The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society under Riza Shah, 1921-1941 (Routledgecurzon Bips Persian Studies Series)

THE MAKING OF MODERN IRAN This collection of essays, by a distinguished group of specialists, offers a new and exciting interpretation of Riza Shah’s Iran. A period of key importance, the years between 1921 and 1941 have, until now, remained relatively neglected. Recently, however, there has been a marked revival of interest in the history of these two decades and this volume brings together some of the best of this new scholarship. Illustrating the diversity and complexity of interpretations to which contemporary scholarship has given rise, the collection looks at both the high politics of the new state and at ‘history from below’, examining some of the fierce controversies which have arisen surrounding such issues as the gender politics of the new regime, the nature of its nationalism and its treatment of the tribes. The chapters in this volume collectively present a picture of Iran under Riza Shah in all its complexity, in darker as well as lighter shades, highlighting the era’s debt to the past as well as its legacy to the future. Stephanie Cronin is Iran Heritage Foundation Fellow at University College, Northampton and Senior Research Associate in the History Department, SOAS, University of London. She is author of The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran, 1910–1926 (1997). Her current work focuses on subaltern responses to modernity in Iran.

ROUTLEDGECURZON/BIPS PERSIAN STUDIES SERIES Editorial Board Professor C.E.Bosworth, Dr V.S.Curtis, Dr R.M.Gleave, Dr V.A.Martin

The RoutledgeCurzon/BIPS Persian Studies Series publishes scholarly books in the social sciences and humanities on Iran. Such works include: original research monographs, suitably revised theses, specially planned books deriving from conferences, specially commissioned, multi-authored research books, and translations. IRANIAN HISTORY AND POLITICS The dialectic of state and society Homa Katouzian THE MAKING OF MODERN IRAN State and society under Riza Shah, 1921–1941 Edited by Stephanie Cronin

THE MAKING OF MODERN IRAN State and society under Riza Shah, 1921– 1941

Edited by Stephanie Cronin

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2003 by RoutledgeCurzon 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge's collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2003 Selection and editorial matter, Stephanie Cronin; individual chapters, the authors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data The making of modern Iran: state and society under Riza Shah, 1921–1941/[edited by] Stephanie Cronin. p. cm.—(RoutledgeCurzon/BIPS Persian studies series) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Iran—Politics and government—1921–1941. 2. Newly independent states. 3. Iran—Social life and customs—20th century. 4. Reza Shah Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, 1878–1944. I. Cronin, Stephanie. II. Series. DS317 .M257 2003 955.05′2–dc21 2002031812 ISBN 0-203-42314-3 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-42489-1 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-30284-6 (Print Edition)

CONTENTS

1

List of plates Notes on contributors Acknowledgements Note on transliteration Introduction STEPHANIE CRONIN

PART I The new state 2 Riza Shah’s political legitimacy and social base,1921–1941 HOMA KATOUZIAN 3 Riza Shah and the paradoxes of militarymodernization in Iran, 1921–1941 STEPHANIE CRONIN 4 Mudarris, republicanism and the rise to power ofRiza Khan, Sardar-i Sipah VANESSA MARTIN PART II International relations 5 Riza Shah’s abrogation of capitulations, 1927–1928 MICHAEL ZIRINSKY 6 Performing the nation: The Shah’s official statevisit to Kemalist Turkey, June to July 1934 AFSHIN MARASHI PART III Culture and ideology 7 Transforming dangerous nomads into useful artisans,technicians, agriculturalists: education in the Reza Shah period RUDI MATTHEE 8 Triumphs and travails of authoritarian modernisationin Iran MEHRZAD BOROUJERDI PART IV Women 9 Expanding agendas for the ‘new’ Iranian woman:family law, work, and unveiling JASAMIN ROSTAM-KOLAYI

vii viii x xi 1 13 15

38

67 82 84

103 126

128

152 162

164

10 11

Reza Shah Pahlavi and women: a re-evaluation SHIREEN MAHDAVI The banning of the veil and its consequences H.E.CHEHABI

PART V The tribes 12 Riza Shah and the tribes: an overview KAVEH BAYAT 13 The case of the Shahsevan RICHARD TAPPER 14 Riza Shah and the disintegration of Bakhtiyaripower in Iran, 1921–1934 STEPHANIE CRONIN Index

190 203 222 224 231

253 282

PLATES 1 Riza Khan in Cossack uniform before the coup of 1921 2 Ahmad Shah and the vali‘ahd, Muhammad Husayn Mirza, with Qavam al-Saltanah and Riza Khan 3 Riza Khan on his return to Tehran after the defeat of Shaykh Khaz‘al of Muhammarah 4 Riza Shah in the late 1930s 5 A group of young army officers in the 1920s 6 General Amanallah Jahanbani and Brigadier Habiballah Shaybani on their return from cavalry school at Saumur in France 7 Sayyid Hasan Mudarris 8 Abd al-Husayn Taymurtash 9 Doctor Muhammad Musaddiq as Deputy to the Sixth Majlis 10 A group of Deputies to the Fifth Majlis 11 A group of Deputies to the Eighth Majlis, wearing Pahlavi hats 12 A group of Deputies to the Tenth Majlis, in European dress 13 Kurdish tribesmen at Qasr-i Shirin before disarmament 14 Isma‘il Aqa Simitqu with his son and some Kurdish tribesmen, together with two senior army officers 15 Officers of the North-Western Division with the body of Simitqu after his assassination 16 Kashkuli khans entertaining members of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company’s staff at lunch 17 A group of Bakhtiyari waiting to be treated by Morris Young, the APOC doctor 18 A group of women after the implementation of the clothing reforms

xiii xiii xiv xv xvi xvi xvii xviii xix xix xx xx xxi xxi xxii xxii xxiii xxiii

CONTRIBUTORS Kaveh Bayat is an independent researcher working in Iran. He has published extensively in Persian on modern history, especially military history and tribal politics. Mehrzad Boroujerdi is Associate Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He is author of Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism (Syracuse University Press, 1996) and General Editor of the Modern Intellectual and Political History of the Middle East series published by Syracuse University Press. He has been a scholar-in-residence at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, and a post-doctoral Fellow at Harvard University. H.E.Chehabi is Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University. He is author of Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini (Cornell University Press and I.B. Tauris, 1990), and co-editor with Alfred Stepan of Politics, Society, and Democracy: Comparative Studies (Westview Press, 1995) and, with Juan J.Linz, of Sultanistic Regimes (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998). His articles have appeared in Political Science Quarterly, Daedalus, Diplomacy and Statecraft, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Government and Opposition, and other journals. Stephanie Cronin is Iran Heritage Foundation Fellow at University College, Northampton and Senior Research Associate in the History Department, SOAS, University of London. She is author of The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran, 1910–1926 (I.B.Tauris, 1997). Her current work focuses on subaltern responses to modernity in Iran. Homa Katouzian is a member of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford and Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Politics, University of Exeter. He has published widely on modern Iran and his books include The Political Economy of Modern Iran: Despotism and PseudoModernism, 1926–1979 (Macmillan, 1981); Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran (I.B.Tauris, 1990) and, most recently, State and Society in Iran: The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis (I.B.Tauris, 2000) and Iranian History and Politics: The Dialectic of State and Society (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003). Shireen Mahdavi was born in Tehran, Iran and educated at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the University of Utah and the University of London. Prior to the Iranian Revolution she taught at the Institute of Social Research in Tehran, was involved in research in the field of social affairs, and

served as an adviser to the government. Currently an independent scholar affiliated with the Department of History, University of Utah, she has written extensively on various aspects of Iranian history, with special emphasis on the nineteenth century. She is author of For God, Mammon and Country: A Nineteenth-Century Persian Merchant, Haj Muhammad Hassan Amin al-Zarb 1834–1898 (Westview Press, 1999). She is married to the Iranian architect Reza Khazeni. Afshin Marashi is Assistant Professor in the Department of History, at California State University, Sacramento. His research focuses on the cultural history of modernity and nationalism in Iran. His doctoral dissertation is entitled Nationalizing Iran: Culture, Power, and the State, 1870–1940 (UCLA). Vanessa Martin is Reader in Middle Eastern History, Royal Holloway, University of London. Her research interests are modern Iranian history and politics, and modern Shi‘ism. She is author of Islam and Modernism (I.B.Tauris, 1989), Creating an Islamic State Khomeini and the Making of Modern Iran Routledge Curzon (I.B.Tauris, 2000), and co-editor with Sarah Ansari of Women, Religion and Culture in Iran (2001). Rudi Matthee is Associate Professor of History at the University of Delaware. His Ph.D. is from UCLA. He has written extensively on Safavid and Qajar Iran. He is author of The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600–1730 (Cambridge University Press, 1999), co-editor with Beth Baron of Iran and Beyond: Essays in Honor of Nikki R.Keddie (Mazda, 2000) and, with Nikki Keddie, of Iran and the Surrounding World: Interactions in Culture and Cultural Politics (University of Washington Press, 2002). Jasamin Rostam-Kolayi is a lecturer in the Department of History and the Women’s Studies Program at California State University, Long Beach. In 2000, she completed her Ph.D. dissertation entitled The Women’s Press, Modern Education, and the State in Early Twentieth-Century Iran at UCLA. Richard Tapper is Professor of Anthropology with reference to the Middle East at SOAS. He has conducted field research in Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey. His publications on the Shahsevan include two monographs, Pasture and Politics (Academic Press, 1979) and Frontier Nomads of Iran (Cambridge, 1997). His most recent book is an edited volume on The New Iranian Cinema (I.B.Tauris, 2002). Michael Zirinsky was educated in Tehran, at the International Community School, and in the USA. He is Professor of Modern History at Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, where he has taught since 1973. His primary research interests are Western relations with Iran during the early twentieth century, and he has published on Riza Pahlavi’s relations with the USA and the UK as well as on American Presbyterian missionaries in Iran during the Riza Shah period.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This volume arose out of a conference held at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in 1999. I would like to thank Mr Farhad Hakimzadeh and the Iran Heritage Foundation, and the British Institute of Persian Studies whose support made the conference possible. I would also like to thank the British Institute of Persian Studies for assisting with the publication of this volume, and the Iran Heritage Foundation for providing the Fellowship which allowed me the time to work on my own contributions to it and on its editing. I would like to thank the Society for Iranian Studies for permission to reprint ‘Transforming dangerous nomads into useful artisans, technicians, agriculturalists: education in the Reza Shah period’ by Rudi Matthee and ‘Riza Shah and the disintegration of Bakhtiyari power in Iran, 1921–1934’ by Stephanie Cronin. ‘Mudarris, republicanism and the rise to power of Riza Khan, Sardar-i Sipah’ by Vanessa Martin first appeared in the Journal of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies and is reprinted with the journal’s permission. The journal’s website may be found online at .

NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION There has been no attempt to impose a uniform system of transliteration for the Persian, Arabic and Turkish names and terms used in the contributions to this volume. Since spellings derived from non-Roman scripts are often compromises and may always be disputed, and no system is ever completely adequate, decisions about transliteration have been left to individual authors.

Plate 1 Riza Khan in Cossack uniform before the coup of 1921 (courtesy of the Institute of Research and Cultural Studies, Tehran).

Plate 2 Ahmad Shah and the vali‘ahd, Muhammad Husayn Mirza, with Qavam al-Saltanah on the left and Riza Khan behind.

Plate 3 Riza Khan on his return to Tehran after the defeat of Shaykh Khaz’al of Muhammarah.

Plate 4 Riza Shah in the late 1930s (courtesy of the Institute of Research and Cultural Studies, Tehran).

Plate 5 A group of young army officers in the 1920s.

Plate 6 General Amanallah Jahanbani and Brigadier Habiballah Shaybani on their return from cavalry school at Saumur in France.

Plate 7 Sayyid Hasan Mudarris.

Plate 8 Abd al-Husayn Taymurtash.

Plate 9 Doctor Muhammad Musaddiq as Deputy to the Sixth Majlis.

Plate 10 A group of Deputies to the fifth Majlis.

Plate 11 A group of Deputies to the Eighth Majlis, wearing Pahlavi hats.

Plate 12 A group of Deputies to the Tenth Majlis, in European dress.

Plate 13 Kurdish tribesmen at Qasr-i Shirin before disarmament (reproduced from rhe BP Archive).

Plate 14 Isma‘il Aqa Simitqu with his son and some Kurdish tribesmen, together with two senior army officer.

Plate 15 Officers of the Notrh-Western Division with the body of Simitqu after his assassination.

Plate 16 Kashkuli khans entertaing members of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company’s staff at lunch (reproduced fromthe BP Archive).

Plate 17 A group of Bakhtiyari wating to be treated by Morris Young, the APOC doctor (reproduced from the BP Archive).

Plate 18 A group of women after the implementation of the clothing reforms.

1 INTRODUCTION Stephanie Cronin

In the two decades between the coup d’état of 1921 and the abdication of Riza Shah, Iran underwent a profound transformation. Some aspects of this transformation are well known. A new state of considerable apparent strength was constructed, capable of asserting its power, if not always its legitimacy, throughout the country and over the entire population. This new state developed as an agent of change, implementing and enforcing the agenda of the nationalist elite without the help, and sometimes against the wishes, of traditional intermediary layers such as the ulama, the guilds and the tribal khans and aghas, and incubating a society Europeanized in appearance and modern in modes of cultural and intellectual expression and discourse. The primary and most fundamental task of the state-building effort of the early Pahlavi period was the creation of a modern army, based on universal and compulsory military service. Many other measures of centralization and modernization followed. The new regime reorganized Iran’s fiscal system and raised state revenues through taxation, banking and customs reform, mobilizing resources for major public-spending projects, including massive weaponspurchasing programmes, road-building and the Trans-Iranian railway. In addition to the army, another pillar of the new order was the civil bureaucracy, which was expanded and reorganized while the administration of the country was highly centralized with an official hierarchy tightly controlled by the interior ministry. The judicial system was secularized and centralized within a reformed ministry of justice; and legal codes based on European models were introduced, a commercial code in 1925, a criminal code in 1926 and a civil code in 1928. Foreign influence was curtailed and autonomous tribal groups and provincial magnates were brought under state control. A secular system of national primary and secondary schools was set up and in 1934 the University of Tehran was founded. The second decade of the new regime saw an acceleration of the participation of women in education, the economy and public life. The period enjoyed substantial overall population growth, with a shift to the urban centres—six cities possessed a population of 100,000 or more by 1940. All these processes of change seriously undermined the political and economic bases of clerical power, while precepts derived from Islam were challenged by the increasingly hegemonic official ideology of secular Persian nationalism with a strong monarchical component. In each of these measures separately, as well as in their overall direction, Riza Shah gave effect to long-standing demands of Iranian constitutionalism, and his regime accumulated much goodwill on this

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account, the activism of the new state contrasting sharply with the passivity and helplessness of its Qajar predecessor. 1 However, the transformation of Iran which took place under Riza Shah contained other aspects. In tandem with the consolidation of the regime, the flourishing intellectual life which had drawn vitality and impetus from the constitutionalist and nationalist struggles of the first two decades of the century was gradually stifled. As the new regime grew in confidence and assertiveness, it declined increasingly to permit space for independent activities or institutions. The press was tamed, newspapers either being brought under state control or shut down completely. Political parties were banned or dissolved, interrupting the transition then underway from fluctuating factions organized around personalities to modern ideological parties. The practical disregard for the Constitution spread cynicism while the control over elections exercised by the army and the interior ministry and the reduction of the Majlis to futile impotence robbed the population of the greater experience of democratic and electoral politics which it had been acquiring painfully and slowly since the elections for the first National Assembly in 1906. The suppression of independent political and social organizations, notably women’s associations and trade unions, deprived these and other groups both of any voice of their own and of the opportunity to develop more sophisticated skills of organization and advocacy. By the late 1920s the new state had obliterated civil society in Iran and had reduced the clamour of the first quarter of a century to a pall of silence. During the two decades between 1921 and 1941, therefore, were laid, for good and ill, the foundations of the modern Iranian state and modern Iranian society. Yet despite its centrality, the period has remained relatively neglected. This has been due partly to the responsiveness of academic Iranian studies to the vicissitudes of Iranian politics. As long as the Pahlavis remained in power, Western scholarship was content to paint Riza Shah in broad brush strokes, largely uncritical of the ‘reform’ and ‘modernization’ implemented under the aegis of the new state, and preferred not to dwell on some of the regime’s more sinister aspects. The success of the Islamic revolution, on the other hand, eclipsed completely any interest in the secular dimensions of Iran’s modern history. 2 Recently, however, there has been a marked revival of interest in the period. 3 Nostalgia for an imagined era of order and stability has led to a reawakening of curiosity about Riza Shah. For those who regret the passing of the monarchy, Riza Shah’s incarnation of the virtues of determination and decisiveness contrast with his son’s vacillation and weakness in the face of the Islamic revolutionary movement, while in Iran itself, after many years of factionalism and chaos within ruling circles, there is again a yearning for strong leadership. As well as a renewed political interest in the formative years of modern Iran, there has also been a maturing of the discipline of Iranian studies, a result of the work in exile of a generation of Iranian-born historians. Largely critical of the monarchy, but also distanced from the current regime, the work of these historians has facilitated the emergence of a more nuanced and sophisticated view of Riza

Introduction

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Shah. These revisionist historians, some of whom are represented in this volume, have looked with new eyes both at the broad features of the period and at the nature and impact of specific changes. As well as revisiting some of the key episodes of the period in an attempt to reassess their general historical significance, the chapters which follow have another objective. Taken together, they aim to rectify the imbalance in much older scholarship resulting from too great an emphasis on the high politics of the urban elite of the capital. The preoccupation in much of the literature with the Tehran regime and its elite supporters has typically been accompanied, as the other side of the same coin, by an almost complete silence regarding other interests and perspectives. Little attempt has been made to elucidate either the historical narrative or the perception of their own experience of, for example, non-elite groups such as the Tehran crowd, of non-metropolitan elite groups including the guilds and the bazars of the provincial cities, or of any social category in the countryside. In challenging this imbalance, several of the chapters attempt to redirect attention towards the actual experience of different layers of Iranian society, in an attempt to represent the ‘history from below’ of these years. The contributions discussing gender relations, for example, try to understand and articulate the experiences of women themselves, not merely as objects of state policy, but as active participants in their own history. The chapters on the tribes also refocus attention, looking not just at the regime’s pacification drives but at the internal dynamics of the tribal confederations and their own role in the tribe—state equation, redressing the tendency to imagine the state as the sole initiator and agent of change. Rather than positing an eternal and unchanging conflict between tribal chaos and state-imposed order, the chapters emphasize the variety and differentiation of tribal life, and the importance, when discussing the period as a whole, of distinguishing between the various tribal groups, their locations, their structures, their aspirations, the degree and nature of the threat they represented to the central power, and the sometimes conflicting responses of their leaderships and their rank and file. These novel departures have highlighted serious methodological difficulties. Indeed, one of the reasons often put forward to account for the paucity of research into the Riza Shah period in general relates to difficulties arising from the unavailability or sparsity of both archival and published material. The British archives, although rich for the 1920s, certainly offer little for the subsequent decade and, until recently, the only available Persian material was a small number of old and well-known published texts. Now, however, opportunities have improved greatly and the chapters which follow reflect a new range and availability of sources. The British Foreign Office files, although exhaustively exploited for the high politics of the period, are still capable of yielding useful information regarding provincial and tribal history in regions of especial imperial concern and are a major source for Stephanie Cronin’s chapter on the Bakhtiyari (Chapter 14). The USA, although in the Riza Shah period still only marginally involved in Iran, possesses archival material of some importance, used by Michael Zirinsky and Rudi Matthee. The press is also a valuable source.

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Jasamin Rostam-Kolayi (Chapter 9) shows how much a solidly pro-government publication such as Alam-i Nesvan can be made to reveal, while Afshin Marashi makes original use of the Turkish press for his account of Riza Shah’s visit to Turkey (Chapter 6). Over the past decade much new material has appeared in Iran, including collections of historical documents, memoirs and diaries, as well as scholarly research. Rostam-Kolayi and H.E. Chehabi, for example, both cite the collection of official documents published by the Iranian National Archives on forced unveiling. Oral sources are also sometimes essential for complementing archival and published material or for trying to reconstruct events where almost no records survive. Richard Tapper (Chapter 13) has collected some of this type of material for his discussion of tribal settlement in the 1930s, giving a voice to the Shahsevan tribespeople themselves. However, much work still remains to be done. The archives of other states, especially Turkey and the former Soviet Union and also France, remain to be properly investigated but will almost certainly prove to contain valuable resources. Perhaps most importantly, little work has yet appeared in the West based on Iranian archival material. 4 The broad template of modernization adopted in Riza Shah’s Iran was one which had achieved widespread and largely unquestioning acceptance throughout the region in the inter-war period. Governments of the left and of the right, monarchies and republics, including such diverse regimes as Turkey under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Afghanistan under King Amanallah, Central Asia under the Bolsheviks, even Iraq under the Sharifian officers, all embarked on programmes of authoritarian modernization, characterized by rapid social change and etatiste economic development. These two decades were, par excellence, an era of authoritarianism, and the successful rise of apparently dynamic dictatorships across Europe and in Japan exercised a considerable attraction for the nationalist intelligentsia throughout the Middle East. All the models of change and development available to Riza Shah were therefore authoritarian in both the spirit and the letter. If the effect of the regional environment was intense, the impact of Iran’s own history on its twentieth-century development was also profound and has sometimes been underestimated. Rather than seeing the early Pahlavi era as a discrete, self-contained and wholly novel period, the newer scholarship has tended to shift its focus towards examining the context which produced Riza Khan, and the impact of this context on Pahlavi rule itself, seeking to explain its key features by reference to its historical and political environment. Increasingly efforts have been made to understand the links between the constitutional and early Pahlavi periods, and to stress the significance of the post-constitutional and Great War years as a crucible for Pahlavi authoritarianism. As is clear from the chapters in this volume, not only did the traumatic first two decades of the twentieth century predispose the Iranian political class towards a strong and charismatic personality, but these decades also produced the agenda for reform. Riza Shah’s policies, which so transformed Iran, were essentially those formulated by the modernizers of the earlier period.

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Yet Iran’s history in these two decades clearly had many features specific to itself. To what extent, it may be asked, was early Pahlavi Iran shaped by Riza Shah himself? What was his specific contribution and what was the impact of his character and personality, of the experiences he brought with him, of the way in which he constructed his regime and of the people with whom he surrounded himself? To what extent may he, and the regime he built, be explained in terms of environment? Were any alternatives, both theoretical and actual, available, and if so, at what stage? What was the nature of his appeal? What were the mechanisms by which he rose to power and how did he maintain and enforce his regime’s control across such a large, diverse and fractious territory? Why did many of his reforms, long advocated by the constitutionalist and nationalist elite, provoke such intense opposition? How may the disastrous collapse of his power in 1941 be explained? No attempt has been made to harmonize the views represented in this volume. On the contrary, the contributions have been chosen precisely in order to illustrate the diversity and complexity of interpretations to which recent scholarship has given rise. Three chapters deal with the nature of the new state and the extent and character of support for Riza Shah, two contributions discuss the international orientation of the new regime, two examine developments in the fields of culture and ideology, three look at changes affecting the position of women, and three examine the experiences of tribal groups. The collection begins with Homa Katouzian’s discussion of the different periods through which the new regime passed in the two decades of its life and his analysis of the waxing and waning of support for Riza Shah. Katouzian argues that Riza Khan’s suppression of tribal rebellion and his promise of peace, prosperity and modernization won him widespread popularity in the first half of the 1920s, to the extent that at the moment when he made himself Shah he enjoyed the broadest social base of his career. Katouzian then charts the establishment, first of dictatorship, when, however, the Shah still accepted some limited participation from the political and administrative elite and still retained some support among the modern middle classes, and then, from 1931, of a rule not just absolute but arbitrary. The consolidation of his arbitrary power went hand in hand with his loss of support among all social classes, both high and low, modern and traditional, leaving him alone by 1941. Katouzian’s general thesis, that Iranian revolts have typically led to chaos which ended only when one of the contestants for power succeeded in overcoming all the others and going on to establish its own all-powerful rule, has powerful echoes for contemporary Iran. While Katouzian focuses on the nature of civilian support for Riza Shah, Stephanie Cronin looks at attitudes to the new state within the army. The army is often described as a linchpin of the new order in Iran, yet Cronin questions both its political reliability and its military effectiveness. Although the creation of a modern unified army was the work of Riza Khan, he constructed this army out of material bequeathed to him by the past. Although Riza Shah’s old comrades from the Cossack Division remained loyal to him throughout the life of his

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regime, none the less, from the moment of its foundation Pahlavi rule was subject to challenges from elsewhere within the new army. In the first half of the 1920s, before the consolidation of his dictatorship, Riza Khan experienced a number of challenges from constitutionalist and nationalist officers. By middecade, conditions within the new army were provoking a different kind of opposition, whereby political disaffection fused with material hardship to produce armed mutinies among the junior officers and the rank and file. In the late 1930s a more modern ultra-nationalist group of officers, from provincial middle- and lower-middle-class backgrounds, seemed to be a harbinger of an Iranian ‘Free Officers’ movement, raising the possibility that the regime might, then or in the future, be at risk from a military coup. Cronin also concludes that the army’s professional competence was in fact extremely limited, citing as evidence its failure to overcome many of its early organizational weaknesses, the Shah’s encouragement of large-scale corruption as a mechanism for buying support and ensuring control over senior officers, its over-reliance on imported military technology, its incompetence in tribal operations and the scandalous behaviour of its officer corps during the Allied invasion in 1941. The gravest threat to Riza’s ascendancy within the army throughout the two decades of his power came as a result of his sponsorship of the republican movement in 1924. In their opposition to this movement sections of the army, fearing a dictatorship, were echoing civilian opposition. Vanessa Martin (Chapter 4), describes the course of Riza Khan’s attempt to introduce a republic in Iran and the frustrating of this attempt by his political enemies in Tehran. She discusses the secular constitutionalist opposition but concentrates on the role of Sayyid Hasan Mudarris and of the Tehran bazar, his principal power base. Although Riza Khan’s rise has often been attributed to his skills in political manipulation, the republican movement was a fiasco and its defeat a key turning point. This was a time when republicanism was in vogue among modernist elements and it was the first preference of Riza Khan himself, harmonizing most closely with his inclinations which, although not democratic, were strongly antielitist. Unlike his contemporary, Mustafa Kemal, however, he was unable to prevail against the opposition. None the less, when thwarted, he had no qualms about resorting to dynastic change and the institution of the monarchy for the most complete realization of his personal ambition. His accession to the throne fundamentally altered the trajectory of Iran’s political development. It illustrated his victory over both his brother officers and over all other civilian political forces, setting the stage for his increasingly individual and autocratic rule. It produced in him an obsessional fear for the continuity of the new dynasty and a perpetual suspicion of assassination plots which poisoned the atmosphere surrounding the court. Finally Iran’s elite, in its readiness to embrace a politically regressive form, that of the monarchy, indicated its capitulation to the forces of dictatorship. The new Shah’s increasingly authoritarian tendencies still troubled some but, in general, the raft of radical measures launched from 1927 to 1928 were extremely popular with nationalist opinion. The two or three years after the

Introduction

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stabilization of the new dynasty saw the introduction and the more determined implementation of all the key centralizing and secularizing policies which came to symbolize the era. These included a newly aggressive enforcement of the census and of conscription, fundamental legal and judicial reforms, dress laws, effective legislation for the registration of title deeds, etatiste economic measures such as the establishment of the opium and tobacco monopolies, the beginning of railway construction, and the initial efforts at tribal relocation and settlement. Michael Zirinsky (Chapter 5) discusses one of these measures, the immensely popular abrogation of capitulations, which was carried out in 1927 to 1928. For the regime, and for all shades of Iranian opinion, this move signalled the end of the old unequal treaty relations with the imperial powers and the arrival of Iran on the stage of international relations as a truly independent and formally sovereign state. A further and equally emphatic demonstration of Iran’s new status took place with Riza Shah’s state visit to Turkey in 1934. Although the impact on the littletravelled Shah of his seminal encounter with Kemalist Turkey has often been noted, little has been known until now about the nature of that experience. Afshin Marashi, in a new account of the episode (Chapter 6), analyses its broad significance. He discusses the visit as symbolizing and ‘performing’ the arrival of Iran and Turkey as sovereign states freely interacting within the emerging inter-war nation-state system of the Middle East and of the wider world. As both Marashi and (Chapter 11) Chehabi H.E. make clear, the choreography of the visit, with its flags, anthems and national symbols, was not only important in a representational sense on the international stage, but had a deep effect on Riza Shah himself, provoking the abrupt and violent dress reforms of 1935 to 1936. The Riza Shah period was one of rapid change not only in the political and economic, but equally in the intellectual and cultural spheres. Rudi Matthee (Chapter 7) attempts to assess the role of education as an agent of social change during the reign of Riza Shah, presenting an inventory of the educational measures taken in the 1920s and 1930s. He examines these measures within the ideological context of the time, focusing on modernization, centralization and nationalism as three objectives of state policy although, as he notes, all three terms constitute problematic categories. He describes the system as a whole, looking at primary and secondary education, at adult and female education and at the founding of the University of Tehran, a sine qua non for a self-sustaining educational structure. He points out that although statistics suggest that modern education, starting from a position of virtual non-existence, made great strides under Riza Shah, only 1 per cent of the entire population attended elementary school at the time of his abdication. He criticizes the system which emerged as heavily centralized and elitist, none the less concluding that, although the system may not have been designed to breed critical intellectuals—rather the contrary— without it none could ever have emerged in later times. Mehrzad Boroujerdi (Chapter 8) also suggests the importance of the changes of these years in creating a secular intelligentsia, Riza Shah’s policies changing the shape of social thought in Iran. He ranges widely over the period, assessing

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the broad impact of secularization on Iranian intellectual life, criticizing the commonly held view that Iran experienced little cultural and intellectual activity, and arguing that despite the state’s use of censorship and repression, Iranians did benefit from an era of intellectual thriving during this period. He points out the close relationship between many intellectuals and Riza Shah’s regime, noting that the literature of this period reveals a new interest in social criticism and secular subjects, and stressing the importance of technological innovations such as the cinema and radio. Most controversially, he argues that even Riza Shah’s increasing repression was not entirely calamitous for Iran since, when the political pressure from the state became too much to bear, many intellectuals of the day decided to devote themselves to historical, literary and folkloric research, producing an outpouring of sophisticated work. One of the areas of state policy in the 1920s and especially the 1930s which has given rise to particular dispute concerns the cluster of measures aimed at the emancipation of women. Controversy has surrounded not just the regime’s objectives, which reflected mainstream reforming opinion of the time, but particularly the manner of their implementation, especially the violence of forced unveiling, a radical, perhaps even unprecedented, initiative. Under Riza Shah the new Iranian state introduced and enforced a number of reforms which profoundly affected the role and status of women. These measures were a translation into state policy of the kinds of demands which had been made by Iranian reformers since at least the constitutional period when women’s emancipation was first explicitly linked to national development and progress. 5 The needs of national development continued to inform the regime’s agenda regarding women’s emancipation throughout the early Pahlavi period. Reforming opinion strongly advocated the sorts of improvements in the position of women, particularly their access to education, which would enhance national progress, and criticized and undermined practices which were considered impediments, such as early marriage, polygamy, veiling and seclusion. In her study of the ardently pro-regime women’s journal Alam-i Nesvan (Women’s Universe), Jasamin Rostam-Kolayi (Chapter 9) clearly discerns the major issues animating both the new state and wider circles of its nationalist supporters. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the pages of the journal were full of discussion and debate about family-law reform, women’s employment and unveiling. The tolerated status of Alam-i Nesvan makes it a useful source for charting official views in this period, views which have otherwise remained rather opaque. Of particular interest is her outline of the contours of debate in Alam-i Nesvan regarding unveiling. Although by 1931 the journal was taking a firm stand against chadur and picheh, she concludes that the reformers of Alam-i Nesvan did not favour a radical prohibition of veiling but preferred state tolerance towards and protection of women who chose to unveil, hoping that more would opt to unveil over time. In two further contributions to this debate, Shireen Mahdavi and H.E.Chehabi (Chapters 10 and 11) put forward starkly contrasting interpretations. It has often been argued that the regime’s authoritarianism, its martial temper and

Introduction

9

inclination to resort to force were unavoidable and even essential to any programme of reconstruction and reform, given the nature of the society, of the opposition and of the character of the period. In a fiercely polemical piece Shireen Mahdavi describes the opposition of the ulama to measures such as female education and argues that without the methods adopted by Riza Shah, his reforms, especially such measures as women’s unveiling, would have been frustrated by the still-powerful reactionary forces in society. H.E.Chehabi, taking a different perspective, concludes that the forced unveiling of Iranian women was the measure that contributed most to Riza Shah’s unpopularity among ordinary Iranians. Beginning with a discussion of the historical, political and cultural contexts, he then provides a detailed account of the banning of the veil, describing the ways in which the decree was enforced, the varying regional and class reactions, and the strategies of resistance that were devised. In an interesting coda he points out that the now familiar solution found by Middle Eastern women, that of combining a modified hejab with increased participation in public life, occurred neither to the modernizers nor to the ulama in the 1920s and 1930s. The historical judgements passed on Riza Shah’s tribal policies are more straightforward. There has been general agreement, reflected in the three chapters included here, that the brutal subjugation and forced settlement of the tribal populations constitutes one of the darker episodes in the regime’s life. Notwithstanding this consensus, however, misconceptions and simplifications abound concerning the role and behaviour of different tribal groups and especially the dynamic of tribe—state relations in this period. Kaveh Bayat (Chapter 12) points out that the pacification of the tribes was, like other measures later adopted by Riza Shah, a major issue for the reformers of the constitutional period. Noting the magnitude and complexity of the problem, he emphasizes the very different reactions of different tribal groups and leaders to the emerging new state. He stresses that some of the most important tribal formations, such as the Bakhtiyari and the Qashqa’i, or local magnates such as Sardar Mu‘azziz of Bujnurd and Iqbal al-Saltanah of Maku, were already part of the established order and generally in favour of the modernization of Iran, and argues that it was only the erroneous way in which the urban elite conceptualized the tribal problem which made inevitable a violent confrontation between the tribes and the state. He concludes furthermore that this erroneous conceptualization was disastrous for the political elite itself since it was on the basis of the presumed necessity of the forcible subjugation of the tribes and regional magnates that Riza Shah built his personal autocracy. The final two chapters examine the experience of particular tribal confederations: one, the Shahsevan, in northern Iran, the other, the Bakhtiyari, in the south. Richard Tapper (Chapter 13) points out that many aspects of Riza Shah’s tribal policies still need investigation: the varied nature of the tribal groups and of the threat they represented to state security; how individual groups responded to Riza Shah’s rise to power; the extent to which pacification actually destroyed tribal political structures; and the impact of settlement on tribal

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economy and society, and considers these questions in relation to the Shahsevan of Moghan and Ardabil in Azerbaijan. He observes that the new army achieved the pacification and disarmament of the Shahsevan quicker and more thoroughly than any other major tribal group, bringing banditry and armed inter-tribal hostilities to an abrupt end and establishing an unprecedented degree of order and government control over the region. Official policy was to conciliate the chiefs as far as possible and most, tired of the endemic disorder and impressed by the strength of the authorities, co-operated and gave their allegiance to the new regime. Tapper records that, in later years, the nomads themselves often recalled the ten years or so after Riza Shah’s rise to power as a golden age compared to the chaos that preceded it and the forced settlement which was to come. Reconstructing an account of forced sedentarization, the wooden-door policy, from the memories of survivors, he concludes that for the Shahsevan it was a disastrous failure, but ‘too short to have left anything but the memory of a bad dream’. 6 He concludes that, although Riza Shah succeeded in destroying the tribal political structure, pastoral nomadic society itself emerged in 1941 relatively unscathed. In her account of the Bakhtiyari, Stephanie Cronin also emphasizes the readiness of certain of the great khans, particularly Sardar As‘ad, to come to an accommodation with the new regime. Describing the methods, financial and political, by which Riza Khan weakened and undermined the Bakhtiyari confederation, she points out that the role of military campaigning in tribal management in general was actually quite limited. As well as discussing the evolving relationship between the new authorities and the Bakhtiyari leadership, she also looks at the tensions and conflicts within the confederation itself and discusses the differing perspectives emerging among various increasingly selfconscious tribal groups and layers, including the younger generation of the Bakhtiyari elite, the nomadic rank and file, subordinate lineages and the settled tenant peasantry. The chapters in this volume constitute a unique collection in a number of ways: in the range of themes and topics which they address; not only in their original analyses of high politics but also in their insistence on the importance of social and cultural history; in their inclusion of the perspective of non-elite groups and their stress on the equal validity of these perspectives; and in their efforts collectively to present a picture of Iran under Riza Shah in all its complexity, in darker as well as lighter shades, highlighting the era’s debt to the past as well as its legacy to the future.

Introduction

11

Notes 1 For a general description of these changes see e.g. Ervand Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions (Princeton, NJ, 1982); John Foran, Fragile Resistance: Social Transformation in Iran from 1500 to the Revolution (Boulder, CO, 1993), pp. 219–262; Gavin Hambly, ‘The Pahlavi Autocracy: Riza Shah, 1921–1941’, in The Cambridge History of Iran (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 213–243. 2 The factors influencing Western academia’s approach to the study of Iran have been discussed elsewhere. See Stephanie Cronin, ‘Writing the History of Modern Iran: A Comment on Approaches and Sources’, Iran, vol. 36, 1998, pp. 175–184. 3 Much of this interest has focused on Riza Khan’s rise to power. Recent work includes Stephanie Cronin, The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran, 1921–1926 (London and New York, 1997); Homa Katouzian, State and Society in Iran: The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis (London and New York, 2000); Cyrus Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah: From Qajar Collapse to Pahlavi Power (London and New York, 1998); Houshang Sabahi, British Policy in Persia 1918–1925 (London, 1990). A useful summary is provided by Nikki Keddie, Qajar Iran and the Rise of Reza Khan, 1796–1925 (London and New York, 1999). 4 Some work is beginning to appear, however. Mohammad Gholi Majd, for example, has used Iranian archival documents for his account of Riza Shah’s land acquisitions. See Mohammad Gholi Majd, Resistance to the Shah: Landowners and Ulama in Iran (Florida, 2000), pp. xiii, 33–71. 5 Parvin Paidar, Women and the Political Process in Twentieth-century Iran (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 78–117. 6 Richard Tapper, The Case of the Shahsevan’, Chapter 13, pp. 220–240.

Part I THE NEW STATE

2 RIZA SHAH’S POLITICAL LEGITIMACY AND SOCIAL BASE, 1921–1941 Homa Katouzian

Riza Khan led the Cossacks in the coup d’état of 1921 when it looked as if the country was doomed to brigandage, civil war and probable disintegration. The period between 1921 and 1926 may be described as a transitional period, a period of interregnum and power struggles, which he won by a series of successful operations, both political and military. It is also the period when he had the highest political legitimacy and widest support of his career. The next five-year period, from 1926 to 1931 was a period of growing dictatorship and autocracy, when the Shah became absolute ruler, though there was still some consultation and participation, and he still had some support among the modern middle classes. Finally, over the next ten-year period, from 1931 until the allied occupation in 1941, the Shah’s power became not just absolute but arbitrary as well, and he lost the support of all the social classes, both high and low, both modern and traditional.

Constitutionalism and chaos Constitutionalism had led to chaos rather than democratic government. It had been characteristic of successful Iranian revolts that they had always led to chaos—i.e. unruly and arbitrary behaviour by several contestants for power— until one of them managed to eliminate all the rest or the country was divided between two or three rulers and states. Until the nineteenth century, arbitrary rule was seen as a natural, therefore immutable, system of government, but the window to Europe showed that the power of the state might be limited by an independent legal framework. Previously, Iranian revolts had been led against an ‘unjust’ arbitrary ruler in the hope of putting a ‘just’ one in his place. The constitutional movement had aimed, and apparently succeeded, to abolish arbitrary rule itself, and to replace it by a constitutional or—as they described it—‘conditioned’ government. In the process they discovered democracy as well, i.e. not just lawful but representative government. 1 Nevertheless, when the old regime collapsed and an all-powerful national assembly was established, society rapidly tended towards the tradition of chaos which it had known over many centuries.

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Tocqueville once observed that the basic structures of a society tend to remain intact even when a revolution changes many of its forms. That may be an exaggeration, but it is true that old habits die hard. Even some leading intellectuals of the Constitutional Revolution confused liberty with licence, and thought that law meant complete freedom from the state. The legislature was claiming all power to rule, reducing the executive to the status of a docile civil service. The press behaved as if there was no bound to the freedom of expression, not only in their lack of display of social responsibility, but in their liberal recourse sometimes to the vilest language against anyone, including ministers, Majlis deputies, even the Shah himself. 2 Chaos of course did not manifest itself only in the form of politics, journalism and public opinion. There was growing unrest, rebellion and brigandage at the borders, among the nomads and in the provinces. Indeed that is almost the only form of chaos which has been hitherto recognised by the historians and analysts of the period. The intrusion of the First World War exacerbated the situation, especially as Russian, Turkish, British and German forces and agents were active in Iran; but the chaos was native and endemic, and, if anything, the end of the war made it worse. There were revolts in Gilan and Azerbaijan, chaos elsewhere in the country and terrorism in Tehran itself, while the so-called central government lacked almost all powers and means for running the state. The 1919 Agreement was a direct product of this situation. Outside of the British Foreign Office it had very few committed supporters in the British government itself, while it was universally condemned by Russia, France, America and the Iranian public. Then came the revolt of Khiyabani in Azerbaijan, the Bolshevik invasion of Gilan, the collapse of Vusuq al-Dawla’s government, the death agony of the 1919 Agreement, and the threat to Tehran by the Bolshevik government and fighters in the north. Meanwhile most of the middle classes, both traditional and modern, had become thoroughly disenchanted with the Constitutional Revolution, had begun to call Nasir al-Din (the last ruler capable of maintaining stability) Shah-i Shahid, and to attribute their own revolution to a British conspiracy. 3 The 1921 coup was a result of all this. A few British officers and diplomats on the ground helped organise it—without the British government’s knowledge—as a desperate measure before their forces were withdrawn from Qazvin in April 1921, thus exposing Tehran to a probably successful attack by the forces of Gilan Bolsheviks. But they would not, indeed could not have done so, had the country not slipped into the deepest chaos and disorder at the end of 1920. 4

A note on the ruler’s legitimacy in Iranian history This is a convenient point at which to spare a few words for the meaning and implications of the ruler’s legitimacy in Iranian history. Since, as was briefly noted, Iran was an arbitrary state and society, the state itself was not rooted in any entrenched law or tradition. Looking at the same thing through the angle of social structures and relations, since the arbitrary state was not at the apex, but

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actually above the social classes, it did not have a social base and legitimacy of the kind enjoyed by the states in European countries. This needs a little more explanation. There was, of course, a kind of legitimacy attached to the rule even of a tribal chief. The ‘legitimacy’ of the arbitrary ruler depended on his relative ability to keep the peace, put down rebellion and perform his other social and economic functions. But this was not rooted in law, tradition and socio-economic rights. Therefore, rebellion was—in principle—as ‘legitimate’ as arbitrary rule, and the ultimate test of ‘legitimacy’ was in the ability to seize and maintain power. It would be difficult to find counterparts in European history to Sabuktigin, Nadir, Karim Khan or Aqa Muhammad, let alone to Mahmud and Ashraf of the Ghalzih tribe who were crowned after the fall of Safavid Isfahan. 5 The possession of God’s Grace (Farrah-yi Izadi, sometimes translated literally as the Divine Effulgence) legitimised the position of ancient rulers in the heroic and legendary ages as well as the historical ages. A close study of the subject in Firdawsi’s Shahnama has shown that the Grace was bestowed on the person of the ruler, and it was not necessary for him to be in the first line of succession, or even to belong to the royal family. And, royal or not, in most cases it was not clear how the ruler had acquired the Grace except by virtue of succeeding to win power: he who ruled must have had the Grace because he held the reins of power, post hoc ergo propter hoc. The term Farrah was also used to claim divine legitimacy for post-Islamic rulers (for example, by Firdawsi in the case of Mahmud of Ghazna), but its content and implications were later expressed more often in such titles as ‘Shadow of the Almighty’ and ‘Pivot of the Universe’. Succession almost invariably presented a problem. It was never clear who would succeed after the ruler’s death. The Shah himself might have had his own candidate, usually one of his sons. But this did not guarantee his succession because there was no legal sanction behind it. For example, Mahmud of Ghazna nominated his younger son Muhammad and did everything he could before his death to ensure his succession. Shortly after Muhammad succeeded, his elder bother Mas‘ud rebelled, fought and defeated him, and thereby became the legitimate successor. It follows, therefore, that rebellion was as legitimate as the state when it succeeded. In Firdawsi’s Shahnama, when an ‘unjust’ ruler is about to fall, we are informed that he has lost the Grace, whereas there are other ‘unjust’ rulers who do not fall at all. In other words, the ruler is deemed to have lost the Grace by virtue of being overthrown, and the successor or rebel to have gained it by virtue of his victory; once again, post hoc ergo propter hoc. 6 The ideal concept of the ‘Just Ruler’ (in the Islamic period: ‘Malik-i ‘Adil’) became the test of the ruler’s legitimacy. The evidence shows that the Just Ruler who corresponded to the ideal concept was one who ran the country well, maintained peace and security within as well as outside his realm, employed able officials and governors (and punished them for injustice—i.e. actions not permitted by the ruler himself) and thus promoted peace and prosperity. Khusraw I (Anushiravan) in the sixth century, and ‘Abbas I in the sixteenth

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century are the prototypes of the ‘Just Ruler’ in that sense (though hardly in any other). However, the unjust ruler contradicted the ideal concept, and therefore rebellion against him was legitimate. But many unjust rulers were not overthrown, and so—in theory—they still had the Grace and remained the Shadow of the Almighty. For the same reasons, even rulers who succeeded their predecessors without much conflict—and there were very few of these—had to build their own personal power and their own personal legitimacy. It was their own conduct and their own relationship with society which determined the attitude of the civil and military officials towards them. 7 This brief account of the meaning and implications of the ruler’s legitimacy will be useful later in this chapter, when we examine Riza Shah’s legitimacy at various stages of his rule.

End of chaos The period 1921 to 1925 was one of dual sovereignty and power struggles between the three main political trends in the country: (1) the forces of chaos; (2) their antithesis, those of dictatorship, and later, arbitrary government; and (3) the constitutionalists, both conservative and democratic, who wished to have order without arbitrary rule but did not know how to achieve it, and quarrelled too much among themselves. However, given the fact that they, and the classes they represented, were also wholly in favour of ending the chaos, it was relatively easy, once there was the will—of which Riza Khan had plenty—and the military instrument, which he quickly created. In 1926 there was dictatorship within a broadly constitutional framework. By 1931 there was arbitrary rule. What is remarkable, and true to the pattern of Iranian history, is the speed with which chaos was turned into subjection. It had been a feature of Iran’s arbitrary society that an arbitrary regime which one day seemed to be eternal could be overthrown the next day, if for some reason the public felt that it had lost its grip. By the same logic, a state of chaos that might have persisted even for decades could be ended almost abruptly, once the will was there to end it. Shah Isma‘il I, Shah Abbas I, Nadir Shah and Aqa Muhammad Khan were welcomed when they stamped out chaos, at least for a time. Chaos in most regions and provinces came to an end even before Riza Khan became Shah. The further, relatively minor, rebellions which surged up over the first couple of years following his coronation were more often products of backlash against the arbitrariness with which Riza Khan’s army divisions behaved towards nomads, ethnic communities and provincial magnates. Yet in the first couple of years not only the ruthless suppression of rebellion and brigandry but also subjugation of regional magnates and notables was very popular, at least with the urban public. His action in this respect was important since it was the only achievement of Riza Khan that was acknowledged and admired by friend and foe alike. In the constituent assembly of December 1925 that made him Shah, Sulayman Mirza,

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the Socialist leader, mentioned Riza Khan’s ‘services in stamping out the Muluk al-Tavayifi system, his centralisation of power, destruction of rebels and those who did not recognise the central power’. 8 Earlier, Taqizada—in his speech in the Majlis against the motion for making Riza Khan temporary head of state—had said that his most important reason for supporting Riza Khan as prime minister was ‘the security which he has created’. 9 But Musaddiq, who delivered the longest and most impassioned speech against Riza Khan becoming Shah (arguing that it would result in dictatorship), went much further: I doubt if there is anyone who is unaware of the services that [Riza Khan] has rendered to the country. The situation in this country was such that, as we all know, if someone wished to travel he did not have security, and if someone was a landlord he had no security, and if he had an estate, he had to employ a few riflemen to protect his produce…. And, for the sake of protecting my own home, my own family and my own people, I naturally wish to see the man called Riza Khan Pahlavi to be prime minister in this country. Because I wish to see security and stability; and it is true that—in the past couple of years—because of that man we have had such a thing, and so we have been able to get on with public works, and serving the interest of the society…. And thank God that, due to the blessing of his being, we would now like to get on with some fundamental work. 10 There were indeed some criticisms of attempts by provincial army divisions to dominate provincial life altogether, but these were few and usually muted. The credit was given to Riza Khan for stamping out the chaos, which might have cost the country’s integrity in the absence of an alternative way of dealing with it. Indeed, as Musaddiq implied in the above-quoted speech, it was the rapid and successful ending of chaos which provided the basis for a steady increase in trade, and higher public and private investment and growth, just as had happened when the Qajars had stamped out several decades of chaos at the end of the eighteenth century.

Riza Khan’s premiership It took only two years and a few months, from June 1921 to November 1923, for Riza Khan to become Prime Minister as well as Minister of War and Chief of the Army. What happened in between was typical of the politics of chaos. There were no less than five ministries, even though many of the constitutionalist politicians—both conservative and popular—were becoming increasingly alarmed at the rising autonomy of Sardar Sipah and his army. The traditional politicians were still busy wearing each other out and accusing one another of being some foreign power’s agent, reactionary, Bolshevik, atheist

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and so on, almost all of which appellations were either untrue or highly exaggerated. This increased the conviction of the younger nationalists and modernists that they were utterly incapable of improving the country’s situation. On the other hand, Riza Khan was deeply engaged in creating his army, and using ever-increasing funds—both legally and illegally—to extend and improve its numbers, weaponry, organisation and training. At the same time, he cultivated friendship with all types of politicians, posed as an honest broker in politics, and made himself look indispensable as the keeper of order and stability. He also established excellent relations with foreign envoys, but especially with the British minister Loraine, who thought he was indispensable for ending the chaos, and the Soviet ministers Rotstein and Shumiyatsky, who saw Riza Khan as a ‘bourgeois nationalist’ leader trying to put down ‘feudal reactionaries’ most of whom were also agents of imperialism. Riza Khan was able to manipulate many on the road to power, and the fact that he managed to obtain Soviet and British sympathy or acquiescence is one of the most notable examples of his extremely rich talent for underhand diplomacy. 11 In November 1923 Riza Kahn replaced Mushir al-Dawla as prime minister. He brought down Mushir’s government and negotiated his own premiership at a stroke, by bringing criminal charges against Qavam al-Saltana who was his most serious rival. I have discussed the charge against Qavam elsewhere and it is now virtually impossible to reveal the truth. What is clear however is that it was used, if not designed, to bring down Mushir’s government, to drive Qavam out of the country, and to make Riza Khan prime minister. 12 Yet he had considerable support among the modern middle-class elite, including the Young Iran Club, which had been set up by foreign-educated young men such as Dr Ali Akbar Siyasi and Dr Mahmud Afshar. Ali Akbar Davar, the able and honest future minister of justice and finance, who in 1937 took his own life under pressure from Riza Shah, was openly advocating the need for a dictatorship in his newspaper. Leading younger journalists such as Zainul‘abedin Rahnama joined Riza Khan’s campaign, and, together with a newly set-up group, Independent Democrats of Iran (known in the Majlis as the Tajaddud faction), led by Sayyid Muhammad Tadayyun, they began to advocate the change of regime to a republic, and obtained the support of Sulayman Mirza’s Socialists as well. 13 The campaign collapsed largely because the campaigners were in too much of a hurry, and partly because Sayyed Hasan Mudarris played his hand cleverly. Mudarris was still leading the opposition. He was a mujtahid, the only religious leader of his rank in the Majlis. But he was also an astute politician, who was open to compromise so long as it did not violate basic constitutionalist principles. Ahmad Shah had become increasingly unpopular, especially after his recent journey to Europe, being commonly described as ‘Ahmad the Wandering Trader’ (Ahmad-i ‘Allaf). However, as a result of these events, Ahmad Shah experienced an upsurge in his popularity. Seizing the moment, he sent a telegram to the Majlis that he no longer had confidence in Riza Khan, and

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sought their advice for a new government. Riza Khan resigned and went to one of his estates near Damavand. 14 The Independent Democrats (the Tajaddud faction of the Majlis) issued dire statements that the country would be lost without Riza Khan. 15 Ali Dashti wrote a leading article in his newspaper entitled ‘the country’s father has gone’. 16 Riza Khan’s generals in the provinces began to issue threatening statements, two of them—Ahmad Aqa and Husayn Aqa—openly threatening that they would march on Tehran. The Tajaddud, Socialist and other factions, who now made up the Majlis majority, voted for Riza Khan to return, and sent a top-heavy delegation, including Mustawfi, Mushir, Sulayman Mirza and Musaddiq, to bring him back with ceremony. 17 Riza Khan returned. As it happened, the great ‘ulama (for example, Hajj Mirza Husayn Na‘ini and Sayyid Abulhasan Isfahani) who had been exiled recently from the atabat had been allowed to return to Iraq. He rushed to Qum to see them off, and they advised him to abandon the republican campaign, because they had been alarmed by developments in Turkey under Ataturk. This he did, and he also redoubled efforts to look like the defender of the faith by organising official religious congregations, and personally leading various processions in the annual mourning for the martyrs of Karbila. He was duly rewarded by the religious establishment who not only sent him gifts from the treasury of the sacred shrines, to be publicly and ceremoniously delivered to him, 18 but also acquiesced in his elevation when he bid to become Shah and establish his own dynasty. Mudarris was still leading the Majlis opposition. Popular and respected constitutionalists such as Mustawfi al-Mamalik, Mushir al-Dawla and Musaddiq—known in the Majlis as the Independents—had so far avoided open opposition to Riza Khan, though there is contemporary evidence that they were far from happy with the danger of military dictatorship and disruption of lawful government. But the Majlis was now solidly in Riza Khan’s hands largely because of the efficient manipulations of Davar, Taymurtash and Firuz. As summer 1925 began, it looked as if there were no more impediments left against Riza Khan’s elevation to the supreme position in the land. Meanwhile all the main Majlis factions other than the Mudarris group and the Independents had been brought into line by the new triumvirate, which on 31 October 1925 made Riza Khan ‘temporary head of state’, pending the decision of a constituent assembly to be elected forthwith. Both the Soviet and British envoys suspected that it might still be the first step towards the declaration of a republic. 19 The Majlis decision had strong backing from nationalists, modernists and Socialists, and among the army and the higher civil service. The religious establishment neither campaigned for it nor opposed it, and a significant number of the ‘ulama voted later in the constituent assembly. Only Mudarris and four of the Independents, including Taqizada and Musaddiq, opposed the original vote in the Majlis, others of their kind preferring to stay away or defect. 20 It is difficult to calculate how widely the event had been supported among the general public at the time, but in the elections for the sixth Majlis only the

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Tehran elections (held in June 1926) were free, and not a single deputy who had voted for change of dynasty—not even Sulayman Mirza, a long-standing darling of the Tehran electorate—was elected. Instead, they elected those, like Mudarris, Musaddiq and Taqizada, who had formally opposed it, and others, like Mustawfi al-Mamalik, Mushir al-Dawla and Mu‘tamin al-Mulk, who were known to have been opposed to it. 21 The response in the provinces was far from enthusiastic. The British legation had remained neutral throughout, and had instructed their provincial consulates to do the same. Nevertheless they had asked the consulates to send reports of the public response to the great change. There were thirteen reports altogether. In Isfahan the ‘population was apparently entirely disinterested’. In Mashad there was little enthusiasm for the celebrations, and the public regarded the change of dynasty ‘as a British triumph and Russian defeat’. In Tabriz there was indifference by the mass of the population. In Shiraz there was a ‘chilly reception’, the people saying that the telegrams sent earlier to demand the change of dynasty were the ‘work of a small clique’. In Kirman ‘no one dared express any unfavourable opinion’, though they thought it was the Qajar’s own fault, but were apprehensive at ‘further strengthening of military power’. In Rasht there was ‘no excitement’, in Bushire there was quiet dissent, while in Yazd the change ‘appears to be popular’. Only in Sistan was the news received ‘with every expression of rejoicing on the part of military and civilian’. 22 The light-hearted folk in Tehran almost took it as a joke, singing ‘that which they’ve put on your head, they’ve just been pulling your leg’. 23 On the whole, it appears that the ordinary people did not regret the fall of the Qajars, but neither did they view the rise of the new dynasty with enthusiasm. This was the moment at which Riza Shah enjoyed the broadest social base ever of his career between 1921 and 1941. Yet the strength of his legitimacy must not be measured—wholly or even mainly—by such spontaneous popular responses. As in similar situations anywhere, it was the influential classes and groups of society that mattered most. He had beaten all opposition on the way to becoming Shah. He was in direct control of the army that had been largely his own creation, and enjoyed its complete loyalty. He had the Majlis majority and most of the journalists on his side, and the support of many of them was still genuine. Many, if not most, middle- and upper-class young people were looking forward to a period of peace, prosperity and modernisation. He was almost idolised by most of the young and foreign-educated men like those who had set up the Young Iran Club, but who were quickly advised by himself to close it down, since he himself would implement their ideas. 24 Of even more practical importance was the admiration, support, goodwill, or at least acquiescence or submission, of large sections of almost every establishment and elite of society, including some leading Qajar noblemen. Iranians, like many other peoples, are good at jumping on the bandwagon. Yet in the case of Riza Khan there was no sudden conversion on the part of large numbers of people. It was a relatively slow process among not so much ‘the masses’, or even the urban crowds, but the politically intelligent public. And it

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was due largely to his establishment of peace in the country, the prospect of modernisation, plus the glaring absence of a real alternative for a strong, stable and modernising government. The most informative single document regarding Riza Shah’s position among the commanding heights of society at the time of his accession is the proceedings of the constituent assembly. Voting was secret, and no one voted against the motion for the change of dynasty. Among members of the assembly there were many of the important ‘ulama, both from Tehran and the provinces. Imam Jum‘a-yi Khu‘i, Hajj Aqa Jamal Isfahani and Sayyid Muhammad Bihbahani did not attend the meetings regularly and did not partake in the voting. Others such as Ayatullah-zadeh-yi Khurasani, Ayatullah-zadeh-ye Shirazi, the Imam Jum‘a of Shiraz, Sayyid Abulqasim Kashani attended more regularly, and most of them were present at the time of voting. Kashani was quite active in the discussions. Leading and influential merchants were also present. They included Hajj Muhammad Husayn Amin al-Zarb and Hajj Muhammad Taqi Bunakdar who had played such important roles in the Constitutional Revolution. Apart from Sulayman Mirza, there were other old radical Democrats in the Assembly. Sadiq Sadiq (Mustashar al-Dawla II) was elected chairman. Another member was Hajj Muhammad Taqi Badamchi, one of the two or three closest lieutenants of Khiyabani and a leading figure in his revolt. 25 Another famous constitutionalist figure was Mirza Mahdi Malik-zadeh, son of the famous Malik al-Mutikallimin. Two well-known and active members of Sayyid Zia’s Committee of Iron— Sultan Muhammad Khan ‘Amiri and ‘Adl al-Mulk (Husayn Dadgar) (both of whom had later been included in Zia’s small cabinet)—were among the constituents. So were some of those who had recently defected from the camp of Mudarris, including Shukrullah Khan Qavam al-Dawla, Mirza Hashim Ashtiyani and Sayyed Abulhasan Hayirizada. Landlords and provincial magnates included Qavam al-Mulk-i Shirazi, Sadrdar Fakhir (Riza Hikmat), Mushar al-Dawla (Nizam al-Din Hikmat), Ali Asghar Hikmat, Murtizaquli Khan Bayat, Muhammad Khan Mu‘azzami, Lutfullah Liqvani, and Muhammad Vali Khan Asadi (Misbah al-Saltana) who was very close to Amir Shukat al-Mulk (Ibrahim ‘Alam) and who was to be executed in 1935 on charges of fomenting the revolt in Mashad against the enforcement of the European bowler hat (see p. 29). The religious minorities were represented by well-known figures such as Arbab Kaikhusraw (Zoroastrian), Alix Aqayan and Aliksandr Tomaniantz (Christian), and Haim, the Jewish deputy and community leader who was later to be executed on the Shah’s order for unknown reasons. There were more than two hundred and seventy representatives, and therefore many of the old pro-Riza Khan activists were there. Davar, Taymurtash, the Bahrami brothers, Rafi‘, Tadayyun, Sayyid Ya‘qub (Anvar), Rahnama, his brother Riza Tajaddud and others. 26 Never again would Riza Shah claim such broad support from among the country’s various influential elites. It would not be misplaced to compare the event with the assembly in the Mughan Steppe 190

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years before, which legitimised Nadir Shah’s accession to the throne. When, in November 1925, the Majlis was considering the removal of the Qajars and the election of Riza Khan to become Shah, pending the decision of the constituent assembly, Lancelot Oliphant, no doubt echoing the view of many a European observer, could not believe that it would be easy for such a ‘usurper’ to get away with it. He wrote in the minutes: It is difficult for anyone who remembers the old regime to believe that the old princes and their supporters can tamely accept such a usurper. Even if it appears to work at first it will be surprising if a reaction does not follow…. There are difficult times ahead. 27 These words do not reflect opposition by Oliphant to the change—although neither do they reflect support for it—since the British government was neutral in the matter. They reflect the experience of European society and history, where there was a continuous, long-term aristocracy, which was not only independent from the state, but the state tended to depend on it and on other influential classes, and where legitimacy, based on a traditional line of descent, and acknowledged by those important classes, was necessary for a new monarch, or a new monarchy, to succeed. As noted above, this was absent from the arbitrary state and society in Iran, and the existing nobility and hierarchy at any time was quite aware of the rules of the game, and the transient nature of their positions, both as individuals and as a collective body. Certainly, there could be no resistance on grounds of legitimacy, as is known from the experience of Europe. In any case, an Iranian ruler, even one who had succeeded as ‘legitimately’ as possible, would—as mentioned above—normally build up his own power and thereby his own legitimacy. That is why, far from resisting the accession of Riza Shah, some of Oliphant’s ‘old princes’ actively campaigned for it, and others submitted stoically if not humbly. This was therefore never a serious cause of lack of legitimacy for Riza Shah. The later jibes at his being ‘the son of a stable boy’—or, in Bahar’s angry verse, having come from ‘the depth of the stable’ (which in any case was exaggerated)—were a sign of his unpopularity; that is, a sign of his losing what legitimacy he had made for himself—in the very traditional Iranian style—in the earlier years of his career. Indeed, the later attack on Riza Shah’s legitimacy was much more potent when the vast majority of all colours and creeds firmly— although incorrectly—believed that he was no more than a paid agent of British imperialism. But even that belief, the conviction with which it was held and the vehemence by which it was used to condemn him was largely due to the extreme unpopularity which resulted from his arbitrary and harsh rule. From the moment of the 1921 coup, many if not most influential people believed that Britain had organised it (although, while the British government had not been involved in it at all, some British officers and diplomats in Iran had been). Indeed, the matter was apparently so well known, and regarded as being

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so harmless at the time, that Riza Khan himself once told a few important politicians—including Mustawfi al-Mamalik, Mushir al-Dawla, Taqizada, Musaddiq and Dawlat-Abadi—that ‘the British brought me to power’. And he added, either that ‘I nevertheless served the country’, or that ‘they did not know with whom they were dealing’, the basic meanings of both phrases being quite similar. 28 Understandably, he too believed that the British government had been involved in the coup. If anything, this confirms the view that the British involvement in the coup—even if, as he and the others believed, it had been due to a long-term plan by the British government—was far from proof for Riza Khan’s lack of legitimacy in 1923 to 1924, when he was reaching the heights of his success with large numbers of the political elite and modern intelligentsia. It was his increasingly autocratic, then arbitrary—as well as harsh—rule which later made this the most important weapon for denying any legitimacy for him, and for arguing that all his positive achievements, too, had been carried out on orders from Britain, because somehow they were in British interests. The best example cited by those who believed Riza Shah was a British agent was his conclusion of the 1933 oil agreement, but that too—as I have shown elsewhere—was fundamentally a product of arbitrary government. 29

Autocracy and the failure of compromise We now come to the second phase, the phase of autocracy. By the close of 1925 the life of the Majlis had come to an end, and Furughi had been holding the fort as acting prime minister while the constituent assembly put the ceremonial touches to the change of dynasty. Now Mudarris thought of establishing a dialogue with the new Shah. He still had a considerable popular following, and carried a great deal of weight within the political establishment. There is no record of the negotiations, though Loraine was of the opinion that the Shah had abolished the office of military government of Tehran ‘under pressure from Mudarris’. 30 The evidence strongly suggests that Mudarris was hoping for a settlement whereby the Shah would control the army and security forces as well as having a considerable amount of say in civil administration, but which would leave some real roles for political pundits in the Majlis. They decided on a cabinet headed by Mustawfi al-Mamalik. The two most important appointments were those of Vusuq as Minister of Finance and Taqizada as Minister of Foreign Affairs, but the latter declined the offer. Mustawfi was reluctant to accept office, and he told Mukhbir al-Saltana that Mudarris had pressured him to co-operate. 31 According to Bahar, Mudarris had told them that they had done what they could, and ‘now we should go along with the Shah and the [new] state, hoping that they would serve the country’. ‘And that is exactly what happened’, adds Bahar, ‘and we gave up our opposition’ to the new regime. 32 Musaddiq did not accept this argument. He declined Mustawfi’s offer of the post of foreign minister, saying that it was not possible to work with the Shah. 33

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In the following Majlis debate Mudarris showed that he had been party to a deal. In reply to Musaddiq’s attack on the new cabinet because of its inclusion of Vusuq and Furughi, he said: ‘After all that has happened we would like to use these men in the service of the country. After all this chaos [inqilabat] we would like to use them to do important things’. Then, in a brief diversion, he revealed the logic of his new policy towards the Shah: If I could manage to serve a constitutional monarch I would do it; if not [i.e. if he was not constitutional] I would fight him. Today our agenda is the constitution. We should [all] act according to that…. And the constitution is our [ultimate] ruler and must be applied without exception [emphasis added]. 34 The attempt by Mudarris to reach a compromise with the Shah, principled though it was, cost him much popularity. In twentieth-century Iranian politics compromise (sazesh) at best was seen as ‘collaborationism’, and at worst as a ‘sell-out’. Mustawfi’s new cabinet had been introduced to the Majlis in September when the above speeches were made. By November, Nicolson, then British charge in Tehran, reporting the terrorist attempt on Mudarris’ life to Chamberlain, said that, having lost much popularity because of his rapprochement with the Shah, he had lately become popular again since he had said that government must be constitutional: I have already, in my despatch of 10th September last, indicated how the 6th Majlis had reacted against the supremacy of Mudarris imagining that he was but an agent of the Shah. The former has of late succeeded in retaining a large portion of his influence by adopting an arrogantly domocratic [sic] attitude and in a recent speech he stated baldly that he for his part would only support the Shah so long as His Majesty acted constitutionally [emphasis added]. 35 It was in October 1926, shortly after delivering this speech, that Mudarris survived the gun attack by three assassins early one morning when he was going to teach at the Sephsalar College. There was popular outcry, and friend as well as foe condemned the attempt in the Majlis, although few would have imagined that the attack had been made without the Shah’s knowledge and approval. Nevertheless, Mudarris’ co-operation with the government continued until Mustawfi resigned—as he had already tried to do earlier—in May 1927. He met with Musaddiq shortly after his resignation and told him that he had told Mukhbir al-Saltana, his successor, to be careful not be humiliated even more than he (Mustawfi) had been. 36 The strategy of Mudarris failed because the Shah did not keep his end of the bargain. It is clear, at least in hindsight, that if the Shah could not reach a modus operandi with a self-respecting but flexible and disinterested Mustawfi as prime

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minister, there could be little hope for anyone else. The popular constitutionalists were thus quickly eliminated as a group. Then came the turn of the loyal politicians. Arbitrary rule The alienation of loyal politicians By 1928 the Shah’s dictatorship was turning into autocracy, and soon afterwards it became arbitrary rule. During the rise of dictatorship, which dated back to Riza Khan’s premiership, there had of course been growing deviations from some basic tenets of the country’s constitution. But government was still constitutional insofar as it was not purely personal, and there was still a considerable amount of ministerial discretion and parliamentary argument, check and balance. This after all is what distinguishes a dictatorship, even autocracy, from arbitrary rule. There had been arbitrary behaviour, especially in the regions and provinces, in the earlier period. But it had not been systematic, and had not yet begun to spread to the centre before the seventh Majlis. Mukhbir al-Saltana (Hidayat) who was Riza Shah’s prime minister for six years, and who was by no means a hostile critic, wrote in his memoirs about the years beginning with 1929: In this period the [parliamentary] immunity of some Majlis deputies— Javad Imami, Isma‘il ‘Araqi, I‘tisam-zadeh and Riza Rafi‘ [all of them old pro-Reza campaigners]—was withdrawn [and so they went to gaol]. The minute anyone so much as mentioned the Shah’s name they would grab him and ask him what he meant. Sometimes they would make up a story for it, and this would help to line the pockets of the police agents. …We have reached the point that the Shah expects to be worshipped [emphasis added]. 37 And, he added, about ministerial power and responsibility: Under [Riza Shah] Pahlavi, no one had any independent power. Every business had to be reported to the Shah, and every order issued by him had to be carried out. Unless there is some degree of independence, responsibility would be meaningless…and no statesman would be left with a will of his own. 38 In 1929, Firuz, who was minister of finance, was suddenly and inexplicably arrested while he was leaving a public gathering with the Shah himself. The fall of Firuz was the first ominous sign that henceforth no one was immune from arbitrary arrest. The murder in jail of Taymurtash in 1933 made this fact clear and unexceptionable. Sardar As‘ad III quickly followed him both in prison and

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in death. And it was no longer felt that a sham trial was necessary. When, early in 1937, Davar committed suicide for fear of a similar fate (Firuz had been rearrested shortly before, and was to be killed shortly after) hardly anyone of any past stature and independence was left in the government and at the court. 39 Many other faithful defenders and leading pillars of the Pahlavi regime were killed, disgraced, gaoled and/or banished; for example, ‘Abdulhusyn Diba, Muhammad Vali Kahn Asadi, Furughi, Taqizada, Farajullh Bahrami (Dabir-i A‘zam), Husayn Dadgar (‘Adl al-Mulk), Brigadier Muhammad Dargahi, General Habibullah Shaybani and General Amanullh Jahanbani, the brothers Rahnama and Tajaddud, and so on. The alienation of the loyal politicians and administrative elite was mirrored by the alienation of the social classes. The alienation of landlords and merchants By the late 1920s barely any trace remained of nomadic rebellion and brigandry, and—moreover—the nomads had been largely disarmed. It was precisely after such pacification that extreme force was used to break up the tribes and ‘settle’ them in strange environments; a process, which often led to large-scale deaths. Those in charge of such operations looked upon the nomads almost in the same way as many American whites viewed the Native Americans in the nineteenth century. Sultan ‘Ali Sultani, who had been a Majlis deputy for Bihbahan for many years under Riza Shah, said, in a long speech, a couple of months after the Shah’s abdication: The Qashqa’i, Bakhtiyari, Kuhgiluya and other nomads…not only has their property been looted, but group after group of these tribes have been executed without trial. Only in one case they killed several groups of [Kuhgiliya nomads] whom they failed to find guilty in military courts, claiming that they were trying to escape…. They killed 97 of the Bahrami tribe…in one day, including a thirteen year old boy, and they gaoled four hundred of them in Ahvaz, of whom three hundred lost their lives. They brought khans of the Boyr Ahmad to Tehran with pledge of immunity, and then killed them saying they were rebels…. The way they settled the tribes was the way of execution and annihilation, not education and reform. And it is precisely this approach that has sapped the strength of the Iranian society and weakened the hope of national unity. 40 Sulat al-Dawla, paramount chief of the Qashqa’is, and his son Nasir, were gaoled in Tehran, the former of whom died or was killed in prison in the 1930s, though—speaking of Sawlat al-Dawla—the Shah had told Taqizada that ‘these people must be destroyed (ma‘dum shavand)’. 41 Several Bakhtiyari leaders were killed or imprisoned along with other leaders from the Khamsa federation of the Fars nomads, and others from elsewhere. When the Shah left the country,

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almost all of those nomads who had survived the ordeal went back to their former way of life, and many of them adopted an angry, vengeful and rebellious attitude towards the state. Private property, especially in land, was once again weakened in economic and, perforce, political terms similar to the old arbitrary tradition. While it was now registered according to the new law of property registration, in practice, both the Shah and the army could confiscate, or buy by force at nominal prices, agricultural and other property. When the Shah left the country, he owned about 10 per cent of the agricultural estates, but since these were of the highest quality, their value and their annual income was much greater than ten per cent of the total. Landlords were also alienated because the state monopoly of trade in important commodities such as wheat was against their interest as well as the peasants’, and because they had lost much political power even in their own provinces. Merchants were angry generally because of the ever-increasing etatisme and economic interventionism, and especially because of the trade monopoly acts of 1931 and 1932, which made all foreign and some of the most important domestic trade a state monopoly. ‘Ali Dashti, who was a Majlis deputy at the time of the Shah’s abdication, said in a long speech while the Shah was still in the country: The right of private property is one of the oldest and most noble rights in civilised societies. But it was violated in these last twenty years to the utmost limit…. They have taken the people’s property by force and it must be returned to them…. What is surprising is that this violation of property was done by government departments as well…. What then is the difference between a highwayman and a department of the state? And regarding the state monopolies, he went on to say: [I]t is twenty years now that we have intervened in the economy in the most ignorant manner, and every child realises that, in our hands, the merchants’ wealth was destroyed, the country’s treasury and everything [else] was ruined. 42 No doubt there was some exaggeration in all this, but it does reflect the losses borne by landlords and merchants and, moreover, the anger and alienation which arbitrary rule had created in their midst. The alienation of ordinary men and women, and the religious community The attack on the religious community, especially the enforced changing of men’s hats to the European bowler hat, and the enforced prohibition not only of the chadur but also scarves, created very strong feelings among the public.

