiques nevertheless reflected the empathetic, and arguably romantic intellectual arc of the age of extremes. These were no longer well- articulated, thought-out and constructed critiques of Iranian political culture seeking practical solutions as Taqizadeh, Foroughi, and Kasravi (among others) might of done. These were political discursions: emotive, angry, and often logically incoherent. That these figures have been raised to represent a veritable canon of modern Iranian political literature is very much a consequence of the trauma of revolution of 1979 and the frantic search of intellectual roots, as well as the reality of growing literacy and the fact that their literary style spoke to the heart of their emerging political constituency. Mosaddeq’s theatrical oratory was an indication of things to come, and even he, as noted in the section ‘Mosaddeq, the Left, and the Doctrine of Anti-Imperialism’, sought to reign in the more hysterical consequences.229 This is not to suggest that this style had no antecedents in the previous era; Kasravi’s unreferenced ‘misreading’ of Taqizadeh is evidence that scholarship regularly succumbed to rhetorical expediency, and Adamiyat’s criticism of Iranian historical writing is attested to in the section ‘The Waning of Constitutionalism’. The important distinction to be made here On the impact of popular culture and mass media on ideological dissemination, see J B Thompson, Ideology & Modern Culture, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1990 p. 267. See also in this respect H Chehabi, The Paranoid Style in Iranian Historiography, in Touraj Atabaki (ed.) Iran in the 20th Century: Historiography & Political Culture, London, I B Tauris, London, 2009, p. 170. 229

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is the direction of travel and the dominant trend, and one of the striking aspects of this later period is the ascendancy of what may be termed the romantic style. What was significant was that what they said mattered less than how they said it. What the reader felt mattered more than what the reader learnt. Indeed, from an intellectual point of view, much of the discipline encouraged by the previous generation was rejected in favour of lyricism, as these new intellectuals sought to reject in graphic and no uncertain terms their immediate intellectual inheritance. But the singular paradox of their intellectual predicament was that the material they used (and abused) had been largely defined by the people they sought to reject. In some cases there were indeed strong areas of convergence and confluence, and if an essential ambiguity permitted a certain amount of free interpretation  – allowing ultimately for the religious right and the revolutionary left to seek a convergence of ideas – the narrative frame of reference was at once defined by the vocabulary of the Constitutionalists and against that of Mohammad Reza Shah. In both cases the ideologies shared an intimate relationship. Just as the discourse of Iranian nationalism and the Constitutionalists had been defined by the vocabulary of the European Enlightenment, so too the Islamic Revolutionaries were defined by the vocabulary of the Pahlavi state – in both its early and late manifestations. But the context of the late manifestation was in many ways both more immediate and more crucial. As the state under Mohammad Reza Shah grew more powerful in a material sense through both the exercise of patronage and surveillance, so too the intellectual climate reflected its environment by building in an essential ambiguity (for example poetic licence and analogy), and seeking the esoteric and hidden as a means of explaining that from which most people had been excluded. All this encouraged what one historian has aptly called the ‘paranoid style’ in Iranian historiography.230 This intellectual paranoia mirrored the paranoid style in government – of which the Shah was paradoxically one of the chief proponents – one of whose main functions was to encourage the belief in a need for a saviour.231 The style, intimacy, and arguably dependency on the dominant discourse of the age can be seen to a greater or lesser extent in all the politically 230 H Chehabi, The Paranoid Style, pp. 155–76. As Chehabi points out, this ‘paranoid’ style did not originate in this period; the stress here is on encouragement and facilitation. 231 H Chehabi, The Paranoid Style, p. 173. This crucial dialectical relationship between a ‘devotion born of distress and enthusiasm’ is discussed by Max Weber in On Charisma and Institution Building: Selected Papers (ed S N Eisenstadt), Chicago, University of Chicago Press 1968, p. 23. On conspiracy theories at Court, see Alam quoted in Chehabi, The Paranoid Style p. 172.

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influential thinkers of the period. Jalal Ale Ahmad’s popularly crediting, against his own acknowledgement towards his mentor Ahmad Fardid with coining the phrase Gharbzadegi (Westoxication) is a case in point. Ale Ahmad had begun his political life as a member of the Communist Tudeh party, from which he later split. The views which he later sought to articulate may best be described as an angry third world-ism, drawing selectively on Franco-German philosophies of alienation, particularly in relation to the material and mechanical aspects of modernity, but for all that resolutely nationalistic in his protestations of grievance. Perhaps the dominant underlying theme of his writings was that of a culture of resistance against Western imperialism, which drew clearly on his Marxian sympathies and found willing bedfellows among more orthodox Shia thinkers. However, his vigorous criticism of the Westoxication of (some of) his compatriots did not differ substantively from the criticisms levelled by Taqizadeh and Jamalzadeh a generation earlier. The first curiosity that needs to be borne in mind is that for all that the text Gharbzadegi has become a canon of revolutionary literature, Ale Ahmad originally submitted it as a report to the Council on the Educational Goals of Iran, a body which had been set up by the Ministry of Education. Much to his apparent surprise, the text was not included in the final report, although one might sympathise with the bureaucrats who pondered just how such an eclectic polemic would sit with other undoubtedly more boring if methodical presentations.232 It would be interesting to speculate just how Jalal Ale Ahmad’s reputation and career would have developed had his contribution been accepted and published. As it was, the rejection undoubtedly helped to raise both the profile and credibility of the critique, and partly as a consequence of the advent of new printing technologies, and the rise in literacy, the text was soon published and disseminated in underground presses and won a wide readership among disaffected students.233 That the text was to acquire the aura of a social critique is not in doubt, and it certainly enjoyed an extensive influence both in the universities and Jalal Ale Ahmad, Plagued by the West (trans. Paul Sprachman), Bibliotheca Persica, New York, Columbia University, 1982, author’s preface, p. 1; the report was delivered at two sessions of the Council in November 1961 and January 1962. The text does at times read like an extended rant and spares few in its criticisms and insults, including in one striking passage, the ‘naïve egotism of a Neanderthal Shah’. One can easily see why the text was appealing, partly because it lacked intellectual rigour. 233 See M Boroujerdi, Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism, Syracuse NY, Syracuse University Press, 1996, p. 67, which quotes the noted Iranian intellectual Reza Barahani comparing the text to the works of Marx and Engels. 232

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reportedly the seminaries, partly one suspects because of Ale Ahmad’s highly contentious reading of the Constitutional Revolution and high praise for Fazlollah Nuri, whose execution he argued marked the ‘final victory of Westitis over this country’.234 The text in fact is suffused with a plea for unity between the religious and secular arms of political resistance – almost in one sense a call to arms to an otherwise quietist clergy. Indeed one of the other themes of Ale Ahmad’s writings was a critique of intellectuals, borrowing from Marx’s dictum that although hitherto philosophers had thought about the world, the point was to change it.235 In this sense his writings echoed other political texts of the period as its activism and call for action were a good deal more energetic than its intellectual coherence. His use of history for example leaves a lot to be desired, and in the words of one historian, for all Ale Ahmad’s protestations against state-sponsored history – undoubtedly justified – his own knowledge of the past was as limited as that of the Pahlavi establishment. He neglected historical analysis, dichotomized, and used an abundance of polemics.236 Ale Ahmad might have protested that facts should never get in the way of a good argument. But the rhetorical style and abundance of speculation also facilitated a healthy tendency to ponder the apparent unknowns and hidden meanings that are grist to the conspiratorial mill. Paradoxically, given the main thrust of his argument, perhaps the most striking aspect of his use and abuse of history was the strongly nationalist imperative that fed his overwhelming sense of grievance, placing his faith in Iranian ‘traditions’ of dubious providence,237 and more so because his idea of the ‘civilised’ nation was drawn straight from the enlightenment world-view which had informed the Westoxicated intellectuals he apparently despised.238 This particular contradiction would not have sat well with his mentor, Ahmad Fardid, for whom the text appears to have been intended, in part to encourage the erstwhile philosopher to speak out more and disseminate more widely his ideas on the Iranian obsession with the West. Fardid

234 M Boroujerdi, Iranian Intellectuals and the West, p. 33. 235 See in this respect Anja Pistor Hatam, Writing Back? Jalal Ale Ahmad’s (1923–1969) Reflections on Selected Periods of Iranian History, Iranian Studies, Vol 40 (5), December 2007, pp. 564–65. 236 Anja Pistor-Hatam, Writing Back?, p. 563. For example, on p. 28 of Gharbzadegi he suggests that at the battle of Chalderan in 1514, ‘the blood of almost 500,000 Muslims was spilled’. This is a ridiculous figure. 237 Jalal Ale Ahmad, Plagued by the West, pp. 102–03. 238 Anja Pistor-Hatam, Writing Back?, p. 568.

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has largely gone unnoticed among intellectual progenitors of the Islamic revolution, in large part because he did not publish, preferring instead to engage in oral discussions, but also because the ideas which he expressed fall into an anti-Western rather than an explicitly Islamist frame of reference. Consequently, Fardid has been left in the shade by the likes of Ale Ahmad, Shariati, and Motahhari, only to have re-emerged posthumously because of the apparent debt owed by President Ahmadinejad to his philosophy. This association is not a fortuitous one, and the real extent Fardid promoted an anti-Semitic philosophy will continue no doubt to be debated among his supporters and detractors.239 Fardid does appear to have supported a radical rejection of the grand narrative of Western history which sourced its roots to Ancient Greece, which he regarded as the origin of the idea behind the separation of the spiritual from the material – a somewhat Manichean dichotomy – with the preoccupation with the materialism at the expense of ethics being the malevolent Western contribution to civilisation. Likewise Fardid interpreted the Constitutional Revolution as having been perverted by the malign influence of Freemasons and Jews (as opposed to Bahais), suggesting hidden motives and encouraging ideas of a (global) conspiracy.240 Fardid drew his ideas and his critique of the West from the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, and was chiefly responsible for introducing his philosophy within Iran.241 The critique of the ‘West’, and Western ‘modernity’, was therefore rooted in Western philosophy; an irony which must have been lost on some of Fardid’s disciples.242 239 Ahmad Ashraf, Conspiracy Theories, Encyclopedia Iranica Online. 240 For the pros and cons of Fardid, see the reflections of Mahmoud Sadri, Passionate, Genuine & Deeply flawed: Thoughts on Philosopher Ahmad Fardid, Iranian.com, 8 June 2003. A nuanced treatment of the man’s thoughts on the West is provided by Boroujerdi, Iranian Intellectuals and the West, pp. 63–65. See also H Chehabi, The Paranoid Style, pp. 164–65. One recent commentator has gone so far as to claim that Fardid was the writer of the constitution of the Rastakhiz party; see interview with Ibrahim Fiaz in E’telaf morteza Motahhari va hossein nasr: rajat gerayi dar dore Pahlavi dar goftego ba Ibrahim fiaz (The alliance of Morteza Motahhari and Hossein Nasr: Historical nostalgia during the Pahlavi era in a discussion with Ibrahim Fiaz), Jameh Shenasi Tarkihi, No. 6, Aban 1389 / November 2010, p. 105. 241 For a useful discussion of the influence of Heidegger in Iran, see A Mirsepassi, Political Islam, Iran, and the Enlightenment, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 85–128. On Fardid, see M Mansour Hashemi, Ahmad Fardid, Tehran, Kavir, 1384/2005. 242 One of Bazargan’s criticisms of Shariati was of his ‘Western education’. See H Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism, New York, Cornell University Press, 1990, p. 69. See also A Mirsepassi, Political Islam, Iran and the Enlightenment, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 86.

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That the West also furnished another vitally important ideological layer for the Iranian opposition  – to whit, Marxism  – is also largely ignored or neglected by its devotees, in large part no doubt because of its juxtaposition against ‘capitalism’ and its political association with the ‘East’ (i.e., the Soviet Union). The impact of Marxist ideology (as opposed to Marxian methodology) has been alluded to above, particularly the descent into dogma and the effective translation of Marxism into Iran’s first secular religion. Indeed Marxist methods and historical world-view were increasingly adopted to buttress and support conspiratorial analyses of the role of foreign powers, in particular Britain and America – a view encouraged and facilitated by the Soviets whose own sense of siege was not much different from that of their ideological bedfellows in Iran. In Iran, Marxism became less of a scientific method and more a means of intellectually empowering ‘superstition’. The mysteries of God may have given way to the mysteries of foreign intelligence agencies, and Marxism now provided the evidence. Therefore, for a new generation of Iranian intellectuals and activists Marxism and the social scientific lexicon it offered provided intellectual depth and credibility. Marxism’s vulnerability lay less with its Western associations and more in its promotion of atheism. Success might accrue to whoever was able to clothe Marxism in the traditional language of Islam, and herein lay the genius of Ali Shariati, long regarded as the true ideological forebear of the Islamic Revolution. The marriage of Shia Islam and Marxist method that Shariati sought to promote proved a highly potent ideological mix for a generation of increasingly educated young Iranians anxious to adhere to an ideology that appeared both modern yet traditionally rooted.243 More interesting, Shariati’s eloquent appeal to revolutionise Shiism244 without recourse to the traditional clergy found a receptive audience among aspects of the imperial state, which likewise was seeking to redefine Islam away from the traditional (reactionary) clergy. Indeed Shariati’s relationship with the late Pahlavi state was at times ambivalent and contradictory. Having been banned from lecturing at the University of Mashhad, he was subsequently allowed to deliver lectures at the newly constructed Hosseiniyeh Ershad, in the heart of north Tehran, to an increasingly enthusiastic audience of young Iranians thirsty E Abrahamian, The Islamic Left: From Radicalism to Liberalism in S Cronin, Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left, London, Routledge, 2004, p. 272. 244 E Abrahamian, The Islamic Left, p. 269. 243

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for something new.245 And what was new about Shariati was his promotion of a non-clerical Islamist ideology suffused with Marxist idioms and ideas which appeared to reconcile the contradictions between rational modernity and Islam. If Shariati appeared more intellectually rigorous than Ale Ahmad, what he said remained less important to his adherents than how he said it, and it is indeed worth bearing in mind that Shariati was above all an orator not a writer, and those of his lectures which have remained were the result of student transcriptions and audio recordings, with the important consequence that details regularly differed from one transcription to the other. Shariati was a communicator, but even with the assistance of a Marxist vocabulary, the process of communicating to a mass audience resulted in a loss of rigour and a triumph of style over substance. Shariati might have been among the first polemicists to denounce the Shah’s new regime as Bonapartist,246 in the Marxist sense, but his appropriation and application of the dialectic of historical materialism was overly reductionist and simplistic.247 In seeking to communicate this concept, Shariati had resolved to identify the notion of class struggle with the killing of Abel by Cain. ‘The story of Cain and Abel is . . . the source for our philosophy of history . . . The war between Cain and Abel is the war between two opposing fronts that have existed throughout history, in the form of a historical dialectic. History therefore, like man himself, consists of a dialectical process. The contradiction begins with the killing of Abel by Cain.’ Shariati then proceeded to argue that in his opinion, Abel represented the pastoral nomad, the exemplar of ‘primitive socialism that preceded ownership’, whereas Cain represented the agriculturist and the advent of ‘ownership’.248 As an explanatory tool, this was an effective myth which sought to disguise Marxism in the language of Islam, although arguably in appropriating the language of Islam, Shariati succeeded in diminishing and diluting the professed scientific rationalism of Marxist methodology.249 Indeed the concern among some was not that 245 A Rahnema An Islamic Utopian pp. 312–14. Rahnema argues that one reason Savak paid less attention to Shariati while at Ershad was that they misunderstood what he was saying. It took a clerical protest to subsequently result in the closing of the Hosseiniyah. 246 A Rahnema An Islamic Utopian p. 212. 247 See in this regard, H Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism, p. 70. See also p. 79 with regard to his occasional incoherence. 248 Ali Shariati, On the Sociology of Islam: Lectures by Ali Shariati (trans. H Algar) Berkeley CA, Mizan Press, 1979, p. 98. The debt to Engels is obvious. 249 Abrahamian The Islamic Left p. 272.

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he was successfully politicising and popularising Shia Islam, but that in associating religion with Marxist thought, he was diminishing the rigour of the latter. Shariati was also credited with politicising the Karbala ‘passion play’, transforming it from a cultural event in which participants emoted with the suffering of Imam Hussein to a political theatre or paradigm, in which the martyrdom of Hussein became a potent analogy for the struggle against injustice.250 In the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution, scholars rushed to explain the Karbala myth and the importance of the ‘culture of martyrdom’, in an enthusiastic effort to compensate for their apparent failure to ‘predict’ the revolution.251 In a determination to seek the ‘roots’ of revolution, there has been a tendency to re-Islamise the past as if a hidden history had been neglected as a result of an unnatural emphasis on secularism. This has had the dual effect of elevating a social trend which may not have enjoyed the continuous political impact contemporaries claimed it held, and by extension diminishing the innovative radicalisation of Shi’ism, which had in fact been a more recent development.252 Moreover the teleological reinterpretation of modern Iranian history created distinctions which were wholly artificial and reductionist.253 They confused criticism of religion with that of ‘superstition’, and moreover in the pursuit of clarity – the very confusion of revolution demands analytical clarity – people and movements were pigeonholed into convenient binary opposites. The Pahlavi state and its ideology was therefore labelled ‘secular’ (in the irreligious sense) and by extension inauthentic, to contrast it with the authenticity of a religious revolution. Although such an approach reinforces the interpretation of the Islamic Revolution as a seminal and watershed moment in the modern history of Iran, this analytical bifurcation remains inaccurate. As shown above, the Constitutionalists were On the Karbala ‘paradigm’, see M M J Fischer, Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 2003, pp. 13–20; see also H Chehabi, Li Kulli Fir’awn Musa: The Myth of Moses and Pharaoh in the Iranian Revolution in Comparative Perspective, Waltham MA, Brandeis University, Crown Paper 4, 2010, pp. 4–6. Shariati was not alone in this process. Motahhari was likewise influential, but as a non-cleric, Shahriati’s social reach was arguably wider; see K Scott Aghaie, Islamist Historiography in T Atabaki (ed.), Iran in the 20th Century: Historiography and Political Culture, pp. 244–48. 251 See in this respect the review of Michael Fischer’s study of the ulema by P Higgins, in American Anthropologist, Vol 83 (2), 1981, p. 465. 252 See in this respect Charles Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran? op cit. (loc: 678/3531). 253 See in this respect S Akhavi, The Ideology and Praxis of Shi’ism in the Iranian Revolution, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol 25 (2), 1983, p. 195. 250

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not irreligious – Reza Shah may have been ambivalent towards the religious classes, although arguably not substantively more than Nader Shah or Agha Mohammad Khan  – but were zealous in their attacks on what they perceived as superstition. The ceremonies for Moharram, the re-enactment of martyrdom of Hussein (and the self-flagellation that accompanied it) were regarded as the ritual manifestation of the worst types of superstitious religion. Shariati himself criticised pointless rituals as the worthless products of ‘Safavid Shiism’ (the analogy should be obvious),254 whereas the leaders of the Islamic Republic have since sought to discourage the practice of self-flagellation and the ritual cutting of the forehead, as ironically, unworthy of a progressive and modern society. With respect to Mohammad Reza Shah, the situation is far more complex, for far from pursuing a rigorously secular policy, the Shah introduced his own concept of religious ‘empathetic’ monarchy, which, as argued in the ‘Narratives of Revolution’ section, bore a closer resemblance to the ideas of Ayatollah Khomeini than to the Shah’s predecessors. Indeed, he probably went a good deal further in reintroducing an esoteric chain of authority and belief that many among the orthodox ulema would have found uncomfortable. But in addition to that, and in conjunction with the narrative of the Cold War, the Shah facilitated and to some extent financed what may best be described as a religious renaissance in the 1970s, by tolerating (and in some cases encouraging) key ideologues and the expansion of religious networks. In energetically sacralising the monarchy the Shah was interested in promoting a state religion with himself at the apex. By restricting the orthodox he allowed the heterodox to flourish.255 Rahnema An Islamic Utopian, p. 305. 255 Certainly this was to be a more complex dynamic than often narrated. The Shah at once sought to constrain and control official religious networks while encouraging non-clerical challenges to religious orthodoxy and identifying himself as the spiritual guide. For the increase in religious interest, see S A Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 91–93. Figures for mosque and seminary construction diverge widely. The regularly cited figure drawn from the Waqf Organisation indicates only 9015 mosques nationwide in 1975, down from 20,000 a decade earlier. See S Akhavi Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran: clergy-state relations in the Pahlavi Period, New York, State University of New York Press, 1980, p. 129, and p. 2008. Milani on the other hand, citing another study, suggests that by 1977 there were more than 75,000 mosques and seminaries throughout the country. The significant implication here is that contrary to the standard process of ‘modernisation’, the number of seminarians (talabeh) actually rose in this period. See A Milani, The Shah, New York, Palgrave, 2011, p. 376. For government control over the Mosque network, see Charles Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran? op cit. (loc: 498/3531). 254

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It was arguably these intriguing developments that were ignored rather than the revolutionising of Shi’ism. That there was a religious opposition to the Shah, and its leader was the Ayatollah Khomeini, was not unknown to diplomatic observers as early as 1972.256 What appears to have been systematically ignored in contemporary studies of the late Pahlavi state, and the character of Mohammad Reza Shah himself, were his religious or superstitious inclinations. These were to be sure noticed by early observers of the young Shah, but as his majesty and oil wealth increased, these views were lost in the cacophony of imperial might which he appeared to represent. But this imperial might was defined in terms unfamiliar to most ordinary Iranians. The Achaemenids and Cyrus the Great were being reintroduced into Iranian historical consciousness, but this process was a protracted one which had yet to reach fruition at the end of the 1970s. Moreover, traditional ‘histories’ and mythologies reliant on the Shahnameh to which ordinary people could relate and empathise were largely ignored by the ‘empathetic’ monarchy of Mohammad Reza Shah, in favour of something altogether more obtuse and esoteric on the one hand, and dryly intellectual on the other. Indeed, the Shahnameh with its tales of regicide and regal incompetence was often viewed with suspicion, and it is remarkable that among the ‘seditious’ books confiscated from Shariati on his arrest in 1972 was a copy of the Shahnameh.257 This environment helps explain why the ‘angry young men’ of the age of extremes were encouraged to draw their myths and motifs from Shi’ism rather than the traditional Iranian myths represented by the Shahnameh. There was at face value no particular reason Shariati could not have explained his dialectic by drawing on the continuing conflict between ‘Iran’ and ‘Turan’, arguably a much better representation of the contest between the sedentary agriculturist and pastoral nomad; religious motifs were no less ‘mythical’ than their secular counterparts. Moreover, Shahnameh motifs still enjoyed a substantial following among the left. But in many ways the myths of the Shahnameh had been divested of their political purpose and function; they had lost their social meaning. Other myths stepped in to fill the vacuum. These new myths were now articulated in such a manner – through the vocabulary of Marxism –as to gain political meaning and purpose, not with the intention of legitimising the political order, as they may have done in the past, but as a means FCO 8/2050, Unrest in Iran, dated 17 June 1972. 257 Rahnema An Islamic Utopian p. 327. 256

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of challenging it. The banner of Kaveh had been replaced by the banner of Hussein. Khomeini represented the fulfilment of the mythic cycle of the saviour, invented by Mohammad Reza Shah. This was a myth of the saviour imbued with a religious sensibility that Mohammad Reza Shah simply could not credibly fulfil. His ‘empathetic’ monarchy had facilitated a revolution of sentiment. His constitutional religious monarchy had sacralised the language of politics to the point that Cyrus had been obliged to give way to Moses.258 The Turban for the Crown? The age of extremes had produced a romantic revolution: a revolution so emotive, traumatic and exhilarating for all involved that it demanded clarity and explanation, even as it defied it. The ‘revolution’ was justified and explained in increasingly hyperbolic and grandiose terms by both the victors and the victims who sought at the end to absolve themselves of any guilt or responsibility. This in itself was an indication of the failure of the Constitutionalists project with the aim of individual empowerment. There is little doubt that in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Shah, a sense of empowerment had electrified the Iranian political public. But it was also striking how quickly this was to be suppressed and withdrawn as the defeated turned to conspiracy theories259 and the victors turned to Providence. This was not the only way in which continuity took precedence over change. Arjomand has argued convincingly that the Pahlavi state was strengthened and extended by the revolution260 but equally important were the ideological continuities, not only in terms of the conception of rule but also in the limitation of rights and in the identification of the ruler with the state, and perhaps most strikingly, the vocabulary with which the revolutionaries defined themselves remained quintessentially Western. Attention has already been drawn to the similarities between Khomeini’s conception of Islamic Government and Guardianship of the Jurist, and Mohammad Reza Shah’s concept of religious ‘constitutional’ On the emergence of the ‘Mosaic myth’ in Iran, see ChehabiLi Kulli Fir’awn Musa pp. 13–20. On the Mosaic myth in general, see L Feuer, Ideology & the Ideologists, Oxford, Blackwell, 1975, pp. 1–13. 259 Although the Shah was quick to blame the British for his downfall, British assessments of their own failures in the run up to revolution concluded in contrast that they had been far too deferential to the Shah! See N W Browne, ‘British Policy on Iran 1974– 1978, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1981, p. 44. 260 S A Arjomand, Turban for the Crown, pp. 171–74. 258

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monarchy.261 Both conceptualised the ruler as the guardian and protector of the ‘nation’ with a divine mandate and access to esoteric knowledge. The singular difference between the two concepts was the knowledge base from which they drew their authenticity and authority. Both were, to be sure, innovations, but at least Ayatollah Khomeini could and did draw on a rich legacy of Islamic law and Shia political thought. Moreover, Khomeini indicated he was familiar with Western political thought and philosophy, was aware and had by all accounts read the writings and pronouncements of individuals such as Ale Ahmad, and drew on these ideas and concepts for his own elucidations.262 The Shah by contrast had largely ignored the large corpus of historical material on monarchy (Islamic and pre-Islamic), preferring to draw rather superficially on Western sources or on his own vague musings. Moreover, the Shah compounded his difficulties by the fact that his natural constituents found it difficult if not wholly problematic to connect with his idea of divine right monarchy, whereas those traditionally minded Iranians for whom such language had meaning could not relate or appreciate the spiritual associations he claimed. Put another way, for the secularly minded, the Shah’s claims appeared absurd; for the traditionally minded, Khomeini’s rationalisation of clerical authority appeared profound. Indeed, in the context of the Shah’s claims for a constitutional religious monarchy, Khomeini’s assertion that Islamic government was ‘legal’ and ‘constitutional’ both resonated and enjoyed relative credibility. Indeed Khomeini was refreshingly unequivocal: Islamic government does not correspond to any of the existing forms of government. For example, it is not a tyranny, where the head of state can deal arbitrarily with the property and lives of the people, making use of them as he wills, putting to death anyone he wishes, and enriching anyone he wishes by granting landed estates and distributing the property and holdings of the people. The Most Noble Messenger (peace be upon him), and the Commander of the Faithful (peace be For a useful discussion, see also G Aneer, Imam Ruhullah Khumaini, Sah Muhammad Riza Pahvali and the Religious Traditions of Iran, Uppsala, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1985 pp. 104. 262 On Khomeini’s interest in Islamic philosophy see, B Moin, Life of the Ayatollah London, I B Tauris, 1999, pp. 39–52. See also p. 166 and p. 189. On the attitude of his peers to his philosophical interests, see p. 276. On Khomeini’s aspiration to be a latter day Afghani see p. 148. Khomeini’s appropriation of Western political and philosophical ideas is most obviously represented in his acceptance of an Islamic Republic. For Khomeini’s political education and the limits of Western appropriation see E Abrahamian Khomeinism pp. 39–59. 261

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upon him), and other caliphs did not have such powers. Islamic government is neither tyrannical nor absolute, but constitutional . . . Islamic government is a government of law.263

Written and disseminated in 1971 in the aftermath of the Shah’s White Revolution and the redistribution of landed estates by imperial decree, the notion that an Islamic government was a government of laws must have been attractive. The fact that, as Khomeini clarified, these were Divine laws which could not altered and to which everyone was subject only further enhanced their appeal, particularly in the context of the Shah’s growing power after the dramatic increase in the oil price.264 What Khomeini appeared to be suggesting was that Islamic law protected people from arbitrary government. In sum, it provided people with certain rights against the depredations of the state. This was an interesting idea which must have fallen on receptive ears among Constitutionalists, but also sat comfortably with Khomeini’s belief that the clergy had been foremost in the defence of people’s rights. For Khomeini, the ulema had been the indefatigable force (or class) in the defence of people’s rights, and had been betrayed by the machinations of foreign powers and their domestic allies.265 Many were prepared to believe and accept that the ulema had been marginalised in recent narratives of Iranian history  – particularly as officially expounded by the government of Mohammad Reza Shah  – and that they had to be restored to their proper place as an important part of the constellation of actors which had sought to establish limitations on absolute government. However, the tendency to extend this argument further, to the point that the ulema were the pivotal if not only group of any integrity and worth, betrayed instincts as monopolistic and manipulative as the narratives they sought to displace.266 Indeed Khomeini’s historical world-view owed much more to the age of extremes than to inclusivity of the enlightenment Constitutionalists who wanted to integrate Iranians into a whole. Among the motifs which he borrowed, adapted, and applied was the dogma of anti-imperialism, R Khomeini, Islamic & Revolution (ed. & trans. H Algar), Berkely CA, Mizan Press, 1981, pp. 55–56. 264 On the inherent problems of this approach to the law, see Huntington, Political Order, pp. 98–108. 265 R Khomeini We Shall Confront the World with Our Ideology, MERIP Reports, 88, June 1980, p. 25. See also E Abrahamian, Khomeinism, p. 25. 266 K Scott Aghaie, Islamist Historiography in Post-Revolutionary Iran, pp. 238–44. 263

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and the conspiratorial machinations of the unseen hand – in his particular case, the Jews: From the very beginning, the historical movement of Islam has had to contend with the Jews, for it was they who first established anti-Islamic propaganda and engaged in various stratagems, and as you can see this activity continues down to the present. Later they were joined by other groups, who were in certain respects more satanic than they. These new groups began their imperialist penetration of Muslim countries about three hundred years ago, and they regarded it as necessary to work for the extirpation of Islam in order to attain their goals.267

Not only was Islam understood as an essential bulwark against imperialism, Khomeini successfully married Islamic and Marxist motifs by identifying imperialism and Western materialism with the figure of Satan – and the greatest exponent of capitalism, the United States being accorded the title of ‘Great Satan’. This was perhaps Khomeini’s greatest single stroke of political genius, his ability to action ideologies, simplify, popularise and, mobilise.268 The detail was not important; it was the sense he imparted.

R Khomeini, Islam & Revolution, p. 27. 268 It is worth noting that Khomeini was one of the few ideologues of this period to offer a blueprint for action and mobilization, Islam & Revolution., pp. 126–66. 267

4 The Age of Contestation

He issued a statement there. Let me read some part of it and you can see how it was. He said, ‘As long as I am king, I will not allow the people who are under my command to mock other nation’s norm or humiliate those nations under my rule’. He was saying that he respected other nations. He said, ‘I will not impose my kingdom on any other nations and I will not wage war because they do not accept my kingdom.’ We know that many nations asked him to rule them . . . He said . . . ’I will not allow anyone to do injustice to others within this span. I will restore the rights of the oppressed people and confront oppressors.’ President Ahmadinejad on Cyrus the Great, 2010

Introduction In 1906 the Constitutionalists launched a political revolution in which the structures of government changed but the personalities largely remained in place. In 1979, the personalities were replaced but the fundamental structures remained. Put simply, it was the Shah that fell, not the State.1 Continuities do not preclude change, but given the great stress on change which participants and observers alike have ascribed to the movement which resulted in the overthrow of the Shah, it is worth pausing and reflecting on the inheritance of the ‘Islamic Revolution’. As noted above Arjomand has cogently and convincingly argued that the revolution strengthened and further centralised the bureaucratic apparatus inherited 1 One can debate to what extent the Shah was the state, but the survival of the state would seem to suggest otherwise. See in this respect, Arjomand Turban for the Crown p. 191. Arjomand points out that the Islamic Revolution did not fit any of the standard structural causes for revolutionary collapse.

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from the Pahlavis. If anything the bureaucracy grew larger, and for all the talk of the oppressed and disenfranchised, the new state was no more enamoured of ideas of decentralisation and local empowerment than the politicians who had emerged in 1941 to criticise Reza Shah. Even the tribes, long perceived as the victims of state oppression, were encouraged, with government help, to ‘settle’. Elements of the bureaucratic state, such as conscription, centralisation, and taxation  – and despite attempts to suggest that this could be replaced by a system of Islamic taxation – were all retained and reinforced, as were the majority of the reforms implemented from 1906 through to 1941.2 Even the army, criticised as it was in 1941, was to be rapidly rehabilitated. If the revolutionaries were quick to discard the Imperial calendar (done for them by one of the Shah’s last prime ministers in 1978), they did nothing to alter the Iranian solar calendar institutionalised in 1924. Nor indeed was the new order averse to the adoption of foreign terms and vocabulary.3 Although the revolutionaries were vocally contemptuous of Mohammad Reza Shah, they inherited from him a proclivity for grandiose schemes and ideas, which as argued in the previous chapter regarding the Guardianship of the Jurist (Velayat-e faqih), was in many ways a continuation and fulfilment of the Shah’s rather opaque notions of empathetic monarchy. Arguably, the revolution of 1979 simply unleashed the potential of the late Pahlavi state by removing what limited restrictions on action (such as fear of international opprobrium) that remained. The turmoil of the revolution demanded explanation and clarity; the freedom to act, and take all necessary measures, required justification.4 Both these demands tended to encourage an argument for distinction against all that had preceded the revolution. But to achieve this, one had to posit a clear ‘other’ and an opposite against which the revolution could be sharply defined. Racial nationalism, secularism (read ‘irreligion’), dictatorship if not ‘tyranny’, and dependence on the West were all highlighted and projected backwards in order to emphasise the historical importance of contemporary developments. The ‘Pahlavis’ in totality 2 Khomeini famously made a number of promises with respect to taxes and the redistribution of wealth, all of which disappeared when confronted by the reality of government. The interesting question here is whether Khomeini genuinely believed that the Pahlavi state could be left to whither. See in this respect Arjomand, Turban for the Crown, p. 173. 3 This process was accelerated by the adoption of new media technologies. 4 See Ayatollah Motahhari’s comments quoted in Arjomand, Turban for the Crown, p 179.

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(1921–1979) were extracted from any indigenous context and identified entirely through an association and dependence on the West, first the British and then the Americans. Yet even here continuities betrayed themselves. If the new revolutionaries sought to situate themselves against the idea of the ‘West’, they found themselves nevertheless operating within a historical vocabulary defined by the West, and by their very opposition found themselves bound and tied to the ideas they apparently rejected. Thus the Islamic Revolution was soon interpreted as the third great revolution after the French and the Russian, and for all of Khomeini’s dismissal of the idea of a republic, and specifically, the adoption of the ‘Belgian constitution’,5 the new constitution for the Islamic Republic of Iran drew heavily for its republican elements on the constitution of the French Fifth Republic.6 Of course the republic was heavily qualified by its Islamic component, principally the concept of Guardianship of the Jurist, and the balance between the two wings of the Constitution has been contested continually since its ratification. For all the clarity promoted by Khomeini, a good part of the Constitution and its application remained sufficiently ambiguous for him to interpret it as he saw fit. The consequence for his successors has been to accurately deduce what his intentions were towards government and what rights he afforded to the people as opposed to the Lord’s anointed, in this case himself. The original text of Islamic Government made no mention of a republic, and indeed dismissed it. But it did also argue that all people, including the Prophet himself, were subject to God’s laws. Whether his decision to support an Islamic Republic was, as some of his disciples suggest, a temporary concession on the path to Islamic Government, or a genuine change of political view, will never be known. What is known is that for all his emphatic support for the Islamic Republic – not one word more, not one word less7 – the Constitution provided him with sufficient room for manoeuvre, and the direction of travel was towards a consolidation of autocracy. In someway this was the natural consequence of the turmoil which followed the fall of the Shah. Autocracy provided the clarity demanded by perceived anarchy.