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‘Abdullah Mustawfi, a modern and secular high bureaucrat of the period who defends Riza Shah on many grounds, nevertheless disowns what he describes as Riza Shah’s attack on religion. 43 Until the late 1930s it was strictly a matter of social propriety for all men— regardless of rank and class—to cover their heads in public, as well as indoors on formal occasions. At the beginning of Riza Shah’s rule a hat fashioned after his own military cap (which had been adapted from the French military and police cap) came into vogue among politicians and state officials, and was compulsory among military officers. This was later made compulsory for all men, and the compulsion was, on the whole, taken with good humour. The officially registered and recognised ‘ulama and preachers could still wear the turban. Suddenly in the summer of 1935 the Shah ordered all men to wear the bowler hat, which was European par excellence, and which no one apart from a few had even seen before. There was revulsion, and the non-violent resistance in Mashad was put down by bloodshed, followed by the execution of Asadi, the trustee of Imam Riza’s shrine, an office which was in the Shah’s gift. His sons were married to Furughi’s and Amir Shukat al-Mulk Alam’s daughters. Furughi’s mediation to save his life led to his own dismissal and disgrace. Here is an example of the important distinction between dictatorship, even autocracy, and arbitrary rule. For it is very difficult to imagine that even Hitler’s or Stalin’s regime would have suddenly ordered all men to wear top hats (let alone the Chinese hat) from the next day. Mukhbir al-Saltana, the previous prime minister, still had occasional private audiences with the Shah. On an occasion following the change of hats, the Shah revealed his real motive for the compulsory order to Iranian men to wear the European bowler hat: In an audience, the Shah took my [bowler] hat off and said, Now what do you think of this. I said it certainly protects one from the sun and rain, but that [Pahlavi] hat which we had before had a better name. Agitated, His Majesty paced up and down and said, All I am trying to do is for us to look like [the Europeans] so they would not laugh at us. I replied that no doubt he had thought this to be expedient, but said to myself, It is what is under the hat, and irrelevant emulations, which they laugh at [emphasis added]. 44 This explains the most important motive for the compulsory removal of women’s chadurs as well as scarves a few months later. Women were ordered to take off their chadurs, and were not allowed to wear a scarf instead. The effect for most women—especially for those over the age of forty—was as if in 1936, European women had been suddenly ordered to go topless in the streets. The subject of removing the chadur was not new. All modern, and some not so modern, intellectuals had been campaigning for permission and protection of its voluntary removal for one or two decades, but they had not dreamed of forcing

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all women to remove it, even without the right to wear a scarf. Only imported European hats were allowed which only upper-class women had both the means and culture to wear. One major problem for most urban women was that they simply lacked the sartorial culture of appearing in public without a bodily cover, and in any case it was very expensive for them at the time. They also lacked the culture of a proper hairstyle and—apart from that— would have felt much less shy if they could cover their hair with a scarf. Compulsory district parties were ordered in which men had to bring their wives without the chadur. Scarves were being torn off women’s heads by the police in the streets and alleys. There was much social and cultural violence and some suicides. Many women simply stopped going out, sneaking out only once a week to go to the public baths across the flat roofs that connected the houses in most Tehran districts at the time. The result was that, apart from the modern middle-class women, almost all women put on their chadurs again after the Shah’s abdication. 45 The alienation of poets, writers and intellectuals Literary and cultural progress, which had begun before the Constitutional Revolution and had continued since through the works of poets such as Bahar, Iraj, ‘Arif and ‘Ishqi, prose and fiction writers such as Dehkhuda, Jamalzada, San‘ati-zadeh and Mushfiq Kazimi, and scholars such as Qazvini, the brothers Furughi, Tunukabuni and Taqavi, was further stimulated—especially among the young modern elite—by the stability and optimism of the mid-1920s. However, although higher education expanded, the University of Tehran was founded in 1933 and traditional scholarship was to continue openly, creative and critical work, even though it was not critical of the regime, began to dry up from the early 1930s. Hidayat wrote his first work (in Paris, in 1929), and continued to write and publish fiction and other literary works, although he did so at his own expense. But in 1935 he had to give a written pledge to the censors to stop publishing altogether. It was shortly after this that he went to Bombay, staying there for as long as he could, and returning with great reluctance. While he was there, he reproduced in fifty copies his handwritten new novel The Blind Owl, sending most of them to Jamalzada in Switzerland to distribute among their Iranian friends abroad. Remarkably, this first ‘edition’ of the best Persian novel of the century carried the notice ‘The publication and sale of this book in Iran is forbidden’, so that if a copy of it somehow fell into the hands of the censors, the author would not be persecuted for having published again. Hidayat wrote short stories which were published as a collection in Sag-e Velgard (Stray Dog) after the Shah’s abdication. This included the short story ‘The Patriot’, which is a scathing attack on the Shah and the new official literary chiefs, and contains a devastating mockery of official cultural propaganda, but especially the proceedings of Farahangistan, the official academy. 46 This academy had been set up to replace foreign, particularly Arabic, loan words by largely invented words of Persian origin, which were then sent to the

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royal court for the Shah’s approval before it became mandatory to use them. This offended the sensibilities, not only of young critics such as Hidayat (he was to publish his scathing review of one of its volumes after the abdication), but of established and loyal literati such as Taqizada, and Ali Asghar Hikamat, the minister of education himself! It was at the latter’s suggestion that Taqizada sent an article from Berlin, mildly critical of the academy’s proceedings, which threw the Shah into such a rage that Taqizada was never to return to Iran as long as the Shah was in power. 47 ‘Ishqi, one of the leading poets and writers of the 1920s, was assassinated by agents of the police while Riza Khan was still prime minister. 48 ‘Abulqasim Lahuti led an unsuccessful revolt of the gendarmes in Tabriz in 1923—after which he fled across the border to the Soviet Union, and eventually ended his days in Tajikistan. 49 Iraj died of natural causes also in the 1920s. 50 ‘Arif—who had conducted a very effective campaign for Riza Khan and against the Qajars—died of depression and destitution in a village near Hamadan in 1933, 51 and Farrukhi Yazadi—who decided to co-operate with the regime, and even became a Majlis deputy at one stage—spent many years in prison, where he died or was killed in 1939. 52 Bahar was arrested and banished several times for no obvious reason and despite the fact that he had given up all political activity. An important result of this was his long mathnavi, Karnama-ye Zindan (Life in Prison), which was to remain unpublished until the 1950s, as were so many other poems which he wrote against the Shah and the regime, although—after he wrote and published a panegyric for the Shah and was finally released from banishment—he occasionally wrote and published panegyrics in praise of the Shah and his achievements to ensure his own freedom. 53 Jamalzada virtually ceased to publish any more fiction after his very successful Yiki Bud va Yiki Nabud until 1941. Nima Yushij also virtually ceased to publish poetry during this period, although he was naturally not much inclined to publish his works even in better times. Apart from Hidayat, of the younger writers who emerged in the early 1930s Buzurg ‘Alavi stopped publishing about 1935 and went to prison early in 1937 as a member of the well-known young and modern educated fifty-three prisoners who were arrested on the charge of belonging to a Marxist organisation. While in gaol, ‘Alavi wrote—secretly, on scraps of wrapping paper—his next collection of short stories, Prison Scrap-notes (Varaq-para-hayi Zindan), which was published after the Shah’s abdication when ‘Alavi was released from prison. 54 In fact there had been no organisation at all, and most of the young prisoners had only a dim knowledge of Marxism, though many were converted to it after they were condemned as Marxists. Their leader, Taqi Arani, who had been a romantic nationalist in the 1920s—he had even written a long poem about ‘the motherland’—had now become an intellectual Marxist, though he had no political affiliation. 55

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Riza Shah in 1941 The Shah, as we saw, started out in 1926 with considerable political legitimacy and a firm, though not popular, social base, when he had the explicit or tacit approval of the commanding heights of society. At that time, his opposition among the political establishment and the modern middle classes had dwindled to a relatively small number of politicians and intellectuals who were particularly concerned about the likelihood of the return of arbitrary government. However, for all the reasons discussed above—which were indeed the result largely of the restoration of an arbitrary state in modern form—by the time the Allies invaded Iran in 1941, the Shah was virtually on his own. He did not have the approval of any of the social classes and communities as such; indeed almost all of them had turned against him long before, and willed his downfall. Furthermore, there were very few men of any real standing, either civilian or military, who were genuinely committed to him and his rule. ‘Abbasquli Gulsha’iyan, who had been a very successful high official under Riza Shah and was an important minister during the Allied invasion of 1941, wrote in his diaries at the time that men such as himself had been worried that the Shah would fall by assassination. It is clear that their worry was about their own fate, as Gulsha’iyan wrote almost joyfully that they could not have anticipated his fall by foreign invasion: Thus was the fall of Riza Shah Pahlavi, and so ended the worry everyone had as to what would happen to the country after Riza Shah’s death. Since no one anticipated his abdication. And—given the way he ruled—they expected that, if he did not die of natural causes, he would certainly be killed. But he would have fallen one way or another, and the country would have faced terrible chaos and revolution, except in this way [i.e. abdication enforced by the Allies] which was outside everyone’s imagination. 56 It is also clear that the Shah would not have had to abdicate had he enjoyed a reasonable social base. Indeed all the evidence shows that his abdication was the one event following the occupation of Iran that the vast majority of the people welcomed. Their great fear of him suddenly gave way to relief, ridicule, abuse and wish for vengeance. It would have been very difficult to keep him on the throne even if the Allies had wished to. The public outcry against him was very strong indeed. Neither the loyal Furughi nor the Majlis deputies believed that the Shah would keep to a promise to observe constitutional government, many of them fearing that they would pay for their reformist demands handsomely the minute he was in a position to renege on his commitment. 57 Apart from that, it would not have been possible for him to try and play the role of the constitutional monarch under the Allies’ watchful eyes (even if he

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had wanted to) because of the irresistible pressure for the rectification of the injustices committed before which directly implicated him. And if the Allies had tried to keep him by sheer force, they would have earned the dual hatred of the people both for invading the country and keeping Riza Shah as their ruler. It is therefore clear that the Shah’s abdication was not inevitable; that is, he would not have had to abdicate had he enjoyed a certain amount of political legitimacy, and a reasonable social base among his own people, especially as by then he had offered full co-operation to the Allies, and the latter were physically present to ensure that he would keep his word. It was noted at the outset that—according to the general pattern of major change in Iranian history—the fall of an arbitrary state was followed by chaos. Its latest occurrence had been during and after the Constitutional Revolution, which had led to great popular disappointment in constitutionalism, and so to a generally welcome reception for the 1921 coup and its aftermath. The pattern was repeated again in the 1940s, with chaotic and disintegrative trends appearing once again both in the centre of politics and in the provinces. And if it was significantly less marked it was, inter alia, largely due to the physical presence and, later, the considerable influence of the Allies in the country. Therefore, again true to the pattern, many—especially among the political establishment and modern middle classes—began to feel and even express nostalgia for Riza Shah’s rule after a few years. The pattern was familiar from the long history of Iran, and was to be repeated in comparable forms later in the twentieth century.

Notes 1 For detailed descriptions and discussions of the theory of arbitrary rule—the arbitrary state and society—see e.g. Homa Katouzian, State and Society in Iran, The Eclipse of the Qajars and Emergence of the Pahlavis, London and New York: I.B.Tauris, 2000; ‘Liberty and Licence in the Constitutional Revolution of Iran’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3, 8, 2, 1998; ‘Arbitrary Rule: A Comparative Theory of State, Politics and Society in Iran’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (BJMES), 1, 24, 1997; ‘Problems of Political Development in Iran’, BJMES, 4, 22, 1995; ‘The Aridisolatic Society, A Model of Long Term Social and Economic Development in Iran’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, June 1983, all reprinted in Katouzian, Iranian History and Politics, The Dialectic of State and Society, London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. The Political Economy of Modern Iran, London and New York: Macmillan and New York University Press, 1981. Nuh Maqala dar Jam‘i‘a-shinasi-yi Tarikh-yi Iran, Tehran: Nashr-i Markaz, 1998. Chahardah Maqala dar Adabiyat, Ijt‘ma‘, Falsafa va Iqtisad (2nd edn), Tehran: Nashr-i Markaz, 1997. Istibdad, Dimukrasi va Nihzat-i Milli (2nd edn), Tehran: Nashr-i Makaz, 1997. 2 See further, Homa Katouzian, ‘Problems of Democracy and the Public Sphere in Modern Iran’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 18, 2, 1998, and ‘Liberty and Licence in the Constitutional Revolution of Iran’.

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3 See further, Katouzian, State and Society in Iran, chs 3–6, and ‘The Revolt of Shaykh Muhammad Khiyabani’, Iran, Journal of the British Institute for Persian Studies, 1999. 4 See further, Katouzian, State and Society, chs 7–9; Cyrus Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah, From Qajar Collapse to Pahlavi Power, chs 6–7. 5 See further, Katouzian, State and Society, ch. 1, and ‘Arbitrary Rule’. 6 For a detailed study of the concept of God’s Grace and its implications, see Homa Katouzian, ‘Farra-yi Izadi va Haqq-i Ilahi-yi Padshahan’, Ettela’at Siasi-Eqtesadi, pp. 129–130, July 1998. 7 See further, Katouzian, State and Society, ch. 1, ‘Arbitrary Rule’, and ‘Dimukrasi, Diktaturi va Mas‘uliyat-i Millat’ in Istibdad, Dimukrasi va Nihzat-i Milli. 8 See Husayn Makki, Tarikh-i Bistsala-yi Iran, Tehran: Ilmi, 1995, vol. 3, p. 591. 9 See Husayn Makki, Duktur Musaddiq va Nutq-ha-yi Tarikhi-yi U, Tehran: Ilmi, 1985, p. 130. 10 Ibid., p. 139. 11 See e.g. Loraine to Curzon, 21/5/23, 23/5/23 and 28/5/23, Foreign Office (FO) 248/1369. Curzon warned Loraine not to be over-optimistic since he thought that Riza Khan was ‘quite capable of talking sweet and acting sour’, but Loraine was sure of his view, and expressed it in private letters to friends in England as well; see Gordon Waterfield, Professional Diplomat, Sir Percy Loraine, London: John Murray, 1973. See further, Katouzian, State and Society, chs 10–11. 12 See ibid., ch. 10, and Loraine to Curzon, 2/10/23, FO 248/1369. 13 See Katouzian, State and Society, ch. 10 and the relevant sources therein. 14 For a humorous and critical but basically accurate account, in verse, of the campaign for a republic, see Bahar’s long musammat, ‘Jumhuri-nameh’, which he wrote in the wake of its collapse, in Muhammad Malikzada, ed., Divan-i Bahar, vol. 1, Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1957, pp. 359–366. For ‘Ishqi’s several poems against the campaign, which he believed to be a British plot, see Ali Akbar Mushir Salimi, ed., Kulliyat-i Musavvar-i Ishqi (1st edn), Tehran: Mushir Salimi, n.d., books 6 and 8. The full account of the campaign seen as a British plot has been given in the long mathnavi on pp. 277–280. For similar poems and articles by Husayn Kuhi Kirmani—published in his newpaper Nasim-i Saba—see Bargi as Tarikh-i Iran Ya Ghowghai-yi Jumhuri, Tehran: Kuhi Kirmani, 1952. 15 See the full text of the long communiqué in Ghulamhusyn Mirza Saleh, ed., Riza Shah, Bihbudi, pp. 498–501. 16 Quoted in Poet Laureate Bahar, Tarikh-i Mukhtasar-i Ahzab-i Siyasi, vol. 2, Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1984, p. 667. 17 See Makki, Tarikh-i Bistsala, vol. 2, p. 576. 18 See e.g. Bahar, Tarikh-i Mukhtasar, vol. 2, and Makki, Tarikh-i Bistsala, vols 2 and 3. See, in particular, the letter of the famous Marja‘, Mirza Husayn Na‘ini, in Makki, vol. 3, p. 46. 19 ‘PERSIA’, FO minutes, 11/11/25, FO 371/10840; Katouzian, Political Economy, ch. 5. 20 See Homa Katouzian, Mudaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran (2nd edn, pbk), 1999, ch. 3, and State and Society, ch. 10. 21 For the list of the new Tehran deputies, see Baqir ‘Aqili, Ruzshumar-i Tarikh-i Iran, Az Mashruta ta Inqilab-i Islami, Tehran: Nashr-i Goftar, 1995, vol. 1, p. 210. 22 See the thirteen consular reports to Loraine, 5–8/11/25, FO 248/1372.

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23 It read in the Persian original: ‘In ka sarat gozashtan [gozashta-and]/Sar ba sarat gozashtan [gozashta-and].’ 24 See the memoirs of a leading figure among them, Ali Akbar Siyasi, Guzaresh-i Yik Zindigi, London: Siyasi, 1988. See further, letters by friends to another leading figure, Mahmud Afshar, Nama-ha-yi Dustan, ed. Iraj Afshar, Tehran: Bunyad-i Mawqufat-i Duktur Mahmud Afshar, 1996. 25 For Badamchi’s radical democratic credentials, see e.g. his long article in Iranshahr, 14, 1926 (special issue on Shaykh Muhammad Khiyabani), reprinted in Intisharat-i Iranshahr, Tehran: Iqbal, 1972. See further, Homa Katouzian, The Revolt of Shaykh Muhammad Khiyabani, IRAN, 37, 1999. 26 For the complete minutes of the constituent assembly, see Makki, Tarikh-i Bistsala, vol. 3, pp. 547–655. 27 See PERSIA, FO minutes, 11/11/25, FO 371/10840. 28 This was said in Musaddiq’s house at one of the weekly meetings of Riza Khan and the popular voluntary counsellors (all of them Majlis Independents) whom he had chosen shortly before his final bid to become Shah. See Dawlat-Abadi, Hayat-i Yahya, vol. 4, p. 343; Muhammad Musaddiq, Taqrirat-i Musaddiq dar Zindan, ed. Jalil Buzurgmehr/ Iraj Afshar, Tehran: Farhang-i Iranzamin, 1980, p. 102. For Riza Khan’s regular meetings with his ‘special counsellors’ see Katouzian, State and Society, ch. 10. 29 See Katouzian, ibid., ch. 11, Musaddiq, particularly ch. 3, and Political Economy, particularly ch. 7. 30 Loraine to Chamberlain, 11/3/26, FO 371/11481. 31 See Mukhbir al-Saltana, Khatirat va Khatarat, Tehran: Zavvar, 1964, p. 370. 32 See Makki, Tarikh-i Bistsala, vol. 5, pp. 144–145. The whole of Bahar’s series of articles in Khandani-ha have been reprinted in this source. 33 See Muhammad Musaddiq, Musaddiq’s Memoirs, ed. and intro. Homa Katouzian, trans. S.H.Amin and H.Katouzian, London: Jebeh, 1988. 34 For the full text of Mudarris’ speech, see Makki, Duktur Musaddiq va Nutqha, pp. 204–205. For a wider discussion of the circumstances, see Homa Katouzian, ‘The Campaign Against the Anglo-Iranian Agreement of 1919’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 25, 1, 1998, and State and Society, ch. 5. 35 Nicolson to Chamberlain, 4/11/26, FO 371/11481. 36 See Musaddiq, Taqrirat-i Musaddiq. 37 Mukhbir al-Saltana, Khatirat va Khatarat, p. 397, emphasis added. 38 Ibid., p. 402. See further Homa Katouzian, ‘The Pahlavi Regime in Iran’ in H.E. Chehabi and Juan J.Linz, eds, Sultanistic Regimes, Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. 39 The sources on these events are numerous. See e.g. ‘Taymurtash’, ‘Davar’ ‘Amir Tahmasibi’ and ‘Dashti’ in Ibrahim Khaja Nuri, Bazigaran-i ‘Asr-i Tala‘i, Tehran: Jibi, 1978 (and ‘Amir Khusravi’, ‘Ayrum’, etc., in the first, complete edition, Tehran, 1942). Iraj Afshar, ed., Zindigi-yi Tufani: Khatirat-i Sayyid Hasan Taqizada, Tehran: Ilmi, 1993. Nasrullh Sayfpur Fatimi, Ay‘ina-yi Ibrat, vol. 2, London: Jebheh, 1990. Alireza Arouzi, ed., Khatirat-i Abulhasan Ibtihaj, vol. 1, London: Ibtihaj, 1991. Makki, Tarikh-i Bistsala, vols 5 and 6. 40 For the full text of the speech, see ‘Proceedings of the Majlis on Sunday 13 December, 1941’ in Kuhi Kirmani, Az Shahrivar-i 1320 ta Faja‘ia-yi Azerbaijan, vol. 1, Tehran: Kuhi, n.d., pp. 222–229.

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46

47 48 49 50

51 52

53

54 55 56 57

37

See Taqizada, Zindigi-yi Tufani, pp. 232–233. See Khaja Nuri, Bazigaran, pp. 188–191. See his Sharh-i Zindigani-yi Man, vol. 3, Tehran: 1964. See his Khatirat va Khatarat, p. 407. For documentation of the official persecution over the removal of the chadurs, see Sazaman-i Madarik-i Farhangi-i Inqilab-i Islami, Vaqai‘-i Kashf-i Hijab, Tehran: Mu’assisi-yi Pazhuhish-ha va Mutli‘at-i Farhangi, 1992. See Homa Katouzian, Sadeq Hedayat, The Life and Legend of an Iranian Writer, London and New York: I.B.Tauris, pbk edn, 1999, Buf-i Kur-i Hidayat, Tehran: Nashr-i Markaz (second impression), 1998, Sadiq Hidayat va Marg-i Nivisanda, Tehran: Nashr-i Markaz (second impression, 1995), and Tanz va Tanzina-yi Hidayat (which is still awaiting official permission for publication in Iran, but most of its chapters have been serialised in Iranshenasi, 1996–1999). After 1941, Hidayat wrote some very scathing attacks on Riza Shah and life under his regime through his fiction, especially in the novel Hajji Aqa, the allegorical fable ‘The Case of the Anti-Christ’s Donkey’, and the dramatic satire Tup-i Murvari. See the author’s books on Hidayat cited above. See further, Katouzian, State and Society, ch. 11, and Taqizada/Afshar, Zindigi-yi Tufani, pp. 569–576. See ‘Ishqi/Mushir Salimi, Kulilyat-i Musavvar, Muhammad Qa‘id, Mirzada-yi ‘Ishqi, Tehran: Tarh-i Naw, 1998; Bahar, Tarikh-i Mukhtasar, vol. 2. See Kaveh Bayat, Kudita-yi Lahuti, Tehran: Shiraza, 1997; Mukhbir al-Saltana, Katirat va Khatarat. See Muhammad Ja‘far Mahjub, ed., Divan-i Kamil-i Iraj Mirza (3rd edn, sixth impression), New York: Shirkat-i Kitab, 1989; Gholamhusayn Riyazi, Javdana Iraj, Tehran: Riyazi, 1976. See ‘Abdurrahman Sayf-i Azad, ed., Divan-i ‘Arif, Tehran: Amir Kabir (fourth impression), 1963. See Husayn Makki, ed., Divan-i Farrukhi, Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1978; Khalil Maliki, Khatirati-i Siyasi-yi Khalil Maliki (2nd edn), ed. and intro. Homa Katouzian, Tehran: Intishar, 1989. For Bahar’s Karnama-yi Zindan, see Bahar/Malikzada, Divan, vol. 2; for the panegyric qasidas, see ibid., vol. 1. These volumes also include some of the poetic attacks on the Shah and the regime written in the period. Bahar’s collected works, edited by his son Mihrdad and published after the revolution of 1977 to 1979, contain more of these as well as some of the anti-Riza Shah poems written in the wake of his abdication. See Buzurg ‘Alavi, Khatirat-i Buzurg ‘Alavi, ed. Hamid Ahmadi, Sweden: Nashr-i Baran, 1997, and Panjah va Sa Nafar, Tehran: Ulduz, 1978. See further, Khalil Maliki/Katouzian, Khatirat-i Siyasi; Anvar Khami’i, Panjah Nafar va Sa Nafar, Tehran: Intisharat-i Hafta, 1983. See ‘Yaddasht-ha-yi ‘Abbasquli Gulsha’iyan’, in Cyrus Gahni, ed., Yaddasht-ha-yi Duktur Qasim Ghani, London: Ghani, 1984, p. 604. See the full text of Furughi’s radio broadcast in Husayn Makki, Tarikh-i Bistsala, vol. 8, pp. 179–185.

3 RIZA SHAH AND THE PARADOXES OF MILITARY MODERNIZATION IN IRAN, 1921–1941 Stephanie Cronin

Riza Shah’s determination to create a modern army in Iran has generally been seen as the centre-piece of the entire state-building project of the period, the needs of military modernization determining both the scope and the character of much of the wider programme of reform and development. Yet the massive effort undertaken in the two decades from 1921 to 1941 to build a new professional army organized along European lines, capable of asserting Iran’s regional ambitions, actually produced a corps which was militarily ineffective, structurally weak, deeply politicized, and expensive beyond the capacity of the economy to sustain. Conscription, for example, produced a large army, though not a strong or efficient one, while the vast amounts of money spent on acquiring the most up-to-date weaponry from abroad resulted in a distortion of military priorities and led to unrealistic and complacent assessments of the army’s strength. The Shah himself, whose increasingly arbitrary rule had brought about his own isolation, simultaneously relied upon, yet mortally feared his own army and its increasingly disillusioned officer corps. These paradoxes had both military and political consequences, most starkly illustrated by the inability of either the high command or the Shah himself to offer any coherent response to the Anglo-Russian invasion of Iran in 1941.

The organization of the new army, 1921 to 1926 The construction of a strong army, as part of a general programme of defensive modernization, had been a central objective of Iranian reformers since the early nineteenth century. For many of the participants in the Constitutional Revolution an important goal, even the primary goal, was the creation of a strong state, with an effective army capable of overcoming Iran’s backwardness. 1 It was Riza Khan’s determination to realize this agenda which provided much of his appeal for Iranian nationalism. From the beginning of the new regime’s life, it was clear that the needs of the military were, and would remain, Riza Khan’s first priority. Immediately after becoming War Minister in early May 1921, he put forward his plans for building a new army. He intended to create a unified, centralized, national army, free of

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foreign officers, and he was quite clear and open about the fact that the core of this new army would be constituted by his own old corps, the Cossack Division. On 6 December he issued Army Order Number One, by which the Gendarmerie and the Cossack Division were amalgamated, and on 5 January 1922, he announced that the new army was to be organized into five divisions, with divisional headquarters at Tehran, Tabriz, Hamadan, Isfahan and Mashhad, each division to number approximately 10,000 men. 2 During the early 1920s, the military authorities made strenuous efforts to give substance to the structure laid down in the Military Orders of 5 January 1922, and attempted to lay the foundations necessary for the creation of a modern army modelled along European lines. The recruiting policy of the new army mainly involved a continued reliance on the bunichah system, a nineteenthcentury device whereby each district was called upon to provide recruits, the number calculated on the basis of the amount of land under cultivation. This was supplemented by voluntary individual enlistment and the permanent incorporation of small tribal contingents. Although energetic efforts were made to bring the divisions up to strength, and despite constant exhortations from the Ministry of War, recruiting was slow and difficult and the provincial divisions remained considerably below their targets of 10,000 men each. By early 1926 the army still numbered barely 40,000. 3 In order to construct a modern officer corps and a disciplined rank and file, reforms in military training and education were essential. Riza Khan reorganized the system of military education inside Iran, established a cadet college structured along modern European lines, and introduced a scheme for the training abroad of Iranian officers. In May 1922, Riza Khan announced a scheme whereby Iranian officers were to be sent to France every year to receive military training, and the first party left in 1923. However the army reaped little benefit from this initiative as the St Cyr-educated young officers were able to effect little change on military practices in general, owing largely to the entrenched conservatism of the senior commanders. As far as the rank and file of the new army was concerned, its training remained at the most primitive level. However, all the divisions were constantly engaged in campaigns during these years and it was by actually participating in operations that the troops gained training and experience in the type of irregular warfare for which they were primarily needed. In the early 1920s, the military authorities faced serious difficulties in providing their troops with rifles, guns, munitions and other war material. During 1922 Riza Khan made preparations for buying rifles and munitions in Europe and, from the summer of 1923, substantial consignments of arms purchased in Europe began to arrive in Iran. In the early 1920s the Iranian army also took the first step towards mechanization, using Europe as a source of armoured cars, tanks and motor transport. However, much of this weaponry had a greater political than military significance. For example, in June 1924 four Rolls Royce armoured cars purchased in England arrived in Tehran where they constituted a ‘potent argument’ in political crises. 4 In 1925 to 1926 their

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influence over the population of Tehran, while the capital was under martial law, was of great value to the new Shah in the realization of his bid for the throne. They had not in fact been used in any military operations partly because they were too valuable a political asset in the capital to risk in warfare with the tribes. In any case at that time Iran did not possess the roads necessary for their ready utilization. By the early 1920s the Iranian army had become convinced that the possession of an air force was of vital importance to Iran’s military strength and, between 1923 and 1926, the first faltering steps were taken towards the creation of such a force. 5 The role of the British Royal Air Force in the successful suppression of the tribal revolt in Iraq in 1920 had made a particularly vivid impression on the Iranian military authorities, whose first priority was tribal pacification. By 1926 the air force possessed seventeen planes and, despite the difficulties and setbacks associated with their use, the enthusiasm of the military authorities was as strong as ever. A War Office Commission recommended the purchase of another fifty planes, although the military authorities had already found the upkeep of the air force to be an extremely heavy drain on their resources. The new army’s primary duty was the establishment of the power of the central government throughout the country, the suppression of alternative sources of authority such as autonomous local rulers and tribal chiefs, the disarmament and pacification of the civilian population and the maintenance, once established, of internal security. All the campaigns undertaken by the army in the period 1921 to 1941 in fact fell into this last category. The army’s second function, the protection of Iran from external aggression and the defence and assertion of its regional position, remained purely theoretical. Despite the immense effort put into the organization of a regular army, the bulk of the actual fighting in the many campaigns of these years was actually carried out not by the regular troops, but by irregular tribal levies, raised and disbanded as occasion required. As in the Qajar military forces, so in Riza Khan’s new army the tribal contingents continued to comprise the most significant fighting element. Throughout these years the operations undertaken by the army were still characterized, in the main, by features familiar from the past, although the introduction of air power, however rudimentary, did represent a fundamental change. The military authorities, as far as possible, used negotiation, bluff and intrigue rather than fighting, tried to win over sections of tribes to the side of the government, raised tribal levies to give assistance to the regular troops and used traditional leaders, whom they were often still too weak to crush, to maintain order. 6 The government frequently achieved its objectives by one or more of these methods rather than through conventional military victories by the regular army. The military authorities, none the less, invariably claimed full credit and glory for any politically popular victories, however achieved. This was illustrated vividly by the eulogies which appeared in the press during the Arabistan operations in 1924, although the submission of Shaykh Khaz‘al of Muhammarah had been achieved entirely by political, and

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not by military, methods. Riza Khan’s new army was an enormously expensive undertaking and from the very beginning the Ministry of War absorbed the lion’s share of the national revenue. In the early 1920s the army already accounted for approximately 40 per cent of budget expenditure. Riza Khan’s plans for building a new army, announced in the summer of 1921, had taken little cognizance of Iran’s financial position and, in 1921 to 1922, the government experienced great difficulty in providing the military with the cash they demanded. As the decade progressed, however, the position of the Treasury improved, and Dr Millspaugh, the American Financial Adviser, was able to furnish the Ministry of War regularly with the funds sanctioned in the budget. 7 Difficulties quickly emerged, however, relating both to the army’s internal financial procedures, and to the apparent insatiability of the high command’s appetite for cash. Riza Khan was well aware that the loyalty of the army depended on the troops receiving their pay regularly. In 1921, the civil administration being practically bankrupt, he began appropriating for military purposes any civil revenue he could lay his hands on. On 10 February 1922 the Majlis passed the budget of the Ministry of War, sanctioning an expenditure of nine million tumans on the army for the following year, but without giving any indication as to how such a sum might be provided. 8 In early March, Riza Khan, as another temporary expedient, appropriated the bulk of the £200,000 received by the government from the Standard Oil Company of America. Later in March, increasingly desperate and exasperated by his financial difficulties, he took the drastic step of assuming direct control of all the revenue-bearing administrations of the country, including the crown lands, municipality, indirect taxes, roads, customs, excise, opium and so on, and diverted their funds to military purposes. In this way, despite growing civilian resentment, Riza Khan was able to tide the army over until the arrival, in late 1922, of the American Financial Adviser Dr Arthur Millspaugh, to whom he handed over control of the revenue-bearing administrations. But when Millspaugh began to draw up his budget for the following year, 1302 (1923–1924), he found that military finances were in chaos. Since the fall of Sayyid Ziya, complete control of military expenditure had been in the hands of the war minister who had no properly organized financial system. There were no records available to show what amounts he had obtained from the revenue-bearing civil administrations, nor how this money had been spent. In fact Riza Khan consistently refused to submit the accounts of the Ministry of War to examination by either Millspaugh or anyone else, although he was being criticized widely both for this refusal and for amassing a large personal fortune out of the military budget. In fact Riza Khan had come to consider his own personal account and the army account as being a joint one. In practice the allotted sums were simply placed to the credit of the Ministry of War and expended by Riza Khan as he pleased. Despite persistent efforts, Dr Millspaugh and the Ministry of Finance were never able to establish or exercise any control over the budget of the Ministry of War. Riza Khan’s financial example was followed eagerly by his senior officers, and percolated down

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throughout the army. The consequences of this uncontrolled corruption, at both central and provincial levels, became dramatically apparent in 1926 with the mutinies in the North-western and Eastern Divisions, and with the shattering of public confidence in the new regime. During the first half of the 1920s, while engaged with a variety of political trends and social forces in a struggle for power, Riza Khan relied particularly on the support of the Central Division, garrisoned in the capital. The Central Division was by far the best and most reliable division in the army. It was numerically the largest and was the best trained and equipped. By 1926 the superiority of the troops of the Central Division over the provincial divisions was so great that this appeared to be a deliberate policy of the new Shah. 9 While relying on the Central Division and its commander for the defence of his new dynasty in his capital, Riza Shah was thus also able to reduce the likelihood of any provincial general offering a political challenge. However this had the unwelcome side effect of raising the commander of the Central Division, Brigadier Murtaza Khan Yazdanpanah, to an uncomfortably powerful position. 10

Although attempting to ensure their loyalty by bestowing positions of power and permitting widespread corruption, Riza Khan was far from complacent about the ambitions of his immediate subordinates. As the army had grown and become established throughout the country and opportunities for the acquisition of wealth and power had increased, so ambition and jealousy in the upper echelons of the officer corps had also intensified. This phenomenon was made particularly serious by the senior commanders’ tendency to adopt strategies of discrediting their rivals, making accusations of political unreliability and disloyalty to Riza Khan. Furthermore this tendency was encouraged by the ease with which Riza Khan could be convinced of the existence of conspiracies and subversive activities. Indeed the atmosphere within which such intrigue flourished had been established and fostered by Riza Khan himself who seemed, by 1926, unable to tolerate any prominence other than his own, and who simultaneously depended upon, and feared, his immediate subordinates. Officers had always owed much, for their military appointments, to the influence of friends and relatives at court or in the various ministries. In the early 1920s this tradition continued to some extent but was of relatively minor significance compared to the overridingly important criterion of political loyalty to Riza Khan. The latter qualification determined generally the allocation of commands, the most important of which were given, as a matter of course, to Riza Khan’s ex-Cossack comrades. In the new army an individual officer’s political reliability was vital to his advancement. Should he fall under suspicion, however, he was liable to instant demotion or dismissal, or even arrest. Accordingly the ambitions of the senior commanders, particularly those in Tehran where political and military power was concentrated, drove them to expend much of their energy in attempting to discredit each other. This resulted in a series of abrupt dismissals and reinstatements, destabilizing and disorganizing the command structure and creating a climate of uncertainty,

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insecurity and demoralization throughout the officer corps. By 1926 both the army itself and the regime were suffused with suspicions of treason and betrayal. Although intrigue was endemic among the high command, it first reached serious dimensions during the crisis of 1925 to 1926, indeed was symptomatic of that crisis. The deterioration in relations within the high command by that time is well illustrated by the activities of General Murtaza Khan Yazdanpanah. By early 1926 most of the senior military officers in Tehran were engaged in a campaign of complaint and counter-complaint to the new Shah and were apparently only capable of any unity when organizing opposition to the new Minister of War, General Abdallah Khan Tahmasbi. 11 Apparently a man of wider outlook and more sophisticated views than many of his colleagues, Tahmasbi had been appointed Minister of War in the new cabinet formed in December 1925 after Riza Khan’s accession to the throne. His appointment had at once aroused a storm of jealousy among the other senior officers. General Yazdanpanah, who had occupied the powerful position of General Officer Commanding the Central Division ever since its formation and had also been Military Governor of Tehran, particularly resented Tahmasbi’s new prominence. Yazdanpanah had been the chief directing force behind the anti-Qajar agitation in 1925 and had hoped for the post of Minister of War himself. Accordingly Yazdanpanah, at the head of a group of senior officers in Tehran, launched an intrigue against Tahmasbi, and made every effort to arouse the Shah’s suspicions of his new minister of war. On 27 May Tahmasbi was duly arrested, on what appears to have been fabricated evidence, for conspiring against the throne. Yazdanpanah thus achieved his aim of disgracing his principal rival. As commander of the politically vital Central Division, he was indeed now in a very powerful position. 12 However, the Shah soon began to find his prominence a source of discomfort. The Central Division itself fell under suspicion in the autumn of 1926, perhaps provoked by the Puladin affair. 13 During 1927 the Shah decided that he could no longer tolerate the potential threat represented by either the Division or its commander. Yazdanpanah was dismissed from his command and arrested for a short time, and an inquiry held into his accounts, while the Division was split up into its constituent regiments, each regimental officer being made directly responsible to the General Staff Various pretexts were advanced to account for this action but undoubtedly the real reason was that the Shah feared that Yazdanpanah was becoming too powerful and too rich and was acquiring too much influence in the country. But Yazdanpanah, like Tahmasbi before him, was soon restored to favour and given more senior appointments. For the time being, however, the Shah’s prized Central Division had ceased to exist. From the very beginning, the whole fabric of the new army had very much centred around Riza Khan personally. 14 He had always insisted that all matters of military importance should be referred to him, determining administrative detail as well as broad policy, and reducing his senior commanders to complete

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dependence on his favour. It was Riza Khan himself who determined the character of the developing military culture and the senior commanders took their cue from their chief. It was he who had set a spectacular example of contempt for the civil authorities, had been principally responsible for creating an atmosphere of intrigue and insecurity within the high command and, having personally amassed wealth by questionable methods, allowed his senior officers to do the same, believing he could thus buy their continued support. During 1926 the endemic problems afflicting the army divisions, as they had been constructed in the first half of the 1920s, worsened to the point where the fragility of the whole structure was revealed and the very fabric of the army threatened to unravel. The mutinies which broke out in 1926, and which threatened to become generalized throughout the army, forced Riza Shah to recognize the necessity of rectifying some of the worst abuses within the army, particularly regarding pay and rations. From now on the pay of the army was not allowed to fall into arrears for more than two months at a time. In other respects, however, bribery and corruption were as universal as ever, both within the army and as a feature of the army’s relations with the society over which it ruled.

Riza Shah’s army, 1927–1941 The single most significant measure of military reform introduced by Riza Shah was undoubtedly the introduction of conscription. For Riza Shah’s Iran, as for other nationalist regimes of the inter-war Middle East, including Mustafa Kemal’s Turkey and Hashimite Iraq, the construction of a strong national army based on conscription was an essential element of state building and nation formation. For the nationalist elites of these countries, conscription was vital not only for the construction of a strong army but also for the creation of an integrated, homogeneous and modern society. The Iranian military authorities had, during the early 1920s, continued to rely on recruiting procedures inherited from the past. But their efforts to raise soldiers from the peasantry had met with resistance and flight and had produced only poor results. Riza Khan had quickly become exasperated with these antiquated methods and between 1923 and 1925 forced a conscription bill through the Majlis. He was supported in this by the nationalist intellectuals of the Revival and Socialist parties for whom the construction of an army based on conscription was an essential step in both the achievement and defence of national sovereignty and in the creation and inculcation of national identity. Religious opposition having been neutralized by a concession granting exemption to all religious students, the Conscription Bill was passed by the Majlis in June 1925. 15 During the multiple crises of 1926, the military authorities were obliged to suspend the implementation of conscription. By the autumn of 1927 the regime had again gone on the offensive, but the army’s efforts to call up conscripts met with widespread and often violent resistance. Massive movements of opposition,

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led by the ulama, took place in the cities of southern Iran in 1927 and in Tabriz in 1928, while fear of the recruiting commissions was an important factor in the major tribal revolts of 1929. 16 However, Riza Shah was irrevocably committed to conscription, which was a central pillar of his programme of modernization and secularization, and was ultimately determined to crush resistance. By 1930 he had succeeded largely in so doing. None the less, although successful in imposing the measure on the cities and the settled peasantry, throughout the 1930s the regime exercised extreme caution when imposing conscription on the tribes, adopting a gradual, piecemeal approach. It was not until the mid-1930s that the first serious and systematic efforts were made to take recruits from the tribes, although from then on the reach of the recruiting commissions was slowly extended year by year. By the late 1930s, however, conscription had still not been universally applied to the tribes and was still provoking sporadic armed resistance. 17 The Shah was determined to force conscription upon the population of Iran and he provided both the requisite political will and the necessary financial resources. In 1931 and 1938 amendments aimed at generally strengthening the conscription law were passed by the Majlis and, with organized resistance crushed, the way was clear for a massive expansion in the army’s manpower. The army mushroomed from about 42,000 men in 1930 to an estimated 105,451 in 1937, reaching, by 1941, 127,000 men organized into eighteen divisions, with a total mobilizable force of 400,000, an enormous number given a national population of less then five million economically active males. 18 However, although conscription certainly produced a large army, it did not produce a strong or efficient one. Despite the huge amounts of money spent annually on the army, the conscripts themselves endured extremely harsh conditions. In 1931 their pay was reduced from an already derisory 7.5 qirans to 7 qirans per month (volunteers received 45 qirans per month). Their physique and stamina were reported to be unsatisfactory, they were worked hard in all weathers, poorly fed and housed, with inadequate medical and sanitary arrangements. 19 So bad was the situation that in 1931, on account of the high mortality among troops of the Tehran garrison, special medical officers were appointed by the Shah himself as supervisors. The low morale resulting from poor material conditions was compounded by a lack of proper training programmes and the atmosphere of arbitrary terror which the Shah fostered within the army and which pervaded all ranks from the lowest to the highest. Such an army was naturally of little use on active service, and throughout the 1930s the military authorities continued to raise tribal levies for the small-scale operations which were its only occupation. 20 Conscription transformed the character of the Iranian army. It ended the traditional ethnic imbalance in Iranian military formations, the preponderance of the Azari/Turkish element, and ultimately produced an officer corps and rank and file which reflected more accurately the ethnic composition of the country. In the short term, however, conscription destroyed what little military effectiveness the army had possessed. The fighting strength of the army had

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always resided in the tribal levies, and attempts to phase them out exposed the more or less complete inadequacy of the poorly trained, badly educated, harshly treated conscripts. Fortunately for the regime the very pacification of the country which made the imposition of conscription possible meant also an end to the tribal campaigning which had typified the 1920s. In the late 1920s and early 1930s the military authorities continued to present the army as victorious in the field, greatly enhancing its prestige. The army took full credit for the suppression of the series of tribal revolts which broke out in 1929 although it had, in fact, little or nothing to do with the government’s victory which resulted from a combination of factors, including a lack of unity among the tribes, their shortage of ammunition, and the political handling of the situation by the Tehran authorities. In reality, for the remaining campaigns of the early 1930s, the army still remained heavily reliant on the assistance of tribal levies. With the final subjugation of the southern tribes, however, the campaigning which had typified the previous period largely came to an end. For the remainder of the decade the army throughout the country, with the partial exception of the garrisons in Kurdistan and Baluchistan where minor tribal skirmishing continued, remained on a peace footing. During the 1930s the army, as an institution, continued to be immensely privileged by the Shah. Money was lavished on it and it was made into a showcase for the regime, expressing most perfectly the ideology of secular nationalism on which the Pahlavi monarchy based its legitimacy. During the 1930s the army and military expenditure underwent a relentless expansion. Conscription was enforced with increasing effectiveness as the decade progressed and resources devoted to the army increased even faster than its numerical growth, the Shah being especially keen to acquire the latest and most expensive military hardware. Although exact calculations are difficult, it is clear that throughout the Riza Shah period, the Ministry of War’s budget allocation was far higher than that of any other government department and that spending on the army grew steadily, nearly quadrupling between 1930 and 1941. 21 The Ministry of War, even during the early 1930s, a time of dire financial crisis, always had ample funds at its disposal, and was a law unto itself regarding their disbursal, army expenditure never having been made subject to audit by the Ministry of Finance. Furthermore, in addition to its official budget allocation the Ministry of War also received, directly from oil revenues, the enormous sum of about £2 million annually during much of the 1930s for the purchase of up-todate and sophisticated military equipment from abroad, including aeroplanes, artillery, machine-guns and mechanical transport. 22 From the late 1920s onwards, huge purchases of war material were made from the Skoda Works in Czechoslovakia, particularly of light automatic rifles. Tanks were also bought from Czechoslovakia, artillery largely from Sweden, and aircraft mainly from Britain, and also the USSR. By 1936 the Iranian air force possessed 154 aircraft, and was still placing orders for more. By 1937 war material of all kinds was pouring into the country, to such an extent that the quantities of tanks, artillery and other material were beginning to unsettle neighbouring countries.

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After the army’s recovery from the crisis of 1926, the new Shah continued to keep full control of the army in his own hands, devoting a great deal of his time and personal energy to every detail of military administration. Far from relaxing his hold on the army, as the 1920s turned into the 1930s, he seemed rather to be tightening his grip. He continued his habit of making unheralded descents at dawn upon units, arsenals and military schools. By these visits and his behaviour on them, including his ‘vindictiveness, petulance and impatience’, 23 he engendered considerable fear throughout all ranks of the army. The higher command in particular existed ‘entirely on the pleasure of the Shah’, and functioned ‘on a wholesome fear of his displeasure’. 24 After his accession, the new Shah had continued to watch his senior officers very closely and to maintain control, by abrupt dismissals of those whom he thought were becoming too rich or too powerful, and by reinstatements of those whom he had disgraced previously. In 1928, for example, General Mahmud Khan Ayrum, who had succeeded in keeping his divisional command in Fars for more than six years and had become enormously rich, was recalled to Tehran and retired, and his divisional command in Fars split up into brigades. On the other hand, in the same year the Shah took back into favour General Amirahmadi, who had been removed from command of the Western Division for corruption, and sent him back to Luristan, and also restored General Yazdanpanah, making him an inspector of the army. Notwithstanding the Shah’s perennial suspicions, throughout the 1930s the high command was consistently loyal to the regime. Senior officers tolerated the insecurity of their position, and their occasional humiliation, in return for prestige and wealth, and even welcomed the Shah’s capriciousness when it resulted in the downfall of rivals. None the less, throughout the 1930s the high command continued to be periodically convulsed by the Shah’s arbitrary purges. One such incident which caused particular disquiet within the army was the arrest and court martial of General Habiballah Khan Shaybani, one of the best and most well-known of the Shah’s senior officers. In 1929 Shaybani had been sent to Fars to command the army against the tribal rebellions in the south, and had also been made Governor-General. In the autumn of 1931 he was tried by a court martial on a charge of military inefficiency in his 1930 operations against the Mamassani and the Buyir Ahmadi tribes and disobedience of orders, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and deprivation of all his ranks and dignities. Both the charge and the punishment had been framed by the Shah who, prompted by resentment and an ‘almost insane suspicion’, 25 had apparently never forgotten Shaybani’s refusal to sign Colonel Puladin’s death-warrant in 1928. 26 Others among the Shah’s oldest and most senior officers fell into disgrace during the decade. In 1935 General Muhammad Husayn Ayrum, a favourite of the Shah and once his right-hand man, left suddenly for Germany, ostensibly for medical treatment. The Shah then made serious charges against him of taking bribes and of engaging in all kinds of intrigue, and apparently tried, without success, to secure his extradition. In the same year General Amanallah

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Jahanbani fell from favour as a result of remarks criticizing certain arrangements for the Senior Officers’ Staff College. His eclipse was brief; he was appointed Director-General of Industry in March 1936, but was again dismissed in July 1937 and subsequently gaoled with forty officials of his department, charged with fomenting a plot against the Shah. Apparently the Shah’s suspicions of Jahanbani had been aroused because the latter had had lunch at the French legation. 27 In 1937 General Isma’il Agha Amir-Fazli was suddenly dismissed from his post as Minister of War, following a surprise visit to the ministry by the Shah who, finding Amir-Fazli absent from his desk, resorted to an outburst of considerable personal abuse, and possibly also physical violence, against him. In the late 1920s, as a result of his fear of his senior generals, the Shah gradually did away with divisional organization within the army. In 1927, following its commander’s disgrace, the Central Division was split up into its constituent regiments, and after General Mahmud Khan Ayrum’s fall in the following year, his divisional command in Fars was also split up into brigades. In 1930 the cavalry brigade of the Central Division was abolished, and the three regiments of the brigade became independent commands directly responsible to the Ministry of War. Also in 1930, following General Amirahmadi’s recall to Tehran, the three brigades of the south and south-western forces, formerly under his command at Khurramabad, were made into independent commands. In fact only two divisions remained by 1930, the bulk of the army being organized into brigades or even regimental groups, although divisional organization began to reappear, at least on paper, later in the decade. During the 1930s the army continued to suffer from many of the organizational weaknesses apparent in the previous decade. Little or nothing was done, for example, to improve supply services. This shortcoming seriously hampered tactical dispositions, as the army could move only after a sufficiency of civilian motor transport had been commandeered and its line of advance was necessarily restricted to areas in which food supplies were obtainable. The general training of officers continued to be very poor, those educated abroad soon becoming demoralized and, in any case, too small a number to make any real difference to the whole. Regarding the rank and file, the conscript troops lacked confidence in their officers, and such training as they possessed quickly broke down when they found themselves engaged in actual operations. In the mid-1930s another effort was made to improve military education when a French Military Mission arrived to act as instructors at the cadet college and the staff college. However, by the mid-decade the real weakness of the military actually lay in what the General Staff apparently considered to be their chief strength: their armament. Having completely neglected the proper training of their men, they had ‘allowed themselves to be dazzled by mere possessions; they [had] erected an imposing facade of guns for which there are no shells, of aeroplanes they cannot maintain, of vehicles they cannot drive, and of mechanical devices they cannot comprehend…their passion for purchase has exhausted their means of maintenance.’ 28 With the outbreak of the Second World War the Shah’s fears of an invasion

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from the north intensified and grandiose plans for resisting attack were drawn up. But to the British Minister in Tehran, Reader Bullard, it was clear that the Shah and his military advisers took too optimistic a view of the ability of the army to offer a successful resistance to serious invasion. 29 When, in August 1941, the Anglo-Soviet armies descended on Iran, the resistance put up by the army was even less effective than had been anticipated. 30 This was due largely to its own lack of morale, but there had also been an almost entire lack of serious defensive preparations, to the extent that it appeared that the military had never had any serious intention of resisting. 31 The Shah had apparently remained confident up to the last moment that Britain and the Soviet Union would not resort to military action and this optimism had been reflected in the faulty dispositions of the army. The first hint of aerial bombardment created panic, which had spread rapidly to the headquarters of military formations. These had withdrawn with speed and their troops promptly disintegrated. The causes of the poor morale of the troops were familiar from previous years: the rank and file were underfed and underpaid, the senior officers corrupt, they had received no training for modern warfare nor in the use of their expensive weapons; and there was an almost complete absence of supply arrangements. The army in the field disintegrated from the top down, the rank and file dispersing after their officers had fled. Demoralization, which began among those divisions on the front line, spread quickly throughout the army, to troops who had not been engaged on operations. By 30 August ‘complete chaos’ reigned in Iranian military circles. 32 As large numbers of officer-less troops deserted, they usually managed to take with them their rifles, ammunition and equipment, which they sold to the tribes in order to be able to buy food. By the time the situation began to stabilize, little was left of the army. The General Staff stated that, of the original 50,000 men of the 1st and 2nd Tehran Divisions, for example, only about 12,000 remained. In fact the General Staff believed that they now had no reliable troops at all. 33 By 1939 Iran had acquired a dazzling façade of military strength. But the conscript army of the 1930s was a parade-ground army, largely untried in battle and led by complacent and corrupt officers. In 1941, when it met its first real test, it collapsed without a struggle.

Opposition to Riza Khan within the new army, 1921–1926 In 1921 Riza Khan emerged as the dominant factor in Iranian political life. During the next five years he consolidated his power, destroyed the Qajar dynasty and placed himself on the throne. In realizing this project, he based himself on the army, or more precisely on a section of the army, having originally come to power via a military coup. However, the army’s support for its chief in this period was not, as is often assumed, always united or unwavering. In fact at certain key moments, such as the crisis resulting from the republican agitation in 1924, the force was wracked with dissension to the point

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where senior commanders openly defied Riza Khan’s orders and it seemed possible that the army might split apart. Throughout the early Pahlavi period, and indeed beyond, although ideological trends within the army always tended to be dominated by secular nationalism and modernism, political attitudes towards the Shah were capable of marked variegation. The relationship between Riza Shah and his officer corps, both senior and junior, especially during periods of political crisis and uncertainty such as the early years of Pahlavi rule or the outbreak of the Second World War, was susceptible to considerable tension. In the circumstances of anarchy and collapse which characterized Iran during and immediately after the Great War, the source from which a leadership with the requisite decisiveness and strength was most likely to emerge was the military. In 1920 to 1921 however, it was by no means clear which element within Iran’s disparate armed forces might posit itself as the instrument of national salvation. Although, as a result of the later consolidation of Pahlavi rule, Riza Khan’s military pre-eminence by 1921 seems established, in fact military rivals to his ascendancy, both individual and collective, still flourished. The establishment of his own supreme power, both within the army as well as in the state and society generally, was, at the time of the coup, still a matter awaiting accomplishment. The liquidation of his most serious military rival, the nationalist gendarme officer Colonel Muhammad Taqi Khan Pasyan, and the suppression of any overt challenge from the Gendarmerie, were key episodes in this process. Throughout 1920 and 1921 the Cossack Division and the Gendarmerie were contending, sometimes covertly, sometimes overtly, for military supremacy in Iran. The Gendarmerie, founded in 1910 and imbued with the spirit of constitutionalism and with a strong nationalist record, offered a sharp contrast to the Cossack Division, long identified with the most reactionary tendencies in Iranian society. In early 1921 elements within the Gendarmerie were planning a coup of their own which was only just pre-empted by the Cossack march on Tehran. 34 The participation of certain Gendarmerie officers in the preparations for the Cossack coup were vital to that movement’s success, and in return for their support they were rewarded with important posts in the new government and with considerable power in the provinces. However, in order to assert his hegemony both in the new army and the regime being constructed around it, Riza Khan was obliged to reduce the independence, appeal and prestige of the Gendarmerie and this he accomplished by degrees during 1921. 35 During the spring and summer of 1921, the obstacle to Riza Khan’s preeminence represented by the Gendarmerie was starkly illustrated by the regime then firmly entrenched in Mashhad under the leadership of Colonel Pasyan. 36 The Mashhad regime implied a grave political, ideological and military threat to Tehran and highlighted the fragility of Riza Khan’s grip on power in the immediate post-coup period. Colonel Pasyan, remaining obdurate in Mashhad after Sayyid Ziya’s fall and exile, presided over a prolonged period of tension, between the central government and provincial radicalism, between the opposing military and political agendas of the Gendarmerie and the Cossack

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Division, and between his own personal ambitions and those of Riza Khan, which ended only with the physical liquidation of the gendarme regime in Mashhad. Pasyan’s destruction freed Riza Khan to adopt unchallenged the mantle of nationalism among the military and to fashion the army in his own image. By the end of 1921 the Gendarmerie found itself submerged, politically and militarily, by Riza Khan’s Cossack Division. By a combination of co-option and repression Riza Khan ensured, both in the new army and in the regime constructed around it, his own supremacy and the ascendancy of his comrades from the Cossack Division, triumphing over the leadership offered by the officer corps of the Gendarmerie and the political traditions represented by the force. By late 1921 Riza Khan had clearly emerged as the single most powerful personality within the Iranian army and was able to pose as the saviour of the Iranian nation, presenting a new-found, but undoubted, appeal to nationalist elements. Yet opposition to Riza Khan continued within the new army, falling into three broad categories. In the first category were the cluster of oppositional activities which had their roots in the long-standing rivalry between the two elements that largely comprised the new army, namely the Government Gendarmerie and the Cossack Division. The second category included the various types of disaffection which arose as a result of Riza Khan’s attempt to replace the Qajar Shah with a republican dictatorship. The final category comprised the military mutinies which broke out in 1926 and which possessed an explosive combination of ideological opposition to the regime and severe material grievances relating to pay and conditions. However, the phenomenon of military disaffection within the new army should not be exaggerated in relation to the key question of the survival of Riza Khan and his regime. Only over one issue, that of republicanism, did the army appear to be in real danger of fissuring while the disintegration of 1926 was essentially an exasperated reaction to intolerable conditions. On the whole the bulk of the army, particularly its ex-Cossack upper echelons, remained staunchly loyal to its chief throughout these years. Never before had the army occupied the dominant position throughout Iran which it achieved in the early 1920s. Senior officers saw opening up before them spectacular opportunities for the acquisition of Wealth, opportunities of which they took full advantage. The most powerful officers in the army, all ex-Cossacks, knew that they owed their new eminence to their chief and they repaid him with political subservience. Furthermore, notwithstanding various degrees of doubt about Riza Khan’s personal and political ambitions, many ex-gendarmes also offered their broad support to the regime’s nationalist agenda, finding appeal especially in its avowed aim of creating a strong and modern army. Many ex-gendarmes, most notably Habiballah Khan Shaybani, survived, and even thrived, in the new army, although they could not aspire to the highest posts. The Gendarmerie and the Cossack Division were amalgamated at the end of 1921. However, although unified formally on equal terms, in fact the Cossacks

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received consistently preferential treatment in terms of pay and rank at all levels. In this way friction between the two groups was perpetuated within the new army in every division and among junior as well as senior officers, and even within the rank and file. The sense of outrage felt by the ex-gendarmes at the circumstances of their incorporation into the new army was dramatically illustrated by the rebellion led by Major Abu’l Qasim Khan Lahuti in early 1922. 37 Although Lahuti himself was motivated by wider aims, using the insurrectionary period in Tabriz to put forward an agenda of radical political reform for the whole country, the majority of his followers among the gendarmes, mostly NCOs and ordinary soldiers, had been provoked into mutiny by resentment at the fact that junior Cossack officers had been promoted over the heads of more senior gendarmes, and that pay had been issued to the Cossacks, but not to the gendarmes, who were already seven months in arrears. 38 Despite the creation of a unified army, both ex-gendarmes and ex-Cossacks, each bound by common personal and political experiences, continued to retain a sense of group identity, not only in their own consciousness but also in the eyes of the regime. The ex-gendarme officers were alienated by Riza Khan’s personal ascendancy and by the type of regime he was creating, and their hostility was exacerbated further by the way in which the new army was being constructed. Riza Khan trusted and relied upon his Cossack comrades, whom he placed in the positions of greatest power. Conversely he distrusted the ex-gendarmes whom he deprived of the pay and promotion which they felt was commensurate with their training and experience. Thus a vicious circle was set up which drove the already dissatisfied ex-gendarmes further into opposition. Indeed in the early 1920s the ex-gendarmes within the new army constituted a more or less permanent focus of discontent, acting as a pole of attraction for wider layers of disaffected elements. It was against this background, of submerged discontent and official suspicion, that there developed, or allegedly developed, a series of plots and conspiracies against Riza Khan involving ex-Gendarmerie officers. The autumn of 1923 saw the revelation of an apparently particularly serious conspiracy when it was alleged that, in August the previous year, a number of ex-gendarmes, disaffected due to their dissatisfaction with their rank and position in the new army, had become implicated in an attempt by the then—Prime Minister Qavam al-Saltanah to bring about Riza Khan’s downfall. 39 There was some suspicion in Tehran that, although there had certainly been some discontent among the officers of the Central Division, the official version of the conspiracy had been embellished, if not actually manufactured, by the Chief of Police, Colonel Muhammad Dargahi. When, in 1926, another exgendarme, Colonel Puladin, fell victim to Riza’s fears of assassination, Dargahi was again at the centre of events. This episode opened in mid-September 1926 when the newly crowned Riza Shah became aware that anonymous leaflets of a very threatening nature were being circulated in Tehran. He had been greatly angered and had vented his fury in an outburst against the Chief of Police. The

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army had recently suffered serious mutinies and the Shah was convinced that the leaflets were the work of a revolutionary organization consisting principally of disaffected officers in the army, and he made it clear to Dargahi that he would have to uncover the ringleaders. On 21 September a number of military and police officers and civilians were arrested, including the officers commanding two of the Tehran infantry regiments, one of whom, Colonel Mahmud Khan Puladin, was also aide-decamp to the Shah. All were accused of being implicated in a plot against the Shah’s life and of being members of a secret society which had produced the leaflets that had so disturbed the Shah earlier in the month. The allegations were met with incredulity in Tehran where the general opinion was that such evidence as existed against the accused had been fabricated by the police. 40 The Shah, in a ‘mood of insane and vindictive suspicion’, 41 had recently become particularly fearful of assassination, 42 and for some time he had no fixed sleeping place, believing that he could depend on the loyalty of the pampered regiments of the Central Division for the defence of his regime in his capital against any other threat. The Chief of Police inevitably informed the Shah that the accused had been engaged in a plot against his life and throne. The Shah immediately ordered the execution of the principals although he was, with some difficulty, eventually persuaded by the Prime Minister, Mustawfi al-Mamalik, that at least the appearance of a trial was necessary to avoid creating a very bad impression on domestic and especially foreign public opinion. A court martial was convened but the military personnel were clearly sympathetic to Puladin and his fellow officers. The general presiding concluded only that there had been some conversations regarding the possibility of organizing a coup to overthrow the regime, and that Colonel Puladin had obtained some of the materials necessary which the civilian accused had used for the production of the leaflets. 43 This was all that the court martial found but, although it awarded the maximum sentences available to it, including ten years’ imprisonment for Puladin, the Shah’s thirst for vengeance was not assuaged. The death penalty was the only verdict he was prepared to accept, at least in the case of Colonel Puladin, whom he regarded as the ringleader. At the third attempt, a military tribunal finally succeeded in issuing a verdict satisfactory to the Shah but the Chief of the General Staff, Brigadier Shaybani, refused to sign Puladin’s death-warrant, preferring to resign. None the less, Puladin was executed by firing squad in February 1928. Opposition among military officers to Riza Khan did not find expression merely in conspiracies and assassination plots, real or imaginary. Perhaps the clearest example of open, organized and coherent dissent within the army emerged vis-à-vis the movement to establish a republic in Iran in 1924. Although the republican movement both in the capital and the provinces was initiated and sustained largely by the military authorities, none the less deep divisions existed within the army regarding the legitimacy of this movement, and again the ex-gendarme officers provided one focus for discontent.

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In general it may be said that the ex-Cossack officers, whom Riza Khan had carried with him in his rise to power, supported him in his attempt to introduce a republic. Indeed it seemed that they would support any political change which would augment the ascendancy of their leader. 44 The ex-gendarmes, by and large, opposed the republican project. Some, such as Colonel Prince Muhammad Husayn Jahanbani, Chief of Staff of the Eastern Division, were undoubtedly pro-Qajar royalists from conviction and family ties. This element disapproved of Riza Khan and resented his pretensions to supreme power because of his plebeian origins and lack of refinement or sophistication. 45 Many ex-gendarme officers, however, given their historical links to the Turkish military and their avowed admiration for Mustafa Kemal, might have been expected to favour a movement to establish a republic in Iran, in emulation of the Turkish example, to rid their country of the corrupt and oppressive Qajar dynasty, in line with their modernizing views. There can be no doubt that they were forced to take up an attitude so much in contradiction to their inclinations by fear that a republic would equal a dictatorship by Riza Khan. In opposing this specific republican movement they were opposing Riza Khan, rather than the idea of republicanism. 46

However, the ex-gendarme officers were not the only opponents of the republican movement within the army. There was considerable royalist sentiment among both the officer corps and the rank and file as a whole and strikingly, and perhaps uniquely, his espousal of republicanism deprived Riza Khan of the support of some of his closest ex-Cossack comrades. Brigadier Jan Muhammad Khan Davallu, Commander of the Arak brigade in Tehran and himself a Qajar, was openly defiant. Others among the most senior officers in the army, including Brigadier Murtaza Khan Yazdanpanah, General Officer Commanding the Central Division, Brigadier Prince Amanallah Jahanbani, Chief of the General Staff and a cousin of the Shah, and General Abdallah Khan Tahmasbi, General Officer Commanding the North-western Division, expressed or harboured their reservations. The royalist movement within the army was led by Brigadier Davallu and the Arak brigade of the Central Division. On the night of 19 March, immediately before the Majlis was to debate the issue, Brigadier Davallu’s Arak brigade held meetings in which both officers and men participated, passing a resolution declaring that they would refuse to fight on behalf of the formation of a republic. 47 The participation of the rank and file in the Arak brigade’s meetings provides a rare glimpse of the attitudes of this layer of the army. In general the rank and file were politically passive and socially conservative, reflecting the outlook of those strata, the peasantry and the tribes, from which they were predominantly drawn. Although they showed no interest in politics, they took a keen interest in religious questions and were ideologically dominated by the ulama. They were unquestioningly loyal to the Shah and became overtly anti-republican when the ulama assumed the leadership of the opposition to Riza Khan. On 7 April Riza Khan resigned in an attempt to break the political deadlock resulting from the failure of the republican movement. Although the Majlis was

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bombarded by telegrams from the provincial divisional commanders threatening to march on Tehran and reinstate him by force, the army commanders knew that they did not have the unequivocal support of either their officers or their men. Undoubtedly Riza Khan had been forced to retreat on the issue of republicanism not only by the vehemence of civilian opposition but also by the depth of discontent among the military and by his fear that to persist with the project might actually lead to a split within the army. Riza Khan’s failure to impose a republican form of government in Iran resulted in a considerable diminution in his personal prestige and a certain discrediting of the military authorities. This in turn produced a marked demoralization in the army. This demoralization manifested itself both in disasters on the battlefield and in a rash of plots during the summer and autumn of 1924. The most serious of these was the rebellion in the Eastern Division in June 1924 which involved principally the Divisional Chief of Staff, the exgendarme Colonel Prince Muhammad Husayn Jahanbani, and the brigade commander at Birjand, Colonel Riza Quli Afshar, Salar-i Amjad. 48 The rebellion broke out largely spontaneously at Birjand on 26 June when the officers and men of the garrison declared that they would not recognize Colonel Ali Shah Khan Rahimi, an ex-Cossack officer and an appointee of the War Minister, as their new commander. The action had been decided upon by Colonels Salar-i Amjad and Jahanbani when accompanying Colonel Rahimi from Mashhad to Birjand and was based on the belief that the War Minister was about to fall and that it would be an easy matter in that event for the two officers to secure control of the southern area. 49 Salar and Jahanbani had good reason for this belief. Since the fiasco of the republican movement the War Minister’s popularity and prestige in the Eastern Division had declined a great deal 50 and the perennial discontent of the ex-gendarmes had been very visible. As far as Jahanbani was concerned, matters were brought suddenly to a head by Colonel Rahimi’s abuse of the Shah. Little or no planning had gone into the rebellion and its leaders had gravely misjudged the situation at Tehran. The movement quickly collapsed, Jahanbani committing suicide rather than return to Mashhad. With the deposition of Ahmad Shah at the end of 1925, the struggle between the War Minister and the Qajars was resolved. This removed the dilemma experienced in previous years by certain sections of the army as to where their loyalty lay and thus eased, to some extent, the internal tensions characterizing the previous period. Indeed the accession to the throne of one of its own was a source of intense pride to much of the army. None the less, 1926 was to see a renewed outburst of disaffection, provoked now largely by the deteriorating material conditions inside the army, particularly as these affected junior officers and the rank and file. Despite the fact that military expenditure absorbed so much of the budget, from the very beginning of the life of the new army the troops were constantly in arrears of pay. The interior economy of the army continued to be administered along traditional lines, nothing was done to rectify the prevailing abuses, and corruption, embezzlement and financial malpractice of every kind abounded.

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These endemic problems were intensified after Riza Shah’s accession to the throne. Late 1925 to 1926 saw the provincial commanders, left more or less to their own devices, using their new ascendancy to amass as much wealth as possible, as quickly as possible, using part of their new-found fortunes to retain their positions by placating the new Shah’s demands for money. Although Dr Millspaugh regularly provided the army with its budget allocations, little reached the troops who, as 1926 progressed, fell further and further into arrears of pay, even finding themselves short of rations. Large quantities of cash simply vanished from the central and provincial military treasuries, leaving nothing for the army’s real day-to-day needs. The Ministry of War was well aware that the administration of military finance was in trouble and by mid-June various economies had been effected. However, these economies did nothing to address the basic problem of corruption and indeed aggravated the situation to some extent. For example, the reduction of the wheat ration of the rank and file by one-third merely enraged men who were already many months in arrears of pay. Meanwhile every officer in an independent command was visibly acquiring wealth and the troops knew that this included money intended for their pay and rations. But not only the rank and file suffered, junior officers also found themselves increasingly squeezed. Officers’ pay had recently been reduced by about 25 per cent as an economy measure and in fact officers were affected more than the men when pay fell into arrears, as they received no rations. Inevitably, provoked beyond endurance, units of the army began to mutiny, the two most serious outbreaks both being led by junior officers. The first episode occurred towards the end of June at Salmas, in Azarbayjan. 51 It was an apparently spontaneous affair caused by discontent at non-receipt of pay and hatred of the Commanding Officer, Colonel Yusuf Khan Arfa. 52 Losing his temper following an act of insubordination, Colonel Arfa, already unpopular due to his severity and harsh notions of discipline, was shot by his own men. The entire garrison at Salmas, some 300 to 400 men, then rose up in mutiny under the leadership of a lieutenant. Having taken some money from the bazar, they left Salmas and moved to Khui, where they were joined by the small local garrison numbering forty men. Here they arrested the commandant and all the other officials and confiscated all the cash in the government offices, dividing the money thus obtained among themselves. Meanwhile troops, who had been paid before their departure, were rushed out from Tabriz; on their approach about a hundred of the rebels promptly surrendered while the remainder fled into hiding. Of the hundred who surrendered, more than fifty were executed within a few days, the brutality of these executions causing revulsion throughout the province. 53 The mutiny had collapsed without a struggle, there being no real leaders, and there was no sign that it had any more complicated origins than an insupportable exasperation, despite the attempts of the military authorities to pin the blame on the Russians. A few days after the Salmas mutiny a more serious insurrection broke out, again led by a lieutenant, this time in the Eastern Division at the remote frontier

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post of Maravah Tappah. In addition to their grievances over non-receipt of pay and profiteering over rations, very few of the men in the more remote areas of Khurasan had been given home leave for several years. During early 1926, as conditions deteriorated still further, incidents of insubordination became more frequent. By early summer the Eastern Division was clearly approaching a crisis, and finally, at a remote frontier post in the north of Khurasan, one of the spontaneous protests by the troops developed into a full-scale rebellion, possibly because of the presence there of an officer ready to provide leadership. Lieutenant Salar-i Jang, also known as Lahak Khan Bavand, combined ideological disaffection, he was sympathetic to Bolshevism, with a personal grudge against Riza Shah, two of his relatives having been executed by the regime for inciting the Turkmans to revolt. 54 Towards the end of June the garrison of Maravah Tappah, consisting of about 300 men, mutinied under Lieutenant Salar-i Jang. 55 They imprisoned the senior officers and some NCOs of the garrison and marched towards Inchah, the main post on the frontier. The Inchah garrison melted away, some of the troops joining the insurgents who then marched on Bujnurd. Here they were joined by the equally disaffected local garrison. Salar-i Jang then announced his intention of marching on Mashhad and he and his men advanced as far as Quchan. 56 Mashhad was in a state of panic and it was deemed certain that the garrison would join the rebels on their arrival. Reinforcements were immediately sent from the Central Division and the atmosphere in Mashhad was calmed by the arrival of the first detachments of the Tehran troops who, being more regularly paid and better clothed and fed than the men of the provincial divisions, were undoubtedly more reliable. The Tehran troops advanced towards the insurgents’ positions whereupon Salar-i Jang and between 200 and 250 of his men escaped across the Soviet frontier, while the remainder of his force dispersed. Although, as far as the majority of its participants were concerned, the mutiny had been little more than a demonstration by the troops against non-receipt of pay and rations, Salar-i Jang himself had attempted to widen its scope and spark off a general rebellion against Riza Shah. He tried to mould his followers into an organized insurgency. He declared that he was a communist and his men put red bands around their arms and caps, addressed each other as ‘Comrade’ and called themselves a red army. 57 He also apparently promised the distribution of land to the peasants. 58 After his escape Salar-i Jang remained in the Soviet Union for many years, receiving a small pension from the Soviet government.

The younger generation of the officer corps: the Jahansuz group In the years between 1921 and 1926, before the effective consolidation of the Shah’s dictatorship, the spirit of political and intellectual independence instilled in sections of the officer corps by their experiences during the constitutional period and the Great War remained alive. By the late 1920s, however, the same pall of silence that was covering civilian politics had also settled over the army.

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The Shah had persistently tried to insulate the army from political activity and, by a combination of harsh repression, political co-option and the guarantee of material privilege and social prestige, had succeeded in acquiring the support, or at least acquiescence, of the majority of the upper echelons of the officer corps. Any political dissent took place in secrecy, fear and isolation. Indeed the entire army, from the most loyal commander downwards, functioned in an atmosphere of sporadic terror, an atmosphere cultivated deliberately by the Shah as a means of control. The 1930s was a decade of intense political repression in Iran. This repression, together with unpopular measures such as the new oil agreement and the regime’s blatant corruption, increasingly alienated nationalist opinion. As the 1930s wore on, Riza Shah lost the support of the older generation of the intelligentsia, who sank into passivity or disgrace during the early 1930s. The younger generation of intellectuals, however, felt no such ambivalence towards Riza Shah and, from the perspectives usually of the political left but also sometimes of the right, were more forthright in their condemnation of the regime. It is in this context that the Jahansuz group must be placed. In the autumn of 1939 a group of junior officers and cadets and a number of their civilian associates were arrested and accused of having links with foreign powers and with plotting an armed revolt against the Shah and his dynasty. After a brief and secret trial many received lengthy prison terms while their leader, Muhsin Jahansuz, was sentenced to death and shot. The actual activities in which the Jahansuz group engaged were trivial in terms of any threat to the regime’s security, and the episode was hidden from contemporary public knowledge by heavy press censorship and the circumstances of the group’s court martial. None the less the existence of organized disaffection within the army was a matter of profound political anxiety for the Shah. The Jahansuz group is far from the only example of radical anti-monarchism within the army of the late 1930s. Only two years previously, for example, in May 1937, four officers from a Tehran regiment had been implicated in a conspiracy against the Shah’s life and executed. 59 Yet it is the only case where any real information exists regarding the extent of the movement, its programme and the motives of its leaders. 60 The Jahansuz group has been described as a right-wing, pro-fascist or Nazi tendency. This characterization, however, derives largely from Jahansuz’s translation of extracts from Mein Kampf and has been greatly exaggerated, although the appeal of Italy and Germany for nationalist intellectuals, and especially army officers, in the inter-war Middle East was considerable. 61 In general terms Jahansuz and his associates were modernists, in many respects resembling those who were attracted to Marxism: socially conscious, advocating rapid industrialization and technological advance and an end to poverty and the subordination of Iran to the imperial powers. Furthermore in their strong secular nationalism these radicals of the right shared the official ideology of the regime. It was precisely what they saw as the regime’s departure from these values which inspired their opposition. It was Riza Shah’s failure to carry out

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effectively his own programme, of nationalist modernism, and his perversion of its key tenets, which impelled them into active hostility. As well as their general sense of betrayal, the Jahansuz group had its specific grievances, principally centred on the issues of the Trans-Iranian Railway and the Shah’s confiscation and forcible appropriation of immense tracts of landed property. 62 The presence of such a group within the army, the quintessential institution of Pahlavi Iran, showed that even this prized and pampered institution was neither immune nor invulnerable to dissent. Although far too junior to pose a threat as coup-makers, the discovery of the Jahansuz group came as a shock to the Shah, reviving his perennial fears of assassination and renewing his doubts regarding the ultimate reliability of the army as guarantor of his dynasty. By the 1930s the army was equipped with a dazzling array of weaponry, and the officer corps occupied a position of material privilege and social prestige. The British Military Attaché allowed himself the opinion that the army was ‘pampered to a degree which should make its loyalty a matter of no doubt’. 63 None the less there were ample reasons for discontent within the army. There was widespread resentment at the military clique which monopolized power within the army, at the prevailing uncertainty and insecurity caused by the erratic and arbitrary exercise of power and disgust at the spectacular corruption. Junior conscript officers did not share in the opportunities and benefits available to career officers, and both they and the rank and file appear to have been unfavourably impressed by the contrast between the lavish wealth of the senior commanders and the devastation and destitution which the regime’s economic policies had wrought on the rural areas from which most of them came. The acquisition of immense landed wealth both by the Shah and his military favourites was a keenly felt grievance among these rural and provincial recruits. Furthermore, conscripts, although they received their meagre pay and rations regularly, were generally treated extremely harshly. Despite the vast sums spent on buying the most up-to-date weaponry from abroad, the army as a whole remained inefficient and poorly organized, unable even to use and maintain its equipment properly. Little or nothing was done, for example, to improve supply or medical services, a neglect symptomatic of the hierarchy’s lack of concern for the welfare of the ranks. It was this army which Muhsin Jahansuz entered in 1939. The years of Riza Shah’s rule had been littered with the revelation of conspiracies, particularly assassination plots. These were often largely imaginary, greatly exaggerated or even concocted by the police. None the less the Shah’s fear was real enough and was often to be observed in his everyday behaviour. 64 Accusations of plotting the Shah’s death were often levelled by the police at political opponents of the regime or those who had fallen into disfavour and were readily believed by the Shah. It was almost inevitable that any sign of discontent among junior officers would become, in the hands of the police, a plot against the Shah’s life. After learning of the arrest of the junior officers, the Shah expressed openly his shock and fear to the Chief of General Staff, General Azizallah Zarghami,

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and the commandant of the officers’ college, General Yazdanpanah. Any sign of disaffection within the army was uniquely disturbing to him. He tolerated, indeed encouraged, corruption among his senior commanders and expected armed tribal rebellion, but the existence of political opposition among cadets and young officers he construed as representing not just a threat to himself but also to the existence of his dynasty. 65 Since his accession to the throne, political control of his senior generals had been essential to Riza Shah, not only in order to safeguard his own position but also to guarantee the smooth and unchallenged succession of the Crown Prince. In fact the Shah had little fear of any rival to his position, but was extremely conscious of the vulnerability of the succession. The precedent which he himself had set by rising to power and to the monarchy itself through his control of the army haunted him. He encouraged the Crown Prince to take a great interest in military matters and the young Muhammad Riza had already become well known in the Tehran garrison, but the Shah knew that it would be some years before the young man would, in the event of his own death, be able to establish himself on the throne without both a struggle and the support of a senior general. He openly spoke of the importance of his living long enough to ensure the succession. 66 The Shah had always particularly feared assassination 67 and his concern for his dynasty now added new urgency to that fear. Although he knew that none of his senior officers possessed either the courage or the wider political support necessary to offer a challenge to his own power, he was aware that the sudden propulsion of the young and inexperienced Crown Prince onto the throne would present an ambitious general with an almost irresistible opportunity. He feared that such a general might aspire to the throne himself, launch a military dictatorship or become regent on behalf of the Crown Prince. Accordingly the presence of radical opposition within the army appeared to the Shah to represent a real threat to his dynasty. The Jahansuz group also seemed to threaten the realization of another major danger, that of a military coup, while the Shah seemed to fear especially, with the example of Dr Taqi Arani and the ‘Fifty-Three’ fresh in his mind, that communism might be spreading from the universities into the army. 68 He had even begun to suspect that Germany, which he had cultivated throughout the decade, might now be tempted to dispense with him altogether and install an overtly and unambiguously pro-German regime in Iran based on Nazi sympathizers within the army. The investigation into the alleged conspiracy was handed over to the Chief of Police, General Rukn al-Din Mukhtar, a key figure in the Shah’s apparatus of political repression. Jahansuz and his fellow officer cadets had done nothing more than criticize the regime in discussions among themselves, but, in strong echoes of the Puladin case, the Shah was determined that Jahansuz should be executed. The court martial which tried the accused duly complied with the Shah’s orders, sentencing Jahansuz to death and many of the other accused to long terms of imprisonment. However, Riza Shah himself had only a year and a half of power remaining to him. The harsh treatment meted out to his critics within the army made his own

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position no stronger, nor did it enable him effectively to control the pro-German inclinations of the officer corps or to channel these tendencies into support for his regime. When, after the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Allies invaded Iran, they did so not only in order to open a new corridor to Russia and to secure the expulsion of German agents, not only to oust the procrastinating Shah, but also to forestall a coup by pro-Axis officers of the kind that had occurred earlier in the year in Iraq and which had dealt such a serious blow to Allied morale and prestige. 69

Conclusion The Iranian army under Riza Shah was oriented exclusively towards domestic security. Its overwhelmingly important military task in these two decades was the extension and maintenance of the authority of the central government throughout the country and the destruction of every type of autonomous local power, including the tribes and traditional semi-feudal rulers such as the Shaykh of Muhammarah, capable, actually or potentially, of challenging that authority. In this it met with a large degree of success although pockets of resistance remained, the tribes were not fully disarmed, and the end of the decade was still to see tribal upheavals of considerable magnitude, particularly in the south of the country. Throughout this period the army, although of doubtful conventional military capability, was extremely successful in advancing, not merely the power of an impersonal state, but the political ambitions of its own chief. Yet clearly the internal organization of the army and its relationship with the rest of society was characterized by many negative and counter-productive features. In fact the new army continued to exhibit many of the defects from which the Qajar armies had suffered, and corruption, embezzlement and financial malpractice of every kind abounded. The failure to address these weaknesses, and even, in some respects, their encouragement, was in large measure responsible for the crisis of 1926. The consequences of internal maladministration and of the unchecked ambitions of senior officers were now clear. Although some attempt was made in the months immediately following to rectify these abuses, they continued to characterize, to a greater or lesser degree, the army of the Riza Shah era. What the crisis of 1926 also revealed, however, was the extent to which the new army depended for its survival on effective central control. In becoming Shah, Riza Pahlavi distanced himself from his senior commanders and made a challenge from any one of them more difficult. However, any residual hesitancy felt by Riza Shah’s erstwhile equals from the Cossack Division regarding his pre-eminence was more than neutralized by their awareness of the extent to which their individual position relied upon the maintenance of a nationally organized, centrally controlled and politically coherent military structure. Although the threatened disintegration of 1926 was overcome, it indicated structural strains and weaknesses which were to manifest themselves again in times of crisis, most dramatically in 1941, when the

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abdication of the Shah resulted in the practical collapse of the army. The problems which had manifested themselves so clearly in the early 1920s persisted throughout the new Shah’s reign. The fighting capacity of the army remained problematic. This was dramatically confirmed by the inadequacy of the military response to the tribal uprisings in Fars in 1929. Riza Shah, like previous Iranian rulers, had always exploited the internal divisions and fractiousness of the tribes, exercising control by pitting tribe against tribe, lineage against lineage and khan against khan, employing bribery, threats and outright deception and trickery. The army’s record when these methods were exhausted and it was obliged to undertake real campaigning against the tribes in the years between 1921 and 1926 was dismal, usually characterized by reluctance and retreat and often by actual surrender or defeat. This continued to be the case in the latter part of the 1920s and early 1930s. In 1929 the simultaneous uprisings by the tribal confederations of Fars, which spread to some sections of the Bakhtiyari, presented a grave challenge to the maintenance of the regime’s authority. It was eventually successfully overcome, not by military might, but by the usual lack of unity among the tribes and the political manipulation of the Tehran authorities. The outbreak in southern Iran in 1929 proved to be the last serious tribal challenge to Riza Shah. Although during the 1920s the army had been constantly engaged in small-scale tribal campaigning, as the 1930s advanced and the objectives of tribal pacification and settlement were achieved, active operations became fewer and ever more minor in scope. Since much of the training of the rank and file had always consisted mainly of actual participation in campaigning, and no adequate substitute was devised, the deleterious effect of this decline in active service on the already problematic military capacity of the army was plain. The absence of any military challenge also fostered complacency and encouraged the high command to develop unrealistic assessments of the army’s strength and to devise fantastic strategies for national defence. The consequences of this approach became all too obvious in 1941. The manner in which Riza Khan utilized the military legacy bequeathed to him by the constitutional period and the Great War had given rise to dangerous tensions within the new army. Although hoping to secure his own position by cultivating a particular section of the new army, his old Cossack comrades, by failing to integrate satisfactorily the ex-gendarmes, he created a more or less permanent focus of discontent and a pole of opposition to which other alienated elements gravitated. However, by the time of his accession to the throne Riza Shah had largely neutralized or suppressed any serious challenge from this source. The mutinies of 1926 were rather a result of an exasperation with deteriorating material conditions, occasionally exploited by a radicalism which was essentially marginal to the political system of the time. During the 1930s the army continued to be preoccupied with ensuring the survival of the regime. The upper echelons of the officer corps, following the Shah’s example, acquired great landed wealth and transformed themselves from despised arrivistes into an essential component of the ruling oligarchy,

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occupying the commanding heights of state and economic institutions. The Shah’s ruthless control of the army continued, insecurity and fear were pervasive, senior officers being purged at will. Although the status and privileges enjoyed by Iranian officers in the 1930s grew to unparalleled dimensions and extended into the most junior reaches of the officer corps, none the less political dissent reappeared. With the transformation of political and military circumstances, and the emergence of a new type of officer, the product of the cadet college in Tehran and foreign military institutions, the old divisions within the army became irrelevant. The 1930s saw the appearance of new kinds of discontent. Increasing restiveness and frustration developed among army officers at Riza Shah’s domination and the stranglehold over the army exercised by his favourites. The growth of sympathy for fascism and general pro-Axis sentiment within the army, although it remained diffuse, began to augur instability and helped bring about the Allied invasion. Indeed, the Allied invasion of 1941 was to demonstrate clearly the political and military fragility of the huge and complex edifice which was then the Iranian army.

Notes 1 Said Amir Arjomand, The Turban For The Crown: the Islamic Revolution in Iran (Oxford, 1988), p. 35. 2 In 1923 the Northern Independent Brigade, responsible for the Caspian provinces, was added to the five divisions. 3 Stephanie Cronin, The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran, 1921– 1926 (London and New York), 1997, p. 110. 4 Annual Report, 1924, Loraine to Chamberlain, 22 May 1925, FO 371/10848/E3401/ 3401/34. 5 Tarikh-i Nirui-yi Havai-yi Shahanshahi (Tehran, 2535). 6 Cronin, The Army, pp. 122–124. 7 A.C.Millspaugh, The American Task in Persia (New York, 1925), p. 196. 8 Intelligence Summary no. 8, 25 February 1922, FO 371/7827/E10107/285/34. 9 Annual Report, 1926. Clive to Chamberlain, 26 January 1927, FO 371/12296/E870/ 870/34. 10 For brief biographies of senior officers see Cronin, The Army, pp. 235–252. Relations between Riza Shah and some of his senior officers are discussed in Baqir Aqalli, Riza Shah va Qushun-i Muttahid al-Shakl, 1300–1320 (Tehran, 1377), pp. 379–431. 11 IS no. 2, 23 January 1926, FO 371/11484/E1087/95/34. 12 IS no. 15, 24 July 1926, FO 371/11484/E4824/95/34. 13 IS no. 21, 16 October 1926, FO 371/11484/E6217/95/34. 14 Loraine to FO, 4 September 1922, FO 371/9024/E10179/457/34; Ahmad Amirahmadi, Khatirat-i Nakhustin Sipahbud-i Iran, 2 vols (Tehran, 1373), vol. 1, p. 231. 15 A translation of the Bill as originally presented to the Majlis in April 1923 may be found in Loraine to Curzon, 28 April 1923, FO 371/9021/E5823/71/34. 16 Stephanie Cronin, ‘Conscription and Popular Resistance in Iran, 1925–1941’,

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18 19 20 21

22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33 34 35 36

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International Review of Social History, vol. 43, 1998, pp. 451–471; Aqalli, Riza Shah va Qushun-i Muttahid al-Shakl, pp. 248–256; Husayn Makki, Tarikh-i Bist Salah-i Iran, 8 vols (Tehran, 1323), vol. 4, pp. 415–439. The rising of the Kurdish tribes in the Sardasht area in the spring of 1939, for example, was a result partly of the call for conscripts. IS no. 7, 8 April 1939, FO 371/23261/ E3024/216/34. John Foran, Fragile Resistance: Social Transformation in Iran from 1500 to the Revolution (Boulder, Col., 1993), p. 221. Annual Report, 1931, Hoare to Simon, 12 June 1932, FO 371/16077/E3354/3354/ 34. See e.g. Annual Report, 1936, Seymour to Eden, 30 January 1937, FO 371/20836/ E1435/1435/34. For a discussion of the complications of the War Office budget in the 1930s see Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran: Despotism and PseudoModernism, 1926–1979 (London, 1981), p. 131. Breakdowns of military expenditure may be found in the Annual Reports prepared by the British minister in Tehran: see n. 22. See e.g. Annual Report, 1933, Hoare to Simon, 24 February 1934, FO 371/17909/ El620/1620/34; Annual Report, 1934, Knatchbull-Hugessen to Simon, 5 February 1935, FO 371/18995/E1606/1606/34; Annual Report, 1935, Knatchbull-Hugessen to Eden, 28 January 1936, FO 371/20052/E1147/1147/34; Annual Report, 1936, Seymour to Eden, 30 January 1937, FO 371/20836/E1435/1435/34; Annual Report, 1938, Seymour to Halifax, 3 March 1939, FO 371/23264/E2586/2586/34; IS no. 5, 11 March 1939, FO 371/23261/E2589/216/34. Annual Report, 1928, Clive to Henderson, 14 July 1929, FO 371/13799/E3676/34. Annual Report, 1930, Clive to Henderson, 22 May 1931, FO 371/15356/E3067/ 3067/34. Annual Report, 1931, Hoare to Simon, 12 June 1921, FO 371/16077/E3354/3354/ 34. See below, p. 52. Homa Katouzian, State and Society in Iran: the Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis (London and New York, 2000), p. 272. Annual Report, 1935, Knatchbull-Hugessen to Eden, 28 January 1936, FO 371/ 20052/E1147/1147/34. Bullard to Halifax, 6 February 1940, FO 371/24582/E829/621/34. Some attempts at resistance did take place, notably in Khuzistan. See also Kavih Bayat, Farman-i Muqavamat, Khatirat-i Ibrahim Shushtari az Shurish-i Padigan-i Havai-yi Qal’ah-i Murghi, 8 Shahrivar 1320 (Tehran, 1376). IS nos 18, 19, 20, 24 August to 24 September 1941, FO 371/27188/E6869/268/34. Consul, Kermanshah, to Tehran, 1 September 1941, FO 371/27153/E6300/42/34. IS no. 22, 8 October 1941, FO 371/27188/E7213/268/34. Parviz Afsar, Tarikh-i Zhandarmiri-yi Iran (Qum, 1332), p. 272. For a detailed account of this process see Cronin, The Army, pp. 89–107. 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, no. 4, October 1997, pp. 693–750; Kavih Bayat, Inqilab-i Khurasan, Majmu’ah-i Asnad va Madarik 1300 shamsi (Tehran, 1370).

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37 For the Lahuti episode, see Cronin, The Army, pp. 146–150; Kavih Bayat, Kudita-yi Lahuti, Tabriz, Bahman 1300 (Tehran, 1376). 38 Intelligence Summay no. 5, 4 February 1922, FO 371/7826/E3815/285/34. 39 Cronin, The Army, pp. 153–154. 40 IS no. 20, 2 October 1926, FO 371/11484/E5998/95/34. 41 Nicolson to FO, 2 October 1926, FO 371/11490/E5612/284/34. 42 Biographies of leading personalities in Persia, Clive to FO, 18 December 1928, FO 371/13783/E98/98/34. 43 Fraser to Clive, 23 November 1926, FO 371/11490/E6934/284/34. 44 Annual Report on the Persian army, Fraser to Loraine, 16 December 1924, FO 371/ 10842/E89/89/34. 45 Cronin, The Army, p. 158; Consul-General, Meshed, to Loraine, 10 April 1924, FO 371/10124/E4218/26/34. 46 For a description of this position among civilian liberals, see Muhammad Taqi Bahar, Malik al-Shu’ara, Tarikh-i Mukhtasar-i Ahzab-i Siyasi-yi Iran, 2 vols (Tehran, 1323), vol. 2, p. 41. 47 IS no. 12, 22 March 1924, FO 371/10132/E4131/255/34. 48 See Cronin, The Army, pp. 166–164; Aqalli, Riza Shah va Qushun-i Muttahid alShakl, pp. 272–284. 49 Meshed IS no. 26, 1 July 1924, FO 371/10130/E7166/117/34. 50 There was evidence from many quarters of Riza Khan’s decline in prestige within the army. See Fraser, MA, to Colonel Muspratt, 1 June 1924, FO 371/10145/E5427/455/ 34. 51 Cronin, The Army, pp. 174–175; Aqalli, Riza Shah va Qushun-i Muttahid al-Shakl, pp. 230–234. References to this episode may be found in the memoirs of Amirahmadi, Khatirat, vol. 1, pp. 263, 267, and Sartip-i Haydar Quli Bayglari, Khatirat-i Yak Sarbaz (Tehran, 1350), pp. 40–47. See also Manshur Garakani, Siyasat-i Dawlat-i Shuravi dar Iran (Tehran, 1326), pp. 250–253. 52 Colonel Yusuf Khan was a cousin of Hasan Arfa. 53 Annual Report, 1926; see also Amirahmadi, Khatirat, vol. 1, p. 267, for an account of the field court martial set up to deal with the mutineers. 54 Cronin, The Army, pp. 176–179; Kavih Bayat, Qiyam-i Nafir-i Jam: Shurish-i Lahak Khan Salar-i Jang (Tehran, 1375); Aqalli, Riza Shah va Qushun-i Muttahid al-Shakl, pp. 234–248. 55 The British Military Attaché provided a full contemporary analysis of the military aspects of this rising and the mutiny at Salmas; see Fraser to Nicolson, 15 July 1926. There are also long reports concerning both mutinies in IS no. 14, 10 July 1926, FO 371/ 11484/E4550/95/34. The British Consul-General in Mashhad provided his account in Meshed Diary no. 7, July 1926, FO 371/11499/E6631/2142/34. See also Garakani, Siyasat-i Dawlat, pp. 250–253. 56 For an account of Salar-i Jang’s attack on Quchan, see Ramzan ‘Ali Shakari, Atraknamah: Tarikh-i Jam‘-i Quchan (Tehran, 1345), pp. 126–131. 57 Meshed Diary no. 7, July 1926. 58 Husayn Makki, Tarikh-i Bist Salah-i Iran, vol. 4, p. 121. 59 Seymour, Tehran to Eden, 18 June 1937, FO 371/20835/E3685/904/34. 60 See Stephanie Cronin, ‘The Politics of Radicalism within the Iranian Army: The Jahansuz Group of 1939’, Iranian Studies, vol. 32, no. 1, winter 1999, pp. 5–25; Najafquli Pasyan, Vaqi‘ah-i I‘dam-iJahansuz (Tehran, 1370); Jalal Abduh, Chihil

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Sal dar Sahnah-i Qaza’i, Siyasi, Diplumasi-yi Iran va Jahan, 2 vols (Tehran, 1368). 61 See Cronin, ‘The Politics of Radicalism’, pp. 8–10. 62 Ibid., pp. 15–17. 63 Report on the Present Relations between the Shah and his Army and their bearing on the Stability of the Pahlavi Regime, Percy C.R.Dodd, MA, 3 December 1930, Parr to Henderson, 3 December 1930, FO 371/14542/E6707/469/34. 64 Descriptions of the Shah’s apparent paranoia may easily be found in the British sources. See for example Nicolson to FO, 2 October 1926, FO 371/11490/E5612/284/34; Report on Personalities in Persia, Clive to FO, 18 December 1928, FO 371/13783/ E98/98/34. 65 Pasyan, Vaqi‘ah-i I‘dam-i Jahansuz, pp. 111–112. 66 Report on the Present Relations between the Shah and his Army and their bearing on the Stability of the Pahlavi Regime, Percy C.R.Dodd. 67 Cronin, The Army, p. 155. 68 Pasyan, Vaqi‘ah-i I‘dam-i Jahansuz, p. 113. 69 Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions (Princeton, NJ, 1982), p. 164.

4 MUDARRIS, REPUBLICANISM AND THE RISE TO POWER OF RIZA KHAN, SARDAR-I SIPAH Vanessa Martin

Three years after the coup which brought him to office in 1921, Riza Khan, Sardar-i Sipah, instigated a campaign to oust the Qajar dynasty and transform Iran into a republic. In the English accounts of the event, the prevailing view has been that he was thwarted in his aim by the objection of the ‘ulama’, who, having witnessed Ataturk’s abolition of the Caliphate in March 1924, identified republicanism with assertive secularism. 1 It has, however, long been clear in the Persian accounts, particularly the memoirs of Iranian contemporaries, that Riza Khan’s republicanism was quashed, not by the ‘ulama’ in Qum, who played little part in the affair, but by his political enemies in Tehran. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the political configurations at the time of the republican movement, and most particularly to study the part played by Mudarris, Riza Khan’s principal opponent, and his followers, in bringing about his defeat on this point. An attempt will also be made to define the precise role of the ‘ulama’ and its implications. In January 1921 the political situation in Iran was profoundly uncertain with the British having announced the withdrawal of their troops in the spring, because of financial indigence, and fear of a Bolshevik army moving south. Ahmad Shah Qajar, apprehensive that he was too much identified with British policy, was contemplating either abdication or departure for Europe. At that time (i.e. before the coup), the issue of a republic was already being discussed, but there was a fear that it would bring a greater risk of disorder and disintegration through the tribes, who accorded the monarchy some prestige, refusing to acknowledge the sovereignty of a president, and taking advantage of the situation to loot and pillage town and countryside. 2 This was also seen as a possible opportunity for further penetration by the Bolshevik army. On 21 February 1921, Colonel Riza Khan, at the head of the Qazvin and Hamadan detachment of the Cossack brigade numbering 2500 to 3000 men, marched on Tehran and, in collusion with a journalist named Sayyid Ziya Tabataba‘i, while professing loyalty to the Shah, took charge of all government establishments. In a manifesto the new government referred to the army as the supreme means of the prosperity of the country, and vowed there would be no acquiesence in the misery of the many for the sake of the luxury of the few. 3 The new government’s most urgent need was for money, in pursuance of which, in a

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manoeuvre reminiscent of more traditional Iranian rulers, a number of wealthy notables, such as Farman Farma, were arrested and required to disgorge alleged arrears of taxes. 4 A modernizing programme drawn up by Sayyid Ziya proclaimed goals of financial solvency, administrative reorganization, land reform, development of trade, industry and transport, and formation of an army. The position of the new regime was to some extent strengthened by Iran’s still small but promising oil revenues. They obtained £1 million in arrears from the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which enabled them to make up part of the arrears of pay due to the military, that is, the Cossacks and the Gendarmerie, and some civil departments, and the Imperial Bank of Persia provided a loan of 200,000 tomans a month for five months on the security of the year’s oil revenues. 5 On 25 May 1921, Sayyid Ziya was removed from power by an alliance between Riza Khan and Ahmad Shah. The Sayyid had the support of a few reformist notables, but otherwise his zeal had won the enmity of several sections of the elite, including the Shah, angry at economies in his civil list; notables imprisoned and milched on charges of corruption; officials either dismissed or allotted reduced salaries; ‘ulama’ disgruntled at discontinuation of various payments; and the people of Tehran, discontented at a rise in their municipal taxation. 6 Riza Khan, who had assumed the title of Sardar-i Sipah (Commander of the Army), secure in his military support, remained, but the fate of Sayyid Ziya had tempered his reformist zeal. Money was still short, the army was still small, the provinces were unsettled, so for the time being he would have to find accommodation with the Qajar elite and its various political groupings. The Fourth Majlis, elected in May 1921, was divided into numerous factions with some constant adherents, but many with fluctuating loyalties. One recognizable group was composed of liberal notables and intellectuals who had done much to shape the ideological course of the Constitutional Revolution of 1905 to 1909. They included the brothers Mushir al-Dawla and Mu‘tamin alMulk, the educational reformer and political activist Yahya Dawlatabadi, and the young liberal lawyer Dr Muhammad Musaddiq. Variously styled the liberals, independents or reformers, their goals were modernization and strengthening of the state to ensure tranquillity and freedom from foreign interference, but if possible within a liberal constitutional framework, that is to say without a Shah with arbitrary powers, and without what was now possibly impending, a military dictatorship. They were also secularist and adamantly opposed to the interference of the ‘ulama’ in politics. In addition to these individuals with ideological conviction, there were numerous members of the Iranian political elite, such as Qavam al-Saltana, who had already held high office, or who, having received some education, had aspirations to secure an official position. For every person in office, there were several others living in straitened circumstances, endeavouring by intrigue to secure a post and thus swelling the ranks of government opponents. A further group was the small Socialist Party led by Sulayman Mirza and Sayyid Muhammad Sadiq Tabataba‘i. They had a programme of thorough reform with emphasis on egalitarianism, nationalization of the means of production, centralization of the state, freedom and equality for

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all, workers’ and welfare rights. 7 Riza Khan soon organized his own following in the Majlis. Composed mainly of young educated reformers and led by Sayyid Tadayyun and ‘Ali Akbar Davar, they formed the Tajdid or Revival Party. It had strong affinities with etatism, as its programme emphasized the creation of a modern army and bureaucracy. It also stressed industrialization, expansion of education, replacement of foreign capital by native capital, and clear separation of religion and state. For this reason the party had the support of the really big merchants, as opposed to the bazaar merchants and artisans. 8 The final major distinct group, and the one with which this chapter is principally concerned, was styled the Reformist Party (Hizb-i Islah Taliban). Led by Sayyid Hasan Mudarris, and not formally organized as a party, the group appears to have had its base in the bazaar networks of merchants, guilds and lesser ‘ulama’. While not averse to reform, members of the group were traditionally resistant to the encroachments of arbitrary power, particularly in the form of financial exactions. They tended strongly towards political decentralization, and gave early indication of their understanding of the implications of Riza Khan’s intentions. On 25 October 1921 and again on 16 January 1922, merchants and members of the ‘ulama’ expressed dismay at the possible departure of Ahmad Shah to Europe and urged him not to go, as the country might be turned into a republic, 9 thus indicating a perceived connection between a republic and the centralization of power. Riza Khan and his supporters were, however, not the only opponents of the Reformist Party, and especially their followers in the bazaar. The latter were equally suspicious of the Socialist Party, whom they identified with the anti-religious and anti-capitalist policies of the Bolsheviks. 10 The leader of the Reformists, Mudarris, was born in 1287 (1869 to 1870) in a village near Ardistan, into a family of ‘ulama’. Mudarris had a traditional religious upbringing. He studied to be an alim, first in Isfahan, and then in the ‘Atabat under the leading mujtahids, including Mirza Hasan Shirazi. 11 On his return to Isfahan, he taught fiqh and usul. He began to take a prominent role in politics at the time of the Constitutional Revolution, when he was elected to the Majlis as a representative from Isfahan, with the assistance of the wealthy, powerful and conservative mujtahid Aqa Najafi, and his brother Hajj Aqa Nurullah. 12 In the period of the Second Majlis he was one of the five members of the Council of Guardians. In a dispute over judicial reform, Mudarris tried to effect a compromise between the reformist bureaucrats, led by Mushir al-Dawla, and the leading ‘ulama’ over changes in trial regulations, but all the while endeavouring to ensure that nothing was passed contrary to Islam. 13 He belonged at this time to a party called the Hay’at-i ‘Ilmiyya or Learned Council, which strongly opposed the secularizing inclinations of the radical Democrats and demonstrated antipathy to the centralization of the state. 14 During the First World War, Mudarris formed part of the government in exile in Kermanshah, where he was Minister of Education and Endowments. 15 It was probably in the years before the war that he built up a series of connections in the bazaar of Tehran. Certainly by 1921, his position as their spokesman appears to have been well established. According to Dawlatabadi, he had considerable influence in the

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Tehran elections to the Majlis. He raised money, principally from the wealthy merchants, to finance his own campaign and those of other deputies. An additional source of financial support came from the Shah and the Vali‘ahd, whose rights he promised to uphold under the Fundamental Law, which secured the succession in the Qajar dynasty. Further financial aid came from notables out of office, whose reinstatement he promised to advocate. 16 Although he had no substantial standing among the ‘ulama’, he used his clerical garb to maximum advantage to secure influence over the poorer classes. The names of his supporters reveal his connections with the established ‘ulama’ families of Tehran, such as Bihbihani and Ashtiyani, themselves long entrenched in the politics of the bazaar, other lesser ‘ulama’, and officials out of office such as Qavam al-Saltana, Ziya al-Mulk and Shahzada Fathullah Mirza. 17 His following thus amounted to a coalition of interests in many ways similar to the one that had supported Bihbihani and Tabataba‘i in the Constitutional Revolution. On the other hand the liberal independent politicians regarded him with suspicion, as evinced in Dawlatabadi’s scathing description of his political dealings: He sat upon a gelim with a burner and the paraphernalia of tea and qalian on one side and two or three religious books on the other. His visitors, of no matter what rank, were also obliged to sit down on the gelim. Thus Mudarris led people to understand that he was heedless of this world. 18 The liberal independents, true to the tradition of the modernizing bureaucracy, sought to keep such ambitious clerics out of politics. On Riza Khan’s becoming Minister of War in May 1921, Mudarris viewed him with ambivalence, saying that he might bring basic benefits but superficial damage, which must be contained so that he could bring good to the country, 19 a probable reference to his potential both to unite the country and to assume absolute power. Riza Khan had initially come to a compromise with Qavam alSaltana, who was prime minister from May 1921 to January 1923. A power struggle began over the proceeds of taxation being paid not to the Treasury but to the Ministry of War, and Mudarris endeavoured to call Riza Khan to account through the Majlis. His influence there was already difficult to overcome but Mudarris and his allies were able to bring pressure from Tehran outside the Majlis to force Riza Khan to come there and promise that all taxes go to the Treasury. At this time there began to emerge a difference between the political situation in the capital and that in the provinces. While Tehran resisted Riza Khan, telegrams, almost certainly instigated by his military commanders, came in from the provinces in support of his position. 20 In January 1923 Qavam was replaced by Mustawfi al-Mamalik, who, through factional in-fighting and some support from Riza Khan, had won a majority in the Majlis. He was opposed by Mudarris, who considered him too weak to stand up to Riza Khan and was eventually able to organize a political configuration to bring about his fall in

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June 1923. Mudarris endeavoured, though without success, to have Qavam restored as ‘a sabre needed in the time of war’ and, in his view, the only politician capable of standing up to Riza Khan. 21 His motive, however, was reputedly not unalloyed, as his faction, being associated with Qavam, had not been consulted in the formation of the cabinet. Makki considers that Mudarris, while on the whole not aspiring to power himself, desired to be a ‘kingmaker’ who brought governments into existence, required them to be answerable to his views and instigated their fall if they ignored him. 22 Serious differences between Riza Khan and the Reformist Party emerged towards the end of the Fourth Majlis, when Riza Khan introduced a Bill for compulsory military service. It was opposed by Mudarris on the grounds that two years in the service of a secular institution might weaken the believer’s allegiance to Islam. A number of mujtahids issued fatvas designating military service as a danger to the precepts of Islam. 23 Behind this probably lay popular aversion to the constraints of military service and to the loss of income in two years spent away from family and personal concerns. The Bill also met with opposition from magnates who feared erosion of their authority and the withdrawal of labour from their villages. At the next elections, Riza Khan, determined to have a Majlis more pliant to his views, used the army and the police to gain votes in many constituencies, especially in the rural and tribal areas. The Fifth Majlis was convened on 11 February 1924. Riza Khan’s electoral manoeuvres secured increased representation for the Revival and Socialist Parties. 24 He was able to bring about an alliance between the forty or fifty Revivalists and about fourteen Socialists, which enabled him to authorize such radical reforms as the introduction of conscription, the levying of taxes on sugar and tea to raise revenues for a proposed trans-Iranian railway, the abolition of titles and the adoption of family names. The Majlis’ most radical move was to draft a bill to abolish the monarchy and bring in a republic. Talk of a republic became serious in October 1923 when Riza Khan became Prime Minister and Ahmad Shah left for Europe. Early in 1924 a vigorous campaign began in the press in support of republicanism, as a means among others of ‘destroying royal and clerical despotism in order to lead the masses towards a social revolution’. 25 Articles in favour of a republic and in abuse of the Shah occurred daily with no evident steps to prevent them. 26 The ‘ulama’ as always in times of crisis, began to manifest the considerable differences among them, which depended much upon their source of income and individual relations with the laity. Haji Shaykh Javad mujtahid made a speech in Shah ‘Abd al-‘Azim on 15 February protesting at the Shah’s behaviour in Europe and exhibiting a photograph of him in European costume, which was also printed in several newspapers. 27 Other ‘ulama’ were undecided, so Haj Aqa Jamal held a conference on 18 February to ascertain the general feeling on the issue. 28 It was attended by ten leading members of the ‘ulama’ who decided to seek guidance from Ayatullah Khalisi in Mashhad on the Shah’s conduct and also on whether the Majlis was legal or illegal in view of the fact that the

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Council of Guardians was not in session. In the meantime telegrams organized by the military commanders and demanding a republic poured in from the provinces. 29 The question of a republic caused the liberal independents to take stock of the problems presented by Riza Khan. Although they considered a republic a beneficial end in itself, they feared he might use it to reach the throne. 30 Some were also troubled by a lack of stability in republics (for example, France) up to that time. They believed the notion could undermine the authority of the centre in the provinces and lead to debilitating tribal rebellions. Dawlatabadi, contemplating the battle between Mudarris and Riza Khan, presents the dilemma of the liberal intelligentsia, caught on the one hand between radical conservatism and, on the other, the ominous power of a modern army. He designated the ‘ulama’ and the Qajars as barriers to the essential reform of the whole system, and the regeneration of the country, which could be brought about only through the forceful authority of Riza Khan. On the other hand, the liberals feared Riza Khan had not the knowledge of foreign affairs and political acumen to keep the balance between Britain and Russia in such a way that neither would be provoked into interference. With the exaggerated view of British power common to some Iranian politicians of the time, Dawlatabadi was also troubled that the removal of the Qajar dynasty, whose rights were secured by the Fundamental Law, might be perceived as weakening the constitution in which Britain was believed to have a vested interest. Praising Riza Khan’s essential patriotism, and his imperviousness to the intrigues of foreigners, the liberals secretly hoped he might be persuaded to cooperate with them in government, and had discreet discussions with him on this subject. They attempted to advise him on constitutionalism and hoped that his growing power might be contained within the Fundamental Law. Riza Khan was anxious to have Iran declared a republic before Nawruz on 21 March 1924, as at the Iranian New Year it was customary for the Shah to appear before his people in a Salaam. Although the Shah was absent in Europe, the Vali‘ahd, who had aspirations of his own, would hold the Salaam, and Riza Khan wished to prevent any demonstrations of homage to a Qajar prince. As he attempted to hasten the declaration of a republic by demanding a referendum, the provinces remained quiet under military control, which had strengthened greatly after Riza Khan’s recent campaigns. Insurmountable opposition built up in Tehran, where the leaders of the city believed that a republic was but a prelude to a new dynasty. In the Majlis, both in an attempt to reduce the numbers of Riza Khan’s supporters, and, more immediately, to postpone discussion of the republican issue until after Nawruz, Mudarris fought a prolonged campaign to discredit mandate after mandate, especially those of the provincial deputies. 31 He also encouraged a group of deputies to make a pilgrimage to Qum to prevent the number in the assembly from reaching a quorum. 32 By these efforts he was able to have discussion of the motion on republicanism deferred until 22 March. Efforts by Riza Khan and his supporters to bring pressure on the opposition had negative repercussions. Representations to Mudarris to co-operate with Riza Khan led

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some neutral deputies to join his side, and ordinary people outside the Majlis, resenting the implied intimidation, turned against republicanism. 33 On 19 March an attempt was made by pro-republicans, including members of the army, to force the bazaar to close as a demonstration in favour of republicanism. Public officials and schoolchildren were given the day off so that they could participate. Troops stationed near the Majlis were not from the Tehran garrison, but were recruited from the provinces. 34 The demonstration produced a revolt in the bazaar, where large crowds gathered and speeches against republicanism were made. 35 The guilds’ representatives in the Majlis were also present, and Khalisizada, the prayer leader of the bazaar, was sent to protest to the president of the Majlis. A variety of different factions were now assembled on either side. Although the army largely supported the Sardar-i Sipah, some officers, either out of antipathy to him or of loyalty to the Shah, opposed the idea. 36 The socialists, who looked on the Qajar dynasty as an obstacle to reform, believed that Riza Khan would modernize the country, though they were distrustful of his power. 37 Some of the liberal intelligentsia distrusted Mudarris, but saw republicanism as a means to undermine the constitution and establish a dictatorship, and therefore sided with the opposition. The waters were stirred by Ahmad Shah, who maintained contact with Khalisizada. 38 With regard to the ordinary people, the German representative, Schulenberg, held the pessimistic view that few really understood the issue. As he pointed out, neither supporters nor opponents of republicanism were concerned with this form of government per se. One group wished for ostensibly nationalistic reasons to replace the weak Ahmad Shah with the strong Riza Khan; the other distrusted Riza Khan’s ambitions and his lack of accountability. 39 On 22 March 1924 the Majlis met to discuss the proposal to change the constitution and establish a republic. Even with the military force at his disposal and reasonable support in the Majlis, Riza Khan was outmatched by his opponents—Qajar courtiers, notables out of office, some of the liberals, but above all Mudarris and his following of ‘ulama’, merchants, guildsmen and ordinary people, backed by the considerable organizational powers of the Tehran bazaar. As many people as possible were encouraged to come and support the anti-republican deputies in their efforts to prevent the matter from going to the provinces by referendum. 40 A crowd of around 5000 ‘ulama’, merchants, guildsmen and other ordinary people gathered around the Majlis building shouting pro-Shah and anti-republican slogans. Mudarris was reported as having the solid backing of the Tehran merchants. 41 A merchant named Mirza Abu Talib Isfahani set up a tent to organize an individual protest by merchants in the Bagh-i Amiriyya and a large number gathered in the courtyard. In addition, a crowd of guildsmen established their own tent and heard speeches against Riza Khan. 42 Various groups of people, disliking the attempt to impose a republic by force, went to the houses of the ‘ulama’ and complained. 43 A large meeting was organized in the Shah Mosque, where sermons were preached against Riza Khan and republicanism, and a petition organized. Riza than

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arrived and ordered two companies of the Pahlavi regiment to clear the ground at bayonet point. He entered the Majlis where the President, Mu‘tamin al-Mulk, remonstrated with him for using force against the people. Following the intervention of Mustawfi al-Mamalik, and further consultations with deputies and members of the ‘ulama’, Riza Khan agreed to relinquish the republican cause, released about two hundred gaoled demonstrators and promised to respect Islam. 44 It is at this point that Riza Khan appears to have altered course and contemplated a change in dynasty. At the time he was interpreted by some observers as seeking first a republic and then the establishment of a new dynasty. 45 The evidence is inconclusive, but it is possible that he perceived a republic as more in harmony with his modernizing ambitions. His immediate problem, however, was that he was handicapped by loss of prestige and that he would have to make up for lost ground. He realized, first, that to outmanoeuvre his enemies he would have to depend at least for a little longer on the forces of tradition. On 26 March he went to see the ‘ulama’ of Qum. Although the British representative, Ovey, placed great emphasis on Ataturk’s abolition of the Caliphate on 3 March 1924 as influencing both Riza Khan and the ‘ulama’, 46 it is barely mentioned in the Persian sources. It is clear that Riza Khan went to Qum entirely on his own initiative on the pretext of saying farewell to some of the leading ‘ulama’ who, having emigrated from Iraq in 1923 in protest at British policy, were now returning there. At the meeting the ‘ulama’ asked Riza Khan to refrain from republicanism in order to quieten the people. 47 Riza Khan concurred. Relinquishing the concept of republicanism at the ostensible request of the ‘ulama’ would to some extent restore prestige that had in reality been battered by his opponents in Tehran. On his return, he issued a proclamation to the effect that it was not the government’s duty to oppose the wishes of the people, and claiming that, contrary to recent seditious misinter-pretation, it had from the beginning been his intention to protect Islam and Iran. 48 He considered it suitable to explain that the proposal for a republic had been suspended, and with the removal of that obstacle the ‘ulama’ would assist in the matter of protecting religion and state. In this proclamation, Riza Khan was reverting to the traditional theory of the legitimacy of power for the Qajar monarchs, based upon the concept of an alliance between state and ‘ulama’ for the protection of Islam. The proclamation would appear to be an early indication that Riza Khan had made up his mind to claim the throne, and was thus a first move towards giving validation to his future monarchy. The ‘ulama’ of Qum reciprocated with their own proclamation, which significantly was addressed to the notables, merchants, guilds and all the people. They stated that though there had been discussion of a republic it had not had public agreement, and was not suitable to the conditions of the country. The ‘ulama’ in Qum, who included Ayatullah Muhammad Husayn Na‘ini, Shaykh ‘Abd al-Karim Yazdi Ha’iri and Hajji Sayyid Abu al-Hasan Isfahani, reportedly held secret meetings at the end of March on the republican question. The meetings were to be attended by representatives of the Vali‘ahd and the Tehran ‘ulama’. As Hairi noted, the

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influence of Ha‘iri probably served to tone down the wording of support in the telegram from the ‘ulama’ of Qum. 49 It may be surmised that this resulted from his interest in re-establishing organized religious circles in Qum, which would in part be dependent on the resources of the faithful for funding, and would make him more amenable to the representation of the bazaar and ‘ulama’ of Tehran. Na‘ini and Isfahani, who were soon to return to Najaf, were more sympathetic to the viewpoint of Riza Khan, who was to them the potential guardian of Shi’ism against the encroachments of British power. In other words, the ‘ulama’ as a whole were as always divided, responsive to their following, and influenced by their own particular predicament rather than by a strong association of republicanism with secularism. In the Majlis the influence of Riza Khan had declined and the prestige of Mudarris had risen. The Shah sent a telegram dismissing him, and as he could now count on only thirty votes in the assembly, he resigned and withdrew from Tehran on 7 April. He was restored after a strong show of support by the military authorities, who sent telegrams or orchestrated disturbances in the provinces. 50 He returned to Tehran on 9 April. The initiative had nevertheless passed to Mudarris. 51 There was talk of reinstating the council of ‘ulama’ to supervise legislation and ensure its compatibility with the shari‘a as constituted under the First Majlis. 52 Mudarris and his supporters delayed passage of the Army Bill, and confirmed links with the Vali‘ahd and the Shah, whom they hoped would return from Europe and act as a rallying point for the opposition. They also put out feelers to the southern tribal chiefs, especially Shaykh Khaz’al of Muhammareh, deeming him capable of withstanding the army. 53 Riza Khan realized that he must make up for lost ground and consolidate the regime’s majority. He also now began to work towards the throne, but with the determination to give his regime ostensible legality. 54 He intimidated many deputies by exploiting their fear of a communist takeover with the support of the Soviets if they did not conform to his wishes. He sought out the more influential of his opponents among the notables, such as Nusrat, Musaddiq and Mushir alDawla, to persuade them to collaborate. 55 He maintained contact with Na‘ini, who had returned to Najaf, so that the latter sent him a portrait of the Imam ‘Ali. When it was presented in Bagh-i Shah on 6 June 1924, it received a significantly negative reaction from the ‘ulama’ of Tehran, who boycotted the proceedings. 56 To try and influence them, he reportedly distributed money among their lesser members, and even attended ta‘ziya (penitence) processions. 57 A propaganda campaign was mounted against the Qajars accusing them of failing to develop the country during their 150-year rule. To win over the ordinary people, the Sardar-i Sipah ordered a ceremony in the Madrasa-yi Nizam to establish a relief fund for the unfortunate. 58 In the Majlis, he forced the resignation of the President, Mu‘tamin al-Mulk, on the grounds that he would not allow petitions for a change of dynasty to be read there. His most propitious opportunity came when the American Consul, Major Imbrie, was assassinated while photographing a religious ceremony in July 1924. Riza Khan used this as a pretext to impose martial law on Tehran, to arrest many (reportedly 600) well-

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known bazaaris and leaders of the city quarters, and to introduce censorship of the press. 59 At the end of July he tackled Mudarris, seeking to discredit him with charges of peculation and acting contrary to the constitution. 60 Mudarris’ connection with Khaz’al now played into the hands of Riza Khan, who used the Shaykh’s ambitions, and his connections with the British, to summon up support for an expedition to eliminate him. Thus by September 1924 Riza Khan had more or less recovered from the setbacks of the republican campaign. 61 Following the success of his expedition against Khaz‘al, his power was greatly strengthened. In January 1925 he went to Najaf to confer with Na‘ini. 62 On 8 February he issued an ultimatum to the members of the various political parties in the Majlis that he should be made Commander-in-Chief of the army, which would release him from fear of dismissal by the Shah. The Majlis deputies, led by Musaddiq, endeavoured to find a compromise that would satisfy Riza Khan and preserve constitutional law and the prestige of the assembly. 63 On 14 February the Majlis passed a resolution which recognized the special claims of Riza Khan to be military commander and gave him full powers in that office. It furthermore decreed that he could be dismissed only by the Majlis. 64 The title of Commander-in-Chief (Farmandah-i kull) remained with the Shah to avoid undermining his position as head of the army, and Riza Khan was vested with riyasat (commandership). In this way Riza Khan’s tenure was beyond the reach of threat from the Shah. Despite some residual loyalty to the Shah in the army Riza Khan had immense influence while the Majlis had little power. 65 In April he increased the strength of the secret police. 66 Thus he was able finally to suppress resistance in Tehran. Mudarris, however, continued in his opposition to Riza Khan. Despite conciliatory moves by the latter, he upheld the rights of the Qajar dynasty, emphasizing their enshrinement in the Fundamental Law. 67 Nevertheless, on 31 October 1925 the Qajar dynasty was deposed without much visible enthusiasm or support for either Riza Khan or the opposition. 68 In the vote to abolish the Qajar dynasty, eighty voted in favour, eighty-five being present. The main spokesman against the bill was Musaddiq, but there were also speeches by Taqizada, Husayn ‘Ala and Dawlatabadi. Mudarris left the assembly without speaking, on the grounds that the vote was illegal. At the same time a group of bazaar merchants requested British officials to permit them to arrange a sit-in on Legation premises in protest against the ‘new absolutist government and dictatorship’. 69 Mudarris maintained his campaign against Riza Khan, criticizing in particular the growing power of the army and attempting to represent a conservative constitutionalist view. Riza Shah was able to pack the Sixth Majlis, enabling him to outmanoeuvre Mudarris, and eventually force him into retirement in 1927. He was arrested in 1929 and imprisoned in Khurasan, where in 1938 he paid for his opposition with his life. In summary it was not the ‘ulama’ who prevented Riza Khan from establishing a republic in 1924. Nor was the declaration of a republic in Turkey of prominent importance. In the first place the ‘ulama’ were not united, and at

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the time of the Constitutional Revolution they reflected the views of different groups in society, whether of the merchants and artisans, notable connections, the poorer classes, or even of Riza Khan himself. Second, with regard to the ‘ulama’ of Qum, it is clear that they did not enter the conflict of their own accord but were drawn into it by two means: the first was by representation made to them from Tehran and by anxiety over the popular disturbances and discontent at the proposal; the second was by Riza Khan himself, who sought endorsement for relinquishing the republic as a means of salvaging his authority in the wake of defeat. Study of this manoeuvre as well as others of the period reinforces the view of Riza Khan as politically skilled. It also reveals that, had not increasing wealth of revenue permitted such dependence on the army as an instrument of regeneration, he might have successfully been obliged to concentrate on political development as well as other areas of modernization. That said, his precipitous reforms were driven by perception of weakness, evident not only in the obvious comparison of Iran with Europe, but with its backwardness as compared to Egypt and Turkey. The role of Mudarris and of the bazaari forces which formed his principal power base is deeply ambivalent when considered in the light of the exigencies of modernization. The part played by the Tehran bazaar in the politics of Iran has been too often ignored or underestimated as attention has focused on political organizations more obvious and familiar to the Western eye. Its role in the Constitutional Revolution was considerable, 70 as was the part it played in the Revolution of 1979. 71 In the Mudarris period and in both revolutions the bazaar represented reaction to the encroachments of the state. Indeed, it may be postulated that the considerable organizational powers of the bazaar in political crises may derive from its long-standing proximity to the centre of power and its need to find protection from the depredations of arbitrary and impecunious government. It would seem that in his confrontation with what both liberal intellectuals and bazaaris perceived as the rise of autocracy, Mudarris was drawing upon established traditions of resistance to the state. Riza Khan’s ability to finance the creation of a modern army independent of existing political checks and balances made the political choice as stark for Mudarris as for Musaddiq. The pace of reform meant that the time and opportunity for the integration of traditional interests with the modern did not exist. In the earlier years of Riza Shah’s rule prosperity and stable conditions won the acquiescence of the wider public. As reform affected the position of Islam and the ‘ulama’, the stand made by Mudarris was remembered and taken up by Khumayni 72 in his leadership of the alliance of ‘ulama’ and traditional business against Pahlavism and modern capitalism. As an icon of this political movement, as well as in his own role in leading conservative business interests against the rise of the modern state, in his emphasis on the regeneration of Islam and the necessity of co-operation between Islamic governments for mutual salvation, 73 Mudarris may be seen to have played a significant role in the formation of Iran’s radical right.

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Notes 1 See for example R.Banani, The Modernization of Iran 1921–1941, Stanford, Calif, 1961, p. 42; P.Avery, Modern Iran, London, 1965, pp. 266–267; W.Knapp, ‘1921– 41: The Period of Reza Shah’ in H.Amirsadeghi (ed.), Twentieth Century Iran, London, 1977, p. 26; S.Akhavi, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran, New York, 1980, p. 29. 2 Norman to Curzon, No. 28 Tel., 13 January 1921. FO 416/68. 3 Norman to Curzon, No. 31. 1 March 1921. FO 616/68. 4 Norman to Curzon, No. 127 Tel., 26 February 1921. FO 416/68. 5 Norman to Curzon, No. 28, 23 February 1921, No. 260 Tel., 24 June 1921, FO 416/ 68; see also Bridgeman to Curzon, No. 561 Tel., 6 October 1921, FO 416/69. 6 Norman to Curzon, No. 310 Tel, 25 May 1921, FO 416/68. 7 E.Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, Princeton, NY, 1982, p. 128. 8 Ibid., p. 121. 9 Bridgeman to Curzon, No. 250, 1 November 1921, FO 416/70, and Loraine to Curzon, No. 58. 30 January 1922, FO 416/70. 10 A.Mudarrisi, Mudarris, Tehran, 1366/1987, vol. 11, pp. 21–22. 11 H.Makki, Mudarris, Tehran, 1358/1979, vol. 1, pp. 49ff. 12 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 58, 107–11. 13 Ibid., pp. 105–106. 14 M.Ittihadiyya Nizam Mafi, Ahzab-i siyasi dar majlis-i duvvum, Tehran, 1371/1992. 15 H.Makki, Mudarris qahriman-i azadi, Tehran, 1358/1979, vol. I, p. 124. 16 Y.Dawlatabadi, Tarikh-i ‘asr-i hazir va hayat-i Yahya, Tehran, 1337/1959, vol. IV, pp. 322–323. On finance see also Ovey to MacDonald, No. 192, 15 April 1924, FO 416/74. 17 Makki, Mudarris, vol. 1, pp. 273, 277. The names are revealed from the debates over the deputies’ mandates. 18 Dawlatabadi, Hayat, vol. IV, p. 322. 19 Makki, Mudarris, vol. 1, pp. 162, 170. 20 Ibid., pp. 174–175. 21 H.Katouzian, ed., Musaddiq’s Memoirs, London, 1988, pp. 180–181. 22 Makki, Mudarris, vol. 1, pp. 220, 238. 23 Abrahamian, Iran, p. 131. 24 Ibid., p. 132. 25 Ibid., p. 133. 26 Loraine to MacDonald, No. 110, 22 February 1924, FO 416/74. 27 Monson to MacDonald, No. 129, 6 March 1924, FO 416/74. 28 Ibid. 29 Makki, Mudarris, vol. 1, pp. 265–266. 30 Mahdi Quli Hidayat, Mukhbir al-Saltana, Khatirat va Khatarat, Tehran, 1361/1982, p. 360; Dawlatabadi, Hayat, vol. IV, pp. 345, 320–321, for discussion of the liberal position. 31 A.Mustawfi, Sharh-i zindigani-yi man, Tehran, 1325/1946, 111, p. 406; Makki, Mudarris, vol. 1, p. 300; Ovey to MacDonald, No. 169, 1 April 1924, FO 416/74. 32 Makki, Mudarris, vol. 1, p. 300.

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33 Mustawfi, Zindigani, vol. 3, pp. 407–408. 34 A.Mahrdad, Iran auf dem Weg zur Diktatur, Hannover, 1976, p. 84. 35 Malik al-Shu‘ara Bahar, Ahzab-i syasi-yi Iran, Tehran, 1363/1984, vol. 2, p. 43; Ovey to MacDonald No. 169, 1 April 1924, FO 416/74; W.Zurrer, Persian zwischen England and Russland 1918–25, Bern, 1978, p. 283. 36 H.Sabahi, British Policy in Persia 1918–1925, London, 1990, pp. 178–179. 37 Ibid., p. 177. 38 A.H.Hairi, Shi‘ism and Constitutionalism in Iran, Leiden, 1977, p. 141. 39 Zürrer, Persien, p. 183; Mahrdad, Iran, p. 86. 40 Dawlatabadi, Hayat, vol. 4, p. 354; Ovey to MacDonald, No. 169, 1 April 1924 and No. 177, 5 April 1924, FO 416/74. 41 Monson to MacDonald, No. 165, 26 March 1924, FO 416/74. 42 H.Qudsi, Kitab-i khatirat-I man, Tehran, n.d., vol. 2, pp. 63–64. 43 Makki, Mudarris, vol. 1, p. 287. 44 Bahar, Ahzab, vol. II, p. 54; Abrahamian, Iran, p. 134. 45 Mustawfi, Zindigani, p. 404. 46 Ovey to MacDonald, No. 169, 1 April 1924, FO 416/74. 47 Bahar, Ahzab. vol. II, p. 62. 48 Mukhbir al-Saltana, Khatirat, p. 368. An English version may he found in Akhavi, Religion, pp. 29–30. 49 Hairi, Shi‘ism, pp. 142–144. 50 S.Cronin, The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran, 1910–1926, London and New York, 1997, p. 194. 51 Mahrdad, Iran, p. 85. 52 Zurrer, Persien, p. 286; Mahrdad. Iran, pp. 88–89. 53 Sabahi, British Policy, p. 178. 54 Loraine to Chamberlain, No. 76, 10 February 1925, FO 416/76. 55 Zürrer, Persien, p. 286. 56 Hairi, Shi‘ism, p. 145. 57 H.Katouzian, Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran, London, 1990, p. 24. 58 Dawlatabadi, Hayat, vol. IV, pp. 365–366. 59 Makki, Mudarris, vol. 1, p. 451; Ovey to MacDonald, No. 362. 1 August 1924, FO 416/75; M.P.Zirinsky, ‘Imperial Power and Dictatorship: Britain and the Rise of Reza Shah 1921–1926’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 24 (1992), pp. 639–663. 60 Zürrer, Persien, p. 286. 61 Sabahi, British Policy, p. 180. 62 Zirinsky, Dictatorship, p. 648. 63 Cronin, Creation, p. 197. 64 Ibid., p. 197; Loraine to Chamberlain, No. 107, 26 February 1925, FO 416/76. 65 Cronin, Creation, p. 197. 66 Loraine to Chamberlain, No. 202, 23 April 1925, FO 416/76. 67 Loraine to Chamberlain, No. 112, 28 February 1925, and No. 136, 21 Mar 1925, FO 416/76. 68 Loraine to Chamberlain, No. 587 and No. 592, 6 November 1925, FO 416/77. 69 Sabahi, British Policy, p. 195. 70 V.A.Martin, Islam and Modernism: The Iranian Revolution of 1906, London, 1989, pp. 88–100.

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71 S.Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs, London, 1985, pp. 190–192. 72 R.Khumayni, Kashf al-asrar, Tehran, n.d., p. 234. 73 Bahar, Ahzab, vol. 2, pp. 225–226.

Part II INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

5 RIZA SHAH’S ABROGATION OF CAPITULATIONS, 1927–1928 Michael Zirinsky

Between 1921 and 1941, Riza Pahlavi presided over a radical transformation of Iran. 1 Yet views of him are mixed. Some see him as a nationalist, others as a creature of western interests. To try to understand the reality behind these contradictory views, this chapter will examine his 1927 to 1928 termination of capitulations, the unequal treaties which gave the west many advantages in Iran. Was abrogation Riza’s effort to achieve Iranian national objectives? Or was it simply part of his grasp for greater personal power, by ending foreign ‘rights’? Or could it have been both, simultaneously? One of the neglected aspects of Riza Pahlavi’s domination of Iran is his strong support from many parts of Iranian society. In view of later hostility to his selfcentred and violent rule, and widespread belief that he was a creature of British imperialism, it is important to recall that early in his reign he actualised Iranian desire—both secular and clerical—to restore national dignity. In the words of Ervand Abrahamian, his ‘campaign against foreign influence was…impressive. He annulled the nineteenth-century capitulations that had granted extraterritorial jurisdiction to the Europeans.’ His government obtained foreign agreement to these reforms, by means of establishing a modern, western-style judicial system, in the words of M.Riza Ghods, ‘the most coherent attempt to rationalise society under Riza Shah’. Although ‘the new legal code, approved in 1928, made many concessions to the shari‘ah’, it also attacked one of the important social and financial bases of the clergy, their position as arbiters of legal disputes, and the fees which they earned from the practice of law. 2 One could also argue that the beginning of the strong anti-American character of the movement which became the Islamic Revolution was in Ayatullah Khumayni’s 1962 denunciation of the American-Iranian Status of Forces Agreement as a new version of the capitulations. 3 In this context, the significance of Riza Shah’s termination of capitulations in 1927 to 1928 is twofold: it highlights his own concern to express Iranian nationalist concerns, apparently undervalued by his son three and a half decades later; it also emphasises the shortness of American institutional memory, which by the 1960s apparently had no inkling that the Status of Forces Agreement would be perceived by Iranian nationalists as an affront to their independence. Capitulations, the ‘unequal treaties’ terminated by Riza Shah in 1927 to 1928, by which the west institutionalised its dominant role in Iran during the

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nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, may be traced to the 1828 RussoIranian Treaty of Turkomanchay which supplanted the 1813 Treaty of Gulistan. Following victory in war, Russia imposed on Iran ‘rights’ of extraterritoriality and consular jurisdiction for Russian subjects and preferential tariffs for Russian commerce. These privileges were soon extended to other powers by subsequent treaties which included most-favoured-nation clauses. Britain’s treaty (Paris, 1857) also was imposed on Iran following victory in war. Other treaties, such as the 1856 Treaty of Friendship and Commerce with the USA, resulted in part from Iran’s efforts to minimise the negative impact of Russian and British domination by bringing other outside powers into the balance, so that Iran could manoeuvre among them. 4 The context of this regime of capitulations, of course, is that by the end of the reign of Fath Ali Shah (1798–1834), Iran could no longer defend its independence against the west. By the second quarter of the nineteenth century, Iran effectively had become an Anglo-Russian condominium. Iran maintained only a semblance of independence because Russia and Britain treated it as a buffer between their empires. For Iran this was a time of weakness, humiliation and soul-searching as Iranians sought to assert their dignity against overwhelming pressures from the expansionist west. Riza Shah emerged from this national upheaval, from political developments such as the Tobacco Boycott, the Constitutional Revolution and the chaos caused by the Great War. Indeed, one should describe these movements and events as developing modern Iranian national consciousness. There were many factors involved here, of course, but one of their common denominators was national reaction against western domination, against the capitulations. Riza Shah—both as a man and as a political phenomenon—was a result of this emerging national consciousness.

Who was Riza Shah? A definitive biography of Riza Shah has yet to be written. 5 Nevertheless, a few words should be offered in interim judgement. We know that he was born in obscurity, orphaned at an early age, and enlisted as a teenager as a private soldier in the Russian-officered Cossack brigade. He had little formal education, learning to read and write only as an adult. Due to his intelligence, vigour and obvious military talent, however, he rose through the ranks, and by the end of the Great War was a leading Iranian Cossack officer. In the chaos of the postwar era, he manoeuvred effectively among contending forces, emerging as a key player in the British-engineered removal of the Russians from the Cossack force and in the subsequent 1921 coup d’état. Arrived thus in power at Tehran, he became successively Army Commander, Minister of War, Prime Minister, and—after the failure of his 1924 effort to make an Iranian republic and the 1925 vote of the Majlis to depose the Qajar dynasty—Shah of Iran in 1926. As King, Riza Shah yielded none of his political power, and he continued to

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preside over an Iranian forced march along a path which could be called ‘modernisation western style’. Under Riza’s close attention to detail, Iran undertook construction of western-style armed forces, a new transportation network (road, rail and air), state-sponsored schools and education of increasing numbers of Iranians abroad, a secular legal system, state-sponsored industrial monopolies, and urban reconstruction. Although contemporary western observers saw him as imitating the statist and westernising actions of the Kemalists in Turkey, in some ways Riza Shah’s actions were far more radical, since Iran had not previously undergone the extensive human and physical infrastructure development experienced by the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century, from the 1789 accession of Selim III through the Great War. Naturally, there was great hostility in Iran to Riza’s radical, westernising reforms. However, as a military man in the Russo-Persian tradition Riza Shah tolerated no opposition, and within a few years his regime seemed to resemble an object lesson in the truth behind Lord Acton’s dicta that ‘Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely’ and that ‘Great men are seldom good men’. Or, as a British diplomat phrased it in 1933, increasingly Riza seemed ‘a blood-thirsty lunatic’. 6 The most significant aphorism foreshadowing Riza’s degeneration into tyranny, however, was that of his former foreign minister, Muhammad Musaddiq, who in 1925 warned the Majlis against making Riza Shah, arguing that although his services to the nation as Prime Minister had been invaluable, if he were made King he would be irresponsible. 7 The forced pace of Riza Shah’s innovations changed the social and political structure of the country. For example, his judicial reforms seriously undercut the economic strength of the clergy and exacerbated the hostility between clerical and anti-clerical forces in Iranian polity. Similarly, efforts to develop modern industry and commerce challenged the position of the traditional bazaar merchants and artisans. The land registration programme undercut the position of many peasants and nomadic tribesmen, and transformed landowners and tribal chiefs into absentee landlords, increasingly resident in Tehran. The new state-funded educational initiatives helped to create a wide gulf between traditional Iranian society and the new, westernised elite of the Pahlavi state. During the fifteen years of Riza’s reign (1926–1941), many prominent Iranians, supporters as well as opponents, died as a result of his paranoid style of government. Among the dead we may mention foreign minister Prince Firuz Farmanfarmayan, justice minister Ali Akbar Davar, Court minister Abdul Husayn Taymurtash, Isfahanbased political cleric Hasan Mudarris, and Shaykh Khaz’al of Arabistan. Many others suffered but lived. Musaddiq himself was forced into internal exile and in his memoirs ascribed his survival to the intervention on his behalf of Crown Prince Muhammad Riza Pahlavi. 8 Yet despite the deep hostility engendered by this bloody reign of terror, in many ways Riza Shah was the key figure in the modernisation of Iran. Above all, he created the strongly centralised character of modern Iranian government, concentrating in Tehran power which previously had been dispersed among the

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tribes and the major cities. In doing this he followed a traditional Iranian royal ethos—older than Islam—in failing to distinguish between his own personal power and wealth and that of the state. In terms of modern European history, rather than acting as the ‘first servant of the state’ as did Frederick ‘the Great’ of Prussia (1740–1786), he seemed to believe, as did Louis XIV of France (1643– 1715), that he was the state. In behaving in this manner during an age of rising popular consciousness, he may have made the Iranian Revolution of 1978 to 1979 as inevitable as seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French absolutism made the French Revolution of 1789. Can it be said that there was a dialectical process which led to the Islamic Revolution? Certainly it does seem that internal contradictions within the early Pahlavi regime led to a dynamic tension, a debate, which led Iran down a path towards February 1979. This debate resulted in part from Riza’s decision, despite his concern to control personally the levers of power, to work within the institutions created by the Constitutional Revolution, especially the constitution itself and the Majlis. This in turn helped to frame the structure of political debate during ensuing regimes. Until the August 1941 Anglo-Soviet invasion, of course, Riza Shah was able to suppress most dissent against his own government, but it simmered beneath the surface of the Iranian polity and broke out in subsequent years. Not only did debate take place within the Majlis, and over the issue of the role of popular representative institutions within the state, it was also framed within the context of assertive Iranian nationalism, of what was necessary for Iran to demonstrate its national dignity and to resist the corrosive effect of foreign influence. In the end, Riza Shah’s greatest failure as a nationalist was his inability to break the grasp of foreign influence over Iran. He and many of his supporters assumed that national strength would come to Iran through the military westernisation which they pushed. The hollowness of their achievement, however, was revealed by the collapse of the Iranian army in August 1941. 9 Although Riza Shah did end the treaties of capitulations, western influence over many aspects of Iranian society actually grew during his reign; for example, with regard to the economy, to how people actually lived, and to the administration of justice. Riza Shah succeeded in forcing Britain to move its Persian Gulf residency from Bushire to Bahrain, but his effort to curtail Britain’s role in the Iranian oil industry backfired and led to extension of the concession operated by the British government-owned Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Efforts to mitigate the influence of Britain and Russia, whose support had been key to Riza’s rise to power, led Iran to seek a strong ‘third’ power to bring into the international balance. Efforts during the 1920s to entangle the USA in Iranian politics failed in the face of Great Britain’s co-optation of America and Riza’s quarrel with American Financial Adviser Arthur Millspaugh. Efforts to entangle Germany in Iranian politics during the 1930s succeeded—and led directly to the Anglo-Russian invasion of August 1941 which ended Riza’s reign. Riza Shah’s ultimate failure in foreign policy raises an important question. Did his ending of the capitulations actually achieve anything of value for Iran?

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The answer is probably yes, although not at all in the direction he had in mind.

Independence of the clergy 10 When considered in the context of Iranian domestic politics, the ending of capitulations may be seen as a part of an institutional change in relations between the state and religion. In part because western powers insisted that they would tolerate the ending of capitulations only if Iran adopted a western-style judicial system, which would provide guarantees for the security of westerners in Iranian courts, the ending of capitulations also meant ending the monopoly of the Shi’i ulama’s legal jurisdiction within Iran. This foreign insistence that Iran develop western-style lawcourts meshed with Riza’s own view that westernstyle institutions would strengthen Iran. The new court system eventually cost the clergy an important part of their traditional livelihood: their fees from judicial activity. In effect, it ‘disestablished’ Shi’i Islam as the official religion of the state. Combined with the Pahlavi era assault on traditional forms of land tenure, including the religious endowments, this undercut the financial security of the clerical class. Paradoxically, this disestablishment seems to have prepared the ground for the enhancement of the prestige of the ulama. As they lost wealth and power, they gained popular influence. Under the conditions of Riza Shah’s anti-clerical dictatorship, the traditional, popular view of the ulama as a self-serving, moneygrubbing class was attenuated. Instead, their traditional Islamic function as men of essential religious knowledge, as moral referees and as guardians of the people from the tyranny of wealthy and powerful rulers, rose to prominence. As the regime followed the occidentalist (gharbzadeghi) path and lost touch with ‘ordinary’ Iranians, an increasing part of the public came to perceive the clergy as an alternative source of legitimate leadership. The ‘martyrdom’ by the state of individual clerics such as Mudarris exacerbated this tendency. Thus it is arguable that—just as in France the disestablishment of the Roman Catholic Church enhanced its prestige among practising Catholics, and as in America ‘separation of Church and State’ goes hand in hand with a strong influence of religion in public life—the westernising modernisation campaign of the early Pahlavi era, including the nationalist-inspired campaign to end capitulations, may have brought Iran closer to the Islamic revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. Official anti-clericalism eventually increased the popular influence of the clergy. Of course this is a difficult case to argue, obscured as it is by the fifty-yearlong lead time involved, by what might appear to be the counter-intuitive nature of the argument, as well as by the changing and contradictory leadership of the Iranian ulama, who of course have seldom been united on any issue. Certainly we know that politically, before the rise of Imam Khumayni, many of the clergy followed a quietist rather than an activist line, in effect finding collaboration with the Pahlavi government preferable to no government at all. Only in the late

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1970s did quietism give way to activism. Was Riza Shah’s anti-clericalism explicitly connected to the attack on capitulations? Certainly there is a clear connection in time to one of the most notorious episodes of Riza’s confrontation with the clergy. This was the 1928 Naw Ruz incident, in which the mother of the Crown Prince was criticised by a cleric for letting her face be seen in the shrine at Qum. As a result of this criticism, and the near riot which ensued, in the words of American Minister Hoffman Philip, the Shah sent some four hundred troops and two armored cars to Kum and followed them the next day. Arriving at Kum, he sought out the offending Mullah…and personally chastised him with his stick, and even with his foot. It is further reported that the Shah thereupon penetrated into the Shrine of the mosque without removing his boots, as is the custom, and gave orders that three criminals who had sought ‘bast’ there should be ejected. These men were brought by the military back to Teheran where one of them, an alleged murderer, was promptly executed. Philip continued to speculate that ‘the Shah was actuated…by political resentment against the clergy as well as by a natural indignation arising from the treatment of his consort’. 11

Judicial reforms One of the most important aspects of Riza Shah’s attack on the power of the clergy was his effort to establish a secular system of law codes and courts without ulama participation. This effort was carried out largely under the direction of Justice Minister (later Finance Minister) Ali Akbar Davar, who had been educated in law at the University of Geneva. In the context of Riza’s forced march of Iran down the path of westernisation, these reforms came about gradually. Three separate legal codes based on European models were introduced: in 1925 a commercial code, in 1926 a criminal code, and in 1928 a civil code. The civil code, which Amin Banani calls ‘a secularisation of the Sharia’, seems to have been the most difficult to formulate, and it was implemented in stages. As early as 1926 Davar introduced it on a ‘temporary’ basis. The code was formally made law by the Majlis on 8 May 1928, two days before the effective end of the treaties of capitulations, denounced by Iran a year earlier. In theory a new system of secular courts was established to enforce these new laws. In practice however, the ulama continued to administer justice for some time. However, the government attack on clerical authority continued. In October 1928 Mudarris was arrested and rusticated to Khurasan. In May 1932 the canon law (shar’) courts were stripped of their right to register documents, depriving the clergy of their notarial fees. In December 1936, by means of a regulation which required all judges to hold either ‘a degree from the Tehran

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Faculty of Law or a foreign university…[or else] pass special examinations’, the ulama were excluded from the secular courts. By the time Riza Shah drove Davar to commit suicide in 1937 (presumably in order to avoid arrest and murder, as had already happened to former cabinet colleagues such as court minister Abdul Husayn Taymurtash, war minister Sardar As’ad and finance minister Prince Firuz Nusrat al-Dowlah), the remaining clerical courts were effectively restricted to matters of personal status. In the judgement of Shahrough Akhavi, by this time the power of the clergy had been ‘dismantled’. 12

The above chronology clearly indicates that the process of dismantling the power of the clergy by the state controlled by Reza and his servants began before the denunciation of capitulations. In this context, the ending of capitulations appears to have been used by Reza Shah, like the 1924 episode of the murder of US Consul Robert Imbrie, in order to gain foreign diplomatic support for his domestic objectives. 13 It had the further advantage of making it clear to Iranian supporters of the ulama that this lessening of clerical power was a price which had to be paid in order to reduce the ‘special rights’ of foreigners in the country. Since western powers were prejudiced against Islam and the ulama, by tying his attack on the influence of the Islamic clergy to an attack on the legal basis of foreign ‘rights’ in Iran, Riza Shah was able to minimise opposition to the achievement of both objectives.

Foreign interests 14 Although Iranian public consciousness makes much of the importance of foreign powers in determining events in Iran, the reverse was not necessarily true. Indeed, during the Riza Shah era, Iran seems to have been peripheral to the major concerns of western powers. Apart from the private interests of Presbyterian missionaries, 15 the USA had few concerns about Iran before the Second World War. In the context of an isolationist foreign policy, the USA chose to regard Iran as a British sphere of interest. Only in the immediate aftermath of the Great War did America busy itself with Iran, encouraging the Iranian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, establishing the financial mission headed by Arthur Millspaugh in 1922, and making several efforts during the early 1920s to break the British oil monopoly in Iran. After Britain succeeded in keeping American ‘fingers out of the Persian oil can’ and in transforming the Millspaugh mission into an agency of British policy to stabilise Iran, the US government largely withdrew from involvement with Iran. Not until the Second World War did the USA begin to consider seriously Iran’s strategic implications. During the era of Riza Shah Germany was little concerned about Iran. In essence, German foreign policy after 1919 was aimed at breaking the strictures of the Treaty of Versailles. This meant that Germany concerned itself primarily with its immediate neighbours and with its great power rivals, especially France,

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Britain and Russia. Not until the Hitler era did Germany see Iran as an area where it might make mischief for Britain and its Allies. As it happened, Riza Shah’s willingness to play that game proved fatal to his rule. The Soviet Union in these years saw the world through the prism of Stalin’s mind. Although there was a certain Soviet commitment to the principles of proletarian solidarity, as with Stalin’s policy towards China, the Soviets were perfectly willing to sacrifice communists in Iran on the altar of Soviet security. Consequently, there seems to me to have been a consistent Soviet policy, until Hitler’s attack on 22 June 1941, of support for Riza Shah as a stabilising factor on the southern border of the USSR. The only wrinkle in this policy was Soviet unwillingness to comfort Great Britain, which itself often saw a Soviet hand behind Iranian nationalist activity. In Iranian minds, Britain was still the dominant power during the Riza Shah era. Yet in reality, London was overextended, strapped for money, and had few policy options when faced by the reality of an Iranian consensus united in opposition to Great Britain. It was for this reason that British policy between 1921 and 1926 favoured Riza’s rise, seeing him as a stabilising factor on the borders of India, Iraq and Russia. Whatever Riza Shah did, British minister Sir Percy Loraine argued, Riza’s strong nationalist government would secure the essential British interests in Iran: keeping the Russians out and securing British commercial activities, especially those of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, the Imperial Bank of Persia and the Indo-European Telegraph. One further aspect of foreign interests in Iran comes to mind in the context of the Iranian decision to end capitulatory privileges. In 1926 and 1927, the US State Department was seriously considering ‘resuming the investigations into the massacres occurring in 1919 at Urmia where several American lives were lost’. To investigate the feasibility of this process it sent Augustin W.Ferrin to Tabriz as consul. 16 The investigation had been undertaken originally in 1919, by the American and French consuls together with the Karguzar, the agent of the Iranian Foreign Ministry at Tabriz. Dozens of eye-witnesses testified regarding events in Azerbaijan during the Great War, and hundreds of pages of testimony were recorded before the threat of a Bolshevik invasion forced suspension of the process. This testimony suggests that foreign missionaries had supported locally recruited Christian military forces allied with Russia and Britain, fighting against the Ottomans and their German allies during the Great War. In response to these belligerent acts and in the context of military actions, the Muslim population of Urmia had participated in two riots. This violence destroyed the French Mission in July 1918 and the American Mission in May 1919. Well over a thousand civilians were killed in these massacres, and more than a million dollars of American- and French-owned property was destroyed. 17 Although in retrospect it seems that neither the USA nor France had any real desire to reopen the issue, it is important to note that the Urmia investigation could have been reopened only if the capitulations remained in force. So, renewed American interest in the issue could well have provoked Iran’s move to end them.

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Termination of the Millspaugh Mission The published American documents on the end of the capitulations make a fascinating connection. They are immediately preceded by the documentary record of the 1922 to 1927 Millspaugh Mission, leading a reader to suspect that the State Department saw a link between the two series of events. Certainly Riza Shah’s growing concern to be absolute master in Iran and his long-standing irritation at the financial controls over the military which Dr Millspaugh (whom Riza called ‘Dr Pool-neest’ (‘Dr There-is-no-money’)) enforced led Riza and Millspaugh towards a parting of the ways. When Riza finally terminated Millspaugh’s contract, it was with the famous observation that there could be but one King in Iran and that he, Riza, was Shah. The crisis began to develop at the end of 1926. On 18 December, the Persian minister in Washington asked the Department of State to influence Millspaugh to cease his efforts to regulate the Ministry of War. On 27 December, the former minister to the USA Husayn Ala informed American minister Hoffman Philip that the Shah disliked ‘all foreign officials’. Early in 1927 there was discussion as to whether or not Millspaugh’s contract would be renewed. By the end of February, Millspaugh made it clear that he would not stay if his powers were reduced. Then, on 14 April, the Shah openly criticised Millspaugh. In the words of American minister Hoffman Philip’s memorandum of conversation with Riza Shah, ‘Dr Millspaugh’s methods of action were not satisfactory to the government and if he failed to improve in this respect the government would be compelled to replace him either by one of the members of the present mission or by engaging a new man.’ 18 By the summer it was clear that Millspaugh was opposed by Court Minister Taymurtash and Finance Minister Prince Firuz Nusrat al-Dawleh as well as by the Shah, and at the end of July Millspaugh decided to leave Iran. 19 In the American record, the first mention of ending capitulations came on 27 April 1927, in the midst of this crisis regarding the continuation of the Millspaugh Mission. 20 It seems quite clear that, to Washington, the Iranian government’s decision to end capitulations occurred in the context of the final crisis of the first Millspaugh Mission. Control seems very much to have been on Riza Shah’s mind.

Termination of capitulations 21 The complex diplomatic process by which Riza Shah ended the capitulations may be summed up in two words: fait accompli. But, of course, diplomats spin a complex web of words around all events, so the American record of this process is quite detailed. 22 On 27 April 1927 Riza Shah announced, at a meeting with the staff of the new

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Ministry of Justice formed by Ali Akbar Davar that he wished the capitulations to be ended as soon as possible. 23 This set off a flurry of activity in the legations in Tehran. US Minister Hoffman Philip assessed the situation for the State Department in a long dispatch dated 30 April 1927, following discussions with the Iranian acting Foreign Minister Mirza Fathullah Khan Pakravan, with Court Minister Abdul Husayn Taymurtash and with diplomatic colleagues at a meeting organised by German Minister Count Schulenburg on 28 April. Philip believed that the proximate cause of the crisis was the Japanese government’s sending of a special representative to Tehran to negotiate a treaty which would grant Japan ‘similar capitulatory rights as those enjoyed by the nationals of other powers in Persia’. Philip also believed that the Soviets, who had long since renounced the capitulatory rights granted to Russia in Iran by the 1828 Treaty of Turkomanchay, encouraged Tehran to abolish these privileges. Philip believed Turkey also pressed Iran to end capitulations, as it had done. In addition, US Minister Philip reported rumours ‘that Great Britain, in testimony of her continued friendship for the dynasty of Riza Shah, has given some intimation of sympathy in anticipation of a decision by Persia to throw off the capitulatory yoke’. 24 Implicit in this analysis is American understanding that the capitulations were obnoxious to Middle Eastern peoples and governments. Taymurtash outlined the Iranian plan to Philip and his Belgian colleague. Among countries which had diplomatic relations with Iran, Poland, Russia and Turkey had already renounced their capitulatory rights. Britain held them only by a most-favoured-nation clause. France and Spain held them ‘in perpetuity’, but Iran was prepared to break diplomatic relations with these states, if necessary, to force abrogation. All other countries’ rights, including those of the USA, existed by virtue of treaties which could be terminated by simple denunciation by either party. Once this was done, Great Britain would also lose its ‘capitulatory rights, owing to the absence of any “Favored Nation”’. Taymurtash made clear that, in order to prepare itself for this step, Iran was entirely modernising its law codes and departments of justice and was ‘determined to free herself from the capitulatory bonds with which she [was] one of the last nations in the world to be tied’. 25 On 1 May 1927, the Iranian Prime Minister addressed the Majlis, informing the deputies of the Shah’s ‘desire to abolish as soon as possible the capitulations existing in Persia…[a] sacred aim [emphasis added]’, and that ‘preparation of the grounds for the abolition of the capitulations will constitute the most important object of the Government’s program’. The Majlis responded enthusiastically to this speech, the Legation reported. The Prime Minister informed Philip privately that Iran hoped for foreign ‘sympathy and assistance… in the attainment of her national desire’. 26 A short while later, on 10 May 1927, the Iranian government actually terminated the 1856 treaty with the USA, abrogation to be effective after one year. By the same note, Iran called for negotiation of a new treaty with the USA. 27 Simultaneously, Iran took similar action with regard to other countries. Philip

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informed Washington that ‘All powers enjoying most-favored-nation rights under treaties which may be abrogated by year’s notice have received similar notes. Treaties with Spain and France are “in perpetuity”, but on ground that perpetual treaties may be denounced at any time by either party the Persian Government has given notice of intention to terminate these also on May 10, 1928.’ Two days later, Britain was also informed that its treaty rights would expire on the same date. 28 Philip observed that his diplomatic colleagues seemed ‘to accept situation philosophically while awaiting instructions [and that the] British Minister acknowledges sympathy with attitude of Persians’. All the foreign diplomats in Tehran agreed ‘to submit to our Governments identical recommendations regarding acknowledgement of note of May 10’. By this same cable, Philip also informed Washington of Iran’s hope ‘that the United States will be the first to help Persia to deliver herself from grievous disabilities’. He noted that ‘Denunciation of our treaty has been legal’, and that ‘A very favorable impression would…be produced in Persia if our Government should announce at once by cable a sympathetic attitude’. However, he also expressed reservation about this course of action, due to ‘the impending withdrawal of consular jurisdiction…[and] want of efficient courts and modern codes’. 29 The Department’s reply instructed Philip to inform the Iranian government of Washington’s ‘friendly and sympathetic spirit’ and asked for ‘precise information regarding the new codes of justice and organisation of the courts’. The American minister was also informed that the embassies in Paris and London were to sound out the French and British governments, but ‘to refrain from committing this Government to joint action’. 30 There was apparently little further movement in this issue during the remainder of 1927. As Philip informed Washington in his dispatch of 17 May, ‘there is very little to be done by us to alter the outcome of the chief question at issue [emphasis added]’. The American missionaries, who were the largest group of Americans affected by capitulations, had not expressed any negative opinions, he noted, and the US government was, he felt, ‘heartily inclined to sympathise with the ambitions of Persia’. Philip was not concerned about the disorganised Iranian courts, comparing them to those of ‘the Balkans and elsewhere’, whose condition did not prevent satisfactory relations with the USA. 31

This lack of formal discussion may have been deliberate. By mid-June, Philip reported that he and his colleagues felt that the Iranian attitude had recently become ‘more reasonable [being willing to give] consideration of the question in all its aspects’. Consequently, ‘there seems to be little likelihood that any definite negotiations will be entered into…for the time being.’ 32 None the less, Iran continued to push the matter. At the end of June, Philip reported that the Iranian government had transferred ‘the jurisdiction of the Kargozariats, or “Foreign Office Tribunals”, throughout the country from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to that of the Ministry of the Interior’. 33 Not until January 1928 did negotiations effectively resume. On 26 January,

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the State Department informed Philip of the ‘safeguards desired for the protection of British nationals in Persia when consular jurisdiction ends’, as listed by the British Foreign Office. These ten points detailed for the American Legation focused on the need of ‘foreign judicial advisers’ to protect foreign nationals in Iran. 34 In mid-February, the State Department informed Philip that it had contacted the British government. The British ambassador in Washington was told that ‘the Department is in substantial agreement with the position of the British Government’ as outlined in these points and that the USA wished to co-operate with Great Britain on this basis. ‘The Department would particularly welcome a closer cooperation at Tehran between the two Legations’, Philips was instructed. 35

Almost immediately, negotiations seemed to begin in earnest. On 21 February, Iranian Acting Foreign Minister Pakravan asked the USA to consent to the immediate application of the Soviet tariff to American imports, replacing the British tariff which would in any case expire on 10 May. This proposed new tariff regime would be, Philips reported, ‘more favorable to the existing chief American imports (automobiles…machinery, et cetera)’ and he recommended an exchange of notes acceding to the Iranian request. 36 A week later, the State Department instructed Philip to confer with British minister Clive ‘to discuss with him fully the progress of his negotiations for a treaty’, especially regarding Iranian reaction to the proposed safeguards for foreigners in Iran. 37 Then, on 3 March, the Department informed Philip of its contacts with the French, German and Italian ambassadors in Washington, urging co-ordinated western approaches to Tehran on the basis of the British proposed safeguards. While there seemed to be a favourable response to this American initiative, the French ambassador expressed ‘little interest in the matter’. 38 On 5 March 1928, Philip informed Washington regarding the status of negotiations. Iran had not yet responded to British proposals, he indicated, but on the basis of conversation with British Counsellor of Legation Parr, he believed that Iran would refuse judicial advisers. The German minister, Count Schulenburg, had already submitted a draft treaty to the Iranians, and Philip believed that Iran intended to delay a settlement with Britain. Philip warned Washington ‘that the appearance of associating with British aims should be carefully avoided’. Nevertheless, he suggested that ‘it would be appropriate to suggest the desirability of providing for [recognition of] American religious, medical, and scholastic institutions’. 39 Two days later, he repeated to Washington that ‘the impression exists in Tehran that Persia particularly desires making one treaty as soon as possible, probably with Germany, and is delaying negotiations with Britain’. 40 American Ambassador Schurman’s telegram from Berlin on 13 March revealed a great deal more about the negotiations than was yet clear from Philip’s communications. According to Count Schulenburg, Iran ‘will not concede the main point of the British memorandum, namely, foreign judicial

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advisers with real authority’. He also noted that ‘Germany, France, Great Britain, and Belgium have already started negotiations,’ but that ‘Minister Philip apparently has received no instructions as yet to negotiate.’ Schulenburg was pessimistic about the situation, ‘believing that nothing can be done with the Persian Government while the British and Russians continue at loggerheads’. 41 Washington finally sent Philip clear instructions on 14 March 1928, a day after receiving Schurman’s report. Apparently understanding that Taymurtash played the key role in the Iranian initiative to end capitulations, the State Department instructed Philip to approach the Court Minister first and with flattery, before delivering the American initiative in the form of a six-point aidemémoire to the Iranian Foreign Office. These points focused on the need for Iran to establish a judicial system comparable to that in America, which would protect ‘the vested rights of American educational, missionary and eleemosynary enterprises’. 42 Philip met Taymurtash on 19 March and reported to Washington the following day. The Court Minister indicated that Iran could not possibly accept ‘foreign judicial advisers’. The other five points, however, could for the most part be accepted. Exceptions notably included the idea of a most-favourednation clause for tariffs; instead Iran intended to impose a two-tier tariff, with minimum rates approximating those already in effect and rates 50 per cent higher for those countries which failed to negotiate treaties before 10 May. Taymurtash also urged Philip not to present the proposed aide-mémoire but ‘to refer to the Department the result of [their] talk, then, after ascertaining the Department’s further views, to confer with [Taymurtash] again’. 43 A week later Philip met British minister Sir Robert Clive and learned that he had been informed by Taymurtash that the Iranian government accepted all the British proposed safeguards except for the judicial advisers and the notice to consular authority of arrests. Tehran proposed that the safeguards take the form of an exchange of notes. 44 At the end of March, US Ambassador Herrick reported to Washington on his discussion of the matter with M.Charvériat, the head of the Asia section of the French Foreign Ministry. France accepted the Iranian initiative, seeing it as ‘actuated…by motives of prestige’. France did not believe that the Iranian government would in practice act more harshly towards foreigners than it had in the past. In any case, Charvériat told Herrick, it was far too late for a concerted action to try to preserve the old regime. 45 Despite this advice, the USA did not yet seem to understand that Iran was in the driver’s seat in the negotiations, and early in April the State Department threatened to invoke higher duties or an embargo against Iranian goods, if Iran did not concede to the US a most-favored-nation clause in the proposed new treaty. 46 However, the American Ambassador in London soon cleared the air, informing Washington of movement in Iranian negotiations with Britain. Clive had been informed by Taymurtash that the Iranian government would pass a new law establishing compulsory arbitration when desired by either party. The

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Iranian government also agreed to notify the nearest British consul in the event of the arrest of a British subject. 47 On 13 April Philip informed Washington of his latest meeting with Taymurtash, who seemed quite conciliatory. ‘The new codes’, the Iranian Court Minister assured the US, ‘will be free absolutely from the influence of Islamic law’. Although it could accept no foreign judicial advisers, Taymurtash declared, the Iranian government was disinterested in questions of personal status and had no objection to consuls dealing with them. 48 The same day, US Ambassador Schurman in Berlin informed Washington of the status of Germany’s attitude. Berlin accepted as final Iranian refusal to accept foreign judicial advisers. In addition, Germany refused cooperation regarding missionaries, ‘owing to the established general policy of German missionaries entering Islamic countries at their own risk. Germany maintains no schools in Persia’, Schurman continued, ‘only subsidising German teachers in native schools’. 49 A short while later, British Ambassador Sir Esme Howard informed Washington of London’s agreement to the position demanded by the Iranian government. Whitehall now accepted Sir Robert Clive’s view that ‘no useful purpose’ would be served to continue to press the Iranians to hire foreign judicial advisers and that the safeguards proposed by Taymurtash ‘will be sufficient’. 50 Although there was a great deal of further discussion back and forth, the Iranian government controlled the ensuing process, and by 10 May 1928 the regime of the capitulations was ended, replaced by new bilateral treaties. The USA was the last of the former capitulatory powers to sign, due to Washington’s failure to keep up with the pace set by Tehran and the European governments. 51

Conclusion The ending of capitulations in Iran is a complex subject which has largely been ignored by historians. My efforts to explore the topic have led me to see the contexts of the termination as most important. These contexts include the following six issues. 1 The entire subject of Iran’s history in the late Qajar and early Pahlavi era is one of the emergence of modern national consciousness in the context of reaction against foreign domination. Iranians came to understand their own nationality in reaction against the capitulations. Hence there was a nearly universal Iranian desire to end them in the early twentieth century. 2 In both Iranian practice and that of foreigners, there was a tendency to equate Iran and Islam. Although westerners—because of their own history—tended to see nationalism as a secular phenomenon, Iranian nationalists saw no inherent conflict between their identity as Shi’i Muslims and their identity as Iranians. This is true both for Islamists (such as Mudarris) and for anti-clerical Iranian nationalists (such as Riza Shah).