5 R Khomeini, Islam and Revolution, Berkeley CA, Mizan Press. 1981, p. 31. 6 Nor was the new regime averse to adopting foreign words, most obviously komiteh. 7 See Karrubi’s statement in the Persian daily Nowruz, 30 Ordibehsesht 1381 / 20 May 2002, pp. 1–2. On the development of Khomeini’s political views, see V Martin, Creating an Islamic State: Khomeini and the Making of the New Iran, London, I B Tauris, 2000, pp. 100–29.

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This process of consolidation as on previous occasions took time, and it is only the subsequent political mythology of the Islamic Republic which has sought to emphasise the supremacy of Khomeini’s power and authority from the very beginning of his return to Iran in February 1979. The reality is that the process took at least a year, if not two, to settle, whereas Khomeini’s death in 1989 left many questions unanswered. The essential ambiguity which had assisted in his consolidation of power; his exploitation of political and ideological division, was one of the causes of the contestation which followed his death. But there were other key developments which informed this period: one was the complex inheritance from the constitutionalists, seen perhaps most vividly in the initial disputes with the Bazargan government, a key process which has largely fallen off the historiographical radar.8 Another was the social changes engendered by the economic and social reforms overseen by the Shah and invigorated by the experience of revolution and war. The immediate period following the overthrow of the Shah and through to Khomeini’s death therefore witnessed the culmination of the age of extremes while at the same time providing a glimpse of the age of contestation which followed. Religion and Nationalism One important area of contestation which would be forcefully revived in the decade following Khomeini’s death was on the nature of the state, constitutionalism, and the role of religion. In these respects developments reflected the legacy of Mohammad Reza Shah rather than the Constitutionalists, with autocratic government being ideologically reinforced by religion, albeit interpreted in a different manner. Most obviously was a renewed emphasis of the role of the clergy as the standard-bearers not only of authentic Islam, but by extension, the true defenders of national sovereignty. In this respect the interpretation provided and imposed differed markedly from that of the religious nationalists of the past in seeking to identify the clergy as a positive force, with the consequence that a number of ideologues who had been regarded as standardbearers of the revolution were soon subjected to criticism and at worst marginalised if not censured from the official canon. Indeed one of the striking aspects of the early period of the revolution is how an inclusive 8 The one exception to the rule being H Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism, New York, Cornell University Press, 1990, p. 342; see in particular p. 2.

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movement rapidly divested itself of inconvenient partners and swiftly and energetically moved to impose a particular narrative of history, both in the general and particular sense. The distinctions it sought to create – a narrative of national awakening based almost exclusively on a clerical Islam – were in stark contrast to the realities of continuity, and reflected in part the need for clarity. This clarity was provided by Ayatollah (Ostad) Motahhari, his assumed titles suggesting that his followers regarded him as having transcended the two educational traditions in the country  – religious and secular  – and that he could engage with the best of the secular intellectuals, principally the Marxists.9 Indeed Motahhari’s main ambition in the years leading to the overthrow of the Shah was to deconstruct the Marxist challenge in critical language which would be familiar to a youth culture he believed was becoming dangerously attracted to this atheistic ideology. In this he found a useful ally in Ali Shariati, certainly in his principle aim of realigning people within an Islamic narrative. He soon however fell out with Shariati over the latter’s determination to present a revolutionary Islam divested of reactionary clergy. There was to be sure some room for manoeuvre inasmuch as even Khomeini had berated the clergy for not adhering to their political responsibilities, but differences were to remain with regard to the centrality or otherwise of the clergy. Ultimately and somewhat ironically, Shariati was to be posthumously airbrushed out of the official canon. Motahhari was important not only because he was regarded as a cleric of unusual intellectual rigour who would directly engage and challenge modern ideas  – for instance, for all his uncompromising opposition to Marxism as an ideology, he was widely rumoured to have noted that he admired Marx and Engels more than many of his clerical colleagues, because for all their faults, at least they had tried to make the world a better place  – but also because he sought to redefine the grand narratives, as he understood them, of Iranian history.10 Moreover, Motahhari’s ‘rational’ approach was highly critical of the orthodox Shia interpretations of history, another radical departure which would have appealed to 9 H R A Mofrad, Ideology-e enqelab-e Iran (The Ideology of the Iranian Revolution), Tehran, Imam Khomeini Research Institute, 1381/2002, p. 205. Motahhari is described as a practitioner of ‘kalam’, a process of reaching the ‘truth’ through the dialectic of debate and argument – a methodology which would have been appealingly familiar to those raised on a diet of Marxism. 10 On Motahhari’s extensive interaction with Marxism, see M T Davari, The Political Thought of Ayatullah Murtaza Mutahhari, Abingdon, Routledge Curzon, 2005, p. 201.

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the youthful unhappy consciousness. Motahhari showed an ability and willingness to challenge not only his intellectual opponents but to be selfcritical.11 In this respect, Motahhari approached the world from a far more secular vantage point than the Shah. Indeed, although Motahhari sought to define the Islamist narrative of national awakening against the secular (irreligious) monarchy, on another level and understanding of ‘secular’ (‘Anglo-Saxon’ rather than ‘French’), as temporal, practical, and critical, the new Islamists were determinedly more secular than the esoteric Shah.12 In this respect, it could be argued they enjoyed more in common with the Constitutionalists, including Taqizadeh, although given their reading of recent history, they would not have accepted such a proposition.13 Motahhari was keen not only to reinterpret the traditional understanding of early Shia history, in particular the martyrdom of Imam Hussein – in a similar vein to Ali Shariati  – he also sought to tackle directly the prevalent narrative of Arab conquest which had gained ground particularly through the research of Zarrinkub, most obviously in his book ‘Two Centuries of Silence’. Motahhari was determined to show that Islam was not an alien imposition and that the adoption of Islam by Iranians was a natural process which reflected their ‘national’ dispositions. Islam could not be ‘alien’ he argued, because it had no ethnic affiliation, although such was its appeal to Iranians that not only did they swiftly adopt it, but they became its most enthusiastic and productive standard-bearers.14 Here, Motahhari betrayed his own national biases by effectively providing the bases for one of the central pillars of the new Islamist narrative: that Islam reached its full potential under Iranian management, and this was a marriage effectively made in heaven. This echoed the later writings of Taqizadeh, but it was made more forcefully and with the full authority of an ayatollah. Motahhari therefore provided the intellectual basis and clerical authority for a reconciliation between religion and nationalism, and 11 K S Aghaie, Islamist Historiography in Post-Revolutionary Iran, in Touraj Atabaki (ed.) Iran in the 20th Century: Historiography & Political Culture, London, I B Tauris, 2009, pp. 244–47. 12 See H Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism, p. 73. 13 For an interesting reading of Motahhari’s political views, see Ibrahim Fiaz in E’telaf morteza Motahhari va hossein nasr: Rajat gerayi dar dore Pahlavi dar goftego ba Ibrahim fiaz (The alliance of Morteza Motahhari and Hossein Nasr: Historical Nostalgia during the Pahlavi Era in a Discussion with Ibrahim Fiaz), Jameh Shenasi Tarikhi, 6, Aban 1389 / November 2010, pp. 104–05. 14 Aghaie Islamist Historiography, p. 249. The book is question was Khadamat-e Motaqabel-e Islam va Iran (The Mutual Contributions of Islam and Iran).

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moreover suggested that the relationship between ‘Islam’ and ‘Iran’ could be regarded as mutually beneficial. Strictly speaking, this was dangerous theological ground, but for all practical purposes it provided an inclusive narrative for otherwise disparate groups to congregate around.15 Things were less accommodating the closer one came to the present. Here it was important to provide a clear and distinctive narrative of Islamic, and more specifically clerical dominance in the process of national awakening. This did not involve the imposition of a new narrative but rather the reinterpretation of the old one beginning with the Tobacco Revolt, through to the Constitutional Revolution, Oil Nationalisation Crisis, and finally Islamic Revolution, inserting along the way the importance of the uprising against the White Revolution in 1963 – regarded as the founding moment of the Islamic revolution – and selectively diminishing or discarding those personalities who complicated a clean narrative of ascent. Many of the elements in this narrative, including the conspiratorial interpretations, had been circulating for some time; what was distinctive was the systematic manner in which they became part of the official state narrative. Indeed one of the striking aspects of historical writing in the post-revolutionary period was how seriously the government took to it, arguing publicly at least that the new order had nothing to fear from historical truth.16 Khomeini was himself acutely aware of the need for a suitably grand narrative to frame and fix this momentous movement in the collective memory, and regarded this as an essential part of the revolutionary process. This was very much an extension of his decade-old ‘program for the establishment of an Islamic government’, with its attack on the propaganda of the ‘orientalists’.17 He was also clear as to what this new history should show, providing detailed instructions to one of the early documenters of the revolution: You must show how the people struggled against tyranny, and the oppression of stagnation and backwardness, and put the ideals of Muhammad’s Islam in place of the ideals of Royal Islam, Capitalist Islam, and false Islam, or in one word American Islam. You must show in the rigid environment of the seminaries of that time that every movement was accused of being Marxist or British, and how

15 Aghaie Islamist Historiography. p. 245, on interpreting the Karbala paradigm; Motahhari compares Hussein to Rostam. 16 One of the striking developments of this period has been the flourishing of memoirs, of variable quality and reliability. See in this respect, Shahram Kholdi The Politics of Memory in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Historiography of the 1979 Revolution University of Manchester, 2011, Unpublished thesis. 17 Khomeini Islam & Revolution, p. 127.

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a few members of the ulema joined the poor and suffering people of the streets and bazaar hand in hand, and plunged themselves into danger and hardship until they came out victorious.18

The Islamic Revolution was to be interpreted as the culmination of a process rooted in a national-popular awakening, with a historical depth which suggested durability, longevity, and historical importance. This latter point was crucial because it justified the application of drastic measures on the basis that Providence demanded it. In this case they were no different to the revolutionaries which preceded them, including the White Revolutionaries of the Shah. They simply took this to its logical, if violent extreme, further reinforcing their justifications by pointing to many ‘thousands’ who had died to see the Islamic Revolution succeed. Casualty figures – martyrs – were perhaps the most elastic aspect of this historical narrative, the point at which facts really did not need to get in the way of a good (ideological) argument. Moreover, it was to be popularly rooted; the role of the clerics as spiritual guides was to be stressed. Perhaps most interesting for political relations, the movement was to be defined against ‘American Islam’. This might be identified as any ‘imperialist’ interference, but for the purposes of the present, the United States was the most immediate, identifiable, and immediate foe. This also served to bind the left to the Islamic movement. Recent history therefore dismissed any pretence of debt to the Babis, Bahais, and Freemasons, although the Tobacco Revolt could not have been achieved without clerical intervention, nor indeed could the Constitutional Revolution, whose achievements were the produce of clerical agitation, and failures the consequence of the perversion of those ideals by radical secularists who sold the country to foreigners and invited the tyranny of Reza Khan upon the country.19 Released from this tyranny, popular mobilisation facilitated by Ayatollah Kashani once again invigorated the Iranian public, until the treachery of the West resulted in the demise of the nationalist government, inaugurating another period of tyranny until Imam Khomeini launched his movement in 1963, culminating in triumph in 1979. The metanarrative stressed the importance of religious cohesion and leadership as the essential recipe for success, with failure resulting from a combination of liberal/secular weakness (ineffectiveness) or betrayal, as well as the ubiquitous foreign interference. This narrative did not go 18 Quoted in Aghaie Islamist Historiography. p. 238 19 See for example E Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1999, p. 144.

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unchallenged and so emphatically was it argued and imposed that it arguably resulted in Fereidoun Adamiyat’s least successful historical riposte in his study of the Tobacco Revolt, published in 1982, in which he sought to swing the pendulum to the other extreme, and dismiss any positive role by the senior ulema. Adamiyat was not immune to conspiracy theories of his own – especially when it came to foreign influence – and this text is regarded as among his less rigorous. Yet one might sympathise with his reaction when one appreciates the systematic abuse of history that was taking place. Jamal al Din Al Afghani may have instrumentalised Islam for political purposes, but he was certainly neither pro-clerical nor a proponent of juridical Islam. The histories of the Constitutional Revolution should restore the important role of senior clerics (as Taqizadeh had stressed himself), but it was quite another thing to elevate Fazlollah Nuri and argue that all along the people had wanted the implementation of the Sharia.20 Matters became even more obtuse with Mohammad Mosaddeq, a figure idolised among many revolutionaries, and in whose overthrow, in the minds of many, could be found the origins of the revolution. This view of course conflicted with the official narrative of 1963 as the founding moment of the movement, and efforts were taken to diminish and dismiss Mosaddeq’s role in favour of that of Ayatollah Kashani. The most obvious example of this attempt to shape historical memory was the determination to rename the old north-south thoroughfare in Tehran, hitherto known as ‘Pahlavi’ street as ‘Vali Asr’ street, as opposed to the popularly applied ‘Dr Mosaddeq’ street. This complex relationship with the ‘liberal’, Constitutionalists’ tradition was of course also reflected in the politics immediately following the fall of the Shah, and specifically the contest between Khomeini and his ‘provisional’ prime minister Mehdi Bazargan. Indeed it would be interesting to consider to what extent the narrative of liberal weakness and ineffectiveness prefigured the relationship between Khomeini and Mehdi Bazargan and doomed the latter’s premiership from the beginning. Certainly in explaining and to some extent justifying the fall of the Bazargan government, the argument was posited that it was both ineffective and in league with the Americans. Bazargan’s retort that his government was a ‘knife without a blade’ suggested that his government had been deliberately prevented from functioning from the start.

20 For this distinction between mashruteh and mashrueh, see the interview with Ali Motahhari, Fars News Agency, 24 Mordad 1390/11 August 2011. ‘Mashrueh’ is alternatively translated as ‘lawful’ or ‘legitimate’, but is assumed by many of the ulema to imply Divine law, i.e Sharia, which is the only legitimate law.

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Mehdi Bazargan and his Liberation or Freedom Movement represented the Islamist extension of the Constitutionalist nationalists who had shaped the development of the modern Iranian ‘nation’-state in the early part of the twentieth century, reflecting the attempt to reconcile the ideals of the enlightenment with the values of Islam.21 In terms of an intellectual lineage, the Liberation Movement did not represent a dramatic break with the past, inasmuch as the Constitutionalists had by and large not considered themselves antithetical to Islam and had sought to find ways to integrate Iran’s constituent elements into an inclusive whole.22 Bazargan likewise betrayed more republican than democratic sympathies in the classical understanding of these terms, stressing the need for education and the preference for elite guidance and direction.23 He differed from his predecessors in rejecting ‘monarchy’, even the enlightened variety, in favour of the establishment of a republic – although this again was more of a practical than an intellectual break  – and where he sat squarely within the constitutional tradition was in his insistence on the rule of law and the rights of citizens.24 Indeed for all that Bazargan professed to have emerged from an Islamist tradition, his understanding of Islam was quite different from that of his revolutionary allies. Islam as a set of ethical and spiritual values was fundamentally a means to an end, and not an end in itself. Moreover it was part of the whole, not whole itself. In political terms therefore, although Bazargan valued the clergy, he did not regard them as the elite class to which all others must submit. On the contrary, very much like Afghani and many other subsequent religious reformers, Bazargan’s attitude was at the very least ambivalent towards the orthodox clergy whom he compared to the Catholic clergy of the Middle Ages.25 Moreover like Afghani, Bazargan held a barely disguised enthusiasm for the ‘protestant reformation’, which he considered was at once more authentic and by extension, compatible with reason and science.26

21 See H Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism, pp. 51–54. 22 H Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism, p. 55; in time Bazargan sought to stress the continuity (see p. 78). 23 H Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism, p. 48. 24 H Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism, p. 66. 25 Khomeini made similar comparisons although mainly as a warning to the clergy that the consequences of political apathy was social irrelevance. See Moin Khomeini, p. 276. 26 H Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism, p. 80. Although Islamists claim Afghani for themselves, his views, as noted in chapter one are much more in line with those of the enlightenment than with the Islamist tradition. On this see also p. 51.

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It was ultimately on the issue of law and process that the Bazargan government foundered. Bazargan was adamant that the new republic – soon to be prefixed with the term ‘Islamic’, a term with which he was not entirely comfortable – should distinguish itself from its immediate predecessor by establishing the rule of law and due process. The revolution had other ideas, and there is little doubt that Khomeini was not entirely in control of the situation, as he found it with acts of spontaneous street justice being enacted on all-too-frequent a basis. Subsequently, the official narrative insisted that the violence was perpetrated almost entirely by the left; others have argued in Khomeini’s defence that he at least sought to curtail the worst excesses. However, beyond the exercise of such ‘popular justice’, there was the real problem of what to do with the many members of the old elite – a good number of whom were to be found in prison courtesy of the Shah, who had naively sought to pacify the baying revolutionary crowds before his departure from the country. Among those discovered by the new revolutionary rulers was the Shah’s longestserving prime minister and last minister of court, Amir Abbas Hoveyda. Hoveyda’s fate became a test case of how the new republic intended to deal with members of the Shah’s elite, and Bazargan was insistent that Hoveyda should be tried as the republic meant to go on. Hoveyda himself was convinced that he had nothing to hide, was happy to defend himself, and appears to have expected a protracted period in prison during which he might expect to write his memoirs. Indeed there appeared to be some anticipation that the new revolutionary regime would be interested in what he had to say. These somewhat complacent attitudes, appeared to reflect the view that what had indeed happened was a second constitutional revolution  – a view which had some resonance among less-informed foreign ­observers.27 In Iran, the age of extremes had its own momentum. Much to Bazargan’s astonishment, Hoveyda was tried and executed with alarming efficiency, in secret and without access to legal representation. Moreover the long list of charges seemed to preclude any necessity for either process or representation because a number, such as spreading corruption on earth and ‘fighting God’, could simply not be proved in any legal or rational manner. Other more tangible allegations such as drug smuggling were in any case simply assumed to be true.28 The trial judge, Sadeq Khalkhali, later argued that he had cut off all communication with the prison and 27 Khomeini was at times described as either the Gandhi, or the Jefferson of Iran. 28 See Abbas Milani, The Persian Sphinx, London, I B Tauris, 2000, pp. 314–15.

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proceeded with the execution for fear that Bazargan would intervene and block its progress. In the event, Hoveyda’s trial and summary execution was but the first of a series that would come to characterise the ruthlessness of the revolution.29 Some argued that this was the natural consequence of the fall of a brutal autocracy and was, if not palatable, at least understandable.30 The Shah’s secret police had after all become a byword for violent suppression and torture, while the violence of the last year, including the burning down of the Cinema Rex in Abadan with the death of some 400, all demanded an immediate response. The veracity of these allegations, in particular those regarding the culprits behind the atrocity at the Cinema Rex, was already being questioned, but few at this stage had the temerity to challenge the dominant narrative and the justification it provided for revolutionary justice. Indeed, it was very soon apparent that Khomeini’s insistence on Islam being ‘constitutional’ implied a different understanding to those who had been raised on a steady diet of legal procedure, and ‘revolutionary courts’ were swiftly created to hasten the application of justice. If these courts were to mirror the military courts established by Reza Shah, then Khomeini’s application of ‘Islamic law’ had echoes of Mohammad Reza Shah’s own relationship with the law. In the latter’s case, the short circuiting of procedure through diktat was justified on the dubious grounds that time was short. Khomeini’s assertion that divine law applied to all was in part meant to reassure those who had suffered under the Shah’s judicial flexibility. However the renewed imposition of Islamic law not only resulted in the reintroduction of clerics within the judicial system and the removal of the principle of legal representation – in reality the reimposition of a traditional legal system based on personal rather than documentary evidence – but also where the required standards of proof were deemed too restrictive, the principle of ilm-e qazi, or ‘judge’s knowledge’ was established and institutionalised. This legal practice had been developed to allow judges to apply ‘reason’ to cases where the evidentiary standards of Islamic law were so high it was well nigh impossible to secure a conviction. So for example, in cases of adultery in which four witnesses were

29 E Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, pp. 124–27. 30 See Hamid Algar, Roots of the Islamic Revolution in Iran: Four Lectures by Hamid Algar (2nd ed.), New York, Islamic Publications International, 2001. These lectures were initially published at the height of the revolution and offer a useful historiographical insight into contemporary perspectives.

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required to see the act of penetration, a judge might reason it sufficient for reliable witnesses to see the individuals enter a room along with a subsequent pregnancy, to judge that some breach of the law had taken place. However application of this practice in post-revolutionary Iran, in cases which might involve ‘national security’, involved an altogether different use of ‘reason’.31 Now, with such opaque crimes as ‘corruption on Earth’ and ‘warring against God’, ilm-e qazi appeared to be used as a substitute for evidence, not as a reasoned evaluation of the evidence. Indeed in a judicial system in which the judge was also prosecuting lawyer and investigator, such an approach was bound to be open to abuse. Compound this with the exigencies of a revolution, and the ‘legal system’ which emerged was a misnomer of catastrophic proportions. Bazargan was acutely aware of the damage these new courts were doing not only to the image of the revolution but the development of the republic. This was very much an Islamic republic of laws. Another source of possible conviction was the confession – a procedure which again harked back to premodern legal practice. If the guilty party confessed, this would be sufficient to secure a conviction, and the new revolutionary order found means to encourage lengthy confessions heavily embellished with the orthodox narrative. Although physical torture was to be formally banned under the new constitution, in the period leading to the ratification and afterwards, this condition, established to distinguish the new republic from the monarchy, was resolutely ignored. Once again, revolutionary necessity justified its use, whereas the perceived brutalities of the past seemed to excuse it. Here again, the revolutionaries exaggerated the past in order to justify the present. As noted above, the practice of torture had been reintroduced into the Iranian political system following the overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddeq. Following the fall of General Bakhtiar and the launch of the White Revolution, the application of means of torture – seemingly justified by the existential threat posed by ‘communism’ – waxed and waned according to political necessity and mood. The 1960s for example appear to have been a period of relative calm, followed by the urgency imposed by the Siakhal guerrilla insurrection in 1971, which spurred the regime into renewed vigour against its opposition.32 The incidents of torture by 31 See Arjomand Turban for the Crown, pp. 184–87. See also the views of Ayatollah Montazeri, http://www.amontazeri.biz/majmoe/estefta/html/..%5Chtml%5C0234.htm. I am grateful to Robert Gleave for drawing my attention to this and for his insights on this development. 32 E Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, pp. 101–12.

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all accounts increased after 1971, but after the fall of the Shah the practice of torture took a qualitative and quantitative turn for the worse, not only with respect to torture but also in the application of physical ­punishments.33 If the Shah was awkward when asked about the existence of torture, the new revolutionary order had no such qualms, and on the contrary some of its officials appeared to revel in their notoriety.34 Moreover, executions were no longer a judicial procedure conducted away from the public gaze: these were now public events intended to awe, persuade, and terrorise the public. Even when executions were conducted surreptitiously, the bodies were displayed. Such were the realities of the Iranian counter-enlightenment. For Iranians with any appreciation of constitutional norms and practices, such developments proved shocking. It was easy to justify or excuse them as a consequence of revolutionary zeal, but as Bazargan and his cabinet recognised, with the consolidation of the Islamic Republic, these did not appear to be temporary measures for exceptional times. On the contrary, in the increasingly bitter struggle for power between the Islamists and the Left, each side was excluding the other from the dignities and rights afforded to compatriots and fellow citizens. The situation was descending not so much into a civil war as a war of religion, in which each side branded the other heretical. However, the Islamists had the advantage of theological authenticity. Be that as it may, the situation was sufficiently unstable for Khomeini to seek advantage by focussing attention on a foreign enemy. The seizure of the U.S. embassy on 4 November 1979 has been well documented elsewhere.35 It proved the final straw for the Bazargan government, which finding itself unable to act, tendered its resignation. Since 1953, and especially after the Status of Forces Convention in 1964, the United States had been identified as the imperial oppressor of choice for the Iranian opposition and labelled as the Great Satan by Khomeini. Yet for all the rhetoric, the ‘Great Satan’ continued to maintain an embassy in Tehran. The decision by the Carter administration to allow the exiled 33 S A Arjomand Turban for the Crown, p. 186. See also E Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, pp. 132–34. 34 As one American diplomat noted with concern, Sadeq Khalkhali, Hoveyda’s judge and executioner, proudly described himself as the ‘Iranian Adolf Eichman’. Émigré Plotters, 6 September, 1979, Documents from the US Espionage Den (16), US Interventions in Iran, Tehran, Centre for the Publication of the US Espionage Den’s Documents, undated, p. 77. 35 See for example A M Ansari, Confronting Iran, pp. 83–99.

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Shah to visit the United States for medical treatment provided the justification for students ‘in the line of the Imam’ to seize and occupy the embassy. Khomeini, who had by all accounts been unaware of the plan, soon appreciated its value and supported the occupation and the seizure of the staff, whom he identified as spies. The protracted occupation proved a timely antidote to domestic strife, as did the second foreign distraction: the opportunistic invasion by Saddam Hussein on 8 September 1980. Both the U.S. hostage crisis and the protracted and bloody war with Iraq were to have profound consequences for the development of Iranian nationalism and identity, although not perhaps in precisely the ways Khomeini and his lieutenants had hoped. Both served to distract Iranians from the domestic bloodletting that was taking place, and allowed Khomeini’s vision for the new Islamic Republic to consolidate and settle. In this sense, both events were indeed a blessing from Ayatollah Khomeini’s perspective. Fearful of anarchy and galvanised by the temerity of Iraqi opportunism, many Iranians were willing to shelve their personal disputes in the interests of the defence of the country. Slow to start, the great test of religious belief and nationalist conviction would not find Iranians wanting, much to the astonishment of the Iraqis who had limited their invasion in the belief that the Iranian state was on the verge of collapse. But they too had misread the flight of the Shah for the collapse of the state, and faced with a national emergency, the ‘nation-state’ created some fifty years earlier and armed by Mohammad Reza Shah, cohered and mobilised into effective resistance. There should be no doubt that the ‘nation-state’ that went to war in 1980, although emboldened with revolutionary zeal, was the Pahlavi state. In an immediate sense, even its new masters, once critical, were now relieved at the military arsenal they found at their disposal. The war was of course also an opportunity. Individual empowerment soon gave way to deference as the national emergency now required obedience. Even those who were unhappy with the autocratic pretensions of the velayat-e faqih could recognise its merits at a time of war. In any case, the newly titled Imam Khomeini was a paternalistic inspiration to his followers, and had the authority and credibility to promise those going to the front that their possible ‘martyrdom’ would not be vain. For some the conjunction of the revolution and war was providential, and only enhanced the view that the revolution was of historic importance and that Khomeini had been sent to deliver them. In this sense, the war became an extension of the Mosaic myth  – the hard years wandering

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in the desert before reaching the Promised Land.36 This importance was exaggerated by suggesting that the real enemy was not Iraq, but its apparent master, the United States: a narrative which reinforced the anti-imperialist dogma so forcefully reinvigorated by the seizure of the American embassy, the staff of which who remained hostages until well after the beginning of the war. Indeed far from expelling the Americans, Khomeini ensured that the United States would remain a fixture on the political timetable and a worthy foe against which the new revolutionary identity could be defined. In this atmosphere of austerity and self-sacrifice, it proved comparatively easier to push through a series of Islamisation measures which may have met stiff social resistance in peacetime, while the gradual accrual of rights towards the leader at the expense of the people continued apace. This was most obviously seen in the changes taking place to the judiciary and legal procedure, as well as the (re) establishment of a network of intelligence and security agencies, ostensibly to combat foreign enemies, but frequently directed to the enemy within.37 The one real and immediate advantage of the war for the consolidation of power was the ability to label any opposition as being treasonous. With the onset of war, those political organisations of the Left, which had been so crucial in the success of the revolution but had since contested power with the religious right, were increasingly decried as fifth columnists and traitors to the revolution and the nation. The consequences of this struggle became especially violent, and what can only be described as a reign of terror against the ‘left’ – in the broadest sense of that term – was exacted from 1981 following an attempt by the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation (MKO) to overthrow the regime. Indeed the Left were the real victims of the revolution, suggesting yet another continuity with the policy of the Shah, except that the Shah is unlikely to have gone to such lengths.38 The MKO seemed to confirm the worst nationalist fears when they relocated their headquarters to Iraq in 1986 at the height of the war and foolishly decided to launch their liberation of Iran following the declaration of the UN ceasefire in 1988. Nonetheless the brutality meted out to the Left (including the 36 H Chehabi, Li Kulli Fir’awn Musa: The Myth of Moses and Pharaoh in the Iranian Revolution in Comparative Perspective, Waltham MA, Brandeis University, Crown Paper 4, 2010, p. 12 notes that the idea of migration is not as prominent in the Koranic rendition of the Mosaic myth, although it would have still been familiar. Moreover the idea of struggle for the achievement of a utopia is not alien to Shia Islam. 37 S Arjomand Turban for the Crown, pp. 184–88. 38 E Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, pp. 129–30.

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MKO) during these years and culminating with the massacre of prisoners in 1988 remains unprecedented in modern Iranian history.39 Quite how much was known and by whom remains a matter of contention, but what is quite striking is the extent to which the Left had been successfully (if temporarily) alienated from the nationalist narrative such that immediate protests were few and far between. Not that one might have expected popular protests from a war-weary nation increasingly inured to death and largely shielded from the reality of the new executions. Indeed one significant difference between these later executions and those conducted in the fury of the revolution was that the government seemed determined to keep these quiet, to the point that they have never actually officially admitted these took place. But members of the elite must have known, and although Khomeini’s heir apparent, Ayatollah Montazeri, did protest – to his eternal credit – others seem to have been willingly ignorant of the whole process. Ultimately of course the whole exercise was the responsibility of Ayatollah Khomeini himself, whose accumulation of legal authority reached totalitarian proportions by the end of his life. Indeed the authority he finally claimed was far in excess of anything enjoyed by the system of monarchy he had deposed, and is encapsulated near the end of the Iran-Iraq war in his remarkable statement about the primacy of the ‘Islamic’ state. On one level this appeared to be the natural culmination of a decade-long consolidation of power within the hands of the vali-e faqih, but the nature and timing of the intervention allowed some to interpret the statement as paradoxically showing support for the secular state. Coming at a time of continued dispute between the then-president, Ali Khamenei, and the prime minister, Mir Hussein Musavi, Khomeini’s interjection that the defence of the Islamic Republic was the paramount duty of all Muslims, because it was the political manifestation of Islam, seemed to be a glowing endorsement of the government and its responsibilities.40 However when Khamenei suggested that all were subject to divine laws  – a seemingly uncontroversial statement which could have been drawn directly from Khomeini’s ‘Islamic Government’ – Khomeini responded that Islamic government within the context of the ‘absolute’ velayat, was ‘the most important of Divine commandments and has priority over all derivative Divine commandments . . . [it is] one of the primary 39 For a full discussion, see E Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, pp. 209–22. The precise number executed remains unclear, although most agree that it was in the thousands. 40 See Moin Khomeini, pp. 259–61.

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commandments of Islam and has priority over all derivative commandments, even over prayer, fasting and pilgrimage to Mecca.’ The result of this reprimand was an effusive endorsement of the absolute power and authority of the faqih by Khamenei, noting that ‘The commandments of the ruling Jurist . . . are like the commandments of God.’41 It has been argued that these statements by Khomeini were principally directed at establishing the supreme authority of the Jurist against the opinions of other, often more conservative senior Ayatollahs, and that Khomeini’s motives was to break the reactionary and counter-productive theological resistance to change. Yet in the absence of any further clarification, Khomeini’s statements served to fuel the hard-line disposition to absolute power. Khomeini’s apparent impatience with process was further exhibited in the ‘fatwa’ he issued against Salman Rushdie. So devoid was this particular judgement of any transparent process that in time it was deemed prudent to redefine it as a decree (hokm). The Shah may have taken to issuing farmans, but even he did not pretend to exercise jurisdiction over the citizens of other countries. The Rushdie fatwa aside – and this was as much for foreign as domestic consumption – the fact that the later executions were handled with extreme discretion and secrecy suggests that the new order, whatever the theological rhetoric, was neither as consolidated nor as stable as it might have liked. Indeed the war proved a double-edged sword, especially as it became prolonged and the state exhausted both its human and material resources. Demanding that extra effort, that extra tolerance, increasingly required the state to compromise, and as with other comparable conflicts, the people began to recognise and appreciate their worth in relation to the state. Here were the first glimmers of a structural change in state– society relations, catalysed by the reality of near total war, which would see the king’s subjects begin their mental transformation into citizens of the republic. As the war progressed and the hyperbole of the early years fell on deaf ears, so too did people became less deferential, increasingly cynical, and more demanding of the state which had placed them in such a situation. The culture of martyrdom appealed to some but not to all, and if the state sought to maximise the sacrifice in order to burnish the foundations of the new republic with the blood of the people, the precise nature of this state was becoming increasingly contested. Khomeini’s pronouncement that Iranians must work and prepare a state fit for the return of the Mahdi was interpreted by many as the construction of a 41 S Arjomand Turban for the Crown, pp. 182–83.

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utopian land fit for returning heroes. Indeed the rhetoric of the Islamic Republic was as much about building a better secular present as it was about the spiritual afterlife, and the nation, which had initially been subsumed under the umma, had not remained silent for long. Religion may have sanctified the nation, but by the end of the war, it was increasingly clear that the idea of Iran was not only alive and well, it was re-emerging to dominate the narrative. The Return of the King In 1990, the noted poet Ahmad Shamlou delivered a lecture in UC Berkeley on the topic of the history, historiography, and literature of ancient Iran, extracts of which were soon published in one of the new leading art and culture magazines of the Islamic Republic, Adineh.42 Shamlou, in line with the year-long commemorations of Ferdowsi which were taking place – including a major international congress in Iran – had decided to focus his comments on the myth of Zahhak, seeking to undermine the traditional narrative understanding, effectively reversing the heroes and the villains. The myth, as it stood, was generally well known by Iranians, certainly among the older generations; it dealt with the extended myth which prefaced the insurrection of Kaveh the blacksmith. The essence of the narrative was one of pride, fall, and eventual redemption, through the return of the rightful king. The narrative of the Shahnameh began with a creation myth of ‘world kings’ known as the Pishdadian – literally the givers of justice – among whom the most famous was Jamshid. Jamshid, among other contributions to civilisation, established the annual new year festival of Nowruz, and provided order by categorising people into distinct classes. Such was Jamshid’s success and achievements that in popular culture, Iranians called (and continue to call) Persepolis as being the throne of Jamshid (Takhte Jamshid), because no one but a king of the might of Jamshid could have constructed such an edifice. During his long reign, civilisation flourished. But taken with his own success, and forgetting the source of his power, Jamshid began to identify himself with God, such that he finally insisted that people worship him instead. Unsurprisingly, this incurred divine displeasure, and Jamshid was overthrown by a usurper  – hailing from Arabia  – by the name of Zahhak, who put Jamshid to a terrible and violent death. Zahhak then began a 42 Ahmad Shamlou, Haghighat cheqadr aaseeb pazeer ast (The truth is so vulnerable), Adineh 47, Tir 1369 / June–July 1990, pp. 6–11.

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tyrannical rule which was to last one thousand years until a lowly blacksmith (from Isfahan) by the name of Kaveh raised the banner of insurrection, incited the people in rebellion against Zahhak, and established the rightful king, Fereydoun, on the throne, thus restoring peace, harmony, and prosperity. Zahhak was finally captured by Fereydoun, who dragged him in chains to his imprisonment somewhere in the Damavand mountain, from whence he may return at some later date before the end of times to torment the Iranians once again. The other details of the myth need not preoccupy us further here.43 Suffice to say that Shamlou sought to undermine this understanding by arguing that the real revolutionary was not Kaveh by Zahhak himself, who had been much maligned by a historical reading which had sought to reinforce the traditional monarchical order. Jamshid after all had established the class system which Zahhak overthrew – Zahhak was by extension an egalitarian meritocrat – only to have his achievements in turn reversed by the naïve Kaveh, who not only restores the rightful, hereditary king, but also the old order  – in effect the ancient regime. Shamlou’s motives, mischievous or otherwise, resulted in a minor literary storm as others rushed to Kaveh’s (and Fereydoun’s) defence. It would be easy to dismiss the whole controversy as a storm in a highly surreal and largely irrelevant teacup. But the episode does raise a number of interesting issues. Firstly, there is the very real debate it engendered with scholars rushing to the defence of the orthodox narrative before finally concluding that the debate over the authentic meaning of a myth was largely ‘meaningless’ and that although individuals might interpret it as they wished, the point was to see what the myth had originally intended to convey. This too would also be difficult, but the more important and salient point was made that this was an odd case study for Shamlou to use to discuss the use and abuse of historical truth. 43 In traditional Zoroastrian texts, Zahhak is portrayed as a dragon/beast and is defeated by Fereydoun. In the Shahnameh the dragon is anthropomorphized, represented by two serpents which grow from Zahhak’s shoulders. These serpents emerge after Zahhak is kissed by a grateful Ahriman (the Zoroastrian equivalent/basis for Satan). Zahhak’s tyranny is symbolized by his need to feed the serpents with the brains of local youths, one for each serpent daily. His chamberlain, horrified by what he has to do, replaces one of the youths with the brain of a sheep and lets him escape. These youths then flee to the hills and are regarded as the progenitors of the Kurds. For an interesting if modernized (and left-leaning) synopsis of the myth, see A Behdad Kaveh va Zahhak (Kaveh and Zahhak), Tehran, Naqshe Jahan, 1374 / 1995, p. 72. The influence of this myth can be seen in the Beast of the book of Revelations, see N Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith, New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 2001, pp. 220–31.

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Perhaps more pertinent to the discussion was the continued importance of these ‘national’ myths despite a decade of Islamisation and repeated attempts to marginalise what were officially considered ‘nationalistic’ and ‘pagan’ motifs’. Although Mohammad Reza Shah had sought to replace the myths of Shahnameh with the ‘historical’ Cyrus, the Islamic Republic had been keener to emphasise Islamic history – albeit with a nod to the Iranian contribution. In the very early stages of the revolution, there had even been attempts to wean Iranians off the celebration of Nowruz  – short-lived, although the festival of fire (chahar shanbe suri) which preceded the new year has regularly if intermittently been condemned by the authorities.44 There were many pointed if symbolic changes, including that of the national flag – the removal of the Lion and Sun motif – and the renaming of the Parliament from the national to the Islamic Consultative Assembly. The motivation for many of these changes nonetheless seemed cosmetic rather than real, with the emphasis on stressing, even protesting a clear distinction with the Pahlavis – more obviously Mohammad Reza Shah. Yet the Islamic Consultative Assembly was still widely referred to as the House of the Nation (Khaneh-ye Mellat). The point seemed to be that the process of Islamisation was restoring Iranians to a more authentically national narrative than the artificially imposed narrative of the Pahlavis. Even so, as noted in Khomeini’s instructions for history writing, the official narrative owed a considerable debt to the narratives of mass resistance to imperialism popular among the Left – even as the Left as a political force were being decimated. In this sense, Islamisation was being identified with popularisation. To be Islamic was to be connected with the masses, and the reality of government resulted in some concessions to these masses. The fact was that for much of the first decade of the revolution, for all the rhetoric, the realities of fighting a war and of simple government necessitated a more pragmatic and inclusive attitude to a range of views which might be broadly considered nationalistic rather than overtly religious. The tendency of Iranians to react against the dominant narrative of the state was in fact making itself felt relatively soon after the establishment of the Islamic Republic.45 What is perhaps most curious about 44 On Nowruz, see prison warder Ladjevardi’s comments quoted in E Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, p. 167. The most recent condemnation of chahar shanbeh suri was delivered by Ayatollah Khamenei prior to the festivities in 2010. 45 For the growing propensity of parents to choose ‘Persian’ over Muslim names as early as 1982, see N Habibi, Popularity of Islamic and Persian Names in Iran before and after the Islamic Revolution, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol 24, 1992, pp. 253–60.

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Shamlou’s attempted reinterpretation of the myth was that Kaveh was a standard-bearer of the Left, frequently identified as the original revolutionary and champion of the masses, who crucially was not aristocratic but a humble blacksmith. In undermining Kaveh’s role, Shamlou seemed to be suggesting that Iranians were in actual fact inherently conservative and reactionary, and that they genuinely failed to appreciate how Zahhak had sought to revolutionise their society and break down class barriers. There was of course another possible interpretation of his motives, which were largely and somewhat prudently left unsaid, and this related to the way in which Iranians were interpreting the myth for the present. If Jamshid, the proud king who identified himself with God and was punished for his hubris, could be identified with Mohammad Reza Shah, it did not take a leap of imagination to see who could be identified with Zahhak, the Arab tyrant who professed justice and devoured the country’s youth. If this were indeed the context, and there is to be sure little extant evidence of this association being made at this stage, Shamlou’s reinterpretation can be seen as an attempt to divest the myth of some of its potential political potency. In many ways it enjoyed a greater social resonance  – for simple historical reasons  – than the Mosaic myth that was officially promoted at the outset of the revolution and which, beyond a general belief in being ‘chosen’, failed to gain traction outside the revolutionary elite. At the same time, with the future to play for, the political relevance of the Mosaic myth with its impending utopia enjoyed greater immediate political relevance than a myth which suggested a re-establishment of the old order. Be that as it may, by the end of the Iran-Iraq war, it should come as little surprise that a physically and morally exhausted people should turn to their native myths for refuge if not for political inspiration. Even the experience of the war, which many had thought would reinforce a rigorously Islamic narrative of sacrifice and martyrdom, was being presented as a triumph of national resistance and survival. The war had been ‘imposed’ by a cabal of foreign powers anxious to extinguish Iran’s unique revolution for liberty, a movement which threatened the established (corrupt) world order and therefore had to be crushed. This in itself proved the justice and global importance of the Islamic Revolution and both justified and explained the sacrifice Iranians had to make. Whether this myth was interpreted in Islamic or national motifs mattered little; the very ambiguity served the Islamic Republic’s interests, although the tendency to see things through a qualifying national prism was becoming ever more apparent. This was particularly true as the Islamist movement gathered

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pace in other parts of the world. Although Iran might seek leadership (generally rejected because these other movements were Sunni), more often than not officials sought to distinguish their own experience by noting that theirs was an Iranian Islamic Revolution. Such commentary had to be measured while Khomeini was alive, but even he found it prudent to talk increasingly of the great Iranian nation as much if not more than the Islamic umma.46 Moreover the war provided Iranians with quite distinct experiences which could provide for a new and more immediate mythology of (national) sacrifice, whereas ‘Imam’ Khomeini provided Iranians with a distinctly Iranian religious figure whose iconic stature was confirmed by the elaborate shrine constructed after his death south of Tehran. Even pilgrimages could now be conducted within the confines of ‘national’ boundaries.47 On a more practical note, when the new president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, took the helm in 1989, one of the many reforms he sought to impose was alteration of the Constitution to enhance the powers of the presidency. One of these was the bureaucratisation and rationalisation of the clerical hierarchy complete with examinations48 – effectively applying the reforms of the Constitutional era to the one group that had hitherto been exempt. The other was the attempt to merge the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) into the regular Armed Forces structure. Both measures had mixed results, and certainly the IRGC proved very resistant, accepting in the end incorporation of a formal system of ranks. But both suggested that after 1989, the nation and state were seeking to dominate Islam and the revolution. Indeed despite the best attempts to impose an Islamist narrative with the IRGC at the front and centre of the struggle, the experience of the war  – and few would have been more aware of this than Rafsanjani – indicated that the regular armed forces were an integral part of this struggle. Of course, an attempt was always made to likewise emphasise the vital contribution of Islam as an inspiration. Thus one of the staunchly nationalistic claims from the war was that this was the first time in modern history that Iran had not lost sovereign territory in a conflict. The point was made that this could 46 E Abrahamian, Khomeinism, London, I B Tauris, 1993, p. 15 47 One might say that the war hastened the secularization of religion. 48 Becoming a mujtahid for example is now simply a practical case of taking the relevant exam. Another example of over-rationalisation has been the classification of martyrdom and disability for the purposes of receiving government handouts. Not only does everyone have the possibility of becoming of a martyr, it is now possible to be registered as a ‘living martyr’, truly one of the absurdities of modern bureaucracy.

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not have been achieved if Islam had not been restored to the national ethos. Similarly, Rafsanjani became the first political leader since the revolution to make an official  – if discrete  – visit in 1991 to the ruins of Persepolis.49 Given the strong associations with the Shah, and the general view that some zealots had wanted to bulldoze the site at the beginning of the revolution, the importance of the visit should not be underestimated. It affirmed that the Islamic Republic endorsed and valued the nation’s pre-Islamic heritage, a reality that drew hard-line criticism and which no doubt encouraged Rafsanjani to embellish the visit with a strong Islamic moral overtone about the consequences of disbelief. Nevertheless this, along with the official celebrations for the millenary of Ferdowsi in 1990, complete with International Congress and commemorative stamps, all suggested that the age of extremes was giving way to a more harmonious and tolerant inclusivity.50 History and Identity The calm was however deceptive. A decade of revolution and war may have exhausted the earlier zeal, but it had also delayed any real settlement of the disputes, which continued to revolve (among other things) around the question of nation and identity.51 At the end of the war and following the death of Khomeini, these debates began, tentatively at first, to re-emerge. The tremendous outpouring of popular grief following the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 added to the satisfactory end to the war (at least it had not ended in defeat) and perhaps most important, a relatively peaceful transition of power with a new Guardian all gave the new order a new sense of confidence, and this may have encouraged a greater tolerance for inclusivity. Some themes, sanctified by war and sacrifice, remained sacrosanct. The revolution was popular; the Shah had been alienated from his own people and too dependent on a manipulative United States; the ‘oppressed’ people had resisted despite the duplicitous behaviour of, often ill-defined, international forces, ranging from the United States and Britain to Zionism, Freemasonry, and Baha’ism, and/ or any combination of the forementioned. Borrowing from the Mosaic myth, the question now was, with the people having been led out of 49 See K Abdi Nationalism, Politics and the Development of Archaeology in Iran, American Journal of Archaeology Vol 105, 2001, p. 72. 50 The stamps are remarkable for being almost devoid of any Islamic association. 51 On the dramatic rise of debate, see A Ashraf, Hoviat Irani (Iranian Identity), Goftegu Vol 3, Farvardin 1373 / 1994, p. 25 fn 1. One noticeable distinction from the pre-revolutionary period was the increased use of hoviat (identity) instead of mellat (nation).

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captivity and having survived the wilderness, and with Khomeini dead, who was to lead them to the Promised Land, and more important, what did this land look like?52 Most agreed that this utopia would at heart be defined by the ‘nation’ – the notion that Iranians were somehow chosen had been reinforced not diminished by the Islamist narrative – but how would that nation be predominantly defined?53 Two narratives dominated the debate, with a third hovering tentatively in the margins. The first most obviously was the official narrative of the Islamic Republic, sketched out above, which sought to articulate a narrative history of Muslim Iranian popular resistance, aided and abetted by self-less clerics. This was a myth of national salvation through Islam. It is important to reiterate that even in this narrative myth, Islam was seen as the means by which the nation achieved apotheosis. In this sense, Islam was the solution, but it was not the end in itself. Muslim puritans were not happy with any ‘national’ association, but as with good Marxists, tolerated the nation as a means of eventually overcoming it.54 On the other side were the authentic ‘nationalists’ who shared much in common with the official narrative (in many cases their views were indiscernible), but who laid more emphasis on a cultural exceptionalism founded on literature, myth, and of course the Shahnameh. They helpfully distinguished themselves from the Cult of Cyrus and what was perceived as the radically secular and racist nationalism of the Pahlavis. At the same time, although they recognised the contributions of Islam, and Shia Islam in particular to national identity, they neither neglected nor diminished the contributions of pre-Islamic Iran. For the purists, Islam was one of the means through which the nation could achieve apotheosis, but its function was transitional not permanent. In more dramatic interpretations, Islam and Islamisation was a phase that had to be tolerated  – it was the desert  – before one could reach the Promised Land. Supporters of 52 The Biblical narrative of salvation is not as clearly explicated in the Qoranic version, although the principal elements are the same. 53 On Iranians being a Chosen People, see N Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, London, Pimlico, 2004, p. 1. 54 On these distinctions, see A Ashraf, Bohran hoviat melli va qomi dar Iran (The crisis of national identity and ethnicity in Iran), Iran-Nameh Vol 12 (3), Summer 1373 / 1994, pp. 543–45. Ashraf distinguishes five historical trends or persuasions, to whit, ‘constitutionalist’ (which he argues on the eve of the millennium is largely non-existent); dynastic or monarchical; leftist and ‘subaltern’; religious; and lastly but by no means least, the puritans – those for whom national identity was a constituent part and not a partner to the wider Islamic umma.

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this more radical view somewhat unhelpfully talked of the importance of an Islamic ‘reformation’, an idea which was subsequently popularised by Western observers, showing once again how Iranians tended to situate their history within a broadly Western frame of reference. Perhaps more worrying, however, in their ignorance of the Wars of Religion was how little they understood of Western history. The third strand which stood at the margins, but was never entirely disposed of, was the narrative of Cyrus the Great. This had now become indelibly associated in the popular consciousness, with Mohammad Reza Shah and the monarchical persuasion in general, in large part because of the visual impact of the regularly repeated film of the late Shah’s eulogy at the tomb of the Achaemenid king.55 Perhaps the most extreme rejection of the narrative of Cyrus had come in the guise of a polemic written by the soon-to-be notorious ‘hanging judge’ of the revolution, Sadeq Khalkhali, who published a diatribe in 1979 describing Cyrus as a brutal autocrat and an invention of Jewish fantasists.56 Not known for his historical erudition, Khalkhali had nonetheless touched on one key historiographical reality: The figure of Cyrus was much more prominent in Judeo-Persian literature than in its concomitant Islamo-Persian texts, where the principal aim had been to reconcile the histories and mythologies of the Shahnameh with those of Islam. Although even in these texts, as will be discussed later, the figure of Cyrus was not altogether absent.57 Indeed, one may discern a curious parallel in the principle arguments which emerged after the trauma of eight years of war and death of Ayatollah Khomeini and the historiographical debates which had captivated Iranian bureaucrats in the centuries following the fall of the Sasanian state. The broad narratives that were being broached revolved around the role of Islam and the nature of Iranian identity, with a renewed interest, as noted above, on a reconciliation of competing mythologies. The early confidence of the religious ideologues had been dented if not entirely shattered by the experiences of revolution and war, although it 55 See in this regard, R Mottahedeh, The Mantle for the Prophet, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1987, p. 326. 56 The full text is reprinted in S Khalkhali, Ayyam-e Enzeva: Khaterat-e Ayatollah Khalkhali avalin hakem-e dadgahha-ye enghelab Tehran, Nashr-e Sayeh, 1380, pp. 223–306. The continuing veneration of ‘Cyrus’ has resulted in critiques from across the political spectrum, see for example, H Dabashi, Iran: A People Interrupted, New York, The New Press, 2007, pp. 22–23. 57 See for example Mirkhwand, History of the Early Kings of Persia, Elibron Classics, 2003, reprint of original translation by D Shea for the Oriental Translation Fund, 1832, p. 341.

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would be fair to add that the capacity and ability of these ideologues to persuade their compatriots was much restricted by a much increased cynicism and scepticism among the public in general. If the heat of the revolution had shed little light on the realities of events, the realities of war, and the political repression which had accompanied it, lay uneasily on popular sensibilities, made all the more acute by the fact that the war, although not lost, had certainly not been the triumph of the Islamic man which had been promised. Khomeini had famously said that the war had fault but no one was to blame: a clever attempt to admit errors without unleashing  – in the immediate term at least  – a potentially destructive witch-hunt for the culpable. But the truth was that it also recognised an unease in Iranian society that was looking for answers for the sacrifice that had been borne. Khomeini’s articulation allowed a search while effectively protecting the guilty. It was a tentative recognition that society had changed, not only because of the experience of war and revolution, but demographically and educationally. If population growth had been the definitive contribution of revolutionary policies, the process of education and literacy had built upon the legacy and infrastructure of the Pahlavi state, and most tellingly, on the production of (historical) knowledge which had been launched in the 1960s and more dramatically, with the rise in oil revenues, in the 1970s.58 Those who had benefitted from the Pahlavi expansion in education were now coming of age whereas the arteries of Iranian historical research were growing thicker, and with the advent of new technologies, this history was becoming more accessible.59 Archives were being collected, compiled, and catalogued, facilitated by the awkward reality of reams of documents and private papers seized from former officials. Moreover, what was striking was not so much the revolutionary yearning to start from year zero, but quite the contrary enthusiasm to delve into historical research with a confidence in the ‘truth’ that belied the ignorance that underlay it. The authorities were convinced that ‘real’ historical research would recover the truth from the falsity of Pahlavi propaganda and that their world-view would soon be vindicated. In many ways this reflected the continuing influence of paranoid historiography. 58 See in this regard H Ram, The Immemorial Iranian Nation? School Textbooks and Historical Memory in Post-Revolutionary Iran Nations and Nationalism, Vol 6 (1), 2000, p. 69. 59 See for example the comments of Ayatollah Kawrani, quoted in E Rouleau, The Islamic Republic of Iran: Paradoxes and Contradictions in a Changing Society, Le Monde Diplomatique, June 1995.

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The truth was known: all that was needed was the facts to substantiate it. A cohort of eager young researchers were thus unleashed into the archives with a view to unearthing the iniquities of the recent past. The reality proved a little more awkward, as former officials were discovered through their papers not only to have played hard but to have worked hard for their country. Far from being slaves to colonial powers, many officials proved to be hard-working patriots. Moreover, although some memoirs were written and released with a view toward self-justification and the deprecation of Mohammad Reza Shah – for example the controversial memoirs of his long-time friend and intelligence chief, Hossein Fardoust – these were consequently viewed with scepticism. Others, published outside the Islamic Republic – such as those of the Shah’s long-time Minister of Court, Asadollah Alam  – painted a picture of a Shah with undoubted failings and a weakness for conspiracy theories, which might be all too familiar to his heirs, but who nonetheless appeared to have the best interests of his country at heart. He may have been misguided but he was genuine. The transformation of the Shah from ‘brutal dictator’ to an ‘unfortunate’ (bad-bakht),60 weak man, was reinforced by the opening up of his palace complexes to public viewing, which for all the official pronunciations on the evils of excess appeared to many as somewhat modest for the King of Kings, Light of the Aryans. Perhaps the most striking example of the unintended consequences of historical research was the task given to a young Emad ad Din Baghi – who would go onto become a prominent Reformist activist – by the Martyr’s Foundation (Bonyad-e Shahid) to investigate its records and discover the true human cost of the revolution.61 Baghi’s findings were to prove so disconcerting that they were quietly suppressed and largely ignored by the authorities, until Baghi himself decided to reveal the fruits of his research. According to Baghi, far from the 60–70,000 martyrs to the revolution, the real figure was nearer 3000. Moreover, this figure represented deaths from 1963, the ostensible beginning of the Islamic uprising through to 1979. Baghi calculated that 2781 demonstrators were killed in the year of revolution (1978–1979); an additional 383 were killed in disturbances dating to 1963, giving a total number of 3164. Of more interest were the details Baghi provided. Far from thousands having been killed in

60 Literally ‘unfortunate’. The characterization of the Shah as a weak man constantly manipulated by others is the major theme of the Iranian TV series Pedarkhandeh (Godfather), Soroush, IRIB, produced 1384–1385 / 2005–2006. 61 Baghi was himself a former seminary student.

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the riots against the White Revolution, the total provided by the records amounted to thirty-two. By far the greatest number of victims was in Tehran, with only 731 of the total resulting from confrontations in the provinces. The overwhelming number of victims came from south and central Tehran and were male. Most damningly, given the prominence of the Jaleh Square Massacre in the official narrative of the revolution, Baghi concluded that the total number of deaths in Jaleh Square came to sixty-four, including in this case one woman and a young girl, with another twenty-four casualties in other parts of Tehran. As awful as these figures remained, what was problematic for the authorities was that they coincided rather closely with the figures put out by the Shah’s officials at the time. Baghi’s total came to eighty-eight; the Shah’s officials had noted eighty-six deaths.62 The problem here was not only the realisation that the Pahlavi state might have been telling the truth but the fact that the Islamic Republic had justified many of its excesses on the popular sacrifices already made. This was a theme which would likewise run through the Iran-Iraq War, where casualty figures were regularly and repeatedly inflated in order to emphasize the debt owed by the present to the ‘Islamic’ blood of the martyrs (although even here there is no evidence to suggest that everyone who died in the war had done so for the ‘Islamic Revolution’, as opposed to a more simple sense of patriotism and brotherhood). Nevertheless, 62 Cyrus Kadivar, A Question of Numbers, Rouzegar-Now, 8 August 2003. See also C Kurzman op cit. (loc: 2179/3531). The importance of Jaleh Square to the official narrative of the revolution can be seen in the opening shots of the Iranian TV series Pedarkhandeh (Godfather), whose opening scene depicts a distraught and anxiety-ridden Mohammad Reza Shah announcing that he has heard the voice of the revolution, and then contrast this with gunfire and blood over a sign for Jaleh Square. The point is obvious even if the chronology is not. For a more recent and ‘dramatic’ confession of sins past, see A Ganji Ma beh mardom dorugh me-gofteem (We used to lie to the people), in the online Persian newspaper Khabarnegaran Sabz 7 Khordad 1390 / 28 May 2011. More recently there have been revelations and reflections over the prison executions of 1988; see Yeki degar az masuleen dahe 60 az edamhaye 68 bara’at jost (Another of those responsible in the 1960s seeks acquital from the executions of sixty-eight), Payega Jameran, 7 Tir 1390 / 28 June 2001, interview by Soroush Jafari. More recently, in light of the contested figures for the crowds protesting the presidential election result of 2009, with the help of satellite imagery there has been a move to provide a more realistic assessment of their size. Foucault, among others, is credited with ‘maximizing’ the size of the crowds; this number has usually been cited as around two million, or more evocatively, half the population of Tehran. Gholamreza Afkhami in his recent study of the Shah, effectively deconstructs this figure; see G R Afkhami The Shah, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2009, p. 667, n 49. On Foucault, see, Iran: The Spirit of the World without Spirit, in Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings 1977–1984, London, Routledge, 1988, p. 215.

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even if the figures for the war were considerably lower than the 500,000 to 1 million often quoted – the number of deaths is reported to be in the vicinity of 180,000 with perhaps four times as many again wounded – the numbers remained dramatic especially when placed in the context of a country that had not been to war for the better part of 200 years.63 It also puts the number of casualties for the revolution itself in the shade and poses questions about both the popularity of the revolutionary movement and its geographic reach. Indeed, among Baghi’s analyses, it is worth noting that the vast majority of the casualties were borne by Tehran (75 per cent). Empirical evidence of this nature tended to undermine the narrative of a national and popular revolt and refocus attention on the inadequacies of the state, and the Shah in particular. It did not necessarily weaken the conviction in a providential revolution, but it did encourage a shift in emphasis and begged more, often uncomfortable questions. Mention has already been made of Fereidoun Adamiyat’s attack on the narrative of clerical centrality in the political history of modern Iran, and the criticism that has since been made of it. Adamiyat’s critique very much reflected his frustration at the manner in which modern Iranian history was being ruthlessly refracted through a clerical lens, although in reacting to this process so fiercely, he did his cause a disservice. Nevertheless, it was only a matter of time before the grand narratives of Iranian history as reimagined by the revolutionary elite were deconstructed and questioned just as Baghi had questioned the immediate narratives of revolution. To put these developments in context, it is worth reiterating how important particular narratives were to Ayatollah Khomeini, that he personally intervened within days of the triumph of the revolution to ensure that school text-books were divested of any material considered antithetical to the spirit and interests of the Islamic ­revolution.64 Quite apart from emphasising the importance and characteristics of the new Islamic man, text-books were revised to reflect the superiority of religious role models, including the Prophet and the Imams and closely followed by the ulema, ‘the true 63 For an analysis of the figures, see H W Beuttel, Iranian Casualties in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988): A Reappraisal, The International TNDM Newsletter, Vol 2 (3), December 1997, pp. 6–17. In 2000, IRNA reported that official statistics put the total number of deaths at 188,015; quoted in S Ward, Immortal: A Military History of Iran and Its Armed Forces, Washington DC, Georgetown University Press, 2009, p. 345, fn 49. The figures for casualties range from 158,856 to 213,000, depending on which of a variety of government sources is used and whether civilian casualties are included. 64 G Mehran, Socialization of Schoolchildren in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian Studies, Vol 22 (1), 1989, p. 37.

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representatives of the people’,65 whereas nationalism was portrayed as essentially a Western (bourgeois) invention intended to divide and exploit the Muslim umma. Indeed the marriage between familiar left wing narratives of exploitation and Islam was so strong that the one non-religious commentator given prominence in the texts was Frantz Fanon.66 This subjection of nationalism to the imperatives of the Muslim umma was nonetheless incomplete and did not long outlast the end of the war, which for the reasons cited above begged more questions than provided answers.67 Among the more obvious questions of course was: Why did the Shia in Iraq not rise up to support their co-religionists? The stock answer among veterans, as well as other Iranians, was simply that this was all that could be expected from ‘Arabs’. It was a short step from here to redefining the Muslim umma as an Iranian Muslim umma.68 In order to reinforce this particular narrative, one of the tasks set for the enthusiastic revolutionary researchers was to establish the history of Islam through the medium of Iran, expanding on Ayatollah Motahhari’s thesis that the Iranians had provided the greatest service to nascent Islam, had been willing converts, and indeed had been seminal in its transformation from a religious movement to a civilisation. Iranians may have been constituent parts of the umma, and Iranian identity may have been subsumed under a new evangelical Islamic one, but Iranians could be increasingly reassured that they formed the essential part without which nothing else could function. This was of course another reimagining of Iran as the ‘chosen people’, and very much mirrored the contemporary revolutionary belief that Islamic Iran was destined to play a particular role in the unfolding of world history. In an immediate sense, this helped justify the suffering people had endured, especially in the war; the utopian aspect of this narrative had yet to be clearly articulated. In the meantime, it was important to discover historical analogies especially with respect to the piousness of Iranians, their intellectual contributions, and the special regard which the Prophet and his family held for Iran and the Iranians. An early indication of this sense of centrality to the Islamic narrative had in fact emerged in the first year of the revolution when the government issued a stamp commemorating one of the companions of 65 G Mehran, Socialization of Schoolchildren, p. 45. 66 G Mehran, Socialization of Schoolchildren, p. 49. 67 See for example H Ram, The Immemorial Iranian Nation? School Textbooks and Historical Memory in Post-Revolutionary Iran, Nations and Nationalism, Vol 6 (1), 2000, p. 80. 68 H Ram, The Immemorial Iranian Nation?, p. 86.

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the Prophet, Salman the Persian, heading towards the Arabian peninsula, arguably with a book under his arm: an allusion too far for many among the ulema, resulting in the rapid withdrawal of the offending stamp.69 Researchers pursued their task safe in the knowledge that the relative neglect of Islamic history under the Pahlavis meant that there was much to be discovered and corrected. There was indeed much to be discovered, although not all which had lain hidden had been the consequence of deliberate neglect but rather the relative paucity of both researchers and accessible sources. Now researchers were discovering an altogether more complex narrative which demanded further investigation into the historical context of the rise of Islam and its inheritances, be they political, social, or most controversially, religious. Much as European biblical scholars found themselves seeking out the Roman context, so too did Iranian scholars turn their attention to the Sasanian context. Indeed it soon became apparent that the real neglect of the last few decades of scholarship, given the official preoccupation with Cyrus and the Achaemenids, had been the Sasanians and their legacy, which by all accounts had been profound as to the early Islamic polity – especially under the Abbasids. This was not so much a reiteration of Zarrinkub’s thesis outlined in his ‘Two Centuries of Silence’ (a text that remains popular in Iran), of a nation subsumed, suppressed, and triumphal in its eventual re-emergence, or indeed one which imagined Iranian identity as having been enriched and emboldened by the encounter with Islam,70 but something more integrated and intimate which effectively argued for a marriage of ideas (traditionally symbolised by the marriage of Imam Hussein with the daughter of Yazdegerd III, Shahrbanu), and in some cases the wholesale absorption of Sasanian ideas and practices of government, administration, and ethical practices. This last association was particularly galling because it appeared to suggest a connection between the heterodox Zoroastrian practices and beliefs of the late Sasanian era and the emergence of Islam, fuelling rather than diminishing the traditional role of Salman the Persian. Much like Baghi’s investigations, these results, debates, and arguments failed – initially at least – to see the light of day and were certainly not 69 A copy of the original stamp is in the author’s collection. The presence or otherwise of a ‘book’ is debatable though the curious fact that Islamic Republic would commemorate the 1500th anniversary of the Hijra of the Prophet with a profile of Salman the Persian is beyond dispute. 70 This is the narrative generally associated with R Frye’s hugely successful The Golden Age of Persia: The Arabs in the East, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993.

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supported for publication. Not that this stopped the circulation of these ideas in intellectual and student circles, where interest in pre-Islamic Iran was gathering pace. The Sasanians even enjoyed a particular role in the creation of the idea of Iran. Helped by the publication of Gherardo Gnoli’s ‘The Idea of Iran’ in 1989, Iranian social scientists were able at once to concur with Hobsbawm that ‘Iran’, as a political idea, had indeed been invented, but – and this was the crucial distinction – it had first been invented by the Sasanians. At a stroke therefore, the idea of Iran and the notion of an Iranian identity was both modern in conception and ancient in lineage.71 Such were the means by which the study and appreciation of ancient – pre-Islamic Iran – was rescued from the ideological constriction of the last Pahlavi and returned to terrain more familiar to the first. Iran for All Iranians This creeping reassertion of Iranian identity and barely disguised sense of exceptionalism was also fuelled by broader political events. The first was the development of a centralised presidential government under the management of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani, who had been Speaker of Parliament for much of the war and a close confidante of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, was regarded by many as the real power in Iran. This view was reinforced by Rafsanjani’s installation of his close friend and theological nonentity, Ali Khamenei, as the new Leader and Vali-e Faqih, along with Constitutional changes which saw the abolition of the post of prime minister and the consolidation of executive powers in the office of the President – in this case himself. Rafsanjani’s emphasis on economic development, his cultivation of what might best be described as a patrimonial bureaucracy centred on his office, and his apparent affectation for distinctly non-revolutionary etiquette and formality, all encouraged a sense of disquiet and discomfort among many who felt the revolution and war had been fought for more than just to replace the Shah with his pale imitation. Akbar Shah, as he was contemptuously called in some quarters, also appeared to be promoting a 71 See for example, A Ashraf, Bohran hoviat melli va qomi dar Iran (The crisis of national identity and ethnicity in Iran), Iran-Nameh Vol 12 (3), Summer 1373 / 1994, p. 523; This view was later taken up and quoted by M R Tajik, Rowshanfekr Irani va memaye hoviat melli (Iranian intellectuals and the puzzle of Iranian identity), National Studies Quarterly, Vol 2, Autumn 1379 / 2001, p. 163. Tajik’s importance was reflected in the fact that he became a vice president in Khatami’s government, with responsibility, among other things, for cultural policy.

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distinctly un-egalitarian form of capitalism: a type that much as under the Shah seemed to accrue unusually generous benefits to members of Rafsanjani’s family. Moreover, he had moved to consolidate his position by developing an alliance of interests with the Right rather than the Islamic Left which had dominated government during the war years. This development was in many ways unsurprising given Rafsanjani’s explicit determination to move away from state control following the end of the war and to free up the economy, if not towards a free market economy as understood in the West, to something that was less dominated by the state. In political terms this meant that many of the Left-leaning politicians of the war era now found themselves cast to the outer margins of the political field. A number of them used their time in the political wilderness to intellectually interrogate their political ideas. It should come as no surprise that the initial discussions about what it meant to be Iranian were defined against what was perceived to be the bureaucratic centralism of the Rafsanjani presidency. Another development which impacted upon the debate was the fall of the Soviet Union.72 The consequences of this monumental change in the geopolitical map took some time to permeate political debate, but the consequences were momentous and disconcerting. On one level Iranians suddenly discovered neighbours – traditionally part of the Iranian imperium – they had long considered lost. This was especially true in the Caucasus, where Iranians found themselves relating to individual states anxious to rediscover their own roots and historical connections. All but one of these new states were not Shia – at least two were Christian – but did have an affinity to the idea of ‘Iran’.73 On another level, the fall of the Soviet Union signified both the fall of stagnant ideology and a ‘multi-ethnic’ empire. The parallels and dangers for Iran seemed clear. All these factors fed into the debate about Iranian identity and nationalism in the decade following the Iran-Iraq War. Yet for all the vibrancy of the debate – a reflection perhaps more of quantity than quality – many of the issues and indeed the solutions echoed the very same problems that had confronted the first nationalists at the turn of the twentieth century: how to understand Iranian identity and nationalism and define it against an over-powerful state within a world of changing realities. The touchstones of the debate were familiar even if the social context had changed. 72 A Ashraf, Hoviat Irani (Iranian Identity), Goftegu Vol 3, Farvardin 1373 / 1994, p. 7. 73 The fall of the Soviet Union and the independence of the Caucausus revived interest among some in the iniquities of the Treaty of Turkmanchai, 1828.

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The relationship between nation and religion remained ever-present, and if anything, more prominent, although given the nature of the government in the decade after the war, the balance of the argument was shifting towards the nation. Even Ayatollah Khomeini was drafted as a supporter of Iranian national identity.74 Pride in one’s mother country was regarded by some as not only compatible with faith but indeed an Islamic duty. In some cases, Islamic social restrictions, such the obligation to wear the veil (hejab), were justified on starkly nationalist and Sasanian grounds. Indeed, if the Sasanians had initially been recruited to justify the centralisation of Iran under Reza Shah, they were now unwittingly dragooned to justify and explain the existence of a ‘religious’ state, which by all accounts was now being presented as the natural state of affairs. Ardashir Papagan’s advice to his heirs on the relationship between religion and state and the folly of kings who neglect religion was quoted in support of this state of affairs, with the ulema being identified with the Zoroastrian mobeds of the past.75 Such analogies only worked so far of course. At no stage  – except perhaps in the Mazdakite revolt  – did religious authorities ever usurp secular power, and this was as much a revolt against orthodox religion as it was the state, although few drew attention to the growing dogma and ideological rigidity of Zoroastrian orthodoxy and its probable consequences on social mores in Iran. That said, the belief that the Sasanian Empire represented the epitome of the idea of the Iranian state, and that at its core it was religious, remains widespread within the popular historical consciousness.76 Its use to justify modern policies also betrayed another aspect of the politics of post-revolutionary Iran, and that was that for all the religious rhetoric, the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran found nationalism not only useful, but attractive. Indeed it would be erroneous to suggest that the reassertion of Iranian identity was resisted by the religious authorities; in many cases, even if it was not actively supported, such moves were nonetheless facilitated.77 In the postwar environment nationalism certainly had its uses and could appeal to

74 I Barzegar, Pathway, Identity Rules in Imam Khomeini’s Thinking, National Studies Quarterly, Vol 2, Autumn 1379 / 2001, p. 142. 75 The text is quoted to good effect in S A Arjomand, Turban for the Crown, p. 76. 76 The assumption that the Sasanian state was both politically and religiously centralized is for example stated in Afshar’s otherwise excellent article, A Ashraf, Bohran hoviat melli va qomi dar Iran, p. 532. 77 Khamenei for example was a keen advocate of the Persian language. See IRNA 2 February 1994, Leader lauds Persian as a living, sweet language. The Ferdowsi conference and President Rafsanjani’s visit to Persepolis have been noted above.