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This is echoed by the western practice of using the words ‘Muslim’ and ‘Persian’ interchangeably. For example, when American missionaries described the people of Azerbaijan they referred to Persians, Armenians and Assyrians; the categories are those of religion-based communities, and ‘Persian’ meant ‘Azeri-Turkish-speaking-Shi’i-Muslims’, namely the vast majority of the population of the province. In other parts of Iran, ‘Persian’ was used to describe Persian, Gilaki, or even Arabic-speaking Shia Muslims. 3 Riza Pahlavi was the key figure in the twentieth-century political development of Iran. He built the modern, centralised Iranian state with considerable support from other nationalists. Yet, like all human beings, he was actuated by personal motives as well as by patriotism. And, as we examine his career, we can see more than a hint of a personal need to control those around him, to express power for its own sake. The western diplomatic record of his reign is full of reports of incidents in which he let himself be carried away into unrestrained violence. To give one petty example at random, following an address from the throne to the Majlis in October 1929, ‘in returning from the Parliament building to his palace the Shah saw fit to descend from his State carriage in one of the large streets not far from the former place and manhandle a youngster for having failed to salute him’. 52 4 I believe the ending of capitulations should be seen in the context of Riza Shah’s efforts to establish personal control over all Iran, by destroying all independent sources of authority. Those thus attacked included notables of the Qajar era (e.g. Farmanfarma and his son Prince Firuz), leaders of the nomadic tribes (e.g. Sheikh Khaz‘al of Muhammarah), leaders of religious minorities (e.g. Shahrukh Arbab Kaykhusraw and Samu’il Hayyim, Zoroastrian and Jewish members of the Majlis), the ulama, many of Riza’s own supporters (e.g. Taymurtash and Davar), as well as foreigners. With regard to the attack on foreign interests, I particularly like the remark of US consul Augustin Ferrin that ‘all roads in Azerbaijan seem not to lead to Rome but through an American missionary’s yard’. 53 To paraphrase Riza’s declaration at the time of the termination of the Millspaugh mission, ‘there can be only one source of power in Iran; I am the State.’ 5 To the western powers, accepting termination of the capitulations in Iran raised fears for their interests; they were particularly concerned about the new judicial system which would replace the capitulations. This in turn was connected with Riza’s rivalry with the clergy. One example of this concern may be seen in the report on the new judicial system made by the State Department’s solicitor: At first blush one is struck with the apparently well ordered system of courts and judicial offices…[established by Iran. However,]…the basis of Persian law has been the religion of Islam, which is not only antagonistic to other religions but which holds ideas incompatible with

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the proper dispensation of justice in accordance with modern ideas…it would seem extremely dangerous to surrender the judicial capitulatory rights which are the only thing now in Persia protecting American citizens from a biased, inadequate and in many instances a corrupt system of justice. 54 Yet in the final analysis, westerners in Iran accepted the political necessity of ending the capitulations, as they had done in the Balkan countries on their independence from the Ottoman Empire. 6 After termination of the capitulations, Riza Shah did not treat foreign interests badly but instead turned increasingly against the ulama. In October 1928 he had Mudarris, chief clerical spokesman in the Sixth Majlis, arrested. According to American chargé Treat, Mudarris was ‘in danger of exile or worse. It appears that the provocation was that he recently put into circulation one of the famous “night letters” [shab-nameh] wherein the Shah and the Government were bitterly criticised on several scores, one being the manner in which the last elections were conducted.’ 55 In 1938, Mudarris was murdered while in government custody, strangled at prayer. In May 1929 the American Legation reported at some length on this anticlerical campaign, in words which, read today, foreshadow the Islamic revolution fifty years later. The Shah is continuing his…war against the clerical party. His methods are simplicity itself. An influential mullah or dervish is secretly seized and conducted to a prison far from his native city…very often those so abducted never return. Among the prominent men that have disappeared in this way is Modarres, the famous fearless Mullah who in Parliament always spoke out what he thought…. The main objective in this bitter warfare against the priesthood is…to facilitate sweeping reforms…. With the influential mullahs silenced, progress…will meet little or no opposition. Yet by incarcerating prominent persons without trial, and by forever silencing troublemakers without the due processes of law, the Shah’s reactionary tendencies are made visible…. It may be doubted whether a nation is benefitted by such a disregard for law and justice, even though much good results from the abuse of power. As long as the army is controlled by the Shah, he can consolidate his power and brook no opposition; but reforms applied by force of arms are inclined to be ephemeral. Unless the people can feel confidence in the legal establishments of their country, they will have no confidence in their Shah and his reforms, and no lasting good will be accomplished. 56 By his paranoid style of government, Riza Shah seems to have wasted his early support from Iranian patriots of many stripes. With reason, he became perceived as a tyrant, and he had no leg to stand on when his army disintegrated in 1941.

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Instead, he must be seen as a major factor in creating the conditions out of which today’s Islamic republic emerged. His termination of the capitulations in 1927 to 1928 was a part of that process.

Acknowledgements Research for this chapter was made possible by grants from the Idaho State Board of Education Higher Education Research Council, the Idaho Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Boise State University Office of Research Administration, for which the author would like to express his gratitude. The author would also like to express his thanks to colleagues Kaveh Bayat, who shared with him some of his own work on this subject, and Houchang Chehabi, who provided him with a copy of Ahmad Matin-Daftary’s 1929 dissertation on the suppression of capitulations in Iran.

Notes 1 See Amin Banani, The Modernization of Iran, 1921–1941 (Stanford, Calif, 1961), and Joseph Upton, The History of Modern Iran, an Interpretation (Cambridge, Mass., 1960). 2 See Ervand Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions (Princeton, NJ, 1982); M.Reza Ghods, Iran in the Twentieth Century; A Political History (Boulder, Col, 1989); Shahrough Akhavi, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran; ClergyState Relations in the Pahlavi Period (Albany, NY, 1980). 3 Roy Mottahedeh, ‘Iran’s Foreign Devils’, Foreign Policy, 1979. 4 J.C.Hurewitz, The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics, vol. 1 (New Haven, Conn., 1979). 5 The fullest English-language biography remains Donald Wilber’s uncritical Riza Shah Pahlavi: The Resurrection and Reconstruction of Iran (Hicksville, NY, 1975). Another pro-Pahlavi account is L.P.Elwell-Sutton, ‘Reza Shah the Great: Founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty’, in George Lenczowski, ed., Iran Under the Pahlavis (Stanford, Calif, 1978). For more balanced accounts, see Homa Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran; Despotism and PseudoModernism, 1926–1979 (New York, 1981); Stephanie Cronin, The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran, 1910–1926 (London, 1997), as well as Michael Zirinsky, ‘The Rise of Reza Khan’, in John Foran, A Century of Revolution, Social Movements in Iran (Minneapolis, Minn., 1994). In addition, see Cyrus Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah; From Qajar Collapse to Pahlavi Power (London, 1998). 6 FO 371/16942/E7813/47/34, RV (Sir Robert Vansittart), 17 December 1933. 7 Homa Katouzian, Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran (London, 1990), p. 25. 8 Mohammad Musaddiq, Musaddiq’s Memoirs, ed. and intro. Homa Katouzian, trans. S.H.Amin and H.Katouzian (London, 1988), p. 424. 9 Stephanie Cronin, ‘Conscription and Popular Resistance in Iran, 1925–1941’,

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International Review of Social History 43 (1998):451–471. 10 Akhavi, Religion and Politics; Mohammad H.Faghfoory, ‘The Ulama-State Relations in Iran: 1921–1941’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 19 (1987):413–432. 11 USNA, Hoffman Philip, Tehran, 7 April 1928, D. 575, 891.00/1444. 12 Banani, The Modernization of Iran, pp. 39, 70–84; Akhavi, Religion and Politics, pp. 37–40; Nikki R.Keddie, Roots of Revolution; An Interpretive History of Modern Iran, with a section by Yann Richard (New Haven, Conn., 1981), p. 95; Donald N.Wilber, Iran Past and Present (8th edn) (Princeton, NJ, 1976), p. 260; John Foran, Fragile Resistance; Social Transformation in Iran from 1500 to the Revolution (Boulder, Col., 1993), p. 222. 13 Michael Zirinsky, ‘Blood, Power, and Hypocrisy: The Murder of Robert Imbrie and American Relations with Pahlavi Iran, 1924’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 18, 3 (1986):275–292. 14 A classic Cold War-era account is George Lenczowski, Russia and the West in Iran, 1918–1948 (Ithaca, NY, 1949). 15 See Michael Zirinsky, ‘A Panacea for the IIIs of the Country: American Presbyterian Education in Inter-War Iran,’ Iranian Studies (1993): 119–137, and ‘Render Therefore unto Caesar That Which is Caesar’s: American Presbyterian Educators and Reza Shah’, Iranian Studies (1993):337–356. 16 G.H.Shaw, Washington, memorandum to Mr. Hengstler, 3 May 1927, Department of State microfilm, 891.00/1407. 17 Michael Zirinsky, ‘American Presbyterian Missionaries at Urmia during the Great War,’ ed. Oliver Bast, La Perse et la grande guerre (Tehran: Institute Français de Recherche en Iran, 2002). The transcript of the 1919 hearings is preserved in the US National Archives, RG 84, Tabriz Consulate, Urmia Investigation, 1919. 18 Philip, Tehran, 14 April 1927, 891.51A/368, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1927, vol. III, p. 549. 19 FRUS 1927, vol. III, pp. 523–564. 20 Ibid., p. 567. 21 An important Iranian study of this subject may be found in Ahmad Khan MatineDaftary, La Suppression des capitulations en Perse; l’ancien régime et le statut actuel des étrangers dans l’Empire du ‘Lion et Soleil’ (Paris, 1929). 22 The American record of the ending of the capitulations may be found in FRUS 1927, vol. III, pp. 567–593, and 1928, vol. III, pp. 683–718. 23 FRUS 1927, vol. III, p. 567. 24 Philip, Tehran, D. 329, 30 April 1927, FRUS 1927, vol. III, pp. 567–571. 25 Ibid. 26 Philip, Tehran, D. 341, 6 May 1927, FRUS 1927, vol. III, p. 573. 27 Philip, Tehran, T. 26, 10 May 1927, FRUS 1927, vol. III, p. 574. 28 Philip, Tehran, T. 27, 13 May 1927, FRUS 1927, vol. III, p. 575. 29 Ibid. 30 Secretary of State, Washington, T. 19, 16 May 1927, FRUS 1927, vol. III, pp. 576– 577. 31 Philip, Tehran, D. 348, 17 May 1927, FRUS 1927, vol. III, pp. 577–582. 32 Philip, Tehran, D. 373, 17 June 1927, FRUS 1927, vol. III, pp. 584–585. 33 Philip, Tehran, D. 380, 28 June 1927, FRUS 1927, vol. III, pp. 588–590. 34 Kellogg, Washington, T. 6, 26 January 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, pp. 683–684.

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39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

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Kellogg, Washington, T. 11, 13 February 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, pp. 684–685. Philip, Tehran, T. 18, 21 February 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, pp. 685–686. Kellogg, Washington, T. 12, 28 February 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, pp. 686–687. Kellogg, Washington, to Philip, Tehran, T. 16, 3 March 1928; to Herrick, Paris, T. 59, 3 March 1928; to Schurman, Berlin, T. 20, 3 March 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, pp. 688–689. Philip, Tehran, T. 21, 5 March 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, pp. 689–690. Philip, Tehran, T. 23, 7 March 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, p. 691. Schurman, Berlin, T. 46, 13 March 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, p. 693. Kellogg, Washington, T. 24, 14 March 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, pp. 695–696. Philip, Tehran, T. 28, 20 March 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, pp. 696–697. Philip, Tehran, 27 March 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, p. 699. Herrick, Paris, 30 March 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, pp. 700–701. Kellogg, Washington, 4 April 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, pp. 702–703. Houghton, London, 5 April 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, pp. 703–704. Philip, Tehran, 13 April 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, pp. 704ff. Schurman, Berlin, 13 April 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, p. 706. Howard, Washington, 16 April 1928, FRUS 1928, vol. III, pp. 707–708. FRUS 1928, vol. III, pp. 709–718. US chargé d’affaires Wallace Treat, Tehran, 18 October 1928, D. 697, DOS 891.00/ 1456. Ferrin, Tabriz, 26 February 1929, D. 42, USNA, RG 59, 391.1163/15. Department of State, the solicitor, memorandum, 13 August 1927, 891.02/1. Treat, Tehran, 18 October 1928, D. 697, DOS 891.00/1456. David Williamson, Secretary of Legation, Tehran, 2 May 1929, D. 821, DOS 891.00/ 1472.

6 PERFORMING THE NATION The Shah’s official state visit to Kemalist Turkey, June to July 1934 Afshin Marashi

At 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday 16 June 1934, the train carrying Reza Shah and the group of eighteen attendants, army officers and diplomats whom he had brought with him on his official visit to Turkey, arrived at the Ankara train station. 1 The welcoming ceremony in honour of the Shah and his entourage, as the train made its way into the station, was carefully and elaborately choreographed. Turkish and Iranian flags hung from the walls and pillars of the train station, a centrally placed honour guard took turns playing the respective national anthems, 2 and a large crowd was assembled all around the train station to welcome what the Turkish press had dubbed ‘Büyük Misafirimiz’ (our great guest). 3 By all accounts Reza Shah’s reception at the train station, like much of his 26-day Turkish sojourn, was a grand affair. As Abbas Masudi, the 25-year-old founding editor of the Tehran daily Ettela’at, whom Reza Shah had invited on the trip to record the historic visit, described in one of his telegraphed dispatches back to Tehran: ‘the entire population of the city has crowded onto the streets of the capital to welcome the shah.’ 4 The elaborate and public nature of the welcoming ceremony at the Ankara train station reflected the new political climate of the emerging inter-war Middle Eastern state system. In the aftermath of the First World War, the Wilsonian doctrines of national sovereignty and international diplomacy had produced an increasingly formalised international system of nation-states. The demise of the Ottoman, Habsburg and Romanov empires—and the establishment of the League of Nations—led to the century’s first springtime of nations and the emergence of a wave of new states seeking recognition within the new international order. In the context of the Middle East, Turkey and Iran were the two states that sought recognition most readily within the emerging international political system. Both emerged from the final peace settlements of the First World War, after Turkey’s war of independence, as sovereign states, and embarked on diplomatic policies to maximise their presence in world politics. Iran, as a neutral party to the war, was afforded ‘original member’ status in the League of Nations upon ratification of the League’s covenant in November 1919. 5 The Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1919 6 -which was part of Lord Curzon’s ‘Indian obsession’ envisioning a ‘chain of vassal states’ along the socalled ‘northern tier’ from the Mediterranean to the Pamirs 7 —was first signed,

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then suspended, and finally rejected in 1921 by a now more assertive national government conscience of and eager to preserve the nation’s sovereignty and position in the world. Similarly, Iran’s northern neighbour, Russia, having invaded Iran in 1911, then withdrawing and renouncing its economic and capitulatory privileges after the victory of the Bolsheviks in 1917, 8 only to return again in 1920 to help the short-lived Gilan Soviet Socialist Republic, finally, in 1921, formalised its recognition of Iran’s independence with the signing of the Soviet-Iran Friendship Agreement. 9 The relinquishment of the capitulations—which had been so potent a symbol of the nineteenth-century imperial order—was also a sign of Iran’s growing independence and formalised sovereignty; after the 1918 Soviet renouncement of the capitulations, Britain, Belgium, Austria, The Netherlands, Italy and Sweden, all in turn, negotiated bilateral agreements with the new state of Reza Khan, terminating their capitulatory rights. 10 Turkey, for its part, had emerged from the crucible of the Great War to sign a series of bilateral treaties with the Soviet Union, France, Britain, Italy, Romania, Yugoslavia and Greece. 11 Turkey’s admission into the League of Nations in 1932 12 was comparatively late given the recognition of the Turkish state since the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, but is perhaps explained by the strained relations of the Ottoman legacy and the Treaty of Sèvres (August 1920), 13 a treaty accepted by the Sultan in the aftermath of the war but which was deemed detrimental to Turkish ‘national’ interests by the Ankara government of Mustafa Kemal. 14 Increasingly, during the inter-war period, and especially as the world once again moved towards war by the mid-1930s, the diplomatic manoeuvring of Turkey and Iran became a way for the new states to assert their sovereignty while simultaneously negotiating their place in an evermore dangerous international system. The multilateral Balkan Pact of 1934, signed by Turkey, Greece, Yugoslavia and Romania, and the 1937 Sa‘adabad Treaty between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, were the culmination of this inter-war project of asserting the sovereignty of these new states in the international political arena. 15 The official visit by Reza Shah to Mustafa Kemal’s Turkey in June and July of 1934 thus took place within this broader context of inter-war Middle Eastern diplomacy. In one sense the visit was not unprecedented, however; both Naser al-Din Shah (r.1848–1896) and Muzaffar al-Din Shah (r.1896–1907) had made official visits to the Ottoman Court, 16 and to this extent the thaw in TurkoIranian relations—after the legacy of the religious wars of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—had already begun almost a century before Reza Shah’s ceremonial arrival at the Ankara train station. 17 In another sense, however, the 1934 visit suggested something decidedly new. The flurry of diplomatic activity following the First World War and the equally quickened pace of diplomacy in anticipation of the Second World War suggested that the nature of international relations had changed by 1934. The old imperial system had begun to wane, and the newly institutionalised context of international diplomacy now assumed a global system of freely interacting nation-states. Diplomacy in this new context was not only the legalistic language used by the

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high bureaucracies of interacting states; diplomacy now also served an important public, performative and symbolic role. In an age when the political structure of the League of Nations affirmed the presence of the international system, and the growing importance of a transnational print culture—not to mention the growing importance of radio, television and film—persistently reaffirmed the presence of that system, diplomacy now took on an important representational function as the way in which nations simultaneously declared their individual sovereignty and positioned themselves as part of the global chorus of nation-states. Membership in this global chorus now became the benchmark of national sovereignty, and the institutionalisation of the international sphere thus opened up a transnational cultural space in which national sovereignty could be performed. The goal of performing national sovereignty was clearly intended to gain recognition by the international sphere; and at its base this recognition stemmed from a political metaphysic which took as its operative assumption the presence of an international comparative field of standardised political territories. 18 In the aftermath of the Great War, and with the institutionalisation of the international system, public diplomacy now became the means by which emerging states sought to position themselves within this global representational network of reciprocal recognition. Institutionalist accounts of the international system have observed that this global representational network can produce a systemic effect resulting in a striking isomorphism across and between actors in the system. In the words of sociologist Connie McNeeley, The world polity consists of a complex set of assumptions, rules, and standards that underlie international global activity and discourse, and rests on the notion of a world culture as the institutional context in which broader relations and behavior can be examined. This world culture refers to a framework of definitions, rules, and principles that are institutionalized at the world level and, by implication, are held to be applicable throughout the world. Thus, the existence, the organizational structures, and the legitimacy of nation-states evolve in the transnational cultural environment and the organizational forms and practices of states typically respond to the cultural and organizational imperatives of the international system. 19 In the context of the Middle East, this more abstract formulation can be historicised to locate the inter-war period as the moment when the national sovereignty of individual states (and emerging states) became intimately tied to the now universalised political and cultural standards of an increasingly formalised international political system. Henceforth, the ‘framework of definitions, rules and principles’ that were ‘institutionalised at the world level’ became the prescriptive representational forms in which emerging states sought to cloak themselves in order to achieve recognition by the international system. In this sense the diplomatic history of the inter-war Middle East is important, not only for its place as part of the legal and political narrative of the region, but

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also for its place as part of the emerging narrative of modern culture in the region, as the moment when a new representational apparatus was deployed by Middle Eastern nation-builders. The 1934 visit by Reza Shah to Turkey was important precisely in this cultural and representational sense. The prolific staging of public ceremonies, commemorations and spectacles during the official visit—and at least as importantly, the media coverage of those events in the popular press—worked to publicise the adoption of the new Wilsonian model of national politics by the two emerging states. Flags, anthems, cheering crowds and symbols of the nation followed the two heads of state throughout the almost month-long visit by Reza Shah to Kemalist Turkey. In the urban environments of Ankara, Izmir and Istanbul elaborately choreographed public rituals allowed Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal to perform to the nation and in the process circulate a new set of national symbols with which to define themselves, their relationship to each other, and their place in the world. Domestically, the official visit was intended for the national publics of each state. Staged during the most robust period of their respective nationalisation projects, the official visit was an occasion for Turkey and Iran to transmit those newly forged national symbols to their respective publics. In addition, despite the relative thaw in Turko-Iranian relations since the late nineteenth century, the legacy of Ottoman-Qajar and Sunni-Shi‘i conflict meant that the official visit also served a didactic purpose for each state in popularising a new policy of inter-state friendship and cooperation. At the same time the official visit was also intended for an international audience. The press coverage of the visit reached the European and American newspapers, coming perhaps ironically during precisely the same week as the 1934 Venice meeting between Hitler and Mussolini—also widely publicised in the world press. 20 The presence of European and international diplomats at the official ceremonies and receptions is also recorded in the Turkish and Persian accounts of the visit. In this sense the official visit was situated in the context, and against the backdrop, of an international stage on which global diplomacy was performed. The performance of Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal on that stage in June and July 1934 was ultimately intended to show the world that the two states were competent in presenting and representing themselves according to the now-universalised standards of the international system.

Marking boundaries The first major ceremony during the official visit was the border-crossing of Reza Shah’s motorcade into Turkey. The border-crossing ceremony took place on 10 June 1934, 21 eight days after Reza Shah and his retinue had set out from Tehran, passing through Qazvin, Tabriz and Maku along the still-unpaved road of the Turko-Iranian frontier. 22 The border-crossing ceremony itself took place along the Maku—Erzerum road at the precise point where the two states had

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delineated their common border. At that site a Turkish military delegation headed by General Ali Said Pasha, commander of Turkish military forces in eastern Anatolia, was present to welcome the Shah and his entourage. 23 In addition, an elaborate triumphal arch had been erected in preparation for the Shah’s motorcade. The arch was adorned with Turkish and Iranian flags, and an honour guard from each state was present and positioned on opposite sides of the arch. As Reza Shah’s motorcade stood poised to cross the border, the honour guards first approached each other and, facing each other beneath the arch, took turns playing their respective national anthems. They then moved aside and made way for the Shah and his entourage to pass beneath the arch and cross into Turkey on foot. 24 The border-crossing ceremony suggests how important the public marking of political boundaries had become for each state. In fact discussions over the precise demarcation of the Turko-Iranian border had been the subject of extensive bilateral negotiations since the mid-1920s. Overall the border had remained remarkably stable since the 1847 Treaty of Erzerum, negotiated under British and Russian sponsorship to clearly delineate the Ottoman—Qajar frontier. 25 In the aftermath of the First World War and with the new emphasis on territorial boundaries as one of the defining characteristics of nations in the world system, the concern with precisely surveying, demarcating and publicly declaring the boundaries of each state gained renewed attention. Kurdish national aspirations were another common concern of Turkey and Iran, encouraging both states to assert their national sovereignty in the disputed Kurdish regions. 26 Inspired by both of these interests, negotiations between Turkey and Iran regarding the border began in 1926 and continued until 1932 when the demarcation of the border was finally resolved, adjusting the border to make the policing of the territory easier for each state. 27 The June 1934 trip to Turkey by Reza Shah was the direct result of the successful conclusion of the 1932 border treaty. With the signing of the treaty in Tehran on 23 January 1932—by Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Ali Furughi and his Turkish counterpart Tevfik Rüstü—the two states were now prepared to publicly affirm the terms of the new treaty as well as their newly formalised friendship. 28 Reza Shah’s ceremonial crossing of the border was thus full of political significance. The ceremony of the border-crossing—and at least as importantly, the press coverage of the ceremony—thus worked, on the one hand, to reify the existence of the newly demarcated political boundary which separated the two states, while, on the other hand, projecting a message of international cooperation between the two nations. The tacit rules of the newly emerging world order called for the transformation of the soft boundaries of the pre-national age into the hard boundaries of a new international system in which consolidated nation-states exercised sovereignty over clearly demarcated territorial zones. The border-crossing thus projected a message that animated the political boundary shared by the two states and affirmed each state’s authority over that boundary. The 11 June 1934 issue of Cumhuriyet featured a front-page topographical map of the Turko-Iranian frontier with the newly delineated

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political boundary conspicuously demarcated—a full narrative of the bordercrossing ceremony accompanied the graphic. 29 In the Persian press there was a similar concern with providing a detailed public account of the border-crossing ceremony. The detailed reportage of Abbas Masudi—the editor of the Tehran daily Ettela‘at who accompanied Reza Shah on the trip—describing the bordercrossing ceremony was sent back to Tehran via telegraph and published in the 28 Khurdad edition of the newspaper. 30 Press coverage of the border-crossing ceremony—as with the copious coverage of all the ceremonies during Reza Shah’s almost-month-long visit to Turkey—was thus important in amplifying the political message of the officially staged ceremonies. After the border-crossing ceremony itself Reza Shah and his Turkish hosts spent several days in eastern Anatolia as they made their way to Trabzon, from where they were to take a ship to Samson and from there a train to Ankara. Press reports of the eastern Anatolian leg of the trip were copious and detailed. In Erzerum on 13 June, for example, Cumhuriyet reported the presentation of a specially commissioned medallion to the Shah. 31 On one side of the medallion was a profile of Mustafa Kemal and on the other was that of Reza Shah. On the following day the motorcade arrived in Trabzon where they were greeted by Foreign Minister Tevfik Rüstü and General Fekredin Pasha; the guests were welcomed with full military honours, including a 21-gun salute, as they boarded the naval vessel Yavus and set out for Samson. 32 Press reports of the journey were detailed in their descriptions of the ceremonies and symbols, and the crowds which followed Reza Shah and his Turkish hosts as they made their way from the border-crossing ceremony to Ankara.

Ceremonies in Ankara The use of the press was an important means of transmitting the political message of the official ceremonies to a wider audience. The border-crossing ceremony itself, while attended by only a relatively small number of participants and observers, came to have an important political meaning through the coverage of the ceremony in the popular press. In addition to the press, however, other choreographed activities sought to directly mobilise popular participation through officially staged ceremonies held in honour of the Shah. These ceremonies were held in the major urban centres visited by Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal during the official visit. Among the most important of these ceremonies involving large-scale public participation was the official welcoming ceremony in Ankara. As Reza Shah’s train made its way into the Ankara train station, Mustafa Kemal and most of the senior members of the Turkish government stood on the platform waiting to greet the Iranian delegation. 33 Also in attendance was a large crowd of spectators, the size of which Abbas Masudi estimated in one of his dispatches back to Tehran as ‘the entire population of the city’. 34 The crowd had been encouraged to attend the welcoming ceremony at the Ankara train station;

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organised groups of participants were clearly in attendance among the crowd, including an honour guard which fired a 21-gun salute and played the Iranian national anthem, as well as several student groups from local schools, and members of the scouting movement who attended dressed in uniforms and standing in formation. As the Shah disembarked from the train and was greeted by Mustafa Kemal, the two walked together, passing the honour guard and scouts, and made brief speeches before the crowd assembled in front of the train station. From there they walked towards the waiting motorcade and climbed into the open-top car waiting for them. As their car drove from the train station and towards the Halkevi (People’s House), where Reza Shah was to stay during his time in Ankara, the two heads of state were visible sitting next to each other in the back of the car as they drove past the crowds lining the streets of the capital. 35

The press accounts also documented the details of the official reception held in the Shah’s honour on the evening of the Iranian delegation’s arrival in Ankara. At approximately 8 p.m. on 16 June 1934, after driving through the capital and seeing virtually all the public sites of the city decorated in Turkish and Iranian colours, Reza Shah and the Iranian delegation arrived at Çankay, the Ankara home of Mustafa Kemal. 36 The gala dinner reception in honour of Reza Shah was attended by forty-eight invited guests, many of whom were foreign diplomats stationed in the Turkish capital. 37 The dinner was the first opportunity for the two heads of state to spend time together, and by all accounts they quickly developed a genuine camaraderie. Reza Shah’s familiarity with Azeri Turkish allowed the two to speak for the most part directly to one another without the use of an interpreter. 38 Newspaper coverage reported the highlight of the evening as the exchange of toasts between Mustafa Kemal and Reza Shah. Cumhuriyet quotes Mustafa Kemal as making the following toast in honour of the Shah: With the greatest pleasure we welcome the leader of our brother nation, Alahazrat Humayun [Reza Shah], upon his arrival in Turkey. The entire Turkish nation is honored by His Majesty’s presence. Whenever in history these two nations have been at odds they have experienced the most difficult periods of their existence. However, whenever they have worked together they have made progress. The Turkish republic considers good relations with Iran to be central to its politics… Turkey and Iran have had elevated civilizations for thousands of years and today with great steps they are moving forward…and the friendship which day by day between these two brother nations advances, with the presence of his majesty here …and without doubt this will be welcomed by world civilization…and our nations will go down the road of peace and be part of the global peace which is our hope. 39 The public declaration of friendship between the two states echoed through the

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newspaper coverage of the toast. The invocation of ‘history’ and ‘world civilization’ by Mustafa Kemal further dramatised what was perceived as the momentous nature of the official visit and underscored the national and international audience to which the message was directed. In reply to Mustafa Kemal’s toast the Shah then rose from the dinner table at which were seated members of his entourage, senior Turkish leaders and foreign diplomats, including the British ambassador, and raised his glass to honour the Turkish president: Great friend and dear brother, the honorable president of the great Turkish Republic. The kindness with which I have been received by the Turkish nation has left a lasting impression on me. From the first day of my reign I have felt the need for friendship with Turkey and for this reason I am happy to see that the closest relations now exist between Turkey and Iran. These two neighbors and brother nations can move forward toward progress and civilization. In honor of this friendship I raise my glass. 40 The press coverage of the toasts stood alongside the coverage of the welcoming ceremony at the Ankara train station. Both of these public displays of bilateral cooperation were reported in the 17 June 1934 issue of Cumhuriyet. The welcoming ceremony at the train station was a public urban display that choreographed the articulation of Turkish and Iranian symbols while also managing the participation of the crowds as consumers of those symbols. The ubiquitous presence of Turkish and Iranian flags, the playing of the respective national anthems and the visible public presence of Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal standing juxtaposed before the crowd or sitting together in the back of the open-top car as it drove past the admiring gaze of the crowds lining the streets of the capital, all worked to tie together symbol and ceremony in an urban choreography of bi-national co-operation. Further, the press coverage of the welcoming ceremony and the official reception in honour of Reza Shah, and the exchange of toasts between Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal, worked to further the political message of the ceremonies. The visual symbols of friendship, which had been articulated during the afternoon ceremony at the train station, were now supplemented by the text of the speeches made at the official reception. The text underscored and amplified the visual message of the urban ceremony. Other important events during Reza Shah’s stay in Ankara were the other receptions given in his honour by Tevfik Rüstü (Foreign Minister), Ismet Inönü (Prime Minister) and Kazem Pasha (Speaker of the Assembly). 41 There was also a reception held for Mustafa Kemal at the Iranian Embassy in Ankara. 42 Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal also attended a specially commissioned opera performed in their honour at the newly constructed opera house in Ankara. The opera was entitled Özsoy (pure lineage) and was a celebration of Turko-Iranian friendship, based on a version of Ferdowsi’s mythical story of the brothers Tur

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and Iraj from the Shahname. 43 The two heads of state also made a public visit to a sports club where they observed gymnastics, sports and equestrian competitions. 44 Among the events which received the greatest press coverage, however, was Reza Shah’s visit to the Turkish Grand National Assembly, where he listened to a major foreign policy speech by Ismet Inönü on Turko-Iranian relations. With Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal sitting in attendance together in the upper gallery of the Assembly, Inönü described the state of Turko-Iranian relations: We welcome you your majesty. The people who have shown such warmth to the shah have done [so] knowing that they are showing kindness to the nation of Iran. The Turkish nation which has just come out of a contentious period recognizes that Iran has obtained its own independence with greatness and struggle. We resolve that now that both nations are strong and stable they will reach the path of progress and knowledge and will attain these to the fullest extent. All of these ceremonies impress on the international community that this is our goal since all of this is stated with feeling and conviction. 45 After Inönü made his speech the speaker of the National Assembly then went to the podium and announced that the Turkish Grand National Assembly had just telegraphed the Iranian Majlis with a declaration of friendship. 46 The visit to the Turkish Assembly, and Ismet Inönü’s speech, received wide coverage in the press. The Turkish dailies contained excerpts from the speech along with photographs and descriptions of the event. The speech itself made reference to all the important political points which the official trip was trying to publicise. Inönü’s point connecting warmth shown to the Shah with an expression of kindness towards the nation of Iran worked at once to reinforce the status of the Shah as a national representative while once again expressing bilateral friendship between the two states; his point describing the ‘greatness’ and ‘struggle’ of Iran’s fight for independence worked to tie Turkey and Iran’s recent political history into a common project of ‘national liberation’; the reference to ‘the path of progress and knowledge’ and the ‘international community’ suggested that the audience of the speech, as the official visit itself, was not only Turks and Iranians, but also the international political system. Once again the text of the speech worked to reinforce, amplify and make explicit the visual message of the public ceremony. In this case Inönü’s speech was a public declaration of Turkey and Iran’s mutual project of nationalisation and modernisation, and their acceptance of the rules and standards of the international state system, as well as an assertion of their status as equal members of that system. Of all the ceremonies held during the Ankara leg of the official visit the military parade held at the Ankara sports stadium on 18 June 1934 mobilised the greatest degree of public participation. The military parade took place on the second day of Reza Shah’s stay in Ankara. The staging of the parade at the

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sports stadium allowed for a very carefully controlled and choreographed public spectacle. Several thousand spectators were assembled to watch the elaborately arranged procession of soldiers, honour guards and scouts in honour of Reza Shah. 47 A special viewing platform had been erected in the stadium for Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal from which they could observe the procession while also being conspicuously positioned before the crowd. Also in preparation for the parade the stadium had been decorated with Turkish and Iranian colours and an assembled marching band played patriotic music. As the ceremony began Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal had not yet entered the stadium, which was nevertheless full of spectators listening to the patriotic music and waiting for the arrival of the two heads of state. With the crowd assembled in the stadium, an open-top car carrying the two heads of state then drove into the arena and made one complete trip around the track encircling the field, before stopping in front of the platform where the two heads of state were to take their places. 48 The dramatic entry into the stadium and the drive around the track in the open-top car presented the two heads of state to the thousands of spectators assembled in the stands. With Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal sitting next to each other on the platform, and patriotic music playing in the stadium, the two flagpoles situated beside the viewing platform where the two heads of state were positioned raised the Turkish and Iranian flags. The parade itself now began and continued for about an hour. Each group of soldiers that passed the viewing platform saluted the two leaders. The choreography of the ceremony, the presentation of symbols, and the public nature of the event worked to use the military parade as another public declaration of bi-national friendship before a carefully assembled group of spectators. The military parade was important for one other reason as well. In the Persian press coverage of the parade the presence of female scouts was of special notice. Female participation in the scouting movement, along with Reza Shah’s visit to co-educational public schools, left an important impression on readers of the press coverage of the parade in Iran. 49 The coverage in Ettela‘at and especially Abbas Masudi’s detailed descriptions of the social reform programmes in Turkey—such as co-ed schooling, female scouting and un-hejabed women— familiarised Iranians with those reforms and made them seem less radical when Reza Shah initiated similar reforms upon his return from Turkey. Again, as with all of the ceremonies staged during Reza Shah’s visit to Turkey, the performative and participatory elements of the ceremony were enhanced and supplemented by the way it was represented in the press.

Ahmet Agaoglu’s articles in the Turkish press The didactic nature of much of the newspaper coverage was also present in the Turkish press. Most significantly it is present in the series of articles written by Ahmet Agaoglu (1869–1939) in Cumhuriyet during Reza Shah’s official visit. Agaoglu was born in the Russian-dominated southern Caucasus and travelled

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widely during his life throughout the Caucasus, the Ottoman Empire and Europe—where he studied under the noted nineteenth-century philologists James Darmesteter and Ernest Renan—before returning to the Caucasus and eventually the Ottoman Empire, where he became one of the leading ideologues of Turkish nationalism. In the Kemalist period he served as head of Ataturk’s press office and director of the Agence Anatoli press service, was an important figure in the drafting of the 1924 Turkish Constitution and eventually became a deputy in the Grand National Assembly. 50 By 1934 he had retired to Istanbul where he continued to teach and write, and lived out his final years as a wellrespected public figure. The series of articles he published in Cumhuriyet between 15 and 24 June 1934 thus played an important role in framing Turkey’s new relationship with Iran. The articles did not specifically address Reza Shah’s visit to Turkey, but were rather intended as broad reflections on the cultural and historical ties which linked Turkey and Iran. For example, in the 15 June article Agaoglu begins by using the myth-history of Ferdowsi’s Shahname as a source for understanding the relationship between Turkey and Iran. He writes, Until the period of Mustafa Kemal and Shahanshah Reza Khan Pahlavi Turkish—Iranian relations could be described by four words: pointless struggle and meaningless competition. Ferdowsi’s imaginary work is a lively monument to this age-old competition even before Islam. It’s worthy to note that according to Ferdowsi these two nations are from the same source. According to this genius the first Padeshah Feraydun had three sons. The first was Tur, the second Iraj, and the third was named Salm. He gave the first Turan, to the second he gave Iran, and to the third he gave the Tigris-Euphrates valley. The second two joined together against the first thus beginning this age-old competition. 51 The myth-history of the Shahname had already become an important theme of the official visit. The staging of the specially commissioned opera Özsoy (pure lineage), based on the mytho-historical genealogy of Ferdowsi’s epic, was one of the public events which Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal attended during the Ankara leg of the trip. Agaoglu’s use of the Shahname to trace the national genealogy of Turkey and Iran served at least two purposes. First, the use of Ferdowsi was part of the broader project of secularising national culture in both Turkey and Iran. 52 The appeal to mythology and folklore in tracing the origins of modern identity worked to replace the traditional Quranic-Abrahamic genealogy with a newly constructed official public memory grounded in a secularised version of a national past tied to history, culture and race. Second, and more immediately significant, the appeal to the mytho-historical genealogy of the Shahname worked to tie Turkey and Iran together into a common history. The concern with tying the two nations into a common history was intended to trivialise the legacy of conflict and competition, which in fact filled the annals of their political relations. Agaoglu accounts for this legacy of conflict by

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declaring, In reality the only reason for this [history of conflict] was the drive towards imperialism and competition between dynasties. Thus two sister nations who were of the same race fought for centuries spilling each other’s blood. 53 Agaoglu’s appeal to the genealogy of the Shahname allows him to bring Turkey and Iran into a single national narrative. The common mythical genealogy now emphasises the common elements shared between the two nations rather than the historical legacy of conflict. In this sense Agaoglu is following the famous dictum of his mentor Ernest Renan when the latter wrote, ‘[f]orgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation’. 54 Once framed in this way however, Agaoglu’s ‘forgetting’ allows him to imagine a common Turko-Iranian historical bloc. He writes, In the beginning of the sixteenth century Turkey and Iran ruled much of Asia and Europe from the walls of Vienna to the gates of China, including India, and the entirety of this world was ruled by people belonging to the same race. 55 The appeal to race is significant in that it echoes the dominant discourse of nationalism in the interwar period. The reference to the extent of world conquest by Agaoglu’s Turko-Iranian bloc also reflects the then-dominant standard of judging the strength of a nation by the extent of its pre-modern imperial dominions, the assumption being that nations higher up the presumed hierarchy of nations are those which have ruled successfully over others. In Agaoglu’s reading of history then, the legacy of conflict between Turkey and Iran is forgotten and replaced by a national narrative which enframes both states in accordance with then-dominant global standards. Once this common narrative is put into place the more recent political history of reform in Turkey and Iran is even more closely woven together. Agaoglu, who himself was born on the Turko-Iranian frontier of the southern Caucasus, goes on to highlight the important role of the Azerbaijani element in Iranian politics. In discussing the 1905 Iranian Revolution he emphasises that some of the leaders of the movement had been Azeri-Iranians educated at the Galatasaray, the Imperial Lycée which had produced the important cadre of Ottoman officers and reformers including Mustafa Kemal. 56 He goes on to write, Azerbijan had a huge affect on the awakening in Iran. All of the leaders were in Istanbul. Among them Afghani, Kermani, Haji Mirza, and Shaikh Ahmet are worthy of mention. When one reads their writings one cannot doubt that they were influenced by Namik Kemal, Zia Pasha, and Mithat Pasha. Especially Mirza Agha Khan was not shy

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about openly expressing that Iran and Turkey should join under a single government. 57 In the more recent history therefore, Agaoglu is careful to emphasise the common experience of the two states. In drawing the final link between Mustafa Kemal and Reza Shah he equates the 1907 Anglo-Russian agreement, which divided Iran into Russian and British spheres of influence, with the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, which proposed a similar partition of Anatolia in the wake of the First World War. The recent history of Turkey and Iran is thus enframed as a common struggle for national sovereignty. Agaoglu writes, But in both cases this was the last straw and both countries were elevated to the struggle for liberation. In Turkey Atatürk came to the head of this struggle and in Iran our esteemed guest Shahanshah Pahlavi did the same. 58 Having begun from the myth-history of the brothers Tur and Iraj, Agaoglu now concludes his narrative by highlighting the leadership of Mustafa Kemal and Reza Shah. The common project of nationalisation and modernisation which the two heads of state were then leading now becomes the culmination of Agaoglu’s broader history of Turko-Iranian relations. In this sense Agaoglu’s articles were important in popularising and giving legitimacy to the new policy of bi-national friendship between the two states. The series of nine articles were published beginning on the eve of Reza Shah’s arrival at the Ankara train station and continued daily for the next ten days, from the Ankara leg of the trip through to the visits to Izmir and Istanbul. The press coverage of the official visit was most intense during this critical period and Agaoglu’s more broadly conceived and historical articles were juxtaposed against the press coverage of Reza Shah’s daily itinerary of visits to sites, meetings with public officials and other public events. The historical weight of Agaoglu’s articles thus added context, as well as symbolism and significance to the official visit. After extending his narrative from the birth of Feraydun, as the primordial Shah, to the mythic brothers Tur and Iraj, and their subsequent history of conflict and competition, Agaoglu concludes his narrative by anticipating a new age of closeness between the two nations; he writes on the eve of the first meeting between Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal at the Ankara train station, ‘[t]omorrow the meeting will be a crowning of this brotherhood’. 59

From Ankara to Istanbul It was during Reza Shah’s stay in Ankara that Mustafa Kemal asked him to extend his stay in Turkey. 60 Originally the trip had been planned to culminate with the meeting between the two heads of state in Ankara. With the success of the reception in the capital, however, and the sense of camaraderie which had

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now been established between the two men, Mustafa Kemal sought to prolong the official visit in order to show western Anatolia to the Shah and to emphasise further the new tone of friendship which had now been established between the two states as a result of the trip. The expanded itinerary now took them by train—in what quickly turned into a choreographed whistle-stop tour of western Anatolia—to Eskisehir, and then to Izmir, and from there north to Baliksehir, Çanakalle, the Dardanelles and, finally, by boat to Istanbul. The nine-day trip from Ankara to Istanbul gave the two heads of state extensive time to discuss the nationalisation and modernisation projects which both states were in the process of implementing. Hassan Arfa, one of the military commanders accompanying the Shah on the trip, recalls the train-ride to Izmir in which the parties sat together for long hours in discussion. Mustafa Kemal, Arfa recalls, ‘as usual drank and played cards, or talked a good part of the time. He was in great form’. 61 Passing through the small towns along the way, they were greeted by large crowds assembled at the train stations. 62 Despite arriving at midnight in Usak, a small town along the Eskisehir-Izmir railway, the train was greeted by a large crowd on the platform cheering for the two heads of state. As Arfa records in his memoirs, it was on this occasion that Mustafa Kemal, while leaning out the compartment window to greet the crowd, saw a turbaned mullah among the crowd standing on the platform. No doubt excited by the conversations of modernisation which had preoccupied the two heads of state during their hours together on the train, and just as likely by the spirits which had been consumed, Mustafa Kemal took the opportunity to make a public example of the man dressed in religious garb. Leaning from the train and pointing to the turbaned mullah he shouted with great excitement to the assembled mob to ‘destroy him’, as clerics are ‘the enemy of the people’. 63 Hassan Arfa describes what happened next: Looking out of the window, I saw a mullah who had had the misfortune to have tried to shake Atatürk’s hand, throwing his white turban in the air, and then plunging into the crowd he disappeared with dexterity engendered by fear. 64 By December 1934 Mustafa Kemal would make a decree prohibiting all clerics from wearing religious clothing outside of the mosque. The incident thus became a spontaneous public declaration of secularism to the assembled crowd at the train station and a lesson to Reza Shah on how to pursue his own policy towards the clergy. Upon their arrival in Izmir they were greeted by more public ceremonies. They made visits to a military installation, several factories and an air show in the city—all of which received extensive coverage in the press. 65 From Izmir they then made their way to Istanbul, which marked the end of the trip before Reza Shah was to make his way back to Iran via the Black Sea. The trip to Istanbul was made by rail and ship so that Mustafa Kemal could show Reza Shah the site of his most famous military success at the Dardanelles. By 1934

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the defence of the Dardanelles during the First World War had already gained legendary status as part of Turkish national memory, and the visit to the site by Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal—where according to the Turkish press ‘Kemal recounted the war story to Reza’—now also played a symbolic and political role as the memory of that military success was invoked at precisely the same moment when the two states were establishing bilateral defensive agreements. 66 After seeing the Dardanelles the two next made their way to Istanbul by boat. The welcoming ceremony and all the events held in Reza Shah’s honour were again staged on a very grand scale. As the boat made its way into the Bosphorous Straits and towards the Dolma Bahçe Palace, where Reza Shah was to stay during his time in Istanbul, a great portion of the city had assembled to welcome the two heads of state. 67 In a city of approximately 300,000 inhabitants in 1934, about 10,000 of whom were Iranian expatriates, a large segment of the population had gathered along the edge of the straits to watch the arrival of Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal. The geography of the Bosphorous, with the spectators watching from the edge of the straits as the boat carrying the two men sailed past, also helped to elevate and publicise the ceremonial quality of the reception. Much of the focus of the city’s attention was aimed at the boat bringing Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal into the city; Turkish and Iranian flags decorated the public spaces of the city as well as the boat as it made its way into the straits; a 21-gun salute was also fired over the Bosphorous to announce the arrival of the two heads of state. 68 On the front page of Cumhuriyet on 26 Haziran 1934 two portraits of Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal were printed inside a larger graphic which contained Turkish and Iranian flags. Inside the issue the programme of events scheduled for Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal’s stay in Istanbul was published to help encourage public participation in the events. 69 Also in the same issue, perhaps for the first time since the 1928 adoption of the Latin script, the newspaper had printed a front-page greeting written in Persian welcoming the Shah to the city. 70 Also inside the same edition Ali Nehat, a member of the literature faculty at Istanbul University, had composed a poem in honour of Reza Shah’s visit to Turkey. It too was printed in Persian, accompanied by a Turkish translation. 71 The three days which Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal spent together in Istanbul were full of public ceremonies and specially choreographed events. As they drove through the streets of Turkey’s most populous city in their open-top car they were continuously met by large crowds. Abbas Masudi, again reporting back to Tehran via telegraph, writes of the enthusiasm of the Istanbul populace for the two leaders. He writes, ‘[e]verywhere Reza and Kemal go by car they are greeted by crowds lining the streets’. 72 The schedule of their public events demanded that they criss-cross the city to attend ceremonies and visit sites. Among the sites they visited were the Istanbul Museum, the Hagia Sophia, the Iranian Consulate, co-educational schools, an air show and a military parade just outside the city, the Naval School at Haidar Pasha, and the Supreme Military, Academy where once again, the newspapers reported, the Shah was told ‘the story of the war of independence’. 73 At the Iranian Consulate there was a

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reception organised by the Iranian expatriate community of Istanbul. Standing before a large gathering of Iranian residents of Istanbul, Reza Shah is quoted as saying, The thing which has been so much a source of happiness for me during this trip has been the unity which has been shown between the Turkish and Iranian nations. Henceforth you must think of Turkey as your second nation and Turks as your brothers. Show them friendship. I am eager to put behind us during my reign the mistrust and conflict that has plagued our two nations and kept us separated. In place of this I want to create friendship in place of the conflict of the past caused by ignorance and religion. I am hopeful that henceforth these two nations will give each other their hand in harmony and have confidence in each other as they live and coexist in happiness and progress. 74 In Masudi’s coverage of the Istanbul leg of the trip, Reza Shah’s declaration of Turko-Iranian friendship received a great deal of attention. 75 As with the coverage of the other important public events during the official visit, the text of Reza Shah’s speech at the Consulate amplified the symbolic meaning of the broader set of ceremonies staged in his honour. The final large public event staged during the official visit was the firework display over the Bosphorous on the eve of Reza Shah’s departure from Turkey. As with the welcoming ceremony upon his arrival in Istanbul, the farewell fête for Reza Shah again made use of the Bosphorous as a central stage to choreograph the ceremony. In Ankara the military parade held at the sports stadium had served a similar purpose as a site of mass convergence for the public spectacle. In Istanbul the creative use of the geography of the Bosphorous as a public stage worked to make the ceremony visible to an even larger segment of the city’s population. The public had been made aware of the festivities through press coverage and the publication of the programme in the Istanbul dailies. At around 7 p.m. people began coming out of their homes to gather along the Bosphorous. The streets lining the shore had been closed in order to focus the attention of the city on the festival as well as to make room for the crowds of spectators who had gathered to see the display. The largest concentration of spectators had clustered around the Dolma Bahçe Palace where Reza Shah was staying and from where he and Mustafa Kemal were to watch the spectacle. 76 From that time until after midnight an armada of naval vessels formed a procession down the straits. The boats were adorned with electric lights in the national colours of Turkey and Iran. Amplified music also played the Iranian and Turkish national anthems from the decks of the passing vessels, and a major firework display accompanied the boats as they made their way past the spectators assembled around the Dolma Bahçe Palace. 77 The farewell ceremony on the Bosphorous was the largest public event staged in Reza Shah’s honour. As with the other ceremonies choreographed during the 26-day official visit to

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Turkey, the naval parade and firework display on the Bosphorous were designed to project a new message of Turko-Iranian friendship. The projection of this message during the Bosphorous ceremony was no doubt intended for the audience of urban residents in Istanbul. As the most populous city in the republic, the cultivation of popular opinion in the city would go a long way towards changing feelings of Sunni—Shi’i and Ottoman—Qajar distrust. The public nature of the ceremonies and the concern with ensuring popular participation and spectatorship during all of the public events suggests the basic concern of the official visit to publicise this new perception of Turko-Iranian relations.

Conclusion The ceremonies also symbolised a more fundamental conceptual shift in the culture and politics of the inter-war Middle East. Beyond the declaration of rapprochement and of new-found friendship between the two states, the ceremonies were also assertions of sovereignty on the part of Turkey and Iran within a global context. The official visits announced the presence of Turkey and Iran as equal members of a post-war international state system. The ubiquitous public image of Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal as national representatives, the emphasis during the ceremonies on such symbols as flags and anthems, and the choreography and liturgy of ceremonies based on an international model of inter-state diplomacy, made clear that the official visit conformed to a now-standardised national ceremonial form. As sovereign members of the inter-war state system Reza Shah’s official visit to Turkey was designed ultimately to show Turks, Iranians and the world that these two new states were free, sovereign and independent nations, conducting themselves according to the standardised cultural and diplomatic norms of the international political system.

Acknowledgements This chapter was originally presented at the 1999 Middle East Studies Association Conference in Washington, DC. I would like to thank Houchang Chehabi, Nikki Keddie, James Gelvin, Richard Tapper, Rouzbeh Parsi, Lars Schumacher, Wendy Shaw, Ralph Jaeckel, Touraj Daryaee and Cyrus Schayegh for their comments on an earlier draft.

Notes 1 The names of those who accompanied the Shah on the official visit may be found in several sources. See e.g.: Husayn Makki, Tarikh-e bist sale-ye Iran, vol. 3

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(Tehran, 1944), p. 136; Isa Sadiq, Yadegar-e omr, vol. 2 (Tehran, 1966), p. 302; General Hasan Arfa, Under Five Shahs (New York, 1965), p. 244; Najafquli Pasyan, Az savad-kuh ta Johanesborg (Tehran, 1998), p. 436. The most complete listing of the names, however, may be found in Salname-ye Pars, 1314 [1935], p. 87. The anthem was composed specifically for the trip. See H.E.Chehabi, ‘From Revolutionary Tasnif to Patriotic Surud: Music and Nation-Building in Pre-World War II Iran’, Iran (Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies), 37 (1999), p. 149. He is referred to alternatively as Büyük Misafirimiz, Muhtarem Misafirimiz and Aziz Misafirimiz. See e.g. Cumhuriyet 11, 12, 15 and 20 Haziran (June) 1934. The description of the welcoming ceremony at the Ankara train station is given in Cumhuriyet 18 and 19 Haziran 1934. Ettela’at, 27 Khurdad, 1313 (date in the original). Yearbook of the League of Nations (1925) (Boston, Mass.: World Peace Foundation, 1925), pp. 379–380. Husayn Makki, Tarikh-e bist sale-ye Iran, vol. 3, pp. 122–123; J.C.Hurewitz, The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics: A Documentary Record (2nd edn), 2 vols (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1979), vol. 2, pp. 182–183; Javad Shaykholeslami, Asnad-i mahramane-ye vezarat-e khareji-ye britanya, vol. 2 (Tehran, 1986); James Moncrief Balfour, Recent Happenings in Persia (Edinburgh and London: Blackwood, 1922), ch. 5. Harold Nicolson, Curzon: The Last Phase (London: Constable, 1934), p. 121. Hurewitz, The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics, p. 116; George Lenczowski, Russia and the West in Iran, 1918–1948: A Study in Big Power Rivalry (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1949), ch. 3. Nasrollah Saifpour Fatemi, The Diplomatic History of Persia, 1917–1923: AngloRussian Power Politics in Iran (New York: Russell F. Moore, 1952), pp. 266–294. See also the text of the treaty in Hurewitz, The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics, pp. 240–244; Mahmoud Afschar, La Politique européenne en Perse: quelque pages de l’histoire diplomatique (Tehran, 1973), 1st edn 1921, pp. 259–266. Amin Saikal, ‘Iranian Foreign Policy, 1921–1979’, in P.Avery, G.R.G.Hambly and C.Melville, eds, The Cambridge History of Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1991), vol. 7, pp. 426–458. For the Soviet-Iranian Treaty of 1921 see also Rouhollah K.Ramazani, The Foreign Policy of Iran, 1500–1941: A Developing Nation in World Affairs (Charlottesville, Virg.: University of Virginia, 1966), pp. 187–188. T.C.Kültür Bakanligi, Atatürkün Milli Dis Politikasi: Milli Mücadele Dönemini Ait 100 Belge (1923–1938) (Ankara, 1994), vol. 2; Aptülahat Aksin, Atatürkün Dis Politika Ilkeleri ve Diplomasisi (Ankara, 1991); Baki Öz, Islam Dünyasi ve Kemalizm (Istanbul, 1996); Utkan Kocatürk, Atatürk ve Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Tarihi Kronolojisi, 1918–1938 (Ankara, 1988). Stanford Shaw and Ezel Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), vol. 2, p. 377. Hurewitz, Middle East and North Africa in World Politics, vol. 2, pp. 225–227. In addition to the partition of the Arab provinces of the empire, already determined at San Remo, the Treaty of Sèvres announced the partition of Anatolia into Greek,

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Italian, Armenian and Kurdish adminstrative units, and the Bosphorous Straits into a demilitarised international zone. See Shaw and Shaw, History of Ottoman Emire and Modern Turkey, vol. 2, p. 356. For the Balkan Pact see Atatürkün Milli Dis Politikasi, vol. 2, pp. 668–672; for the Sa‘adabad Treaty see ibid., pp. 727–735; see also Hurewitz, The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics, pp. 509–511; see also D.C.Watt, The Sa‘adabad Pact of July 8, 1937’, Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society 49 (July-October, 1962), pp. 296–306. For Naser al-Din Shah’s visit to the Ottoman Court see his Safarname-ye Naser alDin Shah be farangestan (Tehran, 1873), pp. 178–196; Nasser al-Din Shah, The Diary of the Shah of Persia During his Tour of Europe, AD 1873, trans. J.W.Redhouse, (London: John Murray, 1874), pp. 363–399. In addition, the earlier visits by Naser al-Din Shah and Muzaffar al-Din Shah were also in response to the emerging international political system which was already taking shape in the nineteenth century. In the nineteenth century it remained exclusive of the European states, however, as in the so-called ‘Concert of Europe’. See F.H.Hinsley, Nationalism and the International System (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1973), pp. 83–84. The other important nineteenth-century precedent of imagining an international system of freely interacting nation-states was in the vogue of the world’s fairs. See Robert W.Rydell and Nancy E.Gwinn, eds, Fair Representations: World’s Fairs and the Modern World (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1994). For Iran’s foreign relations generally in the nineteenth century, and Ottoman-Qajar relations in particular, see Ali Akbar Vilayati, Tarikh-e ravabet-e khareji-ye Iran dar doran-e Naser al-Din Shah va Muzaffar al-Din Shah (Tehran, 1994); Mohammad Reza Nasiri, Nasireddin Sah Zamaninda Osmanli-Iran Münasabetleri, 1848–1896 (Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1991), pp. 157–167. The thaw in Ottoman-Iranian relations is also demonstrated by the permission of the Azeri-Iranian Shi‘i community of Istanbul to perform the annual Muharram observances; see Thierry Zarcone, ‘Le Situation du chi‘isme à Istanbul à la fin du XIX et au début du XX siècle’, in Zarcone and Zarinebaf-Shahr, eds, Les Iraniens d’Istanbul (Paris: L’Institute Français de Recherches en Iran, Bibliothèque Iranienne 42, 1993), p. 105; Erika Glassen, ‘Muharram-Ceremonies (‘Azadari) in Istanbul at the End of the XIXth and the Beginning of the XXth Century’, in ibid., p. 113; see also Stanford Shaw, ‘Iranian Relations with the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century’, in Avery, Hambly, and Melville eds, The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 7, pp. 297– 314. Consideration of the role of the ‘international system’ in the emergence of national states seems underdeveloped in most studies of nationalism. Some discussions may be found in the following: Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London and New York: Verso, 1991), p. 17; Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 15 George Thomas, John W. Meyer, Francisco O.Ramirez and John Boli, Institutional Structure: Constituting State, Society, and the Individual (Newbury Park, Calif Sage, 1987); Lyn Spillman, Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 60–61; Craig Calhoun, Nationalism (Minneapolis, Minn.

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University of Minnesota Press, 1997), pp. 118–123; Immanuel Wallerstein, ‘The States in the Institutional Vortex of the Capitalist World-Economy’, in Ali Kazancigil, ed., The State in Global Perspective (Paris, and Hants: UNESCO and Gower Publishing, 1986), pp. 145–153; Ken Waltz, Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959). Connie L.McNeely, Constructing the Nation-State: International Organization and Prescriptive Action (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995), p. 17. A related argument is made in Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979). Dennis Mack Smith, Mussolini’s Roman Empire (New York: The Viking Press, 1976), pp. 53–54. In the Turkish and Persian press the coverage of the HitlerMussolini meeting was reported literally alongside the coverage of the Reza Shah—Mustafa Kemal meeting. See e.g. Cumhuriyet 11, 14, 20, 25 Haziran 1934; Ettela‘at, 28 Khurdad, 1313. Cumhuriyet 11 Haziran 1934. Ettela‘at 12, 22, 28 Khurdad, 1313. Salname-ye Pars (Tehran, 1314 [1935]), p. 88; Najafgoli Pasyan and Khusraw Mutazed, Az savad-kuh ta Johanesborg (Reza Shah) (Tehran, 1997), p. 437; Cumhuriyet 14 Haziran 1934. Lashkar Hassan Arfa in Ibrahim Safayi, ed., Reza Shah dar ayne-ye khaterat (Tehran, 1987), p. 65; Arfa, Under Five Shahs, pp. 244–245. Richard Schofield, ‘Interpreting a Vague River Boundary Delimitation: The 1847 Erzerum Treaty and the Shatt al-Arab before 1913’, in Keith McLachlan, ed., The Boundaries of Modern Iran, The SOAS/GRC Geopolitics Series 2 (London: University College London Press, 1994), pp. 72–92; Maria T.O’Shea, ‘The Question of Kurdistan and Iran’s International Borders’, in ibid., pp. 47–56. For the Erzerum Treaty, and the evolution of Iranian borders generally, see also Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, Frontier Fictions: Shaping the Iranian Nation: 1804–1946 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), p. 26. Robert Olson, The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion 1880–1925 (Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, 1989); see also his The Kurdish Question and Turkish-Iranian Relations: From WWI to 1998, Kurdish Studies Series, vol. 1 (Costa Mesa, Calif: Mazda Publications, 1998). For the negotiations leading up to the border agreements, see the texts of the bilateral agreements in T.C.Kültür Bakanligi, Atatürkün Milli Dis Politikasi: Milli Mücadele Dönemini Ait 100 Belge (1923–1938) (1926 Agreement), pp. 392–399 (1928 Agreement), pp. 452–455 (January 1932 Agreement), pp. 517–531 (November 1932 Agreement), pp. 532–536. See also Mirza Amanullah Jahanbani, in Ibrahim Safayi, ed., Reza Shah dar ayne-ye Khaterat, p. 92; Hassan Arfa, ibid., pp. 61–65; Makki, Tarikh-e bist sale-ye Iran vol. 3, pp. 145–146, 154; Iskandar Daldam, Zendegi-ye por majara-ye Reza Shah (Tehran, 1991), pp. 366–367; Pasyan and Mutazid, Az savad-kuh ta Johanesborg (Reza Shah), pp. 434–436. A special ‘Border Commission’ was set up to resolve the border issue. Hassan Arfa and Muhammad ‘Ali Furughi were the Iranian representatives. Tevfik Rüstü Bey was the Turkish representative. Daldam, Zendegi-ye por majara-ye Reza Shah, p. 366. Cumhuriyet 11 Haziran 1934. Ettela‘at 28 Khurdad 1313. An earlier account of the border-crossing was also

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published in the 22 Khurdad edition of the paper. 31 Cumhuriyet 13 Haziran 1934. 32 Cumhuriyet 14 Haziran 1934. 33 In addition to Mustafa Kemal, Ismet Inönü, Tevfik Rüstü and Kazem Karabekir were also in attendence. See Cumhuriyet 14, 17, 18, Haziran 1934. The 14 Haziran edition gives a complete programme of events two days prior to the ceremony in order to encourage public participation. 34 Ettela‘at 27 Khurdad 1313. 35 Cumhuriyet 17 Haziran 1934. 36 Ibid. 37 Ettela‘at 28 Khurdad 1313. 38 Abbas Masudi, who spent much of the trip in close contact with Reza Shah, reports that Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal spoke directly to each other. See Ettela‘at 28 Khurdad 1313; see also Abbas Masudi, in Safayi, ed., Reza Shah dar ayne-yei khaterat, p. 346. 39 Cumhuriyet 17 Haziran 1934. 40 Ibid. 41 Cumhuriyet 20 Haziran 1934; Salname-ye Pars (1935), p. 93; Ettela‘at 28 Khurdad 1313. Kazem Pasha’s reception for Reza Shah is described in Ettela‘at 29 Khurdad 1313. 42 Ettela‘at 29 Khurdad 1313; Salname-ye Pars (1935), p. 93. 43 Cumhuriyet 20 Haziran 1934; Salname-ye Pars (1935), p. 94. The tide of Özsoy was later changed to Feridun. The opera was written by the celebrated Turkish composer Adnan Saygun and featured a libretto by Münir Hayri Egeli. It marked an important step in the development of Turkish national opera. See Metin And, ‘Opera and Ballet in Modern Turkey’, in Günsel Renda and C.Max Kortepeter, eds, The Transformation of Turkish Culture (Princeton, NJ: Kingston Press, 1986), p. 79; see also Chehabi, ‘From Revolutionary Tasnif to Patriotic Surud’, p. 149. 44 Cumhuriyet 18 Haziran 1934. 45 Cumhuriyet 19 Haziran 1934. 46 Cumhuriyet 20 Haziran 1934. The Iranian Majlis replied to the Turkish telegraph and both telegraphs were published in the newspapers. 47 Ettela‘at 29 Khurdad 1313. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. Masudi’s articles also emphasised the degree to which the entirety of Turkish society was mobilised for the modernisation programmes. Although Ettela‘at was technically an independent newspaper, Masudi’s reportage from Turkey was clearly intended to inspire Iranians to emulate the reforms then underway in Turkey. The Turkish model had an especially important impact on Reza Shah’s dress-code policy; on this point see Houchang Chehabi, ‘Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes: Dress Codes and Nation-Building under Reza Shah’, Iranian Studies 26, 3–4 (summer/autumn, 1993), p. 215. 50 For the life and thought of Ahmet Agaoglu see Ada Holland Shissler, ‘Ahmet Agaoglu (Aghayev): Turkish Identity Between Two Empires, 1869–1919’, Ph.D. dissertation (UCLA, 1995). See also her forthcoming book, Between Two Empires: Ahmet Agaoglu and the New Turkey (London: I.B.Tauris). 51 Cumhuriyet 15 Haziran 1934. 52 In Iran, especially, Ferdowsi and the Shahname became important parts of public

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life during this period. There was, for example, the millennium celebration of Ferdowsi’s birth commemorated in Tehran in December 1934. Cumhuriyet 15 Haziran 1934. Ernest Renan, ‘What is a Nation?’, in Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds, Becoming National: A Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 45. This essay was originally delivered as a lecture at the Sorbonne in March 1882. Cumhuriyet 15 Haziran 1934. Cumhuriyet 16 Haziran 1934. Cumhuriyet 21 Haziran 1934. Cumhuriyet 15 Haziran 1934. Cumhuriyet 15 Haziran 1934. Salname-ye Pars 1935, p. 98. Arfa, Under Five Shahs, p. 249. Cumhuriyet 22 Haziran 1934. Arfa, Under Five Shahs, p. 250. Ibid. Cumhuriyet 23 Haziran 1934. Cumhuriyet 26 Haziran 1934. Cumhuriyet 27 Haziran 1934. Ibid. Cumhuriyet 26 Haziran 1934. An earlier itinerary was also published on 23 June. It listed the streets and neighbourhoods the two heads of state would be passing through upon their arrival in Istanbul. It also listed the dock at which their boat was to land, ‘Sarayburnu Park’. Ibid. The headline read ‘Ruzname-ye jumhuriyat be alahazrat arz-i khoshamad minamayad’ (‘The newspaper Cumhuriyet extends its welcome to his Majesty’. Ibid. Ettela‘at 10 Tir 1313. Cumhuriyet 28 Haziran 1934. Cumhuriyet 29 Haziran 1934. Ettela‘at 7 Tir 1313. Ettela‘at 10 Tir 1313; Cumhuriyet 30 Haziran 1934. Ibid.

Part III CULTURE AND IDEOLOGY

7 TRANSFORMING DANGEROUS NOMADS INTO USEFUL ARTISANS, TECHNICIANS, AGRICULTURALISTS Education in the Reza Shah period Rudi Matthee

The Reza Shah period (1921–1941) continues to be one of the most understudied as well as controversial episodes in Iran’s modern history. Assessments of the period tend to be politically charged and reflect the widely diverging opinions about the extent and quality of its transformative nature. They rarely involve an appreciation of the effectiveness of the measures taken in this period in relation to stated policy objectives and allowing for the circumstances and conditions of the time—something which is quite common when it comes to evaluating, say, the reforms of Peter the Great in eighteenthcentury Russia or those of Muhammed Ali in nineteenth-century Egypt. Instead, they frequently narrow down to a moral verdict that weighs the entire age on a retrospective scale of Iran’s historical development since the mid- to latenineteenth century. The moral assessment of Reza Shah’s reign, whether characterized as the inception of an ‘auspicious age’ (‘asr-i farkhundah) or a period marked by the ‘elimination of the most basic human rights, and the establishment of a brutal dictatorship’, all too often prevents a sober analysis of its nature, in its achievements as well as in its failures. 1 Following these antithetical judgements, the educational record of the Reza Shah period has been alternatively labeled ‘consistent with [a] general attitude of pseudo-modernist etatism,’ and ‘a break away from the lethargy and backwardness of Qajar rule.’ 2 This chapter aims to steer clear of such ideological extremes while attempting to assess the role of education as an agent of social change during the reign of Reza Shah. Rather than using what Iran’s ruler should have achieved or avoided as criteria in evaluating Reza Shah’s educational policy, I propose to present an inventory of the educational measures taken in the 1920s and 1930s and to examine these within the ideological context of the time. By focusing on modernization, centralization, and nationalism as three objectives and guidelines envisioned in and implemented through these measures, we may gain a picture that views change from a contextual rather than a totalizing perspective. Whether judged positively or negatively, the terms modernization, centralization, and nationalism are likely to occur in any treatment of Reza

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Shah’s educational policy. Reza Shah himself saw these as the foundations on which to erect a new Iran. But while to him all three appear to have been clear and unambiguous concepts, they constitute problematic categories in terms of meaning, content, and effectiveness for anyone who seeks to analyze and understand the period in hindsight. Modernization, the most complex of the three, has of late lost most of its former straightforward meaning. Yet, inasmuch as many of the changes were introduced in conscious emulation of Western patterns, it seems justified to follow David Menashri in equating the educational changes under Reza Shah with modernization, and modernization with Westernization. 3 This includes the secularizing element in Reza Shah’s educational approach as much as the attention given to female education in the 1930s. All had the potential and, indeed, were designed to uproot traditional customs and patterns in Iranian society, even if the effects did not always follow prescribed and anticipated scenarios. Easier to define than modernization, the two other priorities, centralization and nationalism, become problematic when juxtaposed with modernization in Reza Shah’s educational program. Thus centralization might be seen in part as incongruent with modernization—the inefficiency of rigid central decisionmaking being an example—but this does not diminish the potential of core components such as standardization, uniformity, and secularization to strengthen the forces of change. Indeed, it may be precisely the combination that looks so infelicitous in retrospect—that of modernization and centralization—which was most powerful in undermining existing structures. To a lesser extent the same may be said of the nationalist message articulated in Reza Shah’s educational policy. Nationalism and modernization might be contradictory in some respects, but, as will be seen, the former was used selectively and remained subordinate to the imperative of the latter whenever contradictions surfaced. Operating in tandem, they had an exceedingly strong transformative impact on Iranian society.