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a growing section of society – especially the young – for which religious adherence did not enjoy sufficient social traction. Moreover, with the fall of the Soviet Union, nationalism could provide a further platform to enhance unity, although interestingly the emphasis was on stressing nationalist fears of disintegration rather than on inculcating any positive sense of mutual belonging.78 On one level, as noted earlier in the section, promoting a common sense of Iranian-ness facilitated Iranian foreign policy in the newly independent states of central Asia and the Caucasus where there was little interest in religion, let alone Shi’ism Competing for influence with the Turkish Republic, among others, Iranian diplomats found it more to their advantage to talk of Persian and Iranian culture, and common historical roots. It indeed became common among some to talk of Iran and Turan, minimising any ethnic or racial distinction and emphasising instead the common cultural heritage rooted in history, and most obviously, the Shahnameh.79 Indeed the contest in central Asia turned not only on competing interests, but on conflicting interpretations of culture and ethnicity. Whereas the Turks promoted a view of ethnic nationalism which designated Central Asia as being ‘Turkish’, the Iranians insisted on a more cultural perspective in which ethnicities were fluid constructions.80 Political realities encouraged Iranians to move away from the doctrine of the Aryan myth as promoted in the later Pahlavi period and more towards a conception of identity that would have been familiar and encouraged by the Constitutionalists. This debate of course was also reflected in intellectual circles, because the other side of the argument pertained to the ‘ethnic’ composition of Iran itself and whether the concept of an ‘Iranian’ identity had any basis in reality. These debates of course had all been rehearsed decades before 78 Kaveh Bayat provided a useful historical perspective in his Tahavollat khareji va masael qomi dar Iran (Foreign developments and the question of ethnicity in Iran), in Goftegu Vol 3, Farvardin 1373 / 1994, pp. 45–54. The notion of ‘national interest’ became more prominent in discourse; see for example Hossein Seifzadeh, Estrateji-ye Melli va Siyasatgozari-ye khareji (National strategy and foreign policy-making), The Journal of Foreign Policy, Vol 7, Winter 1994, pp. 705–22. 79 A good example was the presentation by Abbas Maleki, Iran and Turan: A Note for Iran’s Relations with Central Asia and Caucasus Republics. The paper, a copy of which is in the author’s possession, is undated but was presented after 2001, and remains consistent with similar papers presented when Maleki was deputy foreign minister under Rafsanjani. 80 One of the most interesting developments in this respect was the attempted classification of Iranians abroad  – the Diaspora  – as a distinct ‘ethnie’, a revelation that struck the author during a visit to one of the many annual Iran Tourism fairs held in Tehran during the 1990s.

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and will not be repeated here. The one distinction – if that is the correct term – was that the revived debate was couched in the often-obtuse lexicon of social scientific ‘discourse’, which served to at once add gravitas to the speaker and suggest ‘modernity’. Suffice to say that the general consensus was agreed on: dismissing Persian chauvinism and ‘Aryanism’ as fallacies of Pahlavi ideology (not recognising any distinction between the two monarchs), while disagreeing on the merits of centralisation.81 Centralisation and its perils, albeit couched definitively within the language of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’, facilitated discussion on another aspect of national identity with more immediate consequences: that of the legal relationship between state and the individual, and above all the question of rights. Having consigned much of the discussions of the early twentieth century to the margins of intellectual discourse, many of the new debates had the air of novelty as if discussions on constitutionalism and the rights of individuals were a direct outcome of the Islamic Revolution. Implicit assumptions of this nature of course lent an air of legitimacy to the debate, with opponents reassured that a discussion of this nature could not have occurred at all without the Islamic Revolution and the explicit rejection of the Pahlavi State. This of course did not preclude investigations into the Constitutional Movement, although even these, as noted above, originated with a particular political agenda in mind and were intended to further embed an Islamist narrative. Nevertheless much as with renewal of historical interest and research into the early Islamic period, those interested in the Constitutional period inevitably and inexorably broadened their horizons to explore the surrounding areas – one of which would be the rise and rule of Reza Shah and his relation to the Constitutional Movement.82 This particular development would in time yield some curious political consequences. but initially the focus of debate lay on the question of rights not simply in a political sense but 81 See for example A Ashraf, Bohran hoviat melli va qomi dar Iran, pp. 540–43. On the representation of ethnic minorities in school text-books, see the interesting article by N Yavari, Aqvam va qomiyat dar ketab-haye darsi (Ethnicities and ethnic relationships in school text-books), Goftegu Vol 3, Farvardin 1373 / 1994, pp. 97–119; see also in the same journal T Atabaki, Meliat, qomiat va khod-mokhtari dar Iran-e moaser (Nationality, ethnicity, and self-sufficiency in contemporary Iran), pp. 68–83. Indeed, of the six articles in this special issue of Goftegu on ‘Being Iranian’, three deal explicitly with the issue of ethnicity, whereas at least another two refer to it. See also M Boroujerdi, Contesting Nationalist Constructions of Iranian Identity, Critique, Spring 1998, pp. 43–55. 82 The tendency has been to keep the Constitutional Revolution distinct from Reza Shah, who it is argued, overthrew it. The association however had been made by one religious historian, Rasoul Jafarian, in a round-table discussion on Iranian national identity, in National Studies Quarterly, Vol 2, Autumn 1379 / 2001, p. 51.

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in a conceptual and philosophical sense. In this subtle way there was a distinction between the constitutional debates of the early twentieth century and their successors in the 1990s, although it was a distinction borne more of structural rather than inherently intellectual changes. As has been argued earlier, Iran’s constitutionalists engaged with Western ideas far more intimately than has often been appreciated.83 There was undoubtedly a sense of confidence among these post-revolutionary intellectuals, but more important there was a critical mass both in terms of numbers and accessible resources – the social context was markedly different. Moreover, there was a growing conviction that Iranians had to engage in the production of knowledge and not simply absorb, dissect, and deconstruct Western ideas, or as in the case of some of the country’s Shi’a seats of learning, to ignore Western political philosophy altogether. In the words of one of the most prominent thinkers of the post-revolutionary era, Mojtahed Shabestari, quoted in 1988: The fact that our seminaries have separated their path from that of the social sciences and are minding their own business without any awareness of the developments in these disciplines has brought us to the present condition in which we have no philosophy of civil rights or philosophy of ethics. [Furthermore] we have neither a political nor an economic philosophy. Without having a set of solid and defendable theories in these fields how can we talk of universal or permanent laws and values? How can we [even] gain admission to the international scientific communities?84

As Shabestari’s argument suggested, the imperative was to engage with Western ideas on an equal footing by contributing to the fundamentals of the debate from a distinctly Iranian-Islamic perspective. Articulating the debate in this way provided legitimate cover for those who wanted to engage with Western ideas against those who remained adamant that any such engagement resulted in the pollution of the revolution’s ideals. Those in favour of engagement had two arguments in their defence: Firstly they argued that engagement would allow the revolution to appropriate and adapt ideas, and to win new converts to the revolution through a process of ‘Islamisation’, while at the same time pointing out that Ayatollah Khomeini had himself engaged with Western ideas, the better to be able to dismiss them. The central point was that Western ideas could not be ignored; they had at the very 83 C Masroori makes this point eloquently in French Romanticism and Persian Liberalism in Nineteenth Century Iran: Mirza Aqa Khan Kirmani and Jaques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, History of Political Thought Vol 28 (3), Autumn 2007, p. 542. 84 M Borujerdi, Iranian Intellectuals and the West, Syracuse, Syrcause University Press, 1996, p. 168.

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least to be confronted. To not do so, it was suggested, would reflect badly on the ideals and the inherent confidence of the revolution. Indeed the irony remained that for all the rhetoric of rejectionism which emanated from those who regarded themselves as the guardians of the purity of the revolution, it was the West and Western ideas against whom they defined their rejection and with whom they were intimately bound. This ideological paradox could only be escaped by engaging from within, not rejecting from without. The continuing intimacy of this relationship was reflected for example in comments which continued to situate the Islamic Revolution within a grand narrative that was essentially Western. Thus, the Islamic Revolution was regarded as the greatest intellectual leap since the Renaissance, and the Revolution of 1979 was the third great such movement since the French and the Russian Revolutions. The measure of success, the reference point, remained stubbornly European. In political terms this paradox has been reflected in the continued obsession of the hard-line revolutionary elite with the United States. There may be no physical diplomatic presence, but there remains a profound ideological presence, to such an extent that what the United States does and how it will react effectively continues to shape Iranian domestic and foreign policy as much as it did the government of Mohammad Reza Shah. In this as in many other areas, the Islamic Revolution presented more continuity than change with the Shah it deposed. Proponents of engagement argued that in order to escape this paradox, one had to overcome this dangerous ideological dependency by dealing with the West on ‘equal’ terms, and as Shabestari noted, this entailed developing an indigenous political philosophy most obviously with some sort of appreciation of individual rights. It is important to remember that one of the routes into this process came from the religious seminaries themselves where the revolutionary authorities were initially, at least, less able to interfere, and of course it was felt that they were sufficiently inoculated against Western ideas to be able to safely engage with them. Unsurprisingly the preponderance of interest lay in those areas that were considered familiar and accessible; for example, one significant area of growth was in the field of hermeneutics, which was regarded by many of the ulema as compatible and comparable with Shi’a epistemology. The Western thinkers who gained the greatest attention were designated ‘religious’ as opposed to the materialist philosophers – such as Marx – who were considered antithetical to the values of the revolution and to be approached with all due care. As the French journalist Eric Rouleau noticed however, they nonetheless remained in the curriculum: ‘The

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curriculum, according to the philosophy professor who invited me to his class, runs the gamut from the ancient Greeks to Heidegger and including Kant, Hegel and Marx. Some of his students, who say they have read Saint Simon and Auguste Comte, expressed regret that Foucault had not yet been translated into Farsi.’85 Similarly one way to develop new ideas was to prefix them with the adjective ‘Islamic’ as a means of providing a cloak of legitimacy to what would otherwise be considered contentious. Even here, the term was used loosely (occasionally lazily) as a means of justifying particular approaches to human rights; at other times, it was used with considerable more subtlety, such as when the topic of ‘Islamic Democracy’ was being debated. The Islamic Republic, in its post-war phase of ‘reconstruction’, had thus rediscovered and in many ways reinvigorated debates on nation, history, and method which would have been familiar to their constitutional forebears. Now they turned their attention to the final part of the puzzle of national identity  – the question of rights. What did it mean to be an Iranian in the Islamic Republic of Iran; what obligations did it demand, and what rights did it bestow? The revolution itself had been fought against the growing autocracy of the Shah, and the language of rights was pervasive if not altogether clear. Moreover the realities of revolution and war had ensured the consolidation of the powers of the state against its citizens whereas discussion of these issues had been deferred until the war had been won. Now with the war over, the supporters of the ‘republic’ found themselves confronted in the first instance by a state defined by an extensive patrimonial bureaucracy headed by Rafsanjani, in uneasy alliance with the religious – authoritarian – right, whose chief preoccupation was the preservation of the purity of the revolution through the consolidation of the office and person of the new Supreme Leader. Indeed one of the aspects of the revised constitution of 1989 was the addition of the prefix ‘absolute’ to the concept of velayat-e faqih, an additional qualification sourced to Khomeini but now applied to his successor. Such developments provided additional impetus to the debates which emerged, with one central discussion being around the precise remit of the term ’absolute’. Did this imply that the Leader was above the law, or did the term reflect the Leader’s position in relation to other senior Ayatollahs in respect to aspects of Sharia rather than politics? Matters were complicated by the precedent left by Ayatollah 85 E Rouleau, The Islamic Republic of Iran: Paradoxes and Contradictions ina changing society, Le Monde Diplomatique, June 1995, p. 3.

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Khomeini and the extraordinary if somewhat legally ambiguous powers he enjoyed. The authoritarians argued that the Islamic Republic was but a necessary transition towards a pure Islamic State as envisaged by the founder, in which power, authority, and rights were all invested in the Supreme Leader. The proponents of the republic, on the other hand, argued that Khomeini was an exception for extraordinary times, and that he above all would have recognised the need to adapt and change to circumstances. Thus the authoritarians argued that there was no reference to a republic in Khomeini’s political treatise on Islamic Government, whereas the republicans countered that his acceptance of the concept of an Islamic Republic proved that he recognised the need to adapt.86 When the republicans countered that the concept of an Islamic State centred on the authority of the supreme leader was nothing but a return to monarchy, the authoritarians retorted that because the framework was Islam and Islamic law, this would not be possible – despotism was simply not possible within the framework of Islam. Republicans responded with the simple question: Whose Islam? The parameters of the debate would have been familiar to those who fought to limit the monarch’s powers during the Constitutional Revolution, and it would be fair to say that much of the political debate revived in the 1990s could be described as politics by historical analogy; or better still, historical mythology, because each side tended to selectively argue its case. These analogies tended to be drawn from familiar recent history, although that which was sufficiently distant to be deemed comparatively open to discussion. Thus the events of the revolution, as seen with the investigations of Baghi discussed above in the section ‘History and Identity,’ remained relatively sacrosanct, whereas the events of the oil nationalisation crisis back to the Constitutional Movement proved increasingly accessible for polemicists and researchers. The coup against Mosaddeq was of principle use in explaining United States–Iran relations, although this also facilitated exploration of other aspects of the crisis, albeit the exploration was limited. But by far the best candidate for comparative analysis was the Constitutional period, and even if the initial tendency was to explain why their forebears had got it wrong, as opposed to the success they now enjoyed, as the struggle against the authoritarian persuasion grew more intense, there was a clear convergence of narratives between the reformers of the Islamic Republic and those of 1906 and beyond. The enlightenment was back with a vengeance. 86 See Karrubi, quoted in Salaam 24 Aban 1376 / 15 November 1997, pp. 1–2.

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To better understand the process by which a number of key ideologues of a revolution which originally aspired to overthrow the ideals of the enlightenment and replace it with a ‘post-modern’ restoration of religion to the political sphere87 came in time to espouse the very principals of that intellectual movement, one must first recognise the different narratives of the enlightenment.88 As has been discussed earlier, the concept of the enlightenment as a process which was inherently anti-religious as opposed to anti-superstition has been largely undermined by historians. That Iranian intellectuals of the revolution did not necessarily appreciate this reflected their own intellectual inheritances and prejudices derived from a mixture of Marxist historiography and a simplified understanding of Western history founded on the French Revolution as the author of Western modernity. Their own re-reading and rediscovery of this history, as well their often tortured experience of the reality of revolutionary politics, affected a gradual although often profound transformation in their thought. Indeed the entire articulation of a concept of ‘civil society’ can be seen as a reflection of this enlightenment inheritance.89 A good example is the case of one of the most prominent public intellectuals of the revolution, Abdolkarim Soroush. Soroush earned a doctorate in the history of science at the University of London before returning to Iran where he became a prominent advocate of the reform of the universities during the early stages of the revolution. By all accounts he was a zealous advocate of the cultural revolution that was ensuing, and his ‘revolutionary’ credentials ensured that he was consequently tasked with leading the attack on Marxist ideology as defined by the Tudeh communist party. Given that the Tudeh Party continued to espouse what might best be described as a Stalinist reading of Marxism – rigid, orthodox, and dogmatic – the task proved to be not unduly difficult, but it did impact and affect those tasked with the deconstruction in ways that were not immediately apparent. In the first place, the encounter with Marxist thought not surprisingly resulted in a better appreciation of Marxian method and ideas. But more consequential was the fact by the end of the war, Soroush 87 For an explicit example of this view, see Mohammad Javad Larijani: ‘While an Islamic society is not at ease with technical rationality, it finds itself quite in harmony with the authentic one. Therefore, Islamic modernity goes far beyond historical modernity and is basically a post-modern phenomenon.’ Islamic Society & Modernism, The Iranian Journal for International Affairs, Vol 7 (1), Spring 1995, p. 58. 88 Cf. Pocock. 89 Particularly one might add narratives of the the Anglo-Scottish enlightenment; see for example, S Copley and A Edgar’s introduction to David Hume: Selected Essays, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. xi.

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was beginning to turn his critique of totalitarian ideology towards the similarly rigid dogma of authoritarian Islam. Soroush proved particularly scathing about the intellectual limitations of the seminaries, accusing them of being unduly narrow, elitist, and rigid in their approach to knowledge, and of replacing ‘demonstrative arguments with rhetoric.’ Above all, he urged them to abandon ‘religious cosmetics’, and ‘renounce arbitrary selectiveness in the presentation of religion, which must be presented in a scholarly manner.’90 Soroush added that the faith of Islam, which was pure and perfect, had to be distinguished from the interpretation of the faith, which was a human activity and therefore fallible. It was natural that the ulema would move to protect their particular jurisdiction and the primacy of juridical Islam (as opposed to its philosophical tendency) because it represented their livelihood. It was in effect their class interest that had to be maintained, at whatever cost. Yet as Soroush added pointedly, in words which might had emanated from the mouth of Jamal Al Din al Afghani, ‘The truth is that among the ulema (or those who call themselves ulema) those who are impious, poorly educated . . . are not few.’91 Soroush proceeded to make three distinct contributions to the debate. In the first place he rescued the idea of ‘secularism’ from the political wasteland it had been relegated to in the aftermath of the revolution by arguing that the orthodox understanding within the Islamic Republic had confused secularism with laicization and consequently misinterpreted secularism as anti- or irreligious. This view, argued Soroush, was simplistic and incorrect. Secular governments were not ‘opposed to religion; they accept it but not as a basis for their legitimacy or as a foundation for their actions.’ On the contrary secular governments often distinguished themselves from the religious sphere in order to protect the purity of religion. Moreover, secularism had to be understood as a method more than a political system – a means of ensuring scientific rigour and criticism, which far from damaging faith would reinvigorate it by regularly removing the detritus of superstition. The notion that the new world gradually rids itself of religion is only half true. It is true insofar as the modern world condemns ignorant and vulgar religiosity to extinction. However it also shows a different kind of religiosity, a learned and

90 A Soroush, What the University Expects from the Hawzeh, in M Sadri & A Sadri (trans. and eds.) Reason, Freedom and Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 183. 91 A Soroush, Saghf Mashiat bar Sotoun Shariat (The Roof of Livelihood on the Pillar of Religion), Kiyan, Vol 5 (26), August–September 1995, p. 27.

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examined religion, to prosper on a higher level. Scientific treatment of political and economic affairs does in no sense preclude a well defined role for God and religion in political, social and natural affairs.92

Religion and religious values could not be imposed, they could only be cultivated from the individual upwards, and consequently, ‘If a society is religious, its government too will take on a religious hue.’ The second major contribution was to the debate on ‘rights’. Despite the promises of the revolution, practical experience had shown that the rights of the individual, far from being introduced, had been further constrained in the interests of the Islamic community (umma), as defined and understood by the vali-e faqih. Under Ayatollah Khamenei, any legal ambiguities which might have existed under Khomeini were gradually being eliminated in a legal consolidation which saw all rights concentrated in the person of the ‘absolute’ supreme leader. Shabestari had already made the point about an absence of indigenous literature on the concept of rights, a reflection undoubtedly that Islamic texts tended to deal with the traditional state lacking both a modern bureaucracy or the technological means to penetrate society, and consequently emphasized the needs of the community and state. Now the situation in the ‘modern’ world was clearly different. The relationship between state and society had to be redefined to protect the citizen against the demands of the state. Soroush was clear that Islamic political thought, in order to be relevant to the modern age, had to articulate a theory and legal concept of individual rights. [A] religion that is oblivious to human rights (including the need of humanity for freedom and justice) is not tenable in the modern world. In other words, religion needs to be right not only logically but also ethically. The discussion of human rights is hardly cosmetic, superfluous, blasphemous, or easily dismissed. Nor is it merely grist for scholastic and casuistic discussions within seminary walls. Simply put, we cannot evade rational, moral, and extra-religious principles and reasoning about human rights, myopically focusing nothing but the primary texts and maxims of religion in formulating our jurisprudential edicts.93

Put more bluntly, ‘A rule that is not just is not religious.’94 This was a remarkable statement in that Soroush clearly inverted the relationship 92 A Soroush, The Sense and Essence of Secularism, in Sadri & Sadri, Reason, Freedom and Democracy in Islam, p. 61. 93 A Soroush, The Idea of Democratic Religious Government, in Sadri & Sadri, Reason, Freedom and Democracy in Islam, p. 128. 94 A Soroush, Tolerance and Governance, in Sadri & Sadri, Reason, Freedom and Democracy in Islam, p. 132.

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between the idea of religion and justice, placing the latter in the prime position. The ends did not justify the means, and the state could not commit injustices in the strategic interests of the faith as interpreted by individuals, who as noted earlier, were fundamentally fallible. In the words of one historian, ‘Soroush [had] gone furthest on [the] road towards a new liberalism. He [had] gone so far as to accept the Enlightenment premise that all human beings irrespective of religion and gender – are born in nature with reason as well as with equal and inalienable rights.’95 The third area, which was no less interesting, was his discussion of the limits of culture and their interrelationship. Entering the debate on East and West, Soroush argued that ‘We Iranian Muslims are the inheritors and carriers of three cultures at once. As long as we ignore our links with the elements in our triple cultural heritage and our cultural geography, constructive social and cultural action will elude us . . . The three cultures that form our common heritage are of national, religious, and Western origins.’96 Soroush would of course go on to argue that the most important component was the Islamic inheritance, but this was nothing compared to his acknowledgement that Iranian culture owed some sort of debt to the ‘West’, and that it was legitimate to engage with such ideas. Soroush was doing little more than publicly expressing what many intellectuals and thinkers in Iran already conceded, but it was an important statement nonetheless. Those who argued that the ‘West’ had to be confronted at all costs appeared paradoxically to be beholden to and restricted by this very idea of the West which they so opposed. Soroush’s position to the contrary was that these cultural spheres were neither clear nor rigid but malleable and fluid, and open to legitimate appropriation and engagement. Significantly, for all his criticism of the narrow-mindedness of the seminaries, it was to be a cleric who would come to personify the practical application of these ideas. Interestingly, despite nearly a century of secular education, some of the most prominent critics of ‘superstition’, dogma, and the absence of rights for Iranians came from within the seminaries. Part of the reason for this was no doubt, as suggested earlier in this section that the seminaries initially enjoyed better access to resources and were generally under less pressure from the authorities. Indeed there is little doubt that seminary 95 E Abrahamian, The Islamic Left: Radicalism to Liberalism, in Stephanie Cronin (ed.) Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left, London, Routledge, 2004, p. 275. 96 A Soroush, The Three Cultures, in Sadri & Sadri, Reason, Freedom and Democracy in Islam, p. 156.

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curricula enjoyed comparative autonomy when contrasted with their secular cousins. Moreover, they benefitted from better resources and financing whereas the universities found themselves victims of a steady brain drain as many of their most promising academics found less stressful jobs abroad. Moreover, in the early days of the revolution, the clerical profession found itself suddenly both attractive and promising. There is however perhaps another point that needs to be considered, and that was that these developments also reflected the relative paucity of specialists in the humanities and the social sciences in the university faculties of late Pahlavi Iran. Among the most prominent academic and political critics of the state of affairs were Mojtahed Shabestari, noted above, who had spent time in Germany and was fluent in German; Ayatollah Montazeri, Khomeini’s one-time heir and subsequent critic of the transformation of the office of the Leader away from that of ethical supervision towards political management,97 and a relatively junior cleric by the name of Mohsen Kadivar. Although Montazeri’s criticisms of the growing power of the vali-e faqih, and his vocal support for the people’s ‘God-given right’ were regularly dismissed as a case of belated political sour grapes  – he was frequently derided as irrelevant and on the verge of senility98 – Kadivar’s relative unimportance along with the often difficult scholarly apparatus he used meant that he was able to pursue his task of deconstructing the concept of velayat-e faqih unhindered.99 He shared with his mentor, Montazeri, an appreciation of the works of Grand Ayatollah Boroujerdi, the last undisputed Iranian grand Ayatollah before Khomeini took the helm after 1979. The use of Boroujerdi as a source of intellectual reference and emulation was significant inasmuch as Boroujerdi not only predated Khomeini, but was generally regarded as a much better theologian. As a young cleric, Kadivar took to his research with the same enthusiasm Baghi had taken to the historical record. Among his conclusions, Kadivar argued that far from being a Divine Blessing, ‘discovered’ by 97 See G Abdo, Re-Thinking the Islamic Republic: A ‘Conversation’ with Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, The Middle East Journal, Vol 55 (1), 2001, p. 15. There are clear echoes of the U.S. Constitution in his remarks on God-given rights. 98 See Iran News website, 28 Jan. 2003; ISNA website, 30 Jan. 2003; Al Jazeera, 28 Jan. 2003; Iran News website, 1 Feb. 2003; Etemad website, 1 Feb. 2003, BBC SWB Mon ME1 MEPol. 99 Kadivar’s main analyses of the concept of Velayat-e Faqih can be found in Nazriyeh-haye dowlat dar fiqheh Shieh (The views of the state on Shia jurisprudence), Tehran, Ghazal, 1378 / 1999–2000) and Hokumat-e Velaye (The government of guardianship), Tehran, Ghazal, 1378 /1999–2000).

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Ayatollah Khomeini, the concept of velayat-e Faqih was very much Khomeini’s particular innovation. This was not a controversial revelation insofar as it emphasized Khomeini’s uniqueness, but it did draw attention to the fact that a large number of historical influential senior clerics had all opposed the idea. More problematic was his dissection of the parameters of the term ‘absolute’, which by his understanding and his drawing on the writings and pronouncements of Khomeini himself, was a good deal more limited than the supporters of Ayatollah Khamenei suggested. For Kadivar, the term ‘absolute’ related purely to religious matters which remained unresolved and which required a final authority to arbitrate. Otherwise Khomeini’s conception of the Guardianship of the Jurist remained firmly within the framework of the law, a point that had been made by Ayatollah Motahhari.100 There was perhaps room for interpretation in this respect because Khomeini had clearly arrogated for himself the prerogative to interpret the law, but where ambiguity existed Kadivar characteristically sought practical examples. So, it was argued, if Khomeini had such a hunger for power, why did he repeatedly establish councils and committees to discuss and arbitrate political disputes?101 The corollary to this discussion on the restriction of the power of the state as personified by the supreme Jurist was the establishment of the rights of the people, which for Kadivar had been the principal aim of the revolution, and which had remained unfulfilled. Kadivar effectively argued that the power being accrued to the Jurist had essentially resulted in the turban replacing the crown: the establishment of an Islamic monarchy, if not yet, a religious despotism.102 This (rather than his deconstruction of the concept of velayat-e faqih), along with his condemnation of the practice of issuing secret fatwas for the purpose of assassinating dissidents, resulted in his finally being summoned to answer before the special clerical court, an experience that simply served to further popularize his views and at the same time reveal the truth of many of his criticisms. Kadivar’s popularity was further enhanced by his acceptance of nationalism and national identity, and his support for patriotism. There was nothing contradictory in being a good Muslim and an Iranian patriot, 100 M. Kadivar, Baha’ye Azadi: defa’at Mohsen Kadivar (The price of freedom: The defence of Mohsen Kadivar), Tehran, Ghazal, 1378 / 1999–2000), p. 167; see also pp. 149, 152. 101 On Khomeini’s propensity for consultation and delegation, see also Hasan Yusefi Eshkevari’s speech on ‘Law and the Women’s Movement’, delivered at the Berlin Conference, April 2000, reprinted in M. A. Zakrayi, Konferens-e Berlin: khedmat ya kheyanat (The Berlin Conference: service or treason), Tehran, Tarh-e No, 2000. 102 M. Kadivar, Baha’ye Azadi: defa’at Mohsen Kadivar, pp. 153–67.

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and indeed, argued Kadivar, these identities were both compatible and mutually supportive. Ayatollah Boroujerdi, he noted, was undoubtedly patriotic, whereas staunch paragons of the nationalist pantheon, such as Dr Mosaddeq were likewise pious men. Enjoining a grand narrative of mutual compatibility Kadivar emphasised, that Iranians before the arrival of Islam (i.e., principally during the Sasanian era), had been religious and pious people; were the heirs of a great religious and national tradition, and should not be deterred from taking that which was useful and good from the Western canon. In language that would have been familiar to his Constitutional forebears, Kadivar argued that ‘modernity’ had to be seized, and religion should not be used to compromise ‘reason’.103 In short, Iran was to be for all Iranians. The language of Islamic democracy was being articulated with increasingly vigour and confidence, drawing on both East and West, religion and national identity. Islam would protect democracy, just as the principles of democracy would invigorate religion and keep it alive and dynamic. Not only had the principles of the enlightenment been rediscovered, so too by extension, had the Constitutional era. In the words of Soroush: In democratic societies, the path of examined religiosity is more open and inviting. Those who appreciate the value and sanctity of religion and the glory of investigation will never doubt that a single examined faith is nobler than a thousand imitated, shakey, and weak beliefs. ‘The religious despotism,’ a term perceptively coined by the knowledgeable jurisconsult, logician and theologian of the last century, Ayatollah Naini, is indeed insurmountable except by the help of such rational democracy. Religious despotism is most intransigent because a religious despot views his rule [as] not only his right but his duty. Only a religious democracy that secures and shelters faith can be secure and sheltered from such self-righteous and anti-religious rule.104

Many of these ideas would be tested in the first serious political contest since the advent of the revolution, and probably the most open election since 1980. In 1997, President Rafsanjani was Constitutionally bound to step down after two terms in office, and the presidential election was contested between the establishment candidate Ali Akbar Nateq Nuri and the

Kadivar, Baha’ye Azadi, pp. 163–64. Kadivar has been a keen promoter of the views of the pro-Constitutional cleric, Akhond Khorasani. For a summary of his views, see A Soroush, S K Sandhi, and H Alaei, Akhond Khorasani’s Viewpoints towards the Modern Concepts of Freedom and Justice, Journal of American Science, Vol 6 (12), 2010, pp. 473–79. 104 A Soroush, Tolerance and Governance, p. 155. Naini’s views were contrasted with those of Nuri, used extensively by the authoritarians. 103

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comparatively unknown outsider, Mohammad Khatami, who had served in Rafsanjani’s first administration as a relatively liberal Minister of Culture, but had since retreated into political seclusion and security as the head of the Iranian National Library. The details of the campaign which ultimately led to a landslide victory for Khatami need not detain us here other than to highlight some of the important themes and perspectives identified with Khatami and his opponents, as these have largely defined the nationalist debate to the present day.105 It is indeed worth bearing in mind that many of the nationalist tropes popularised and extended by Ahmadinejad were already being cautiously tested by Nateq Nuri and his supporters in a bid to encourage enthusiasm for Nateq Nuri’s candidacy. As such it was testament to the strength of nationalist sentiment in society at large and the realisation that power would go to the movement that was able to effectively harness it. That these tactics remained largely unseen (or unappreciated) reflected in part they were put in the shade by the tremendous popular mobilisation of the Khatami campaign and the Reformist movement which followed, and, moreover that the Reformists defined their opponents in starkly dogmatic and authoritarian tones. Indeed by far the most effective slogan against Nateq Nuri was that he represented the ‘Taleban’ of Iran. He was in effect against freedom and the rights of Iranians as citizens, as well as being a supporter of religious dogma. If in retrospect these slogans appear a somewhat harsh indictment of the individual, they did reflect popular fears of what he might represent, and by definition the aspirations of his opponents. Nateq Nuri was above all a complacent candidate assured of his own victory, which resulted in an awkward and incoherent campaign. Belatedly realising that the theme of revolutionary purity was gaining little traction among the country’s youth, he moved quickly and without much credibility to stress his support of women’s rights, and his credentials as a nationalist. This latter move, epitomised by Nateq Nuri’s brother’s depiction of the candidate as a latter day Reza Shah, lacked credibility and invited popular scorn, but the use of this tactic does provide an insight into developments at the time.106 For more detail and the author’s interpretation of the rise and fall of Khatami and the Reform movement, please see A M Ansari, Iran, Islam & Democracy: The Politics of Managing Change (2nd ed.), London, Royal Institute of International Affairs 2006, p 328. 106 H Kaviani, Ramz peerozi yek rais jomhur (The secrets of victory of a president), Tehran, Zekr, 1378 / 1999, pp. 131–32; also B Dad, Sad rooz ba Khatami (One hundred days with Khatami), Tehran, Sahafi, 1377 / 1998, pp. 86–87. 105

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For instance, in one election debate Nateq Nuri sought to affirm his credentials as a literate man by correcting Khatami’s use of the English derivative, ‘komputer’ and insisting on the correct Persian term Rayaneh. Far from portraying him as a defender of the Persian language, it showed him to be largely out of touch with the youth of the country, but it also drew attention to the fact that in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the ‘Islamic’ establishment appeared just as keen as the ‘nationalists’ of the Reza Shah period to find suitable Persian words to replace foreign loanwords, the provenance of which remained European rather than Arabic. It also however hinted at a structural change in the nature of the problem. Computer technology and globalisation, in particular the development of software codes and communication  – most obviously the emerging Internet – were all affecting the way in which language was being used and written in post-revolutionary Iran. The advent of the computer had affected a decentralisation of power giving individuals access not only to information, but a new and highly efficient means of dissemination. Not only was society being empowered, but the use of loan-words, as well as the application of the Latin alphabet to Persian, was being driven from below rather than being imposed by the state. This technological transformation was (and is) perhaps the single most dramatic revolution in state–society relations in recent memory, and by extension, the definition and articulation of nationalism and national identity. The first Iranian political leader to truly appreciate this was Khatami. As Minister of Culture and later head of the National Library, Khatami was intimately aware of these technological changes and their potential impact on society. In the first place, he was increasingly aware, especially with the introduction of the VCR into Iran, that technology could not be controlled from the centre, and that consequently a new ‘social contract’ would have to be articulated which was inclusive and participatory. Moreover, technology was inherently international, cross-cultural, and currently dominated by the West. It was natural therefore that Western values should dominate both the narrative and the debate.107 The way to deal with this was first to recognise this reality, and to seek to engage with it from a position of strength.108 This dialogue could only be meaningfully achieved if Iranians were at once empowered not only in M Khatami, Observations on the Information World, in Fears and Hopes (trans. A Mafinezam), in Hope and Challenge: The Iranian President Speaks Institute of Global Cultural Studies, Binghamton University, 1997, pp. 61–71. 108 BBC SWB ME/2920 MED/9, 16 May 1997; Iranian TV, 12 May 1997. Khatami uses the term ‘immunize’. 107

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a political sense but also in terms of their self-awareness and identity – an identity that was being increasingly defined in ‘civilizational’ terms, language which itself betrayed a debt to the ideas of the enlightenment. In sum, Our age is one of the domination of Western civilisation and culture. Understanding it is necessary. An effective understanding goes beyond the frills of that civilisation and reaches the roots and foundations of its values and principles . . . we must understand our past; not for returning to it and stopping in the past, which is truly ossification, but for finding the essence and meaning of our identity and to purify it from preconceptions and habits that are totally dependent on time and place.109

Thus for Khatami and his allies, this renewed Constitutional project involved not only the extension of the franchise through the inauguration of municipal and local elections with a view to building democracy from the ground up – very much on the model of de Tocqueville’s reading of democracy in America  – and the consolidation of rights, but an interrogation of identity beyond the superficial and conspiratorial. This was fundamentally a historical project which could trace its roots to the Constitutional Movement, but the difference now was that society was ready and the leaders were more connected.110 If this confidence erred on the side of optimistic, it could be excused in the excitement which followed Khatami’s first election victory in 1997 and indeed the Reformist sweep of the Parliament which followed in 2000. What was striking however was how much of the rhetoric could have been drawn directly from the playbook of the Constitutionalists. Khatami may have been prudent enough to quote ‘the great religious scholar’, Naini, and the rights of the people to hold their government to account.111 But otherwise his sentiments, and those of the Reform Movement in general echoed the comments of the very ‘enlightened’ Constitutionalists that had for so long been dismissed as victims of ‘westoxication’. Like Taqizadeh before him, Khatami saw the achievement of the enlightenment not in the scientific positivism of the nineteenth century but in the Anglo-American marriage of religion and liberty: ‘the approach to religion, which was the foundation of Anglo-American civilisation, relies on the principle that religion and liberty are consistent and compatible. I believe that if humanity is BBC SWB ME/3099 S1/4–9, 11 December 1997; Iranian TV, 9 December 1997. 110 BBC SWB ME/3344 MED/14, 29 September 1998; Iranian TV, 26 September 1998. See also the Persian language daily, Entekhab, 23 Azar 1378 / 14 December 1999, p. 2. 111 BBC SWB ME/3318 MED/17, 29 August 1998; IRIB radio, th August 1998. 109

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looking for happiness, it should combine religious spirituality with the virtues of liberty.’112 Even more striking was his emphasis on history and mythology as a means of binding the political community of Iran together. This did not relate only to a reassessment of recent history but to an appreciation of the corpus of narratives which formed the basis of Iranian historical identity. In a speech to expatriate Iranians on the occasion of his visit to the United Nations in New York, Khatami articulated his views on the uses of historical myths (ostoreh), both Islamic and Iranian. These may not be factual history but they reflected and informed the spirit of the nation: Mythology describes the spirit of various nations. And there is no nation or people whose history is free from myth. Of course, in conformity with the weight of civilisation and the history of a nation, the myth of the nation is deeper and more complicated. And civilized nations usually have myths. The ethical myth and the myth epic indicate the spirit of Iranians . . . the Book of Kings [is] the symbol of Iran.113

Ideology, Utopia, and Myths of Salvation In seeking to apply the Constitutionalist project, Iran’s reformists faced the same dilemma as their predecessors: How were they to reconcile intellectual depth with social expansion? How, in effect, would they manage the transition from a lateral to a demotic construction of nationalism? Their task had not been made easier by the dramatic population expansion that had been encouraged by Ayatollah Khomeini, and in the economic and political tensions of post-war Iran, Iranians and their government increasingly turned to the familiar myths of their past. Khatami and the Reform Movement had turned to the same solutions in both structure and form as their predecessors: a process of public education through an expansion of the mass media, and an empowerment of people through a gradual decentralisation of power from the centre to the periphery. This was not limited to an acknowledgement of particular ethnic minorities, such as the Kurds, or indeed the Azeris, but a recognition that all Iranians of whatever sectarian or ethnic persuasion had been traditionally deprived of basic rights, and that the institution of these rights had to be matched by a growth in personal responsibility. This was a BBC SWB ME/3210 MED/2, January 1998, Iranian TV, 8 January 1998. 113 BBC SWB ME/3339 MED/1, 23 September 1998, IRNA 20 September 1998. For the full Persian transcript, see Hezareh-ye gotegu va tafahom (A thousand discussions and understanding), Tehran, Resanash, 1378 / 1999, pp. 64–76. 112

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particularly important aspect of the entire project and perhaps the most difficult to cultivate. It was not simply a case of entitlement but of each person contributing to society and essentially becoming a stakeholder, not simply in economic terms – each for instance having a share of the oil wealth of the country – but in the political management of the Republic. Iran’s oil wealth gave Iranians a sense of entitlement (or indeed grievance in the apparent absence of their ‘fair share’), but the lack of responsibility was reflected in the dysfunctional tax system. The way to address this deficit was to give people a political stake through elections and representation, through local organisations and the overdue establishment of systematic parties.114 This was what Mohammad Reza Shah had quintessentially failed to do. He had fuelled the sense of entitlement – through tightly controlled patrimonial patronage – without engendering a sense of responsibility. Cultivating responsibility required a program of mass public education through the modern media, principally in this case, the print media, which witnessed a dramatic expansion during Khatami’s first term. Indeed, it should come as no surprise that the front line in the contest between the authoritarian and republican wings of the revolutions should have been the media, and in many respects the most important ministry in this period was that of Culture and Islamic Guidance, initially led by the relatively open-minded Ata’ollah Mohajerani, for whom a plurality of media outlets was regarded as a positive development.115 It is difficult to overestimate the dramatic and dynamic atmosphere that pervaded the print media and journalism in Iran in this period  – foreign diplomats were regularly surprised by the vigour of the debate and the frequent crossing of presumed ‘red lines’ – and the political jousting that characterised the relationship between the Judiciary and the Ministry of Culture. As soon as a paper was closed, often within a matter of days it would apply for a new permit from the Ministry under a new title, and the redundant journalists would be immediately rehired. Articles varied from news pieces to political and historical context  – discussions of the Constitutional revolution and the oil nationalisation crisis – as well as straightforward BBC SWB ME/3271 MED/4, 6 July 1998, IRNA news agency, 4 July 1998. On Khatami’s economic policy, see Salaam 16 Esfand 1376/1377 March 1998, p. 1; see also Tous, 15 Sharivar 1377/1376 September 1998, p. 6; also, BBC SWB ME/3298 MED/4–11, 6 August 1998, Iranian TV, 2 August, 1998. On tax reform, see the Minister of Economics’ comments in BBC SWB MEW/0551 WME/1, 18 August 1998, Iranian TV, 11 August 1998. 115 Mohajerani’s confirmation hearing at the Parliament, BBC SWB ME/3005 MED/12, 23 August 1997, Iranian TV, 20 August 1997. 114

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opinion pieces which often tackled hitherto controversial religious issues head on.116 If events took on the characteristics of a farce, the seriousness of the debates they engendered within wider society was to soon result in a turn towards tragedy. The pro-Reformist Iranian press soon found itself securing an ever wider and dedicated readership, much to the consternation of the authoritarians whose own papers were suffering from a dramatic decline in interest. Precise circulation figures are difficult to ascertain but it was generally agreed that most of the reformist newspapers enjoyed regular sales of around 200,000–300,000 per day. This was not consistent among all the titles, and sales were concentrated in the main cities especially Tehran, but with around six reformist titles at any one time, one could fairly estimate sales of around 1.5 million papers a day, with a wider hinterland of readers and listeners.117 This process of political education faced its greatest immediate crisis in the student uprising of 1999 which followed the closure of the popular newspaper Salaam, following its revelations about state intelligence involvement in the murder of four dissident intellectuals, including the nationalist politicians Dariush and Parvaneh Forouhar the previous year. This crisis encapsulated the core of the struggle between the republican and authoritarian wings of the revolutions by focussing attention on the two major determinants of change – students and the press – and reminding us that the struggle was and remained quintessentially ideological and revolved around competing narratives and world-views.118 The right to determine the grand narrative of Iranian history, from ‘whence we have come and where we are going’, was at the heart of this struggle; it was See for example, H Nozari, ‘The Place and Importance of Constitutionalism in Contemporary History’, Iran, 19 Mordad 1378/ 10 August 1999, p. 10; ‘One Hundred Years’ Struggle for a House of Justice’, Tous, 13 Mordad 1377/1375 August 1998, p. 6; see also Khordad, 18 Mordad 1378/1379 August 1999, p. 6. One particularly sensitive article, reportedly penned by Emad ad Din Baghi, related to the question of ‘apostasy’ and the death penalty. 117 Precise circulation figures are notoriously hard to come by although an indication is provided by one newspaper, Sobh Emrooz, announcement in April 2000 that it was increasing its print run to one million following the closure of sister titles. 118 Khatami’s Minister of Interior, the cleric Abdullah Nuri, later to be arrested, even went so far as to argue that the two sides were at ‘war’; see Salaam 9 Tir 1378 / 30 June 1999. For more detail on the murders and the ensuing crisis, see A Ganji, Tarikh-khaneh-ye ashbah (The cellar of phantoms), Tehran, Tar-e no, 1378 / 1999; Ganji’s publications were often collections of his newspaper articles in which investigative journalism was combined with a dose of political theory. He went as far as to liken the intelligence officials involved to ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’ (pp 26–28); see also H Kaviani, Dar jostejoye mohafal jenayatkaran. The mere fact that such books were published is indicative of the more open climate at the time. On differing methods see later in the chapter. 116

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moreover as much about method as the ultimate narrative. This distinction is important because although the proponents of reform argued for the dominance of reason, partly as a response to their critics, partly through indolence, but most of all through an accelerated attempt to popularise their ideas, they too all too frequently succumbed to narrative mythologies which sought to monopolise discourse. They succumbed in short to a particular (and paradoxical) tyranny of ‘liberalism’.119 This was to be, in time, one of the main charges against them, and the chief cause of the disillusion of many of their supporters whose heightened expectations were to be all too easily dampened.120 This process of disillusion and effective depoliticization was to likewise and somewhat paradoxically be compounded by President Khatami’s philosophy of self-reliance and personal responsibility. The 1999 demonstrations had resulted in the first significant signs of reaction and clamp-down. Khatami, acutely aware that social and political tensions could boil over and derail the process of political reform and civil education, urged his supporters off the streets and told them to seek change instead through constitutional means. Specifically this meant actively campaigning for the parliamentary elections due in March 2000. In any event, despite vigorous repression over the previous summer  – including the first police assault onto a university campus since the revolution – and the threat of Revolutionary Guard intervention, the reform movement organised and managed a landslide victory which swept reformist deputies into office and offered the prospect of real legislative change.121 In many ways this was a far more significant victory than Khatami’s presidential triumph in 1997, and it was the singular recognition of this fact which effectively launched a period of unforgiving reaction. It is important to appreciate For a cogent Western critique of ‘Liberalism’, see Maurice Cowling, Mill and Liberalism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1963. For a useful discussion of Cowling’s views see M Grenfell Cowling and Liberalism, in R Crowcroft, S J D Green and R Whiting The Philosophy, Politics and Religion of British Democracy: Maurice Cowling and Conservatism London, I B Tauris, 2010, pp. 65–84. 120 See Baghi’s comments in this regard, E Rubin, ‘The Millimeter Revolution’, New York Times, 6 April 2006. See also the reader’s comment in Hayat-e no, 27 Azar 1381 / 18 December 2002, p. 5: “why has Khatami forgotten the 22m votes he received?.” 121 On these events, see H Kaviani, Ramz peerozi yek rais jomhur, p. 163; Neshat, 23 Mordad 1378 / 14 August 1999, p. 2; Iran, 18 Mordad 1378 / 9 August 1999, p. 1; see also M A Zakrayi, Hijdahom-e Tir mah 78 be raviat jenahaye siasi (The 18th Tir 78 from the perspective of political factions), Tehran, Kavir, 1378 / 1999, pp. 33 & 453–54. On the fear of hard-line exploitation of potential anarchy, see Ganji, Tarikhkhaneh, pp. 302–14, Zakrayi Hijdahom-e Tir. p. 183; BBC SWB ME/3587 MED/1, 15 July 1999, Iranian TV 13 July 1999. 119

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why this was so. If Khatami’s election in 1997 was an important political milestone, it remained nonetheless both containable and understandable in the sense that Khatami would be limited by a Parliament dominated by those who opposed him, and perhaps more importantly, the means of his election was both centralised and controlled. Moreover, his opposition could be forgiven for having underestimated him. Three years later this should not have been the case. Not only did Khatami now have control of the legislative arm of government, but it was quite apparent that there was now a decentralised political apparatus distributed throughout the country which had effectively mobilised people to vote for a disparate group of individuals all associated with an idea. This was quite different from the personal popularity contest of a presidential election; this was an election which required a powerful idea and a coherent organisation. It was also the first election in which Iranian nationalism was explicitly evoked and the slogan, ‘Iran for all Iranians’ was adopted.122 If the triumph was not as complete as the Reformists would have liked or indeed thought, it proved a sufficient shock to the system to ensure an authoritarian retrenchment and reaction. Ironically, in the immediate term, it was the authoritarians who were to learn the lessons of defeat far quicker than their Reformists opponents were able to translate electoral victory into political results. Unable to prevent the convening of the new Parliament, the authoritarians exploited the liberal magnanimity of their opponents to block any revision of the draconian Press Laws. Ayatollah Khamenei direct intervention in the business of the Parliament on the pretext of protecting religious sensitivities, as significant a moment as the landslide electoral victory of the Reformists, augured ill for the future and signalled the beginning of the end of the Islamic Consultative Assembly as a body with any pretence to legislative independence.123 For the Reformists, the warning signs were clear. The revived experiment in On the 2000 Majlis elections, see A M Ansari Iran, Islam & Democracy, pp. 196–207. The author of the campaign strategy was Saied Hajarian, a former intelligence officer who would subsequently be paralyzed following an assassination attempt in the immediate aftermath of the election victory. On the attempted assassination attempt, see M A Zakrayi, Terror-e Hajarian beh raviat-e jenaha-ye siyasi (The assassination of Hajarian in the perspective of political factions), Tehran, Kavir, 1379 / 2000; see in particular p. 267 with respect to hard-line fear. The Reformists had also adopted the anthem ‘Ey Iran’ (composed in the 1940s), much to the chagrin of the authoritarians; see BBC SWB ME/3767 MED/1, 18 February 2000, from Kayhan website, 16 February 2000. 123 See BBC SWB ME/3822 MED/1–6, 24 April 2000, IRIB radio 20 April 2000; BBC SWB ME/3822 MED/9 24 April 2000, IRNA 22 April 2000; see also the interview with the Reformist editor, Hamid Reza Jalaipour, in TIME magazine (Europe), 2 May 2000. 122

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constitutionalism was in danger of being all too brief; the threat of ‘religious despotism’ loomed large while others pondered the parallels with the Constitutional Revolution when revolutionary idealism and incompetence had crippled government and created fertile ground for dictatorship. Such analogies are always selective and rely as much on myth as historical record, but they did reflect anxieties that the ‘liberal’, Constitutional moment was going wrong once again because on the one hand, the forces of reaction were too strong, and on the other, the Constitutionalists were simply too fractious, divided, and incompetent. There was even a sense, following Bush’s designation of Iran as part of an ‘axis of evil’ in his State of the Union address in January 2002, that ‘foreign intervention’ was yet again hampering Constitutional reform. Coming after repeated attempts to bridge the distrust between the United States and Iran, and more specifically the assistance afforded to the United States in the war against the Taleban, this speech was indeed unfortunate and helped fuel a sense of beleaguered isolation among Iranian politicians. Although Khatami sought to contain the authoritarian reaction through an admixture of resistance and concession, his repeated call on the Iranians to be self-reliant and not to expect salvation from him or any other leader fell on deaf ears. Khatami understood his role as providing the political space for the program of civil education to grow and flourish such that Iranians themselves would feel empowered to seize the political initiative and hold their masters to account. This was very much an Anglo-American perspective on enlightened nationalism constructed from the ground up. The seeking of salvation in charismatic leaders was a tendency, if not a malaise, which rendered the country vulnerable to dictatorship, and it was essential for Iranians to be weaned off this dangerous dependency. These views were similar to those held by the first Constitutionalists for whom the rule of Reza Shah was an essential point of transition towards a republic of laws constructed round a constitutional monarchy. In this post-revolutionary incarnation, there was no need for a period of enlightened despotism, in part because this era had already been transitioned, society had substantially changed, and perhaps most important, there was an Islamic Republic already in place. What was at risk was effectively a regression, and so impossible did this seem to many of the Reformist leaders that they simply did not take the prospect seriously. In echoes of the 1950s and 1960s, the radicalisation at the margins eventually squeezed out the liberal and moderate centre. Khatami was making himself irrelevant and seemed philosophically incapable of containing this inexorable process.

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In any event, the turmoil which characterised the political regression that was taking place gave space and time to a reading of nationalism which was altogether more traditional and yet populist. It reflected a number of fundamental lessons learnt by the authoritarians, but strangely neglected by the Reformists, about the changing nature of society, the power of nationalism and the medium of transmission. Reformists and the ideas of republicanism they espoused were fundamentally intellectual. They required not only a literate public, but a politically literate public, and the Reformists set to work in earnest to educate their masters. The newspapers and the universities were their centres of power. They revelled in the elite intellectualism of their ambitions and engaged with the leading philosophers of their day  – both Paul Ricoeur and Jurgen Habermas paid visits to Iran during this period. This political education was not without its faults and errors, and it was most certainly ambitious in its scope and expectations.124 If in form it shared many characteristics with the attempted political education of the Constitutional period, in substance it reflected the intellectual fashions of the day. Political and historical sociology – most obviously the works of Max Weber – dominated over ideas of moral education. That is not to say that it was altogether neglected  – Khatami, as noted earlier in this section was keen to promote it, although the speech in which these ideas were articulated was pointedly delivered to Iranians abroad. Neither religious ethics nor the moral universe of the Shahnameh was entirely ignored, but although the Reformists wrestled with the seminaries over the interpretation of religion, they failed to systematically articulate the corpus of national myths to their cause. The Shahnameh remained very much the purview of literary salons and discussions whereas the nuances of Kaveh’s rebellion as outlined by Ahmad Shamlou resisted popularisation. Yet if the political elites initially failed to realise the potential of the Shahnameh, popular interest was growing. In among the literary analyses of Ferdowsi’s epic – ranging from chivalry to women and the world beyond – more popular manifestations were emerging. Hajarian was one of the main theorists of reform and indeed its principal political strategist. As reforms stalled, he argued that Iran risked turning into a ‘garrison state’. Drawing regularly from Western historical examples, he occasionally got his analogies wrong, as in his reference to the Magna Carta; see his collection of articles in Jumhuriyyat: afsoon zadai az ghodrat (Republicanism: demystification of power), Tehran, Tar-e No, 1379 / 2000, pp. 381–82. Paul Ricoeur visited Iran at the suggestion of the French Institute in the mid-1990s; Jurgen Habermas visited in 2002. Both delivered a series of lectures to packed halls of students and seminarians. 124

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In 1995, a short accessible study entitled Kaveh & Zahhak sought to depict Kaveh’s struggle as representative of tribal pluralism (proto-democratic) against the depredations of despotism, of which both Zahhak and Fereidoon are representative, although the latter in its enlightened version.125 The sympathies of the writer however with a populist ‘democratic’ Kaveh as against the ordered and class-ridden monarchs are nonetheless palpable, and if the study sought to diminish the ‘Arab’ dimension of Zahhak’s tyranny (described as black despotism), the political message remains clear. This point was picked up by a later, more detailed study, which again takes issue with the tendency to characterise Zahhak as ‘Arab’. Published in 2003, after the second major regional convulsion following the fall of the Soviet Union, the author paused to reflect on the utility and indeed necessity of myth for nation-building and cohesion, going so far as to argue that Iran’s relative stability reflected its adhesion to its national myths.126 Indeed a year earlier, in the city of Isfahan, its erstwhile citizens had gone so far as to erect by public subscription  – and much to the chagrin of a number of leading Ayatollahs  – a statue to the ‘revolutionary’ Kaveh.127 Perhaps the most intriguing yet subtle (if derivative) use of the Shahnameh was the the phrase ‘If Iran does not exist, then I do not exist’ on the banner of the homepage of the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA). Foroughi would have been pleased. Yet this initiative was squandered by the Reformist leadership. The mantle of Kaveh the Blacksmith – having been reintroduced into political discourse by Khatami – was to be ultimately seized by his opponents. The Myth of the Saviour Despairing of the failures of the Reform movement, one despondent reader commented that ‘Everything in this country is back to front.’128 Elected on A Behdad, Kaveh va Zahhak, p. 72. 126 H Hosseinzadeh Zahhak: Az ostoreh ta vaghiat (Zahhak from historical myth to reality), Tehran, Torfand, 1384 / 2005, pp. 14–15. This renewed appreciation of historical and political myths was reflected in the translation of such works as Henry Tudor’s Political Myth, M Damadi (trans. & Introduction) Ostereh-ye Siyasi (Political Myth), Tehran, Amir Kabir, 1383 / 2004. The earliest academic article on political and historical myth published in Persian was probably Farhang Rajaee, Osturesazi va Tarikhnegari; Afsaneh va Vaqe’iyat (Myth Making and Historiography; Fiction and Fact) Etela’at Siyassi va Eqtessadi (Political & Economic Etela’at). Nos 53–54 Bahman/Esfand 1370 / February–March 1992, pp. 14–23. 127 Aftab-e Yazd, 7 Shahrivar 1381 / 29 Aug. 2002, p. 5. The bronze statue weighed five tonnes and is effectively indestructible: IRNA, 25 Aug. 2002, BBC SWB Mon ME1 MEPol. 128 Readers’ Comments, Aftab-e Yazd, 23 Bahman 1382 / 12 February 2004, p. 7. 125

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a tide of popular excitement, President Khatami by all accounts had not fulfilled his promise, and even control of the Parliament failed to yield the legislative changes people had sought. The greatest single indictment in this regard was a failure to legally institutionalise the rights of the people in the face of an increasingly authoritarian and religiously legitimised revolutionary state. Nothing symbolised this process more clearly than Parliament’s failure to secure legislation banning the use of torture. Torture of course had already been banned in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, although the application of various Islamic legal codes had effectively circumvented this restriction. In 2002, Parliament decided to clarify the situation with new legislation. As with much else, this was blocked by the legislative vetting body, the Guardian Council, on the grounds that it was anti-Islamic. This was tendentious in the extreme – two senior Ayatollahs had in fact already argued to the contrary – and although the tendency had been to block legislation on the basis that it reflected Western cultural values, in this case, the depressing reality was that members of the Guardian Council could now, in the aftermath of 9/11, find supportive analogies in the West.129 For supporters of Constitutionalism and the rule of law, these were confusing times, and Khatami appeared singularly incapable of providing the necessary clarity. The authoritarian reaction was long in gestation and carefully planned. Learning the lessons of two dramatic election defeats, the authoritarians grew to appreciate the need for both populism and a nationalism which spoke to the heart rather than the head. Recognising that a changing and indeed more youthful society needed to be approached differently, the authoritarians searched for an individual who could effectively communicate to the masses and challenge Khatami on his own ground. This could not be Khamenei, who would be ill suited to such a task both by temperament and office. Moreover, Khamenei’s utterances tended to have the opposite effect on the mass of the population, whose sympathies tended to lie with the anti-Establishment underdog. Above all however, the authoritarians had to bide their time. The myth of salvation could only be realised when social despair and confusion made the populace yearn for a saviour.130 Previous attempts to engender a sense of paranoia Nowruz, 19 Khordad 1381 / 9 June 2002, p. 1. Newspapers also drew attention to the fact that one of the founders of the Islamic Republic and the first head of its Judiciary, Ayatollah Beheshti, had also argued against torture, Nowruz, 20 Khordad 1381 / 10 June 2002, p. 1. See also Sobh Azadi, 7 Dey 1381 / 28 Dec. 2002, p. 2. 130 Weber talks of a ‘devotion born of despair and enthusiasm’; see Max Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building: Selected Papers (ed. S. N. Eisenstadt), Chicago: 129

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by enumerating conspiracy theories of fifth columnists determined to undo the achievements of the revolution had largely fallen on infertile ground. Indeed the first serious attempt to ‘expose’ traitors, in a television program aptly called ‘Identity’ (hoviat), had resulted in a severe backlash which helped fuel Khatami’s first election victory.131 Subsequent attempts to tarnish reputations of individuals, by calling them agents of sedition and of foreign powers, were also ridiculed. In one case a televised confession backfired and looked outdated even by the standards of the Islamic Republic.132 It seemed that political superstition was going the way of its religious counterpart. Yet if the staunch and often hysterical opposition to Khatami’s program was anything to go by – at one stage reform was characterised as the greatest threat to Islam since Adam – there existed a trenchant core for whom such ideas were a matter of conviction and reassurance.133 It was in part the consequence of seeking to reach out to these people which resulted in the Reformist politicians neglecting their own supporters, who subsequently became disillusioned with the lack of progress, and attention.134 Faced with frustrations at home and further uncertainty abroad  – the global war on terror was now in full swing with U.S. troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq  – people increasingly yearned for leadership and reassurance, and unsurprisingly during the presidential election of 2005, the determining theme was one of competence, management, and firmness. If Khamenei’s preferred candidate, the former head of State Broadcasting, Ali Larijani, proved too dull for the public palate, another candidate, the former head of the Law Enforcement forces, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, University of Chicago Press, 1968, p. 23. A philosophical explanation of this process may be garnered from Adorno & Horkheimer, Dialectic of the Enlightenment, London, Verso, 1997, p. 258; see in particular pp. xvi and 9. 131 See Baz ham Hoviat?! (Hoviat again?!), Iran-e Farda, no 26, Tir 1375 / June–July 1996, pp. 2–4. 132 Several years later the arrest of the the Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari on charges of sedition was widely ridiculed as betraying an acute sense of insecurity on the part of the authorities; See ‘Jumhuri Eslami beh koja reseedeh ast?’ (What has the Islamic Republic come to?) Baztab.com, 28 Tir 1386 / 19 July 2007; ‘Jumhuri Eslami ra zaif jelo nadaheed’ (Don’t portray the Islamic Republic as weak), Baztab.com, 31 Tir 1386 /22 July 2007. Matters became more intense following Bush’s Axis of Evil speech although a healthy skepticism prevailed among Iranians; see e.g. ‘Demonstrators Support Khamene’i, Call for Trial of “Fifth Columnists”’, BBC SWB Mon ME1 MEPol, IRIB, 12 July 2002; also Etemad, 29 Mordad 1381 /20 August 2002, p. 2; on public scepticism: see the reader’s comment in Aftab-e Yazd, 25 Ordibehesht 1381 / 15 May 2002, p. 11. 133 See Nowruz, 19 Khordad 1381 / 9 June 2002, p. 7. 134 The parallels with Obama’s first administration are striking.

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boldly resurrected the idea that he represented a ‘Reza Khan’ for the contemporary age.135 Used eight years earlier by Nateq Nuri’s brother (see the discussion above in the section ‘Iran for All Iranians’), Qalibaf’s attempted association with Reza Shah was undoubtedly opportunistic but at the same time indicative of the persistence of this particular national icon in the public imagination. At the same time, the association was as subtle as the caricature of the man himself, and Qalibaf’s attempt to appear forceful and tough likewise failed to gain traction with the public. On the contrary, and much to everyone’s surprise, the mood of the public was of wanting something quite different: not a tough pragmatist, but a romantic idealist. It was as if faced with the realism of a ‘Reza Shah’, the people preferred the emotive grandiosity of a ‘Mohammad Reza Shah’. Not that such analogies should be exaggerated: History after all does not repeat itself, except perhaps first as tragedy and then as farce. But in some significant ways, the diminutive figure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shared characteristics in common with the former Shah; including a (fatalistic) belief in destiny, an acute sense of superstition – of both the religious and political variety – an appreciation of political theatre (the grander the better), and last but by no means least, a passion for the Achaemenids. Moreover, like his royal predecessor, Ahmadinejad also had the advantage of a windfall in oil revenues. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s biography is as opaque as his own approach to history and scientific method. There has been much mythologizing and indeed creative musings about his past and personal achievements so that his much vaunted revolutionary pedigree remains difficult to confirm and has been much criticised. It is unclear for instance what was his precise role in the Iran-Iraq War, whether he served in the Revolutionary Guard, and whether he served in covert operations as some of his supporters have suggested, or behind the front lines in logistics and procurement as his critics have argued. It is certainly curious that for a man who has played much on his support and association with war veterans, pictures of him in uniform are scarce to the point of non-existent. Of course, supporters retort that covert operations are by their very nature secret. Be that as it may, more recent historical elasticity was evident in the grandiose claims about his management and administrative competence. Having been elected as mayor of Tehran in 2003,136 in a local election which the Abbas Pazouki, ‘The Challenges of the Military’s Presence in the Election’, Mardomsalari website, 2 June 2005, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, The Middle East. 136 The election had one of the lowest turnouts of any post-revolutionary election, partly as a consequence of state television continuously ridiculing the infighting of the Reformistdominated municipal council. 135

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Reformists had introduced, but then promptly neglected, Ahmadinejad set to work with his allies in the Islamic militia (basij) and the wider security services to transform the political culture of the city through a mixture of populist policies and bombast. Although the results of his two years as mayor were mixed, his supporters boasted that he had been acclaimed by an international organisation as one of the ‘top ten’ best mayors in the world, a claim which appeared to be taken at face value by some, but which on closer inspection proved to be worthless.137 That such claims could be made and largely accepted uncritically was a sad indictment of the political atmosphere at the time and the limits of scrutiny after eight years of Reformist government. But it is also important in assessing Ahmadinejad’s approach to history and politics: Indeed it would be fair to say that in his case ‘mythologizing’ emphatically began at home. The details of Ahmadinejad’s election victory in 2005 need not detain us.138 Of interest here are the ideological bases for his political ascent and maintenance of power. Ahmadinejad has shown himself to be a shrewd populist with a keen eye on the emotive. Above all, no politician since the fall of the monarchy in 1979 has so brazenly exploited nationalist sentiment. Rafsanjani may have visited the ruins at Persepolis, and Khatami pondered the ethics of the Shahnameh, but Ahmadinejad threw caution to the wind and went straight for the heart, praising Iranians for their exceptionalism – and their very particular genius, which was constrained only by the perfidy of foreigners. In 2007 he constructed a mock-up of Persepolis to provide a back-drop for the state visit of then-president Putin of Russia, whereas in 2011 he enthusiastically welcomed the loan of the Cyrus Cylinder by the British Museum (the first since Mohammad Reza Shah’s celebrations for 2500 years of monarchy in 1971), complete with effusive speeches on the progressive genius of Cyrus the Great. To all this remarkable resurrection of nationalist motifs, Ahmadinejad The ‘election’, run by ‘City Mayors’, an international project for the promotion of ‘strong cities and good local government,’ is held annually. Supporters vote online and in the year Ahmadinejad entered the top ten, a total of 87,100 voted worldwide. More information can be found at http://www.worldmayor.com/results05/worldmayor_methodology05.html. 138 For a political history, see A M Ansari, Iran, Islam & Democracy, pp. 268–84, and A M Ansari, Iran under Ahmadinejad, Oxford, Routledge, 2007, p. 108. The standard Persian hagiography of Ahmadinejad is: Fatemeh Rajabi, Ahmadinejad: Mojeze-ye hezare-ye sevom (Ahmadinejad: Miracle of the third millennium), Tehran, Nashr Danesh Amuz, 2005. What is perhaps most curious about this title is that the time frame is Christian (or Western). 137

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added a powerful and distinctive twist: a utopia of extraordinary ambition. Indeed if Mohammad Reza Shah promised his people a ‘Great Civilisation’, Ahmadinejad held out the promise of something altogether more transcendent. To fulfil this he needed to mix nationalism with religion in a radical if incoherent manner which may best be described as ‘millenarian’.139 The fact that it often made no ‘rational’ sense – nonsense in the truest meaning of the term – was regarded as an advantage and a reflection of its esoteric truth which only Ahmadinejad and a handful of acolytes could truly understand and appreciate. Ahmadinejad had in effect inaugurated Iran’s own romantic counter-enlightenment in which the genius of the leadership was paramount and absolute. But such a one-dimensional explanation would diminish his attraction for otherwise educated people who in different times would have dismissed Ahmadinejad’s musings as little more than vainglorious fantasy. The fact was that he tapped into a deep-seated sense of grievance born of repeated frustration among many educated Iranians who yearned for a powerful and successful Iranian state. Fed up with the self-critique and intellectual navel-gazing encouraged by Reformist intellectuals, these people responded more readily to the optimism provided by Ahmadinejad and to the view that Iran’s ills could be sourced beyond its borders, among foreigners who sought to take advantage of Iran’s inherent talents and riches. In digesting this narrative these people were assisted by the fact that Iran’s main international protagonist did indeed appear to apply incoherent and inconsistent policies. The United States appeared by all accounts to be emotive, irrational, and unjust towards Iran and the Iranians. Such a world-view could be all too easily absorbed by believers and non-believers, the Left and secular nationalists. But this too was insufficient as an ultimate explanation; there needed to be a more rational one, and thus under Ahmadinejad, the concept of the cunning brilliance of the British as the master puppeteer returned with a vengeance unprecedented in recent times.140 All this fed on the popular need to rationalise that which was inherently nonsensical, and perhaps See in this regard N Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, London, Pimlico, 2004), pp. 53–60 & 120–26. 140 See for example, ‘British Foreign Ministers Remarks on Iran’s Election’, Hamshahri, 30 May 2009, BBC Monitoring online. Among the more surreal accusations against the British embassy in Tehran was the report that a secret tunnel had been constructed to illicitly transfer agents and other people of dubious morality; see ‘Hosseini: tooneli dar kar neest’ (Hosseini: there is no tunnel), Baztab.com, 22 Mordad 2007 / 13 August 2007. 139

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confirms the truth of the ‘dialectic of the enlightenment’ that superstition is not simply the result of an absence of reason, it is also the product of a surplus of rationality.141 The Politics of History In an article published in 1995 in the journal Goftegu entitled ‘Imagined Conspiracies’, the historian Ahmad Ashraf attempted to outline and debunk the various conspiracy theories that had shaped the Iranian historical imagination. He listed a number of historical and political myths which he argued had taken shape in the colonial era when Iran’s relative impotence in the face of Anglo-Russian rivalries resulted in the cultivation of a febrile sense of exploitation. Topping the list was the hidden hand of the British, which in his view was fuelled by the revelations of the Anglo-Russian convention dividing Iran into distinct spheres of influence. Other myths included the Will of Peter the Great, and his apparent determination to seek a warm water port to the south, a conviction that was articulated by Mohammad Reza Shah; the interventions of the United States, fuelled of course by the coup against Mohammad Mosaddeq; the elevation of such fears into ideological and sacral realms by identifying the manipulations of others with evil forces, structural determination, and false historical analogy (for example the Crusades); and last but by no means least, the various secret societies that manipulated all things behind the scenes – the unholy trinity of Bahais, Zionists, and Freemasons.142 It was the latter, in Ashraf’s view, that held the prime position as the most pervasive secret society in the history of the world, one whose actions in Iran were as pervasive as they were unseen. This paranoia about the Masons permeated all sections of Iranian society, and Ashraf points out that even the Shah’s Minister of Court, Asadollah Alam, who normally dismissed conspiracy theories, was nonetheless inclined to believe in that of the Masons.143 It should come as no surprise therefore that many if not most Iranian Freemasons, including Taqizadeh, were anxious to deny any association. The Shah himself, as has been discussed above in chapter three, was greatly in awe of British political manipulation. The point being Perhaps one of the best explanations for the continued existence of superstition is the essay by David Hume on Of Superstition and Enthusiasm, in David Hume: Selected Essays, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 38–43. 142 A Ashraf, Toham-e Tote’eh (Imagined Conspiracies), Goftegu Vol 8, Summer 1374 / 1995, pp. 7–45. 143 A Ashraf, Toham-e Tote’eh, pp. 32–33. 141