Modernization Elementary versus secondary education When Reza Khan staged the coup that brought him to power in 1921, Iran’s educational system was underdeveloped and for the most part privately organized. The idea that the government had a role to play in education did not gain ground in Iran until the early twentieth century. A 1906 Education Act had made education through to the sixth grade compulsory for boys and girls. The constitutional period had further resulted in the establishment of a Ministry of Education (vizarat-e ‘ulum va ma‘arif, renamed vizarat-i ma‘arif va awqaf va sanayi‘-i mustazrafah in 1910), replacing a 1898 Council for National Schools; and the passage of a Fundamental Law of Education by the Majlis in 1911, which ended the era in which anyone could open a school. The period from

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1906 to 1921 also saw considerable growth in the number of public schools. These efforts towards the expansion of state-sponsored schooling notwithstanding, Iran’s educational system long continued to suffer from the country’s late start in the process of modernization. On the eve of Reza Shah’s rise to power, the 1906 Education Act remained unenforced. Virtually no state regulation existed with regard to teacher qualifications. Good conduct and a minimum age of 20 were the only criteria for a private schoolteacher. 4 Even in the early 1920s few schools fell under the jurisdiction of the state; most continued to be of the old maktab type, in which pupils acquired little more than a basic knowledge of the Qur’an, Islam, and Persian and Arabic. The modern educational institutions that did exist were for the most part directed by foreigners. The underdeveloped state of secondary education is illustrated by a graduation rate of fifteen from the Dar al-funun in 1922. 5 In sum, when Reza Khan assumed power, state and private schools in the entire country enrolled barely 50,000 students. 6 Reza Shah’s vision of a modern Iran naturally made education one of his main concerns from the moment he took power as Minister of War. The first examples of this were the establishment in 1922 of a school designed to train personnel for the Ministry of Justice, and of a military academy, Danishkadah-i afsari, which merged the existing training facility for the Cossack brigade and an earlier military school founded under the Qajars. 7 From the beginning, however, a lack of resources confronted the new regime with a choice of focus between elementary education on the one hand, and secondary and higher education on the other. Many public figures, who realized that no solid educational edifice could be erected without the strong foundation of basic education, pleaded for the greatest possible attention to the elementary level. 8 This concern was reflected in some of the early educational initiatives taken by the new regime, among them the drafting of a program that provided for a sixyear period of elementary education. The new curriculum provided for thirty hours of instruction per week and included the subjects of Persian (reading, writing, composition, calligraphy, spelling, and grammar), religious instruction, arithmetic, history, elementary Arabic (eliminated in 1930, when it was added to the secondary level), civics, and some physical education. Girls had a slightly simpler program, which was supplemented by sewing and drawing. 9 A 1927 decree also provided for free education for those who could not afford to pay tuition fees. 10 In 1928 the Ministry of Education began to publish textbooks, which were given free of charge to needy students and sold at cost to others. The year 1933 saw the establishment of the first kindergartens, which had not been envisaged in the original educational system. In 1935 school uniforms were introduced on the elementary level, as was mixed schooling, and by 1939 the Ministry was able to introduce a first series of uniform textbooks covering the entire range of the elementary curriculum up to the first cycle of the secondary level. 11 Despite the regime’s declared focus on the basic level, the country’s elite had a greater stake in secondary education, which accordingly had many influential

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protagonists. This is seen, for example, in the row that ensued when in 1927 Minister of Education Tadayun presented a bill to the Majlis requesting funding for elementary education. The suggestion that secondary education should pay for the expense involved by charging its students tuition fees drew considerable criticism from among parliamentarians. 12 Following discussions in the 1920s on the nature and future direction of education in Iran, held in the Majlis as well as in the national press, more effort and funding were expended on secondary education, something which was reflected in the fact that it did not have a representative on the Higher Council of Education. The emphasis on higher education quickly expanded the range of secondary schooling, which at the outset of Reza Shah’s reign was limited to the Dar al-funun, the national teachers’ college, Dar al-mu‘allimin, and the American and French high schools, all located in Tehran. The first result was the founding of a number of vocational schools attached to various ministries. One of these, the abovementioned military academy, quickly acquired such a good reputation that many families who used to send their boys abroad now took to enrolling them in this new school. 13 Secondary education received a further fillip when in 1926 graduates were exempted from one year of military service. With the opening of a school of commerce in 1925, the list of domestic institutes of secondary and higher education included a twelve-year teachers’ training institute, a school of medicine, a school of pharmacy, a law school, a school of agriculture, a technical school, a school of commerce, a school of dentistry, and a school of political science. In addition, there were the American College in Tehran, two French schools, the Military College, a wireless telegraph school, and an aviation school run by the Ministry of War. Technical training was offered to Iranian nationals by a number of foreign companies. In the 1930s a dental school and music and art academies were established, and in 1935 the government created a number of military preparatory colleges in the provinces. Academic colleges in a variety of fields, such as medicine and veterinary services, were established in the course of the 1930s as well. The University of Tehran, in 1935, was the culmination of this expansion of higher education. The year 1928 saw the introduction of a new uniform curriculum for high schools, patterned after the French lycée. It provided for approximately thirty hours of instruction per week, divided between a first cycle of three years and a second cycle of three years for boys and two for girls. Subjects in the first cycle included Persian, religion, Arabic, a foreign language, geography, history, philosophy, mathematics, drawing, and general science. Girls received additional instruction in home-making, cooking, and sewing, as well as in physical training. 14 The second cycle, to which entrance was secured by way of a first-cycle certificate, was divided between a section of letters, giving access to the School of Law and Political Science and the teachers’ college; a science section, which led to the various science institutions; and a commercial section, which opened the door to the Higher School of Commerce. Girls only had a choice between a teaching career and a general cultural course. The second

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cycle was concluded with a difficult national examination, the equivalent of a French baccalaureate, which the majority of students tended to fail. In 1939, finally, a new high-school curriculum was introduced after fierce parliamentary debate. The new program called for five years of general education, followed by one year of specialized training. A three-year introductory period was provided for. 15 The relatively scant attention to elementary education in the years after 1925 was not simply a matter of deliberate neglect. A dearth of teachers severely impeded a quick expansion and improvement of educational facilities. The only existing teacher-training college in the early 1920s, the Dar al-mu‘allimin, which had been founded in 1297 SH./1918, enrolled 180 students in 1922 to 1923. These were instructed by sixteen teachers. 16 At the same time there were 5469 teachers active in the private and public schools in the entire country. 17 An effort to establish a number of schools and evening classes with the task of training elementary schoolteachers met with little success. Most closed within a year, for low pay and status made a career as a schoolteacher unattractive and schools exempted their students from only one year of military service. Nor was the institution in 1929 of fifteen annual scholarships for needy students attending the Dar al-mu‘allimin more than a palliative. Over time it became clear that higher education could not operate without the recruitment of qualified students emerging from lower-level education. 18 In the 1930s, therefore, the government began to take measures to enhance the level of teacher training. The most important step in this regard was taken in 1934, when a basis for enhanced teaching quality of elementary schoolteachers was laid with the introduction of the Teacher Training Act. This Act aimed at an improvement of teaching quality by initiating evening classes, consisting of fourteen hours a week, for all teachers in government elementary schools. It also provided for the establishment, within five years, of twenty-five lower teachers’ colleges for boys, and for the creation of a teaching college for girls. With the establishment of thirty-six colleges, the implementation of this plan exceeded projections. Until 1940, 612 students graduated from these schools. 19 The only modification in the system came in 1938 to 1939, when as part of the general changes in secondary education the curriculum of the nation’s teachers’ colleges was reformed, giving students fewer options in their selection of courses. 20 Thanks to these various measures, the number of teachers in the public and private schools reached 11,555 in 1931. 21 By 1940 a total of 506 students graduated from the teachers’ colleges. 22 These increases did not end the shortage in teaching personnel, however. As an additional incentive, the government in 1940 entitled students enrolled in teacher training to a stipend if they signed a five-year contract for employment after graduation. 23 Naturally, it took years before even small numbers of qualified teachers began to emerge from the system, and throughout the period a lack of teachers obstructed the expansion of controlled elementary education. Meanwhile, the number of elementary schools increased from 440 in 1922 to 1048 in 1930 and 1336 in 1935. In the same period the number of teachers rose from 440 to 5601 to 6805,

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respectively, while the number of students went up from 43,025 to 126,052 to 170,077. 24 Most new schools were established in urban areas and rural areas were neglected. Not the least of the problems was that teachers considered an appointment to rural schools a form of exile. This, as well as the resistance that the introduction of modern schools would have provoked on the part of landowners, effectively blocked significant educational development outside the cities. 25 Adult and female education In addition to the measures taken to increase the level of education at the elementary level, the state initiated a general literacy campaign for adults in the late 1930s. In 1937 the Ministry of Education was charged with the task of supplementing elementary schooling throughout the country with night classes which would offer instruction in reading, writing and maths to illiterate adults between the ages of eighteen and forty. Attendance was made compulsory for illiterate and semi-literate government employees. In the provinces committees of teachers and government officials were established to help combat illiteracy. According to figures released by the Ministry of Education in the same year, in thirty-three such centers a total of nearly 90,000 adults attended classes. 26 This number was to increase to almost 160,000 in 1940. In addition, twenty-two secondary schools for adults were set up in 1937. Impressive as these figures may seem, they provided little ground for the municipal decree, issued in Tehran in 1938, which required literacy for all those seeking work as butchers and bakers and employment in hotels and restaurants. 27 In the attention given to female education Reza Shah’s program showed itself in its most ‘modernizing’ light. Within a generally underdeveloped educational system in the early twentieth century, opportunities for women were particularly limited. No more than 3500 girls seem to have been enrolled in the handful of women’s schools existing in 1910. 28 In defiance of clerical resistance and popular prejudice against the schooling of the nation’s female population, the Reza Shah regime managed to bring about considerable improvement in the educational opportunities for women. In addition to the existing private schools for women—the earliest being the Namus and Tarbiat schools in Tehran—the government opened a number of public ones, so that the number reached a total of fourteen or fifteen in 1923. 29 Three years later the number is said to have increased to 203. 30 The changes in elite perception towards female participation in modern education are expressed in a 1929 exhortation to the government to draft a speedy educational plan for women. Suggestions even included sending women to Europe as part of the studies-abroad project, so that they might be able to teach at women’s schools. 31 The few women who subsequently did depart for Europe were all privately funded. The efforts made to improve women’s education led to a considerable increase in the number of women in the nation’s schools. While in 1925 to 1926 only 120 girls as compared to 475 boys had graduated from the schools, the

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numbers in 1931 to 1932 were 1346 and 3713, respectively. 32 Girls comprised almost 35,000 of the 150,000 pupils and students in the country’s elementary and secondary schools in 1930. In 1931, the number in Tehran, excluding those enrolled in the maktabs, was almost one-third out of a total of between 25,000 and 35,000 pupils. The proportion in the provinces was lower but not insignificant. In Khurasan, for example, there were almost 18,000 pupils in 1931, of whom nearly 4000 were girls. Of the more-than-22,000 students in Azarbaijan, 5000 were female. In the 1930s female education gained further momentum as part of growing public and private attention to the furtherance of women’s emancipation. In 1930 an association of women was created under the direction of Iran Khanum Taymurtash, the wife of Court Minister Taymurtash, who had graduated from the American Girls’ College in 1930. Among this association’s goals was the establishment of a boarding-school for destitute women. It was further intended to find work for courtesans, to open a reading room for women, and to instruct women in the manual arts. In the late 1930s it engaged in charitable work, which included evening classes for women. 33 The mid-1930s was the period when upper-class women began to take off their chadors in public, and when a series of emancipatory measures were taken that affected women’s education. In 1935 mixed schools were opened in Tehran as well as in the provinces, and plans were announced for the opening of mixed elementary schools throughout the country. These opened their doors in 1316/1937. 34 In 1936 the Higher Council of Education approved a proposal that allowed women who had completed their eleven years of preparatory education to enter a special class of the Teachers’ College of Tehran in preparation for higher education. This class was opened in the same year to fifty students. Also in the same year it was announced that the faculty of literature would henceforth be co-educational. Women were given the right to attend the University of Tehran as well within years after it first opened its doors. 35 The University of Tehran In the 1930s the primary focus of the regime’s concern with higher education became the establishment of a national university. Probably the first to suggest the idea for such an institution was the founder of the French Lazariste mission in Iran, Eugène Boré, who in the 1830s wrote in a memorandum to Paris that it was his goal to found a university where Persian youths could study the sciences of the West. 36 Almost a century passed, however, before the first steps towards the realization of that goal were taken. In 1918 a number of prominent figures in Iranian education discussed the idea of setting up a university along French lines. 37 Nothing was heard of any further planning until 1925, when the British Embassy in Tehran, intent on countering an exclusively French model, submitted a suggestion to the government for an Iranian university. Part of this was the briefly entertained suggestion that the Anglo-Persian Oil Company might endow and maintain a university on the occasion of its twenty-fifth

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anniversary. 38 In the same year the first concrete proposal was submitted to the Minister of Education, Mohammad Tadayun, envisaging the incorporation of the faculties of medicine and law, the only existing faculties of higher learning, into a new university, and the creation of a school of engineering and mathematics, one for literature, and one for commerce and political economy. While the engineering and mathematics departments were to be drawn up under the supervision of European and Iranian specialists, the school of commerce and political economy was to be organized by European and American experts only. The debate continued in the following years. The reforms in the Ministry of Education in 1929 were accompanied by no plans for a full-fledged university, but the existing schools of law and medicine were seen as the basis for such an institution in the future. 39 The project received a further impetus when Court minister Taymurtash commissioned ‘Isa Sadiq to draft a plan for the foundation of a university. 40 Sadiq submitted his proposal in 1931, but it was only in 1933 to 1934, after these various preliminary steps—after Reza Shah had visited Turkey where he learned of Kemal Ataturk’s university project—that the plan to upgrade the existing institutes of higher learning into a national university received official approval and funding. In that year’s budget the sum of 2,000,000 rials ($125,000) was earmarked for the purchase of land and construction. On 8 Khurdad 1313/ May 19, 1934 the Majlis passed a law authorizing the foundation of a university that would replace the Dar al-funun, and a year later, on 15 Bahman/February 4, Reza Shah laid the foundation stone for the university at the Jalaliyah grounds, and inau-gurated the laboratory of anatomy and a faculty of medicine, both of which had been in operation for some time at a different location. An engineering department was part of the initial structure because the Ministry of Transportation urgently needed engineers, and apparently Reza Shah was strongly averse to reliance on foreign experts. 41 In its final form the university consisted of seven faculties: medicine, law, political and economic sciences, Islamic law and philosophy, sciences, literature, and technology. Many of the books for the library were donated by France and the British Council in Tehran. In its first year the university enrolled 1198 students and employed 109 professors. 42 By 1937 the number of students had increased to 2000, few of whom were from the provinces for lack of dormitory facilities. A few students from countries such as India, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iraq, and the Soviet Union were enrolled as well in the first decade of the university’s existence. 43 In 1940 411 students graduated from its programs. 44 A year later the first doctorates were awarded. 45

Central control and uniformity Reza Shah’s educational policy was truly a form of ‘revolution from above,’ and as such its modernizing character did not simply follow the calculation of the human-resource needs of Iran’s economy, but represented and embodied specific political priorities. 46 In other words, the educational measures outlined

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above had evident objectives beyond the desire to raise the level of knowledge among the general population. We have already seen how the government’s wish to train a bureaucratic cadre led it to favor the expansion of secondary schooling. It was hardly accidental that the first institute of higher education established was a school designed to train the personnel of the Ministry of Justice in 1922. The parliamentary approval of a large sum for military training in the same year, followed in 1923 by the creation of a military academy in Tehran—the first in what would become in due course a series of military schools in the provinces—reflected not just a focus on the training of highranking government officials but a more primary concern with national security and a strong defense. The state of priorities is perhaps best reflected in the fact that Tadayun was dismissed as minister of education and jailed in 1928 when he complained that the War Ministry was allocated a large budget at the expense of his own. 47 The repercussions for education of a policy that proceeded from the ideal of national unity, a logical concomitant of the desire to build a strong country, were significant and went far beyond the creation of military schools. In the first decade of Reza Shah’s rule most of what was done to improve the situation was designed to centralize and standardize the existing system. In 1923 the state took the first steps towards the establishment of a uniform school system. The Ministry of Education was streamlined through the creation in 1924 of a supervisory and consultative High Council of Education (shura-yi ‘ali-yi amuzish) designed for tasks such as the preparation of a new curriculum for both student and teacher training, the approval of textbooks, and the supervision of rank and promotion. Subsequent years saw the introduction of a twelve-year curriculum consisting of six years each for elementary and secondary education. In 1925 the Minister of Education, Yusuf Mushar, issued a new set of educational regulations which affected school management and teaching. Allegedly issued to counter Soviet propaganda, these regulations prohibited the use of books considered detrimental to good morals and behavior. At the same time they set conditions for establishing new schools, provided sanitary standards for schools, and stipulated a minimum age and an elementary school certificate for instructors teaching in lower grades, and a certificate from the first cycle of a secondary school for higher grade teachers. 48 With the consolidation of power following Reza Khan’s coronation as Shah in 1926, state control increased further, as is reflected in a law, passed the same year, which charged the Ministry of Education with matters of education for the entire nation. In 1928 the Ministry strengthened its hold over the system by assuming supervision of secondary education, for which a new curriculum was drafted. The next step was taken in 1929, when the Ministry of Education was reformed. The country was divided into nine educational districts, each with a budget and a director under the Minister of Public Instruction. In later years the Ministry continued to grow in size and complexity, until it employed 6000 people in 1934 to 1935. 49 The dilemma between the imperative of central control and the need to

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establish education in its own right is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in the realm of management and supervision. In the entire Reza Shah period Iran’s educational policy remained hampered in its effectiveness by multiple and overlapping decision-making and jurisdiction. The Ministry of Education oversaw education, yet the vocational schools established in the period fell under the authority of the ministries such as those of industry, commerce, health, agriculture, and war. In theory the Ministry of Education—whose most prominent incumbents were Muhammad Tadayun (1927–1928), Yahya Khan Qaraguzlu (1928–1933), and ‘Ali Asghar Hikmat (1933–1938)—was in charge of educational matters. Until 1933 however, the education minister shared his authority with the powerful and influential Court Minister ‘Abd al-Husayn Taymurtash. After the latter’s dismissal in 1933, Reza Shah himself, who from the beginning had been in a position to override any decision made at a lower level, became increasingly involved in the country’s educational policy. The desire for control underlay many of Reza Shah’s policy measures and is clearly visible in the drive undertaken in the 1930s to expand educational facilities beyond the regular school system. 50 It was mainly with the aim of ‘transforming dangerous nomads into useful artisans, technicians, [and] agriculturalists’ 51 that Reza Shah devised a plan in 1929 to educate the children of Iran’s multitudinous tribes. This project, launched as part of the reorganization of the Ministry of Education in the same year, received an initial budget of $100,000. The first experiment with so-called tribal schools, in which Persian was the sole language of instruction, got underway in 1930 among the Turkomans of northern Iran. A year after the inauguration of the project an American consular report spoke of a great success, noting that the ‘tribal kids were more enthusiastic than town kids.’ 52 In the same year a school, for the building of which the Majlis had appropriated 20,000 qirans, opened in Shahabad, west of Kirmanshah. In the following period additional schools were built in Baluchi, Lur, and Qashqa’i territory. By 1935 tribal schools were reported to exist in Tehran, Khurramabad, and Bandar Shah. While agriculture was taught in some places, in Bandar Shah’s Hunaristan-i Shahpur Turkoman boys received training in technical fields and particularly in railroad building. The numbers of students involved—thirty-one in Tehran, forty-seven in Khurramabad, and seventy in Bandar Shah—indicate how modest the overall endeavor was relative to the size of the country’s nomadic population. The regime’s efforts to forge linguistic unity, another element in its endeavor to establish central control, affected education as well. The decision to promote Persian as the uniform and exclusive language in the school system was designed expressly to enhance the centripetal effect of a single language as the official medium of expression. Thus foreign schools were required to use Persian as the only language of instruction in the lower grades, and great emphasis was placed on the proper use of Persian. Insofar as the regime’s declared policy goals included a diminished role for clerical control over education, Reza Shah’s reign witnessed considerable change as well. Contrary to a commonly held perception, secularization in the

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educational sphere in Iran did not begin with Reza Shah but had been underway for quite some time prior to his rise to power. 53 Reza Shah’s reign began in a spirit of caution vis-à-vis the country’s religious leaders, whose legitimization he needed, and at first did not go much beyond the inclusion of the maktab schools in government supervisory regulation instituted in 1924. After 1925, however, when the Shah was securely in power, the secularizing trend intensified with a wide range of measures. The regime’s secularizing thrust, combining a centralizing agenda and a desire to foster a system of patriotic rather than simply religious values, manifested itself in a concerted effort to undermine religious education and thereby weaken the hold of Islam and its spokesmen over society. Measures were taken to curb the number of students enrolled in religiously controlled schools as well as to replace traditional religious teaching with the inculcation of ethical values revolving around citizenship and patriotism. However, as it was primarily designed to shift control and supervision over education away from the ulama and towards the government, Reza Shah’s secularizing policy followed the path of centralization rather than of modernization. The restrictions imposed by the government on the freedom to teach Christian values in the foreign-operated missionary schools belong more properly in the category of nationalism, and will be discussed under that heading below. The goal of secularizing the educational system was achieved most effectively through the gradual domination of state schools in elementary education at the expense of the traditional maktabs. Theological colleges were not spared either, however. Between 1928 and 1930 a series of laws and decrees was passed which enhanced the Ministry’s control over the matriculation and graduation of religious students as well as the qualification of teachers of religious sciences. The first of these, the so-called Law of Uniformity of Dress, stipulated that those theology students who wished to be exempted from military service and the obligation to wear European dress would have to take an examination before a government-instituted board. These laws regulated the status of religious students, required examinations and official diplomas for bona fide madrasa teachers, and enforced a European dress code on all but those who were officially recognized as being engaged in religious education. Compulsory religious education was also dropped in 1930. In the following years the government began efforts to bring religious colleges under its control. The Sipahsalar College in Tehran was the first thus to be brought within the state’s orbit in 1931. State intervention in religious education did not stop there, but included attempts to standardize and control the curricula of religious colleges. In 1930 textbooks began to be prescribed and Ministry of Education examination boards received authority to administer examinations. This development culminated in 1934, when the Ministry presented its permanent curriculum of studies for theological colleges, requiring secular subjects such as composition and history for the intermediate level and deleting traditional subjects such as Qur’anic exegesis and religious biography from the higher level. 54

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This sustained campaign was successful inasmuch as it led to a decrease in both the number of maktabs in the country and the number of students enrolled in religious schools. According to figures released by the Ministry, the number of maktabs fell from 2402 in 1926 to 1890 in 1929, while the number of pupils decreased from 45,998 to 35,931 in the same period. 55 The number of tullab in the madrasas fell from 4979 in 1923–1924 to 1341 in 1939–1940. On the other hand, the number of madrasas remained virtually unchanged from 1921 to 1940: approximately 240. 56

Nationalism If modernization was Reza Shah’s goal and centralization his method, nationalism was the ideology that legitimized both. Visible in Reza Shah’s impatience to catch up with the modern world, in his instinctive aversion to Iran’s centrifugal tendencies, and in his chauvinistic celebration of the country’s ancient and glorious past, nationalist sentiments were never far from the surface in Iran’s government educational policy in the 1920s and 1930s. National prestige loomed large in the government’s desire to establish a national university. Nationalist pride in the country’s pre-Islamic heritage manifested itself in an official emphasis on the Achaemenid past, expressed, among other things, in the neo-Achaemenid architecture of many public buildings, as well as in the introduction of language courses in Pahlavi in 1935. 57 The same spirit of pride in the country’s patrimony underlay the creation of a language academy, Farhangistan, in 1935, set up with the aim of coining Persian words for new concepts, as well as in the establishment of museums of ethnology and archeology, created for the preservation and display of the country’s cultural heritage. A national library, Kitabkhanah-i Milli, was finally founded in 1937. The educational policy initiated by Reza Shah stressed God and King, and never tired of extolling the virtues of civic obedience, discipline, and morality. All three were present in the program that led to the creation of a Department of Public Enlightenment in 1937, which was to strengthen the nation through moral education. It was in the same ambience that boy-scouting was introduced in 1925. The incipient movement, founded in a country with no indigenous tradition of physical education, received a boost in 1928 to 1929, when Reza Shah called the activity the best education for the happiness of the young generation. 58 Boy-scouting became a particular concern after 1933, with physical education turned into a government priority. In 1934 it, as well as the Department of Physical Education, was brought under the direction of an American, Thomas Gibson. The latter was asked to serve for another three years in 1937. In 1935 to 1936 a women’s section was established as well. The return in 1936 of Crown Prince Mohammed Reza from his educational stay in Switzerland, where he had acquired a love for sports, greatly stimulated the boyscout movement. He became the movement’s honorary president. In 1937 there were 11,000 registered boy scouts in the country, and in 1939 membership was

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made compulsory for all boys from the fifth through the ninth grades. 59 As the 1930s progressed, other forms of physical education received ever more official attention. In 1933 a council of physical training was established in the Ministry of Education, which began to organize athletic events and nationwide annual championship games. Physical education as well as a number of newly introduced Western sports became part of the regular school curricula. 60 In 1934 to 1935 forty-seven athletic clubs were formed in the provinces, and the budget for physical education was increased from 10,000 to 25,000 tumans. Following trends in fascist European countries, physical exercise began to be propagated in the late 1930s as an extension of military preparedness. In particular, the German state-led effort to inculcate discipline and nationalist fervor stimulated the emergence of a physical culture in Iran in which athletic prowess and the virtues of military-style exercise were extolled and celebrated. The 1938 Olympic Games in Berlin, the first in which Iran participated, acted as another stimulus. Centralization and nationalism converged in a desire to strengthen the nation against outside influence, a desire that at times verged on xenophobia. The nationalist spirit of the Reza Shah period affected the educational role and status of foreigners as early as 1923, when concessions granted to foreign interests involving foreign advisors required a percentage of them to serve as consultants or to assist in the educational establishment for which a concession was given. 61 This decree, however, did not translate directly into restrictions on foreign schools, which provided much of modern elementary and almost all secondary education in the country when the new regime took over. Thus the French had two schools in Tehran, while the Americans and the Russians each had one. In the provinces numerous foreign schools existed, bringing the total for the country up to fifty in 1929. 62 However, already in these early years a countervailing trend was foreshadowed through media attacks on the foreign schools which were said to ruin the ‘nationality and religion’ of Iranian students, as the latter ‘identified with foreigners and became alienated from their own country.’ 63 More concretely, the beginnings of a new political climate made themselves felt in the issuance of a new set of rules, which brought examinations under the control of the minister of education, made the teaching of the shari’a compulsory for Muslim pupils, prohibited the teaching of religions other than Islam to Muslim children, and made instruction in Persian citizenship obligatory. In the course of the 1920s a prolonged conflict ensued between foreign schools claiming that religion was a private affair not to be regulated by the state, and the Iranian government, desirous to centralize and control education and to challenge foreign control over it. Strong opposition on the part of foreign school administrators, backed by their embassies, delayed the implementation of the new rules but was unable to prevent the abolition in 1928 of the capitulations that had long granted foreigners special judicial privileges. Foreign schools continued to resist the new rules but eventually followed their legations in realizing that they had to bow to the rising spirit of nationalism. Henceforth they

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were to conduct the first four years of instruction in the Persian language and in compliance with the program of the Ministry of Education; the history and geography of Iran had to be taught in Persian even after that; and Bible instruction to Muslim students was prohibited. Meanwhile, the foreign schools retained the freedom to arrange their curricula for non-Muslim students. In the 1930s the pressure on foreign schools increased, despite the tenure of Hikmat, who, as Education Minister, was favorably inclined to a foreign role in education. The dismissal in 1933 of Court Minister Taymurtash, who was seen widely as a moderating influence, seems to have contributed further to a more virulent strain of nationalism. Foreign-run schools, especially those in remote areas, increasingly became the object of red tape and outright harassment by local administrators. Newspaper articles and editorials periodically questioned the freedom of foreigners to conduct business and own property in Iran. A milestone in this development was a 1932 decree that forbade foreign schools from accepting Iranian students for the 1932 to 1933 school year, a measure that resulted in an 80 per cent decrease in enrollment the following year. The forced closure of foreign primary schools followed soon after. A primary cause for this attack was presumably Reza Shah’s preoccupation with foreign indoctrination, especially through the four primary and three secondary Russian schools in Iran. 64 The desire to eliminate the teaching of Russian was allegedly also the reason why French became the only permitted foreign language in Armenian schools in 1934. In 1939, finally, the Iranian government decided simply to expropriate all foreign schools. Opposition caused the implementation of the decree to be postponed until 1940, when only the German school was allowed to continue its services (the measure was reversed during the war years). An aspect of the nationalist fervor that affected foreign-run schools in particular was the question of language. The language of instruction in foreigncontrolled schools was French, or, in the case of provincial schools, often Armenian or Turkish, rather than Persian. As of 1927 the state began to exert pressure to introduce Persian as the main language of instruction in schools with pupils whose language was Armenian or Turkish; schools that did not abide by these rules were threatened with closure (this campaign, incidentally, coincided with an order in neighboring Turkey which required Turkish to be the language of instruction). The Persianization campaign continued into the 1930s. American schools in Azerbaijan, for example, were forced to accept only pupils with certificates from Persian elementary schools, as well as to increase the hours taught in Persian at the expense of the hours devoted to Armenian. At the same time, non-Persian schools were forced to drop names with foreign connotations and substitute Persian names. Thus the American college for boys in Tehran was rechristened ‘Alburz College’, while its female counterpart adopted the name ‘Nurbakhsh’; the Stuart Memorial College in Isfahan was renamed ‘Adab’, and the American boys’ school in Rasht took the name ‘Avicenna’. Despite these anti-foreign measures, foreign nationals wishing to open private schools continued to be permitted to do so. Thus in 1930 the Council of Education granted American citizens permission to open schools in Rasht and in

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Sultanabad, while the American girls’ school in Tehran was authorized to expand its curriculum. The American school in Tehran also increased its enrollment in the early 1930s. The Iranian elite apparently did not share the government’s suspicion of foreign participation in education and continued to esteem the foreign schools. The combination of modernization and nationalism clearly created contradictions and dilemmas. Among these was the impossibility of introducing and developing modern educational facilities without the active assistance of foreigners. Faced with this dilemma, Reza Shah’s government invariably chose to let the benefits of foreign expertise prevail over any national sensitivities. Thus, the measures taken against foreign schools and the emphasis on national symbols notwithstanding, the participation of foreign teachers in schooling was not really jeopardized. The employment of French teachers in the newly founded administrative school in 1922 was by no means the last occasion on which foreign instructors were hired. Indeed, the early years witnessed an expansion of foreign-administered schools. In 1921 discussions began with regard to the reopening of the German school in Tehran, which had been closed during the war years. This technical school, reputedly superior to any other educational establishment in the country, was reopened in 1925, and immediately attracted more than 200 students. Throughout the Reza Shah period, the school, which had a teaching staff consisting of Germans and Iranians, continued to act as a vehicle for the spread of German influence in Iran. 65 Also in 1925, the American College of Tehran, which had been a secondary school since 1887 and had been transformed into a junior college in 1913, achieved the status of a full college. 66 Appreciation for work of foreigners was officially expressed on the occasion of the thirty-first commencement of the school in 1925, when Husayn Khan ‘Ala thanked the American people for their generosity and praised the spirit of American-style education as one of self-reliance, determination, and courage. 67 Throughout the Reza Shah period the need persisted for foreign teaching expertise. Foreign instructors shared teaching responsibilities with Iranians in most foreign schools, and new teachers continued to be recruited from abroad. In 1928 ten French instructors arrived in Tehran to staff a newly founded Franco-Persian school. Foreign teachers also continued to serve in domestic educational institutions. French teachers were hired to teach at the agricultural college at Karaj. French instructors taught at the schools of medicine, pharmacy, and law; German professors were attached to the technical school in the capital, while Russian professors taught in the school of dentistry. Out of sixteen teachers at the national teachers’ college, Dar al-mu‘allimin, eight were foreign. 68 In the field of anatomy, new to Iran and religiously sensitive, the first instructors in 1934 were American. The University of Tehran employed a large number of foreign professors as well. By the time it opened its doors, a clear tendency had developed to favor German influence over that of other Western countries. In 1935 German teachers were engaged for a newly opened veterinary school and, while authorities in general balked at the continuing need for foreign

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expertise, in 1937 the Majlis authorized the employment of a number of German instructors in industrial schools. More significantly and fundamentally, the Reza Shah period saw no basic deviation from foreign educational patterns. In the course of the 1920s and 1930s there was some confusion over which existing foreign model to imitate. France and, to a lesser extent, the USA, each eager to see its system adopted, engaged in lobbying with the Iranian government towards that end. 69 At times the Iranian authorities seemed inclined to follow American patterns—largely under the influence of ‘Isa Sadiq who had grown enthusiastic about American educational models during his stay at Columbia Teachers’ College in New York, and Minister of Education ‘Ali Asghar Hikmat who, as a graduate of the American college in Tehran, favored the Anglo-Saxon model—but in the end, French influence prevailed and the system of higher education was set up along French lines as it evolved. Perhaps the greatest paradox in the nationalist climate of the time, as well as the best example of a modernization project taking precedence over national pride, was the decision to send students to Europe for the pursuit of higher education. Iran had been sending students abroad for higher education since the early nineteenth century and continued to do so intermittently until the outbreak of the First World War, during which time no Iranian students resided in foreign countries aside from those studying at Iranian schools abroad, located in places such as Tiflis, Istanbul, Karbala, Najaf, and Baghdad (the number of students at these schools stood at about 650 in 1925). 70 After the conclusion of the war, the pressing need for a trained cadre forced the Iranian government to contemplate resuming the sending of students abroad for specialized scientific training. The first diplomatic steps towards that goal were taken in 1921. Reza Shah’s coup did not interrupt this development, for a year later the first group of sixty candidates was sent to French military academies (a proposal to send half of them to Germany was rejected). 71 The foreign training of military officers remained a priority and continued during the entire Reza Shah period. Other fields of study were soon to follow, and before long considerable numbers of students left Iran for foreign training. This was in part the result of private initiatives. Thirty-three privately funded students studied in Germany in 1921, a number that rose to seventy in 1922 and to 280 in 1923. 72 Some, however, were government sponsored. Interestingly, the USA was one of the first postwar recipients of government-sponsored Iranian students, a number of whom went there to study pedagogy, seen to be more developed in America than in Europe. 73 After a trip to America by Husayn ‘Ala in 1924 two Iranian students were also recommended for study at the West Point Academy, albeit at their own expense, 74 and soon twenty students were pursuing higher education in the USA, mainly in medicine, agriculture, dentistry, and pedagogy. These were maintained in part by the Iranian government, in part by the so-called Trenton fund, an indemnity fund worth $110,000 in the name of the assassinated Major Imbrie which the US Senate and Congress had jointly established for the

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purpose of enabling Iranians to study in the USA. 75 In 1932 it was decided to provide scholarships for a number of the poorer Iranian students who studied in the USA at their own expense. In later years students continued to go to America, individually as well as through government support. In 1935 the Iranian army sent a group to the USA to undergo technical training. Europe, however, continued to be the destination for most of the governmentsponsored students. In 1926 the first twenty students left to pursue a degree in engineering. To the great satisfaction of the French government, all were sent to France. 76 In the same year Iran sent nine students to the Italian naval academy. In 1928 these moves were followed by the establishment of a fully state-funded program. The Majlis passed a bill that envisaged sending 100 students a year to Europe. (In 1932 the USA was added as a country of consideration for regular dispatches, in part as the result of the enthusiastic reports ‘Isa Sadiq gave to the Ministry of Education during and after his year of study at Columbia’s Teachers’ College.) To prevent the drain of money and financial resources that this exodus entailed, a school of engineering was opened in 1931; since only fifteen students enrolled, it closed the following year. For the time being there was no alternative but to continue and even expand the program. The government earmarked 100,000 tumans for this purpose, a sum that was to increase each year by 100,000 tumans until it reached 600,000 tumans. As it happened, the 500,000-tuman mark was reached in 1931, and in the 1931 to 1932 fiscal year the budget for sending students abroad was doubled to 1,000,000 tumans, the equivalent of $400,000. Candidates had to be of Iranian nationality, were required to pass a competitive admission examination, and had to pursue a scientific discipline selected for them by the Iranian government, which in addition reserved the right to choose the country of study as well as to call upon the service of students during the four years following their return home. Of the approximately 125 students who were selected in the first year, the overwhelming majority, about 110, went to France, due largely to the presence of the Iranian envoy in Paris, Husayn Khan ‘Ala. 77 Of the remainder, between seven and nine went to study railway engineering in Germany, and three or four departed for Belgium and Britain, respectively. 78 That the Soviet Union was the destination of eleven students in railroad building was due to the fact that the Tabriz-Julfa line was similar to the Russian system. In subsequent years these numbers decreased somewhat, but the proportions received by the various host countries remained virtually the same; only Great Britain started to receive more students in subsequent years, while Switzerland began to play host to an occasional student. Growing numbers of students began to go to Germany as well. Of the eighty government-sponsored students going abroad in 1933, sixtysix went to France, twelve headed for England, and two left for Germany. 79 All in all the target of 500 students in the first four years was not quite achieved and only 367 were sent. By 1931 a total of 1632 students were said to be studying abroad. Aside from the 367 sent by the Ministry of Education, 101 were funded by the Ministry of War. 80 In 1934, 451 government-sponsored students studied

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abroad, 355 in France, and fifty-five in England. Of the 1165 privately sponsored students, 537 resided in France, 137 in Belgium, 114 in Germany, seventy in the USA, thirty-three in England, and sixteen in India. 81 The sending of private students continued until 1938, when a decree was issued that prohibited Iranian private students from pursuing a degree abroad, allegedly for purposes of saving foreign exchange. The fields pursued by Iranian students abroad varied a great deal, but all clearly reflected the most urgent needs of the country in its modernizing drive. Of the 131 students sent to foreign countries in 1930, thirty-five went to pursue general education, an equal number mechanical engineering, twelve medicine, five agricultural engineering, and as many electrical engineering and mining engineering. As well as acquiring skills, students who went abroad were exhorted to familiarize themselves with the high moral principles of Western countries. Many, however, became acquainted with aspects of the West that did not figure on Reza Shah’s list of high principles, ranging from representational democracy to republicanism to socialism. Indeed, the experience of Iranian students in countries such as Germany laid the groundwork for much of the political activity which emerged in opposition to the Reza Shah regime and that was to play a crucial role in the country’s political life following his abdication. In Germany Iranian students founded organizations such as the ‘Persian Republican Revolutionary Committee,’ ‘Iran’s Hope’ (Umid-i Iran), and ‘Iran,’ which published journals, held conferences, and engaged in other political activities that were critical of the regime. Some of the participants involved, such as Taqi Erani and Bozorg ‘Alavi, were later instrumental in founding the Communist Party of Iran. 82 It is not altogether clear how many students returned to Iran after completing their studies abroad. Scattered figures are available only for state-sponsored students. In 1930 twenty of the thirty students sent to Germany for railway engineering returned home. Six years later a total of 192 returned, forty-six of whom had pursued a degree in education, thirty-four in medicine, twenty-nine in law, fourteen in agriculture, thirteen in electrical engineering, and ten in finance. 83 From 1922 to 1938 a total of 396 state-sponsored students are said to have returned to their homeland. 84 Most of those who did return to Iran were offered prominent positions in the country’s administration—more than 50 per cent according to one survey—and politics. Many also pursued careers as professionals and journalists, or joined institutions of higher learning. The newly founded University of Tehran would not have been able to operate without its foreign-educated Iranian staff. 85

Conclusion Statistics suggest that modern education, starting from a virtual position of nonexistence, made great strides under Reza Shah. The quantitative change which

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education underwent after 1922 is illustrated by the fact that in the next two years the number of schools rose from 612 to 1943, and thereafter to 4939 in 1936, jumping to 8381 in 1937 to 1938. Total school attendance rose steeply from 1922 to 1924 from 55,131 to 96,367, and in the period 1924 to 1936 steadily increased to 258,275. In 1938 it stood at 457,236. 86 As a result of the government’s emphasis on secondary education, the system grew considerably in the first decade of the Reza Shah period, even if, measured in absolute numbers, success remained relative. In all of Iran the annual number of graduates from secondary schools rose from nine in 1921 to 1922 to 300 in 1932 to 1933. One hundred of these would go to Europe for higher education, while fifty would enter the Dar al-mu‘allimin 87 The total number of students in secondary schools rose from 3300 in 1924 to 14,500 in 1934, and was to reach 28,200 in 1940. 88 The number of public and private secondary schools reached a total of 387 in 1940 to 1941. 89 The total number of government-run girls’ schools increased in the period from 1931 to 1941 from 645 to just under 2000. 90 Female enrollment in secondary education, meanwhile, increased from 1715 in 1930 to 1931 to 5816 in 1941 to 1942. 91 Also illustrative of the educational progress in the same period are the 924 books that were published in 1937 as well as the circulation of forty-five newspapers and holdings of over 16,000 volumes in the National Library. 92 The library of the Dar al-mu‘allimin had a mere 283 books in 1928 to 1929, but acquired 2775 additional volumes by 1931 to 1932. However impressive, isolated statistics do not reflect adequately the impact of Iran’s educational policy in the 1920s and 1930s. All told, only 1 per cent of the entire population attended elementary school at the time of Reza Shah’s abdication. During the entire period no steps were taken to make elementary education compulsory. Moreover, relative to other government activities, education was far from being the first concern. It is true that the budget for education increased from less than eight million rials in 1925 to 1926 to over forty-one million in 1933 to 1934, after which it went up to more than seventyone million in 1936, to reach eighty-four million in 1939 to 1940. But military affairs and security, which absorbed a full one-third of the national budget, far outweighed the 4 per cent of the budget allocated to education. The resources and energy allocated to the military were commensurate with Reza Shah’s primary goal, the building of a strong, unified, and modern state. To this all else was subordinated, including education, which has justifiably been called a means to advance the ruler’s politics. 93 The new school system that evolved was utilitarian in nature in that it was designed primarily to provide the regime with the practical skills needed to build a new country. It has been said that the instrumentalist vision behind such promotion of education accounts for many of the flaws attached to the new system. The educational system that emerged was heavily centralized and elitist. Educational reform did not go much beyond the urban areas, and it was mainly the children of the country’s elite who benefited from the increased opportunities. Insufficient attention was paid to elementary education. Excessive centralization led to rigidity and wasted

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resources. 94 Among the most damning indictments of Reza Shah’s educational policy has been that it reinforced existing social structures. It is said that Reza Shah’s educational ambitions were the product of a ruler who was at bottom distrustful of intellectual curiosity and critical inquiry. To train uncritical bureaucrats, docile engineers and military experts was the fundamental goal of the measures taken to improve and expand the system. Curricula were geared towards memorization rather than understanding and were theoretical rather than lifeoriented. In sum, they combined the worst of indigenous and foreign traditional patterns. 95 This verdict, although apposite, fails to address the entire scope of Reza Shah’s educational reforms, and not just because it remains difficult to envision how, given the forces of tradition and the constraints these put upon Iran, the outcome might have been dramatically different. For all their flaws, the reforms instituted in the 1920s and 1930s stand out for their radical character. Part of this was intentional, part a matter of potential and long-term consequences, some of which were unanticipated. Their transformative nature remained the same in either case. It could be argued that Reza Shah’s educational reforms marked a radical break with the past and, indeed, that the period itself heralded the beginning of Iran’s entry into the ‘modern world.’ Despite its ultimate focus on higher education, the Reza Shah regime was the first to pay serious attention to the elementary level and to the problems of mass illiteracy. The same is true for the education of women. The reforms that were instituted gave the female population its first outlook on life beyond the household. In more ways than one the transformative potential of Reza Shah’s educational policy was a function of the ruler’s top priorities: modernization, centralization, and nationalism. His simultaneous desire to modernize the country and to strengthen central control gave opportunities to tribal children that, however limited, were unprecedented. The same combination was responsible for the beginnings of physical education as well as for the kind of standardization that is indispensable to a modern education system. The regime’s modernizing zeal and nationalist fervor had similar effects. A good example is the creation of a national university, a sine qua non for a selfsustaining educational structure. Where contradictions threatened to emerge, modernization prevailed. Nationalism was never allowed to obstruct modernization. Faced with a choice between adopting Western models and relying on foreign expertise, and making do with existing models or waiting for local skills to mature, Reza Shah generally chose the former, thereby unwittingly creating the preconditions for the rise of oppositional forces following his abdication. What Iranian students abroad gathered in terms of political expertise was of tremendous importance for the country’s political development in the period after 1941. It is, on balance, arguable that the transformation undergone by Iranian society during and as a result of Reza Shah’s reign was more fundamental and irrevocable than any of the changes the current Islamic Republic will in future

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be seen to have effected. If Reza Shah’s regime did not inaugurate secular education, his efforts did lay the foundation for a modernized system in their intrusion upon established social patterns and structures. The system that came into being may not have been designed to breed critical intellectuals, but without it—and especially without the foreign studies program—none could ever have emerged in later times.

Notes 1 For these two conflicting views see ‘Ali Asghar Hikmat, Si khatirah az ‘asr-i farkhundah-i Pahlavi (Tehran 2535 Shah/1976), and Ahmad Mahrad, Iran unter der Herrschaft Reza Schahs (Frankfurt and New York, 1977), 16. 2 For the first assessment see Homa Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran, 1926–1979 (London, 1981), p. 111; for the second see Wilhelm Eilers, ‘Education and Cultural Development in Iran during the Pahlavi Era,’ in George Lenczowski, ed., Iran under the Pahlavis (Stanford, Calif, 1977), p. 331. 3 David Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran (Ithaca, NY and London, 1992), p. 5. 4 ‘Isa Sadiq, Modern Persia and Her Educational System (New York, 1931), p. 40. 5 Amin Banani, The Modernization of Iran, 1921–1941 (Palo Alto, Calif, 1961), p. 108. 6 Salnamah-i ihsa’iyah (Statistical Yearbook) (Tehran, Ministry of Education, 1304 Sh./ 1925), p. 14. 7 Yann Richard, ‘La fondation d’une armée nationale en Iran,’ in Yann Richard, ed., Entre I’Iran et I’occident. Adaptation et assimilation des idées et techniques occidentales en Iran (Paris, 1989), p. 54. 8 For the different views and arguments see Menashri, Education, pp. 116–118. 9 Sadiq, Modern Persia, pp. 57–58. 10 Menashri, Education, p. 119. 11 Banani, Modernization, p. 95. 12 Unlike high schools, which charged a small monthly fee, elementary schools were free; see A.Arasteh, Education and Social Awakening in Iran, 1850–1968 (Leiden, 1968), pp. 34, 90. 13 United States National Archives, Washington, DC (hereafter NA), M715/14 891. 42/8, Murray to State Department, 22 March 1925. 14 Sadiq, Modern Persia, pp. 63–65. 15 ‘Isa Sadiq, Tarikh-i farhang-i Iran az aghaz ta zaman-i hazir (Tehran, 2nd edn, 1338 Sh./1959), p. 357. 16 ‘Isa Sadiq, Yadgar-i ‘umr: Khatirati az sar-guzasht, 3 vols (Tehran, 1340–1353 Sh./ 1961–1974), vol. 2, p. 93. 17 Annuaire du ministère de l’instruction publique, 1935–1936, p. 84. 18 Joseph Szyliowicz, Education and Modernization in the Middle East (Ithaca, NY, 1973), p. 177. 19 L.P.Elwell-Sutton, Modern Iran (London, 1944), p. 139. 20 Sadiq, Tarikh-i farhang, p. 357. 21 Annuaire, p. 84.

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22 Elwell-Sutton, Modern Iran, p. 141. 23 Mahin Mahludji, ‘Die Frauenbildung in Iran und ihr kulturgeschichtlicher Hintergrund’ (dissertation, University of Cologne, 1956), p. 69. 24 Szyliowicz, Education and Modernization, App. B, p. 466. 25 Ibid., pp. 238–239. 26 In NA, M1202/9 891.42/64, report Engert, 17 December, 1937. 27 NA, M1202/9 891.42/71, Moore to State Department, 24 September, 1938. 28 Mahludji, ‘Frauenbildung,’ p. 23. 29 Genevieve L.Coy, ‘Education of Girls in Teheran: An American Woman’s Impression of Persian Methods,’ The Baghdad Times, 21 December, 1923. 30 Mahludji, ‘Frauenbildung,’ p. 50. 31 See Salnamah-i Pars, 1929. 32 Mehdi Nakhosteen, ‘The Development of Persian Education and Learning’ (Ph.D. thesis, Cornell University, 1933), p. 373. 33 Journal de Téhéran, 11 January, 1938. 34 Hikmat, Si khatirah, p. 102. 35 Ibid. 36 A.Chatelet, ‘La mission Lazariste en Perse,’ Revue d’Histoire des Missions 13 (1936):501. 37 Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris (hereafter AE), Asie, Perse 65, 2. 38 Public Record Office, London (hereafter FO) 371/11485 E/560/134/34 report Loraine, 31 December, 1925, pp. 211–214. 39 NA, M715/14 891.42/17, report Ferrin, March 9, 1929. 40 Husayn Mahbubi Ardakani, Tarikh-i tahavvul-e danishgah-i Tihran va mu’assasati ‘ali-yi amuzishi-yi Iran dar ‘asr-i khujastah-i Pahlavi (Tehran, 1350 Sh./1971), pp. 55–56. 41 Hikmat, Si khatirah, p. 360. 42 Rahnama-yi danishgah-i Tihran, 1314–1315. 43 Arasteh, Education and Social Awakening, p. 37; Banani, Modernization, p. 100. 44 Elwell-Sutton, Modern Iran, pp. 141–142. 45 Banani, Modernization, p. 99. 46 The term ‘revolution from above’ derives from K.Trimberger, Revolution from Above: Military Bureaucrats and Developments in Japan, Turkey, Egypt and Peru (New Brunswick, NJ, 1978). The role played by political considerations in educational policy is noted by Bill Williamson, Education and Social Change in Egypt and Turkey: A Study in Historical Sociology (London, 1987), p. 5. 47 Ervand Ahrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions (Princeton, NY, 1982), p. 153. 48 FO 371/11504 E/5049/5049/34, report Nicholson, 9 August, 1925, pp. 74–77; Sadiq, Modern Persia, p. 60. 49 Salnamah-i ihsa’iyah, 1311–1312 Sh./1932–1933, p. 93. 50 Reza Shah’s obsession with control and uniformity in educational matters is fervidly illustrated in an anecdote told by Sulayman Bihbudi, the ruler’s personal assistant. Reza Shah was so used to the tolling of the bells of the Tarbiat School, located next to the ruler’s palace, that when one day he failed to hear the sound, he inquired about the reason. Being informed that the school had closed on account of the death of one of its employees, the Shah angrily summoned ‘Ali Asghar Hikmat, the Minister of Education, and scolded him for failing to uphold a standard of

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58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

70 71 72 73 74

75 76 77 78 79 80 81

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uniformity by allowing one particular school to suspend its classes. See Riza Shah: Khatirat-i Sulayman Bihbudi, Shams-i Pahlavi, ‘All Izadi, ed. Ghulamhusayn Mirza Salih (Tehran, 1372 Sh./1993), pp. 336–337. NA, M1202/9 891.42/56, Honnibrook to State Department, 23 April, 1935. NA, M1202/9 891.42/20, Hart to State Department, 6 March, 1931. Shahrough Akhavi, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran: Clergy—State Relations in the Pahlavi Period (Albany, NY, 1980), p. 36. Ibid., pp. 51–54. Sadiq, Modern Persia, p. 62. Akhavi, Religion and Politics, p. 187. Donald Wilber, Reza Shah Pahlavi: The Resurrection and Reconstruction of Iran (New York, 1975), pp. 164–165. For the architectural development of Tehran in this period see Mina Marefat, ‘The Protagonists Who Shaped Modern Tehran,’ in C.Adle and B.Hourcade, eds, Téhéran, capitale bicentenaire (Paris-Tehran, 1992), pp. 95–126. Salnamah-i Pars, 1308 Sh./1929–1930. For boy-scouting in Iran, see B.Pazargad, Pishahangi dar Iran (Tehran, 1315 Sh./1936). Banani, Modernization, pp. 106–107; and Hikmat, Si khatirah, pp. 83–85. Banani, Modernization, p. 98. Ibid., p. 89. Ittihad-i Islam, June 30, 1924; Tabriz, 8 March, 1925. FO 371/16067 E4645/78/34, report Hoare, 26 August, 1932, pp. 71–72. Ahmad Mahrad, Die deutsch-persische Beziehungen von 1918–193 (Frankfurt, 2nd edn, 1979), pp. 447–457. American College of Tehran Catalogue, 1931. NA, Corr. Persia, 1925, vol. 136, file 360; text in Shafaq-i surkh, 18 June, 1925. Sadiq, Yadgar 2:93. See e.g., AE, Perse 63, ‘La Perse qui parle français,’ Dr. René Roland, 1 September, 1923, pp. 89–111; ibid., M.Dayet to Poincaré, 12 February, 1925, p. 112; ibid., letter A.Wilden, 31 May, 1925, pp. 139–140; NA, Corr. Persia, 1929, vol. 179, file 360, Treat to State Department, 4 January, 1929. Salnamah-i ihsa’iyah, 1304 Sh./1925, p. 29. Mahrad, Iran unter der Herrschaft, p. 118. Mahrad, Deutsch-persische Beziehungen, pp. 460–462. Sadiq, Yadgar 2:136. NA, Persia Corr., vol. 129, letter 794, Murray, December 14, 1924; and NA, M716 711.91/7, 6 January, 1925, containing an interview with Husayn Khan ‘Ala in Shafaq-i surkh, 21, 23, 25 December, 1924. See NA, Persia Corr., vol. 133, 1924, ‘Imbrie Records.’ AE, Asie, Perse, p. 68. Sadiq, Modern Persia, p. 78. FO 371/13069; AE, Asie, Perse, p. 68. Ittila’at, 28 September, 1933. NA, M1202/9 891.42/37, Hart to State Department, 21 April, 1932. FO 395/521 P2964/105, report Hoare, 26 September, 1934, pp. 440–459. For similar figures for 1932, see P.Catrice. ‘L’Influence occidentale dans l’Iran contemporaine,’ Vie Intellectuelle 11 (1939):260–278.

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82 See Ahmad Mahrad, ‘Lag Berlin in Persien? Iranische Oppositionelle in der Weimarer Republik,’ in Kurt Greussing and Jan-Heeren Grevemeyer, eds, Revolution in Iran and Afghanistan (Frankfurt, 1980), pp. 77–121. 83 NA, M1202, appended to #1203. 84 Elwell-Sutton, Modern Iran, p. 138. 85 Menashri, Education, p. 135. 86 NA, M1202/9 891.42/65, report Engert, 5 January, 1938, encl. ‘Progress of Education in Iran.’ 87 Sadiq, Yadgar 2:95. 88 Szyliowicz, Education and Modernization, p. 239. Arasteh, Education and Social Awakening, p. 93, gives the figure of 25,410 for 1940 to 1941. 89 Arasteh, Education and Social Awakening, p. 93. 90 Mahludji, ‘Frauenbildung,’ p. 50. 91 Ibid., p. 66. 92 Journal de Téhéran, 25 January, 1938. 93 Menashri, Education, p. 91. 94 Szyliowicz, Education and Modernization, pp. 240, 250–252. 95 Ibid., p. 252.

8 TRIUMPHS AND TRAVAILS OF AUTHORITARIAN MODERNISATION IN IRAN Mehrzad Boroujerdi

Introduction Over one hundred years ago, in the final year of the nineteenth century (1899), a number of enlightened statesmen established the School of Political Science with the aim of training a corps of foreign-service officers. Muhammad Ali Furughi (Zaka al-Mulk) (1876–1942), an erudite dean of the school and later prime minister of Iran, explained the difficulty the School faced in formulating its curriculum. One of the courses in the curriculum of this state-sponsored school was to be jurisprudence. However, the ulama opposed the idea that jurisprudence be taught in a non-seminary environment or that the instructor be anyone but a cleric. The clergy could not fathom the idea of teaching jurisprudence in a school catering to ‘fokuli’ (one wearing European dress)— students who wore hats, sat on chairs and listened to Western teachers. Furughi recalls that the school had difficulty recruiting a cleric and finally had to convince the ulama that the teaching of jurisprudence in the school was needed so that diplomats dispatched to the ‘lands of infidels’ had knowledge of the Shari’a. 1 This anecdote sheds much light on the ironies characterising the process of secularisation in twentieth-century Iran. 2 At a glance, this anecdote reminds us of the political vulnerabilities felt by a new class of emerging secular elites who confronted the religious sensitivities and archaic beliefs of some of their countrymen. Upon a deeper look, this story demonstrates how secularism acquired a duplicitous and non-revolutionary nature in twentieth-century Iran. One can contend that to understand why Iranian secularism acquired such traits, we must look at the process of state-building and at the intellectual ambience of Iran during the 1920s and 1930s, decades which mark the state—society’s transition from an antiquated empire into a modern state.

Bonapartist etatism The profound changes introduced into Iranian society during the 1920s and 1930s—the aspiration to modernise, social mobility, a written constitution, a

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popularly elected parliament—were in many ways products of the Constitutional Revolution (1905–1909). Yet despite such ‘progress’, the destruction of the revolutionary forces, the cruelty of brigands and tribal chieftains, the interest of imperialist powers in Iranian oil (discovered in 1908) and the State’s feeble international position during the First World War soon prompted many Iranians to dream of having a strong and effective central government. However, as Karl Marx remarked in his essay, ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’, ‘as ever, weakness had taken refuge in a belief in miracles, [and] had fancied the enemy overcome when he was only conjured away in imagination’. 3 In such an ambience, the rise of Riza Khan/Shah’s ‘Bonapartist’ regime became possible. Considering secularism as the necessary precursor to nationalism, this strong-willed military man did not shy away from resorting to regulatory ordinances, legitimated by imperial fiat, to advance his agenda. Inspired by the social imperatives and political impetus of the day, he embarked on a nationalist state-building project aimed at piercing primordial bonds of ethnicity, faith and kinship; weakening his political opponents; and creating new forms of civic consciousness. Riza Shah was a firm believer in the secular raison d’être of the state, the necessity of law and order, the importance of subduing tribal particularisms, and the indispensability of an authoritative leader at the helm. In his travelogues to Khuzistan and Mazandaran, 4 written in 1924 and 1926, he reveals his respect for predecessors who sought to make Persia a stable and prosperous empire— Shah Isma‘il (r. 1501–1524), Shah Abbas (r. 1587–1629), Nader Shah (r. 1729– 1747) and Karim Khan Zand (r. 1747–1779). 5 Yet Riza Khan/Shah denounces the founder of the Safavid dynasty, Shah Isma‘il, for yielding too easily to Shi‘i groups and Shi‘ite sentiments. 6 He criticises another Safavid ruler, Shah Abbas, for the ‘unforgivable mistake’ of mixing politics with religion. 7 Nor does Riza Khan/Shah mince his words about the clerics of his own era whom he describes as a bunch of imbecilic status-seekers. 8 Riza Shah’s strong preference for a secular system of government is clear: ‘There is no doubt that religion and politics are two holy principles whose precise details should be known and observed by all enlightened leaders. However, the mixing of these two is neither advantageous to religion nor to administrative politics since such a fusion weakens religion and leads to the decline of politics.’ 9 Riza Khan/Shah opted for secularism with good reason: he could not base his legitimacy either on the Shi‘ite-mystic pedigree of the Safavids (1501–1722) or the tribal lineage and alliances of the Qajars (1795–1925). 10 He could only hope to acquire legitimacy through economic rejuvenation and raising the banner of secular nationalism. The secularism that Riza Khan/Shah had in mind, alas, was anything but democratic and pluralistic. He preferred the model of a ‘benevolent dictator’ who would uplift his society by gradual modernisation and secularisation. 11 Less than a year after declaring himself as the new King, Riza Shah—who considered himself as Iran’s saviour—demonstrated his newly found imperial arrogance and regal egoism by claiming that ‘the people of Iran begged me through the Constituent Assembly to take charge of this country’. He

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commented, ‘before me, the Iranian state was just an empty word…. In Iran, the King of the country has to force the cabinet to work and familiarise the parliament with its duties. He also has to force the merchants, landowners, urbanites, and even peasants to work.’ 12 In short, the man who wanted to play a hero’s role considered everyone and everything around him to be grotesquely inept or mediocre at best. To accomplish his goals, Riza Shah relied on the military’s philosophy— discipline and power. The pages of his travelogues indicate that he regarded military service as ‘the biggest and most important school for uplifting both the bodies and the spirits of citizens’. True to his military reasoning, Riza Shah confesses that he finds everything in life, including politics, to be like a ‘cannon ball’ fired in one’s direction. If instead of moving forward, you succumb to fear, retreat or escape you have accepted defeat. 13 Hence, not surprisingly, he viewed the armed forces as the pillar of modern secularism and used them to subdue such foes as the Qajar aristocracy, marauding bandits, tribal warlords, leftist movements and Shi‘ite clergy. 14 Riza Shah insisted adamantly that militant nationalism should replace Islam as the principle of social cohesion. At this conjuncture, nationalism had outpaced all other competing political ideologies, not just in Iran but in India (i.e. the Congress Party), Turkey (i.e. the Young Turks) and Egypt (i.e. the Wafd Party) as well. The appeal of nationalism in Iran was not limited only to the traditional bureaucratic elite and their offspring. On the contrary, even such seasoned and progressive members of the literati as Muhammad Taqi Malik alShu‘ara Bahar, Mirzadih Eshqi, Muhammad Farrukhi Yazdi, Sayyid Ashraf alDin Husayni Gilani (Nasim-i Shomal), Ahmad Kasravi, Abu’l Qasim Lahuti, Arif Qazvini and Prince Suliyman Mirza Iskandari at one time or another approved of Sayyid Ziya and Riza Khan/Shah’s nationalist platform and the need for a strong central government. What stirred the embers of nationalism for many Iranians was a century of embarrassment and defeat, as well as unsatisfied expectations and violated dreams. Evidence of nationalist sentiments took numerous forms—sympathy for Ottomans and Germany during the First World War, Germany and Italy during the Second World War, the high-pitched rhetoric directed against the British, calls for pan-Iranism, preoccupation with language as the basis of Iranian identity, and the emphasis on pre-Islamic Iranian history. 15 Riza Shah, however, was smart enough to realise that in order to heighten national consciousness among his subjects he needed to do more than just beef up the army, bolster bloated historical myths, and fabricate and fetishise Iran’s glorious past. He also had to deliver on the economic front. Consequently he pursued an etatist policy, which viewed the state as independent of and superior to civil society. What enticed him to embark on a project of industrialisation was the backwardness of the means of production and the feebleness of capitalist classes. Fortuitously, Riza Shah’s regime benefited from oil revenues that increased more than sixfold from £600,000 in 1921 to £4 million in 1940. Meanwhile, a sixteenfold increase in the state’s budget made possible the

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overhaul of the administrative, educational, fiscal, judicial, communication and transportation systems, and the inauguration of various social-work projects. 16 While this policy of etatism did not produce free-market capitalism or political assertiveness by private entrepreneurs, arguably, members of the latter group found greater opportunities for making money due to greater incorporation into the global economy, the state’s industrialisation drive, urbanisation, the rising percentage of sedentary population, the service sector’s rapid expansion, reform of the banking and financial systems, 17 and improvements in communication and transportation systems that resulted from the introduction of such changing technologies of everyday life as electricity, cars, trains, telephone, national newspapers and radio. 18 According to a study conducted by Iran’s National Bank, the occupational breakdown of the 14.9 million Iranian citizens between 1937 and 1938 was as follows: unemployed 2.6 per cent; industrial sector 6 per cent; service sector 20.6 per cent; agriculture and animal husbandry 64.8 per cent; and other 6 per cent. The data reveal that 17.7 per cent of the country’s population lived in urban centres and that 30 per cent of Iranian urbanites were involved in the business and the commercial sector. 19 As late as 1938 there were only six cities in Iran—Isfahan, Kirmanshah, Mashhad, Shiraz, Tabriz and Tehran—that had a population in excess of 100,000. 20 Although these six cities comprised only 7.4 per cent of Iran’s population, they established themselves as major employment sites. Together, these cities accounted for 22 per cent of all service-sector employees and 33 per cent of all government employees in the country. 21 In addition to urbanisation and the changing composition of the labour force, two other factors also paved the way for and perpetuated Riza Shah’s secularist drive. First, the clerical establishment experienced a dramatic decline in its power base. While the number of theology students decreased from 5984 during the 1924 to 1925 academic year to 784 in 1940 to 1941, 22 the number of students enrolled at state schools rose from 74,000 in 1925 to 1926 to 355,500 in 1940 to 1941. 23 During 1923 to 1940, Iran’s educational budget witnessed a twenty-threefold increase—from 6.5 million to 155 million rials. 24 By 1941, there were 5000 college graduates—1000 of them educated overseas, 10,000 high-school graduates, 25,000 junior-high-school graduates and 65,000 primaryschool graduates. 25 Secular education influenced relatively small numbers of citizens because of the tremendous number of obstacles it had to overcome. Yet the increase in literacy and the circulation of new reading materials created a milieu in which the secular approach to knowledge could no longer be disregarded. 26 Moreover, education provided a ladder of social mobility for thousands of young Iranians not enjoying aristocratic or clerical pedigree. While the learned religious institutions did not wither away, the absorption of a growing number of educated Iranians into the state structure did not escape the clergy’s attention. Second, religion ceased to be the sole or primary means of legitimacy for the political opposition. The emergence of various secular political movements, professional syndicates, intellectual circles and socio-political journals helped to

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facilitate further political participation. While consolidating his rule (1921– 1925), Riza Shah recognised the need to compromise with the existing religious culture and with the ulama. 27 The goodwill he generated for himself when he abandoned his campaign for republicanism in 1924 in response to the ulama’s pressure proved rewarding, as he secured the support of such clerical leaders as Sayyid Muhammad Bihbahani, Sayyid Abu’l Qasim Kashani, Sayyid Muhammad Sadiq Tabataba’i, Sheikh Abd al-Karim Ha’iri Yazdi and Ayatollah Sayyid Hasan Mudarris in abolishing Qajar rule and declaring himself as the new King. 28 Riza Shah’s rapport with the ulama, however, soured in 1928 when he used an accident involving his wife, who was insulted in Qum for not covering herself adequately, as a pretext to subdue the clerical establishment. Such actions as registering deeds (1923), imposing the new headgear (1927), passing a new Civil Code (1928), declaring divorce and marriage to be civil affairs (1931), establishing the first school of theology (1932), limiting the clerics’ control over endowment (vaqf) properties (1933), using solar instead of lunar calendar months (1935), abolishing the veil (1936), restricting permissible religious practices during Islamic holy months, and secularising the commercial, administrative and judicial apparatuses, transformed a courteous relationship into an adversarial one. None the less, a variety of social factors and political considerations tampered the depth and pace of secularism. Riza Shah could not afford to be as bold as Atatürk in denigrating the clerics or turning Islam into a private religion. The paucity of mass media, the significant cultural gap between urban and rural areas, the buoyancy of folk beliefs and customs, the financial independence of the Shi‘ite clergy, and the ability of the common people to continue fulfilling their recurrent and routine religious practices and obligations made the quest towards secularism ambivalent and partial. The cautious and incremental character of Iranian secularism is evidenced by the secular reformers’ position on the issue of women’s rights. While veiling was abolished in Turkey in 1924, this did not happen in Iran until the beginning of 1936. While Turkish women were enfranchised in 1934, Iranian women had to wait as late as 1962 for the right to vote in national elections. The deferred nature of Iranian women’s enfranchisement may perhaps be attributed to the patriarchal disposition of that society and the hefty political weight of Iranian clerics.

Towards a secular ‘Republic of Letters’ Most observers of Iranian politics maintain that during Riza Shah’s rule, Iran experienced political centralisation and economic development but little cultural and intellectual creativity. The lack of intellectual vitality is generally attributed to such factors as the state’s monological discourse, its use of censorship and repression against critics, its reliance on propaganda, and its ability to co-opt a great number of the literati. However, one can question such a conventional

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wisdom by maintaining that despite the state’s use of censorship and repression, Iranians did indeed benefit from an era of intellectual thriving during this period. If the intellectuals of the Qajar era were by and large dissident intellectuals, a great number of those during the Riza Shah period may be aptly described as intellectual statesmen. While tempting, attributing their participation in government merely to their careerist dispositions is crude. Instead, one may contend that many of these intellectuals—Mahmud Afshar, Malik al-Shu‘ara Bahar, Ali Dashti, Ali Akbar Davar, Abbas Iqbal Ashtiyani, Suliyman Mirza Iskandari, Qasim Ghani, Zaka al-Mulk Furughi, Mahdi Quli Hidayat, Ali Asghar Hikmat, Ahmad Kasravi, Ahmad Matin-Daftari, Sayyid Fakhr al-Din Shadman, Hasan Pirniya (Mushir al-Dawlah), Ali Akbar Siyasi, Isa Sadiq and Sayyid Hasan Taqizadah—were convinced of the wisdom of Plato’s edict: If the enlightened refuse to take part in government, the unfit will occupy the seats of power. In other words, these intellectuals and other members of their generation—committed as they were to such ideals as constitutionalism, nationalism and secularism—believed that the best way to improve the lot of their fellow citizens was through designing and implementing progressive public policies. 29 While early secularisation in Iran may have been a state-led enterprise, one must draw attention to the budding and diffused social forces that also participated in this development. This period’s ‘Republic of Letters’ provides some important indices of this perforce dispersed movement of secularisation. The literature of this period, which took its demeanour in part from European romanticism and Soviet social realism, reveals a new interest in social criticism and secular subjects—i.e. workers’ and women’s rights, the indispensability of freedom, and scientific as contrasted with religious trends. 30 Moreover, the practice of lampooning clerics for their antediluvian views, corrupt manners, putrid beliefs and reactionary politics, became more commonplace. Secular thinking was abundant in the pages of such important newspapers and journals as Iran-i Javan (1921), Qarn-i Biystum edited by Mirzadih Eshqi (1921–1924), Tuffan edited by Farrukhi Yazdi (1921), Shafaq-i Surkh edited by Ali Dashti (1922), Namih Javanan edited by Ibrahim Khvajah-Nuri (1923), Mard-i Azad edited by Isa Sadiq (1923), Farangistan edited by Husayn Muqaddam (1924), Ayandih edited by Mahmud Afshar (1925), and Tajaddud-i Iran edited by Mirza Sayyid Muhammad Tabataba‘i (1927). 31 Third, thanks to a number of technological innovations and cultural shifts, secular ways of thinking and discourse became increasingly accessible to an audience beyond the political elite. The inauguration of new mediums of mass communication—telephone (1926), Ittelaat newspaper (1926), cinemas, 32 PARS News Agency (1934), Tehran radio (1940)—and the rise of new political constituencies—socialist parties and trade unions—contributed to the formation of a new audience. Meanwhile, the politicisation of the arts, language (change of the alphabet controversy), literature, poetry and theatre set in motion a drastic change in the societal perception of the role and function of artists, poets and writers. 33 The ability of prose to somewhat rival poetry in social significance

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and the popularity of writing in a simple and accessible style further legitimised secular thought in Iran. 34 The ideas and ideals of the secular elite may not have reached the provincial peasants, but they were no longer limited to the cosmopolitan types either. Finally, appreciating irony, one may argue that even Riza Shah’s increasing political repression was not entirely calamitous for Iran’s cultural life. When the political pressure from the state became too much to bear, many intellectuals of the day decided to devote themselves fully to historical, literary and folkloric research. Inadvertently, this resulted in the outpouring of sophisticated works on Iran’s historiography, literature and anthropology. 35 This attention to and search for one’s own history and heritage was supplemented by criticisms of apish imitation of the West as articulated in such literary masterpieces of this era as Muhammad Ali Jamalzadah’s Yaki bud Yaki Nabud (1921), Hasan Muqaddam’s Ja‘far Khan az Farang Amadah (1921), and Murtaza Mushfiq Kazimi’s Tehrani Makhuf (1922).

The legacy of autocratic secularisation Riza Shah’s ideology is best termed ‘autocratic secular nationalism’. While he failed to establish pluralism or a truly parliamentary political system which held the executive branch accountable, his reign (1921–1941) helped to settle some of the unresolved debates of the previous era. Similarly, notwithstanding his autocratic statecraft, the fact that Riza Shah’s reforms laid the foundation for the formation of a secular state machinery and nurtured a new secular urban middle class—composed of academics, administrators, bankers, merchants, doctors, intellectuals, judges, lawyers, managers, military officers and public prosecutors—is incontestable. 36 The ascendancy and preponderance of this new class of a secular political elite outlived the ‘benevolent dictator’. In other words, Riza Khan/Shah rendered Iranian politics into a predominantly secular practice, the present backlash notwithstanding. His secularisation of the educational and the judicial systems changed the shape of social thought in Iran. During his reign, the clash between the religiously inclined and the secular forces was resolved in favour of the latter. Despite its imperious ideological pretensions, Riza Shah’s style of statecraft also relied on a heavy dosage of pragmatism. He denigrated the religious classes but tolerated them nevertheless. He believed in a secular approach to politics but never called officially for a separation of religion and state. He ruled with an iron fist but never abolished the parliament. His overdose on economic etatism no doubt led to corruption and yet managed to modernise the means and forces of production more than during any other period. 37 In short, despite the ambivalent feelings of Iranians towards Riza Shah’s authoritarian secularism, by providing much of the appurtenances of modernity he managed to alter the shape of the country’s social, political and economic formation.

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Notes 1 Muhammad Ali Furughi (Zaka al-Mulk), Maqalat-i Furughi, vol. 1 (2nd edn) (Tehran: Tous, 1354/1975–1976), pp. 340–341. 2 Throughout this paper I have in mind Émile Durkheim’s definition of secularisation—as a process of laicisation whereby many fields of life’s decisions are carried out without reference to religion. Hence secularisation refers to the disengagement of religion from political life, aesthetic life, etc. By secularism, I mean a doctrine, spirit, or consciousness advocating the temporal (as opposed to the sacred) foundation of ‘individual ideas, attitudes, beliefs, or interests’. Niyazi Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1964), pp. 3–8. 3 Robert C.Tucker (ed.), The Marx-Engels Reader (2nd edn) (New York: W.W.Norton & Co, 1978), p. 598. 4 Although these travelogues are written in an autobiographical tone there is some disagreement among scholars as to whether Riza Shah was indeed the actual author. My reading of these books has convinced me that even acknowledging that these books were ghost-authored by one of Riza Shah’s lieutenants should not make much of a difference since they seem to closely reflect his viewpoints. This conclusion can be supported on the basis of two additional set of facts: (1) these books were published during the reign of the Pahlavi dynasty with official sanctioning from the Royal Court; and (2) the acts and deeds described in these travelogues are corroborated by other historical accounts and observers. 5 Riza Shah-i Kabir, Safamamah-yi Khuzistan, 1303 (n.p., 1362/1983–1984), p. 70. 6 Ibid., p. 108. 7 Riza Shah-i Kabir, Safamamah-yi Mazandaran, 1305 (Tehran: Markaz Puzhuhish va Nashr-i Farhang-i Siyasi Dawran-i Pahlavi, 1355/1976–1977), p. 53. 8 Ibid., p. 227. 9 Ibid., p. 53. 10 Shahrukh Miskub, Dastan-i adabiyat va sarguzasht-i ijtima (Tehran: Farzan-i Rouz, 1373/ 1994–1995), p. 11. 11 Modernisation is used here as the process of economic and technological transformation of a given society. 12 Riza Shah, Safamamah-yi Mazandaran, pp. 2, 8, 96. 13 Riza Shah, Safamamah-yi Khuzistan, pp. 54, 92. 14 To modernise the armed forces, Riza Shah undertook the following set of actions: establishment of a military training academy (1922), passage of the law on dispatching students to such military schools as St Cyr and Ecole de Guerre (1922), establishment of an air force (1924), passage of the mandatory draft law (1925), and the establishment of the College of War (1935). 15 I do not mean to suggest here that all of these were by-products of the Pahlavi era. For example, resorting to arguments regarding Iran’s pre-Islamic glory may be dated back to Mirza Aqa Khan Kirmani’s Ayanahyi sekandari if not earlier. 16 The state’s budget increased from 19 million tumans in 1921 to 309 million tumans in 1940. 17 I have in mind such initiatives as the reorganisation of government finances under

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19

20 21

22 23 24 25 26

27

28

29

30

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the guidance of an American adviser (1922–1927), the formation of a School of Business (1926), and a Chamber of Commerce (1929). In one anecdote we are told that by 1928 there were 490 private automobiles, 1099 taxis and 459 rental carriages in Tehran. See Baqir Aqali, Rouzshumar-i tarikh-i Iran, vol. 1 (Tehran: Nashr-i Guftar, 1372/1993–1994), p. 231. The relatively low percentage of people living in urban centres may be attributed partly to the fact that the production methods of rural areas did not change much since Riza Shah’s reforms did not really reach out to the rural areas (with the exception of the mandatory draft law). As such there was no pressing reason to migrate to the cities. During the twenty years of Riza Khan/Shah’s rule Tehran’s population more than doubled—from 210,000 in 1922 to 531,246 in 1940. All the above data are taken from Nasser Pakdaman (ed.), Amar namih-yi iqtisad-i Iran dar aqaz-i jang jahani-i dovvum, vol. 1 (Tehran: Faculty of Economics at Tehran University, 1355/1976–1977). Mikhail Ivanov, Tarikh-i novin-i Iran (n.p., Hizb-i Tudah-i Iran, 1356/1977–1978). Husayn Adibi, Tabaq-i mutavasit-i jadid dar Iran (Tehran: Jami‘ah, 1358/1979– 1980), p. 89. Ali Mirfetrous, Guftoguha, edited by Iraj Adibzadah and Nashriyah Kaveh (Essen Nima, 1988), p. 59. Muhammad Riza Khalili Khu, Towsi‘i va nowsazi-yi Iran dar dawrih-yi Riza Shah (Tehran: Jahad-i Danishgahi, 1373/1994–1995), p. 16. Particularly noteworthy in this regard are the formations of Tehran University (1935), the Iranian Academy (1935), adult literacy classes (1936), and the dispatch of both male and female students (beginning in 1930) to Europe. The following examples testify to his manifestations of religiosity: taking part in Ashura ceremonies (1921); asking clerics to deliver sermons to uplift soldiers’ spirits (1922), fasting during the month of Ramadan and commemorating Imam Ali’s death with his Cabinet, going to Najaf and Karbala (1924), declaring a day of national mourning for the bombing of Mecca and Medina by the Saudi regime (1925), and exempting the clerics from the military draft (1925). For an elaborate discussion of ‘republicanism’ see Majid Sharif Khuda’i, Masalah-i jumhuriyat (dar dawrah-i Riza Khan). MA thesis (Tehran: Danishgah Tarbiyat Mudarris, 1371–1372/1992–1993). I do not wish to suggest that they agreed about the causes of Iran’s social ills. While some viewed religion as the problem, others attributed the ‘decadence’ to the country’s political system. A third group held the Persian alphabet responsible due to its cumbersome character. Finally, a fourth group determined the inept educational system to be the real evildoer. Even those who did not believe in the separation of religion from political life realised that the life of the modern citizen could not be reduced to religion alone. For example, the slogan adopted by one of the leading activist clerics of the time, Ayatollah Sayyid Hasan Mudarris, is revealing. He used to say, ‘our politics is the same as our religion’ but not ‘our nationality is our faith’. These publications advanced many of the secular issues and agendas previously raised in such political, social and literary journals as Akhtar (1875), Qanun, Suri Esrafil, Now Bahar (1910), Iranshahr (1922–1927), Iran (1916), Tajaddud by Sheikh Muhammad Khiyabani (1917), Danishkadah by Malik al-Shu‘ara Bahar

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(1918), Kavih (1918), and Musavat edited by Sayyid Muhammad Riza Musavat. 32 According to one account, by 1932 there were no fewer than thirty-two cinemas in Tehran. Jamshid Bihnam, Iranian va andishihy-i tajaddud (Tehran: Farzan-i Rouz, 1375/ 1996–1997), p. 57. 33 Riza Shah, who admired such classical poets as Hafiz, Sa‘di and Firdowsi, used to dismiss the advocates of literary modernism as a bunch of insane people. See Safarnamah-yi Mazandaran, pp. 64, 68. 34 See Miskub, Dastan-i adabiyat va sarguzasht-i ijtima. 35 One may mention such works as Ali Akbar Dihkhuda’s Lughatnamih, Allamah Muhammad Qazvini’s edition of the three-volume Tarikh-i jahan gusha-i Juwayni, Malik al-Shu‘ara Bahar’s Sabk shinasi ya tatavvur-i nasr-i farsi, Zaka al-Mulk Furughi’s Sayr-i hikmat dar Urupa, Sadiq Hidayat’s Buf-i kur, Ahmad Kasravi’s Tarikh-i Mashrutih Iran, Husayn Kazimzadah Iranshahr’s Tajalliyat-i irfani ruh-i Iran, Mushir al-Dawlah Pirniya’s Iran-i bastani and Dastanha-yi Iran-i qadim, Ibrahim Purdavud’s translation of Avesta, and Nima Yushij’s Afsanah. 36 The overhaul of the educational system (1925–1930), formation of the Ministry of Justice (1927) and the creation of the National Bank—Bank Milli (1928) contributed to the emergence of this new urban middle class. 37 On the eve of being sent into exile in 1941, Riza Shah’s wealth amounted to 68 million tumans and 5200 parcels of land. Upon his death, the Daily Telegraph estimated his wealth to be around £129,317. See Daily Telegraph (18 September 1944).

Part IV WOMEN

9 EXPANDING AGENDAS FOR THE ‘NEW’ IRANIAN WOMAN Family law, work, and unveiling Jasamin Rostam-Kolayi

Are we aware that whenever they want to, men can throw their wives out of the house? Are we aware that women’s illiteracy, lack of knowledge, and superstitions are harmful to society, the country, and the family?… Do we know that in villages far from the capital, people illegally marry off a tenyear-old girl to a sixty-year-old man? …Today we have a government that listens to sensible arguments and protects women and children…. We can raise our cries and have our complaints heard by the authorities who will of course help us. 1

Introduction In the 1930s, for the first time in Iranian history, women were the beneficiaries of major state reform introduced by Reza Shah Pahlavi. Although not representative of all Iranian reformers and intellectuals, the women’s journal Alam-e Nesvan (Women’s World, 1920–1934) was an enthusiastic and optimistic supporter of Reza Shah’s reforms. As stated in the opening quote above, the editors of the journal acknowledged that in the past, the state, men, and public opinion had worked against reforms that they and others advocated. But now, they believed, the situation had changed. The Pahlavi state, as opposed to the preceding Qajar dynasty, was assumed to be an ally of women reformers. The story of Alam-e Nesvan shows how these Iranian women reformers actively promoted and supported a particular nationalist, modernist project to which they ultimately became hostages. The Reza Shah period has been praised often as an era of reform and dramatic social change. More secular-minded women’s-rights advocates celebrated this period as one in which women were emancipated and liberated from backwardness and tradition. 2 It has also been lamented as a period of brutality and political repression. Some secularly oriented, reformist thinkers of this time bitterly opposed Reza Shah and feared the authoritarian nature of his regime, 3 and many religious-minded women from various classes never forgave him for

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prohibiting veiling in public. 4 How do we make sense of these varying interpretations of the Reza Shah period? Why were the editors of Alam-e Nesvan so enthusiastic and hopeful about reforms for women carried out by a state that had shut down other women’s journals and organizations throughout the 1920s? The journal’s editorial board and readership, and Iranian women reformers of the period in general, were members of the educated, urban upper and middle classes. However, as Afsaneh Najmabadi has noted, ‘It would be all too easy to dismiss these women as bourgeois betrayers of the feminist cause.’ 5 Alam-e Nesvan was not alone in favoring Reza Shah’s reforms. Other reformers of the period, especially members of the Revival Party, such as Ali Akbar Davar, Hasan Taqizadeh, Mohammad Taqi Bahar, Mohammad Forughi, and Ahmad Kasravi, also favored the formation of a strong, centralized state. Such a state, they believed, could implement reforms that the Constitutional Revolution (1905–1911) had failed to accomplish: the separation of religion and politics; the creation of a strong army and bureaucracy; an end to foreign dependence; industrialization; expansion of education for men and women; and national unification with Persian as the dominant language. 6 The identification of reform and progress with a strong state had begun earlier with nineteenthcentury thinkers, such as Mirza Fath Ali Akhundzadeh, Agha Khan Kermani, and Malkom Khan, who were critical of the weakness and corruption of the Qajars and concerned with the situation and role of Iranian women in the family and society. 7 The progressive image of Reza Shah’s rule does not hold up well when we consider that by 1935, reform from above, at the expense of all independent initiative, came to dominate the national scene. As Reza Shah consolidated more power and authority, he banned the last surviving women’s journals and organizations and established the state-run Ladies’ Center (Kanun-e Banuvan). As the state grew in strength, even pro-government ‘women reformers, such as those in Alam-e Nesvan, lost the ability to direct reform and were silenced. As long as the state remained weak, as it did under Qajar rule, women reformers could exercise expressions of citizenship in appeals to the state through the women’s press. However, when the state became strong under Reza Shah, and women’s demands were partially met, such expressions were suspended altogether. In a period of active, and sometimes violent, state censorship of the Iranian press, Alam-e Nesvan proved adept at negotiating bureaucratic and monarchical patronage and experienced relative freedom through two successive political regimes: the late Qajar (1920–1925) and early Pahlavi monarchies (1925–34). Sponsored and edited by graduates of the American Mission Iran Bethel Girls’ School in Tehran, the journal enjoyed an independent to semi-official status among the Iranian periodical press. It managed to publish bimonthly throughout a fourteen-year period, surviving longer than any other Iranian women’s journal of the 1920s and 1930s and longer than most general-interest Iranian periodicals of the period. 8 Alam-e Nesvan was not the first periodical to deal exclusively with women’s

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issues, as several others preceded it by a decade: Danesh (Knowledge, Tehran, 1910–1911) and Shokufeh (Blossom, Tehran, 1913–1916). Between 1918 and 1927, many journals and associations were established by Iranian women. As a result, Alam-e Nesvan enjoyed the company of other women’s journals when it first appeared on the scene: Zaban-e Zanan (Women’s Voice, Isfahan, 1919– 1922), Jahan-e Zanan (Women’s World, Mashad, 1921), Nameh-ye Banuvan (The Ladies’ Paper, Tehran, 1920–1921), and Payk-e Sa‘adat-e Nesvan (The Messenger of Women’s Prosperity, Rasht, 1925–1928). The short publication lives of these women’s journals reflects not only the material and financial difficulties of running a journal but the level of state censorship of the periodical press. Peter Avery has noted that the 1924 police-linked murder of the poet and journalist Mirza Eshqi, known for his sharp satire aimed at Reza Khan, marked a new stage in the history of the Iranian press, as journalists began to guard against the authoritarian nature of the emerging Pahlavi regime. Thus the number of newspapers declined in the period 1925 to 1941 from some 150 to fifty. 9 Alam-e Nesvan’s ability to survive in such an atmosphere of repression is noteworthy, and sheds light on the relationship between the women’s press and the state. Alam-e Nesvan expressed strong, pro-Pahlavi sentiment as it entered its second decade of publication. Meanwhile, as the Pahlavi regime consolidated by the late 1920s and early 1930s, Alam-e Nesvan added several new and important demands to its previous agenda on female education, hygiene, and health. These were family-law reform, women’s employment, and unveiling, issues that attracted lively and spirited debate between contributors and readers in the journal. At the same time, the journal’s writers now took a more open and forceful approach to addressing the Pahlavi state, outlining their demands directly and frankly, for example, through a column called ‘A Woman Asks’ (Yek zan mi-porsad). This chapter will show how Alam-e Nesvan’s agenda for the ‘progress of women’ overlapped with Reza Shah’s project of the ‘Women’s Awakening.’ An examination of the three major concerns of the journal during the late 1920s and early 1930s—family-law reform, women’s employment, and unveiling—reveals Alam-e Nesvan’s role in initiating and helping direct reform and the journal’s response to state policy during the early Reza Shah period.