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stressed was that such political superstitions were not the preserve of the ‘uneducated’ in any orthodox sense, and that this particular malaise was far wider and deeper within the social fabric of Iranian society than some supposed. Moreover, as in the case of Alam, the reasonable dissection of one issue did not necessarily immunise a person against conspiratorialising on others. Ashraf was writing at a time when concerted efforts were being made to address this issue, and with the victory of Khatami in 1997 there was some expectation that as in politics, so with education, ‘reason’ would triumph over superstition. This soon proved to be a case of severe wishful thinking. Ahmadinejad epitomised a trend of which he was representative and by no means unique.144 Many of his supporters might not adhere or agree with some of his more wayward readings of politics and history, but they may nonetheless sympathise with selected elements, and more problematically, with his method. This distinction is important. Whereas the enlightenment project in Iran was about using reason to understand the world, Ahmadinejad and his ideological bedfellows claimed to have already understood the world, and then proceeded to rationalise it. In other words, the narratives were known; one simply needed to gather the facts to populate them. If the facts appeared to contradict the narrative they were simply changed or ignored, as Baghi was to discover in his analysis of the casualties during the Revolution. More often than not, the awkward ‘facts’ were dismissed as the by-product of a flawed and inherent methodology, predominantly secular and Western. Certainties were reinforced by religious conviction, and self-criticism was not an issue. This was a complete ideological universe which contained all the answers, and if these did not happen to be immediately apparent, it was because they were hidden. Indeed if there was one achievement that Ahmadinejad and allies could well lay claim to, it was an ability to effectively to combine all the conspiracies into one enormous interrelated network. This required an extraordinary self-confidence. Certainty and esotericism complemented each other whereas an admixture of lexicons drawn from various disciplines were applied to provide the veneer of authority and intellectual credibility. It was a development that was assisted by the changes that had taken place in information technology. The Internet provided a platform to all, and proved a boon to conspiracy His debt to Ahmad Fardid has already been noted in the previous chapter. Soroush argues that many of the violent anti-democratic tendencies are drawn from Fardid’s philosophy; see http://www.drsoroush.com/English/Interviews/E-INT-HomaTV.html. 144

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theorists, and Ahmadinejad was no exception. There was no shortage of ‘facts’ to populate his world-view, be they about the veracity of the Holocaust or the ‘real’ instigators behind 9/11. Ahmadinejad’s promotion of Holocaust ‘doubt’  – and ultimately denial – is a good example of this methodology at work and also shows the pre-eminence he gives to narratives and political myths. Ahmadinejad’s argument is premised on an ideological understanding of Israel and Zionism – both inherently wicked – and a perfunctory reading of history and the debates around the Holocaust. His comments suggest that he is aware there was a debate in the West about the ideological uses of the ‘Holocaust’145 but he seems ambivalent about the terminology. Khatami talked about myths (ostereh), in the social scientific sense. Ahmadinejad appeared in the first instance to approach the question of the Holocaust in the same manner, shielding himself behind the pretence of social scientific inquiry, to ask how this narrative myth had been constructed and used. But it did not take long for this understanding to be exposed as myth in the fantastical sense, and indeed the word that he and his supporters used was afsaneh.146 In trying to out-philosophise his presidential predecessor and arguing that all knowledge was socially constructed, Ahmadinejad drew ridicule for not seeming to understand the implication of his comments for religious knowledge.147 Not that such incoherence swayed his supporters, who swiftly labelled him the ‘Socrates’ of the age,148 which Examples include N Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, London, Verso, 2003 p. 286; P Novick, The Holocaust and Collective Memory, London, Bloomsbury, 2000, p. 384. 146 See in particular the editorial in the Iranian daily Kayhan ‘Een Mikh va an taboot’ (This nail and that coffin), 28 January 2007. See also the interview with Ahmadinejad: ‘Defa az baz khani-e holokaust’ (Defending the re-reading of the Holocaust), Baztab.com, 4 Farvardin 1386 / 24 March 2007. Later Ahmadinejad would become more explicit: Ahmadinejad Says Holocaust a Lie, Israel Has No Future, Reuters, 18 September 2009. 147 This was especially true after his comments at Columbia University, which his supporters claimed was a greater triumph than the capture of the Fao peninsula during the Iran-Iraq War, ‘Fath alfutoo daneshgah columbia fartar az fath fao’ (The conquest of conquests at Columbian University was greater than the conquest of Fao), Mizan News Agency, 26 October 2007, www.mizannews.com. See Mohammad Ali Abtahi, ‘Martyrs of the War and Triumph of Columbia University’, Webnevesht, http://webneveshteha. com/ en/weblog/?page=2&cat=&search=;. 148 ‘Nahad Riyasat Jumhuri: Ahmadinejad soghrat-e zaman ast’ (The President’s Office: Ahmadinejad is the Socrates of the Age), Baztab.com, 28 Shahrivar 1386 / 19 September 2007. See also ‘Sadeq Mahsuli: sorat Ahmadinejad manand yek jet Phantom ast’ (Sadeq Mahsuli: Ahmadinejad’ speed is similar to that of a Phantom [jet]), Advar News, 30 Mordad 1386 / 21 August 2007, http://www.advarnews.us/ politic/print/5609.aspx. 145

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was an odd choice given the availability of Iranian and Islamic candidates. In such ways was the myth of the saviour cultivated. His motivation was however not simply one of intellectual vanity. It reflected his belief that the truth revealed could unleash dramatic political consequences. Israel, Ahmadinejad opined, had been built on a lie. The fall of Israel would likewise be pre-empted by exposing this lie. The reason this had not happened was because the ‘West’ was involved in a conspiracy of silence and the way to challenge this was to confront this narrative dominance, not so much through qualitative engagement as the Reformists had argued, but through the sheer weight of numbers. Fortunately, for him, he had both the money and the media to do this. In December 2006, Ahmadinejad decided to convene, at considerable expense, a conference on the Holocaust at the Foreign Ministry’s ‘Institute for Political and International Studies’. Not only was the location of this conference  – ostensibly on historiography  – peculiar, and much to the detriment of the credibility of the institute, but it was quite clear from the guest list what the direction of the debate was intended to be. Perhaps most striking was the character of the individual who had reportedly been the instigator and organiser of the conference, Mohammad Ali Ramin, an Iranian who had been living in Berlin and who claimed to have got the idea from friends in Germany. In a subsequent interview with a journalist, Ramin conceded that the choice of institute had been an odd one for a ‘historical’ conference but that the President had insisted. More intriguingly and much to the surprise of the interviewer, Ramin then proceeded to outline his plans for the future, which included establishing the headquarters of a new ‘Holocaust Institute’ in Berlin.149 Ramin’s comments hinted at another striking revival in Ahmadinejad’s Iran: the myth of racially defined Aryanism. Indeed far in excess of anything which might have been officially sanctioned in the Pahlavi monarchy, Ahmadinejad began to articulate a view that Iran and Germany were specially connected and that Germany had been unfairly treated after the war and burdened by artificial guilt.150 As if this were not enough, Ahmadinejad later extended this argument to suggest that the entire post-WWII settlement had been unjust, and that it would all soon unravel, along with the State of Israel; a new global government would then be established with Iran at the top table. These views integrated several different strands of Interview with Mohammad Ali Ramin, Baztab.com, ‘Bazkhani-ye Holokaust dar Iran’ (Re-reading the Holocaust in Iran), 6 Dey 1385 / 27 December 2006. 150 See ‘Text of Ahmadinejad Letter to Merkel’ posted on Jihad Watch website, 28 August 2006, http://www. jihadwatch.org/archives/2006_08.php. 149

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thought  – anti-Zionism, anti-capitalism, and Shia eschatology  – into a totality of mutually reinforcing myths. The inclusivity and convergence of such ideas meant that Ahmadinejad could appeal to different intellectual communities while at the same time reinforcing the apparent truth of his own convictions. The process of narrative reconstruction soon extended to the press along with other institutes, and finally the universities, which were regarded as the real source of methodological deviation. Huge pressures began to be felt among academics and students of the humanities and social sciences in particular to tow the line, and to adhere to a particular world-view.151 The attack on the universities would be an incremental process which would not reach fruition until the aftermath of the presidential election crisis of 2009, but it was quite clear that there was a distinct absence of mutual affection between academics and the president. In the meantime, Ahmadinejad sought to patronise and develop networks of like-minded individuals to the extent that loyalty mattered far more than qualifications. Among the many striking aspects of Ahmadinejad’s government has been the rise in demand for Western-style qualifications (doctorates in particular) matched with a concomitant decline in any respect for their substance.152 This paradox, among many others in Ahmadinejad’s ideology, is indicative of his relationship with the idea of the West  – dependently confrontational. Indeed opposition to the ‘West’ has become such an overriding dictum of the Ahmadinejad presidency that almost every action remains firmly referenced to the question of what the ‘West’ would do. The absurdity of this situation for policy was well expressed in a combative interview with the well-known hard-line critic of Ahmadinejad, Ali Motahhari, son of the late Ostad Motahhari.153 Imitation nonetheless continued apace with the establishment of the Kayhan Research Institute, with the aim of constructing new, more ideologically sound knowledge. Kayhan, the newspaper of choice of the hard-line authoritarians, with particular expertise on plots and conspiracies, had been edited for some years by one Hossein Shariatmadari, Eghdam be-sabegheh dar control safar asateed daneshgah’ (Unprecedented actions to control the travel of university professors), Baztab.com, 1 Shahrivar 1386 / 23 August 2007. One novel way was to reinter war dead on university grounds; see Golnaz Esfandiari, ‘Iran: Students Protest Burials of War Dead on Tehran Campuses’, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 15 March 2006, http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/ 2006/03/6035bfe4–0e35–4807-ad4b- cdd4fce89821.html. 152 See later in the chapter. 153 Fars News Agency, 24 Mordad 1390 / 11 August 2011. 151

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an individual of unusual self-confidence, who did not shy away from criticising the President, especially if he felt he had wavered from the ideological orthodoxy of the Leadership. Echoing the 1990s, the Kayhan Research Institute set to work; young ambitious researchers were to write the new history, this time taking care not to let the facts get in the way. The publications which emerged are striking for their methodological vacuousness, not least the booklet on the myth of the Holocaust, whose section ostensibly titled ‘documents’ is limited to a series of photographs from cinematic films.154 Other titles in the series, which focus on modern Iranian history, seek to shine a light on the ‘unseen’, the mysterious networks, cults, and other such conspiracies to which individuals are summarily associated. What emerged is the print version – perhaps because a publication from a ‘research institute’ is regarded as more credible – of the much criticised television program Hoviat.155 It is not clear what the popular reception to these publications might have been – there are no reliable sales figures – but one might surmise that such output was intended to preach to the converted and little else. In truth such ventures were forays into other people’s territory, as were in many ways the attempted engagement with the Internet which had been initially and ruthlessly dominated by those who had little access to the standard outlets for political discussion. Of these the most important was television. It would be fair to say that Ahmadinejad has been the first president of the Iranian television age, and he has exploited this medium far more effectively than his predecessors, even going so far as to provide DVDs of his provincial visits should viewers have missed the live broadcast.156 This pertains not only to airtime, although he has used the sympathetic state broadcasting networks to repeatedly pronounce on a variety of topics, but to the production of politics and history as entertainment. The televisual medium first came to prominence under Mohammad Reza Shah – and probably the most successful Iranian television series to date, the dramatization of the comic novel My Dear Uncle Napoleon (Dai-jan Napelon) was broadcast at the end of the 1970s. But it was Khomeini A A Tabatabai Afsaneh sazan-e holokost (Myth-makers of the Holocaust), Tehran, Keyhan, 1386 / 2007. 155 A good example of a series of short publications was that of Nime Penhan: Seemayeh kargozaran farhang va siyasat (Half Secret: The signs of the agents of culture and politics), Tehran, Kayhan Research Institute 1387 / 2008 (sixth printing). Each volume (a total of thirty to date) looked at a number of individuals with a view to portraying them as agents of foreign powers. Needless to say the evidence used is thin. 156 ‘Seedee serial safarhaye ostani reseed’ (The CDs of the provincial trips have arrived), Baztab.com, 11 Tir 1386 / 2 July 2007. 154

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who provided religious sanction for viewing television – as long as the content was suitably Islamic  – and thus facilitated its expansion and acquisition throughout the country. Control however remained tight. From 1994, after President Rafsanjani’s brother was dismissed as head of State Broadcasting for allegedly being too liberal, control was firmly retained by the hard-liners, and Ali Larijani remained in charge until he resigned to run for president in 2005. A range of entertainment programs was produced but historical topics tended to be limited to those relating to religion, and big money was spent on extended serials on the lives of the Imams (Imam Ali taking pride of place), but also other Qoranic figures such as Joseph confronting the Pharaoh. The narrative arc was clear, with men of faith tackling a variety of unbelievers. This religious dimension was also pivotal to the historical drama about the Sarbedaran, a group of religious (Shia) mystics who opposed the Mongols in the fourteenth century. Perhaps the one real exception was an extended drama on the life of the Qajar prime minister Amir Kabir, which at eight hours far surpassed in length and quality the film made under Mohammad Reza Shah (two hours). That this film was made at all reflected the personal interest of the then- president Hashemi Rafsanjani. The main theme of this drama was nonetheless to present Amir Kabir as authentic and pious, as against the Qajar monarchy, which was being manipulated by foreign powers.157 Under Khatami more creative latitude was provided to artists and directors but, with one striking exception, the most socially penetrating films were made for the cinema rather than television. The two dominant themes – other than that of social austerity – were the impact of the war on society at large, and the position of women. A number of these films became highly celebrated within Iranian society for tackling hitherto untouched subjects such as domestic violence, and regularly portrayed women in both a sympathetic and highly positive light. The war films were notable for their realism and the way in which they depicted suffering. In stark contrast to Ahmadinejad’s later vaunting of the military experience as the height of religious devotion, these films tended to focus on the social destruction of war, and if the generation that fought and dead were celebrated, the war was not. Perhaps of the most influential of these films was Ajens-e Shishei (The Glass [Travel] Agency), produced Rafsanjani was an admirer of Amir Kabir, to the extent of producing a biography entitled Amir Kabir ya gharemn-e mobarezeh ba estamar (Amir Kabir or the hero of the anti-colonial struggle), Tehran, Farahani, 1346 / 1967. 157

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in 1998, which was modelled on Dog Day Afternoon but whose story was that of a war veteran holding up a travel agency – symbolising the material culture of the uncaring middle classes – in an effort to get his friend much-needed medical treatment abroad. After he finally secures this, the final scene has the grateful friend dying on the plane as it travels abroad. The film, although comic in parts, ultimately exuded pathos and touched a nerve in Iranian society at large. It was a sentiment that was to be subsequently fully exploited by Ahmadinejad and his allies.158 As even this film suggests, it was not all tragedy. There were indeed some excellent comic exceptions, a number of which got through the censors in apparent error. One, Marmulak (The Lizard), although ostensibly a story of redemption, became extremely popular through its comic take not only of the ulema, but the general naiveté of Iranians who preoccupied themselves with esoteric questions of theology rather than dealing with the real world. After a successful run of several months, the film was finally banned. The one exception to these cinematic productions was a major project commissioned for television during the Khatami administration but which was not transmitted until near the end of his second term. This was the extraordinarily bold Chehel Sarbaz (Forty Soldiers)159. Produced and directed by Mohammad Nourizad, this twenty-eight-part epic sought to encapsulate, in the words of its director, all the glories of Iran. The series was divided into four distinct periods, with eight parts dedicated to the mythical past and in particular the contest between Rostam and Esfandiyar; the second section focused on the rise of Islam, the Prophet and Imam Ali; the third then sought to tie this with the writing of the Shahnameh itself, stressing Ferdowsi’s apparent affection for Imam Ali, whereas the last section brought the story up to the present date and argued that modern Iranians were the sum of their historical parts. Nurizad had clearly tried to bind the Islamic identity with the mythical, never more so than in one of the final scenes when Imam Ali walks alone in the wilderness with a voice-over asking who would assist him in his time of need. Suddenly through the mist, all the paladins of the Shahnameh heed the call and ride as one, in a scene that is both dramatic and ahistorical. This was in many ways the visual representation of Khatami’s speech at the UN on the mythic value of the Shahnameh and 158 The other films were Do Zan (Two Women), and Qermez (Red). 159 The series was conceived in 2003, under the Khatami presidency and finally transmitted in 2007. I am grateful to Dr Saeed-Reza Talajooy for drawing this to my attention.

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the spirit of Iranians it imparted. Yet in Iran itself, the series came under attack from purists on both sides of the political equation.160 Under Ahmadinejad, such grand dramatizations on the theme of identity were side-lined in favour of topics of altogether more immediate political relevance. Two historical dramas were produced, purporting to be an account of the rise of the Pahlavis through the revolution in 1979, by Mohammad Reza Varzi. (A third was subsequently made looking at the roots of the Constitutional Revolution from the middle of the nineteenth century). The first, titled the ‘Godfather’ (Pedarkhandeh), charted the rise and fall of Mohammad Reza Shah and was produced in 2005/2006, followed in reverse chronological order by an account of the rise and rule of Reza Shah titled ‘The Foreign Emirate’ (Emerat-e Farangi), and last but by no means least was the story of the Constitution, which was produced in 2009.161 Aside from accounts of Amir Kabir, the last series to deal with events in historical memory was the immensely successful adaptation of Iraj Pezeshkzad’s satirical novel noted above, My Dear Uncle Napoleon. Set in the years approaching Reza Shah’s fall, the story satirized and to some extent ridiculed the Anglophobic obsessions of its lead character, an obvious metaphor for the Iranian penchant for conspiracy theories. These new series had no such pretensions. The themes were straightforward and there was no subtlety of historical purpose. They did however offer a valuable insight into the popular narratives that fed the historical consciousness of the authoritarian elite in Iran, although to what extent the wider population watched and absorbed these narratives remains difficult to assess. In both series the spider at the heart of the web is a British agent. The eponymous ‘Godfather’ of the first series is an aging Sir Shahpour Reporter, the well-known Parsee British Intelligence officer who is alleged to have had a key role in the overthrow of Mosaddeq. Something of the flavour of the series in provided in the opening scenes when an aspiring French investigative journalist seeks out Reporter in his London hideaway, and finds him sitting on a chair stroking a cat, in a clear directorial allusion to Blofeld, of James Bond fame. In the second series, the British agent is Shahpour’s father, Ardeshir Reporter, although whereas the latter In 2009, Nurizad produced another series on the same theme of Islamic Iranian identity, entitled the ‘Flags of Kaveh’s Castle’, (Parchamha-ye ghaleye Kaveh), which charts the history of a Qoran from 800 AD through the Mongol period to the present day. By the end of the year, Nurizad was in prison for having objected to the controversial presidential election of that year and its aftermath. 161 All three series are available through IRIB’s marketing wing, ‘Soroush’ (www.soroush.ir). 160

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is clearly receiving regular instructions from London, Shahpour Reporter, having received his initial instructions, is to all intents and purposes left to his own devices. Periodically throughout the series we see him writing his dispatches to London, but he very much represented as an autonomous agent. Mohammad Reza Shah is depicted as pathetic and weak, dominated by the women in his life, all his wives, his mother, and of course his sister Ashraf. He is above all a hapless victim of circumstance, essentially a pawn in a much wider game, and in the opening scene we see him haunted by his mistakes. His ministers are all almost without exception caricatured as sycophantic clowns, whereas his family are vulgar parvenus, and Shaban the ‘brainless’ is depicted as his title suggests. The two other significant characters in the narrative are Mosaddeq and Ayatollah Kashani. Considerable detail and time is given to the coup against Mosaddeq, but there should be no doubt that the man of integrity is Kashani, and Mosaddeq’s neglect of Kashani’s advice and influence is the main cause of his fall. Moreover Mosaddeq is criticised for having turned in hope to the treacherous Americans. Considerable airtime is given to the Vienna Convention, and much of Khomeini’s original speech is broadcast. The underlying theme which also feeds the other series is that foreigners (chiefly British) wish to exploit Iran’s riches and need to keep her weak by disconnecting her from her authentic Islamic identity. A number of characters are introduced into the narrative to portray the common man’s turn to religion. At the end of this particular series Mohammad Reza Shah reminisces about his time with his father – who is seen smoking opium – telling his son that he was not up to running the country. The subsequent series which looks at the rise of Reza Shah covers much of the same themes, although for Kashani we have Modarres, and Shahpour is replaced by his father, Ardeshir. Other themes are however highlighted which are worth reviewing. In the first place, the Qajars are depicted in a positive light, Ahmad Shah being regarded as both more authentically Iranian and loyal to the Constitution than Reza Khan. The rise of Reza Khan is regarded as the British response to the failure of the Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1919 in which a treacherous Vosuq tries to sell the country to the British. The chief opponent is Modarres, who gives a rousing speech against the agreement in the Parliament, and likewise again at the discussion on whether to depose the Qajars. Indeed Modarres is seen as the only principled opponent of this move. Reza Khan is depicted as an ambitious and avaricious brute (many of his lines involve swearing at people), although pragmatic all the same, and willing to do what is necessary to secure power. This is in stark contrast to his

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son, who is depicted here as an indolent playboy and a constant frustration to his father. Curiously this depiction is somewhat more positive than that of his son, and one wonders what the viewing public made of the scene in which he travels to Qom and beats a mullah for having insulted the Queen. Little if no time is given to any of the achievements of the era, and two events that are dealt with, the banning of the veil (at length), and the building of the railway (briefly) are seen as having been directly instigated by the British, whose main ambition is to secularise Iranians to keep them weak. Another significant difference from the previous series is the portrayal of Foroughi, who unlike other members of the political elite, is a serious, if flawed character  – the cultural power behind the vulgar Shah. Indeed it is the character of Foroughi who narrates much of the series, giving vent to doubts and anxieties about the capabilities of the man he has elevated to the throne. However, lest a viewer have sympathy for Foroughi, he is also seen as a Freemason and a British agent. Indeed in this series the Freemasons receive much more airtime (albeit only Foroughi’s face is visible), and there are many layers to the conspiracy. Ultimately, Reza Shah is seen lamenting in exile that he has been a pawn in an unseen game. This belief in unseen forces remains of course the leitmotif of conspiracy theorists. Both series have their fair share of unintended humour (the caricatures of the main character aside). Americans for instance are ‘authenticated’ by saying ‘hi’ rather than the English ‘hello’. All scenes involving the court or Westerners are accompanied by classical music, and for one reason or another the court holds masque balls, presumably to suggest that no one is as they seem. Everything is directed towards the inevitability of the Islamic Revolution. There is enough of interest in these series for the purposes of entertainment, but what history existed was heavily diluted by pure fiction. The Politics of Myth Advances in information technology were not of course solely to the benefit of the government despite the immense resources it could apply to getting its message across. With the spread of the Internet and mobile phone, especially smart phones, it was increasingly possible for ordinary people to hold their government to account by simply recording what they had been doing and saying. In this sense technology did not just centralise power, it encouraged its diffusion.162 It also became an extremely 162 On this see J B Thompson, Ideology and Modern Culture, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1990.

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important device to compensate for the Constitutional emasculation of the state that was taking place under Ahmadinejad. Core to this process was the management of the state finances, always a problem because the existence of parallel state structure in the form of the regular government and the revolutionary organisations, which were accountable only to the Supreme Leader; something that was increasingly so because of the extraordinary jump in revenues following the rise in the oil price. The Supreme Leader’s office itself was also growing exponentially, partly as a consequence of the perceived threat from the Reformists, but much more as a consequence of an ideological drive to consolidate the Islamic state at the expense of the Republic. If the revolutionary organs of government were accountable to the Supreme Leader, he in turn was only accountable to God. Not only was he accountable to God alone, he deputised for the Hidden Imam in his continuing occultation and by extension acquired all his powers. Much of this had been said during Khomeini’s lifetime, but Khamenei now combined it with extensive oil wealth and a patrimonial bureaucracy which extended into all reaches of life. For the authoritarians, Khamenei was realising Khomeini’s dream: He was in a very real sense his successor just as Ali had succeeded the Prophet. Although many Reformists and Republicans considered this sacrilege and political nonsense, the sense of a divinely ordained plan was one that Ahmadinejad shared. His supporters might differ on who really was the ‘Ali of the Age’, but on the question of the Hidden Imam and his proximity to the governing elite of the day there was little disagreement.163 Ahmadinejad rarely spoke openly about his convictions in this regard, but these were regularly exposed by personal recordings often on camera phones being leaked to the Internet. The first of many such exposes recorded a meeting with a senior cleric where Ahmadinejad claimed that a green halo had hovered above him during his speech to the delegates at the General Assembly in the United Nations.164 Ahmadinejad later sought to deny the authenticity of the recording, but later revelations simply confirmed what many widely suspected. It drew ridicule and condemnation ‘Mesbah-Yazdi Supporters Liken Ahmadinezhad to 1st Shia Imam’, Aftab, 1 November 2007, on BBC Monitoring Online. See also Letter of 27 university academics to the leader: do not liken yourself to [Imam] Ali, Iranian news website rahsabz.net, in Persian 1523 gmt 16 September 9, BBC Mon Alert ME1 MEPol ka. 164 The video in question can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1iqFe2nNnk; for a discussion of the furor, see G Esfandiari, Iran: President Says Light Surrounded Him during UN Speech, RFERL 29 November 2005. For a video and transcript of his claim about a sixteen-year old nuclear scientist, see: http://sciencestage.com/ v/40008/ahmadinezhad-on-iran%27s-young-nuclear-scientists.html 163

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in almost equal measure, apart of course from those ideological bedfellows, including Ayatollah Khamenei, who by all accounts believed in an unfolding of religious history of which he was an integral part.165 The outlines of this millenarian narrative about the imminent return of the Hidden Imam were eventually to be detailed in a ‘documentary’ complete with evidence sourced to esoteric religious texts in which key individuals in the Islamic Republic, including the president and Supreme Leader, were identified with figures that were prophesied to presage the return. The DVD distribution was extensive and only in 2011 and some months after the initial publicity was Ayatollah Khamenei persuaded  – largely it would seem because of vehement objections from senior clerics  – to condemn the production, and have the team responsible arrested.166 The DVD was nonetheless, not an aberration, but on the contrary the culmination of a process over several years where a hitherto marginal narrative of sacral history, with access to government support and generous sponsorship, increasingly came to the front and centre of Iranian politics. This process coincided with dramatic changes in the regional order following the invasions and occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq and provided the narrative with a global platform on which to articulate its universalist message of redemption. Like all millenarian constructs it combined both sacral and national histories – the boundaries of which remained essentially and self-servingly ambiguous – and a presumption of esoteric knowledge and expanding resources to finance an ever- increasing conceit of divine providence. In the words of David Hume, it was not only weakness, fear, and melancholy that fuelled superstition But the mind of man is also subject to unaccountable elevation and presumption, arising from prosperous success, from luxuriant health, from strong spirits, or from a bold and confident disposition . . . In a little time, the inspired person comes to regard himself as a distinguished favourite of the Divinity; and when this phrensy [sic] once takes place, which is the summit of enthusiasm, every whimsy is consecrated: human reason, and even morality, are rejected as fallacious guides; and the fanatic madman delivers himself over, blindly and without reserve, to the supposed illapses [sic] of the Spirit, and to inspiration from above.167 For further details, see A Amanat, Messianic Aspirations in Contemporary Iran, in Apocalyptic Islam and Iranian Shi’ism, London, I B Tauris, 2009, p. 230. 166 Despite this, part II of the DVD has also been released. The introduction is worth reviewing for its insistence on the rigorous use of historical evidence; http://www.digarban. com/node/2041. 167 David Hume, Of Superstition and Enthusiasm, p. 39. Hume’s essay suggests that ‘enthusiasm’, a metaphor for the Protestant reformation, ultimately yields more positive consequences than superstition, a view echoed in some contemporary analyses 165

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That such enthusiasm was funded by oil wealth that required no productive input and was treated like manna from heaven served to exaggerate this process and allowed for the marriage of several themes to form a seemingly coherent whole. Thus, anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism merged with Shia eschatology and national exceptionalism to provide an inclusive narrative that had something for everyone.168 The failure of the narrative to unfold according to plan could likewise be blamed on powerful forces from abroad, and at one stage, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was blamed on an American desire to prevent the return of the Hidden Imam. Indeed relations with the United States have moved beyond its appellation as the ‘Great Satan’ – the greater tempter of mankind away from the path of spiritual righteousness – to one in which it played an active role in a complex sacral narrative. In fact, in ascribing U.S. responsibility for the failure of the Hidden Imam to emerge, Iranian conspiracy theorists were effectively identifying the United States as a source of supernatural power.169 Such an extraordinary contest on the world stage not only satisfied the vanity of some of the actors involved but also facilitated the enactment of extraordinary measures at home, the consolidation of power, and the containment and eradication of civil society. Any discussion of ‘rights’ was effectively limited to the rights of God and his deputy on earth such that Iranians were deprived of any legal rights whatsoever and enjoined simply to obey. This argumentation achieved its apogee in the aftermath of the presidential election crisis of 2009 when the chief religious ideologue of the hard-line authoritarians decreed that such unswerving that Ahmadinejad’s ideas will in turn undermine the theological basis of the Islamic Republic. 168 The belief that American capitalism is on its last legs has been repeatedly stated by the Ahmadinejad, Rais Jomhur dar Kashan: Dore ye Emrika tama shod va nezam een keshvar saghet meshavad (The president in Kashan: The era of America is finished and its order is ending), Khabar online 19 Ordibehesht 1389 / 9 May 2010. 169 Ahmadinejad: Amrika mohemtarin mane-ye zohur ast (Ahmadinejad: America is the most important obstacle to the reappearance), Zamaneh.com, 5 Esfand 1388 / 24 February 2010. It has also argued that both Mossad and the CIA are well aware of Khamenei’s pivotal role in the return of the Hidden Imam, Mosad va sia motaqedad ayatollah khamenei hama ‘syed khorasani’ ast (Mosad and the CIA are convinced that Ayatollah Khamenei is Seyyed Khorasani), Islamic Revolution Documentary Centre website, irdc.ir, 28 Dey 1388 / 18 January 2010. Foreigners were increasingly blamed for everything from the traffic to the lack of rain, Traffic barnemeye doshman baraye zarbe zadan be nezam ast (Traffic is the enemy’s plan to undermine the system), Digarban.com 27 Mordad 1390 / 18 August 2011; Ahmadinejad’s claim, made 19 May 2011, that Europe was stealing Iran’s rain can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Zwpo6fYFOGA.

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obedience was likewise due to the President after the supreme leader had confirmed his election.170 Some noted that such a privilege had never been accorded previous presidents. If the people were being deprived of rights and burdened with responsibility, the reverse process was taking place at the higher echelons of power. Theoretically, the supreme leader was responsible and accountable to God alone, but in practice this amounted to very little whereas the abundance of oil money simply accentuated the sense of entitlement with little or no deference to the people. Unlike Khatami, there was no need for Ahmadinejad to develop a tax culture with the concomitant consequences which might follow. Indeed, even the means which already existed to call the government to account, especially on its economic planning and expenditures, were being degraded and eliminated. The best example of this was the absorption of the hitherto independent Plan and Budget Organisation into the President’s office ending nearly sixty years of institutional existence. Few developments better reflected the gradual degradation and decay of the Pahlavi state that was taking place.171 But such a process was compounded by a dramatic decline in personnel as the technocrats who had hitherto managed the state  – even if they had not believed in the concept of the Islamic Republic – were now replaced by loyalists who scrambled to acquire (and purchase) academic titles to justify their sudden promotions. If Khatami had managed a flawed system well, Ahmadinejad proceeded to mismanage it into further decline.172 Another striking aspect of this decay was the sudden and dramatic increase in public executions, reminiscent of the early days of the

Misbah-Yazdi: eta’at az rais jomhur, eta’at az khodast! (Misbah Yazdi: obedience to the President is obedience to God), Tabnak, 22 Mordad 1388 / 13 August 2009, www. tabnak.com/nbody.php?id=8792. 171 The Plan and Budget organization had been established in 1948; it was dissolved in 2007. See BBC Persian.com, Sazman modiriat va barnameh rizi monhal shod (The Plan and Budget Organisation has been dissolved), http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/ story/2007/07/070710_ka-mpo.shtml; on criticism of economic policy, see ‘The Second Warning of Economists to the Administration: The Full Text of the Letter of 57 Experts and University Professors to [Mahmud] Ahmadinezhad’, Etemad, 12 June 2007, on BBC Monitoring Online; Said Leylaz, ‘Warning’, Ayande-ye Now, 21 January 2007, on BBC Monitoring Online. 172 The most famous example was that of the Interior Minister, Ali Kordan. His fake ‘Honorary Doctorate’ can be viewed at: http://www.donya-e-eqtesad.com/largPic. asp?1590/08–01.jpg. Characteristically, Kordan pleaded that he had been the victim of fraud. On the extent of the fraud in academic titles see A M Ansari, Crisis of Authority: The Iranian Presidential Election of 2009, Royal Institute for International Affairs, London 2010, pp. 26–29. 170

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revolution but now returned to with some enthusiasm. This reflected not only the break-down in structures but the absence of competent or interested personnel. Bureaucratic procedure of any sort was simply dismissed as either too cumbersome for the task or irrelevant. Consequently Iranians, particularly the residents of Tehran, were horrified to find that practices they had associated with the excesses of the early years of the revolution were now being reinstituted as a measure of the purity and authenticity of the new Islamic state. As they would soon find, even the modicum of procedure that was allowed would be discarded in favour of summary street justice.173 Perhaps the most extraordinary contemporary case of a state relinquishing its monopoly on violence related to the initial judicial rulings pertaining to a string of murders in Kerman province. When it became apparent that the culprits were politically well-connected members of the local Islamic militia (basij) who had been exercising their ‘right’ to punish sinners, their conviction was suddenly overturned by a higher court in Tehran on the extraordinary premise that it was up to the dead to prove their innocence. So shocking was this decision (eventually, and some years later when the implications of the judgement were fully appreciated, the decision was itself overturned by a higher appellate court) that the lawyer in the case wrote furiously that the concept of the law had become redundant.174 Such developments could not have taken place in the absence of the particular environment noted earlier in this section, including a generous injection into the cash economy and consumerism. But much more effective in many ways, particularly when one considers the attitudes of Iranians in the Diaspora, was the cultivation and exploitation of On the increasing use of state-sanctioned violence, see See Ayatollah Jannati, Friday Prayer Sermon, 27 July 2007, on BBC Monitoring Online; ‘Iran to Execute Twenty Thugs’, IRTV1, 10 July 2007, on BBC Monitoring Online; ‘Iran Senior Judicial Official Urges Speedy Sentencing in Security-Related Cases’, IRTV1, 18 August 2007, on BBC Monitoring Online. On the propensity towards public executions, see S K Deghan, Iran Public Execution Outrages Human Rights Groups, Guardian 22 July 2011. On the continued discussion of the merits of stoning, Bahar, 5 Dey 1381 / 26 Dec. 2002, p. 1; Bahar, 12 Dey 1381 / 2 January 2003, p. 1; Bahar, 18 Dey 1381 / 8 January 2003, p. 1. ‘Executive Regulations for the Implementation of Punishments of Retribution, Stoning, Killing, Crucifixion, Execution and Flogging Subject of Article 293 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for the Revolutionary and the Public Court’, no. 444/01/1562, dated 27 Shahrivar 1382 / 30 September 2003, published in the Official Gazette of the Ministry of Justice, no. 1700124, 19 Azar 1382 / 22 Dec. 2003. 174 Nehmat Ahmadi, ‘Negahi beh parvandeh- ye ghatl-haye mahfeli-e kerman az aghaz ta konoon,’ (An assessment of the file of the serial murders of Kerman from the beginning to the present), Etemad, 29 Farvardin 1386 / 18 April 2007. 173

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nationalism. Ahmadinejad had discovered, especially in his handling of the nuclear crisis with the West, that although religion might be the opiate of the masses, nationalism provided an altogether more energising stimulant.175 As noted previously in the section ‘Iran for All Iranians,’ no historical analogy was left unexamined in the pursuit of a nationalist narrative – which at one stage invoked the memory of Mosaddeq – and renewed mythology which could invigorate and unite the peoples of Iran. Ahmadinejad was the first post-revolutionary leader to fully exploit the Achaemenid heritage and to praise, in terms which may have made Mohammad Reza Shah blush, the historical achievements of Cyrus the Great.176 In a remarkable stream of consciousness pouring forth on live Iranian television Ahmadinejad reflected on ‘the Human Rights Cylinder of Cyrus’, which the British Museum was just about to loan to Iran for the first time since the ill-fated celebrations of the 2500th anniversary of the Iranian monarchy in 1971. According to Ahmadinejad, Cyrus was the epitome of just leadership, so wise in his approach to politics that his liberation of Babylon, and the followers of ‘His Holiness Moses’ was done with no bloodshed  – a liberation he proceeded to compare favourably with that of the Americans in 2003. Claiming to quote from the cylinder itself, he then added, He issued a statement there. Let me read some part of it and you can see how it was. He said, ‘As long as I am king, I will not allow the people who are under my command to mock other nation’s norm or humiliate those nations under my rule’. He was saying that he respected other nations. He said, ‘I will not impose my kingdom on any other nations and I will not wage war because they do not accept my kingdom.’ We know that many nations asked him to rule them . . . He said . . . ‘I will not allow anyone to do injustice to others within this span. I will restore the rights of the oppressed people and confront oppressors.’

Furthermore, he was a ‘monotheist and just seeking man’, who when victorious announced that ‘no one was allowed to violate the rights of others. He banned injustice, violation and slavery. This is very valuable.’177 Among his more extraordinary claims was that of a sixteen-year-old girl producing nuclear power at home. Equally concerning was the audience’s apparent acceptance of these claims; see http://uk.youtube.com/ watch?v=9cIrymEv8xI. Ahmadinejad also boasts of the extraordinary advances in stem-cell research made by Iranian scientists. 176 Tajlil Ahmadinejad az koroush kabir dar rooz melli khalij fars (Ahmadinejad’s praise for Cyrus the Great during the national day of the Persian Gulf), www.persian.rfi.fr 3 April 2010. 177 BBC Monitoring online, IRINN, 17 September 2010. The official veneration for the cylinder can be seen in the inauguration of the exhibition: http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=qhbFrD_BpB8; for Ahmadinejad’s use see: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=BLr4yCO8Pd4. 175

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Mocking Mohammad Reza Shah’s evocation of Cyrus during his speech in Pasargad, Ahmadinejad proceeded to define Cyrus not only as a humanist and a champion of ‘rights’, but a man of the people who exemplified the very ‘genes’ of the Iranians. If Ahmadinejad was no more accurate in his depiction of Cyrus than his royal predecessor, he shared Mohammad Reza Shah’s predilection for historical appropriation, even if his Cyrus possessed more ‘Islamic’ characteristics as he saw it. But perhaps more striking was his desire, like his royal predecessor, to spread the good news. In 2011, his chief of staff, the former intelligence officer, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, proposed that various Middle Eastern heads of state, including a number of reigning monarchs, be invited to celebrate the Persian New Year at Persepolis.178 Mashai was also associated with the development of a new school of thought: the Iranian school, in what was to prove an attempt to reconcile the dichotomous relationship between Iranian and Islamic identity in favour of Iran. What was more revealing about this process was that Ahmadinejad and Mashai were attempting to reconcile not just religion and nationalism, but the different forms of nationalist narratives emanating in part through a Sasanian rather than Achaemenid inheritance. In so doing they were not only officially articulating a new social affectation for traditional mythologies, but marrying them to the practical politics of the day. In confronting the Americans, for example, Iranian officials explicitly drew on the mythologies of pre-Islamic Iran to excite the popular imagination. Thus ‘Arash the Archer’ was cited as a hero who was clearly manifest in the heroic endeavours of modern Iranians. During the ceremonies held to highlight the loan of the Cyrus Cylinder, Ahmadinejad combined all three narratives by awarding a Palestinian keffiyeh to a figure reportedly dressed as Kaveh!179 And there was more: The Global War on Terror (GWOT) launched by the United States in 2001 had resulted in a radical reshaping of the regional order which more than matched the unsettling events of 1991. If Iranians were eager to tear up the Treaties of Golestan and Turkmenchai in the aftermath of fall of the Soviet Union, the collapse of the Taleban in Afghanistan and of Baathist Iraq provided Agar tez maktab irani motoghaf nashavad, soal az rais jomhur dar dastoor kar gharar migirad (If the school of Iran thesis is not removed, questions will be asked of the President over his role), ILNA online 18 Esfand 1389 / 9 March 2011. 179 Ahmadinejad be Kaveh Ahangar chafiyeh dad (Ahmadinejad gave Kaveh the Blacksmith a keffiyeh), Tabnak online, 21 Shahrivar 1389 / 12 September 2010. Some have argued this figure was actually meant to be Cyrus the Great, and the actor certainly had dressed like an Achaemenid. 178

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altogether more intriguing possibilities. The idea of ‘Iran’ and ‘Iranshahr’ as conceived by the Sasanians and imagined by generations of Iranian intellectuals could now be realised. When Mashai was challenged on his reported claim that the Prophet had been Iranian, he protested his innocence, asserting that he had only said that Abraham was Iranian.180 Any religious scholar would have known that the historical Abraham was thought to have been born in what is now Iraq, ancient Mesopotamia – or as Mashai would have concluded, the heart of Iranshahr. Such comments were unprecedented and bold, and were to soon incur a fierce reaction from the puritans in the governing elite for whom all talk of an Iranian school was anathema. Ahmadinejad’s use of nationalism in part reflected his millenarian incoherence, his enthusiasm for any idea which might assist his political position. But Mashai’s statements had taken the matter in a distinct and deliberate direction which not only reflected a much deeper affectation for such ideas – not the first Iranian leader to have been seduced by Iranian history – and a realisation that the social consolidation of power required some appreciation of an ideology that was gaining ground among people at large. For example, his attempt to hold a Nowruz celebration at Persepolis reflected the fact that groups of Iranians had been increasingly celebrating the new year in the shadow of the Achaemenid capital. It was nonetheless a dangerous game to play for a political elite who had themselves on the basis of religious legitimacy and who had sought to contrast themselves with the Pahlavis. It was true that both Rafsanjani and Khatami had sought to exploit nationalist sentiment, but each had approached the question tentatively and often with heavy qualification. In Khatami’s case the approach was one of inclusivity, with the aim of empowering the masses. Ahmadinejad however appeared to throw caution to the wind and not only adopted a much more unequivocal approach, but sought to tie it to his person in a renewed narrative of the ‘saviour’, which he also sought to sacralise by associating with Shia eschatology. This was superstition on a grand scale. It was also a dangerous political game to play because popular emotions would be difficult to control. Mohammad Reza Shah had tried it and become distinctly unstuck. It was all well and good attempting to control matters through purported access to esoteric knowledge  – an attempt

Esfandiar Rahim Mashai dar gofteguye ekhtesasi ba khabar negar-e arya: nagoftam hazrat mohammad irani boode ast (Esfandiar Rahim Mashahi in a special interview with a journalist from Arya: I did not say the Prophet Muhammad was an Iranian), Aryanews. com 6 Dey 1389 / 27 December 2010. 180

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to construct a doctrine of predestination  – but it would be difficult to limit the scope of popular interpretation.181 Popular passions might be excited but it was just as likely the people would turn their loyalties in other directions, especially as Ahmadinejad’s ‘nationalism’  – much like Mohammad Reza Shah’s piousness  – was viewed by many sections of society with incredulity. Even those who might at first believe, it was argued, would in their disappointment turn against religion.182 Such differences of opinion came to the fore in the most serious political crisis to affect the Islamic Republic since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in the form of the widespread demonstration that rocked the state in the aftermath of the presidential elections of 2009. The extensive protests revealed just how deep the disconnect between state and society had become, whereas the reaction which unfolded further highlighted the ideological fissures at the top.183 Despite Ahmadinejad’s best efforts to identify himself with a potent mix of nationalism and religion, he was unable to translate this into a decisive and unambiguous victory at the ballot box. On the contrary, claims that this had been achieved resulted in an outpouring of popular anger and a dramatic polarisation of opinion. The reaction of the governing elite was to move to consolidate their base and by extension, to swiftly crush the opposition. Any pretence to national legitimacy, either on constitutional or ideological grounds, was laid to one side, and all efforts were exerted to stress Khamenei’s position as the supreme authority and indeed supreme power in the land, to whom all rights accrued and to whom obedience was an Islamic obligation. Ayatollah Misbah Yazdi took the unprecedented step of arguing that belief in the velayat-e faqih was a fundamental pillar of the Islamic faith, whereas Ayatollah Jannati later added that the rejection of the Supreme Jurist was the equivalent of denying God.184 By all accounts, a form of On this tendency to define people as ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’, see ‘Agar rais ghove-ye ghazai dar khat-e amrikast, cheh kasi khodi memanad?’ (If the head of the Judiciary is in the line of America, who remains an insider?), Baztab.com, 29 Mordad 1386 / 17 August 2007. 182 ‘Khoshchehreh: Natijeh-ye nakami Osolugarayan: laik shodan jame’eh’ (Khoshchehreh: the result of disappointment with the Principle-ists: laicization of society), Baztab.com, 19 Khordad 1386 / 9 June 2007. 183 Ahmadinejad’s main opponent, Mousavi, was blunt in his criticism, Iran candidate says ‘irrational’, ‘superstitious’ managers running country, Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network 3, Tehran, in Persian 1800 GMT 4 June 2009, BBC Mon Alert ME1 MEPol pj. 184 See Misbah va beheshti, davaye sonat va modernism, (Misbah and Beheshti, a confrontation between tradition and modernity), Ayandenews, 20 Mehr 1388 / 12 October 2009. Rad Veleyat faqih enkar khodavand ast (Rejection of velayat-e faqih is a denial 181

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religious despotism was being imposed that far exceeded in scope the ambitions and abilities of Khamenei’s royal predecessors. One disillusioned conservative politician noted that the Parliament was increasingly behaving like an extension of the Supreme Leader’s office.185 This consolidation was matched with a wholesale assault on the symbolism and ideology of nationalism, characteristically targeted against the individual felt to have been at the heart of the movement: Mashai. Not only was he labelled a ‘deviant current’, but the symbols of nationalism were discredited as anti-Islamic and anti-revolutionary, or in one case, the construction of a ‘Jewish’ imagination.186 The character of Cyrus the Great came in for particular venom, with one ‘historian’ denying he ever existed, a conclusion he drew from work he claims he conducted in Germany. What was striking in this diatribe was not the novelty of an attack on the historical Cyrus (a Zionist creation), but the protestation that Iranians had adopted foreign fictional kings over their real kings such as Jamshid!187 The author of this lamentable historical survey, a medical doctor by the name of Ravazadeh, not only epitomised the poverty of history in contemporary Iran, but as his lecture suggested, indicated that narrative boundaries were reassuringly opaque. Introduced as an expert on Islam and anxious to deride Cyrus as a Zionist conspiracy, Ravazadeh nonetheless was convinced of the reality of Jamshid. The abuse of historical method that was taking place had its echoes in the various conspiratorial narratives around the alleged ‘velvet revolution/coup’ which had been orchestrated for the summer of 2009.188 Far of God), Fars News Agency, 15 Azar 1389 / 6 December 2010. For good measure the hard-line Ayatollah Khatami (not to be confused with the former president) added that Har kas jomhuri bekhahad doshman mast (Whoever wants a republic is our enemy), www.zamaaneh.com 18 Mehr 1388 / 10 October 2009. 185 Ali Motahhari: Majlis beh shakheh-ye daftar rahbari tabdeel shode ast (Ali Motahhari: the Parliament has been transformed into a branch of the Leader’s office), Radiofarda. com 21 Tir 1390 / 12 July 2011; Motahhari was highly critical of the government handling of the demonstrations; see his interview with Fars News Agency, 24 Mordad 1390 / 11 August 2011. See also Ali Motahhari: na majles-e ma mostaqel ast, na ghove ghazai (Ali Motahhari: neither our parliament is independent, nor our judiciary), Iran Green Voice online, 9 September 2011. 186 Defa az takht Jamshid dar vasiat shohada matra neest / melli garai dar taraoz ba khastgah enqelab (There is no defence of Persepolis in the wills of the martyrs / nationalism is against the wishes of the revolution), Mehr News, 20 Esfand 1389 / 11 March 2011. See Pasargad rah dar dahe 40 smamsi yek yahudi sakht (Pasargad was built by a Jew in the 1960s), http://www.30mail.net/news/2011/jun/09/thu/10057. 187 Listen to Dr Ravazadeh’s remarkable lecture at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRs HMwCpozc&feature=related. 188 Iranian agency says death of protester Neda was ‘media murder’, Islamic Republic News Agency, Tehran, in Persian 0908 GMT 4 January 10 BBC Mon ME1 MEPol MD1

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more serious was the assault on the universities. Having effectively emasculated the press since 2000, Khamenei announced in 2009 that it was time to ‘Islamise’ the humanities and social sciences, a process which had ostensibly been done some thirty years earlier, but clearly not sufficiently well. Pressures on academic staff mounted, and at least one university announced that it would drop the teaching of thirteen subjects in the humanities, including history and politics.189 Perhaps the most audacious and absurd assault on the social sciences came in the indictment of various intellectuals seen as the source of ‘sedition’. A number of these were Western academics, and at least one, Max Weber, was long dead.190 Iran’s counter-enlightenment was gathering momentum. Yet at the margins of this political onslaught there were indications of a siginifcant shift in the public mood. If Iranians had entered the election of 2009 seeking a change in government, they left it with a bitter taste and a belief that more fundamental change was not only necessary but desirable. Iranians who had hitherto accepted the Islamic Republic of Iran as the political expression of national identity, in all its hybrid construction and implicit flaws, now came to doubt it. This trend was accelerated by the decision to consolidate the authoritarian base, a political tactic that Media sp. Ronamaee az tarahan dadgah koodetaye makhmalin dar seema (A present from the planners of the velvet coup court in IRIB), www.ayandehnews.com 5 Shahrivar 1388 / 27 August 2009. The set text of the ‘velvet coup’ narrative was published by none other than the Kayhan Research Institute in a book entitled Shovalie-haye nato-ye farhangi: yek nama az koodetah-ye makhmali (The cultural knights of NATO: one example of the velvet coup d’état), by Payam Fazli-nejad, with an introduction by Hossein Shariatmadari. The book was published in 1386 / 2007, suggesting that the narrative was well in place and ingrained before the events of 2009. Fear of a ‘velvet revolution’ had in fact been cited on several occasions before but the idea had failed to gain social traction, as with the arrest of Haleh discussed in note 136. See for example, Intelligence Minister Ejei’s comments to ISNA, 7 February 2006. 189 Iranian University Drops 13 Humanities Majors, Radiozamaneh.com, 6 August 2011. Iran’s Khamene’i highlights role of students in countering enemies’ ‘soft war’, Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network 1, Tehran, in Persian 1716 GMT 31 August 09 BBC Mon ME1 MEPol sr/sp/ms. Khamenei points out that of the county’s 3.5 million students, some 2.5 million are studying humanities and social sciences. 190 See Charles Kurzman,‘Reading Weber in Tehran, The Chronicle Review, 1 November 2009. See also Kadivar’s speech on the occasion of the 40th day following Neda Agha Soltan’s death, http://www.izles.net/zf3WnPfANvp/video-kadivar-day-40-iranian-martyrs-mem-2–12.html. For the full indictment against the Islamic Iran Participation front, see Matn kamel keifar khast aleye ozaye mosharekat va mojahedin enqelab (The complete transcript of the indictment against the members of the Participation Front and the Islamic Mojahedeen), Ayandeh News, 3 Shahrivar 1388 / 25 August 2009. Longdead Iranian academics also came under critical review, Ahmad Kasravi vahi rah dorogh midanest (Ahmad Kasravi regarded revelation as a lie), Fars News Agency, 13 Dey 1388 / 3 January 2010.

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had left an enormous number of Iranians effectively beyond the pale.191 Even Mir Hussein Mousavi, Iran’s prime minister during the Iran-Iraq War, had been labelled a mohareb (wager of war against God) by his opponents, a designation that left very little room for ­manoeuvring.192 The nation was no longer composed of all Iranians, but limited to what appeared to be an ever-decreasing circle of ‘the elect’, connected to each other by a highly esoteric and contentious reading of religion and mythology. The price of joining this elect was not only a derogation of ‘reason’ but a wholesale abrogation of rights. Iranian nationalism now essentially consisted of Iran without the Iranians.

Ayatollah Sanei gave a damning indictment of the misuse of the term ‘kufr’ against Iranians who did not share particular political views; http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=piTnluYQtos. He was later formally stripped of his title, although few consider such a procedure legitimate, Rais jamaeh modaresin: ayatollah sanei ra faqed salahiyat baraye marjayat elam kard (The head of the association of teachers [a hard-line clerical faction] has announced that Sanei is not qualified for the marjayat), www.rahesabz.net 13 Dey 1388 / 2 January 2010. 192 Mir Hossein Mousavi ra yek mohareb aleye nezam midanam (I view Mir Hossein Mousavi as a heretic against the system) Tabnak.com, 20 Ordibehesht 1389 / 10 May 2010. 191

Conclusion

And herein lies political genius, in the identification of an individual with a principle. Given this linkage, the individual must carry off the victory.1

Reflecting on the centenary of the Constitutional Revolution in 2006, Iranian academics and political commentators indicated how much had been accomplished and noted, with some anxiety, what had yet to be achieved. The score sheet was not encouraging. The euphoria of the early years of the Reform movement had given way to despondency, and a number conjectured that the latest efforts towards a constitutionally and legally defined state in harmony with its ‘citizens’ would end much the same way as the failure of the Constitutional Movement itself: in dictatorship. Arguably, the situation was even worse. At least the dictatorship of Reza Shah was a product of the Constitutional Revolution; that which was developing under the Islamic Republic was a religious despotism that was explicitly antithetical to the principles of the Constitution. Here was power in its raw form, concentrated in the person of the Supreme Leader, answerable only to God, with the authority to change laws as the faqih saw fit.2 This was ‘absolute’ power well beyond the aspirations of Iranian monarchs, made all the more real by the tools afforded to the modern state  – principally a bureaucracy empowered by modern 1 G W F Hegel, The German Constitution 1802, in Hegel’s Political Writings (trans T M Knox), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1964, p. 216. 2 See interview with Motahhari in Fars News Agency, 24 Mordad 1390 / 11 August 2011; see also Ekhtiyarat vali-e faqih bish az Qanun asasi ast: eteghad emam be velayat-e motlaqe (The rights of the vali-e faqih are greater than the Constitution: the Imam believed in the absolute velayat) Mehr News agency, 18 Shahrivar 1390 / 9 September 2011.

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technology. Yet even here the state apparatus that is emerging bears little resemblance to the institution building that formed the ambitions of the early nationalists. This was not a modern dictatorship, still less a totalitarian state, whatever the pretensions of the leadership; this was a state structure founded on the creation and cultivation of an intensely personal charisma of the ‘leader’ whose access to ‘esoteric wisdom’ was replicated throughout a bureaucracy that eschewed rationalism in favour of superstition. This was sultanism justified and reinforced by charisma.3 Thus after a century of attempted state- and nation-building, catalysed in part by the casual brutality Iranian intellectuals had witnessed, Iranians confronted a resurgence of state brutality sanctioned by a judiciary that appeared to have scant understanding of due process and could condemn to death by public execution individuals on the basis of the ‘inner knowledge’ of the presiding judge.4 Even worse was the prospect of this veneer of judicial process being circumvented by the issuance of discrete fatwas to vigilante groups in a remarkable example of the state relinquishing even the pretence to the monopoly on violence. Much of this degradation of the state has been justified on a reading of nationalism which demands the abrogation of critical reason in the interests of faith. It is in effect negation of the enlightenment project and the cultivation of nationalism for the commonwealth, and a reminder that nationalism (like Islam) can be used by its mediators for good or ill.5 The key is not the idea of the nation, but the cultivation of that nation, and in essence, its ‘civilisation’. A Narrative of Centralisation The Constitutional nationalists of 1906 had sought to redefine the social contract for the contemporary age by diffusing power to what they perceived as agents of change. The Qajar monarchy was regarded as reactionary and incompetent. Claiming absolute authority  – within 3 On ‘sultanism’, see H E Chehabi & J Linz, A Theory of Sultanism: A Type of Nondemocratic Rule, in H E Chehabi & J Linz (eds.) Sultanistic Regimes, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998, pp. 13–21. The corollary of sultanism is a social fractiousness fuelled by rampant egotism, a process that severely undermines any attempt at ‘national’ cohesiveness and community. 4 See for example the case of Sakineh Ashtiani, condemned to death by stoning on dubious evidentiary grounds, on the basis of the presiding judge’s ‘inner knowledge’; see Death Sentences and Executions 2010, Amnesty International, 2011, p. 28. 5 See the opening sentence to David Hume’s essay, ‘Of National Characters’, in Selected Essays, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 113.

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the law – its power was increasingly limited to obstructing rather than facilitating reform. The Constitutionalists intended to dilute that authority and decentralise power, albeit in a limited fashion, to encourage and facilitate much-needed change. This was at heart a ‘republican’ rather than a ‘democratic’ process. They soon discovered to their cost that the process of decentralisation was meaningless in the absence of a strong central authority against which it could be defined. This could not be understood simply in the person of the king, but had to be conceived in relation to the institutions of government. In their absence, the diffusion and delegation of power bred chaos and anarchy. The decision was therefore made to build the new state around the concept of the Iranian nation. Both of these systems had to be constructed in tandem with the view that the power of the state would be limited by the rights of the nation. In reality, this task was so immense that this essential balance was lost. The state was empowered, the nation was partially educated, but its rights were not established. Indeed the idea of the nation, contrary to its original intentions, increasingly served to facilitate and justify the centralisation of the state such that even when Reza Shah was deposed, his parliamentary successors vigorously argued for continued centralisation. The centrality of this idea was so established that even separatist movements – most obviously Pishevari in Azerbaijan – adopted locally those very policies of centralisation they had rejected from Tehran. Attempts to redefine the relationship in the decade after 1953 floundered on the back of the emergent Cold War and the internecine conflicts of the Iranian elite. Under Mohammad Reza Shah, the state, increasingly supported by oil revenues, grew ever more powerful and centralised with a definition of constitutional monarchy that bore a greater resemblance to the ideas of his nemesis than the legacy of the Constitution. The onset of the Islamic Revolution only partially stalled this process, and if the charismatic authority of Ayatollah Khomeini contained the diffusion of power which the revolution engendered, a systematic process of consolidation was inaugurated by the bureaucratic centralism of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Within this consolidation however a febrile intellectual environment was busy rediscovering the principle of the Constitution and the enlightenment ideas it incorporated. The language of civil society and rights returned with an energy that was unprecedented in modern Iranian history. This was a consequence of wider social and structural changes, both demographic and educational, that had been gestating and developing

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over the better part of the century. The advent of new forms of communication, in particular forms of mass media, which were enthusiastically adopted by Iranians, accelerated the process of public education, but also in their rapidity, brought with them problems all their own. The relatively swift transition from a lateral to a demotic form of nationalism necessitated a simplification of the message, which encouraged the reintroduction and reinvention of political myth. The Constitutionalists sought to harness this tendency by redefining the myths of the Shahnameh and identifying them as the repository of the idea of the nation. Under Mohammad Reza Shah this function was neglected, only to re-emerge in the Islamic Republic as a consequence of the expansion in social awareness and growing political and cultural literacy. This process reached fruition under the Khatami administration when for the first time since the Constitutional Movement, an idea of Iran was articulated based on the legal citizenship of all Iranians who shared a broad-based history and mythology: Iran for all Iranians. This intellectual dynamism was nonetheless not matched by political acuity, and this latest attempt to Constitutionally define and institutionalise the idea of Iran was to in turn flounder on a tide of populism. Modern political rather than historical myths came to shape the politics of the nation in the age of mass media.6 What is perhaps most striking about the rise of Ahmadinejad and the unprecedented consolidation of power in the hands of the Supreme Leader has been the persistent dominance of the narrative (myth) of centralisation. What had begun as an attempt to centralise and consolidate authority had through a century of bureaucratic and technological change been translated into a centralisation and monopolisation of power. Under Khatami, there was an attempt to address this confusion. Yet one of the continuing criticisms of his administration was that the attempted decentralisation of power was leading to a weakening of the state and resulting in anarchy and disorder. The use of the state media to ridicule the antics of the Tehran municipality and the incoherence of the Parliament was an obvious attempt to diminish the status of the ‘business’ of politics in the eyes of ordinary Iranians. This fear of disorder on the eve of the age of mass politics gave a new twist to traditional anxieties, clothed as they were in modern ideas and assisted by the tools of the modern state. Ahmadinejad’s populism facilitated the retrenchment of traditional authoritarianism further empowered and enhanced by the (technological) tools of the modern state. 6 J B Thompson, Ideology and Modern Culture, Stanford CA, Stanford University Press, 1990, pp. 163–215.

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Oriental Despotism For some, this has just reflected the return of ‘traditional’ Iranian ‘oriental despotism’.7 This is incorrect on two grounds. In the first place there is nothing traditional or eternal about the configuration of power in contemporary Iran. The centralisation of the state from Reza Shah onwards has no equivalent in the premodern age. All three pre-Islamic Iranian states were imperial in a traditional confederal sense. Authority may have been invested in the ruling monarch but power was by necessity diffuse and local. For all the rambunctious modern triumphalism about the might of the Achaemenids, this was not an empire held together through military force. The Parthian kingdom, famously decentralised, was the longest ruling political system in recorded Iranian history and was equally capable of dealing military defeats to the Roman Republic as the successor Sasanian Empire was able to do the Roman and Byzantine Empires. The Sasanian Empire, for all its vaunted centralisation, cannot be defined under a contemporary understanding of the concept.8 This was a vast imperial state that may have been more standardised in its administration but was not centralised in the modern sense. It owed more to its Parthian predecessor that the dynasty itself may have wanted to admit, and it may be fairer to consider the Sasanian Empire as the reconfiguration of power under a new dynasty but in confederation with the great landed aristocracy, many of whom were of Parthian heritage.9 Understood in this sense of continuity rather than change, the ParthianSasanian confederacy becomes one of the longer political cultures to have been sovereign in the land we now define in both political and cultural terms as Iran. Arguably, the development of the idea of Iran has been its most profound legacy, and cast a long shadow over subsequent dynasties when the memory was kept alive and continuity preserved by a remarkably consistent bureaucratic tradition.10 What these were not, whatever their theoretical aspirations, were despotisms of a particularly oriental variety. 7 On the history of this idea, see F Venturi, Oriental Despotism, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol 24 (1), 1963, pp. 133–42. 8 Any more than the Safavid State could be understood as ‘totalitarian’. 9 For this thesis, see Parvaneh Pourshariati, The Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran, London, I B Tauris, 2008, pp. 19–53. 10 See the remarkable description of a Persian bureaucrat by Arab satirist al Jahiz (d. 868–869), translated by C Pellat, The Life and Works of al Jahiz, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969, pp. 273–75.

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The Logic of the West The concept of an oriental despotism  – one of many narratives of the enlightenment further embellished with the growth of European power in the nineteenth century – has been challenged for some years, including by historians of Iran who have reflected on the disjuncture between theory and reality. But it is remarkable how the political vocabulary of the West has permeated the language of popular politics in Iran. This extensive social and intellectual penetration, through a process of Occidentalism, has tended to simplify and caricature an often complex debate, which is then either disparaged or more often than not, appropriated into the local discourse.11 The semiotic chains that are regularly produced witness their apogee in the complex and incoherent conspiracy theories which have proved the hallmark of ideologically driven rationalisation. Put simply, if one’s fundamental assumptions are wrong, all sorts of misinterpretations are likely to follow. Such methodological misconceptions are not the exclusive purview of religious reactionaries preoccupied with esoteric readings of world events. They affect any approach that acquires ideological certainty and precludes critical scrutiny. Political superstition  – the rationalisation of preordained, presumed facts – are if anything more destructive of understanding and comprehension inasmuch as they approach the target from the apparent vantage of secular and scientific method. The idea of ‘race’ as a biologically determined category of study offers no better example of the perversions of ideology. This is all the more so because many of the chief proponents of the doctrine emanated from what would be understood as ‘liberal’ political backgrounds. The concept of ‘race’ which extended throughout European political discourse in the second half of the nineteenth century was not uncritically imported into Iran, and indeed as this study has argued, was in fact vehemently challenged, in large part because the early nationalists understood that the transition of Iran from an imperial to a national state could not be sustained by a doctrine of race. 11 A good example of this is the recent debate between the former head of the Ansar-e Hezbollah, an Islamic vigilante group, and Professor Zibakalam of Tehran University in which Weber’s concept of authority is discussed. Allakaram lists the forms of authority but then proceeds to argue that he disagrees because Weber legitimizes all sorts of populist governments, such as fascism, which are obviously unpleasant. He then goes on to list a number of religious figures, including Noah, who would be considered ‘illegitimate’ because people failed to support them. See Manazereh hossein allakaram va sadegh zibakalam dar daneshgah-ye olum pezeshki Qazvin (Debate between Hossein Allkaram and Sadeq Zibakalam in the medical school of Qazvin), ISNA, 14 June 2011.

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Despite their best efforts this language was imported, both through appropriation in the late Pahlavi state and rejection by its opponents, into Iranian political and intellectual discourse, and has since become a staple of populist rhetoric. Its pervasive and misguided influence can not only be witnessed in the development of theories of racial ‘Aryanism’, but more problematically in its categorisation of sedentary and nomadic populations – the dichotomy between centre and periphery, rural and urban – as Persians and Turks, a biological demarcation which would have made little sense to Iranians whose world-view was shaped by a steady diet of the Shahnameh. If the idea of Iran had been originally conceived against Turan, and to some extent ‘Rum’, it is worth remembering that these distinctions were traditionally perceived as biologically inclusive, not exclusive. Even as the Turanians were transformed into ‘Turks’, the internal cohesion of family turned distant relations was not lost. Only the ‘Arabs’ have been identified as alien to the Iranian world; East and West have always related to the centre that was Iran, and if this did not preclude wars and conflict, neither did it deny a common ancestry. The Iranians and Turks, like the French and the Germans, were part of one family.12 The biological distinctions of racial nationalism, imported from Europe, simply did not apply, and did not produce analytical clarity. On the contrary, such rigid categories regularly suggested semiotic extensions that were simply not sustained by the evidence. Thus ‘Turks’ were tribal (read, politically primitive), and Sunni; ‘Persians’ are urban, urbane, and Shia. Yet the two first kings of the Qajar dynasty – implicitly Turkic and tribal – were also fundamental to the restoration and continuation of the idea of Iran, not implicitly, but explicitly, through the invention of a Kayanid crown linking them to the pre-Islamic dynasties of the Shahnameh. When Agha Mohammad Khan accepted the crown on the condition that he would be amongst the greatest kings of Iran, he was not referring to the Achaemenids.13 Iranian Narratives The idea of monarchy, as the early British orientalists noted, was heavily influenced by Iranian historical mythologies, most obviously but not limited to the Shahnameh, which not only provided a political frame of reference but an ethical guide for behaviour. Monarchy as defined in these 12 In traditional mythology this is anthropomorphized in the myth of Zahhak, the alien ‘Arab’ tyrant, succeeded by Fereidoun, who divides the world into three (Rome, Turan, and Iran), giving one to each of his three sons. Their subsequent rivalry sowed the seeds of conflict. 13 John Malcolm, History of Persia, London, Longman, 1829, Vol II p. 193.

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myths was less about despotic coercion – characteristics ascribed to the most wicked of potentates such as Zahhak – and more about negotiation and consultation. Take the remarkable ‘Oration of Manuchehr’, a text that does not appear in the Shahnameh, but was located in the fifteenth century history (Rawzat us Safa) of the bureaucrat, Mirkhwand, and translated by British Orientalists eager to discover a theory of governance. The oration (khutbah) reads in part: That monarch is the most fortunate, who, agreeably to this saying, ‘He is the happiest shepherd who renders his flock most happy’, devotes every time and season to the care of his subjects, and never thinks it lawful to relax in the acquittal of their claims on him; but directs all his knowledge to the curbing or punishing of oppression; the influence of whose benefits extend to the noble and the mendicant; and who esteems it a sacred obligation to redress the injured and relieve the oppressed; he who never demands from the subject more than the established and regular imposts; nor ever introduces new rules or capricious innovations, which are invariably attended with small gains and great losses. You should well note, that as the king has rights over the military and the husbandmen, they, in return have certain rights over the king (italics added). . . .  the husbandmen have the following claims on the king: he is to dispense impartial justice in all their concerns; to levy the necessary imposts with lenity: he is not to place tyrannical governors over them; nor permit any intolerable vexations. In years of drought, he is to grant them an exemption from tributes: and, if possible, exempt them also the following year, to remedy as far as possible the calamity of the preceding one. A good prince should be possessed of three qualities: First that whatever he says should be spoken in truth: in short he should on no account wander in the regions of falsehood. Secondly, he should be liberal: carefully avoiding penurious-ness, which renders everyone despicable, but particularly a prince. Thirdly, he must be clement, and not prone to anger: as the people are subject to him and he can do whatever he pleases, he should not therefore give way to anger, as evil result invariably from this reprehensible temper. In addition to this, a king should never debar his subjects from the use of certain meats, or modes of dress . . . It is also meet that pardon and indulgence should preponderate in the king’s mind, and that he should rarely have recourse to punishment: it is far better to commit an error on the side of clemency, than of severity: for if at any time he has erred by pardoning, instead of inflicting capital punishment, this may be repaired.14

The translator drew attention to this passage in his introduction as a highly interesting ‘summary of Oriental doctrines’ on the subject of 14 Mirkhwand, History of the Early Kings of Persia (trans.) by David Shea, and originally published in 1832. This edition by Elibron Classics, published 2003, pp. 177–88. This version is used because it was familiar to the early British Orientalists; however an earlier version can be found in Balami, see Tarikh-nameye Tabari (The History of Tabari), Vol 1, Tehran, Soroush, 1380 / 2001, pp. 258–63.