‘The fallen woman’ and family-law reform The family became a central civic concern and focus of reform for the writers of Alam-e Nesvan. The journal considered the most acute problems of family life to be child marriage, temporary marriage (sigheh), polygamy, venereal disease and other threats to women’s health, and, more indirectly, prostitution. In addition to educational and public-health reform, it called for legal change to improve women’s status in the family and in marital relations. In early twentieth-century Iran, child marriage was still common in urban and rural environs. Polygamy

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(up to four wives) and temporary marriage, allowed by Shi’i law, were often practiced among the wealthier classes. Nineteenth-century reformist writers had denounced these ‘backward’ marital practices and by the 1920s and 1930s such unions were more widely criticized as life-threatening for women. Discussions of sexuality and morality thus entered into debates on early marriage and venereal disease. Alam-e Nesvan published somber stories of young women struggling with sexually transmitted disease passed on by infected husbands. My parents caused my misery and gave me, like a slave, to someone whom I’d never seen and whose name I didn’t know. They knew I was opposed to this marriage, but whether I agreed or not was irrelevant… I was a young, miserable, victimized girl, an eighteen-year-old with a heart full of hopes, sacrificed by my only supporters, my parents…. My first night of humiliation, that is my wedding night, passed and in fifteen days I had syphilis. 10 This genre of storytelling became a regular feature in Alam-e Nesvan. Its contours were: the young woman forced into an early marriage by her family contracts a venereal disease from her husband who frequented prostitutes prior to, and perhaps also during, the marriage. Divorce, impoverishment, and terminal illness plagued these women. Such a woman was usually rendered childless (due to her inability to conceive or the death of her children as a result of complications from venereal disease, or through loss of custody in accordance with Islamic family law), and was often rendered destitute as the sole financial supporter of her children. She was forced to take menial, humiliating jobs in order to survive. 11 These disturbing images of Iranian family life were contrasted with idealized images of modern romantic love that was said to foster happiness, respect, and absence of divorce. Alam-e Nesvan endorsed the new family arrangement of companionate marriage, a union between wife and husband founded on mutual consent and affection. 12 In this ideal image, the married couple was intellectually and emotionally suited for each other and would be helpmates. ‘An appropriate marriage’ was like that of newspaper editor Adel Khal’atbari and girls’ middleschool principal Fakhri Ozma. 13 Both were educated, upper-middle class, socially active, urban professionals. This new kind of marriage was contrasted to the traditional arranged marriage between a wealthy, older man and a young girl, condemned by Alam-e Nesvan as backward. Marriage based on love was the ideal presented to the Iranian upper-middle and new middle classes. The text of a graduation speech delivered at Iran Bethel girls’ school and later published in the journal proclaimed mutual love and respect as the foundation of a happy marriage, while a poem also featured in the journal affirmed that love and respect, not financial gain, should decide a marriage choice. 14 Bad marriages often involved parents ‘selling’ their young daughters to an older man, the spread of venereal disease, and women’s ignorance of their rights

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before and after marriage. Since many women did not know that Shi’i law allowed them to write conditions into the marriage contract, Alam-e Nesvan sought to counsel them on how to use this leverage to their advantage in securing a good husband. As early as 1923, frequent contributor Homa Mahmudi advised readers to conduct marriage negotiations carefully by securing several important requirements from the groom. A marriage agreement should guarantee that (1) the groom’s family be respectable and the groom himself be moral and good-natured, (2) he submit to a medical clearance of physical health (i.e. clearance from a venereal disease), (3) the mahrieh (bride price) be established as half of the groom’s property, and (4) he give up his right to a second marriage. 15 Mahmudi’s marriage advice, to require the groom to pass a medical clearance, was roundly endorsed by others in the journal. 16 Alam-e Nesvan’s writers and contributors were particularly heartened by the passage of legislation concerning family law. Throughout the late 1920s and 1930s the state codified family law in increments. The Iranian Civil Code, first passed by the Majles in 1928, contained 100 articles (out of a total of 1335) that dealt with the family. 17 The Marriage Act and the Law for the Production of a Medical Certificate were added to the Code in 1931 and 1938 respectively. 18 The Marriage Act repeated many of the laws in the Civil Code of 1928 concerning marriage and divorce. Article 1041 increased the marriage age to fifteen for women and eighteen for men. Article 1063 required both the man’s and woman’s consent to the marriage. Articles 1042–1043 required a woman to gain permission from her father or grandfather for her first marriage. 19 The Civil Code also upheld polygamy, which was not directly mentioned but implied to be the framework for marriages. Article 1105 confirmed the husband as head of the household responsible for the wife’s maintenance. Articles 1075–1077 stipulated that the man could take a number of temporary wives. 20 Article 1133 pronounced divorce as the right of the husband, and Article 1134 stipulated that two male witnesses needed to testify to the declaration of divorce for it to be legal, while the wife need not be present or even be aware of it. 21 Articles 1121–1132 outlined the conditions under which a wife could initiate divorce: the husband’s failure to provide maintenance; his insanity; his impotence; and his mistreatment of the wife. Article 1127 gave the wife the right to decline having intercourse with a husband who had a venereal disease, although she could not ask for a divorce in that case. 22 The actual content of the Civil Code, concerning family law, was not entirely novel. While most other legislation in the Civil Code was based on French laws and was the preserve of secular courts and judges, the new family laws retained existing shari’a (Islamic law) codes and the jurisdiction of religious courts and judges. 23 Still, the passage of the Marriage Act became a focus of discussion in Alam-e Nesvan. Issues of the journal from 1931 and 1932 lauded Reza Shah’s reformist legislation concerning marriage and divorce. Alam-e Nesvan had declared one of its goals to be the strengthening of marriage, accomplished through the promotion of female education, companionate marriage, unveiling, and elimination of prostitution. Thus the disease-ridden, childless women

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depicted in its pages were not necessarily treated differently after the passage of the new Civil Code and its later additions, since all of these were mainly a codification of existing shari’a and practices. Nevertheless, numerous articles in Alam-e Nesvan praised Reza Shah’s new legislation on marriage and divorce. For example, in her column, the satirical character ‘Delshad Khanum’ celebrated the limitations placed on temporary marriage and polygamy, 24 even though both remained legal under the new Civil Code. Women reformers in Alam-e Nesvan had the attention of state authorities. Government censors kept tabs on the journal, which also reached Reza Shah’s household through his female relatives, who were subscribers. 25 In addition, by the mid- to late 1920s, state employees were publishing articles in Alam-e Nesvan, giving it a semi-official status. In 1932, Mastureh Afshar wrote, ‘Several times the [Women’s] Patriotic League has proposed to the Majles—and now we repeat it—asking the respectable deputies…to pass a law preventing men from marrying before having a medical clearance certificate for venereal disease.’ 26 In 1938 the Majles passed the Law for Production of a Medical Certificate before Marriage, which required ‘persons intending to marry to produce a medical certificate to the effect that they are not suffering from any of the major contagious diseases specified and notified by the Ministry of Justice.’ 27

Why was there so much enthusiasm for the Civil Code and Marriage Act in Alam-e Nesvan? The marriage age for girls and boys was increased, discouraging child marriage, which was a gain for women reformers. As discussed previously, the journal’s writers often lamented the practice of child marriage, although they understood that greater access to education, in addition to changes in the law, would postpone marriage for girls. 28 Another law gave women extra leverage during marriage negotiations. Within the polygamous context, a man was required to inform his prospective wife if he was already married, giving her the option to refuse marriage. If any party in the marriage negotiations misrepresented themselves in such a way that the marriage would not have taken place otherwise, they would be subject to between six months’ and two years’ imprisonment. 29 It is not known how often this law was enforced or if women used it in the courts to terminate marriages. The recording of all marriages and divorces in a state registry was celebrated in Alam-e Nesvan as enabling a range of new rights for women. Section I of the Marriage Act made it compulsory to register every marriage (including temporary marriage) and divorce: In the areas appointed and notified by the Ministry of Justice, every marriage, divorce or recall shall be pronounced and noted in a Register prepared according to the Regulations made by the Ministry of Justice. In the said areas, whosoever marries, divorces, or recalls [his wife] without getting it registered in the [Marriage and Divorce] Registration Office shall also be liable to the same amount of punishment. 30

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One of Alam-e Nesvan’s contributors, Amir Arsalan Khal’atbari, a Frencheducated lawyer, 31 enthusiastically endorsed the new law as increasing women’s leverage in marriage. He viewed this expanded state authority as emancipatory for women, since it prevented men from shirking their marital responsibilities. Previously, since there was no official documentation of marriage, if a husband left his wife after the consummation of marriage, she could not prove that the marriage ever took place, or claim proper mahrieh or patrimony for any child conceived. The new law, as legislated in the Marriage Act, would empower women to take men to court for wrongdoing and assert their rights and men’s obligations. Khal’atbari predicted that the practice of temporary marriage would soon disappear as a result of the new legislation. Fewer people would enter willingly into such relations if they had to publicly register their names, due to the growing stigma associated with temporary marriage among the upper-middle and new middle classes. He argued that already within a year, the instances of temporary marriage in Tehran had decreased by 10 per cent. 32 Polygamy among the upper classes also declined in this period. 33 In the end and despite significant gains for women, the Iranian Civil Code of 1928 and the Marriage Act of 1931 did not radically change women’s legal status in marriage and divorce. Even though the new legislation increased the marriage age and required both parties’ consent for marriage and the official registration of all marriages, certain practices denounced by Alam-e Nesvan remained in place. Women gained little leverage and rights before, during, and after marriage, as previously existing shari’a codes were incorporated into the new laws. What would have been the greatest victory for advocates of legal change in Alam-e Nesvan was the 1938 passage of a law requiring medical clearance of the groom before marriage. Because the journal halted publication in 1934, we do not know the response of writers and editors to this legislation. The content of family law was largely unchanged in the 1930s, and the Iranian women’s movement has continued ever since to focus on the family as a site of struggle. 34

Beyond teachers and housewives: expanding women’s work and employment Periodicals such as Alam-e Nesvan not only documented but were themselves testaments to the earliest participation of Iranian women in new professions such as journalism—as editors, writers, translators, and office managers. Reporting on and demanding the expansion of women’s participation in economic life was a significant theme of Alam-e Nesvan in the early 1930s. Until this time there were few professional options for urban, upper-middle- and middle-class women. Poor, urban women and girls worked as seamstresses, spinners, weavers, maids, nannies, midwives, healers, preachers, matchmakers,

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saleswomen, attendants in public baths and mortuaries, singers, dancers, and musicians. 35 They also worked in prostitution, a profession that Alam-e Nesvan denounced and tried to eradicate. 36 In the early twentieth century a small group of educated, elite women had begun to open, manage, and teach at private girls’ schools. As more girls’ schools were established (both private and public), there were not enough women teachers to staff them. According to a foreign observer, in the early 1920s, ‘Besides domestic service and teaching in girls’ schools (a very limited opportunity at present), there is practically nothing a woman can do to earn her bread, for nearly all work involves contact with men in a way forbidden to Moslem women.’ 37 Such observations, also shared by Alam-e Nesvan, represented a point of view focused only on urban women. Except for the homage paid to the idealized image of rural women, the journal avoided serious attention to or discussions of agriculturalist and tribal women who did mingle and work with men. 38 Until the 1920s, a number of jobs held at the time by women in Europe and the USA—such as clerical and secretarial work, teaching, and nursing—were staffed by men in Iran. 39 The only higher educational institution open to women was the Women Teachers’ Training College, a secondary school established in Tehran in 1919. However, a few wealthy families had sent their daughters abroad for their education, and thus there was a small handful of women holding professional diplomas in Tehran. 40 As early as 1922, Alam-e Nesvan was calling for a technical university to train female doctors ‘because in Iran today we don’t have one woman doctor, lawyer, physician, dentist, tailor, or midwife,’ 41 By 1928, only three Iranian women doctors were counted among the ‘knowledgeable and famous doctors of Tehran.’ 42 Two of the first graduates of the Teachers’ College became state employees, acting as inspectors of girls’ schools. Most upper-middle- and middle-class women who were employed at this time worked in the field of education: as teachers, administrators, and state inspectors of girls’ schools. 43 Alam-e Nesvan documented the work of its graduates who founded state schools in the provinces in the 1920s. With the approval of the Ministry of Education, educated women opened girls’ schools in various regions of the country: Fatemeh Vakil in Sari; Mehrtaj Rakhshan, contributor to Alam-e Nesvan and inspector for the Ministry of Education, in Anzali; and Maryam Ardalani in Kurdistan. 44 Women were also training for other professions. Standardized education for midwives first took place in the Reza Shah era. A roster of graduates from the new School of Midwifery in 1930 indicates that many were members of religioethnic minority groups. 45 In the most controversial new professions, such as stage-acting, leading females such as Loretta Hayrpetian and Varto Tarian were Iranian Armenian. 46 Before 1931, Alam-e Nesvan had presented few professional models to women other than housewife (khanum-e khaneh) and teacher. In 1932, a new section in the journal, called ‘Women’s Occupations,’ outlined various

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professions for which women were especially well suited. Women’s first priority was still the management of the family and home, but they were now also encouraged to become doctors, dentists, nurses, teachers, school principals, bookkeepers, typists, stenographers, office managers, translators, journalists, businesspeople, social workers, and tailors. 47 Maryam Sohrabi wrote from the town of Nasseri to tell readers that she was working alongside her husband in his garment business. 48 Alam-e Nesvan’s 1931 theme contest ‘If I Had a Million [Toman]’ elicited a response from an essayist who wrote, ‘I would send my oldest son to study mining, my younger son to study literature, my first daughter to study teaching, and my second daughter to study nursing in Europe.’ 49 These new jobs for women were presented as extensions of women’s work in the home, a strategy that was used to justify the expansion of women’s employment in new professions. For instance, Ashraf Sadeqi likened women’s management of a house to management of a hospital, dinner club, hotel, or school. 50 Marie Curie, it was argued, was both scientist and household manager. 51 Even though most of these professions were cast as extensions of women’s duties in the home as mothers and house managers, they in fact allowed women to make the transition into the public sphere of work outside the home. Many writers envisioned women’s work in ‘respectable professions’ as a cure for social ills and as a sign of civilization. Mohammad Ali Ervani noted that the lack of jobs for women caused social corruption. 52 In her talk presented to the Eastern Women’s Congress, which convened in Tehran in 1932, Iran Arani argued that the first step towards women’s liberation was entry into the labor force. 53 Similarly, the notion that women’s work was a sign of civilization underpinned many of the articles in Alam-e Nesvan. 54 Foreign women were models of emulation when it came to employment outside the home. An English woman founded a bank; Egyptian women were stenographers and typists for the government; US women established their own businesses; Turkish women ran for elected office and were postal carriers. 55 In ‘Women Must Work,’ Reza Khalili wrote, After the spread of European culture, including monogamy, delaying marriage, and avoiding divorce (which will hopefully become widespread in the future), we, in Iran, now desperately need the aid and support of women. Otherwise, men cannot financially support women who imitate Europeans without doing all they do…it is necessary for a woman to provide for part of the expenses through what she earns, just as the man strives to support the family…. Women must work, possess skills, and be able to have a profession. By ‘profession’, we don’t mean working in offices, business ventures, or factories. What we mean is that women must know crafts or trades so that in case they cannot marry or have to stay at home, they can provide for themselves…. Right now there are jobs specifically for women but unfortunately occupied by men. These are teaching in elementary schools, midwifery, nursing, tailoring, etc. These are better suited to women…

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Some urban women are employed making socks and carpets. In addition to financial benefits and overcoming idleness, the work of these classes shows clearly that no harm is done to their household management and child rearing. 56 Alam-e Nesvan often defined women’s work as a ‘respected profession’ that conferred prestige and status. However, the reality was different. In the 1930s, more women were entering the ranks of teaching and nursing, but the vast majority of Iranian women worked in rural areas as agriculturalists. Women teachers, midwives, nurses, and doctors were exceptional, even in urban areas, where most Iranian women who worked did not have access to higher education or vocational training. Most urban women who worked outside the home were forced into unpleasant work in carpet or textile workshops, which still left them within the ranks of the working poor. The kind of work the journal advocated for poor, urban women did not involve higher education, but vocational training and factory work. Since Iranian nationalists and reformers saw the growth of industry as a basic ingredient of national strength and independence from foreign goods, writers in the journal pointed out that poor women could be put to work on textile machines. As a result, it was argued that both the nation and women would prosper. 57 Thus, two distinct tracks were conceived for poor and middle-class women. Advocating compulsory public education for girls, Sadiqeh Dowlatabadi wrote, ‘I do not mean that all girls should learn geometry and foreign languages. Rather, they should learn Persian reading and writing at the elementary level. After that there should be technical schools to teach handicraft vocations, such as how to make socks.’ 58 It was understood that not all women could or should acquire higher education for professions such as teaching or nursing. Training to become workers in modern industry was recommended for the women of poor urban classes in general. It was also seen as a ‘civilized’ alternative for the oftlamented ‘fallen’ women who sometimes had to resort to prostitution.

The meaning of veiling and unveiling in the 1930s Much has been written about Reza Shah’s unveiling policy in Iran. When discussing unveiling we should be careful to distinguish between the many types of veiling practiced in Iran at this time and the various meanings of the term and the concept of veiling. Most scholarly discussions of unveiling in the Reza Shah period are vague about what both veiling and unveiling entailed. 59 It is often assumed that unveiling meant the uncovering of the head and hair. However, closer study indicates that the unveiling of the Reza Shah period focused on abandoning the face veil and Iranian-style chador (a long piece of cloth covering the body from head to foot and often pulled to conceal part of the face), rather than a full uncovering of the head. This difference remains unclear in the historical record, and its clarification has important implications for the current

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scholarly and political contentions around the issue of ‘the veil’ in Iran and elsewhere. Alam-e Nesvan and other contemporary sources show that when Iranian writers of the 1920s and 1930s spoke of veiling, they primarily used the words hejab (Islamic dress) and chador. Unveiling in the Reza Shah period, as conceived by both reformers and the state, generally meant discarding the chador and picheh (face veil of black horsehair mesh, worn under the chador and tied over the head with a ribbon 60 ) or neqab/ruband (face veil of rectangular white cloth with latticework panel at one end covering the eyes 61 ). The vast majority of Iranian women, who were rural farmers and/or belonged to various tribal groupings, did not veil in the sense of wearing the chador and covering their faces in public. Veiling in Iran and the Middle East as a whole was an urban, mainly upper-class phenomenon. 62 Even though veiling was not the norm when outside of Iranian cities, there are few traveler or observer accounts of the clothing of rural or tribal women. 63 State authorities in rural Azerbaijan during the Reza Shah period observed that ‘peasant and farmer wives are unveiled (bi-hejab), as they were before, and are engaged in labor and when they see outsiders, they half-cover themselves with the kalaghi [a large, silk headscarf] and dastmal [handkerchief].’ 64 We are more familiar with the various styles of early twentieth-century, urban Iranian women’s outdoor dress. Annie Stocking Boyce, an American missionary residing in Iran for almost fifty years, detailed the elements of upper- and uppermiddle-class urban women’s clothing circa 1920: For Mohammedan women in Persia, the veil or chuddur [chador] is a black sheet, of sateen, alpaca or silk, depending on the means of the wearer. The chuddur completely envelops the figure. The face is covered by a mat of woven horsehair called the peche which utterly conceals the features but enables the wearer to see clearly about her. In the smaller cities and villages women continue to wear with the chuddur, the long, narrow white cloth with a bit of openwork embroidery just in front of the eyes. Under the chuddur the oldfashioned Persian woman wears a rather closefitting basque, long narrow black trousers and several very short, frilly skirts…. When they appear on the street, they wear in addition to the chuddur very full black sateen bloomers, gathered at the ankle into feet of the same material. It is only the city women who are making changes. Underneath their chuddurs they wear European dress and one seldom sees the bloomers on the streets of Tehran—it was too awkward to try to tuck the long skirt into them. The old style of hair dressing [sic] still persists, six to a dozen tiny braids hanging down the back and nearly covered by the chargat, or head kerchief which is pinned in place under the chin. The chargats are of the daintiest materials imaginable, tarletan, net, lace, chiffon, point d’sprit [sic], usually white but often of lovely shades of pink, green, lavender, rose. 65

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Government documents on women’s dress policy during the Reza Shah period indicate that the state’s official 1935 to 1936 ‘Kashf-e Hejab’ (unveiling) campaign was enforced gradually with different degrees of coercion depending on the region and local resistance. 66 Moreover, Kashf-e Hejab was not uniformly imposed or understood in all municipalities and provinces. For instance, in Azerbaijan, abandoning the rusari (headscarf) was not to be enforced under certain weather conditions, such as in the cold of winter and the heat of summer. As long as the rusari did not cover the face in the way that a chador and picheh did, the police were ordered to abstain from ‘violently [removing] this kind of hejab from the head.’ 67 Since some poor women in Azerbaijan were still wearing headscarves, in this case chargads, local state officials settled on a solution to buy them hats. 68 The state’s preference was that women wear hats, but when they could not afford them or when the state was simply unable to supervise and enforce the dress code, which was the case in most rural areas, existing alternatives to the chador or face veil were acceptable. Badr ol-Moluk Bamdad, a passionate partisan of Reza Shah who documented this period, described unveiling as women venturing out ‘with uncovered faces’ and ‘showing their faces.’ 69 In addition, writers in Alam-e Nesvan discussed unveiling as ‘revealing the face, hands, and feet’ and as ‘faces [were] uncovered’ (sourat-ha baz shod). 70 In 1932, a popular column in the journal featuring Delshad Khanum, a fictional character, 71 celebrated unveiling, announcing, ‘I’m happy I don’t have to wear the picheh.’ 72 Others specified that unveiling meant ‘abandoning the chuddur and appearing with uncovered face in European dress in public.’ 73 ‘European’ clothing meant wearing a dress and coat, a pair of gloves, and a hat. Immediately after Reza Shah announced unveiling in 1936, at a graduation ceremony at the Women’s Teachers’ Training College in Tehran, the state issued instructions on women’s conduct in public and private gatherings. It recommended that women should not take off their hats, coats, and gloves when indoors and in mixed company. 74 This new attire was a radical departure for most urban Iranian women, since it did not cover all the hair and neck and showed more leg and body shape than before. However, it still amply and modestly covered most of the body except for the face. Ironically, the actual physical appearance of women in public after Kashf-e Hejab, according to this dress code, was not fundamentally different from the present Islamic dress enforced in the Islamic Republic. Urban, middle-class women in Iran today prefer the version of the official dress code that includes a long coat, headscarf, and uncovered face, rather than a chador and magna’eh (head covering that fits snugly around the face). Thus the unveiling of the 1920s and 1930s, meaning the uncovering of the face, adoption of a Western-style coat, and a partial covering of the head, was a radical departure for the time, and a practice that with important modification continues today and is retained even by the Islamic Republic. Alam-e Nesvan of the 1920s did not discuss unveiling openly, for fear of attracting the ire of state censors and the clergy. Jahan-e Zanan, the women’s journal that did venture into such territory, had been closed down previously by

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the state and its editor banished to Qom. No serious debates on veiling, other than indirect references to Ottoman women’s changing dress, took place in Alam-e Nesvan until after 1928. By 1931, Alam-e Nesvan was openly debating women’s clothing and firmly taking a stand against the chador and picheh, a position that later became state policy. In 1931 and 1932, unveiling debates in Alam-e Nesvan reached a fevered pitch in the section entitled ‘On Veiling,’ which appeared in almost every issue. Most contributors, women and men, were proponents of unveiling, although the journal also printed articles from opponents. Partisans of unveiling argued that the chador prevented women’s progress and limited their access to education and public space. Since veiling was coupled with seclusion and was seen primarily as an urban phenomenon associated with the wealthy classes, contributors to Alam-e Nesvan attacked veiling as an ‘unnatural’ restriction imposed on city women. Delshad Khanum’s column often addressed the subject in this manner, arguing, ‘Tribal and rural women are free, but for urban women, freedom has reached only the doorstep of the house…. They are totally overtaken by fear and are afraid of their own shadow.’ She recommended that city women go out wearing clothing that covered the whole body, except for face and hands, not to wear too much makeup, and carry themselves with dignity. She then asked readers to help her decide what style and color of clothing to wear. 75 In the following issue, women readers from Kermanshah, Dezful, Shiraz, and Rafsanjan responded, although they were not much interested in the specifics of color. One woman insisted that women be free to choose any color of dress, while another stated that it should be the same color for everyone. The others bypassed the issue of color altogether to endorse the larger goal of abandoning hejab completely and guaranteeing that it would not be replaced with expensive clothing out of reach to poor women. 76 Significantly, the pro-veiling sentiment in Alam-e Nesvan also rallied behind the same causes of national integrity, social progress, and women’s emancipation. However, in reaction to the unbounded enthusiasm towards unveiling, some contributors rejected the connection between women’s emancipation and unveiling. In 1932, Fatemeh Ansari wrote, ‘A group of people, including myself, believe that removal of the chador will not create freedom, nor will hejab prevent moral corruption…. Is going to the movies and theater…which does not lead to civilization, the only purpose of removing the chador?’ 77 Dr Saeed Jamal al-Din from Bushehr suggested that people were naive to believe that unveiling would eradicate social corruption, because clothing was a superficial indicator of a nation’s progress and civilization. He expressed a greater desire to imitate European ‘industry, factories, airplanes, and ships’ than the specific styles of European dress (fokkol, keravat, bi-hejabi). 78 Another article by Delshad Khanum discussed the complex character and cultural associations of unveiling in this period. In attending a ‘burial and celebration party,’ Delshad Khanum was a guest at a fictional mass gathering of women casting aside their veils in a Tehran cemetery. I got in a car with four other women wearing neqab and went to a

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garden …where there were tables and chairs set up. Two hundred people were gathered…. Someone announced, ‘There will be two gatherings, a burial and a celebration, because today we bury the enemy of our progress, civilization, and humanity and get rid of the black monster…. The grave had already been prepared by patriotic men and now we have to do the burial.’ At the end of the garden was a ditch. Women began to sing. Then they became emotional, attacked the chadors and pichehs, and buried them [in the ditch]. They finished in less than ten minutes and then stomped on it [the grave] where they placed a stone saying, ‘Here is the burial place of the detested, hateful, dark entity now in hell: the black shroud.’ Then we had a party and dressed in hats. We had changed so much that we didn’t recognize each other. 79 Delshad Khanum continued to describe how she felt without her old clothes and to detail her transformation as a new woman. I was nervous to go out and walk with a hat, but no one even looked at me; what had scared me was an illusion. Then I became assertive and talked to people and asked a shopkeeper questions…and he addressed me as ‘Madame.’ I had become a ‘Madame’ even though I didn’t know any foreign languages. Growing bold, I asked for soap and he called me ‘Madame’ again. I was very happy thinking I was a ‘Madame’ and did not even know it myself. That black cloth had made me weak, sissy, imperfect [list of derogatory Persian names for women]. Then, the shopkeeper said, ‘I don’t know you. Have you just moved into the alley?’… I said, ‘Mirza Ali, the time of barbarism has passed. We volunteered to go first. We have to leave behind old ideas. Men and women must unite and serve the country.’ Mirza Ali, admitting that he needed help in his store, said, ‘Tell my wife to change her clothing and come and help me in my store.’ So from talking to him, I realized that the spirit of freedom affected the majority and I praise those who broke the barriers before us. We’re the third or fourth group who did this. 80 This fictional account touches upon broader issues of national identity and selfesteem, women’s access to public space and the world of work, male—female relations, and the history of the Iranian women’s movement. According to this story, the veil was not only a detested symbol of backwardness, but also a barrier to women’s self-respect and self-knowledge. Discarding the veil had a transformational effect, instantaneously turning ‘traditional,’ lower-middle-class Delshad Khanum into a more active participant in her daily affairs and bestowing upon her a confident new identity, making her a role model for other women such as the shopkeeper’s wife. She also had become a ‘Madame,’ an honorary Europeanized woman. The barrier of the veil now gone, she could speak to men in public and enjoy the higher status and social respect of her

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European counterparts. She had attained civilization in one stroke. In addition, as the shopkeeper Mirza Ali was made to realize, unveiling would free urban women from idleness, and allow them to participate in economic and social life and share the burdens of labor with men. Sweeping aside chador and picheh meant discarding the entire system of seclusion of urban women and granting them access to greater social and economic participation. Another issue touched upon in Delshad Khanum’s emancipation narrative is awareness of the continuity of unveiling in Iran. The 1931 fictional women’s gathering was not the first to cast aside the veil. Rajab Ali Khan, the writer behind Delshad Khanum, was acknowledging the precedence set by previous Iranian women, whether the Babi leader and poet Qorrat al-Ayn, who allegedly unveiled in public in the mid-nineteenth century, 81 or upper-middle-class northern Tehranis, who ventured out unveiled in the late 1920s. Like the fictional Delshad Khanum, other writers in Alam-e Nesvan communicated great hope and optimism that unveiling would solve all social ills and lead to national prosperity. Men would cease to marry younger women, marriages would be strengthened, divorces would decrease, women would help husbands in business, Iran would be less dependent on foreign imports, and prostitution would be eradicated. Reports suggest that some elite women were appearing without chador in public before the official banning of the chador and picheh in 1936. In 1927, a government regulation instructed police not to interfere with ‘unveiled’ women (meaning Iranian women in European-style clothing) in the streets, whereas before police detained such women. 82 One observer wrote that by the late 1920s, ‘Two or three women and a half a dozen school girls, with the consent of their families, had the courage to do this [unveil in public]…. It is said that many women go out in the evening unveiled.’ 83 Among wealthy Tehrani women who veiled, changes in clothing styles involved a hybrid of Iranian and Western fashions: shortened chadors and pichehs, light-colored hose, highheeled shoes, bobbed hair, and use of powder and lipstick. 84 The March 1928 visit of the Queen Mother to a Qom shrine marked her radical act of passing up a black chador in favor of a light-colored one. In June of the same year, King Amanullah and Queen Soraya of Afghanistan made an official stop over in Tehran on their way back from Europe, which apparently made a deep impression on Reza Shah, since the Queen appeared in public without a face cover. Amanullah subsequently banned the wearing of the burqa (a piece of clothing covering a woman from head to foot) in Afghanistan, although dress reform was fleeting, and Amanullah was deposed a year later. 85 Reza Shah’s unveiling policy proceeded cautiously with a public-relations campaign aimed mainly at teachers, students, and state employees. Bamdad wrote: ‘It appears to have been in 1932 (the year of the Congress of Women of the East) that Reza Shah the Great came to the conclusion that the pace of women’s advancement in Iran must be accelerated.’ 86 Others have argued that Reza Shah’s summer 1934 visit to Turkey played a decisive role in speeding up his dress reform agenda. 87

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Modern schools were the first public setting where more systematic unveiling took place. A state report announced: ‘We are implementing unveiling first in girls’ schools, with women teachers, and among educated families, who will give talks on the subject.’ 88 In 1934, women teachers and students were first given the choice, and then ordered by the state, to discard the chador at school. 89 The Ministry of Education sent female inspectors to schools to impress upon both teachers and students the merits of unveiling. 90 However, it appears that even before 1934, more urban girls over the ages of eight and nine, and especially students, were already not donning the chador. 91 ‘Four American School girls and several Moslem girls attending the Ziroastrian [sic] School have abandoned the chuddar [sic] and appear in hat and coat on the street.’ 92 The state’s gradual steps towards introducing dress reform led up to the official unveiling announcement of 8 January 1936. On this date, at a graduation ceremony, Reza Shah delivered a speech to an audience of women professional school graduates and teachers and wives of state employees, who were commanded to attend unveiled: I am very delighted to see that women have become aware of their rights and entitlement…. Women of this country not only could not [before unveiling] demonstrate their talents and inherent qualities because of being separated from society, but also could not pay their dues to their homeland and serve and make sacrifices for their country. Now women are on their way to gain other rights in addition to the great privilege of motherhood. We should not forget that half of our active force was laid idle. Women should consider today a great day and use the opportunities available to them to work for the progress of the country. I believe that we must all work sincerely for the progress and happiness of this country…. Future prosperity is in your hands [because you] train the future generation. You can be good teachers to train good individuals. My expectation is that now you learned ladies are becoming aware of your rights and duties towards your country, you should be wise in life, work hard, become accustomed to frugality, and avoid extravagances and overspending. 93 Here, Reza Shah appears to be repeating verbatim the arguments already articulated in Alam-e Nesvan. The focus on women’s roles as mothers and teachers of the next generation, as barometers of the nation’s progress and as budget-wise household managers and administrators, was common ground shared by the modern state and women reformers. Since Alam-e Nesvan ceased publication in 1934, immediately before the state’s more systematic unveiling policy was inaugurated, we do not know how its editors and contributors reacted to the obligatory and coercive nature of Kashf-e Hejab. However, evidence indicates that unveiling proponents neither advocated nor expected a mandatory prohibition against veiling altogether. In a July 1932 article in Alam-e Nesvan, Sadiqeh Dowlatabadi criticized the forced

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nature of unveiling in Turkey, adding, ‘Fortunately in Iran, this is not the case, since freedom of action is respected. Those who want to veil can, and those who do not, do not have to.’ 94 In retrospect this is an ironic comment, since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk of Turkey never passed a law forbidding veiling, and Reza Shah eventually did pass one. Reformers in Alam-e Nesvan did not favor a radical prohibition of veiling. Rather, they preferred state tolerance toward and protection for women who chose to unveil, hoping that more women would opt not to use the veil over time. An American observer noted that Iranian reformers agreed that ‘“We [Persians] must proceed more slowly if we wish to avoid a revolution in our own country.”… When unveiling does come, it will not be compulsory, and doubtless many of the older generation will never change their costume.’ 95

Dressing in style to enter public space In conjunction with unveiling came increased social interaction between women and men in urban public and private spaces, such as the streets, public gardens, horse-drawn carriages and automobiles, restaurants and cafés, parties, theatrical plays, and movie theaters. 96 In the second half of the 1930s, numerous official gatherings required government employees to bring their wives unveiled (in European-style clothing). 97 As urban, upper-middle-class men and women began mixing together in certain state-sanctioned and less formal venues, new European-style fashions, cosmetics, and hairstyles began appearing in advertisements and articles in Alam-e Nesvan and in state publications of the 1920s and 1930s. This new attention to clothing and fashion was linked directly to nationalism. In the ‘A Woman Asks’ column, Alam-e Nesvan’s editors challenged the state to expand national industry in defense of new clothing styles and fashions: Why don’t we make European-style hats for women in Iran? Because we have been making all kinds of men’s hats. We can have a glovemaking factory instead of importing leather, wool, and silk gloves from abroad. If we want to use Iranian-made products, why don’t we have better-made tafteh (taffeta) from Yazd, whose color does not wash away? 98 Thus Western-style fashion and dress had become a national concern, elevated from its presumed status of the private sphere to the world of politics, industry, and national progress. Since its early years of publication, Alam-e Nesvan featured a section on women’s dress. Later issues of Alam-e Nesvan omitted in-depth descriptions of fashions from Europe and the USA, since by the late 1920s the journal could discuss Iranian women’s dress in a more open and direct manner than previously. However, before this time, Iranian contributors to the journal

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translated articles written by American women on the latest European and American styles, sewing and designing women’s and children’s fashions, and recycling and updating old clothes. Pictures of women’s and children’s clothes had illustrated the first issues of the journal until 1923, when the journal decided that they were too costly to print. 99 At the same time, the journal’s indirect support of unveiling in this period was indicated by its publication of images of outdoor women’s dress consisting of coat, hat, and European-style, loose-fitting long dresses. Unveiled women wore short, bobbed haircuts. 100 After pictures were no longer published in the journal, descriptive reports on the most recent fashions from the French Riviera, Paris, and New York detailed the length, cut, fabric, and color of women’s dress. 101 However, the author always qualified the discussion by adding that even though the journal featured foreign fashions, it did not necessarily approve of these styles, such as tight-fitting dresses. 102 This was also in accordance with the American missionary-inspired sensibilities of Alam-e Nesvan, which promoted simplicity, modesty, and practicality and advocated against flamboyant, form-fitting attire for women. However, the strategic goal of attracting Iranian women to European and US culture, including its ‘modern’ dress, necessitated that such fashions would be discussed and their merits debated. Practicality and economy was the theme of numerous articles in the ‘Clothesmaking’ section of the journal which endorsed cost-cutting measures such as making one’s own clothes and updating old clothes to fit new styles. 103 Instructions and patterns for sewing were supplied in the journal, enabling middle-class women to dress fashionably even if they could not afford to pay a tailor. The sewing machine would speed up production of such fashions and make them more widely available. 104 In 1931, Qamar Banu Shiva’i, sewing instructor at the Zoroastrian Girls’ School, announced in the journal that she was now offering dressmaking classes to the public. 105 For those who could afford the expense, advertisements for women’s dress- and hat-makers in Tehran, featuring the latest ‘Paris and London styles,’ were published in the journal. 106 Being a modern manager of the house required responsible spending, budgeting, and saving. Alam-e Nesvan’s philosophy on women’s clothing was linked to the ethics of thrift, and editors often reminded readers about good spending habits. Rather than encourage extravagant spending on clothes, the editors advocated ‘making your own clothes and saving money…and not spending above means to compete with others.’ Acquiring the new fashions should not come before ‘buying books, helping with a child’s education, and giving to the poor.’ 107 Ali Asghar Sharif wrote that he approved of articles in the journal on budgeting, and considered it ‘important that women learn how to spend and save money and not waste it on different styles of clothes as they change every season.’ 108 Along with discussions on fashion and style, Alam-e Nesvan stressed the importance of personal hygiene and an attractive physical appearance in a series of articles entitled ‘A Well-liked Woman’ (Zan-e mahbub). Readers learned that a modern woman was nice-looking, healthy, well-dressed, sociable, lively yet

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serious, and young in heart and mind. She bathed regularly and cleansed her face and hair, while keeping fit and exercising daily. 109 Iranian women of the early twentieth century had used henna, kohl, and perfumes, but now new cosmetics and adornment practices from Europe and the USA were introduced. Every woman had the potential to be beautiful with a little help from cosmetics. Moreover, the use of powders, creams, and skin-care products was not seen as frivolous or immoral, for ‘women in the French and American revolutions wore cosmetics.’ 110 Government yearbooks from the late 1930s to 1941 began to display Westernstyle women’s fashions, following the trend started by Alam-e Nesvan. When the state began to implement its own ‘Women’s Awakening’ agenda in 1935, government publications also adopted the beauty and health advice format common in Alam-e Nesvan. In government yearbooks (salnameh), a section called ‘One Thousand Secrets of Beauty’ outlined the new rules of modern hygiene, fashion, and style. These articles impressed upon readers that beauty could be acquired and should be maintained; it was not simply a matter of nature or birth. 111 One could improve upon nature through a variety of recent inventions. For instance, wrinkles, pigmentation problems, and excess hair could be cured with electrotherapy by one Dr Husayn Riazi. 112 As an article on personal hygiene explained, ‘Ladies who are deprived of this [natural beauty] can use industry to bring out their true nature and secure happiness and success in the family.’ 113 So that every woman had the means of modern fashion at her disposal, government publications also borrowed ideas from Alam-e Nesvan’s ‘How to’ section and presented hat- and handbag-making instructions. Women were told, ‘You need handbags for different parts of the day: a sports bag for the morning; a dark, leather bag for regular use; a silk bag for tea; and a bag of gold threads, decorated with precious stones, for evening.’ 114 Drawing upon the dominant nationalist discourse of the period, government publications insisted that these examples of the ‘best and most beautiful women’s clothing’ were made in Iran at local factories and from ‘animal skins of the country.’ 115 Advertisements for women’s hair dyes appeared in a government publication as early as 1929 to 1930. 116 By 1935 to 1936, hair care had been elevated to a national priority, due to Kashf-e Hejab. One government yearbook published a lengthy article packed with detail on how to clean, condition, color, and style various types of women’s hair. It offered home recipes for making shampoos, dyes, and curing agents for such conditions as dandruff, split ends, and hair loss. A sampling of fashionable short haircuts at the end of the article reminded women that the current European style ‘à la garçon was better.’ 117 After 1936 especially, the general fashion trend of European-style dress became popular among upper-middle- and middle-class women. ‘It was a period of great prosperity for dress-makers and hairdressers. One sign of the times was the appearance of milliners’ shops in the main streets of Tehran and provincial cities.’ 118

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Conclusion As scholars have noted, major obstacles blocking the path of women’s advancement were not removed by the Pahlavi state. 119 The creation of a strong executive power did indeed force the passage of long overdue reform in female education. However, women’s organizing was placed under tight state control during the Reza Shah period, preventing a broad range of debate and discussion on ‘the woman question.’ Alam-e Nesvan was the only women’s journal for much of the Reza Shah period, and its discourse converged with that of the state and other prominent reformist periodicals of the time. As a publication that stood between semi-official and independent status, Alam-e Nesvan had an ambivalent relationship with the state. Its strong endorsement of state sponsorship of its agenda was a direct reaction to the tremendous hardship and opposition that reformist women had endured during the Qajar recent past. However, following its enthusiastic approval of state-sponsored reforms, the journal began to argue that women’s further progress needed to be accomplished through their own efforts. Expanding the agenda of family-law reform, professional opportunities for women, and unveiling that dominated the later years of Alam-e Nesvan could have led to such an independent direction, but the state made such a move impossible at this crucial juncture. Nevertheless, the example of Alam-e Nesvan shows another instance of how Reza Shah’s reforms built on agendas and discourses already shaped and advocated by private initiative before their adoption by the state. As the only permitted women’s journal during the 1920s and 1930s, Alam-e Nesvan helped set the stage for Reza Shah’s grand project to ‘awaken Iranian women from their slumber.’ Alam-e Nesvan’s mysterious closure in 1934 meant that the ‘autonomous space’ of private initiative in yet another important area of social reform had been completely subsumed by the state. 120 In 1935, Reza Shah had replaced the projects carried out by Alam-e Nesvan and independent women’s organizations, such as the Patriotic Women’s League, with the state-supported Ladies’ Center. The Center sponsored lectures and training on proper etiquette and deportment for newly unveiled and professional women and ran a school for adult women. In essence, it took control of the agenda and activities that women reformers in Iran had been advocating for decades. As Reza Shah’s modern state became stronger, Iran’s independent women’s movement became weaker and was eventually eliminated by the very state that reformists, such as those in Alam-e Nesvan, had supported so enthusiastically.

Notes 1 2

Mastureh Afshar, ‘Are We Aware of Our Own Position in Society?’, Alam-e Nesvan 5 (September 1932):193–194. See Badr ol-Moluk Bamdad, From Darkness into light: Women’s Emancipation in

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Iran, trans. and ed. F.R.C.Bagley (Hicksville, NY: Exposition Press, 1977). See Afshin Matin-asgari, ‘Sacred City Profaned: Utopianism and Despair in Early Modernist Persian Literature,’ in Rudi Matthee and Beth Baron, eds, Iran and Beyond: Essays in Honor of Nikki R.Keddie (Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 2000), pp. 201–211. Sattareh Farman Farmaian, Daughter of Persia: A Woman’s Journey from Her Father’s Harem Through the Islamic Revolution (New York: Doubleday, 1992), p. 95, and conversation with author’s grandmother Monir Mavenian RostamKolayi, Sari, Iran, summer 1997. Afsaneh Najmabadi, ‘Hazards of Modernity and Morality: Women, State, and Ideology in Contemporary Iran,’ in Albert Hourani, Philip S.Khoury and Mary Wilson, eds, The Modern Middle East (Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif: University of California Press, 1993), p. 672. Ervand Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 120–127. For discussion of the ‘woman question’ in nineteenth-century reformist literature, see e.g. Sholeh Abadi, ‘Mirza Fath Ali Akhundzadeh va mas‘aleh-ye zanan’ [Mirza Fath Ali Akhundzadeh and the Woman Question], Nimeh-ye Digar 17 (winter 1371): 29–37; Camron Amin, ‘Attentions of the Great Father: Reza Shah, “The Woman Question,” and the Iranian Press, 1890–1946,’ Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1996; Mehrdad Kia, ‘Women, Islam, and Modernity in Akhundzadeh’s Plays and Unpublished Writings,’ Middle Eastern Studies 3, 4 (July 1998):1–33; and Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, ‘Women of the West Imagined: The Farangi Other and the Emergence of the Woman Question in Iran,’ in Valentine Moghadam, ed., Identity Politics and Women (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1994). For a detailed discussion of the journal, see Jasamin Rostam-Kolayi, ‘The Women’s Press, Modern Education, and the State in Early Twentieth-Century Iran, 1900–1930s,’ Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 2000. Peter Avery, ‘Printing, the Press, and Literature in Modern Iran,’ Cambridge History of Modern Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 844– 845. Hamideh Niku, ‘The First Unfortunate Moment, or My Marriage Night,’ Alam-e Nesvan 2 (November 1923):34–35. For examples of this genre, see Nasrollah Rastegar, ‘The Necessity of the Progress of Women and the Education of Girls’; ‘Our Struggle,’ Alam-e Nesvan 2 (November 1922):1–3; Mastureh Afshar, ‘The Good Health of Women and Children,’Alam-e Nesvan 5 (September 1932): 195–198; and Hamdam Nabavi, ‘Woman and Sadness,’ Alam-e Nesvan 5 (January 1925):35–38. For a discussion of the emergence of companionate marriage in turn-of-thecentury Egypt, see Beth Baron, ‘The Making and Breaking of Marital Bonds in Modern Egypt,’ in Nikki Keddie and Beth Baron, eds, Women in Middle Eastern History (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991). ‘An Appropriate Marriage,’ Alam-e Nesvan 4 (July 1931):193. Aqdas Ashtodakh, ‘The Importance of Understanding Responsibility in Building a Family,’ Alam-e Nesvan 5 (September 1931):210–214, and Agha Nayeri, Alam-e Nesvan 5 (September 1931):216. The author submitted a poem criticizing the

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practice of marriage arranged for financial profit. 15 Homa Mahmudi, ‘A New Marriage,’ Alam-e Nesvan 2 (November 1922):25–28. 16 See also Annie Stocking Boyce, ‘Warning,’ Alam-e Nesvan 6 (July 1922):18–20; Ashraf Nabavi, ‘Old and New Marriages in Iran,’ Alam-e Nesvan 4 (July 1931); and Mastureh Afshar, ‘The Good Health of Women and Children,’ Alam-e Nesvan 5 (September 1932):195–198. 17 Parvin Paidar, Women and the Political Process in Twentieth-Century Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 109. 18 Ali Reza Naqvi, ‘The Family Laws of Iran (II),’ Islamic Studies 7, 2 (June 1968):129. Section 1040 of the Civil Code allowed either party to demand medical clearance before marriage, but did not make it mandatory as did the new law. Naqvi published additional discussions and the full Persian and English text of the Civil Code and Marriage Act in subsequent issues of the journal. See also ‘The Family Laws of Iran (III),’ Islamic Studies 7, 3 (September 1968):265–303, and The Family Laws of Iran (IV),’ Islamic Studies 7, 4 (December 1968):339– 378. 19 Naqvi (II), pp. 149, 152. 20 Ibid., pp. 153, 156. 21 Naqvi (IV), p. 360. 22 Ibid., pp. 358–360. 23 Paidar, Women and the Political Process, p. 109. 24 Delshad Khanum, ‘The Dance Disease,’ Alam-e Nesvan 1 (January 1932):6–9. 25 Boyce, report, July 1, 1926 to June 30, 1927, Presbyterian Historical Society (PHS), p. 2. 26 Afshar, ‘Good Health of a Woman and Children,’ p. 198. 27 Naqvi (II), pp. 129, 161. 28 Some observers took note of this urban trend of postponing marriage as a result of education. See A.S.Boyce and P.C.McDowell, ‘Social, Moral, Economic, and Industrial Movements,’ c.1930s, p. 2, PHS, RG 91–18–11. 29 Naqvi (II), p. 158. 30 Ibid. 31 Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions, p. 254. 32 Amir Arsalan Khal’atbari, ‘The New Marriage Law,’ Alam-e Nesvan 3 (May 1932): 97–103. 33 Nikki Keddie, Roots of Revolution (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981), p. 109. 34 Paidar, Women and the Political Process, p. 112. 35 Ibid., p. 41. 36 See e.g. ‘Our Jihad,’ Alam-e Nesvan 2 (November 1922):1–3. 37 Boyce, ch. 5, from ‘Chapters in the Life of an American Woman in the Shah’s Capital,’ unpublished memoirs, p. 5, PHS, RG 19–18–11. 38 Nikki Keddie has noted that almost 90 per cent of working Iranians were employed in agriculture during this period. See Keddie, Roots of Revolution, p. 111. 39 Ruth Frances Woodsmall, Women and the New East (Washington, DC: The Middle East Institute, 1960), p. 71; see also Reza Khalili, ‘Women Must Work,’ Alam-e Nesvan 2 (March 1932):92–96. 40 For instance, ‘Gohar Khanum,’ a physician trained in Russia, practiced medicine

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in Tehran in 1922. See Alam-e Nesvan 2 (September 1921). Merat al-Soltan, Alam-e Nesvan 3 (January 1922):39. Amir Jahid, Salnameh-ye Pars (Tehran, n.p., 1928–1929), pp. 40–41. Bamdad, From Darkness into Light, pp. 59–61, 80–81, 84. ‘More Good News,’ Alam-e Nesvan 5 (May 1922):17. Jahid, Salnameh-ye Pars, 1930–1931, p. 101. For more on Loretta, see Mohammad-Taqi Mina, ‘Banu Loretta Hayrpetian (Nushin),’ Chista 150, 10 (June 1998):774–777. For a photograph of ‘Loretta’ on stage with men, see Jahid, Salnameh-ye Pars, 1932–1933, p. 205. On Varto Tarian, see Bamdad, From Darkness into Light, p. 67, 88–89. Ashraf Sadeqi, ‘Women’s Occupations: What Can an Iranian Woman Do?,’ Alame Nesvan 1 (January 1932):29–31; ‘Women’s Occupations,’ Alam-e Nesvan 3 (May 1932):110–112; Khalili, ‘Women Must Work,’ pp. 92–96; and Heshmat Hadashian, ‘What Can an Iranian Woman Do?,’ Alam-e Nesvan 5 (September 1932):198–201. Maryam Sohrabi, ‘Essay from Nasseri,’ Alam-e Nesvan 4 (January 1931):158– 160. Badr ol-Moluk Najand, ‘If I Had One Million [Toman],’ Alam-e Nesvan 1 (January 1932):48. ‘Women’s Occupations: What Can an Iranian Woman Do?,’ pp. 29–31. ‘Madame Curie,’ Alam-e Nesvan 4 (March 1922):29–34. Mohammad Ali Ervani, ‘On Veiling,’ Alam-e Nesvan 3 (May 1932):140–142. Iran Khanum Arani, ‘A Talk by Iran Khanum Arani at the Congress of Women,’ Alam-e Nesvan 6 (November 1932):277–281. Reprinted from Iran newspaper. Dr Reza Zadeh Shafagh, ‘Women and Work,’ Alam-e Nesvan 6 (November 1932): 241–249. ‘What News Do Women Have?,’ Alam-e Nesvan 3 (May 1931):131. Khalili, ‘Women Must Work,’ 92–96. Ibid. Sadiqeh Dowlatabadi, ‘Women’s Progress,’ Alam-e Nesvan 3 (January 1923):27. Patricia Baker defines veiling as wearing of the chador and picheh in Baker, ‘Politics of Dress: The Dress Reform Laws of 1920/30s Iran,’ in Nancy Lindsfarne-Tapper and Bruce Ingham, eds, Languages of Dress in the Middle East (Surrey: Curzon Press, 1997), p. 180. H.E.Chehabi refers to it as wearing of ‘scarves or chadors’; see Chehabi, ‘Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes: Dress Codes and Nation-Building under Reza Shah,’ Iranian Studies 26, 3–4 (summer/fall 1993):220. See also, ‘The Banning of the Veil and its Consequences,’ Chapter 11, pp. 193–210. For Egypt in the early twentieth century, Beth Baron defines unveiling as removal of the face cover. She also argues that veiling encompassed the whole system of seclusion of women. See Baron, ‘Unveiling in Early Twentieth Century Egypt: Practical and Symbolic Considerations,’ Middle Eastern Studies 25, 3 (July 1989):370. Eleanor Sims, ‘Clothing—Historical Lexicon of Persian Clothing,’ 8 Encyclopaedia Iranica (Costa Mesa, Calif: Mazda Publishers, 1992), p. 862. Ibid. See e.g. Hesam al-Din Ashna, Khoshunat va farhang: asnad-i mahramnameh-ye kashf-e hejab (1313–1322) [Violence and Culture: Secret Documents on Unveiling] (Tehran: National Archives, 1992), p. 47. Government agents in rural

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64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81

82 83

84 85 86 87 88

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Tikan-Tapeh, Azerbaijan, wrote: ‘Hejab as it existed in the cities had never existed here. The women here live according to tribal custom open-faced. Hejab and chador are only used by merchant and tribal head families.’ The latter two groups constituted part of the urban upper classes. A photograph of Iranian rural or tribal women’s dress of the early twentieth century may be found in Ruth Frances Woodsmall, Moslem Women Enter a New World (New York: Round Table Press, 1936), p. 65. Different styles of women’s clothing are also featured in the photographs at the end of Nikki Keddie, Qajar Iran and the Rise of Reza Khan, 1796–1925 (Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1999). Ashna, Khoshunat, p. 48. Boyce, ch. 5, pp. 4–5. See Ashna, Khoshunat. Ibid., no. 44, pp. 26–27. Ibid., no. 77, p. 45. Bamdad, From Darkness into Light, pp. 92, 95. See e.g. M.R.Hezar, ‘Veiling in Iran,’ Alam-e Nesvan 1 (January 1932):19–23, and Dr Saeed Jamal al-Din, ‘On Veiling,’ Alam-e Nesvan 2 (March 1932):68–72. ‘Delshad Khanum’ was the pseudonym of male author Rajab Ali Khan. Delshad Khanum, ‘The Dance Disease,’ Alam-e Nesvan 1 (January 1932):9. Boyce, ‘Moslem Women in the Capital of Persia,’ The Moslem World 20, 3 (July 1930):266. Baker, ‘Politics of Dress,’ p. 186. Delshad Khanum, ‘Hypnotism,’ Alam-e Nesvan 1 (January 1931):8–9. ‘On the Subject of Delshad Khanum’s Essay,’ Alam-e Nesvan 2 (March 1931):81, 98. Fatemeh Ansari, ‘I Acknowledge Freedom in the Clothes of Duty,’ Alam-e Nesvan 5 (September 1932):220. Jamal al-Din, ‘On Veiling.’ Delshad Khanum, ‘Relating the Event,’ Alam-e Nesvan 3 (May 1931):97–105. Ibid., p. 105. For more on Qorrat al-Ayn and her unveiling, see Abbas Amanat, Resurrection and Renewal: The Making of the Babi Movement in Iran (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), and Farzaneh Milani, Veils and Words: The Emerging Voices of Iranian Women Writers (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1993). Mary Park Jordan, ‘Persian Women Move Forward,’ The Moslem World 25, 3 (July 1935):301, and Bamdad, From Darkness into Light, p. 94. Boyce, ‘Moslem Women,’ pp. 266–267. Mary Park Jordan reported that ‘some hundreds’ took advantage of this directive and ‘many others used either costume, as circumstance or convenience demanded.’ See Jordan, ‘Persian Women Move Forward,’ p. 301. Boyce, ‘Moslem Women,’ p. 267. Baker, ‘Politics of Dress,’ pp. 180, 182, and Chehabi, ‘Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes,’ p. 213. Bamdad, From Darkness into Light, p. 91. See Chehabi, ‘Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes,’ p. 215. Ashna, Khoshunat, pp. 1–2.

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89 Roger Savory, ‘Social Development in Iran During the Pahlavi Era,’ in George Lenczowski, ed., Iran Under the Pahlavis (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1978), p. 97. 90 Bamdad, From Darkness into Light, p. 92. 91 See Boyce, ‘Moslem Women,’ p. 267; Jordan, ‘Persian Women,’ p. 301; and Chehabi, ‘Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes,’ pp. 216, 218. 92 Boyce and McDowell, ‘Social, Moral, Economic, and Industrial Movements,’ p. 1. 93 Reza Shah Pahlavi, speech delivered on 8 January 1936 as cited in Jahid, Salnameh-ye Pars, 1936–1937, pp. 94–95. 94 Sadiqeh Dowlatabadi, ‘A Short History of Women’s Condition in Iran: Past and Present,’ Alam-e Nesvan 4 (July 1932):145–152. 95 Boyce, ‘Moslem Women,’ p. 266. 96 Jordan, ‘Persian Women,’ p. 300; Boyce, ‘Moslem Women,’ p. 265; and Boyce and McDowell, ‘Social, Moral, Economic, and Industrial Movements,’ p. 1. Boyce recounted the incident of the Tehran Chief of Police and his veiled wife frequenting a café in northern Tehran as an invitation for other women to appear in public with men. The Iranian Armenian actress ‘Loretta’ acted in plays with men, see Jahid, Salnameh-ye Pars, 1932–1933, p. 205. 97 Chehabi, ‘Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes,’ pp. 216, 218, and Baker, ‘Politics of Dress,’ p. 186. 98 ‘A Woman Asks,’ Alam-e Nesvan 3 (March 1931):50. 99 ‘Gratitude and Announcement,’ Alam-e Nesvan 1 (September 1922), and ‘Expenses are Enough,’ Alam-e Nesvan 2 (November 1922):4–6. 100 Alam-e Nesvan 3 (January 1922):18, 19, 22; 4 (March 1922):18, 19, 22, 23; 5 (May 1922):18, 19, 22, 23; 6 (July 1922):10, 11, 14, 15. 101 Miss Young, ‘Spring Style,’ trans. Tuba Zargami, Alam-e Nesvan 1 (September 1922): 16–18, and Mrs Wisham, ‘Clothes Making,’ trans. Tuba Zargami, Alam-e Nesvan 3 (January 1923): 16–17. Pictures of clothing styles were omitted in later issues of the journal, because the editors were not satisfied with the quality of lithographic print. 102 Ibid. 103 ‘Expenses are Enough,’ pp. 4–6, and Mrs Young, ‘Making Old Clothes New,’ trans. Tuba Zargami, Alam-e Nesvan 2 (November 1922):24–25. 104 See Jahid, Salnameh-ye Pars, 1930–1931, p. 189. 105 See ‘Notice,’ Alam-e Nesvan 1 (January 1931):52. 106 See Alam-e Nesvan 2 (September 1921):18, 19, 22, and 3 (January 1922):18, 19, 22. 107 ‘Expenses are Enough,’ pp. 4–6. 108 Ali Asghar Sharif, ‘Expenses,’ Alam-e Nesvan 3 (January 1923):30–32. 109 ‘A Well-Liked Woman,’ trans. Khanum M.Jalali, Alam-e Nesvan 2 (March 1931): 51–57; ibid. 3 (May 1931):118–129; and ibid. 6 (November 1931): 282–288. 110 ‘Chapter Six: Guidance to Families,’ trans. Khanum Jalali, Alam-e Nesvan 3 (May 1932):113–124. 111 Jahid, ‘Beauty of the Body,’ Salnameh-ye Pars, 1936–1937, p. 87. 112 Jahid, ‘Surgical Adornment,’ Salnameh-ye Pars, 1940–1941, pp. 2–3. 113 Jahid, ‘Cleaning the Body and Cleanliness,’ Salnameh-ye Pars, 1940–1941, p. 72. 114 Jahid, ‘Making Women’s Hats,’ Salnameh-ye Pars, 1936–1937, pp. 82–83 and

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‘Women’s Handbags,’ Salnameh-ye Pars, 1936–1937, pp. 78–81. 115 Jahid, Salnameh-ye Pars, 1939–1940, pp. 72–75, and 1940–1941, pp. 72–83. 116 Jahid, Salnameh-ye Pars, 1929–1930. 117 Jahid, ‘One Thousand Secrets of Beauty,’ Salnameh-ye Pars, 1935–1936, pp. 70– 85. 118 Bamdad, From Darkness into Light, p. 96. 119 See Eliz Sanasarian, The Women’s Rights Movement in Iran (New York: Praeger, 1982); Najmabadi, ‘Hazards of Modernity’; and Paidar, Women and the Political Process. 120 Afsaneh Najmabadi posed this typology for Mohammad Reza Shah in Najmabadi, ‘Hazards of Modernity,’ p. 674. I argue that it existed for the Reza Shah period as well.

10 REZA SHAH PAHLAVI AND WOMEN A re-evaluation Shireen Mahdavi

This chapter will re-examine the contribution of Reza Shah to the expansion of women’s rights and opportunities in Iran. In the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, clerical leaders attempted to turn back the clock and revoke many of the rights for women initiated by Reza Shah. This chapter will argue that, contrary to some contentions Reza Shah’s role was considerable. Furthermore, without a determined effort by the Shah and the state, the ‘ulama’ would not have voluntarily acquiesced in but would have frustrated any attempts to extend women’s rights and opportunities. Since the 1501 declaration of Shi‘ism as the state religion by the Safavids (1501–1722) the position of women in Iran has been determined by the Shi’i ‘ulama’. The one exception to this rule is the brief reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi and to a lesser extent that of his son Muhammad Reza Shah who tried to placate the ‘ulama’. Prior to the Safavid’s declaration of Shi‘ism and in the early Safavid period, due to the prevalence of Turko-Mongol tribal customs, women held a prominent position both politically and socially. 1 As the Safavids lost their revolutionary zeal they became orthodox. The development of Shi’i orthodoxy under the Safavids was accompanied by the growing power of the ‘ulama’ which culminated in the unprecedented political, social and religious power of ‘Allama Muhammad Baqir Majlisi (1627?–1700?). The works of Majlisi, especially his voluminous Bihar al-Anwar, represent the summation of Shi’i thought on all aspects of life including the status of women and are emulated by Shi‘i ‘ulama’ to the present day. 2 These interpretations laid the groundwork for the family laws which cover the questions of the veiling and seclusion of women, the superiority of men, as well as guardianship, marriage, divorce and inheritance. The Shi‘ism proclaimed by the Safavids was accepted and developed further under the Qajar dynasty (1795–1925). A new class of ‘ulama’ rose which kept alive the Shi‘i tradition and linked the Safavid period to modern times. Simultaneously the veiling and seclusion of women continued and strengthened under this dynasty. Travellers to Iran during the Qajar dynasty all commented on the seclusion and exclusion of urban women from the public domain. For instance, Sir John Malcolm who went to Persia at the beginning of the nineteenth century stated that:

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In Persia the lower classes deem females important in proportion as they are useful in domestic life: the higher consider them as born for their sensual gratification. Women have, in fact, no assigned place, but are what their husbands, or rather lords, may choose to make them. 3 This account is corroborated at a later period by Taj al-Saltana, a daughter of Nasir al-Din Shah, who was born in 1301/1883 and brought up in the royal harem. She speaks movingly of the fate of Iranian women: The women of Iran have been separated from the human race, placed in an enclosure with animals and beasts. From morning to night they lead a wretched, hopeless existence in prison cells. 4 The attainment of a constitution in 1906, although an important milestone in modern Persian history, did not change the lot of Iranian women to any considerable degree. They were still neither unveiled nor given the right to vote. Following this period however, the cause of the Iranian women attracted important adherents among men who had travelled to the West and seen the freedom and education of European women. These men included merchants, travellers and, in particular, poets and writers. The leading poets of the time: Iraj (1874–1925), ‘Arif (1822–1932) and ‘Ishqi (1893–1924), all railed against the veil which they compared to shrouds, and against the mullas and mujtahids for imposing this degradation and for the seclusion of women. Examples of this poetry are given below in translation:

They wear veils, those whose beauty fascinates us. Unless that beauty’s veiled, we’re told, God help us. Our city’s preachers are against unveiling, Because they like to veil their own deception. (Iraj)

Why the fuss? Men are God’s servants and women are too. What have women done wrong to feel shame before men? What are these unbecoming, uncouth cloaks and veils? They are winding sheets meant for the dead, not the living. I say, ‘Death to the men who bury women alive In the name of religion.’ That is enough to say here. (‘Ishqi)

Lift the veil from your beautiful moon like face! Pay no heed to the impudent preacher’s rude words! Lift the veil with your delicate, silver-hued hands!

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Never mind if the blame for it falls on my head! Ruffle the prigs with your lovely ruffled tresses and locks! And ignore their vain threats without turning a hair! (‘Arif) 5 During this period some pioneering women also campaigned for the emancipation of women by forming societies or participating in informal gatherings. Their campaign was directed primarily at the education of women. They realized that the first step towards the emancipation of women was through education so that the women themselves could become aware of their lack of rights. At this time there were no native schools for girls run by Iranians. A number of girls’ schools were established by women but at every step they were met with the opposition of the ‘ulama’, although some of these women came from religious backgrounds themselves. The founders of these schools were denounced by the ‘ulama’ in sermons portraying the women as heretics and inciting people to attack them. A typical example of these women is Siddiqa Dawlatabadi who both opened a school for girls in Isfahan and published a newspaper for women, but was forced to close both and leave Isfahan after encountering the hostility of the ‘ulama’. 6 However, the first Iranian school for girls, called Namus, was established in 1907 and was followed by other schools including a French girls’ school in 1908. 7 Also the first women’s newspaper, Danish, appeared in 1910. 8 But these were lonely voices in the prevailing consensus of opinion adhering to the views of the Shi‘i ‘ulama’, and neither the women nor the male intellectual supporters succeeded in changing the minds of the religious establishment vis-à-vis the position of women. During the anarchy that prevailed in Iran at the time of the First World War and after, no significant change took place in the situation of women. An English-woman, Clara Rice, visiting Iran after the war, describes their condition as follows: Behind the veil out of doors, behind the curtain indoors, left out of every social function, public or private, in which men play any part, they are seldom educated, trusted, valued or respected. 9 It took the advent of another dynasty, the Pahlavis, and another ideology, that of the West, to challenge the views of the ‘ulama’. The change of dynasty from the Qajars to the Pahlavis saw a great desire for emulating the West and modernizing Iran. This desire affected the position of women in particular. The effect, although gradual, changed the position of women in Iran drastically in the decades to come. A coup d’état in 1921 brought a military man, Reza Khan, to power. The last Qajar Shah was deposed in 1925, and Reza Shah Pahlavi was crowned in 1926. After the coup d’état, and until the 1930s, the new Shah was occupied with quelling internal insurrections and the unification of the country. During this

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period, the condition of the women of Iran was even worse than in other neighbouring countries. On the eve of Reza Shah’s coronation, an American visitor reports: The position of women is lower than in almost any other Mohammedan country; there is a tremendous gulf between the women of Cairo and Constantinople and the women of Tehran, even those of the very highest position. The queen, the mother of the crown prince, can neither read or write; the other queen an aristocrat by birth, is barely literate. 10 The American visitor was right about the backwardness of Iranian women compared to those of Egypt and Turkey. Egypt was the first Islamic country in which ideas of women’s emancipation were first articulated by a prominent and distinguished member of the Sunni ‘ulama’, Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849–1905). In the 1920s these ideas generated a movement in Egypt on the part of men and women for the emancipation and unveiling of women. Turkey, however, was the first Muslim country to give women full legal rights in 1935 through the modernizing policies of Kamal Ataturk. From the beginning of his reign Reza Shah confronted the ‘ulama’ by reducing their legal and educational powers, by curtailing some of their privileges and through his educational reforms forewarning them of his plans for the women. At every stage he was met by protests from the ‘ulama’ which were suppressed. However, it was not until 1932 that Reza Shah was able to deal with the problems of the women of Iran. He started with a number of legal reforms with the aim of improving the position of women. These reforms were primarily educational in that public schooling was made more available to girls, elementary school facilities improved, and a greater number of women’s teacher-training colleges were instituted to remedy the shortage of female teachers. Marriage and divorce practices were also modernized through legislation. Marriage was placed under civil rather than religious jurisdiction in 1931, and in 1935 fifteen years was set by the government as the minimum marriageable age for girls as opposed to nine and eighteen years for boys. Further, all marriages had to be registered to prevent child marriages. The registration of marriages also affected the practice of mut‘a or temporary marriage practised by the Shi‘is. Because mut‘a, although not legally banned, could not be legally registered, it was socially ostracized and became less prevalent. Meanwhile, in 1932 the Congress of Oriental Women was held in Tehran. Rep-resentatives from Egypt, India, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey participated in it. They formed a number of committees, and the backwardness of Muslim women, in comparison to the increasing advances made by European women, was discussed. Passionate speeches were made by the Iranian representatives criticizing the status quo and proposing economic independence for women as the first step towards emancipation. 11 The resolutions of the congress included

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demands for equal rights for women in the family, the termination of polygamy, compulsory elementary education for women, women’s suffrage and equal pay for equal work. 12 The holding of this congress gave special prominence to the women’s cause in Iran. The most debilitating of all the practices to which women were subjugated was hijab or veiling which took the form of the all-enveloping black chadur. Although the women at the above congress were unveiled, gradually under the conducive atmosphere and, in spite of harassment and opposition, there was a trend for women to appear unveiled. For instance, some women who had gone abroad refused to wear the veil upon their return. The most important step Reza Shah took towards the emancipation of Iranian women was the elimination of the hijab. After his visit to Turkey in 1934 Reza Shah decided to abolish the veil altogether but unfolded his plans carefully both through education and example. Simultaneously a propaganda campaign through newspaper articles was undertaken to prepare the public for it by explaining the disadvantages of veiling and the benefits as experienced by other Muslim countries. As part of the same objective in May 1935, at the instigation of Reza Shah, a group of high-school teachers and active women were invited to form a society. It was called the Ladies’ Centre (Kanun-i Banuvan), the honorary president of which was the Shah’s eldest daughter, Princess Shams Pahlavi. The Ladies’ Centre was a social and cultural organization which held lectures on subjects related to women’s role in society and was attended by both men and women. Although women were encouraged to appear unveiled during the meetings, initially this did not happen. Eventually the effect of the lectures was such that progressively more and more appeared unveiled. In the same year female teachers were first encouraged then ordered to appear unveiled in school. The Ministry of Interior sent directives to the provinces to this effect. 13 Altogether the leading members of the bureaucracy were encouraged to set an example by holding mixed gatherings at which their wives appeared unveiled. The first of these was a tea-party held by the Prime Minister Furughi at the Iran Club in which cabinet secretaries, undersecretaries and their wives participated. 14 Other occasions in Tehran followed, and according to the Ministry of Interior directive not only did the provinces start to hold mixed gatherings but all such occasions were reported directly to the Minister of Interior. 15 In 1936 another revolutionary step was taken when in January the Queen and the Princesses appeared not only unveiled at the graduation ceremonies of the first Women’s College but it was the Queen herself who distributed the diplomas. On this occasion Reza Shah made the following speech: I am exceedingly pleased to observe that, as a result of knowledge and learning women have come alive to their condition, rights and privileges. …We should not forget that up to this time one-half of the population of the country was not taken into account. No statistics of the female population were taken…I am not trying to point out contrasts between today and the old days but you ladies should

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consider this as a great day. You should avail yourselves of the opportunities which you now have to improve your country. 16 The crucial turning point came on 1 February 1936, when women were officially unveiled by a decree of the Shah. The female members of the Royal Family set an example by appearing in public unveiled at all times, even to the extent of going to the Holy Shrines without a veil. It was celebrated by the famous poetess of the era Parvin I’tisami (1906–1941) who wrote:

Until this day women in Iran could not be called Iranians Because for them ways to serve were barred; Only anguish and grief lay open. They lived and died apart, in the corner of solitude; Truly they were no more than prisoners in those now bygone days. Only the women dwelt in darkness for centuries; They alone were sacrificed on the alter of hypocrisy; Only the women had no advocate in the court of equity; They alone had no schooling in the academy of merit. 17 The decree of the Shah was not enough by itself as it met with opposition not only from the ‘ulama’ but from many women themselves who for centuries had not known any other form of attire. It had to be enforced by the police. Women had to appear unveiled in all public places. Veiled women were not served by shopkeepers, nor admitted to public baths, nor permitted to use public transport. 18 Government officials risked dismissal unless accompanied by their unveiled wives to public functions. 19 Not only was it difficult for women to put aside a centuries-old habit but for the poorer women the chadur was a means of covering their shabby clothes. Further they could not afford the cost of the required European costume. As a result a sum of £25,000 was put aside to help poor women with new clothes, and fundraising for this purpose also took place, particularly in the provinces. In addition, an Iranian trade commission was sent to Europe to buy 500,000 rials-worth of ready-made women’s clothes and hats. 20

The unveiling of women had an unprecedented effect on a new generation of women and opened up many hitherto-closed doors. In the same year as unveilings women were admitted to the University of Tehran, which had been founded two years earlier, in 1934. New vocational opportunities were also created for women after the unveiling, and women went on to work as teachers and nurses. The beginning of women’s accomplishments was marked by the appointment of Dr Fatima Sayyah to the chairs of European and Russian literature in the Faculty of Arts of Tehran University. Dr Sayyah had obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Moscow and had also taught there. In the same year Dr Sayyah represented Iran at the seventeenth meeting of the UN in Geneva. 21 The generation of Persian women born after the unveiling, and

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educated both at home and abroad, saw all doors open to them and went on to join the men in professions previously closed to them such as medicine, university teaching and the civil service. One of the most positive achievements of Reza Shah was paving the way for the emancipation of Iranian women, yet he has been attacked from many quarters for this achievement. Women academics engaged in gender analysis criticize Reza Shah for having forced women to unveil against their will. They cite the fact that some women went back to the veil after his abdication as evidence that the ban on the veil lacked popular support. They also argue that reform from above is ineffective and the women should have been left to organize and struggle for their rights themselves. They assert that as part of his ‘modernization’ programme Reza Shah used the progressive aspirations of the Iranian women for his own end by providing the country with the cheap labour of women. They claim that Reza Shah’s reforms, through their repression, hurt the women’s cause by stifling the development of a political culture among women, and that grass-roots activity of the women for their rights was taken over by the state, preventing them from gaining experience and training themselves. 22 Reza Shah’s reforms with regard to women found support among secular intellectuals such as the historian Sayyid Ahmad Kasravi and the politician Sayyid Hasan Taqizadeh, both of whom were from clerical backgrounds. Ahmad Kasravi was a passionate anti-cleric who was assassinated as a result of his views. Although he opposed Reza Shah’s dictatorial methods he supported him fully in his anti-clerical stance in trying to change the position of women. He wrote essays on the position of women criticizing hijab, the low age of marriage, polygamy and temporary marriage as well as lack of education for women. 23 Taqizadeh espoused the women’s cause in his writings as well. 24 Yet these men also come under attack from the same female academics, engaged in gender analysis, for having confirmed Reza Shah’s and the prevailing patriarchal attitudes towards women and for not having demanded full liberation for women from housework and duties within the family. In the sum of their criticism these writers never spell out in what acceptable manner these reforms could have been brought about. Further, they are contradictory in their criticism, as in one breath they criticize Reza Shah for instituting too abrupt a change, yet in another they criticize the secular intellectuals for not demanding radical change in the form of full equality for women which would have been incompatible with the times. There is no evidence to show that women could have gained the rights given to them by Reza Shah by themselves and without the support of the state, or that the ‘ulama’ would have agreed voluntarily to women gaining those rights. In fact, contrary evidence exists and is corroborated by the following point. The women’s movement was a nascent one consisting of a number of societies and some publications. The membership of these societies was limited to a number of upper-class educated women with either enlightened fathers or husbands or both. The scope of their operation was limited. They did not have

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the support of women in general. The audience for their publications is not known but must have been limited, as educated women who could read constituted a small percentage of the women of Iran. The women’s movement in general and unveiling in particular was opposed on two fronts, first, and most important, by the conservative members of the religious establishment as Reza Shah’s reforms in general and those concerning women in particular struck at the root of the ‘ulama’’s power both politically and financially. Second, by the mass of women themselves who for centuries had been brainwashed to accept the status quo as the norm for Shi’i women. The women who were against unveiling included even educated women. 25 There are incidents of the limited number of women, who went out unveiled before the official unveiling, being verbally abused by other women. In the light of past and present events it is difficult to see how the ‘ulama’ would have acquiesced voluntarily to the demands of the women’s movement. 26 The opposition of the ‘ulama’ to the enlightenment and emancipation of Iranian women started long before the reign of Reza Shah. It began after the constitutional revolution by their opposition to the opening of girls’ schools. The inauguration of these schools took place in the face of active opposition by influential members of the ‘ulama’ to the extent of inciting the population to violence. For instance, in 1907 a group of women were sent by Aqa Mirza Hasan Shaykh al-Islam, a Qazvin cleric, to destroy the newly founded girls’ school. 27 The girls’ schools were described by the ‘ulama’ as a means of ‘luring Muslim girls and leading their minds astray and turning them into unbelievers and wantons by giving them lessons.’ 28 When a girls’ school was founded in a conservative and traditional area of Tehran, not only was the neighbourhood affronted but it caused Shaykh Fazllulah Nuri to issue a fatwa saying that ‘the founding of the girls’ school is against the Islamic shar‘ia’. 29 Another cleric, Sayyid ‘Ali Shushtari, organized a sitdown protest against the schools in the foyer of the Shah ‘Abd al ‘Azim shrine and distributed a handout which read, ‘Shame on a country in which girls’ schools are founded.’ This handout was very popular, to the extent of being sold out, and exchanged hands on the black market. 30 In reality Reza Shah wished for the unveiling to take place voluntarily and tried to encourage women in that direction, but even before the official unveiling of Iranian women when rumours circulated that this might happen, and some women did so of their own free will, the ‘ulama’ who feared its advent started protesting against it. The most significant event took place at Nawruz in 1928 when the Queen and female members of the Royal Family visited the shrine at Qom wearing only a light chadur. Ayatullah Muhammad Taqi Bafqi sent a message to the women saying: ‘If you are a Muslim, why have you come here in this state, and if you are not Muslim what are you doing here at all?,’ and asking for their withdrawal. While the women waited the news was sent by telegram to Reza Shah. There are different accounts of what followed, but all agree that Reza Shah came immediately to Qom at the head of an armoured unit accompanied by his minister of court Taymourtash. The difference is in whether

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it was Reza Shah or Taymourtash who entered the shrine wearing their boots and dragged Bafqi down from the pulpit and arrested him. After being imprisoned in Tehran for a few months Bafqi was banished from Qom and sent to Shah ‘Abd al ‘Azim. 31 Later on in the same year there were further protests in Tabriz against the imminent unveiling of the women. 32 Princess Ashraf Pahlavi relates that immediately after the unveiled appearance of the female members of the Royal Family at the Teachers’ Training College, a mulla condemned them publicly, as a result of which Reza Shah sent one of his generals to punish the mulla in question. 33 One of the members of the ‘ulama’ engaged in oppositional activity against Reza Shah in general and against unveiling in particular was Hujat al-Islam Abu al-Hasan Taliqani, the father of Ayatulla Mahmud Taliqani. His repeated protests resulted in imprisonment and banishment to remote parts of the country. 34 However, not all members of the religious establishment protested so actively. Some, such as the pre-eminent religious leader of the time, the Grand Ayatulla ‘Abd al-Karim Ha’iri, embraced political quietism. 35 Others, such as the modernist theologian, Mirza Riza Quli Shari‘at-Sangalaji, probably the most important religious thinker of the period, urged the ‘ulama’ to abandon their reactionary stance and make use of ijtihad in reinterpreting and modernizing Islam. 36 Regardless of the example of Ayatulla Ha’iri or the exhortations of Shar‘iat-Sangalaji, the protest continued. Finally these protests culminated in a bloody, violent confrontation in Mashad in July 1935 at the Masjid-i Gawharshad when a preacher called Shaykh Buhlul attacked all Reza Shah’s modernization policies including the movement for the unveiling of women. Reza Shah was not an irreligious man, and thought of himself not only as a Muslim but also as a Shi‘i, which is shown by the fact that during his premiership he visited the Holy Cities of Karbala and Najaf. However, he did not see any contradictions in being religious and executing progressive reforms. He said that had Muhammad been alive, he would have shown that his laws were in conform-ity with the goals of civilization. Although he was not an educated man, ironically he echoed the thoughts of Sayyid Jamal al-Din Afghani, a figure revered in present-day Iran. They both believed that true Islam accompanied by the proper interpretation of the Qur’an was not in conflict with reform and progress. 37 Reza Shah had no wish to confront the ‘ulama’ but his overriding objective was the modernization of Iran in which women could, side by side with men, contribute to the welfare of the country. He considered veiling to be an impediment to this objective. When Reza Shah realized that the gradual unveiling of women would not be accepted by the ‘ulama’ and in turn the majority of the population, he decided to force the issue by an official edict. In retrospect and from today’s perspective it is difficult to condone Reza Shah’s use of force, and in hindsight other possibilities present themselves. In historical analysis it is important to employ a faculty which Vico called fantasia or imagination through which the historian transports himself to the time and place under analysis and considers the options for that era. 38 If this exercise is

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undertaken it may be seen that the nature of society was such that this force was almost necessary. Further, it must be remembered that some agency of force is involved in all radical social change. The enforcement has been blamed by detractors of Reza Shah for the fact that after his abdication many women went back to the veil. There were other reasons for this reversion, primarily the fact that only a period of five years had elapsed between the official unveiling of the women and the forced abdication of Reza Shah. Such a period was not by any standards long enough for centuries of indoctrination to be erased. Social change cannot be brought about overnight. Second, as soon as Reza Shah left, the ‘ulama’ once again took both to the pulpit urging women to revert to true Muslim ways of being veiled and to the men to refrain from sending their daughters to school. They also sent telegrams to the authorities, signed by their prominent representatives, urging them to permit the veiling of women. 39 It is interesting that among these recently published documents there is also an anonymous letter from ‘educated men and women’ urging the Prime Minister not to permit the laudable feat of the past to be eradicated and for the old ways to be reinstated. 40 There is a parallel between the abdication of Reza Shah and the departure of his son Muhammad Reza Shah from Iran. In both cases the ‘ulama’ regained power. In the case of the former it was partial and in the case of the latter and the formation of the Islamic Republic it was total. In both cases, to different degrees, the situation of women changed. True implementation of Islamic ideology in the minds of the majority of Shi‘i ‘ulama’ has come to be synonymous with controlling and restraining women. The protests of Ayatulla Khomeini in 1963 which led to his exile were as much against the enfranchisement of women as land reform. After his return to Iran Ayatullah Khomeini almost immediately set about systematically eradicating most of the rights and privileges women had gained during the Pahlavi era and relegating women to the home and the cover of the veil. A detailed discussion of these deeds is not within the scope of this chapter. However, they do demonstrate that a voluntary rapprochement under Reza Shah between the women’s societies and the ‘ulama’ could not have taken place and that without the royal patronage women would not have gained those rights by themselves. Sayyid Yahya Dawlatabadi, the famous educator and political activist of the constitutional and post-constitutional period, himself from a clerical family, regarding the unveiling of women, said, ‘It must be acknowledged that without the power and personal will of the Pahlavi Shah the unveiling of women would have been difficult.’ 41 Even Reza Shah’s critics agree that his reforms regarding women not only constituted a courageous break with the Islamic traditions but that the change in the status of women was one of the most significant developments in the history of modern Iran. The legacy of Reza Shah was that, to a generation of women who were born after the unveiling, all doors seemed open. They were active in every walk of life and went on to become doctors, lawyers and scientists, among other things. It was these very same women who had experienced past freedoms

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who demonstrated against Khomeini’s measures and it is these very same women and their daughters who in many instances are actively defying the authorities and striving for greater rights for women. Shortly after the Islamic Revolution I wrote that it would be difficult to confine to the home and the unquestioned authority of the male two generations of women who had ‘tasted the forbidden fruit’ and who had progressively, since their unveiling in 1936, attained successive greater rights. 42 My prediction has come true. The legacy of Reza Shah survives in the present-day Iranian women who are struggling to regain their freedom.

Notes 1 Shireen Bayani, Zan dar ‘Asr-i Mughul (Tehran: Tehran University Press, 1973), p. 8. 2 Bihar al-Anwar is the celebrated compendium of Shi‘i hadith by Muhammad Baqir Majlisi (d. 1110/1699?). A new edition was published recently from 1956–1972 in Iran in more than one hundred volumes. For Majlisi’s views on women see my article ‘Muhammad Baqir Majlisi, Family Values and the Safavids’, in the proceedings of Safavid Conference in May 1998 at the University of Utah published as The Safavids and their Neighbours, ed. Michel Mazzaoui (forthcoming, University of Utah Press). 3 Sir John Malcolm, The History of Persia, 2 vols (London: John Murray, 1829), vol. 2, p. 425. 4 Taj al-Saltana, Khatirat, ed. Mansura Ittihadia (Nizam Mafi) (Tehran: Nashr-i Tarikh-i Iran, 1361/1982), p. 110, trans. Anna Vanzan and ed. Abbas Amanat (Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 1993). See also Shireen Mahdavi, ‘Taj alSaltaneh, An Emancipated Qajar Princess’, Middle Eastern Studies 23 (1987):188– 193. Some doubts have been raised recently as to the authenticity of these memoirs. In spite of the above translation the translation here is my own. 5 These translations have been taken from Badr al-Mulk Bamdad, From Darkness into Light, trans. E.R.C.Bagley (Hanksville, NY: Exposition Press, 1977), pp. 135– 136. 6 Ibid., p. 25. For more on Siddiqa Dawlatabadi see Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. ‘Dawlatabadi Seddiqa’ by Mehrangiz Manoutchehrian. 7 Bamdad, From Darkness into Light, pp. 41–44. 8 E.G.Browne, Press and Poetry of Persia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914), p. 84. 9 Clara Colliver Rice, Persian Women and Their Ways 1923, reprint ed., (Tehran: Imperial Organization for Social Services, 1976), p. 38. 10 Vincent Sheean, The New Persia (New York: The Century Co, 1927), p. 232. 11 Parvin Paidar, Women and the Political Process in Twentieth Century Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 102–103. 12 Haideh Moghissi, Populism and Feminism in Iran, (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1996), p. 40. 13 Vaqi‘a-yi Kashf-i Hejab: Asnad Muntashir Nashuda az Vaqi‘a-yi Kashf-i Hejab dar ‘Asr-i Riza Khan, ed. Murtiza Ja‘fari, Sughra Isma‘ilzada and M‘asuma Farshchi

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22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29

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(Tehran: Mu‘ssisa-yi Pajouhish va Mutal‘iat Farhangi, 1992), p. 96. This book was published after the Islamic Revolution and is a collection of official telegrams and reports from the provinces to Tehran regarding the campaign for unveiling; hereafter referred to as Kashf-i Hejab. Donald M.Wilber, Riza Shah Pahlavi: The Resurrection and Reconstruction of Iran 1878–1944 (Hicksville, NY: Exposition Press, 1975), p. 166. Ja‘fari, Kashf-i Hejab, in many pages; see index. Quoted in Wilber, Riza Shah Pahlavi, p. 173. The translations have been taken from Bamdad, From Darkness into Light, p. 134. Ja‘fari, Kashf-i Hejab, p. 262. Ibid., p. 170. Ibid., pp. 122, 280; also Peter Avery, Modern Iran, (New York: Praeger, 1965), p. 292; Wilber, Riza Shah Pahlavi, p. 175. Haleh Afshar, ‘The Emancipation Struggles in Iran: Past Experiences and Future Hopes’, in Women, Development and Survival in the Third World, ed. Haleh Afshar (London: Longman, 1991), pp. 11–29. For some of these opinions see: Moghisi, Populism and Feminism; Paidar, Women and the Political Process; Guity Nashat, ‘Women in Pre-revolutionary Iran: A Historical Overview’, in Guity Nashat, ed., Women and Revolution in Iran (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1983); Elize Sanasarian, The Women’s Right Movement in Iran (New York: Praeger, 1981), and Janet Afary, ‘Steering Between Scylla and Charybdis: Shifting Gender Roles in Twentieth Century Iran’, National Women’s Studies Journal 8 (spring 1996):28–49. Ahmad Kasravi, Khaharan va Dokhtaran-i Ma (Tehran: Nashre va Pakhsh-i Kitab, 1974). Hassan Taqizadeh, Maqalat-i Taqizadeh, ed. Iraj Afshar, vol. III (Tehran: Chapkhana-yi Bist-i Panjum Shahrivar, 1972). See Ja‘fari, Kashf-i Hejab, p. 154, document no. 61. In other Muslim countries such as Egypt and Turkey the Sunni ‘ulama’ did not actively oppose the unveiling; therefore it was not done officially. Paidar, Women and the Political Process, p. 70. Nashat, ‘Women in Pre-revolutionary Iran’, pp. 23–24. Quoted in Mangol Bayat-Philipp, ‘Women and Revolution in Iran, 1905–1911’, in Lois Beck and Nikki Keddie, eds, Women in the Muslim World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978), p. 300. Paidar, Women and the Political Process, p. 70. For more on Bafqi see Encyclopaedia Iranica s.v. ‘Bafqi, Mohammad Taqi, Ayatollah’ by Hamid Algar. See also Hamid Algar, ‘Religious Forces in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-century Iran’, in Cambridge History of Iran 7 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), vol. 7, p. 742. Algar believes that it was due to this incident that the official unveiling of women took place eight years later. See also Avery, Modern Iran, p. 288. Shahrough Akhavi, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1980), p. 42, contends that if the above were a true account then there would have been further protests by the ‘ulama’ although there are no such accounts. Roger M.Savory, ‘Social Development in Iran during the Pahlavi Era’, in George Lenczowski, ed., Iran Under the Pahlavis (Stanford, Calif: Hoover Institution Press, 1978), pp. 85–127, p. 97.

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33 Ashraf Pahlavi, Faces in a Minor: Memoirs from Exile (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980), p. 25. 34 Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. ‘Abu’l Hasan Talaqani’ by Hamid Algar. 35 Akhavi, Religion and Politics, pp. 40–42. 36 Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi’i Islam (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 251. For more on Shari‘at-Sangalaji’s theology see Yann Richard, ‘Shari‘at Sangalaji: A Reformist Theologian of the Rida Shah Period’, in Sa‘id Amir Arjomand, ed., Authority and Political Culture in Shi‘ism (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988), pp. 159–177. 37 Wilber, Riza Shah Pahlavi, p. 180. 38 Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas (New York: Alfred A.Knopf, 1991), pp. 64–65. 39 Ja‘fari, Kashf-i Hejab, pp. 386, 408, 424, 451, 456, 460. 40 Ibid., p. 240. 41 Yahya Dawlatabadi, Hayat-i Yahya, 4 vols (Tehran: Kitabkhana-yi Ibn Sina, 1981), vol. 4, pp. 432–435. For more on him see Encyclopaedia Iranica s.v. ‘Dawlatabadi Yahya’ by Abbas Amanat. 42 Shireen Mahdavi, ‘Women and the Shii Ulama in Iran’, Middle Eastern Studies 19 (1983):17–27.

11 THE BANNING OF THE VEIL AND ITS CONSEQUENCES H.E.Chehabi

The forced unveiling of Iranian women in the second half of the 1930s was, of all of Reza Shah’s modernization policies, the one that contributed most to his unpopularity among ordinary Iranians. Between January 1936 and the monarch’s abdication in 1941, the police and Gendarmerie used physical force to enforce the ban, thus violating the innermost private sphere of close to half the population. Most accounts of Iranian women’s history mention this episode, but its details are not always rendered accurately. Thus many accounts speak of an unveiling ‘law’, and others aver that Reza Shah imitated the modernist leader of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The truth is that unveiling was not enshrined in a law, for the simple reason that it went against the tenets of the religion that Reza Shah had sworn to uphold and propagate when he took his oath of office as Shah in 1926. Moreover, there was never any forced unveiling in Turkey. Atatürk discouraged veiling, but it was banned only for women in the public sector, such as teachers and government employees. While some municipalities issued ordinances banning veiling, 1 physical force was not used on Turkish women. 2

Veiling and purdah in pre-Pahlavi Iran Iran partakes of the tradition of veiling in the Muslim Middle East, which is anchored in the religious injunctions on hejab. 3 But hejab refers not merely to the piece of clothing that protects women from the gaze of men, but also to the proper mode of interaction between the sexes, which aims at minimizing contact between unrelated men and women and has visual, acoustic 4 and behavioural dimensions. 5 In the following the sartorial practices that derive from hejab are called ‘veiling’, whereas the segregation of the sexes is referred to as ‘purdah’. 6 The two are not always kept sufficiently separate analytically. This vitiates our understanding of gender relations, for while there is no logically necessary connection between veiling and purdah, the issue of a woman’s proper dress is linked to her participation in public life for both opponents and supporters of the veil: the idea that women can wear a veil and still be active and have access to a common public sphere with men, i.e. veiling without purdah, does not seem to have occurred to many people in the Iran of the 1920s and 1930s. 7

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As elsewhere in the Muslim world, the coverage of women varied according to region and social class: as a rule, tribal women were less covered than settled women, and urban women more so than rural women. 8 By the early decades of the twentieth century the most common outer garment of women in urban Iran was the chador, a loose, enveloping, sleeveless piece of cloth that covered the whole body, and in addition to this a face mask known as picheh was worn. The idea was to avoid any form of feminine appeal in public. The degree of sexual segregation varied roughly according to the same variables. In rural and tribal areas men and women worked together, but in the cities a woman’s seclusion was proportional to her husband’s social standing. The beginning of women’s challenge to traditional norms of veiling in Iran is usually placed in the year 1848, when the Babi leader Qurrat al-’Ayn is reported to have unveiled at a meeting of Babis in Badasht. She was killed along with many other Babis in 1852 and her act remained an isolated incident, but it did catch the imagination of traditionalists, for whom ‘unveiling’ and ‘heresy’ were henceforth closely intertwined. 9 Wider involvement of women in public affairs had to await the Tobacco Boycott of 1892, in the course of which women demonstrated in the streets against the government. 10 They continued their participation in public life throughout the Constitutional Revolution and the civil war that followed, 11 but the veil was kept on throughout most of these demonstrations: when a small group of women removed their chadors during a demonstration, most other women distanced themselves from the action of ‘a bunch of prostitutes’. 12 As for men, a few modernists such as Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani and Malkam Khan attacked forced veiling in the second half of the nineteenth century, 13 but they had little impact on the way most Iranian women dressed. After the Constitutional Revolution an increasing number of educated Iranians, members of the elite, travelled to Europe and were impressed by the role women played in European societies. Upon their return to Iran they agitated for women’s rights, among which liberation from the veil was a central point. Iranian women themselves were emboldened by their participation in the Constitutional Revolution and its aftermath. During the revolution the struggle for women’s emancipation had been part of the constitutional struggle, but in the second decade of the twentieth century an autonomous women’s movement appeared in Teheran and the major cities. Women, mostly from the upper classes, founded associations and schools, and published newspapers in which they raised such issues as polygamy, veiling and child marriage. Their activism often led to attacks by traditionalists, who equated women’s emancipation with moral corruption. 14 In the years after the First World War, a number of women started wearing thinner chadors, imitating women in Istanbul and Cairo, 15 and traditional Iranians interpreted this as a prelude to discarding the veil altogether. In the first two decades of the twentieth century many works appeared in Arabic in defence of the veil, and Iranian religious scholars used them for their own apologetics. 16 But these writings did not deter modernists. Around 1918 an Iranian who had

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spent some time in India, Mirza Abolqasem Azad Azerbaijani, founded an informal club whose mixed membership discussed the abolition of the veil in meetings that had to be held in semi-secret. 17 Modernist poets such as Mirzadeh ‘Eshqi, ‘Aref Qazwini and Iraj Mirza reviled the veil and wrote poems against it. The latter wrote a poem in 1923 in which he showed whom he held responsible for the fate of women in Iran:

Her radiance melts the heart right through her mask If she had none, God’s help we’d have to ask. The cleric wants to keep the veil in place Behind it he can scheme without disgrace. If the Koran says what he doesn’t want He finds a hidden meaning: easy stunt! Don’t ask him why: a wolf who wants a lamb Finds fluent words to justify his scam. This riddle stays and will not let me go If anyone can solve it, let me know! Where but among Iranians could it be That creatures take a wife they cannot see? 18 Iraj Mirza’s attacks on the veil aroused the anger of the powerful clergy of Mashad, and the poet laureate of the shrine of Imam Reza, Mohammad-Reza Naderi, wrote a long poem refuting Iraj Mirza and praising the veil, starting an exchange that became the talk of literary circles. Naderi was not the only defender of the veil; clerics joined the fray as well. In 1923 the mujtahid Mohammad Hasan Ha‘eri Mazanderani, reacting to developments in Turkey and Egypt, 19 published a little book in which he reaffirmed that women’s faces had to remain covered, and contested the idea that veiling was responsible for Iran’s backwardness. He ended by asking why it was that if veiling was inconvenient for women, it was men who were agitating so much against it. 20 In 1925 another little book appeared which, at the end of the usual Koranic verses, added that if women wanted to maintain a beautiful skin, they had to protect it from the sun’s rays and hot weather. 21 In 1926 a ‘Treatise of the Veil’ appeared in response to an advertisement that had challenged supporters of veiling to prove that the facial mask (neqab) was obligatory. After interpreting Koranic verses in a way that shows a woman’s face and hands to be no exception to the regulation on hejab, the author affirms the necessity for women to be obedient, stay at home and receive no education. Towards the end, he also adduces arguments based on reason as opposed to revelation: girls are corrupted at school (no girl

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has ever left school a virgin), without the veil plain-looking women find no husbands, and with unveiling the new generation of children will be weak and sickly since their fathers will have dissipated their sexual energies. 22 The veil was not discarded among women, but a gradual relaxation of mores took place. In the early 1920s elite women began appearing unveiled at private gatherings, and even among non-elite women the picheh became rarer as time went by. 23

Veiling and the Pahlavi state When Reza Khan was prime minister (1923–1925) he consciously avoided the issue of the veil, 24 careful as he was not to offend religious opinion at that stage in his career. But it was on his agenda even then, as the following episode shows. In September 1923 a prominent journalist, Ebrahim Khajehnuri, published an article in his journal suggesting that Iranian women imitate Turkish women and replace the veil with a headscarf. There was uproar in Teheran, and the religious adviser (nazer-e shar‘iyat) of the Ministry of Education sued Khajehnuri in court, whereupon the latter was condemned to three months in prison and a fine. Reza Khan personally saw to it that Khajehnuri spent his term in the police hospital rather than in prison. 25 In a show of support, veiled members of the women’s associations attended the trial. 26 While the vast majority of urban Iranian women did not discard the veil before they were forced to do so by Reza Shah, opposition to veiling among educated urban Iranians steadily gained ground, and most of the capital’s press agitated for the idea. In the 1920s and early 1930s many politically articulate Iranian women worked actively to end the practice of veiling, 27 but what they demanded was the freedom not to veil, not its forced abolition. In 1927 Sediqeh Dowlatabadi, a pioneer of the women’s movement, returned to Teheran from a five-year educational sojourn in Paris and wore European clothes in the streets of Teheran. 28 Unveiling therefore did have a measure of societal support, mainly among the elites and non-Muslims. However, in May 1927 Reza Shah still felt ambivalent enough about unveiling to issue a warning to the journal ‘Alam-e Nesvan (‘Women’s World’) when it carried an article on the unveiling of women in Turkey. 29 In late 1927 and 1928 men’s clothes became the object of strict legislation, 30 but no decision was yet taken on women’s clothing. In March 1928 the first skirmish took place on this front. That year the first day of Farvardin (21 March, Iranian New Year) coincided with the 27th of Ramadan, the day on which, according to tradition, the murderer of Ali b. Abi Taleb, the first Shi‘i Imam, was slain in retaliation. Reza Shah’s female relatives decided to celebrate both events at the Holy Shrine in Qum, and for this donned transparent chadors. Some clergymen protested, whereupon Reza Shah drove to Qum from Teheran, entered the shrine wearing his boots, personally manhandled a number of seminarians and clerics, and had the cleric who had criticized him whipped. 31

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But the new Shah was still cautious: when King Amanullah and Queen Sorayya of Afghanistan visited Iran on their return trip from Europe in June 1928, the Afghan Queen was unveiled whereas Reza Shah’s consort would not face King Amanullah, 32 whose enthusiasm for westernization led to his overthrow by conservative rebels in early January 1929. 33 Later in 1928, however, regulations on both purdah and veiling were loosened by the state. At the end of the summer, the police chief of Teheran visited a café in one of the resorts north of Teheran and had tea with his veiled wife— transgressing purdah but not yet veiling. Within a few weeks he was imitated by others, and couples enjoying some activity or other together became a common sight in parts of the capital, where new cafés, parks, cinemas, and avenues with wider pavements provided the elite with spaces in which to break purdah. In September it was announced that women could ride in open carriages with their husbands. 34 In Teheran there was talk of universal unveiling by Nowruz (March 1929), but King Amanullah’s ousting in January made Reza Shah more cautious. 35 The reformist King’s brother, Sardar Enayatullah Khan, who had succeeded him briefly for three days before fleeing into exile as well, settled in Iran and warned the Shah against anti-religious reforms. The warning seems to have been heeded, for an American diplomat reported that ‘privileges conceded to Moslem women during the past year have been withdrawn and no veiled women will henceforth be allowed to walk with a man, whatever his relationship to her’. 36 Women’s unveiling was postponed—for the time being. The government now decided to prepare the minds of Iranians for unveiling in a gradual way. Police received orders to allow women to frequent public places unveiled, and in Teheran a number of women availed themselves of this permission, in spite of clerical opposition and threats of mob violence. 37 Woman teachers were among the first to unveil, some of them having been exposed to life without the veil outside Iran. 38 Armenian, Zoroastrian and Baha’i schools played a pioneering role here. 39 Beginning in 1928, a few teachers and many schoolgirls ventured into the streets in European clothes (including hats), but their number was very small in the beginning. 40 The Queen occasionally appeared in public without the veil, but unveiling was not yet state policy. In the summer of 1930 thirty-five upper-class women petitioned Reza Shah to allow them to cast off the veil, but he responded that in view of King Amanullah’s overthrow this was not advisable for the present. 41 In 1932, ‘Alam-e Nesvan featured a number of debates about veiling, with more articles against than for the custom. 42 According to Mehdiqoli Hedayat, the first hint that unveiling might become government policy came in 1932 during one of his last cabinet meetings as Prime Minister, when in the course of a discussion of what items should be allowed to be imported from abroad, Abdolhosein Teimurtash, the Minister of Court, insisted on including women’s hats on the list, pointing to future demand for them. 43 Meanwhile modernists continued agitating against the veil. To drive home their point, a play named Mah-Par by Ali-Akbar Siasi was performed. The play demonstrated the disadvantages and hypocrisies of veiling, but it is

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interesting to note that the main female role was played by an Armenian actress, and the theatre was Zoroastrian-owned: 44 as elsewhere in the Muslim world, non-Muslims were valued allies of the modernists. In 1932 the second world congress of Muslim women was held in Teheran, and the speeches and declarations made on that occasion also prepared the ground for unveiling. In June 1934 Reza Shah paid a state visit to Turkey, the only foreign trip of his reign. He was favourably impressed with the social and economic progress achieved under Mustafa Kemal and the participation of women in public affairs that this entailed. 45 It was the social functions he witnessed on that occasion that induced Reza Shah to accelerate the pace of cultural reform in Iran. Yahya Dowlatabadi writes that since Atatürk had accepted an invitation for a return visit, Reza Shah wanted Iran to modernize rapidly until the date of his visit so that Atatürk would not witness Iran’s comparative ‘backwardness’. As a result, to quote a British diplomat, ‘the frenzy of western European window-dressing… increased to fever point [after] his return’. 46 By the mid-1930s Reza Shah’s regime had become so autocratic that his remaining dress reforms were promulgated not as laws but as decrees. The Pahlavi hat was replaced with the European chapeau in 1935. 47 Meetings were organized all over the country to celebrate this measure, and also to prepare minds for the general banning of the veil which was to follow. To further the cause of unveiling, ministers and their deputies were ordered to appear once a week with their unveiled wives at mixed functions held in their ministries or at the Iran Club, which had been founded by Teimurtash for Teheran’s social elite, and in which women had always appeared unveiled. 48 Below the elite level, the state used the educational system and the military to introduce its sartorial reforms into society. In early 1935 the Minister of Education, Ali-Asghar Hekmat, paid an official visit to Shiraz. A meeting was arranged in his honour, and after the customary speeches a number of schoolgirls ascended the stage, threw off their masks, an orchestra began playing, and the schoolgirls performed gymnastic exercises. Many of those present left the premises in protest, and news of this official sponsoring of ‘sin’ spread throughout Iran. A cleric who criticized the event the following day was imprisoned, and when two clerics in Tabriz followed suit they were exiled from their city. 49 In Qum, Sheikh Abdolkarim Ha’eri Yazdi, the head of the city’s religious establishment, went into seclusion and made himself inaccessible to protesters, and thus the shrine city remained quiet. In the spring of 1935 the Ministry of Education enacted a regulation that barred veiled girls from receiving prizes or diplomas, and issued an order that no woman teacher would receive her salary if she called for it wearing a chador or picheh. 50 On 24 May an athletic exhibition was held by several hundred Teheran schoolgirls in the presence of the highest dignitaries of the state, and for the first time in the history of Iran young girls paraded in public chanting the national anthem, and performed gymnastic exercises and dances. 51 The Minister of Education was instructed to prohibit the use of the veil by teachers and schoolgirls beginning with the academic year 1935 to 1936, a measure

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whose enforcement was not too difficult because by that time most girls already went to school unveiled, partly because such was the trend among educated Iranians, and partly because of the pressures enacted by the state. 52 As for the military, the Ministry of War issued an order prohibiting officers and cadets from promenading on Teheran’s new avenues, Lalehzar and the aptly named Istanbul streets. 53 Officers were told to attend mixed social events, as mentioned above. Meanwhile, in May 1935 Reza Shah invited a number of socially active woman to a reception in the course of which it was decided to found a ‘Ladies’ Centre’ (Kanun-e Banovan) under the honorary presidency of Reza Shah’s daughter Princess Shams. Although the centre’s charter did not expressly mention unveiling, its main task was to prepare public opinion for generalized unveiling, for which purpose lectures were organized. The founding of this centre heralded the take-over of the women’s movement by the state, and by the same token a more active governmental role in women’s emancipation. 54 The events in Shiraz and the lectures in Teheran did not go unnoticed in Iran’s other major religious centre, Mashad. Here, the ulema under the leadership of Aqa Hosein Qomi, a major marja’ (source of emulation), protested openly against the new policies and sent telegrams to the Shah. Qomi decided to go to Teheran personally to negotiate with Reza Shah in the hope of changing the ruler’s mind. Upon reaching the capital, however, he was snubbed by the authorities, and was left no choice but to go to Najaf. Around 10 July meetings began to be held at the Gowharshad mosque in Mashad, which adjoins the shrine of Imam Reza, at which preachers and ulema spoke against the international hat and unveiling, and Qomi’s treatment radicalized these gatherings. 55 It was summer, and so a large number of pilgrims were camping out in the courtyard of the shrine of Imam Reza, whose sanctity they expected the security forces to respect: a few years earlier on 11 July 1912 Russian forces had shelled the shrine. However, on Friday, 13 July 1935 (20 Tir 1314) security forces stormed the shrine and the mosque, shot at the demonstrators (killing some) but failing to dislodge them, withdrew. Now people from all over the city and the surrounding countryside converged upon the shrine to protest and listen to the preachers’ fiery speeches. The following day troops went into position all over the city, and in the late evening attacked the mosque and put an end to the whole affair amid much bloodshed. The following day the dead were buried in mass graves and most senior ulema in the city were arrested and exiled from Mashad. 56 The state produced trumped-up charges to make a scapegoat out of Mohammad-Vali Asadi, the administrator of the shrine, who was executed a few months later. Asadi’s son was married to the daughter of the Prime Minister Mohammad-Ali Forughi, and the latter, having tried to intercede on Asadi’s behalf, was dismissed as prime minister after only a few months in office. 57 Two months after the Gowharshad incident, the solar Muslim calendar (AHS) was made official, replacing the lunar Muslim calendar used thenceforth only for liturgical purposes. For religious opinion in Iran, this was yet another proof

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that Reza Shah was out to de-Islamicize the country. With Iran still in uproar over the Gowharshad incident, Reza Shah prepared the ground for what was to become the most unpopular of all his reforms, the general banning of the veil. His moderate Prime Minister Hedayat had proposed replacing the chador with a dignified overall (rupush) leaving the face uncovered, but Reza Shah insisted on complete westernization of dress. In early December 1935 he confided to his Prime Minister-Designate, Mahmud Jam, that he disliked all chadori women ever since he had witnessed how Turkish women had dropped the veil and begun working shoulder to shoulder with men. 58 The Shah’s earlier order for mixed parties had been first followed by the Ministry of War, with the Shah present. Then Reza Shah asked for an occasion to be arranged at which he could attend in the company of his unveiled daughters, and Ali-Asghar Hekmat, the Minister of Education, suggested that a graduation ceremony for girls would be an appropriate event. 59 Construction of a new Normal School (teacher-training college) was accelerated in Teheran, as it had been chosen as the site for the official inauguration of the compulsory unveiling policy. Meanwhile, the Ministries of the Interior and of Education sent secret directives to their functionaries in the provinces instructing them to prepare the ground for unveiling by organizing lectures and meetings at which the advantages of women’s participation in social life would be explained to the local populations. Often the directives made clear that while the purpose of the meetings was the furtherance of unveiling, they should be convened under other pretexts. 60 At this point it was still stressed that violence was to be avoided, and simplicity was urged upon women so as to avoid envy between poor and rich. 61 The great day came on 8 January 1936 (17 Dey 1314), when Reza Shah attended the opening ceremonies of Teheran’s brand new Daneshsara-ye moqaddamati (Teacher Training College) to award female graduates of a number of schools their diplomas in the company of his unveiled Queen and two daughters, Princesses Shams and Ashraf. 62 There is an old saying ‘al-nas ‘ala suluk mulukihim’, ‘people follow the ways of their kings’, and Reza Shah had apparently decided that his wife and daughters would set an example for the people to follow. However, as an Iranian man Reza Shah was not without ambivalence about unveiling. In her memoirs, Princess Ashraf, the last Shah’s twin sister, remembers: Reza Shah was determined to ‘Westernize’ Persia, to bring it into the twentieth century…. To do this, to make us prosperous and powerful, he could not afford to leave our women, half of Persia’s small population, inactive and covered. But at the same time, to Reza Shah, as to any Persian man, anything concerning his wife and family was a private matter…. At home my father was very much a man of an

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earlier generation (I remember he ordered me to change my clothes ‘at once’ because I had appeared at lunch in a sleeveless dress). But as a king, he was prepared to put aside his strong personal feelings in the interest of bringing progress to his country. When he had made his decision, he came to us and said, ‘This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I must ask you to serve as an example for other Persian women’. 63 Many years later, in 1974, the Queen Mother confided to the Minister of Court, Amir Asadollah ‘Alam, that on the way to the graduation ceremony Reza Shah had told her that he preferred death to a life in which he had to show his wife bare-headed to strangers, but he had no choice, as otherwise Iranians will be thought to be savage and backward. 64 All women present at the graduation ceremony had been ordered to come unveiled. At this gathering Reza Shah gave a speech in which he stated: I am exceedingly pleased to see that as a result of knowledge and learning, women have come alive to their condition, rights, and privileges. Being outside of society, the women of this country could not develop their native talents. They could not repay their debt to their dear country nor serve it and sacrifice for it as they should…. We should not forget that [up to this time] one-half of the population of the country was not taken into account… I expect you learned women who are now becoming aware of your rights, privileges and duties to serve your homeland, to be content and economical, and to become accustomed to saving and to avoid luxuries and extravagance. 65 Directives went out to the provinces to make sure that the action of the female members of the imperial family was emulated by all women. To this end, receptions and meetings were held all over the country in January and February to celebrate unveiling, and the press reported daily on these meetings and the ‘spontaneous enthusiasm’ for the reform that they betokened. 66 In reality, the receptions caused much consternation: ‘It was a common sight at many of the receptions to find the men and women at opposite sides of the room and the latter hiding their faces with their hands or the lapels of their coats.’ 67 In Ardabil, for instance, a reception was convened at the district governorate, and merchants, government officials and other notables were invited to attend with their wives. For the wives of the government officials this did not pose much of a problem, but the local women were embarrassed and did not know what to wear. Since the winter is very cold in that part of Azerbaijan, most came in thick overcoats, bundled up in scarves. As a military band played joyful tunes outside, inside the women looked sullen and bashful, while the men impatiently smoked

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one cigarette after another. The district governor gave a speech extolling the liberation of women, and the audience applauded. He was succeeded by the military commander, who first made similar remarks and then picked up a plate of sweets and offered some to both male and female guests individually. At this unprecedented breach of purdah, the women blushed. 68 Government employees were to be given loans to buy new clothes for their wives, 69 and be put on unpaid leave of absence if they did not bring their unveiled wives to official functions. 70 Detailed records were kept about who attended and who did not, and those who did not, or came without their wives, were first reprimanded and then fired. 71 To enforce this policy the state deployed a veritable ‘panopticon’, to use Foucault’s term. 72 Local authorities around the country were instructed to arrest and punish anyone, especially clerics, protesting against the policy openly, and to prevent veiled women from entering shops, cinemas and public bath houses. In some cases undercover agents were placed at the entrance of bath houses to monitor compliance with the rule. Veiled women were barred from riding in horse-drawn carriages and cars, and from receiving treatment in public clinics. 73 As if to add insult to injury, prostitutes were not allowed to unveil, but in the spring they were given permission to do so provided they married: 74 the symbol of virtue was to become a symbol of vice. An article in the police gazette enumerated all the crimes and vices that flourished under the chador, claiming that in the same measure it had caused the misery of women, it had been effective in aiding criminals. 75

Reaction and resistance Popular reaction to the state’s forced unveiling differed from class to class and from region to region. In the northern parts of Iran, long exposed to European culture through contacts with Russia, it was accepted without much resistance; 76 in fact even some clerics went along with it. 77 Among the modernist strata, it was hailed as a liberation of women and there was much joy. 78 Since from the outset unveiling had been closely associated with improved educational opportunities for women, there is some truth to this view: the number of girls enrolled in elementary and high schools shot up dramatically in the late 1930s, and women gained access to higher education. 79 For the vast majority of Iranian women, however, difficult times had begun, and various strategies of resistance against the state’s intrusion into private life were devised. At first many women reacted by wearing long dresses and headscarves, but in late spring of 1936 the government gave orders to local authorities to stop this practice or face the consequences. 80 Although the police were often instructed by the Ministry of the Interior to avoid violence, 81 faced with orders to clear the streets of veiled women, they frequently assaulted women physically and tore off their scarves or chadors, encouraged perhaps by the promotion in March 1936 of General Rokneddin Mokhtar, a man known for

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his ruthlessness, to head of the Iranian police. 82 As if this state violence was not enough, those women, especially in smaller towns, who did abide by the new rules were often harassed by the local populace. 83 Faced with these contradictory demands, many women opted for exit. In Khorramshahr, some women crossed the border into Iraq. 84 Many observant women remained at home, 85 but this created another problem since at the time Iranian houses did not have baths. Therefore, to take their baths, women went to the hammam in the middle of the night by climbing over the roofs of neighbours’ houses, or by hoping that the policeman would look the other way. 86 The writer Reza Baraheni remembers that his father used to carry his mother and wife to the public bath house in a sack, until one day they were stopped by a policeman. Upon being told that the sack contained pistachios, he tickled the sack, the writer’s grandmother laughed, and her carrier was arrested. 87 Similar stories of humiliation by the police are told by many who remember those days. Changing the dress code was not all; the idea was to desegregate society, to eliminate purdah. For this purpose the regime’s statesmen were asked to give parties and invite their guests to bring their wives, so that mingling would become commonplace. Many did, and the municipal café of Teheran, which also had a live band, became a favourite locale for parties and balls. Some men apparently contracted temporary marriages, 88 and took these temporary wives to parties leaving their true spouses at home. Even former Prime Minister Hedayat, whose wife had stopped attending at court when her veil was objected to, received orders from the police to give a party in Darrus, then a suburb of Teheran. Many of the inhabitants of Darrus were Armenians, and so he was able to comply. 89 In the provinces, local officials were ordered to give parties, and merchants were ordered to attend them with their wives. A directive of the Governor of Gorgan to the police instructs them to ensure that at these parties men and women should not sit separately, so that the ‘savage habits of the past’ be ended. 90 The mourning month of Muharram began a few weeks after official unveiling, and, other rituals having been already outlawed, the Prime Minister ordered local authorities to allow men and women to attend lamentation sessions (rowzehkhani) provided they sat together and on chairs and benches (rather than on the floor). 91 There was even a brief attempt to institute mixed classes in the first four grades of elementary school, a policy abandoned soon after Reza Shah’s abdication. Indignation over unveiling was one element feeding traditional society’s resentment against a state that increasingly penetrated people’s daily lives, be it in the form of conscription, higher taxation or dress codes. To assuage its critics and prove its Islamic credentials, the government resorted to the old trick of sacrificing the interests of minorities: early in 1936 all Baha’i officers in the army were dismissed on the direct orders of the Shah, and it was rumoured that he desired to make some pro-Islamic gesture in order to counteract the perception that unveiling had been motivated by opposition to Islam. Also in 1936, Jews were systematically removed from the Customs Administration and other government offices. 92 But these measures failed to gain the Shah any sympathy among traditionalists.

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Undaunted by popular resistance, the imperial family continued to set an example. According to Mehdiqoli Hedayat, invitations for the wedding party on 24 April 1939 celebrating the union of the Crown Prince to Princess Fawzia of Egypt specified that ladies had to wear white, sleeveless decolleté dresses. 93 Pleasing and impressing the rest of the world, especially more advanced countries, was foremost on the minds of Reza Shah and his westernizing supporters. As a British diplomatic report put it in 1938, ‘[t]he foreign policy of Iran has certain identifiable features, among which is a determination to insist upon equality of treatment.’ 94 To deserve this equality of treatment, Iran had to meet the West’s ‘standard of civilisation’, 95 and this standard included the West’s dress codes. In a secret directive of the Ministry of Education to the provinces we read that for many years women had been deprived of education, but that now this error had to be remedied so that ‘women, who are the mothers of tomorrow’s statesmen may, like women in other civilised nations, benefit from knowledge, civilisation, and education, in order to be able to form good and useful families and raise patriotic and brave children for the country’. 96 Later in the spring of 1936 the Governor of Kermanshah sent a directive to the districts of his province in which he stated that the aim of the women’s movement was not confined to unveiling, since only urban women practised this ‘ugly habit’. Government officials had to ensure that women’s clothing would no longer have a variety of forms so that women, i.e. the peasant women of Kermanshah, would look like the civilised women of the world’. 97 In view of this determination to emulate the West, it is ironic that the ban on veiling resulted in diplomatic tensions with Great Britain, which defended Indian Muslim women’s right to visit Iran in their traditional garb. 98 Diplomatic complications also arose over the treatment of Afghan pilgrims in Mashad. Afghan women were exempt from the ban on unveiling, but identifying them proved difficult. To remedy the situation, the Iranian consul general in Herat was asked by the governor of Khorasan to take photographs of Afghan chadors and send them to Mashad, but he could not comply because women would run away as soon as they saw him. 99 After consultation with the Afghan and British legations the Iranian authorities decided to tolerate foreign women’s headcovers as long as they wore their national costumes. 100 Reza Shah’s quest for equality of treatment came to naught when in August 1941 Allied troops disregarded Iran’s neutrality in the Second World War and unceremoniously invaded Iran, forcing him to abdicate shortly thereafter. Reportedly some officers of Reza Shah’s proud army discovered the use of the ‘uncivilized’ chador, which now provided a cover of anonymity under which to flee from the invaders.

Conclusion As the above account shows, Reza Shah’s ban on veiling gave rise to considerable resentment and greatly contributed to his unpopularity. The

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violence with which unveiling was imposed on recalcitrant women had more in common with Bolshevik methods in Central Asia than with Atatürk’s Turkey, 101 where the veil was left to wither away. 102 An interesting aspect of Reza Shah’s veiling policy is that it did not distinguish between veiling and purdah. 103 The justification for forced unveiling was the desire to bring women into the mainstream of society, and indeed unveiling went hand in hand with an opening of Iran’s educational facilities to women. As praiseworthy as the extension of educational opportunities to women was, and as commendable as the inclusion of women in public life was, there could have been ways to present these policies in a more tactful way, in a manner that showed more empathy and respect for tradition, especially since traditional Iran did possess cultural resources that could have been tapped to legitimize the new orientations. Reza Shah’s statement on 8 January 1936 that heretofore women had been ‘outside society’ clearly flew in the face of the everyday experience of millions of peasant and tribal women in Iran. The attempts to found co-educational elementary schools ignored the fact that there had been some traditional maktabs run by women, in which pre-pubescent girls and boys had studied together. 104 The idea that women’s participation in social activities could be broadened while allowing them freedom of choice in matters of dress did not occur to the modernizers, but nor, to be fair, did it occur to the ulema. In some instances the Shah’s agenda for allowing women to participate in social activities through unveiling even achieved the opposite result, and had unanticipated consequences bordering on perverse effects. 105 In the face of harassment by police, many women stayed at home. The practice of limited coeducation for pre-pubescent children in traditional maktabs was discontinued after girls were forced to go to school unveiled. 106 While educational opportunities improved for women, by the same token many girls in observant families were deprived of education, as their parents took them out of school, especially in the more religious areas of the country like Qum. 107 Female school directors who opposed unveiling were threatened with dismissal. 108 More importantly, Reza Shah’s efforts to give both women and men uniform dress codes in line with western fashions of the time, while meant to unify the nation by eliminating visible class, status and regional distinctions, in fact deepened another cleavage in Iranian society, i.e. that between westernizers, who welcomed the policies and took to European fashions willingly (and at times with a zeal that even Europeans themselves found astounding), and the rest of society, which resented the intrusion into their private lives. Just as in other domains, Reza Shah’s departure from the throne in 1941 and the socio-political liberalization that followed put an end to sartorial repression, and many Iranians spontaneously went back to wearing their traditional clothes, especially women. Some shops put signs in their windows warning unveiled women that they would not be served, and in some places bareheaded women were harassed by men acting either on impulse or at the instigation of the clergy. 109 By now, however, Reza Shah’s reforms had acquired a dynamic of their own, as modernists still stood for them. Yet conservatives were now also able to

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voice their opposition to the reforms, and governments, having become more accountable to public opinion, had to listen to both sides. As soon as Reza Shah left the country in 1941, opponents of his policies raised their voices, including influential ulema such as Ayatollah Abolqasem Kashani and Ayatollah Hosein Qomi. In the summer of 1943, the latter, who had gone to Najaf in the wake of the Gowharshad incident recounted above, returned from his Iraqi exile to Teheran. Here, he submitted a number of policy recommendations to the government, including that women be left alone on the issue of the veil, that co-educational schools be abolished, and that religion be taught in schools. After some dithering, the government of Prime Minister Ali Soheili accepted these recommendations on 3 September 1943, and the veil became officially a matter of personal choice. Although officially neutral on the veiling issue, the state now had a bourgeoisie de robe that ruled Iran until it was overthrown by bearded men and veiled women in 1979.

Notes 1 2

3

4

5

6

Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 271. This contrasts with the Turkish Republic’s treatment of men, some of whom were executed for refusing to give up the fez. See Gavin D.Brockett, ‘Collective Action and the Turkish Revolution: Towards a Framework for the Social History of the Atatürk Era, 1923–38’, in Sylvia Kedourie, ed., Turkey before and after Atatürk: Internal and External Affairs (London: Frank Cass, 1999), pp. 49–50; and Mete Tuncay, Tek-Parti Yönetimi’nin Kurulmas‘ (1923–1931) (Ankara: Yurt Yayıncılık, 1981), pp. 149–159. For discussions of hejab see Alfred Jeremias, Der Schleier von Sumer bis heute (Leipzig: J.C.Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1931); Emile Marmorstein, ‘The Veil in Judaism and Islam’, Journal of Jewish Studies 5 (1954); Fatima Mernissi, The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam (Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1991); Farzaneh Milani, Veils and Words: The Emerging Voices of Iranian Women Writers (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1992), pp. 1–45; Erdmute Heller and Hassouna Mosbahi, Hinter den Schleiern des Islam: Erotik und Sexualität in der arabischen Kultur (Munich: C.H.Beck, 1993), esp. pp. 108–121; and Fadwa El-Guindi, Veil, Modesty, Privacy and Resistance (New York: New York University Press, 1999). For a discussion of the acoustic dimensions see H.E.Chehabi, ‘Voices Unveiled: Women Singers in Modern Iran’, in Rudi Matthee and Beth Baron, eds, Iran and Beyond: Essays in Middle Eastern History in Honor of Nikki R.Keddie (Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda, 2000), pp. 151–153. See Sheila K.Webster, ‘Harim and Hejab: Seclusive and Exclusive Aspects of Traditional Muslim Dwelling and Dress’, Women’s Studies International Forum 7 (1984). The term is based on the Persian word for ‘curtain’ (pardeh) that entered the English language through India. See Cora Vreede de Stuers, ‘Pardah’, Revue des Etudes Islamiques 30 (1962); and Hanna Papanek, ‘Purdah: Separate Worlds and

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8 9

10 11

12 13

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19 20 21 22

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Symbolic Shelter’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 15 (1973). Although this was not always so, for in Safavid times women moved about freely. See Kathryn Babayan, ‘The “Aqai’d al-Nisa”: A Glimpse of Safavid Women in Local Isfahani Culture’, in Gavin Hambly, ed., Women in the Medieval Islamic World (New York: St Martins Press, 1998), pp. 349–381. For depictions see Jennifer Scarce, Women’s Costume of the Near and Middle East (London: Unwin Hyman, 1987), ch. 8. The event and its reception in subsequent history are masterfully analysed by Negar Mottahedeh in two articles: ‘Ruptured Spaces and Effective Histories: The Unveiling of the Babi Poet Qurrat al-’Ayn-Tahirih in the Gardens of Badasht’, UCLA Historical Journal 17 (1997): 59–81; and ‘The Mutilated Body of the Modern Nation: Qurrat al-’Ayn Tahirih’s Unveiling and the Iranian Massacre of the Babis’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 18, 2 (1998):38–50. See Nikki R.Keddie, Religion and Rebellion in Iran: The Tobacco Protest of 1891–1892 (London: Frank Cass, 1966). See Parvin Paidar, Women and the Political Process in Twentieth-Century Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 50–77. On the participation of women in the Constitutional Revolution see W.Morgan Shuster, The Strangling of Persia: A Record of European Diplomacy and Oriental Intrigue (London: T.Fisher Unwin, 1912), pp. 183–189, and Mangol Bayat-Philipp, ‘Women and Revolution in Iran, 1905–1911’, in Lois Beck and Nikki Keddie, eds, Women in the Muslim World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978). Bayat-Philipp, ‘Women and Revolution in Iran, 1905–1911’, p. 302. On these early critics see Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, ‘Zani bud, zani nabud: bazkkhaniye “vojub-e neqab” va “mafased-e sofur”,’ Nimeh-ye digar 14 (spring 1991):79–81. See Badr ol-Moluk Bámdád, From Darkness into Light: Women’s Emancipation in Iran, edited and translated by F.R.C.Bagley (Hicksville, NY: Exposition Press, 1977), pp. 25–90; and Paidar, Women and the Political Process, pp. 90–101. Beth Baron, ‘Unveiling in Early 20th Century Egypt’, Middle East Studies 25, 3 (July 1989). Tavakoli-Targhi, ‘Zani bud’:81–85 and 108–109. Yahya Dowlatabadi, Hayat-e Yahya, vol. 4 (Teheran: ‘Attar, 1982), p. 433. From a poem entitled ‘Enteqad az hejab’ (verse translation by Marie Deer). See also Paul Sprachman, ‘The Poetics of Hejab in the Satire of Iraj Mirza’, in Kambiz Eslami, ed., Iran and Iranian Studies: Essays in Honor of Iraj Afshar (Princeton, NJ: Zagros, 1998), pp. 341–357. On Egypt see Baron, ‘Unveiling in Early 20th Century Egypt’. Fatemeh Ostad-Malek, Hejab va kashf-e hejab dar Iran (Teheran: Ata’i, 1988), pp. 101–102. Ibid, p. 103. Hazrat-e Hojjat al-Eslam va 1-moslemin aqa-ye aqa molla ‘Abd al-Rasul Madani Kashani, Ketab-e resaleh-ye hejabiyeh (n.p, 1944 reprint). The arguments based on reason are on pp. 48–49. For another anti-veiling treatise published in 1926 see ‘In Defense of the Veil’, trans. Charles R.Pittman, The Moslem World 33, 3 (July 1943), esp. pp. 208–211. Except on Iran’s southern coasts, where some women still wear face masks.

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28 29 30

31 32

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Abbas Anjamruz, Borqa‘ pushan-e Khalij-e Fars va Darya-ye ‘Oman: Seir-e tarikhi-ye borqa‘ az bastan ta emruz (Teheran: Author, 1992). See also Dawn Chatty, ‘The Burqa Face Cover: An Aspect of Dress in Southeastern Arabia’, in Nancy Lindisfarne-Tapper and Bruce Ingham, eds, Language of Dress in the Middle East (London: Curzon, 1997), pp. 127–148. Dowlatabadi, Hayat-e Yahya, vol. 4, p. 433. ‘Isa Sadiq, Yadegar-e ‘omr: Khaterati az sargozasht, vol. 2 (Teheran: Dehkhoda, 1975), p. 301. Bamdad, From Darkness to Light, p. 76. See Eliz Sanasarian, The Women’s Rights Movement in Iran: Mutiny, Appeasement, and Repression from 1900 to Khomeini (New York: Praeger, 1982), pp. 60–66. Paidar, Women and the Political Process, p. 94. See Jasamin Rostam-Kolayi, ‘Expanding Agendas for the “New” Iranian Woman: Family Law, Work, and Unveiling’, Chapter 9, pp. 157–180. See Houchang E.Chehabi, ‘Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes: Dress Codes and Nation-Building under Reza Shah’, Iranian Studies 26 (summer/autumn, 1993): 212–214; Patricia L.Baker, ‘Politics of Dress: The Dress Reform Laws of 1920– 1930s Iran’, in Lindisfarne and Ingham, eds., Language of Dress in the Middle East, pp. 185–187; and Dr Orhan Kolo lu, Islamda Başlik (Ankara: Turk Tarih Basimevi, 1978), pp. 125–138. Ne‘matollah Qazi, ‘Elal-e soqut-e hokumat-e Reza Shah (Teheran: Asar, 1993), pp. 28–29. See Mohammad-Ali Forughi, ‘Mosaferat-e Amanollah Khan, padeshah-e Afghanestan’, Yaghma 1 (Shahrivar 1327/August to September 1948):274–275; Dowlatabadii, Hayat-e Yahya, vol. 4, p. 433; and Azizeddin Vakili Popolzay, Safarha-ye Ghazi Amanollah dar davazdah keshvar-e Asia va Orupa 1306–1307 (Kabul: Monotaip-e matba’eh-ye dowlati, 1985), pp. 252–257. On King Amanullah and his reforms see Vartan Gregorian, The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan: Politics of Reform and Modernization 1880–1946 (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1969), pp. 227–274; and Leon B.Poullada, Reform and Rebellion in Afghanistan, 1919–1929: King Amanullah’s Failure to Modernize a Tribal Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1973), esp. pp. 80–86 on the impact of dress reforms. On the revolt that ousted him see Senzil K.Nawid, Religious Response to Social Change in Afghanistan 1919–29 (Costa Mesa Calif.: Mazda, 1999). Ruth Frances Woodsmall, Moslem Women Enter a New World (New York: Round Table Press, 1936), pp. 72, 79 and 82. Annie Stocking Boyce, ‘Moslem Women in the Capital of Persia’, The Moslem World 20 (1930):265–266. Mohammad Faghfoory, ‘The Impact of Modernization on the Ulama of Iran, 1925–1941’, Iranian Studies 26 (summer/autumn 1993):300–301. A.Akbar Siassi, La Perse au contact de l’Occident: Etude historique et sociale (Paris: Librairie Ernest Leroux, 1931), p. 220. The first teacher to cast off her veil had taught Iranian children in Tiflis and Istanbul. Bamdad, From Darkness into Light, pp. 80–81. Another pioneer was Iran’s first modern-trained nurse, a recent graduate of the Syrian Protestant College (later American University of Beirut) by the name of Keihan Qorban,

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43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

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who worked in a hospital in Shiraz run by her brother Zabih Qorban. When she wore a modern uniform and trained similarly attired girls, people gathered to watch them, and the governor of Fars had to send extra police troops to defend her from mob assault. Zabih Ghorban, Medical Education in Shiraz (n.p., n.d.), p. 4. Woodsmall, Moslem Women, p. 157. Boyce, ‘Moslem Women in the Capital of Persia’: 266. Miss E.N.Aidin, ‘Recent Changes in the Outlook of Women in the Near and Middle East’, Journal of the Central Asian Society 28 (1931):525. ‘Hejab dar Iran,’ ‘Alam-e Nesvan 12:1 (Bahman 1310/January 1310):19–23; and ‘Raje‘ beh raf‘e hejab’, ‘Alam-e Nesvan 12:2 (Esfand 1310/February 1932):68– 72. I am grateful to Jasamin Rostam-Kolayi for sending me these articles. Mehdiqoli Hedayat Mokhber al-Saltaneh, Khaterat va khatarat (Teheran: Rangin, 1950), p. 519. Bámdád, From Darkness into Light, pp. 87–89. These pages also contain an outline of the plot. See Afshin Marashi, ‘Performing the Nation: The Shah’s Official State Visit to Kemalist Turkey, June-July 1934’, Chapter 6, pp. 99–119. D.L.Busk, ‘Memorandum’, 1 January 1935, reproduced in R.M.Burrell, ed., Iran: Political Diaries, vol. 10 (London: Archive Editions, 1997), p. 64. See Chehabi, ‘Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes’, pp. 215–217, 225–226. Baqer ‘Aqeli, Teimurtash dar sahne-ye siasat-e Iran (Teheran: Javidan, 1992), p. 254; and Woodsmall, Moslem Women, p. 87. Hosein Makki, Tarikh-e bist saleh-ye Iran, vol. 6 (Teheran: Nashr-e Nasher, 1983), p. 252. Woodsmall, Moslem Women, p. 47. In Tabriz, the winners of the first and second honours at the Normal School celebration had to relinquish their prizes because they would not receive these awards unveiled. Ibid., p. 151. Woodsmall, Moslem Women, p. 81. Mohsen Sadr, Khaterat-e Sadr al-Ashraf (Teheran: Vahid, 1985), p. 302. Woodsmall, Moslem Women, p. 47. Paidar, Women and the Political Process, pp. 104–105. See also Henri Massé, ‘Le dévoilement des iraniennes’, Revue des Etudes Islamiques 9 (1935):417–418. According to Ayatollah Khomeini, the ulama of Najaf issued a fatwa declaring the international hat a symbol of Christianity and therefore illicit. See his Kashf alasrar (Teheran: Daftar-e nashr-e falaq, n.d.), p. 212. This delivered a heavy blow to the seminaries of the city, and indirectly aided the ascendancy of Qom. This account is based on Sina Vahed, Qiam-e Gowharshad (Teheran: Publications of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, 1987), pp. 52–81, and Sadr, Khaterat, pp. 303–308, 325–329. See also ‘Intelligence Summary No. 15, July 27, 1935’ [E 4876/ 308/34], reproduced in R.M.Burrell, ed., Iran: Political Diaries, Vol. 10, pp. 29–30. ‘Isa Sadiq, in Yadegar-e ‘omr, vol. 2, pp. 305–306, 310, makes only a passing reference to the Gowharshad incident. Mahmud Jam in an article published in Rowshanfekr, 4 January 1962/14 Dey 1340, as quoted in Makki, Tarikh-e bist saleh, vol. 6, pp. 361–362. Sadr, Khaterat, p. 306. Hesameddin Ashna, ed., Khoshunat va farhang: Asnad-e mahramaneh-ye kashf-e hejab (1313–1322) (Teheran: Organization of National Archives, 1992), p. 185.

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61 Ibid., pp. 1–4. 62 For an account of the ceremony see Sadiq, Yadegar-e ‘omr, vol. 2, pp. 310–317. The diplomas, given in the spring of 1935 at the end of the academic year, had to be recalled so that the Shah could present them personally! Woodsmall, Moslem Women, p. 43n. 63 Ashraf Pahlavi, Faces in the Mirror: Memoirs from Exile (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980), pp. 24–25. 64 ‘Alinaqi ‘Alikhani, ed., Yaddashtha-ye ‘Alam, vol. 4 1353 (Bethesda, Md.: IBEX Publishers, n.d.), p. 298. 65 Quoted in the news bulletin of the Foreign Ministry of 11 January 1936, in Khoshunat, p. 7. 66 Intelligence Summary No. 1, 11 January 1936 [E 477/182/34], and Intelligence Summary No. 3, 8 February 1936 [E 909/182/34], reproduced in Burrell, ed., Iran: Political Diaries, vol. 10, p. 198 and 202, respectively. 67 ‘Annual Report, 1936’ [E 1435/1435/34], reproduced in Burrell, ed., Iran: Political Diaries, vol. 10, p. 300. 68 Baba Safari, Ardebil dar Gozargah-e tarikh, vol. 2 (Ardebil: Islamic Azad University Press, 1991), pp. 24–25. 69 Khoshunat, pp. 8, 10. 70 Ibid., pp. 8, 15, 16. 71 Ibid., pp. 22, 36, 266. 72 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977), pp. 200–209. 73 Khoshunat, pp. 35, 57, 124, 167, 259; Woodsmall, Moslem Women, p. 44; and ‘Intelligence Summmary No. 4’, 22 February 1936 [E 1165/182/34], reproduced in Burrell, ed., Iran: Political Diaries, vol. 10, p. 204. 74 Khoshunat, pp. 156 and 263; Vaqe‘eh, pp. 97, 238, 240. 75 ‘Ta’sir-e hejab dar voqu‘-e jara’em va farar-e mojremin’, Nameh-ye Shahrbani 2 (Bahman 1314/January to February 1936):10–12. 76 It may well be that the figure of the impotent and cuckold Rashti, a staple of Persian jokes, originates in the failure of the men of Rasht and the rest of Gilan to ‘defend’ the honour of their womenfolk in the 1930s. 77 Khoshunat, p. 283; Vaqe‘eh, p. 146. 78 Hoseinqoli Mosta‘an, ‘Velveleh va chadorbardari dar miyan-e khanevadehha va mahafel va mardorn’, Rowshanfekr 433, 4 January 1962/14 Dey 1340, as quoted in Makki, Tarikh-e bist saleh, vol. 6, p. 278. 79 David Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), pp. 106–110. 80 Khoshunat, p. 18; Vaqe‘eh, p. 246. 81 See, for instance, Khoshunat, p. 27. 82 Mokhtar was arrested after Reza Shah’s abdication. His trial became an indictment of Reza Shah’s regime, and he was condemned to eight years in prison. Released after four years, he died in 1973. For details on the trial see Jalal ‘Abdoh, Chehel sal dar sahneh-ye qaza’i, siasi, diplomasi-ye Iran va jahan (Teheran: Resa, 1989), pp. 156–174. 83 Khoshunat, pp. 58, 69. 84 Khoshunat, p. 201. 85 Ibid., pp. 25, 96.

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86 Abdolhadi Ha’eri, An cheh gozasht: Naqshi az nim qarn takapu (Teheran: Mo‘in, 1993), pp. 15–18. 87 The Crowned Cannibals: Writings on Repression in Iran (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), p. 52. 88 On temporary marriages see Shahla Haeri, Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage in Shi‘i Iran (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1989). 89 Hedayat, Khaterat, p. 519. 90 Khoshunat, p. 267. 91 Ibid., pp. 144, 157. 92 ‘Annual Report’ [E 1435/1435/34], reproduced in Burrell, ed., Iran: Political Diaries, vol. 10, p. 302. 93 Hedayat, Khaterat, p. 527. 94 ‘Annual Report, 1937’ [E 1095/1095/34], reproduced in Burrell, ed., Iran: Political Diaries, vol. 10, p. 426. 95 As discussed by Gerrit W.Gong, The Standard of ‘Civilization’ in International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984). 96 Khoshunat, p. 2. 97 Ibid., p. 249. 98 ‘Confidential report no. 219’ [E 2807/239/34], reproduced in Burrell, ed., Iran: Political Diaries, vol. 10, pp. 245–246; ‘Annual Report, 1936’ [E 1435/1435/34], in ibid., pp. 270–271. 99 Report of the consul general, dated 20 Khordad 1315 (10 June 1936), in Vaqe’eh, p. 258. 100 The inter-office correspondence about Afghan women is in Vaqe’eh, pp. 272–298. 101 On forced unveiling in Central Asia see Gregory Massell, ‘Law as an Instrument of Revolutionary Change in a Traditional Milieu’, Law and Society Review 2, 2 (February 1968). 102 Which it did, until the revival of veiling in the 1980s. See Emelie A.Olson, ‘Muslim Identity and Secularism in Contemporary Turkey: The Headscarf Dispute’, Anthropological Quarterly 58 (1985):161–171; and Elisabeth Özdalga, The Veiling Issue, Official Secularism and Popular Islam in Modern Turkey (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1998). 103 Interestingly enough, the British in Iran saw this more clearly. In the ‘Annual Report, 1937’ it is written: ‘It is one thing to forbid women to veil; it is another thing to make them mingle freely with men.’ [E 1095/1095/34], reproduced in Burrell, ed., Iran: Political Diaries, vol. 10, p. 476. 104 Ha’eri, An cheh gozasht, p. 21. 105 See Robert K.Merton, ‘The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action’, American Sociological Review 1 (December 1936). For a good discussion of perverse effects as an extreme form of unanticipated consequences see Albert O. Hirschman, The Rhetoric of Reaction (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 35–42. 106 Ha’eri, An cheh gozasht, p. 21. 107 Khoshunat, p. 219. In that same town, incidentally, many boys were taken out of school by their parents because the state had mandated the wearing of shorts, which were considered indecent. Ha‘eri, An cheh gozasht, p. 20. 108 Vaqe‘eh, pp. 154–156. 109 Ha’eri, An cheh gozasht, p. 34.

Part V THE TRIBES

12 RIZA SHAH AND THE TRIBES An overview Kaveh Bayat

In the latter half of the nineteenth century when the means and methods of modernizing Iran became a widely discussed subject among the educated and reform-minded elite of Iran, the ‘question of the Tribes’ became one of the main topics within this debate. The ‘disruptive’ effects of tribal life, with a large section of the population roaming the country in search of pasture and the ensuing pillage and disorder, was cited as one of the most important causes of Iran’s decay and decline. To remedy this historical misfortune, to get rid of this so-called ‘legacy of the Turko-Mongol hordes’, the tribes had to be sedentarized, that is they had to abandon their nomadic habits and opt for a more settled, agricultural way of life. This was a recommended policy in almost all the political programmes of the parties of the constitutional period. 1 The initial failure of the Constitutional Revolution to form a new and wellestablished order in the country provided an ideal pretext for the foreign powers to increase their constant meddling in the internal affairs of Iran, which led to the virtual occupation of the country during the First World War. This situation so exacerbated the prevailing tribal disorder in this period that the strength and the autonomous tendencies of the tribes and of local powers vis-à-vis the central government took on an unprecedented magnitude. After the end of the Great War years and the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iran, the political forces of the country once again rallied to complete the interrupted reforms of the constitutional period. In this context, considering the events and turmoil of the last decade, the modernization of the army and the reestablishment of the authority of the central government over the country took priority over all the other contemporary concerns of the time. 2 First of all, the emerging new order had to deal with a tribal element that had been estimated to form one-third to one-quarter of the total population of the country at the turn of the century. Some of these tribes were organized within a confederate structure, such as the Bakhtiyari or the Qashqa’i tribes of the south. This not only gave them a considerable measure of power but provided them with a relatively well-organized political structure as well. Other tribes, such as those of Luristan and Kurdistan, by comparison led a highly fragmented way of life, showing a willingness to follow a paramount chief only on rare occasions and for very limited periods of time.

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Developments regarding the tribes of Iran during Riza Shah’s reign may be divided into two phases. The first phase, during the 1920s, had a rather military and political nature, while the second phase, in the 1930s, had a more or less social and economic aspect. In the wake of the withdrawal of Soviet forces from northern Iran in the summer of 1921 and the suppression of the Jangalis, the most serious internal threat with which Iran had to reckon was the rebellion of the Kurdish tribes of the north-western parts of Iran under the leadership of Isma‘il Agha Shikak, known as Simko. 3 After the collapse of the Russian hold over this region in 1917 to 1918, Simko, who was militarily supported by the Ottomans, and later on by their successors, the nationalist forces of General Kazim Karabakir in Anatolia, took over Salmas and Urumiyah, and even for a short period of time in the autumn of 1921 extended his rule to Mahabad in the south. Although there were several attempts during this period to defeat him in the field or to negotiate a sort of political settlement with him, nothing came of these efforts and it was only in the spring and summer of 1922 when, following a heavy concentration of troops in Azerbaijan and a series of military actions which culminated in the capture of the Chahriq fort in the vicinity of Salmas (August 1922), that Simko was finally defeated and forced to flee Iran. The next rebellious region that had to be dealt with was Luristan, though from a political point of view the rebellion of the Lur tribes was not as dangerous as the question of the Kurds, which had acquired a regional dimension. Apart from the pillage and plundering of the marauding bands of the Lurs—especially the Bayranvands—the main concern of the government was that the road connecting Khuzestan to the central parts of Iran had been virtually severed. Although the newly established Army of the West attempted to suppress the Lurs in the spring of 1922, considering other, more vital engagements in which the government was engaged at the time—such as the operations against Simko—the army was not able to push far and just managed to take hold of Burujird and to station a detachment of troops there. It was only in the autumn of 1923 that the main body of the Army of the West, under the command of General Amirahmadi, with additional troops sent from Tehran, attempted to cross the mountainous and treacherous road that connected Burujird to Khurramabad, the provincial capital of Luristan. In midDecember, after several heavy engagements with the Lurs, General Amirahmadi reached Khurramabad, and thus ended the first round of a long and difficult series of military campaigns to pacify Luristan, which were to continue up to the early years of the next decade. 4 In comparison with most of the other tribal areas of Iran, the Arab-populated section of south-western Khuzestan was quite an orderly and calm region. Not only were the Arab tribes of the region not in a position to form a threat to the central government, but the authority of Shaykh Khaz’al over them was strong enough to prevent the outbursts of disorder that were so common in all the other tribal areas of the country at the time. But when, in 1924, Shaykh Khaz’al decided to resist Tehran’s attempts to restore central government authority over

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Khuzestan, he acquired the potential to become a very serious tribal and political threat to the new order in Tehran. 5 Of the various factors that rendered this a serious development, the most important was the ambiguous attitude of the British authorities towards Khaz‘al. The British, who for a long period had relied on him and similar tribal leaders in the region for the maintenance of the security of the Khuzestan oilfields, now had to decide whether to continue this traditional arrangement for the safeguarding of their regional interests or to come to a new understanding with the central government in this regard. In addition to Khuzestan itself, the neighbouring regions that were populated by other tribal formations were also not under the firm control of the central government. Another rebellion by the Bayranvands in the spring of 1924— which the government considered to have been inspired and supported by Khaz’al, once again dealt a heavy blow to Tehran’s authority in Luristan. In Fars and Isfahan, although these provinces were nominally under the suzerainty of the recently formed Army of the South, the forces of the Qashqa’i, the Bakhtiyari and other tribes were still intact, and it remained unclear what stance they might take in this regard. Furthermore, in Tehran itself, some of Riza Khan’s opponents were tempted to back Khaz’al against him. Although the re-establishment of government authority eventually took a military form, when Riza Khan entered Khuzestan at the head of an army in December 1924. it was actually through a political process that a solution to this crisis had been found. The British authorities had decided not to back Khaz‘al and had advised him to accept Tehran’s terms. 6 The whole movement collapsed without giving rise to any opportunity for testing the real strength of the government vis-à-vis the tribes of the south. In the meantime, while the government was engaged in Khuzestan, in northeastern Iran the Turkoman tribes rose up in revolt. The Turkomans, who had been left to their own devices after the collapse of Russian rule in 1917, intensified their rebellious activities in the spring of 1924 and not only proclaimed an open revolt but also threatened the main roads connecting Tehran to Khurasan. Immediately after the return of Riza Khan and his troops from Khuzestan in mid-1925, a series of military operations began against the Turkomans. Government forces in two columns, one column of Eastern Army troops advancing from Mashhad, and a Northern Independent Brigade column approaching from Mazandaran, gradually encircled the Turkomans and, after a series of skirmishes, finally defeated them in the autumn of 1925. 7 The year 1926 was a very difficult and critical year for the newly established Pahlavi dynasty. Apart from two important military revolts in Khurasan and Azerbaijan by disaffected elements in the army, 8 a series of uprisings and revolts in the mainly Kurdish-populated parts of western Iran also shook the foundations of the new order. 9 Between the end of the First World War and the early 1920s, the main figure who had sufficient authority to assemble and organize the various tribes of Kurdistan—i.e. the region between Kirmanshah and Mahabad—was Abbas

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Khan Sardar Rashid, an Ardalan chieftain. But, after being defeated in two military confrontations with the army, in the spring of 1923 and once again in the spring of 1924, Sardar Rashid was in prison and out of action and, in terms of authority and prestige, none of the other chieftains of Kurdistan were able to replace him. 10 Therefore when, with the reappearance of Salar al-Dawlah—the last claimant to the Qajar throne—in Kurdistan in the spring of 1926, a series of scattered and disorganized disturbances broke out in the region, it was not difficult for the army to suppress them one by one. First, the Pishdaris attacked Sardasht and routed the local army garrison. Meanwhile, other Kurdish chiefs such as Ja‘afar Sultan-i Lahuni, Mahmud Khan Kanisanana and Mahmud Khan Dizli joined the rebellion. In July 1926 Simko, who had been pardoned in early 1925 and had settled down in Chahriq, tried to storm Salmas but was repulsed easily and once again fled to Iraq. Meanwhile, troops sent from Kirmanshah and Tehran relieved Sanandaj, retook Sardasht and checked the rebel forces. Although it took a few more years to overcome the final resistance of the Kurds, they did not manage to take the initiative and stage a similar uprising in these remaining years of their power and autonomy. 11 The 1928 expedition to Baluchistan, in which General Jahanbani defeated Dust Muhammad Khan’s forces and subdued the Baluchi tribes, may be considered to be the last military operation of this kind. 12 During this period the main goal of the new order was to restore the central government’s authority over the various parts of the country. Although, as mentioned earlier, this goal had to be achieved partly through a series of military operations, it was achieved partly too through less violent means. The political leadership of the Bakhtiyari, for example, faction-ridden and politically divided, did not choose to challenge the new order. Riza Khan received important support from some of the main Bakhtiyari khans in the 1920s—especially younger and more energetic khans such as Sardar As‘ad—and most of the Bakhtiyari khans managed to salvage part of their power and wealth for a period of time. The same may be said about the Qashqa’i and Khamsah tribes. 13 Sawlat al-Dawlah, the head of the Qashqa’i, had stabilized close links with Riza Khan immediately after the 1921 coup and continued to support him for as long as his support was worthwhile; Qavam al-Mulk, the titular head of the Khamsah, and Shawkat al-Mulk, Amir of Qayinat and Sistan, also chose to back Riza Khan and voluntarily relinquished their fiefdoms. Other tribal leaders such as Iqbal al-Saltanah of Maku, who was the Ilkhani of various Kurd and Turk tribes of Maku and the adjacent areas, and Sardar Mu‘azziz, the Ilkhani of the Shadillu Kurds in Khurasan, who had some of the Turkoman tribes of the region under his authority as well, were arrested easily in the mid-1920s and removed from the scene. 14 After the subjugation of the political leaderships of the tribes—either through military operations or less violent means—which brought most of the tribes under the direct military rule of the central government, the new central state began to initiate a series of measures to transform the tribal way of life. Direct taxation, compulsory military service, the uniform code of dress, the forced

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settlement of certain migrating tribes, the relocation of some others and so on were among these measures. Although in many tribal areas, especially among those tribes who had not been militarily defeated in the previous years, a series of spontaneous revolts broke out against these measures (for example, the rebellion of the Tarahan Lurs in the autumn of 1927), the revolt of Mulla Khalil in Kurdistan in the winter of 1929, and particularly the 1929 to 1931 tribal revolt in Fars which brought almost all the southern tribes of Iran against the government, 15 nevertheless in the long run the tribes had no other option but to accept what had been imposed upon them, and here is where the second phase of the regime’s policy began. In 1932 a new office was created in the Ministry of the Interior to devise and oversee a comprehensive plan for the sedentarization of the tribes. Up to that time all the previous attempts of the government at the forced settlement of the tribes—which had been confined mainly to Luristan—had been carried out by the army. From now on this task was to be entrusted to the civilian authorities. 16 This programme, which was basically devised in Tehran, without any understanding of the actual situation in the countryside, entailed choosing a place for the settlement of the tribes and the appointment of a state functionary to ensure that, apart from registered flocks, accompanied by only a few shepherds, the rest of the tribe actually settled down. This programme of forced sedentarization, which was carried out in Luristan, Fars, Azerbaijan and Khurasan during the years 1933 to 1937, took a very brutal and, in some cases, a genocidal, form. In a short period of time the tribal life of Iran was transformed, but this transformation did not come about through the adoption of an idyllic agricultural way of life, as it was initially conceived, but through coercive and violent methods that virtually wiped out a large segment of the tribal population of Iran. As mentioned above, for the Iranian nationalists of the post-war era, the restoration of the central government’s authority over the country was of the utmost importance, the first priority being to put an end to the semiindependence and autonomous state of the country’s tribes and local powers. Riza Khan’s main source of political support and initial popularity rested on his ability to create and organize a modern army that would carry out this task. Simko’s defeat in the summer of 1922, the army’s victory in Luristan the following year and the suppression of Khaz‘al in 1924 were all celebrated widely in the major Iranian towns at the time. In an era when war provided the means for states to assert their supremacy over society through monopolizing not only the means of coercion, but also through asserting their legitimacy as the sole agent capable of preserving the unity of the country, Riza Shah’s tribal campaigns assumed an essential and indispensable role in his state-building endeavours. But the question remains whether these campaigns were really as necessary and indispensable as they were portrayed to be at the time, or were they the inevitable result of a peculiar frame of mind, of the way in which the urban elite conceptualized this issue, giving it an aura of inevitability? To explain and to

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understand the social and political premise that gave rise to the autocratic rule of Riza Shah, a close look at this question is worthwhile. The way in which post-war Iran changed in a short span of time from a promising constitutional regime to a forbidding dictatorship is linked directly to the portrayal of Riza Khan’s despotic tendencies as a vital and unavoidable evil if the national unity and territorial integrity of Iran were to be preserved. Although in the early 1920s many of Riza Khan’s opponents tried to challenge him on his manipulation of the elections or the restrictions he imposed on the press, nevertheless the most important aspect of his despotism, that is his tribal policy, was rarely criticized. As a matter of fact, it was precisely on this presumed necessity of the subjugation of the tribes and local magnates that a general consensus took shape among the urban political elite of Iran upon which Riza Khan established his personal autocracy. Riza Khan was portrayed as Iran’s last chance to preserve its unity and independence and, despite certain misgivings, was generally regarded in this way. For various reasons, of which I will deal with only one—the tribal situation of Iran in the early 1920s and the way in which it was understood at the time— this assumption was inaccurate. The first flaw of this approach was that it assumed the tribes to be a homogeneous entity, engaged in a fixed and eternal conflict with any sort of central authority, an entity with no particular interest and motive of its own, but acting and behaving at the enticement of this or that foreign power. In fact of the tremendously diverse and varied elements comprising the tribal life of Iran, each had its own distinct historical, political and social characteristics and tended to have its own particular approach to what was going on in its environs at the time. In some instances of tribal revolts in the early 1920s, such as that of Simko in 1921 or of the Bayranvands of Luristan at the same time, the only possible option seems to have been a military one. But in many other instances, not only was a military approach not necessary but some of these rebellions (for example, the 1927 revolt of the Tarahan Lurs or the tribal revolt of Fars between 1929 and 1931) were nothing but a direct reaction to the aforementioned senseless, repressive military measures. Some of the most important tribal formations of Iran, such as the Bakhtiyari and the Qashqa’i, or local magnates such as Sardar Mu‘azziz-i Shadillu or Iqbal al-Saltanah of Maku, were already part of the established order and generally in favour of the modernization of Iran. As a matter of fact, some of the most acute tribal conflicts of this period, such as the tribal revolt of Fars in the late 1920s, were finally solved when Tehran decided to abandon the military approach which had contributed initially to the outbreak of these revolts. The short-lived but important era of General Tahmasbi’s rule in Azerbaijan in the early 1920s and the delicate relationship he managed to establish with various Kurdish- and Turkish-speaking tribes of the north-western parts of Iran may be cited as another example of an alternative approach which could have been adopted in preference to the militaristic attitude with its tremendous social,

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political and economic cost. This delicate relationship broke down after Tahmasbi’s recall in 1925 and, as mentioned previously, a chaotic situation ensued throughout that region. As a consequence of the way in which the tribes and their way of life were conceptualized by the urban modernizing forces of Iran in the early twentieth century, no other course was left open but a violent confrontation, which was exactly what took place.

Notes 1 See Mansurah Nizam Mafi, Maramnamahha va Nizamnamahha-yi Ahzab-i Siyasi dar Iran (Tehran, 1361), pp. 159, 161. 2 See Stephanie Cronin, The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran, 1910–1926 (London and New York, 1997). 3 For Simko, see David McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds (London and New York, 1996), pp. 214–221; Hassan Arfa, The Kurds: An Historical and Political Study (Oxford, 1966), pp. 48–64. 4 For the campaigns against the Lurs, see Ahmad Amirahmadi, Khatirat-i Nakhustin Sipahbud-i Iran, 2 vols (Tehran, 1373); Kaveh Bayat (ed.), ‘Amaliyyat-i Luristan: Asnadi Sartip Muhammad Shahbakhti, 1303 va 1306 shamsi (Tehran, 1373). 5 For Shaykh Khaz‘al see Cyrus Ghani, Iran and the Rise ofReza Shah: From Qajar Collapse to Pahlavi Power (London and New York, 1998); W.T.Strunk, The Reign of Shaykh Khaz‘al ibn Jabir and the Suppression of the Principality of ‘Arabistan: a study in British Imperialism in South-western Iran, 1897–1925, unpublished. Ph.D. thesis, University of Indiana, 1977. 6 See Gordon Waterfield, Professional Diplomat: Sir Percy Loraine (London, 1973), pp. 73–108. 7 Hassan Arfa, Under Five Shahs (London, 1964), pp. 172–183. 8 See Stephanie Cronin, ‘Riza Shah and the Paradoxes of Military Modernization in Iran, 1921–1941’, Chapter 3, pp. 37–64, this volume. 9 See McDowall, The Kurds, pp. 222–226. 10 See Kaveh Bayat, ‘Abbas Khan Sardar Rashid va Kurdistan’, Ganjinah-i Asnad, Vol. 2, Nos. 1 & 2, 1371, pp. 20–34. 11 See Arfa, The Kurds, pp. 64–67; Sartip Mir Husayn Yikrangian, Gulgun Kafanan (Tehran, 1336), pp. 381–382. 12 See Amanullah Mirza Jahanbani, ‘Amaliyat-i Qushun dar Baluchistan (Tehran, 1336). 13 For Sawlat al-Dawlah and the Qashqa’i see Lois Beck, The Qashqa’i of Iran (London, 1987). 14 Homa Katouzian, State and Society in Iran: the Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis (London and New York, 2000), pp. 276–278. 15 See Kaveh Bayat, Shurish-i ‘Asha’ir-i Fars, 1307–1309 Shamsi (Tehran, 1365); Stephanie Cronin, ‘Riza Shah and the Disintegration of Bakhtiyari Power in Iran, 1921–1934’, Chapter 14 pp. 241–268, (this volume). 16 For the sedentarization programme see the Ministry of the Interior documents in the Iranian National Archive, file Nos. K 795–789.