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‘political economy’.15 For the early orientalists it was important to understand what would now be characterized as the Iranian mind, a distinctive and authentic Iranian narrative – or weltanschauung – that informed choices and shaped the local political culture.16 As Sir John Malcolm was to comment to an Iranian friend: Believe me, he who desires to be well acquainted with a people will not reject their popular stories or local superstitions. Depend upon it, that man is far too advanced into an artificial state of society who is a stranger to the effects which tales and stories like these have upon the feelings of a nation; and his opinion of its character are never likely to be more erroneous than when, in the pride of reason, he despises such means of forming his judgment.17

By the end of the nineteenth century, such an empathetic approach appears to have been discarded in favour of an increasingly rigorous application of the new disciplines, to be followed in the twentieth century by a new wave of social sciences. In both cases much of the old knowledge was discarded or reclassified. One would be hard-pressed, for example, to find any such reference to Mirkhwand in later discussions on monarchy and power in Iran, the debate having been refocused on the nature of ‘despotism’. Mirkhwand’s history was in essence a mirror of princes that would have been familiar to writers in early modern Europe through to the eighteenth century enlightenment.18 It clearly attested to the primacy of the prince but made clear that uncontested authority must not be translated into absolute power, and that on the contrary a harmonious state was balanced on a social contract of rights and obligations. The continued preoccupation with the concept of despotism and the idea of despotic rule in Iran reflected the dominance of a particular – post-French revolutionary – narrative of enlightenment, which included among its many political myths the liberal doctrine on race, a deterministic reading of Marxism (the ideology rather than the methodology), and a disproportionate attention to Islam.

15 Mirkhwand, History of the Early Kings of Persia, p. ii. 16 Mannheim would characterize this as the ‘total mental structure’, see Ideology & Utopia, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960, p. 238. 17 John Malcolm, Sketches of Persia, London, Longman, 1827, pp. 190–91. 18 See for example J G A Pocock, Barbarism and Religion: Narratives of Civil Government Vol. 2, Cambridge, CUP, 1999, pp. 72–162. It is noteworthy that Gibbon had a copy of Mirkhwand (Vienna, 1782). The first English translation was made in London 1715, and the earliest European translation was made in Spanish in 1610, see E Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (trans D Womersley), London, Penguin, 2000 [iBook], Biographica.

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Islam and Marxism All these themes reflected Western intellectual preoccupations, and were often challenged by their Iranian counterparts seeking to mediate their transition into Iranian political culture. But ultimately these ideas penetrated and permeated the social and political discourse of the country. This penetration coincided with the expansion of political consciousness and the development of mass media modes of dissemination such that hitherto complex arguments were simplified for popular digestion. This process was of course not unique to Iran and reflected the expansion of education and the development of social sciences in the West  – still the dominant producer of knowledge in these disciplines. The impact of Marxism as an ideology has been documented in previous chapters, not only in the vocabulary it provided but the models it sought to prove. Marxism reinforced certain trends in methodology and approach, such as the stage theory of history and the idea of progress; reinterpreted concepts such as despotism and class; and encouraged a transition from ideal to material structures while all the while ironically retaining a sense of wonder at the impenetrable (and inevitable) determinism of structures. Above all Marxism redefined the way in which the concept of the nation was to be understood. It became at worst negative and at best transitional, and in the rigorous attempts to deconstruct it, nationalism in Iran abruptly found itself subject to much higher standards of continuity and standardization than many European equivalents. On another level, Marxism, as an ideology, framed and explained the world, such that committed Iranian Marxists, like all doctrinaire ideologues, interpreted the world through a particular prism, and sought (paradoxically given Marx’s intention) to make the world around them fit the idea. Above all, they tended to define themselves, and by extension Iran, through a historical struggle against global capitalism and the West. Radical Islamism appropriated many of these ideas, and added a further sacred dimension. If Western Orientalists sought to identify and categorize an Islamic civilization to compare to their own Christian one, this narrative was in turn borrowed and further politicized by Iranian religious thinkers who framed their arguments and world-view through Islamic assumptions. Although early nationalists sought to distinguish between religion and superstition, their heirs made no such distinctions, simplifying and either excluding or including religious thought and Islamic narratives. The benefits of such explanatory clarity have come at the cost of nuance and context. Ideas, developments, and processes

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have been extracted from the environment in which they were produced to serve the needs of new ideologies.19 Thus the history of Iran and the apotheosis of Iranian identity was achieved through Islam, and such a dynamic was replicated in the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, which by situating itself as the pivotal event of modern Iranian history has systematically and often deliberately sought to refract the flow of narrative interpretation to its own particular and deterministic end.20 It says much of the vanity of revolutionaries – and their need to justify excess – that they see their project as the most important historical development to date, and the Iranian revolutionaries of 1979 are no exception. Yet unlike previous revolutions, including the French model they referred to, the Islamic revolutionaries neither attempted to change the calendar nor immediately sought to fundamentally change the structures of the state they inherited. There may have been sound practical reasons for this, but as argued previously, the continuities have often been neglected in the determination to show change. The Politics of Nationalism This study has sought to address a number of imbalances in the study of modern Iran, the shaping of Iranian identity, and the development of nationalism. It has argued that the emphasis hitherto on the causes and consequences of the Islamic Revolution is a contemporary conceit that should be revised; that the real revolutionary changes took place in and around the Constitutional Revolution and its aftermath; that this aftermath extends far beyond the traditional parameters; and that the rise and rule of Reza Shah must be understood as the Constitutionalist response to the failures of government and the absence of authority. It was in this pivotal period that the meaning of Iran and the Iranians was defined for the modern age and the modern state. These ideas were influenced less by the French Revolution and its legacy and more by the enlightenment ideas that preceded it, especially the ideas of Republic of Letters and its political corollary, the Republic of Laws, that were epitomized in the Anglo-American enlightenment tradition. This was a 19 Mannheim famously sought to define such contextual analyses in terms of ‘relationism’. See Ideology & Utopia, pp. 253–54. 20 The historical incongruity of this was well attested by the first edition of Fred Halliday’s Iran: Dictatorship & Development London, Pelican, 1979, pp. 299–306, which assesses a number of possible trajectories, including the continuation of the Pahlavi monarchy (in various forms), but no conception of an ‘Islamic Republic’ as it emerged.

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humanistic tradition  – more Whig than liberal  – that was vehemently opposed to superstition but not antithetical to religion; it was vigorously secular but by no means atheistic. It regarded itself as the heirs of a historical tradition that was geographically diverse – one to which Iranian intellectuals could relate. Transnational Masonic networks provided a powerful medium and the means for the transmission of such ideas, and the dominant narrative was that of civilization and the means to attain it. Civilization was not a matter of fact but a statement of intent to be acquired through the cultivation of civil society and manners. All nations were capable of both civilization and barbarism, and the achievement of the West was to overcome their ‘barbarism’ and even perhaps their ­‘savagery’.21 Such developments were neither inevitable nor one way; there could be no room for complacency, and Iranian civilization had withered and regressed because it had become complacent, decadent, and corrupt.22 It was understood nationalism was a means of improving the welfare of the nation through the reform of the state and the cultivation of society, not a state of being which justified or explained an innate exceptionalism. Chauvinism was nonsense that betrayed the project being pursued and could be just as if not more destructive to the public good. This was ideology as dogma, a tendency towards ‘ideological closure’ to which we were all vulnerable and which had to be resisted through continuous criticism and scrutiny.23 National identity could not be founded on race nor was it antithetical to religion; civilization and its attainment were universal and not particular to specific peoples or nations. Above all Iranian identity was founded on language and history, and these were conveniently and richly conceived in the cannon of myths and history encapsulated in  – although not limited to – the Shahnameh. The Shahnameh provided Iranians with a rich vein of historical myths from which to draw on, and along with other histories had formed the basis for an idea of Iran long after the fall of the Sasanian Empire which had arguably originally conceived of the idea in a political sense. What 21 See for example Najaf Koolee Meerza, Journal of a Residence in England Vol 2, London, printed for private circulation only [by W. Tyler], 1839, pp. 28–29, reprinted by Elibron Classics, 2005. 22 On Gibbon’s view of the Persians, see J G A Pocock, Barbarism and Religion: Barbarians, Savages and Empires Vol 4, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 11. 23 P Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action and Interpretation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, p. 226–27.

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distinguished the Shahnameh was its poetic accessibility and its myths that penetrated the social and political consciousness of the Persian-speaking world. This was not a national epic in the contemporary meaning of the term, but it did reflect the social and political manners of a particular civilization, and it provided a world-view and frame of reference that was distinctly Iranian, as opposed to Islamic or indeed Turkic. For the Constitutionalists, it was an essential part of the mix, not necessarily as authentic ‘history’ – as the discipline came to be defined – but as a narrative of identity in all its complexity. It provided above all a narrative thread that was distinct and different: an idea of Iran that gave meaning to being Iranian. This meaning was intended to be real as well as ideal; it was to be founded, to quote Taqizadeh, on the basis of ‘freedom and justice.’ That this vision failed to be fully realized should not detract from its validity of purpose, or from the substantial achievements that were attained in the brief period during which the ideas of the Constitutionalists were sovereign. These ‘enlightenment nationalists’ were in many ways the founding fathers of modern Iranian nationalism and identity. They created a new political space within which others might flourish. But their successors were not so gracious, and they soon found themselves surplus to requirements, relegated to the margins of a political contest that was becoming increasingly polarized. The ideological challengers that emerged all disparaged the ‘liberal’ tendency (as they saw it) that had preceded them, at once dismissing the mythology they promoted, and degrading their predecessors’ construction of nationalism as something altogether ‘Western’. Yet all three trends, be it the peculiar dynastic nationalism of Mohammad Reza Shah, the secular socialism of the Left, or the religious nationalism of the Islamists, found themselves wedded to a particular idea of Iran and as indebted to mythologies as any among the Constitutionalists. The difference was that whereas the Constitutionalists of the Iranian enlightenment recognized and sought to harness the power of mythologies, their successors at times appeared blithely unaware of the narratives they were constructing, or indeed, of their continued indebtedness to the logic of the West.24 In successive stages under Mohammad Reza Shah and the Islamic Republic, Iran was reified at the expense of the nation. The idea that had been developed to empower the nation increasingly existed in spite of the Iranians themselves. This was Iran without the Iranians; nationalism imposed new obligations and few if any rights. 24 Both in terms of epistemologies and categories of thought.

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The Renewal of Iranshahr Yet if the political capital accrued in the Constitution and its aftermath had been recklessly expended and wasted, the seeds sown by the Constitutionalists in the first half of the twentieth century had not been cast in vain. Education, accelerated through the development of the mass media, which had originally outpaced the ambitious plans of the Constitutionalists, was to yield diverse and interesting fruit. The growth in literacy and political consciousness was to inject a new and important dynamic into the discourse of nationalism – this time, as the Constitutionalists had wanted, from the ground up. This new development was to first make itself felt in the 1990s, and ultimately in the emergence of a renewed enlightenment movement under President Mohammad Khatami. The people had forced themselves back into the debate and could no longer be ignored. Rejecting the imposed narratives of the state they rediscovered their historical and social roots through the medium of a historical mythology long thought banished to the literary margins of political discourse. The spirit of Iran and the Iranians had been reinvigorated. But this reimagined community was given new life by the dramatic regional changes that were occurring around them. The world as Iranians knew it was changing; the old certainties were disappearing. If the fall of the Soviet Union and the opening up of Central Asia and the Caucasus revived memories of empire and gave further impetus to the rediscovery of a distinctly Iranian, as opposed to Shia, narrative, the transformations which followed the launch of the Global War on Terror in 2011 were to prove even more dramatic. Iranians had hitherto dreamed of Iranshahr; now they appeared on the verge of realizing it. With Iranian influence extending into Afghanistan and Iraq, the political identity of Sasanian Iran appeared to be re-emerging, not only in a material but more profoundly in an ideational sense. Traditional units of territorial analysis no longer appeared to apply; the clear boundaries of modernity suddenly became more opaque as a distinctly Iranian world encroached on that which had hitherto been Arabic. Inside Iran too, the old boundaries appeared to dissolve in the wake of a renewed interest in the historical mythology of Iran and the meanings it imparted. It was no longer a case of Cyrus or Jamshid – the nation embraced them both. Nationalism, as argued in the introduction, has and will continue to be the determining ideology of modern Iran, although not an ideology in the narrow definition of that term, but rather a broader ideational frame of reference.25 Indeed, despite its pervasiveness in political culture, it has 25 See Mannheim, Ideology & Utopia.

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continued to be ill-defined and contested, and at the same time has provided a broader canvas and terrain for more particular ideological narratives. This in many ways is a natural consequence of its social penetration and appeal to a wide variety of political groups, even those with religious and socialist leanings for whom the whole concept of nationalism was alien or nonsensical. Inevitably and with unerring ease, all these competing political ideas, consciously or otherwise, would have to engage with the idea of Iranian identity and the problem of nationalism, such that nationalism became the terrain of contestation. Often the attempt was made to distinguish one from the other, to praise the worthiness of Iranian civilisation and identity while condemning the ideological manifestation that was nationalism. Paradoxically, it was those who were swift to condemn nationalism that were the first to engage in chauvinism. Those who sought to translate an idea of Iran and the Iranians into a political reality often did so acutely aware of the nuances and subtleties involved. Nationalism was not inherently a force for good, like manners; it had to be acquired, cultivated, and tempered. Above all Iranian nationalism could not be developed without the Iranians themselves. But the process had to begin at the top  – leadership had to be found to facilitate the development. Faced with repeated obstructions and setbacks, Iran’s Constitutionalists went in search of their own enlightened despot. They found in Reza Khan, if not a Napoleon, then perhaps a Peter the Great. But it was, they surmised, Peter the Great’s achievement and legacy that was most applicable to Iran at the turn of the twentieth century. Reza Shah for all his flaws, proved to be the man for the moment. Having facilitated the process, the intention had been to restrict and contain the power of the monarchy and balance the rights of the state with that of its citizenry. A dialogue between state and society would then reshape and redefine the parameters of Iranian nationalism. In truth however the state refused to share ownership, but continued under both Mohammad Reza Shah and the Islamic Republic to seek to dominate the narrative. The myth of Oriental Despotism, once applied, proved difficult to dislodge. Nationalism, it would seem, was too powerful a force to be left to the nation. It had to be controlled, and at best should be harnessed, for the purposes of the state, and the state alone.26 Iranians were consequently left out of the debate on Iranian nationalism. Education and improved means of communication however ensured that 26 See in this respect Irna beh naql az Ayatollah haeri Shirazi: ma bayad melli gerayyi ra beh shedat jeddi begirim (IRNA quoting Ayatollah Haeri Shirazi: we must take nationalism very seriously), Ayandenews.com 18 Shahrivar 1390 / 9 September 2011.

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the state found it increasingly hard to monopolize the argument. The methods of the Reza Shah could not be replicated under his son, even with an abundance of oil wealth, and still less by the Islamic Republic. It has been remarkable how jealously each has protected its rights to be the guardian of the nationalist flame, and just as remarkable how each has miscalculated the sentiment it pretends to protect. Mohammad Reza Shah identified himself and the Pahlavi monarchy intimately with the nationalist project. Intermixing religious and national motifs, he projected himself as the saviour of the nation. The nation, however, was unimpressed with the new Cyrus while the revolutionaries labeled him the Pharaoh of the age. For a while the narratives of nationalism were marginalized, but it was not long before they resurfaced in literature and political rhetoric. A social awakening catapulted Khatami to the presidency: The seeds of nationalism were bearing fruit. It could no longer be ignored; it could only be harnessed. Ahmadinejad proved the means by which the narrative of nationalism could be harnessed, once again, to authoritarian ends. In the aftermath of the presidential elections of 2009, the consequences of this strategy became apparent to all. Nationalism was no longer an ideology that could be used in the service of those who ignored the nation. Neither Khamenei nor Ahmadinejad proved to be credible guardians of that particular tradition, any more than Mohammad Reza Shah was accepted as a guardian of the true faith. If Mohammad Reza Shah was castigated as a pharaoh, Khamenei in contrast was now being identified with Zahhak.27 It has been a remarkable turnaround in political myths and a testament to the persistence and social power of nationalist narratives. Yet, Iranian nationalism, as Taqizadeh might have conjectured, was easy to learn, yet difficult to master. It is perhaps the greatest irony that an ideology developed to empower the people through education and a coherent sense of imagined community has not only been used to marginalize those very people, but has periodically succumbed to the very superstition it sought to overcome. As the Constitutionalists became only too well aware, the greatest threat to the development of Iranian nationalism was in many ways the enthusiasm of the nationalists themselves.28

27 See for example the Iranian website, Nim-negah 12 February 2011. 28 See David Hume, ‘On Superstition and Enthusiasm’ in Selected Essays, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 38–43.

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Index

Abduh, Mohammad, 26 Abrahamian, Ervand, 90 Abrahamic religions, 15 Achaemenids, 15, 21, 34, 144, 166–167, 169, 171, 173, 289 Adamiyat, Fereydoun, 142–143, 184, 206, 227 Afghan, uprising of 1722, 10 al-Afghani, Jamal al Din, 26, 28–30, 46, 206 compared with Mehdi Bazargan, 207 dialogue with Joseph Ernest Renan, 47 and European intellectuals, 29, 47 Agha Mohammad Khan, 19, 23, 192, 291 Ahmad, Jalal Al-e, 186–188 Constitutional Revolution (reading of), 187 Tudeh Party, 186 ‘Westoxification’ (Gharbzadadegi), 186 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 188, 259–264, 273, 275–276, 278 and the Achaemenids, 229, 259, 275 and Cyrus, 198, 260, 278, 279 and the Holocaust, 264–265 Akhundzadeh, Mirza Fathali, 30, 58, 152 Alam, Asadollah, 132, 160, 225, 262 Amanat, Abbas, 40 Amini, Ali, 161–162 Ancient Persians, 16 Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1919, 70–71

Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later Anglo-Iranian Oil Company), 93, 129, 130, 135 William Knox D’Arcy, 129 Arabs, 30 Anti-Arabism, 165 Association with Islam, 145, 146 Arani (trial of), 128 Arjomand, Said A., 194, 198 Arsanjani, Hasan, 161–162 Aryanism. See Indo-Europeanism Ashraf, Ahmad, 262, 263 Avesta, Avestan. See Zoroastrianism Azerbaijan, 121, 154 Azerbaijan Crisis 1946, 121, 123–124 Babi Revolt, 26, 42 Baghi, Emad ad Din, 225–227, 229, 263 Bahais. See also Shi’a Islam Persecution of, 150–152, 159 Bakhtiar, General, 158, 210 Bayle, Pierre on the Enlightenment and the Abbasid Caliphate, 47 Bazargan, Mehdi, 206–209, 211 Bible Biblical narrative, 16 Boroujerdi, Grand Ayatollah, 243–244 British Imperial Bank of Persia, 41, 130 Abdolhassan Ebtehaj, 130 Browne, Edward G., 13, 22, 25, 26, 28, 38, 40, 41, 45, 53, 58, 70, 178

321

322 Browne, Edward G. (cont.) characterization of Turks, 23 Revolution of 1905, 115, 118–119 Role of ulema, 44 The Persian Revolution, 26, 40 A Year among the Persians, 22 Bush, President George W., 254 Catholicism, 10 Christensen, Arthur, 75–76, 108, 115 Churchill, Winston S., 154 Cold War, 33, 126, 137, 157–159, 163, 287. See also Russia and United States Constitution Constitutional Movement, 33, 43, 46, 54–55, 150, 248, 285 Persian constitution, 51–52 declaration of independence, 52 and English constitution, 52–53 US constitution, 78 Constitutional Revolution of 1905, 33, 39, 43, 45–46, 60, 68, 87, 89, 140, 204, 206, 285 Azerbaijan, 121 compared with American Revolution, 50 Legacy of, 90 and Reza Khan (later Reza Shah), 66 Tabriz, 122 Curzon, Lord, 14, 16, 38, 44, 178 and the Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1907, 70–71 Persia and the Persian Question, 14, 38 Cyrus, 21–22, 166–168, 170, 173, 175, 180, 222–223, 282, 300 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud on, 198 Anniversary (2500th), 34 Cyrus cylinder, 21, 176, 260, 278–279 interest in, 115 Thomas Jefferson’s interest in, 167 and Islamic state, 223 Mohammad Reza Shah, 183 eulogy to Cyrus, 110

Index Impact of, 299–300 Under Reza Shah, 94–95, 112 Dar al Fonun, 95 Language, 98–100, 101 School of Political Science, 95 University of Tehran, 96–98 Europeans Europeanization under Reza Shah, 83–85 intellectual influences, 47, 75, 237 idea of freedom, 144 on Laws, 90 on Taqizadeh, 64 technological influence on Iran, 247 trade and diplomatic links with Iran, 9 Westoxification (Gharbzadegi), 186–187 Fardid, Ahmad, 186, 187–188 Constitutional Revolution, 188 Heidegger, Martin, 188 Fardoust, Hussein, 225 Fedayeen e Islam, 118, 131, 134 Ferdowsi, 34. See Shahnameh Firuz, Prince, 80, 86, 111 Foroughi, Mohammad-Ali, 100, 104, 107, 111, 112, 115, 119, 143, 154, 168, 272 Compared with Kasravi, 119 On Laws and Constitution, 87–88 Quoted, 36, 105 On Shahnameh, 104–105 Freemasonary and Enlightened nationalism, 42, 43 Freemasons, 188, 205, 262 French culture, 31, 48, 49 use of French in Iranian elite, 92 French Revolution, 4–6, 25 Legacy on Iranian thought, Hedayat, Sadeq, 48 Kasravi, Ahmad, 48 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 5

Darius, 171 Davar, Ali Akbar, 80, 86, 90–91, 111, 165 Radical Party, 86 Dawleh, Vosuq al, 71 Dehkhoda, Ali Akbar, 49–50

Germany Appeal of to Iranian nationalists, 55 Gobineau, Count Arthur de, 23 Gramsci, Antonio, 32 grand narrative, 4, 6 Marxist thought, 4 Great War, 7–8, 68–69, 71

Ebtehaj, Abdolhassan, 130, 163 Education (in Iran)

Habermas, Jurgen, 255 Hajji Baba, 12. See also Morier

Index Jones-Brydges, Harford, 12 The Adventures of, 12, 38. See also Jamalzadeh, Mohammad Ali Hardinge, Arthur (British Diplomat), 39 Qajar decay and reform, 39, 40 Hazhir, Abdulhussein, 131 Hegel, 16 Progress (and Ancient Persians), 16 Herodotus, 10, 107, 167, 169–170, 171 Historical scholarship (status in Iran), 142–143 Hoveyda, Amir Abbas, 208–209 Hume, David, 274 Huntington, Samuel, 163, 165 Hussein, Saddam Invasion of Iran, 212. See also Iraq Hyde, Thomas Religio Veterum Persarum (1700), 15 Imperial Calendar, 183, 199 Adoption of, 183 Indo-Europeanism Aryan myth, 8, 12–13, 14, 16, 119 Aryanism, 15, 103, 107–108, 145, 147, 165, 174, 178–179, 234, 265, 291 and the term ‘Iran’, 102 and Third Reich, 108 India, 13 Iraq, Revolution of 1958, 160 War with Iran, 212–213, 226–227 Isaacson, Isaac (‘Current Revolutions in Persia’), 10 Islam, 29. See also Shi’a Islam and Sunni Islam Islam and the State, 201, 209, 214–215, 241, 242 Governance, 214–215, 238. See also Bazargan, Mehdi Guardianship of the Jurist, 199–200 Islamic Consultative Assembly, 218 Islamic identity, 227–228 Islamic Law, 209–210 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), 220 Marxism (and Islam), 211–213, 295 Islamic (Iranian) Revolution, 1, 35, 164, 179–180, 204, 236, 295 Khomeini’s role and influence on. See Khomeini

323 Jaleh Square Massacre, 226 Jam, Mahmud, 92 Jamalzadeh, Mohammad Ali, 60–61, 186 Yeki bud, Yeki Nabud, 61 Hajji Baba, 61 Jannati, Ayatollah, 281 Jefferson, President Thomas, and Cyrus, 167 Jones, Sir William, 13 Jones-Brydges, Harford, 12–13 and Hajji Baba, 12 Kabir, Amir, 268 Kadivar, Mohsen, 243–245 Karanjia, R.K. (India journalist), 177 Kashani, Ayatollah, 147, 205 Kasrai, Siavosh, 176 Kasravi, Ahmad, 118–120, 141, 142, 184 Compared with Hasan Taqizadeh, 118 Compared with Mohammad-Ali Foroughi, 119 Influences of the French Revolution on Iranian thought, 48 Murder of (by Fedayin e Islam), 131 Tarikh-i Mashruteh-yi Iran, 40 Kaveh, 176, 194, 216–217. See also Kaveh Kaveh, 57–59 and Achaemenids, 59 and Iranian calendar, 58 and Sasanians, 59 and Shahnameh, 55–56, 59 Kaveh the Blacksmith, 57 Zahhak, 57 Kayhan, 266 Kayhan Research Institute, 266–267 Keddie, Nikki, 5 Kermani, Mirza Agha Khan, 30, 58 Khalkhali, Sadeq, 208–209, 223 Khamenei, Ali, 214, 230, 241, 243, 253, 257, 258, 273–274, 282 Khan Zand, Karim, 19 Khatami, Mohammad, 246, 250, 252–255, 257–258, 260, 264, 268–269, 276, 280, 288, 298 and Western ideas, 248 Khomeini, Ayatollah, 34, 192–193, 194– 195, 205, 212, 214, 224, 227, 230, 232, 235, 238, 244, 249, 267, 287 Death of, 201, 221–222 Status of Force Convention, 164 U.S. Embassy Siege 1979, 211 ‘White’ Revolution, 179, 196

324 Khosravi, Amir, 92 Khosrow I, 86, 96, 166 Kurds, 120, 121, 249 Labour Government (in Britain), 133 Larijani, Ali, 258, 268 League of Nations Anglo-Iranian Oil, 129 and nationalism, 8 Lorraine, Sir Percy, 72–74 Majlis Reforms under the fifth Majlis, 77–78 and Reza Shah, 81–82 Makki, Hussein, 92 Malcolm, John Sir, 13, 293 History of Persia, 20 Mali, Joseph on 1848 mythology, 7 Maliki, Khalil Visit to Britain, 134 Menashri, David, 94, 96 Mannheim, Karl, 3 Mansur, Ali, 164 Marashi, Afshin, 57 Marx, Karl, 7, 162, 202. See also grand narrative Marxism, Arani (trial of), 128 Influence in Iran, 127, 161, 186, 187, 189 Fear of, 137 Tudeh Party, 128–129, 239 and Islam, 189, 294 Shariati, Ali, 189–190 Taqizadeh, Seyyed Hasan, 127 Mashai, Esfandiar Rahim, 279, 280, 282 Mesopotamia, 16, 21 Mirkhwand, 292–293 Mirza Malkom Khan, 46 Mohammad Ali Shah, 54. See also Qajars Mohammad Reza Shah, 34, 35, 136–138, 153–162, 164–166, 168, 172–180, 181–185, 192–195, 196, 198, 212, 218, 225 and Aryanism, 174, 178–179 and Cyrus the Great, 166–167, 193 eulogy to, 110 and economic growth, 168, 178, 181, 183

Index and films (twenty-first century portrayals), 270–271 and Khomeini, 195 and Mossadeq, Mohammad, 136–138, 157 removal of, 158 and religion, 146 and Western education, 147 Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), 213 Molk, Mohammad Ali, 100 Montazeri, Ayatollah, 214, 243 Montesquieu, 10–11, 18 Persian Letters, 10 Morier, James, 12, 38. See also Hajji Baba Mosaddeq, Mohammad, 81, 124–125, 129–130, 131, 132, 135–139, 140, 148, 152, 157, 159, 161, 182, 184, 210, 238 and Mohammad Reza Shah, 136–138 and Reza Shah, 125, 157 –158 and Tudeh Party, 137 Motahhari, Ayatollah Ali, 202–203, 266 Mousavi, Mir Hussein, 214, 284 Nader Shah, 11 Comparison with Reza Shah, 67 And Delhi 1739, 18 Naimi, Jalal (editor of Keshvar) Quoted, 132 Napoleon Bonaparte, 5, 152–153 Tulard, Jean: The Myth of the Saviour, 152 Nasir al Din Shah, 22 and Tobacco Boycott of 1891–1892, 40 Nasir Khan, 120 National Bank of Iran, 92, 93 National Front, 130–131, 132, 148, 159 Nietzsche, Frederich, 15–17, 20, 57 Zarathustra, 15–16 Zoroastrianism (influenced by), 15–16 Nixon, President Richard, State visit to Iran 1972, 177 Nourizad, Mohammad, 269 Nuri, (Ali Akbar) Nateq, 245, 246–247, 259 Nuri, Fazlollah, 206 Occidentalism, 29, 290 c.f. ‘Orientalism’, 29 Old Testament, 166, 167 Cyrus, 21, 166

325

Index Ottoman Constitution 1876, 42 Ottoman Empire, 19 Pahlavis, 22, 67, 116, 177, 184, 191, 200, 224, 289, 291. See also Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza Shah Endurance of Pahlavi state after Islamic Revolution, 194, 198. See also Islamic state Gah-Nameh-ye Panjah Sal-e Shahanshahi-e Pahlavi, 182 Influence of the Sasanians on, 85–86 Meaning of the term ‘Pahlavi’, 82–83 Shahanshah Pahlavi, 82 Parthians Compared to Sasanians, 76, 85 Persians and their decadence,, 11 Pezeshkzad, Iraq, 270 Pirnia, Hasan, 103, 143, 167–168 Pishavari, Jafar, 123–124 positivism, 6, 34 professionalization (of history) impact on Iranian historical consciousness, 24 progress, 4, 6 and the Ancient Persians. See Hegel Protestants writers, 10 Putin, President Vladimir, 260 Qajars, 23, 286 Qajar State, 19 Position within Pahlavi historiography, 36 Reform, 39 Mohammad Ali Shah, 54 Status of the word ‘Iran’, 102 Turkifcation of, 24 as ‘Turks’66, Qalibaf, Mohammad Bagher, 258–259 Qavam, Ahmad, 123, 133, 138 Rafsanjani, Ali Akbar Hashemi, 220–221, 230–231, 245, 260, 268, 280, 287 Ranke, Leopold von, 6 Rawlinson, Henry Bisitun inscriptions of Darius I, 17 Razavi, Ahmed, 139 Razmara, Haj Ali, 129, 131, 132–134 Reformist Movement, 246, 249, 253, 254. See also Mohammad Khatami

Renan, Joseph Ernest, 27–28 and al-Afghani, 27, 47 Resurrection Party (Rastakhiz), 183 Reuter, Baron Julius de, 46, 130 Reza Shah (also Reza Khan), 72–73, 76, 79–80, 108–109, 123, 254, 287 Constitutional Revolution, 50 Europeanization of Iran, 83–85 Influence of Sasanians on. See Sasanians and Nader Shah, 78 Compared with, 67 Ramara, General, 131 As Reza Khan, commander of Cossacks, 65–66 Rule of, 112, 114, 119 Terms ‘Shahanshah’ and ‘Iran’, 100–101 Ricoeur, Paul, 114, 235 Romans, 16 Rushdie, Salman, 215 Russia Anglo-Russian relations Anglo-Russian convention of 1907, 44, 53, 133 annexation of Caspian Sea territories, 10 Azerbaijan Crisis 1946, 121, 123 Fall of USSR and implications for Iran, 231, 233, 256 influence on Persian affairs, 54 British concerns over, 71 During Second World War, 117, 120–121, 123, 128 Soviet influences on opposition to Reza Shah, 73 Russian revolution of 1905, 42 State visit by President Putin 2007, 260 Treaty of Turkmenchai of 1828, 46, 121 Saalam Closure of newspaper, 251 Safavids, 25–26 empire, 19 religion, 25. See also Shi’a Islam state, 10 collapse of, 18 Saltaneh, Itimad al, 32 Sanskrit, 16 and Indo-Europeanism, 13 Sasanians, 59, 144, 166, 229–230, 232, 289 Compared with Parthians, 76, 85 Fall of Sasanian state and status of Islam, 148–150

326 Sasanians (cont.) Influence on Reza Shah, 75, 82–83, 86, 9 6 Khosrow I, 86 SAVAK, 160 Scott, Sir Walter, 6 Second World War, 8, 113 Anglo-Soviet occupation (of Iran), 113 Radio, 126–127 Shabestari, Mojtahed, 235, 241, 243 Shahnameh, 20, 25, 34, 60, 104–105, 108, 115, 119, 126, 128, 143, 144–145, 148, 174, 176, 177, 193, 216–218, 222, 233, 255, 269, 288, 291, 292, 296–297 Ferdowsi, 34, 104, 106 Millennial celebrations, 107–108 and Mohammad Reza Shah, 34 use in Kaveh. See Kaveh Shamlou, Ahmad, 216–219, 255 Kaveh, 216–217 Zahhak, 217, 219 Shariati Ali, 177, 181, 188–191, 192, 202–203 Shephard, Sir Francis, 133 Shi’a Islam, 25, 26, 35, 146, 177 influence on Iranian identity, 25 Safavids (Shah Ismail), 25 Shi’a orthodoxy, 26 and Babism/Bahais, 26, 42, 150 Ulema, 25, 29, 51, 79, 80, 83, 116, 118, 134, 146–147, 151, 181, 196, 227, 229, 236, 269 and its threat to Qajar dynasty, 40 role in the Tobacco Revolt 1892– 1893, 41 Siakhal guerrilla insurrection of 1971, 210 Soroush, Abdolkarim, 239, 241–242, 245 Soviet Union. See Russia Spring-Rice, Sir Cecil Account of events in 1906, 44–45 Sunni Islam and the Ottoman Empire, 25 Sykes, Percy, 24 Tabari, 149 Tabatabai, Seyyed Zia, 65, 72–73 Tabriz, 122 Azeri Turkish, 122 Taqizadeh, Seyyed Hasan, 36, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50–51, 53–55, 60, 83, 95, 111,

Index 115, 122, 141, 142, 144, 145, 149, 150, 165–166, 167, 184, 186, 203, 206, 248 Compared with Ahmad Kasravi, 118 On Constitutional Revolution 1905, 45–46 Kaveh (editorship of), 46, 56–59, 61 Tackling inaccuracies in Iranian history, 60 Persia’s Appeal to England, 53 On political and Constitutional reform, 62–64, 68–69, 81 Talbott, Major, 40 Teymourtash, Abdolhussein, 79–80, 86, 111 Constitutional Revolution, 80 Tobacco Boycott of 1891–1892, 40–41, 43, 46 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 248. See also French Revolution Tudeh Party, 128–129, 134, 158, 239 and Mossadeq, 137 Turkey, 24 Military coup of 1960, 160 Turks, 23, 30, 42 Azeri Turkish. See Tabriz Edward Browne, 23 Qajars (regarded as), 66 Ulema. See Shi’a Islam United States, 205, 213 Influence in Iran, 163 Relationship with Iran. See also Nixon and Bush U.S. Embassy siege 1979, 211 U.S. as the ‘Great Satan’, 211, 275 Status of Forces Convention, 163–164 University of Tehran, 127. See also Education University of Uppsala. See Isaacson, Isaac Urabi Revolt of 1881–1882, 42 Varzi, Mohammad Reza, 270 Wagner, Richard Opera on Rostam, 17 Weber, Max, 7, 12, 255, 283 Western thought, impact on Iranian nationalism, 3 White Revolution, 33, 196, 204, 210 Wright, Sir Denis, 164–165

327

Index Xenophon, 167 Yazdi, Ayatollah Misbah, 281 Zahhak. See also Kaveh256 Zarrinkub, Abdollhussein, 143, 148, 203, 229

Zoroastrianism, 15, 170–172, 229, 232 Avesta, Avestan, 16 Iranian-Zoroastrian calendar (use in Kaveh), 58 Zoroaster, 14–15 Zoroastrian liturgy, 16