13 THE CASE OF THE SHAHSEVAN Richard Tapper 1

Introduction Reza Shah’s aversion to the tribes in Iran is notorious, and he is widely thought to have broken the back of the tribal system. In his programme for unifying Iran and creating a modern, independent, secular, Persian-speaking country, he saw in the nomad tribes symbols of much that he was trying to replace: alien cultures and languages, allegiance to hereditary chiefs, a primitive way of life, and a mobility that made them inaccessible to administration and the rule of law. He was also concerned by the extent to which the tribes had been subject to manipulation by foreign powers. Judging the organization and leadership of the tribes a continuing political danger, and their nomadism as anachronistic in a modern state, he eventually determined on the revolutionary step of destroying the tribal system altogether. 2 The two main aspects of his tribal policy are well known: the campaign of pacification and disarmament, carried out largely before he took the throne, and the programme of nomad settlement enforced during his final decade of rule. However, the actual impact of these policies on the tribes is less well known and little discussed. While the pacification campaigns are quite well documented and often quoted as a successful example of his strong-arm approach, there is little detailed record of the settlement progamme, generally regarded as a catastrophic failure. Many aspects of his tribal policies and their implementation need investigation: the highly varied nature of the tribal groups in the country, and of the threat they posed to state security; how individual groups responded to Reza Shah’s rise to power; the extent to which pacification actually destroyed tribal political structures; and the impact of settlement on tribal economy and society. My main concern in this chapter is to consider these questions in the case of the Shahsevan of Moghan and Ardabil, drawing on documentary records as well as oral accounts collected between 1963 and 1966 from individuals who had varied memories of Reza Shah’s time.

Background: the tribes under the later Qajars In the second half of the nineteenth century, the tribal system in Iran seemed to be on the decline. National security was threatened less by tribal uprisings than by direct foreign interference. The power of many tribal leaders was weakened,

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some being replaced by local government officials. In many areas, nomadic elements were settling in growing numbers. Measures were undertaken that would establish the infrastructure necessary for the ultimate control of the tribes: a telegraph network was spreading, the roads were improving, and plans were made for railways. Soon after 1900, Eugène Aubin held that ethnic and tribal identities were losing their importance in a general increase of national consciousness; the only exceptions to this process of integration were the small religious minorities, the larger tribes, and those tribes that were remote from the centre or could take refuge in the mountains, though none of these could escape the royal power completely. 3 This general impression of settlement and detribalization was superficial and deceptive, however. The conduct of the administration in some areas, so far from undermining the tribal system, served rather to accentuate its evils. For one thing, the Iranian army had little to do in the latter part of the nineteenth century; it was lacking in experience and had deteriorated in quality since the introduction of ‘disciplined’ troops. The nomad tribes remained the only effective militia, but they could be relied on only when defending their own territory. Tribal levies, which had been drawn from the families and retinues of the chiefs, were now unemployed for long periods, and in many areas turned their energies increasingly to banditry. At the same time, the main emphasis of administration being on the collection of revenue, in some areas the demands of officials, including the appointed chiefs, were so oppressive, extortionate and arbitrary that the ordinary tribesmen sought security by joining the retinues of the most effective local brigands. Meanwhile the official chiefs themselves, whether through assimilation to the government bureaucracy or through detention as hostages, became urbanized and estranged from the majority of tribespeople, and could no longer exercise control over them. This was particularly the case in some frontier areas of Kurdestan, Azerbaijan, Gorgan and Khorasan, where the government of the later Qajars appeared to foster both nomadism and tribalism. In the territories of the Kurds, Qara-Daghis, Shahsevan and Turkmens, where the nomads continued for much of the nineteenth century to cross into Ottoman or Russian territory seasonally for grazing purposes, a policy of maintaining a frontier strip of endemic tribal disorder seems to have been tacitly revived (from Safavid precedents) at the end of the century as a defence against possible incursions. Local authorities did little to curtail raiding activities there, and indeed were sometimes said to be reaping a share of the proceeds. When punitive expeditions were sent, they frequently chastised not the real culprits but some more accessible group. Often it was only when the tribesmen raided across the frontier, and the neighbouring power complained, that the Iranian administration took measures, usually halfhearted. In extreme cases, such as with the Shahsevan of Ardabil and Meshkin in 1860, a programme of enforced settlement was initiated, though without permanent effect. 4 The tribes on the north-west and northern frontiers, preoccupied with a nearanarchic situation of generalized brigandry, posed no major threat to security in

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the period before the First World War, except at a local level. Only rarely did any of them unite in groups of more than a few thousand warriors under a leader with ambitions on a national scale, on occasions such as the Kurdish revolt of 1880, or the support given in 1909 to Mohammad ‘Ali Shah against the Nationalists by the Turkmens and by the union of some Qara-Daghi and Shahsevan tribes under Rahim Khan Chalabianlu. 5 None of these lasted more than a few months. It was otherwise with the large and powerful tribal confederacies of the central and southern Zagros, the Bakhtiari, Qashqa’i and Khamseh, whose leading families were among the most influential in the country and, whether among their tribespeople or in Tehran, played an increasingly important part in political affairs of the later Qajar period. Government control over the tribes weakened, in frontier areas before the turn of the century, elsewhere during and after the constitutional period. In most tribal areas the period from the 1890s to the early 1920s was one of ‘anarchy’, known as khankhani or äshrarlıq. Most tribal groups were led by powerful chiefs, but some, such as the Yamut Turkmen, had no constituted leaders at all. Some tribal chiefs managed to maintain a degree of local stability within the general turmoil, but other areas were simply battlegrounds for rival brigands, where raiding went unchecked, central government taxes were not collected, trade was disrupted, and farming peasants were forced to leave land and village to take refuge in town or among the brigand leaders’ retinues. One major element in the tribal situation in the last Qajar decades was interference by foreign powers, particularly since the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907. The Russians exercised considerable influence among the Shahsevan and Qara-Daghi tribes on the frontiers in Azerbaijan. Britain established strong links with the Bakhtiari khans between Esfahan and the Gulf and with Sheikh Khaz‘al in the oilfields in Khuzestan, and in Fars they recruited tribesmen from the Khamseh and other groups into the South Persia Rifles in 1916. During the War, the German agent Wassmuss incited the Qashqa’i against the British, while Russians, Turks and British all attempted to recruit support from among the Azerbaijani tribes. There were occasional government successes, as we shall see, to show that at the end of the Qajar period, as at the beginning, it needed only a strong leader to subdue the tribes, which were as incapable as ever of uniting against determined military action. 6

Reza Shah’s tribal policies In 1920 to 1921, Iran was in a state of complete disunity. Central government controlled only Tehran and its vicinity. Foreign influence was for the moment in abeyance: the Turks had been defeated in the war, the British were discredited and were being forced by economies at home to withdraw their troops, while the Bolsheviks too were ousted from Gilan. However, most of the country was under the sway of various tribal, socialist or reactionary leaders, who paid no taxes to Tehran and ran their own well-equipped private armies. 7 The nomadic

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and semi-nomadic tribes, probably amounting to a quarter if not one-third of the total population, were virtually all independent of government authority. In this situation Reza Khan, an officer in the Iranian Cossacks, began his rise to power, marked by the coup of February 1921 (together with Seyyed Ziya adDin Tabataba’i), his assumption of the War Ministry a few months later, his premiership in 1923, and finally his termination of the Qajar dynasty at the end of 1925, when he became Reza Shah Pahlavi. His tribal policy was implemented in two distinct stages. As Minister of War, one of his first steps towards restoring order to the country was to deal severely with petty regional dynasts and rebellious tribes, most of which he pacified, disarmed and brought under direct government control. It should be noted that he badly needed to collect their arms and unpaid taxes, not only to equip the army, but for the political symbolism which was universally accorded to taxes: the act of payment indicated recognition of authority. During the five years of his rise to the throne he formed an efficient army, and restored the unity which was essential to his programme of national regeneration. This stage of the policy, although not completed by 1926, was none the less remarkably effective, and much welcomed by the large majority of the population, tribal and nontribal. The campaigns against the tribes began in spring 1921 with the defeat of the Shahsevan Afshar near Zanjan. In the following months anti-government forces in Khorasan, Gilan and Mazandaran collapsed. During the autumn and winter of 1921 to 1922, Reza Khan reformed the army and set in motion his plans for pacifying and disarming the rebellious tribes. Rebellions in various northern regions, including that of Kuchek Khan in Gilan, were suppressed successfully, and efforts in 1922 concentrated on Azerbaijan, starting with Simko/Smitqu in Kurdestan, who had repeatedly worsted various government detachments west of Tabriz. In summer 1922 a concerted drive against the Kurds was successful, Simko fleeing to Turkey. Later that year, and in early 1923, the army defeated and disarmed Shahsevan and other tribal rebels in Qara Dagh, Ardabil and Khalkhal, bringing peace to Azerbaijan. There were further successful operations in 1923 and 1924 in the south-west. In June 1922 a small government column heading for Khuzestan had been ambushed, giving Reza Khan an excuse to impose a huge indemnity on the Bakhtiari, whose khans were removed from the governorships of Kerman, Yazd and Esfahan, and later those in Bakhtiari country itself. In 1923, a strong army dispersed the tribes of Lorestan and proceeded to Khuzestan, where by December 1924 they had defeated the Bakhtiari khans and subdued the Arabs under Sheikh Khaz’al. The army was now able to move to Gorgan, where Yamut and Göklän Turkmens had overwhelmed a small detachment in early 1924. During 1925 the army defeated the Shadlu Kurds at Bojnurd and the Turkmens in Gorgan, many of the latter fleeing over the Soviet frontier. Meanwhile, in the south-east, government forces had established garrisons in Baluchestan, though the Baluch tribespeople retained their independence until 1928, many of them until 1934.

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Esma‘il Khan, leader of the Qashqa’i, declared his support for Reza Khan in 1921, and became closely associated with him; but the relationship did not last long, and after Esma‘il Khan and his son Naser Khan were elected to Parliament they were effectively detained in Tehran. In 1925, military governors and tax officials were appointed over the Qashqa’i and the Khamseh. The main tribal groups of the Zagros appeared to be cowed, and some arms were given up, so that at Reza Shah’s Coronation in 1926 his unification of the country seemed virtually complete. Both peasants and nomads became subject to the new conscription laws, which meant the dispersal of individual national servicemen to far-flung and culturally alien parts of the country where they could not expect help from fellow tribesmen. 8 In 1928, distinctive tribal clothing for men was banned, and they were obliged to adopt ‘western’ forms of dress: jacket, trousers and the ‘Pahlavi’ peaked cap—replaced in 1935 by the felt-brimmed hat. These sartorial reforms, bitterly opposed at first, were surprisingly permanent in effect. Oberling points out that, as the nomads had always relied on the bazaars for supplies of ready-made clothes, when the government instructed the merchants to supply only the new types of garment the customers necessarily had to adopt them. The women, on the other hand, continued as before to make up their colourful costumes from bought materials. 9 Reza Shah’s plans for industrialization and modernization included little provision for the agriculture on which the economy of the country continued to depend. As Wilber wrote, ‘agriculture and irrigation were neglected, so that the farming population received little direct benefit from the new industry and suffered a decline in its standard of living.’ 10 As for pastoralism, a new system of taxing livestock was introduced throughout the country in January 1926. Each type of animal was assessed at a certain number of rials annual tax, but those below a certain age were exempt, and the owner was allowed a certain number free of tax. Ten per cent of the revenue from this tax was to be devoted to combating animal diseases. In 1934 this system was replaced by a new law, according to which animals and their produce were taxed on entry to towns where they were to be sold. 11 The imposition of outside authority generally, and the conscription and dress laws in particular, together with the arrogant and oppressive behaviour of the army officers (Reza Shah’s new nobility) and administrators, led to a number of revolts later in Reza Shah’s reign. Most of these revolts were among the tribes of the Zagros, which were both powerful and had not yet been brought fully under government control. In 1926 to 1927 government forces suppressed uprisings in Kurdestan and Lorestan, leading to the flight of Simko (who had been allowed back) and the Vali of Posht-e Kuh. Much more serious was the revolt in 1929 of the Qashqa’i, in alliance with Boyer-Ahmadi, Mamasani, Khamseh and other tribal groups, later joined by some Bakhtiari. 12 A series of inconclusive engagements led to an armistice and concessions by the government, which restored Esma‘il Khan and Naser Khan to the Qashqa’i and undertook not to impose military governors and to allow the

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tribesmen to keep their arms. A Qashqa’i contingent was part of a government expedition routed the following year by the Boyer-Ahmadi and Mamasani. The government failed to keep its commitments to the Qashqa’i, which rebelled again in 1932, winning another armistice on the same terms; but this was their last defiance of Reza Shah, who became increasingly harsh towards the tribes and their hereditary leaders. Esma‘il Khan was re-arrested, and in 1933 he was executed. In 1934 the same fate befell the Bakhtiari Sardar As‘ad, who had been Reza Shah’s minister of war, and many other chiefs of the Zagros tribes. 13 By now the first stage of Reza Shah’s tribal policy was virtually complete. He had removed the political danger he felt to be inherent in tribal leadership and autonomy, by imprisoning, executing, exiling or otherwise incapacitating many of the more-powerful chiefs, abolishing their titles and offices and confiscating their landed properties or exchanging them for others in remote parts of the country. Direct government control was extended to the lower levels of the tribal political structure. The 1930s saw the implementation of the second stage, the policy of enforced settlement, which, by contrast with the pacification campaign, has received considerable notoriety—largely justified—as a brutal failure. Reza Shah was determined to put an end to nomadism. Nomad families were to cease migrating, to settle in villages, build houses, start cultivating their pastures and submit to the same rural system of administration as other villagers. Compulsory settlement was implemented in the early 1930s. 14 The result was a disastrous reduction in the animal produce available in the towns and cities. Very soon, when the effects on the national economy were becoming apparent, the policy was modified. Settled nomads were allowed to entrust their flocks to herdsmen with special permits to continue migrating to seasonal pastures where necessary. This revised policy was consistent with the semi-nomadic, village-based pastoralism customary in various parts of the country, and also with the Cainand-Abel kind of dual economy already practised by many tribal groups such as some of the Shahsevan, where settled sections sent their flocks to pasture with nomadic sections, providing the latter with agricultural produce from the tribal villages in return. To date, few details have been published concerning the effects of Reza Shah’s tribal policies on individual tribes and tribal groups. Freya Stark travelled through Lorestan in 1931 and 1932 and found the agents of government much feared and resented; the tribesmen appeared to be disarmed, but the clothing reform and the settlement policy had yet to be implemented. A few years later other travellers in the Zagros report on the horrific effects of settlement. 15 Recent research on the Bakhtiari and Qashqa’i has failed to produce details, though it appears that, while the army enforced the settlement policy directly among the leaderless Qashqa’i and the Lors, the junior Bakhtiari khans managed to mitigate the disaster ‘by directing settlement to areas best capable of sustaining a settled population, either in winter or summer quarters’. 16

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The Shahsevan of Moghan, up to disarmament In the nineteenth century the Shahsevan of Moghan numbered around 10,000 families of nomads and semi-nomads, migrating between the Moghan steppe and the Savalan mountains. There were some forty tribes (taifa), each led by a chief (bey), but grouped into the two confederacies (el) of Meshkin and Ardabil, each under its paramount chief (elbey). They probably constituted about half of the population of the region, the non-tribal peasants and townspeople being known to them as Tat. By the end of the century, when they were no longer able to cross the Russian frontier to use the better part of the Moghan pastures, most of the Ardabil tribes were settled. Meanwhile, the elbeys had lost control of the tribes, which were now nominally independent under their own beys, but aligned in shifting patterns of ‘tribal clusters’ (el) under the most effective chiefs, who in around 1900 were those of the seven dominant tribes: Qoja-Beyli, ‘Isalu, Hajj-Khojalu, Geyikli, Alarlu, Polatlu and Yortchi. They divided the pastures and village lands of the region between them and sent their armed retinues to raid widely in neighbouring regions of Russia and Iran. On one or two notable occasions clusters allied for a particular common purpose, but usually each cluster was on terms of hostility if not blood-feud with its neighbours, and formed alliances among the others and with tribal groups in neighbouring regions: the Chalabianlu and Hajj-‘Alili of Qara Dagh, the Shatranlu of Khalkhal, the Dalikanlu of Sarab, the Galesh of Talesh. Each dominant tribe had its chiefly lineage and its commoners, as did each subordinate tribe. The hierarchy within each cluster was as follows: the beyzadä included the chief of the dominant tribe and his suite, comprising his agnates and their households, who between them owned or controlled access to much of the available pasture and farmland, and a few personal servants, together with the chiefs of subordinate tribes in the cluster and their own much smaller suites. The beyzadä provided military levies for the government when called upon. Each chief had a retinue of servants (nökär), including the mounted riflemen provided by the elders (aqsaqal) of the tribal sections (tirä), who would be detailed for domestic military duties; the retinue also included the chief’s menial servants and herdsmen, mostly outlaws or refugee peasants or nomads without property. The commoners (rayät, hampa) were the mass of non-chiefly pastoral nomads, who usually had nominal rights to their pastures and were economically independent, but were required to provide a number of mounted riflemen to serve the chief. 17 The Shahsevan were involved in various important events during the constitutional period. In spring 1908, border incidents in Shahsevan territory, between tribesmen and Russian frontier guards, provided the Russians with a pretext for military intervention in Azerbaijan on a scale that hastened the fall of the constitutionalist government in Tehran. During the winter of 1908 to 1909,

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some Shahsevan joined the Royalist forces besieging Tabriz. In late 1909, while the new Nationalist government struggled to establish control of the country, most of the Shahsevan chiefs joined a union of tribes of eastern Azerbaijan, which proclaimed opposition to the constitution and the intention of marching on Tehran and restoring the deposed Mohammad ‘Ali Shah. They plundered Ardabil, receiving wide coverage in the European press. Despite defeat during that winter and spring 1910 by nationalist forces from Tehran, the Shahsevan continued to be regarded as dangerous potential support for Mohammad ‘Ali, while the main activity of their warriors was sustained guerrilla resistance to the occupying Russian forces, and they were wooed in turn by the other powers. After 1917 the tribes of the region were free from central government control, and a succession of bad harvests and harsh winters intensified their competition for dominance. The chiefs of the four main Meshkin tribes came to an agreement: the villages of Meshkin and Arshaq (and their Tat inhabitants) were divided into four ‘spheres of influence’, from west to east, so that the HajjKhojalu chiefs controlled the vicinity of Ahar and much of western Meshkin, Geyikli the rest of western Meshkin, Qoja-Beyli most of eastern Meshkin, and ‘Isalu the rest of eastern Meshkin and much of the country up to Ardabil. Struggles developed, however, for each of the towns of the region. Javat Khan of Hajj-Khojalu fought his Qara-Daghi neighbour, Amir Arshad of Hajj-‘Alili, for Ahar. In central Meshkin, Hajji Faraj of Geyikli and his nephew ‘Aleshan fought Bahram Khan of Qoja-Beyli and captured from him the growing town of Khiou, which at first had not fallen into either tribe’s sphere, as well as the strategic settlement of Zeiveh in Angut, astride the migration route to Moghan. Amir Asian of ‘Isalu and his paternal half-brother ‘Isa Bey fought each other for Larud and the neighbouring villages. At Ardabil, Hosein ‘Ali Khan of Polatlu was somewhat overshadowed by his remarkable wife ‘Azamat Khanom, who was in revolt against the Iranian government and wanted control of the city. She first allied Polatlu with the Shatranlu tribe from Khalkhal, led by her brother Amir ‘Ashayer, to oppose the Yortchi Shahsevan and the Dalikanlu tribe from Sarab, but in spring 1920 she began to intrigue with the Bolshevik troops who were gathering in large numbers in Ardabil and Astara. She thus broke her alliance with the Alarlu tribe from Ojarud, whose chiefs Najaf-qulu and Ruhollah made numerous successful attacks on Bolshevik columns on both sides of the frontier. In the summer of 1920, Amir ‘Ashayer formed an anti-socialist tribal union of the Shatranlu, the Shaqaqi from Mianeh, the Alarlu, Yortchi and Qoja-Beyli Shahsevan, and others. From May to September 1920, Tabriz was in the hands of the democrat Khiabani, who proclaimed the separate state of Azadestan. Backed by Bolsheviks, he also received some support from Javat Khan Hajj-Khojalu and his ally Böyük Khan Chalabianlu, but was opposed by Amir Arshad Hajj-‘Alili, who defeated a force sent by Khiabani to Javat’s aid. Meanwhile, Bolshevik forces landed in Gilan and Mazandaran in support of Kuchek Khan and the Jangalis, while their agents were active in Iranian Azerbaijan. Towards the end

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of the year, with the justifiable excuse that Shahsevan bands were continually encroaching over their frontier and attacking their forces, the Soviet authorities prepared an invasion of Iranian Azerbaijan. One column crossed at Astara in January 1921, only to be heavily defeated. Another column invaded Moghan in the spring and was wiped out by Shahsevan warriors from the Pir-Evatlu, ‘Arapli and Ja‘farli tribes, clients of Nouruz Khan Qoja-Beyli, who were supported by Mosavatist refugees from the Caucasus. 18 In 1921 the tribes of the Ardabil region continued to struggle for dominance. ‘Azamat Khanom’s Polatlu attacked and looted the city on a number of occasions, but the religious leaders of the city, aided by Qoja-Beyli, managed to maintain some order. Towards autumn the Polatlu allied again with the Alarlu and openly rebelled against the government, whose side was taken by their rivals Qoja-Beyli and Yortchi. Many engagements were fought between these opponents, though usually with indecisive results. In November 1921 the newly restored central government at Tabriz, having since Khiabani’s downfall relied on Amir Arshad and his Qara-Daghi warriors, persuaded him to take them and 600 Yortchi cavalry against the Kurdish rebel Simko; but his army was defeated and he himself was shot, supposedly by one of his own men whom he was trying to prevent from running away from the enemy. His brother and son were arrested the following spring, and Qara Dagh was soon returned to government control. 19 In 1922, disturbances continued in the Ardabil region. Polatlu again, probably with Bolshevik support, raided the town in February and June; other tribes attacked the Bolsheviks. But with Simko defeated during the summer, Reza Khan gave orders for moves against the Shahsevan: they were to be disarmed and their taxes, unpaid for many years, collected. In September, General Jahanbani, commander-in-chief of the Tabriz Division, prepared a force of 800 men, which he sent to begin this task. In November and December this army successfully conducted operations against the Hajj-Khojalu, Polatlu and Alarlu, in which the son of the Hajj-Khojalu chief was killed and Najaf-qulu Alarlu taken prisoner, though the latter’s execution at Tabriz in December caused the Alarlu to break out into revolt once more. In February 1923 the new commander-in-chief, Amir Lashkar ‘Abdollah Khan Tahmaspi (the Shahsevan always mention his full name and title), brought reinforcements to Ardabil. An efficient force of some 1800 men—cavalry, infantry and artillery—was now in the field, and most of the chiefs, including Javat Hajj-Khojalu, ‘Aleshan Geyikli, Bahram and Nouruz Qoja-Beyli, and Nasrollah Yortchi, sensing at last an Iranian leader whom they could respect and to whom they could surrender with honour, did so without fighting. Of the Shahsevan, only the Alarlu and Polatlu held out, the former in resentment at the execution of Najaf-qulu Khan, the latter either instigated by the Bolsheviks or fearing reprisals for their former intrigues with them. These rebels fled to Khalkhal, but they were all defeated there on Nouruz. Amir ‘Ashayer, his brother Abish Khan, his sister ‘Azamat Khanom, and her husband Hosein ‘Ali, were among those captured, and in April ‘Abdollah Khan had the men executed

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and ‘Azamat Khanom’s hair shorn off. 20 During the spring, the Shahsevan handed over up to 30,000 rifles and a large number of mountain- and machine-guns. A sword of honour, inscribed with the names of the Shahsevan tribes, was prepared for presentation to Reza Khan. On 19 July it was exhibited in Tabriz, ‘Abdollah Khan delivering a stirring speech in praise of Reza Khan and the patriotism of the Shahsevan. Some 200 Shahsevan horsemen then escorted the sword to Tehran. 21

The Shahsevan under Reza Shah The new army achieved the pacification and disarmament of the Shahsevan more quickly and thoroughly than any other major tribal group. They brought banditry and armed inter-tribal hostilities to an abrupt end, and established an unprecedented degree of order and government control over the Moghan and Ardabil region. An army officer was appointed elbey or ra’is-e ‘ashayer (chief of the tribes), responsible for political security. He maintained order with the backing of strong garrisons of troops, supplemented after 1924 by the Gendarmerie (amniyeh) as a rural police force, which later took over frontier security. 22 Nevertheless, effective administration of the tribes still depended on co-operation with their traditional leaders, and it was official policy to conciliate the chiefs as far as possible. Some of them had been killed in battle or executed during ‘Abdollah Khan Tahmaspi’s campaign. Others who proved recalcitrant were removed from the tribes; but most, tired of several decades of äshmrlıq (disorder) and impressed by the strength of the new regime, were willing to cooperate and give their allegiance to the Pahlavi regime. 23 With their arms gone, the tribespeople were now in great fear of the army, whose firepower and resources rapidly increased, and whose successes against tribal rebels in the south were common talk. Sheep-lifting became almost unknown. The gendarmes too feared the army, and whenever an army officer was to visit the region they were sure to make arrests among the tribesmen to demonstrate their vigilance. Most inter-tribal blood-feuds and hostilities were patched up, compensation arranged and marriages contracted between protagonists. Only a few enmities persisted, particularly within the chiefly families; sometimes these grew more bitter than before, now that raiding and warfare had been firmly suppressed. At first, there were a few uprisings among the Shahsevan, provoked largely by the tactlessness and brutality of army officers. Thus in about 1926 Gholam Alarlu and Bahram Khan Qoja-Beyli broke into revolt. The former was soon disposed of, but Bahram captured Khiou and drove out the garrison before being himself routed by government troops, reinforced by Geyikli tribesmen. He fled to Soviet Azerbaijan, where he is said to have died in exile, though his family returned later. In Moghan too there were occasional incidents, though these appear to have resulted from events on the Soviet side. For example, famine in the Caucasus between 1931 and 1933 sent large numbers of refugees south,

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many settling in Shahsevan territory; they raided across the border, causing a brief Soviet occupation of Belasovar in 1932. 24 I also heard stories of continued raids into Soviet territory by Qoja-Beyli and others, and of small bands of outlaws who terrorized villages and camps in the mountains but were eventually hunted down by the army or the gendarmes with the aid of Shahsevan levies. Irregular Shahsevan cavalry were also levied once or twice in the later 1920s for use against such rebels as the Kurdish chief Simko. I have found no contemporary records concerning the condition of the tribes, and informants were themselves reluctant to talk about the subject except in general terms, so it has proved difficult to establish how far disarmament and the new order affected Shahsevan tribal political and economic organization. Although the immediate basis of their power—the ability to muster and deploy armed horsemen—was circumscribed, chiefs who co-operated with the new regime retained control of the other resources on which their power was founded. Thus they continued to receive large incomes from agricultural land, flocks and pastures, and to exercise control over tenants, herdsmen and servants who also derived their livelihood from these resources. Even the families of chiefs who had been punished by the government, such as Amir ‘Ashayer Shatranlu, ‘Azamat Polatlu and Bahram Qoja-Beyli, eventually, after considerable efforts in Tehran, received back at least some of their former lands. 25

The conditions in which the former tribal clusters had developed no longer prevailed, however, and dominant chiefs were no longer able to coerce or evict their subordinate tribes. Many of these, particularly larger tribes which had been subject to the Qoja-Beyli chiefs, such as Moghanlu, Damirchili and TaleshMikeilli, now declared independence. The chief of each separate tribe now dealt directly with the elbey and other officials, especially in the symbolic matter of tax collection. For example, the small Khalfali tribe now broke free from Moghanlu, to which they had been attached, as one elder recalled: We used to be mixed up with the Moghanlu; our ancestors were together. After Amir Lashkar came and collected our weapons, then everyone went to his own tribe. We had some 24 to 25 years’ taxes unpaid [an exaggeration], and we now had to pay them all, and then Moghanlu said, Khalfali tribe is part of us, let us pay Khalfali’s pasture taxes, and then we shall be in control of them. But we said, we would give up our women’s and children’s skirts, but not our lands. So we collected our own taxes and we became separated from Moghanlu. Hajji Molla Hasan [one of the elders] said that if we wanted to move freely in our own lands, we must collect and pay our own taxes. So we got together and elected one of our cousins, Mashhad Musa Khan, to be our elder (aq-saqal). The term aq-saqal tends to be used for any elected leader, including the chief of a tribe, who is called bey (chief) only if he is appointed or approved by

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government or other higher authority. In 1931, the titles khan and bey were officially abolished, though people continued to use them. ‘Everyone went to his own tribe’ refers both to independence from dominant chiefs and to the restoration to individual tribes of lands allotted to them in the 1880s from which they had been ousted during äshrarlıq. However, apart from the return of a few small groups to the Moghan pastures from which Qoja-Beyli chiefs had ousted them, there appears to have been little change in the distribution of summer and winter pastures. As for the ‘pasture tax’, I was told that throughout Reza Shah’s reign, and indeed until 1963, all those who sent flocks to graze on the Crown Lands of Moghan continued to pay a pasture due at a specific rate per animal; to the nomads this was a tax, while the government considered it to be rent. 26 Despite the new independence, few other tribes as small as Khalfali felt secure enough to deal with army and other officials alone. Most sought the protection and patronage of chiefs such as Hatam Khan and ‘Aleshan Khan Geyikli, Amir Asian Bey ‘Isalu, Javat Khan Hajj-Khojalu, Hosain Aqa Khan Alarlu, Nouruz Khan Qoja-Beyli and Fazlollah Bey Talesh-Mikeilli. These chiefs were all from the Meshkin tribes. None of the Ardabil nomad groups had a powerful chief; in Moghan in winter they would ask for the protection of one of the Meshkin chiefs, in summer they might show allegiance to Nasrollah Khan of Yortchi, the most powerful settled chief in the Ardabil district. In practice, the followings of the Geyikli, ‘Isalu, Hajj-Khojalu and Alarlu chiefs differed little from the clusters they had formerly headed, though some small tribes which had belonged to the Qoja-Beyli cluster now joined the followings of one of the others, or of the new power, Fazlollah Bey of TaleshMikeilli. Each of these chiefs now mediated political relations between agents of the state and a large number of protégés, from his own tribe and others, and was able to demand certain unofficial payments in return for his services. The new security enabled farmers to bring long-abandoned lands back into cultivation, and many former peasants who had taken refuge in the towns or in the tribal chiefs’ retinues now returned to their villages. Others of the chiefs’ henchmen took up pastoralism. The nomads, indeed, often recalled the ten years or so after Reza Shah’s rise to power as a golden age, compared with the chaos that went before and the enforced settlement that was to come. In 1963, one old tribesman, recently settled, summarized the period as follows: Reza Shah came and was made Shah of Iran and established the government, and they collected the rifles of the Shahsevan and the khankhans disappeared. The villages became cultivated, there was plenty of food and people went safely to summer quarters and came back to winter quarters and looked after their animals. The weak and powerless were no longer oppressed, things were put in order, and if there had been any criminals they were arrested and put in jail or executed; they did away with thieves; people relaxed and began to live comfortably.

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For the farming population, however, life was less than comfortable. During Reza Shah’s reign Azerbaijan declined in political importance, and Tabriz lost its pre-eminence as a commercial centre. Rural areas such as the Shahsevan region were little affected at first by the industrial, commercial, social and legal reforms and innovations of the new order. In spite of the end of tribal raids, the peasants, who farmed lands among the most fertile and productive in the country, continued to suffer as they had always done from the exactions of landowners and government officials. I have found no detailed contemporary records of the economic and social changes entailed among the Shahsevan by the settlement policy. The following account once more derives largely from the memories of survivors (all from Meshkin tribes) interviewed between 1963 and 1966. The new policy was implemented among the Shahsevan in 1933 to 1934. The official aim was to settle the nomads on lands that had hitherto been used only as pasturage, and indeed some steps were taken to facilitate the opening of new cultivation in the winter pastures in the north of the region. In the districts of Khoruslu, Angut, Barzand and Ojarud there were already a number of villages, but these districts had been devoted largely to pasturage. Many nomads, particularly of the Qoja-Beyli and tribes formerly subject to them, settled here, acquiring title to the new farmlands from the government: By the law of 7th Day 1311 (December 1932), the Ministry of Finance was empowered to transfer without exchange from the pastures and crown lands in the province of Azarbayjan, in the area where the Shahsivan reside, whatever amount it considered necessary as private property to the khans and individuals of those tribes. 27 In the plains of Moghan there were as yet only a few villages, scattered along the banks of the Dara-Yort, Aras and Balharu rivers. Further settlement did not seem so feasible in the absence of water supplies, but the nomads were encouraged to attempt it none the less. Nomads from Talesh-Mikeilli and other tribes commenced dry-farming in the vicinity of the old villages of Belasovar and Babash-Kandi, and founded the new settlements Oruf-Kandi, PolatluQuyusu and others. In the winter of 1935 to 1936 the Iranian press reported ‘the inspection by experts of the Mughan Steppe…and the drawing up by them of schemes for its irrigation, in order to provide land for the settlement of the Shahsevan tribes’. 28 The French experts apparently advised the reopening of the ancient canal systems and the construction of a dam at the mouth of the Dara-Yort river as it meets the Aras. Further, ‘A scheme is on foot for the formation, under Government auspices, of a company with 5 million rials (£55,550) capital for the purpose of irrigating and developing the Moghan lands in Azerbaijan.’ 29 The Shah himself toured Azerbaijan in September and October 1936, visiting Ardabil, Khiou and Ahar, though I know of no record of his encounter with any Shahsevan. The occasion gave rise to a memorandum by the British consul-

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general in Tabriz, R.W.Urquhart, in which, after a long discourse on the Kurds, he wrote: Shahsevans. The problem of the Shahsevans is simpler than that of the Kurds, since the only foreign Power which might take their part is Russia, and Russia used them so roughly in 1912 that they have little reason to turn to her. The question is almost a purely internal one. The tribe has been described on occasion as the most powerful in Persia. Properly speaking, of course, it is a loose federation of many small tribes, who have frequently found themselves united into a strong force by common enmity towards the Central Government. Highway robbery and holding to ransom were everyday trades. That has been completely stopped, and while it is difficult to obtain information, the fact that security is perfect on the roads running through their territory and that no incidents are reported suggests that they have been completely subjugated by the Central Government. As regards assimilation, this is being attempted as with the others. I have recorded in my diaries the attempt, suspended for the moment, but by no means abandoned, to induce the nomad tribes to settle in houses instead of in moving tents, and to have themselves registered and their flocks numbered. It appears that a good deal of land is available for settlement, while the proposed irrigation of the Moghan steppe on the Iranian side of the border is intended to provide more. 30 The proposals could not be implemented at the time, but attempts had already been made to dig out the old canal near Ultan for the benefit of the Pir-Evatlu tribe which had settled there. 31 The narrow but highly fertile Aras river banks were now crowded with settlers from Moghanlu, Ajirli, Beydili, Ja‘farli and Bala-Beyli, most of whom had winter pastures in the vicinity. In the Dara-Yort valley, groups of Qoja-Beyli, Hajj-Khojalu, Moghanlu and others settled. In these various settlements in the northern parts of the region, villages usually contained the whole of a tribal section or nomad community, or even—in a few cases—the whole of a small tribe. Many of the nomads, however, chose to settle in the south, in Meshkin and Arshaq districts. Sometimes they found unoccupied lands suitable for farming, but usually they added themselves to the population of villages already inhabited either by Tat peasants or recently settled nomads. Most of the villages in these districts were wholly or partly owned by tribal chiefs and elders, who now settled in them, accompanied by large numbers of kin and dependants. There was rarely much extra land or water available for exploitation, and the original peasants continued perforce to do the work of cultivation, the new settlers remaining idle and living off their or their elders’ shares of the crop. Although one of the aims of Reza Shah’s tribal policy had been to protect farmers from nomad depredations, in many cases they were now even more oppressed than before both by landowners and officials. More and more village

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land fell into the hands of wealthy ex-nomads, while there was a flow of both poorer nomads and oppressed Tats into the towns of the region. In particular, the market town of Khiou—officially renamed Meshkin-Shahr in 1938—was growing in size and gaining importance as a district market and military centre. As a Talesh-Mikeilli elder recalled: The order was given for everyone to build houses; there were to be no more alachıq [the distinctive Shahsevan yurt]. Everyone gathered in their villages and hid their tent frames, and each man began to build a house on his own land. Then they gave permits to the herdsmen as supervisors (särpäräst) of the sheep, for example each owner appointed a herdsman to supervise his flock and this herdsman took them off to pasture…and of course he could not manage the sheep, and they suffered greatly. It was like that for five or six years, the owner not being allowed to accompany his sheep. Supervisors were permitted to use only the smaller kümä type of tent. Yet those few who were allowed to migrate were not enough to tend the flocks efficiently, and they no longer had firearms to defend them against wild animals—or the thieves who had begun to reappear. Some nomads disobeyed the first orders to abandon the alachıq: when they were caught, the gendarmes confiscated their tents, piled the felts and poles together and burned them. Some families, I gathered, succeeded throughout the period in migrating as before in their alachıq, by evading the gendarmerie check-points along the route; others constructed enlarged kümä and crowded them with two or more households, all pretending to be ‘supervisors’. But these evasions were exceptional, and the regulations were usually enforced with severity and sometimes brutality. Sometimes households were split, only one or two members being permitted to go with the flocks as supervisors. Such separations caused great distress, as this old man from ‘Arapli recalled: One or two of a family used to come to yailaq with the sheep and a kümä. One brother would stay, the other would go. It was very sad and painful for brothers to be apart, and we used to weep so much that you would have thought we had just fought a battle and most of the people had been killed…. Do you see this young man? I used to live with his father, and once, when he was a boy, I had to take him from our village in Arshaq up to yailaq (summer pastures). In those days the only shoes we had were these sandals. I hid the boy’s sandals in my bag, so that when he came along with me he was barefoot and didn’t imagine we were going to yailaq; but after a short distance he caught sight of his sandals and asked about them. I pretended it must have been a mistake, someone had put them in there or something; but he knew at once that we were going to yailaq and he started crying and ran away.

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In the 1960s Shahsevan households with village bases were still averse to splitting in this fashion, though it was very common for two closely related households—brothers or other close agnates—to conduct a co-operative dual economy, the one remaining in the village and farming jointly owned land, the other taking the flocks to pasture. The policy of settlement, known locally (as elsewhere in Iran) as takhtaqapı (wooden-door), struck at the roots of Shahsevan tribal identity, not just in the ban on migration but particularly in the outlawing of the felt-covered alachıq tent, which was increasingly the marker by which the Shahsevan distinguished themselves both from house-dwelling villagers and from all other tribal groups in Iran (except the Qara-Daghis). In the 1960s, when few survivors of Reza Shah’s time bothered to mention his other reforms such as the ban on their traditional clothing, all spoke with horror of the ‘wooden-door’ policy. The Shahsevan probably suffered less than other tribal groups—though more than the neighbouring Qara-Daghi nomads, many of whom were already accustomed to spending half the year in settled communities. 32 Some new settlements, particularly in the more fertile and better-watered parts of Arshaq and Khoruslu, persisted and still flourish today. Nevertheless, most of their inhabitants, and indeed the great majority of the newly settled Shahsevan, returned to a migratory way of life in 1940 to 1941. 33 The pastoral nomads had not been converted into settled cultivators; the tribesmen had learned no new attitudes, apart from an increased contempt and hatred for the peasant life they had now experienced for themselves. The hidden alachıq were brought out; where they had been destroyed, new ones were built or replaced temporarily by kümäs; the pastures were reoccupied, the tribes reformed and the chiefs resumed control. A Soviet Army document of 1941 estimated 1870 Shahsevan nomad families in the Ardabil district, and 5026 in Meshkin—numbers very similar to the best estimates from the turn of the century. 34 On the excuse that Iran was harbouring German agents, British and Soviet troops invaded the country in August 1941. The Shahsevan nomads were in the mountains when Soviet aeroplanes flew overhead dropping propaganda leaflets, which few could read but whose import made the tribesmen wish desperately that they were armed with weapons other than slings and sticks. A few of them, it appears, did have firearms and were sent to join the Iranian army at the frontier, 35 but (as elsewhere in the country) the resistance was only a gesture in the face of a far-superior force, which proceeded via Ardabil and Tabriz to Tehran. In September Reza Shah abdicated in favour of his son Mohammad Reza.

Conclusion The first phase of Reza Shah’s tribal policy—defeat and disarmament of the tribal chiefs and their armies—achieved his main aim: the irreversible destruction of a political structure whose nature and existence were in great

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measure functions of the nature and power of the central government, as has often been discussed. Yet the campaign had perhaps been only a more effective and thorough version of those attempted by the strongest of his predecessors, such as Fath ‘Ali Shah and Naser ad-Din Shah. The second phase, however, was revolutionary in the changes it hoped to effect in the social structure of the people concerned. Similar measures attempted earlier, as, for example, among the Shahsevan in 1860, had rather different aims and were carried out with less commitment and determination. The unprecedented success of the government campaign against the tribes was due to a number of factors. The efficiency and training of the army and the Gendarmerie were undoubtedly important, as were the increasing use of modern weaponry (tanks, armoured cars and airplanes) and improved roads which enabled government forces to penetrate to the heart of tribal territories or to cut off the migration routes. But they were a small force to cover a large country, and could not chance direct confrontations with some of the larger tribal groups. Reza Khan’s success owed much to combinations of military skill with persistence and a piecemeal approach, and of administrative action with deceit. Cottam rightly points out that he never provoked the tribes into uniting against him by announcing a programme for subduing them; and that at first he did not move except in retaliation for some tribal outrage which put public opinion on his side. 36 It is important to realize, however, that many tribal groups early on offered their submission to the new ruler and their services to the army, and many of them fought against the rebels: support came, for example, from the Za‘faranlu Kurds in Khorasan, the Hajj-‘Alili in Qara Dagh, the Moqaddam of Maragheh, the Qashqa’i under Esma‘il Khan, and many of the Shahsevan tribes of Ardabil and Meshkin. Undoubtedly some of these were acting in pursuit of traditional rivalries, but, equally, some were motivated by political conviction or by exhaustion from long years of violence and insecurity. The settlement policy was politically less than successful, and socially and economically a disaster. Part of the reason was undoubtedly the poor planning involved. As Lambton comments: The policy was put into operation without adequate preparation. No detailed survey of the possibilities of settlement or the effect the destruction of the tribal element would have upon the economy of the country was made. Many of the tribal leaders were exiled and the annual migration of the tribes from winter to summer pastures was largely prevented. Suitable areas in which to settle the tribes were not always chosen, adequate provisions for health and education were not made, and sufficient facilities by way of agricultural training and the provision of agricultural implements were not given to the tribesmen to enable them to change over from a pastoral to an agricultural life. 37 There was little increase in agricultural, and a considerable drop in pastoral

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production. The health of the former nomads suffered in the unfamiliar sedentary life, and few medical or educational facilities were available to them. There were other deficiencies in the system, as a former officer in Reza Shah’s army explained to me in 1966: His Majesty Reza Shah intended migrations in Iran to be completely suspended, the tribes to be settled and to start stock-raising in a scientific manner. Naturally this was to be only a beginning…. However the plan was not implemented as intended. Sheep need the attention of all the family, to care for them and milk them, to make the butter and other dairy produce. Unfortunately the ideas behind the programme were ill-informed; they imagined that taking the sheep to summer quarters was an easy matter, one herdsman went to summer quarters, put the sheep to graze in the pastures, and then returned. But it was Reza Shah’s command and no one dared dispute it. Steps were taken to carry out the beginning of the programme, but later Reza Shah himself realised that it was a mistake, relaxed his efforts and no longer took the matter seriously. Lambton summarizes the effects of the enforced settlement as follows: ‘The tribal policy of Reza Shah, ill conceived and badly executed, resulted in heavy losses in livestock, the impoverishment of the tribes, and a diminution of their numbers.’ 38 The question remains, however, whether any aspect of Reza Shah’s tribal policy actually achieved fundamental changes in the social structure of the tribes. The tribes of Iran were very heterogeneous, both culturally and socially, and the impact of Reza Shah’s reforms varied considerably. The Shahsevan, whose case I have examined in some detail, were not typical: thanks to their frontier location and the comparative accessibility of their territory to government forces, they were sooner and more easily pacified than other tribal groups; and they suffered less during the compulsory settlement, probably because of the temperateness of the climate and the fertility of the local farmland. Quite possibly, however, pastoral nomad society in Iran generally emerged relatively unscathed, despite the death-toll of people and livestock. It has been shown that, despite common assumptions in Iran, there is no intrinsic link between pastoral nomadism as a way of life and a tribal political system. In other words, Reza Shah’s military campaigns against the tribes removed a political super-structure that was unnecessary to the existence of the ordinary nomads, while the period of enforced settlement was too short to have left anything but the memory of a bad dream. 39 Certainly, in the late twentieth century, when the former superstructure of tribes as political groups and chiefs as leaders had long gone, the continued viability and resilience of pastoral nomadism in Iran would seem to bear this argument out. However, the picture of tribal life in Reza Shah’s time is hazy, and much remains to be achieved by

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further research.

Notes 1 This chapter has benefited from comment and criticism by Stephanie Cronin; errors and infelicities remain my own. It is drawn largely from Tapper (1997, chs. 12 and 13). 2 Cf. Oberling (1964:89f.); Cottam (1964:59–62); Brooks (1983:340–342); Abrahamian (1982:141–143); Hambly (1991:226–269). 3 Aubin (1908:177–178); see also Lambton (1971:1104f). 4 See Tapper (1997: ch. 10). 5 See below. 6 The above is drawn from Tapper (1991). 7 For the situation in various parts of the country in 1921, see Arfa (1964:439–446). 8 Although as Cronin (1997:122) points out, Reza Shah did sometimes recruit tribal contingents as such. 9 Oberling (1964); cf. Chehabi (1993). 10 Wilber (1948:100). 11 Monaco (1928:49); Lambton (1953:184). 12 See Bayat (1986). 13 Oberling (1974:155–167); Beck (1986:134–137). 14 According to various reports in FO 416/91, /92, /93, /94 and /95, settlement was begun in 1931 to 1932, and according to Rostopchin (1933:115) there were plans to settle the Shahsevan of Saveh in 1931, but drought and bad winters caused the Shah to postpone implementation in much of the country until 1933 to 1934; in some parts it would appear that settlement was only patchy as late as 1937. See also Magee (1948) on the Qashqa’i. 15 Stark (1934), Stein (1940), Garrod (1946a, 1946b), Lindberg (1955). See also Black-Michaud (1986:84–86). 16 Brooks (1983:343); cf. Oberling (1974:152–153), Beck (1986:139–142). 17 Tapper (1997, ch. 11). 18 See Tapper (1966:72–73). 19 On Amir Arshad and Ahar see Mojtahedi (1948:184–185), Arfa (1964:121–122, 439–440), Taherzadeh-Behzad (1955:505–507), Bahrami (1965:588–592), Baiburdi (1962:105–107). 20 On Azamat Khanom see Safari (1971:450), Rava’i (1984, various). Her punishment is mentioned only by a British source: IOL L/P&S/10 (566/1921: Intelligence Summary 17 of 28 April 1923). For detailed accounts of the campaigns by townspeople who witnessed some of them, see Safari (1971:437–448), Rava’i (1984:149–168). 21 Melzig (1938:56), Sheean (1927:72). On the Shahsevan between 1915 and 1923 see Tapper (1997:269–282). 22 Cf. Monaco (1928:157). Rostopchin (1933:115) states that under a 1925 law the Shahsevan were one of five tribal groups with a Majles representative; in the 1960s I never heard anyone refer to this. 23 Thus a recently published document records the army’s appointment in 1928 of Savat Khan, son of Hazrat-qulu, as deputy of old Jahangir Bey, chief of the Beydili

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26 27 28

29 30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

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tribe (Begdili 1988:501). In 1965 I talked with Savat Khan Jahangirzadeh Beydili in his village in Moghan. FO 416/90 and /91, various. Rava’i (1984:175–177), Safari (1971:450), FO 248/1416 (Report of Colonel Galloway of 25 July 1942), and /1417 (Macann to Millspaugh of 30 July 1943 and Macann to Nizam-ud-Din Imami of 17 August 1943). This information on the Shahsevan does not quite accord with what more contemporary sources reported of Iran generally in Reza Shah’s time; see above. Lambton (1953:241). FO 416/93 (Intelligence Summary no. 25 for period ending 14 December 1935), which went on to add, ‘It is possible that this reconnaissance is not unconnected with oil, the existence of which in that area is known, and which, in 1932, formed the subject of Russo-Iranian negotiations.’ See also ODDM (1966), Hawaiian Agronomics (1971). Ettela’at of 6 January 1936, reported in enclosure in No. 41E from KnatchbullHugessen to Eden, 24 January 1936 (FO 416/94). FO 416/94 (Memorandum on Political Affairs in Azerbaijan; enclosure no. 2 in No. 467 from Butler to Eden, 12 October 1936, p. 82). I have not yet found Urquhart’s diaries. On the medieval irrigation of Moghan, see Minorsky (1936, 1938). Oberling (1964:90–91). Koetz (1983:171). Wehrmacht (1941:211); also 1190 families in Khalkhal/Garus, and 2700 in QaraDagh. Yekrangian (1957:324); contrast the opinions of Mostoufi (1947, vol. 3, pt 2:298f). Cottam (1964:59f); cf. Oberling (1974:149f). Lambton (1953:285). Ibid., p. 286. See e.g., Brooks (1983), Tapper (1997: ch. 1).

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Rava’i, Naser-e Daftar1984. Khaterat va Asnad-e Naser-e Daftar Rava’i , ed. Iraj Afshar and Behzad Razzaqi. Tehran, Ferdousi, 1363. Rostopchin, F.B.1933. ‘Zametki o Shahsevenakh’. Sovetskaya Etnografiya1933 (3–4), pp. 88–118. Safari, Baba1971, 1974, 1992. Ardabil dar Gozargah-e Tarikh ,3 vols. Vols 1 and 2, Tehran, private, 1350 and 1353; vol. 3, Ardabil, Islamic Free University, 1371. Sheean, Vincent1927. The New Persia .New York, Century. Stark, Freya1934. The Valleys of the Assassins .London, John Murray. Stein, Aurel1940. Old Routes of Western Iran .London, Macmillan. Taherzadeh-Behzad, Karim1955. Qiyam-e Azarbaijan dar Enqelab-e Mashrutiyat-e Iran .Tehran, ‘Eqbal. Tapper, Richard1966. ‘Black sheep, white sheep and red-heads: a historical sketch of the Shahsavan of Azarbaijan’. Iran4, pp. 61–84. Tapper, Richard1991. ‘The tribes in eighteenth and nineteenth century Iran’. In Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly and Charles Melville (eds) From Nadir Shah to the Islamic Republic,The Cambridge History of Iran Volume 7, pp. 506–541. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Tapper, Richard1997. Frontier Nomads of Iran: A Political and Social History of the Shahsevan .Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Wehrmacht (trans.) 1941. Iran: Darstellung Irans, verfaszt vom Generalstab der sowjetrussischenArmee, Moskau 1941 .Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, A Ausl/Abw. Ag Ausland Nr. O2440/42 Ausl I (D 4). Bundesarchiv (Militärarchiv) RW5/v.487. Wilber, Donald1948. Iran, Past and Present .Princeton, NY, Princeton University Press (6th edn), 1981. Yekrangian, Mir Hosein1957. Golgun-e Kafnan .Tehran, ‘Elmi, 1336.

14 RIZA SHAH AND THE DISINTEGRATION OF BAKHTIYARI POWER IN IRAN, 1921–1934 Stephanie Cronin

Introduction During the years of the Constitutional Revolution and the Great War, Iran experienced a widespread and general reassertion of tribal power, and by 1921 much of the country was under tribal control. Riza Khan’s seizure of power, however, inaugurated a transformation in the relationship between the centre and periphery in Iran. For the new regime and for the nationalist elite which supported it, the suppression of the tribes was an indispensable element of their larger project: the construction of a modern, centralized state with a culturally homogeneous population. Their agenda was clear: the destruction of the autonomy and feudal authority of the tribal leaderships was to be closely followed by the subjection of the tribal populations to the unmediated power of the modernized state and their integration into settled society. From the very moment of seizing power in Tehran, the new regime embarked on a sustained effort to establish its military and administrative hegemony over the tribes. The extirpation of tribal power was of absolute centrality to the state-building effort of the early Pahlavi period. Like their contemporaries elsewhere in the Middle East, the newly empowered Iranian nationalists insisted that sovereignty and independence were possible only on the basis of the complete disarmament of the civilian population and the concentration of physical power in the hands of the state. For this trend the establishment of a single national authority in Iran, which commanded the universal and direct allegiance of the population and which alone conducted relations with foreign powers, was essential to the country’s political survival. For them, furthermore, the tribes were the antithesis of modernity, the regime and its supporters, and indeed the settled population at large, viewing the tribes as both primitive in themselves and as symbolizing Iran’s backwardness. Riza Shah himself, like his counterpart Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was especially sensitive to the image his country presented to the West, and the archaic, exotic and picturesque appeal of the tribes for European visitors was especially galling. During this period Iranian nationalists had little interest in conditions in the countryside generally, and the rural areas, whether agricultural or pastoral, experienced great hardships under Riza Shah. Although the urban elite conceptualized tribal sedentarization as desirable in social and

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political terms, the policy was implemented with little preparation and with little or no regard for its consequences for pastoral productivity or for its cost in human suffering, bequeathing a legacy to the late 1930s and early 1940s of economic dislocation and political bitterness. The prevalence of these broad ideological prescriptions within Iranian nationalism is well known. However, of the first Pahlavi regime’s practical orientation towards the tribes, either nationally or towards particular groups and sub-groups, there has been little concrete and precise discussion. 1 Two particular, and related, aspects of the regime’s tribal policy which have received little attention, and which this chapter seeks to address, are, first, the nature of the methods which were utilized in tribal management in this period, and second, the part played by various levels and sectors of tribal society itself in either resisting or collaborating with the regime in the execution of both its immediate and long-term goals. In 1921 much of south-central Iran was controlled by the khavanin-i buzurg, the great khans, of the Bakhtiyari tribal confederation. 2 The great khans of the Bakhtiyari had become among the wealthiest and most powerful of the tribal leaderships. As well as their domination of the confederation and its territories the great khans had, as a result of their contribution to the restoration of constitutional rule in 1909, established themselves as a factor in national politics and had also since then come to dominate the governments of several provinces ringing Bakhtiyari proper. They had furthermore become extremely wealthy, particularly in terms of landed property, as a result of their monopoly of tribal leadership, the spoils of office, and their British connections. None the less, despite their political influence and wealth, they succumbed easily to the new power in Tehran. With the reversal of British policy brought about by Percy Loraine in the early 1920s, they forfeited the support of their imperial patron. They were demoralized by a series of financial blows, particularly the indemnity imposed after the ‘Shalil incident’ and the arrears of taxes demanded by Dr Millspaugh. Then, in the mid-1920s, the endemic and enervating factionalism and rivalry which had beset relations between the senior khans was finally and fatally transcended by a new and permanent political schism which saw Ja‘afar Quli Khan Sardar As‘ad 3 taken into the Cabinet and made Minister of War and the rest of the khans reduced to political marginality and impotence. Yet the downfall of the khans was not due solely to the irresistible ascendancy of the new state power. Processes were advancing within the Bakhtiyari confederation itself which augured the end of traditional tribal organization and relationships and which were rendering the rule of the great khans obsolete. The authority of the great khans began to encounter challenges from various internal sources. The confederation itself collapsed when the resentment of the minor khans of the Chahar Lang subdivision at Haft Lang domination, encouraged by Riza Khan, broke into the open and resulted in the secession of the Chahar Lang. An intergenerational conflict erupted within the leading Haft Lang families themselves, resulting in the formulation, by the younger khans, of a novel and

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radical solution to the problem of weakening Bakhtiyari cohesion and the ossification of tribal leadership—the establishment of a reformist political party based explicitly on concepts of Bakhtiyari ethnic identity. The alienation of the elder khans from the tribal milieu, a process in train since 1909, had produced a general attenuation of tribal loyalties, and encouraged both the emergence of a middle-ranking layer of kalantars as the focus for tribal leadership and an increasingly vocal resentment on the part of the tribal rank and file at what they perceived as the political and economic oppression of the khans. The emerging, albeit still unsophisticated, class-consciousness of the tribespeople was reinforced by their proletarianization in relatively large numbers as workers in the oilfields and by the emergence of yet another direct threat to the khans’ position: the rapid spread in the late 1920s of a radical anti-landlord movement among the Bakhtiyari peasantry in khan-owned villages. The demystification of chiefly authority in the eyes of the tribespeople was accelerated further by the khans’ rapid loss of function to the new modern state institutions. The Bakhtiyari khans’ inability to defend themselves against the Pahlavi regime therefore clearly stemmed partly from their perception that their position, as hereditary rulers and as landlords, was more acutely and immediately threatened from below and within than from the external power of the state itself. After a brief and muddled attempt at resistance the tribal leadership, between 1923 and 1933, largely co-operated with the regime, to which it was openly subservient, in an attempt to preserve for itself a definite, even if much reduced role. The great khans were instrumental in securing the state’s increasing control over the tribe, making direct military intervention unnecessary. The Bakhtiyari tribes were, for example, disarmed by the khans themselves, who were confident enough to decline Riza Khan’s offer of military assistance, and the uprising of 1929 was also quelled by the pacific intervention of the Tehran-based senior khans. None the less, the nationalist characterization of the khans as feudal and as puppets of the British persisted and in 1933 the regime finally turned against them, their political destruction, already largely accomplished, being followed inexorably by their physical destruction. As part of the reign of terror which swept through the Iranian elite in these years, several khans were executed and many more were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Yet by now so completely had the khans severed themselves from the tribal pyramid that this repression in the capital evoked no response from the Bakhtiyari in the south. With the removal of the tribal leadership and with military officers controlling the apex of the tribe, the regime was able to embark on a major experiment in social engineering: the settlement of the tribes and the suppression of nomadic pastoralism. Although the countryside experienced a dramatic upsurge in banditry in these years, the tribes, fragmented, partially disarmed and leaderless, were no longer capable of mounting the large-scale revolts of the past.

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The army and the tribes Although Riza Shah’s skill in manipulating political conflict of every kind, including intra-tribal conflict, has been widely recognized, yet the pacification of the countryside in the 1920s and 1930s is still imagined, by both apologists for and critics of the regime, to have been largely, if not wholly, a military undertaking, enforced in the teeth of armed tribal resistance. Yet in fact direct campaigning, or even its threat, was only one, and in practice the least effective method of tribal management employed by the regime. Where the state resorted to military operations most readily, notably in the case of the Lurs, results were most uncertain and the imposition of control most protracted and difficult. As the example of the Bakhtiyari clearly shows, the regime achieved its objectives most completely and most easily where it was able to eschew military tactics and rely instead on exploiting the political and financial vulnerabilities of the tribal leaderships. Of course, many military operations against different tribal groups were undertaken by the army, particularly in the 1920s. 4 Such campaigning was indeed the army’s sole military function in these years. Yet the army suffered from certain endemic and chronic defects and weaknesses which made the results of these engagements at best unpredictable. 5 A particular difficulty with which the army was confronted was that, in the 1920s, the tribes were much better armed than they had been in the past, the majority having acquired modern magazine rifles during and since the Great War. The tribes were indeed at least as well armed as the army itself, and only slowly, and as part of a major reorganization, was Riza Khan able to overcome the problems resulting from the army’s deficiencies in armament and to ensure its definitive superiority over the tribes. 6 A conventional army of the type then being constructed by Riza Khan faced other disadvantages in tribal campaigning. Tribal territory was for the most part mountainous and devoid of good communications and this made military operations by regular troops difficult and prolonged in the face of determined opposition. There were also, in the circumstances prevailing in the country at the time, general organizational and political constraints upon the concentration of large numbers of troops for specific campaigns. The total strength of the army reached around 40,000 men by the mid-1920s, yet owing to the difficulties of mobilization, the distances involved and the lack of transport, to the necessity for maintaining garrisons in the north and east and retaining enough of the Tehran garrison to guarantee stability in the capital and the protection of the main lines of communications, the maximum that the War Minister had available for dealing with any tribe or group of tribes in this period was about 10,000 men. This was actually the number that he was able to concentrate against the Kurdish tribal leader Simko in Azerbaijan in 1922. Any combination of tribal forces, or simultaneous outbreak of tribal insurrections in different parts of the country, presented the

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regime and the military authorities with grave dangers, as was demonstrated by the near collapse of government control in southern Iran in 1929. The military capacity of the tribes was also limited and contingent. They possessed no artillery or machine guns, decisive weapons in tribal campaigning, and although they had acquired modern rifles, ammunition was faulty and in short supply, and they lacked the sophistication to maintain reserve stocks. They had no military organization other than that of being grouped into followings led by their own khans, and they would rarely fight outside their own territory or far from their own homes. For both the military authorities and the tribal leaderships therefore, the resort to force was an unattractive option and one, furthermore, that was almost always indecisive, leading only to a stalemate. The tribal campaigning which was undertaken by the army, largely a feature of the 1920s and early 1930s, was rarely a deliberate initiative of the regime but rather tended to be dictated by the need to respond to tribal rebellion. In fact the army had a much more significant role to play in tribal management in terms of maintaining control once the submission of the tribes had been secured by non-military means. Wherever the regime established its political dominance over tribal leaderships, the army was instrumental in confirming and rendering permanent state control through the establishment of military government and the appointment of army officers in place of deposed chiefs and khans.

The emergence of theKhavanin-i Buzurg Riza Shah’s overarching strategic objectives towards the Bakhtiyari, and the methods he employed to achieve them: the threat, if not the actual deployment of military force, the weapon of the tax demand, the encouragement of fissiparous tribal subgroups and the patronage of dissident factions within the leadership, were entirely in keeping with the regime’s treatment of other tribes. The internally generated centrifugal pressures, although undoubtedly more advanced within the Bakhtiyari, were also shared by other tribal groups in this period of rapid historical change. The interaction between the Bakhtiyari and the new Pahlavi regime was, however, unique in certain respects. One of the key factors explaining the relative ease with which Riza Khan was able to establish control over the Bakhtiyari is to be found in the character of confederational leadership as it had emerged since the late nineteenth century. The Bakhtiyari confederation was unusual in its possession of a relatively large, centralized and collective leadership, consisting of the sons and nephews of Husayn Quli Khan Ilkhani, who had first unified the Bakhtiyari tribes in the mid-nineteenth century. 7 In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries these ruling Haft Lang khans of the Ilkhani and Haji Ilkhani families, the khavanin-i buzurg, consolidated their control of the Bakhtiyari confederation and then ensured their permanent and unchallengeable political and financial ascendancy by cultivating links with the British official presence and the oil company. Their access to

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wealth and power again increased dramatically as a result of their role in the restoration of constitutional rule in 1909. 8 Like the Bakhtiyari, other tribal groupings in southern Iran appear to have acquired greater stability, particularly in terms of their leaderships, in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. It was in this period that Shaykh Khaz‘al of Muhammarah and the Qavamis of the Khamsah, as well as the great khans of the Bakhtiyari, established themselves as permanent features of the political landscape. This was undoubtedly largely due to the imperial context. These leaderships were successful in replacing their fluctuating and unstable links to Iranian power sources with durable and profitable ties to the immensely powerful British imperial presence. British support artificially promoted and maintained these leaderships, and guaranteed their permanent political and economic ascendancy, causing them to ossify and become impervious and unresponsive to internal pressures, thus destroying the traditional equilibrium and balance both within the tribal groupings themselves, between the leaderships and subordinate layers, between the tribal leaderships and Tehran, and between the various elements across southern Iran. By the early twentieth century the position of the great khans of the Bakhtiyari, for example, no longer depended on their capacities as tribal leaders, or the success of their political relations with local, regional or central Iranian authorities, but entirely on their links with the British. This was to have serious consequences for their ability to sustain themselves in the very different political context of the 1920s. 9 Yet the specific formation of the Bakhtiyari leadership presented a striking contrast to the political expressions of other confederations and tribes in southern Iran. On the one hand, the historical development of the large confederations of the Khamsah and the Qashqa’i had produced leadership residing, in a more or less stable and permanent way, in a single individual, Qavam al-Mulk and Isma‘il Khan Sawlat al-Dawlah respectively, while Shaykh Khaz‘al had achieved a particularly secure personal ascendancy in Arabistan. 10 On the other hand, fragmented tribal groups with considerable internal autonomy, such as the Lurs and the Kuhgilu, had avoided the political danger of any centralized leadership at all. The great khans of the Bakhtiyari, however, constituted a leadership which was both numerically large and theoretically collective, and which was accordingly uniquely and fatally vulnerable to internal factionalism and therefore to external manipulation. Although, by 1909, the great khans had succeeded in acquiring positions of unprecedented wealth and power within the Bakhtiyari confederation, across southern Iran and in Tehran, their new eminence contained within it two dangers. First, it led to a rapid abandonment by the khans of the confederation as the central focus of their interests and responsibilities. Following the constitutionalist victory in 1909 the senior great khans left the tribal territories for Tehran or one of the provincial capitals. They gave up their nomadic way of life and adopted urban manners and mores, acquiring considerable property in Isfahan and Tehran. They thus forfeited the independence of state control which

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their physical inaccessibility had hitherto guaranteed them and, in a development heavy with significance for the future, placed themselves within the reach of any power which might establish itself in the capital. They became first and foremost absentee landlords, indistinguishable from the urban elite in general. The permanent removal of the senior khans from the tribal environment and the general transformation in their position also had negative implications for the continued legitimacy of their authority. The gulf between the great khans and the rest of the confederational pyramid, in terms of wealth, political power, and cultural level and orientation, had widened dramatically and was continuing to grow both quantitively and qualitatively, weakening the links of the tribal hierarchy. The second danger lay in the fact that although the great khans had managed to arrogate exclusively to the Ilkhani and Haji Ilkhani families supremacy within the confederation, they had devised no method of regulating relations between themselves and of mitigating the factional rivalries and intrigues to which they had always been prone, and which worsened proportionally as the opportunities for wealth and power increased. 11

TheKhavanin-i Buzurgand the new regime in Tehran During the summer of 1921, although Riza Khan had established himself in control of Tehran, the authority of the central government barely extended beyond the capital. As well as the political challenge presented by provincially based radical movements, Colonel Pasyan in Mashad and the Jangalis and their Bolshevik allies in Gilan, there had, as a result of the collapse of central authority during the years of revolution and war, been a widespread reassertion of tribal activity and approximately three-quarters of the country was under tribal control. The situation in the north was most urgent and compelling and commanded the first attention of the new power in Tehran. By late 1921 to early 1922 the army was consolidating its position throughout north, north-west and north-east Iran and the authority of the central government was being imposed in the wake of military control. At the time of Riza Khan’s coup in 1921 southern Iran, unlike the north, was relatively quiescent. Although the central government had little or no enforceable authority and the tribes and tribal confederations lived in conditions of practical autonomy, yet there were no active challenges in the form of open tribal rebellions or radical separatist movements. Another factor suggested caution. In northern Iran the Russian presence had been first disorganized and then largely eclipsed by the 1917 Revolution. In the south, however, British power and influence remained intact, and the clients and allies of the British retained, for the moment, all the protection of their imperial patron. Indeed certain British interests in southern Iran, particularly its control of the oil industry and its role as a Persian Gulf power, were assuming increasing importance in the post-war world. Accordingly Riza Khan’s advance

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southwards, although relentless, was a slower and more delicate operation than had been his military occupation of the northern provinces. Riza Khan had himself little or no personal knowledge of southern Iran. Indeed he first set foot there only at the end of 1922. For him the south was a region which had been lost to Iran, where Iranian sovereignty did not prevail, where British power was supreme, and where oil, a vital national resource, was in foreign hands. He accordingly harboured a particular enmity towards those local leaderships, particularly the Bakhtiyari khans and Shaykh Khaz‘al of Muhammarah, whom he considered responsible for having invited in and benefited from the British presence. Not only were these and other traditional elements outside central control, as represented by their armed strength and their refusal to pay taxes, and impediments to the achievement of modernity and national unity, but they constituted a permanent fifth column, and were a perennial danger to the integrity and political independence of the Iranian state. The ultimate destruction of these leaderships and the reorientation of their followers towards the new Iranian authorities, the elimination of direct British involvement in local politics, the establishment of Iranian sovereignty over the oilfields and the assertion of an Iranian presence in the Gulf, were essential steps in the realization of Riza Khan’s wider agenda. Having turned his attention towards southern Iran only at the beginning of 1922 Riza Khan had, by the end of the following year, largely succeeded in destroying the political independence and freedom of action of the Bakhtiyari khans, and had substantially diminished both their prestige and their wealth. Long before launching any frontal assault on tribal power, which he was later to do through the policies of disarmament, conscription and settlement, Riza Khan had reduced the Bakhtiyari khans to a condition of impotence and most of them to docility also. By fanning the flames of an endemic internecine discord, Riza Khan produced with the ruling families a chronic and debilitating, almost fratricidal, strife. Relying on the support of a small minority of khans to control the tribes, he confined the majority of the tribal leadership to grumbling passivity, leaving them perpetually hostile yet incapable of coherent resistance. Riza Khan’s first step was to attempt to extend peacefully the reach of his army, initially to the towns of the south and then throughout the tribal territories. As Riza Khan had succeeded in consolidating his position in Tehran and extending his military control across northern Iran, it had quickly become clear that a fundamental change had occurred both in the nature of political power in Tehran and in the character of the relationship between the centre and the provinces. As 1921 turned to 1922, this new reality permeated the consciousness of the Bakhtiyari khans who began openly to express their fears that the central government was launching a systematic attack on Bakhtiyari influence. 12

The Shalil incident In August 1922, determined to halt Riza Khan’s efforts to establish military

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control all the way down to the Gulf, the khans secretly organized an attack on the army at Shalil on the Bakhtiyari road. The Shalil incident, as it became known, proved to be the downfall of the khans. In mid-July a detachment of Iranian troops numbering 274 of all ranks, including twelve officers, had left Isfahan for Shushtar in northern Arabistan. On 2 August it was suddenly attacked by tribesmen in the Murvarid Pass on the Bakhtiyari road near Shalil in Luristan; about 115 were killed and a similar number wounded or missing, and all its weapons, animals and baggage were lost. 13 When the shattered remnants of this detachment straggled back to Isfahan they immediately identified their assailants as Bakhtiyaris, 14 although the khans publicly and steadfastly denied any involvement. 15 This incident, with its humiliation of the army, enraged nationalist opinion and unleashed a storm of anger and bitterness against the Bakhtiyari and against their patrons, the British. The Bakhtiyari were denounced as traitors and murderers in the press and in the Majlis and by the population at large, and the press clamoured for the summary execution of the khans and the mobilization of a large military force to punish the tribes. The specific allegation that the British had instigated the attack in order to prevent troops from being sent to Arabistan and were aiming at the partition of the country was repeated everywhere. 16 The Bakhtiyari khans appear to have been taken aback by the ferocity of the reaction from Tehran. They had grasped neither the new appeal of Riza Khan for nationalist circles nor the extent of their own unpopularity, their role in the restoration of the constitution having long been obliterated by their subservience to the British. They now suddenly became conscious enough of the depth of the regime’s hostility and were keen to deflect the anger and vengefulness of Tehran and to avoid an open conflict with the government. 17 Riza Khan also wanted to postpone a showdown with the khans as the political situation in the capital was becoming increasingly unstable. Finding himself embroiled in a burgeoning conflict with the Majlis, on 23 September Riza resorted to a tactical resignation, producing a generalized crisis. 18 At this moment the military was also fully occupied in its operations against Simko in Azarbaijan. For this campaign the army had been mobilized to its full strength, with 8000 to 10,000 troops concentrated in the north-west. Riza Khan and the Bakhtiyari khans therefore both indicated their readiness to embark on negotiations. None the less, Riza Khan continued to use the opportunity presented by the widespread anger at the khans to whittle away at their position. By the end of the year the khans had lost all their governorships outside Bakhtiyari itself, including the prized governor-generalship of Isfahan, their personal retainers had been forbidden to carry arms, Bakhtiyari officers had been dismissed from the army and, in a move especially resented by the khans, the military authorities had begun recruiting in Bakhtiyari-owned villages and from among the Chahar Lang Bakhtiyari tribes. 19 Sardar Jang, one of the senior khans resident in Tehran, had undertaken to negotiate with both the government and with Riza Khan personally on behalf of all the Bakhtiyari. In late September he left for the south on a mission of enquiry

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and, although his apprehensions and the fears and resentments of the other khans remained far from allayed, by December he believed that he had arranged terms which would allow the affair to be liquidated. Under these terms the khans still denied any involvement in Shalil but would pay 10,000 tumans to the victims and their families in view of the fact that the attack had taken place in their territory. 20 Riza Khan, however, had no intention of allowing the khans to regain their political equilibrium. He was well aware of the conflicts among the khans and began to exploit systematically their family quarrels with the objective of destroying them from within, and his task was made easier by elements among the khans themselves. So deep was the enmity within the Bakhtiyari ruling elite that a faction of khans, led by Ja‘afar Quli Khan Sardar As‘ad, was actively willing to side with the War Minister against the Haft Lang majority in order to secure an advantage over its rivals. Riza Khan apparently had an old military campaigning friendship with Sardar As‘ad 21 and, in late 1922 to early 1923 he devised and began to implement a scheme to use him, together with his younger brother Amir Jang, and their uncle Sardar Muhtasham, to undermine and weaken the khans’ efforts to defend themselves. These three khans were already on very bad terms with the rest of both ruling families and they eagerly embraced the war minister’s patronage. At the very moment when Sardar Jang returned to Tehran to arrange the details of the final settlement of Shalil with the Chief of the General Staff, a serious quarrel among the khans, enflamed by the War Minister, erupted in the south. The pro-Riza Khan faction first denounced, then openly campaigned against, the incumbent confederational chief the ilkhani, and his deputy the ilbaygi, finally succeeding in forcing the resignation of both. 22 They then frustrated the khans’ efforts to agree on successors and the confederation was left without any formal leadership for the next three and a half months, throughout the heightening political crisis. Meanwhile the War Minister’s attitude towards the Bakhtiyari hardened, the request for a cash indemnity of 10,000 tumans, which Sardar Jang had accepted in December, rapidly becoming a demand for 480,000 tumans, practically as a fine. The War Minister had, however, publicly exempted Sardar As‘ad’s faction from responsibility for the original attack and therefore from any share in the payment of the fine. The Haft Lang majority, although aware of the worsening situation, were unable to formulate a coherent response. They announced that they neither could nor would pay the sum demanded, practically defied the War Minister to do his worst, talked freely of armed resistance, and at the same time importuned Loraine, the British minister, to protect their interests. 23 At the same time Riza Khan’s own position had been strengthened considerably by his success in persuading Sardar As‘ad and his clique to side openly with him. Towards the end of March Riza Khan made it clear that he was determined upon a definitive resolution of the matter and he began military preparations for an attack on Bakhtiyari. Brigadier Amanallah Jahanbani, the Chief of the General Staff, went to Isfahan where he made a stirring speech to the officers of the garrison

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enjoining them to spare no efforts in putting matters right in the south and promising rewards and decorations to all who distinguished themselves in the service of their country. 24 The khans believed themselves still able to rely on British help and protection. Loraine, however, from the moment of his arrival in Tehran in late 1921, had begun a fundamental reassessment of British policy. His re-evaluation of Britain’s interests in the rapidly changing post-war world, together with his personal admiration for Riza Khan, was to culminate, in 1923 to 1924, in the abandonment of Britain’s traditional friends in southern Iran in favour of good relations with a strong central government. Although, during the first half of 1923, a certain amount of ambiguity was still present in Loraine’s attitude, none the less it was clear that he would take no decisive action to support the khans in any defiance of Tehran. The khans themselves, however, throughout the Shalil crisis and beyond, showed no grasp of the fundamental change in direction which was taking place in British policy, and were in particular oblivious to their own growing irrelevance, to the fact that the British in Iran no longer needed the Bakhtiyari as they had done in the days when the south lacked effective central government or security. The khans continued to try to cling to the vestiges of British protection even as the British themselves were in the process of changing sides. On 1 April the crisis came to a head. Riza Khan revealed to Loraine that he had had in his possession, since the previous autumn, actual proof of the khans’ complicity in Shalil, in the form of a telegram from Sardar Jang and Samsam alSaltanah, the senior khans in Tehran, instructing the ilkhani and ilbaygi to stop the troops by any means. 25 The Bakhtiyari majority immediately collapsed and admitted their involvement in the Shalil attack. A furious Loraine, while complaining of ‘the extreme difficulty of navigating in this sea of duplicity, treachery, mendacity, and concealed purposes’ 26 advised them to accept Riza Khan’s demand for a cash payment large enough to be equal to the restoration of the honour of the army and to pay up. 27 The khans were by now completely demoralized and had collectively disintegrated as a result of their internal conflicts which had reached unprecedented levels of bitterness due to the defection to the War Minister’s camp of Sardar As‘ad’s faction. At the end of April, as if in evidence of their helplessness, the khans, in what Loraine described as the ‘extremity of their folly’, 28 finally declared that they had failed to agree among themselves regarding whom should be the new ilkhani and ilbaygi. Paralysed by their own dissensions, they then requested the government itself to make the appointments. 29 This effectively turned the choice over to Riza Khan himself who had apparently already promised Sardar As‘ad’s faction that the tribal governors would be chosen from among them. On the same day, in a dramatic development in the south, the army entered and occupied Chahar Mahal, taking over several of the khans’ homes. It was now becoming clear that the crisis had peaked and the capitulation of the khans, though not yet actually accomplished, was none the less inevitable. There was no longer any serious risk of armed resistance from the tribes owing

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to the dissensions within the Bakhtiyari leadership. The tribes in the south were without their principal khans, who were all in Tehran, and were certain either to collapse or be divided by intrigue if they tried to engage in military operations under these circumstances. There was furthermore nothing to prevent Riza Khan from arresting all the khans in Tehran should they attempt to mobilize the tribes in the south. He could even resort to a forced sale of their properties in Chahar Mahal and Tehran should they prove recalcitrant. The khans, relying on the mediation of the British minister Loraine, and a loan from the oil company, capitulated and agreed to pay an indemnity of 150,000 tumans. The same day, 23 May, the appointment of the pro-government Sardar Muhtasham and Amir Jang as respectively ilkhani and ilbaygi was confirmed and Sardar As‘ad was made governor-general of Khurasan. This faction was also formally exonerated from all complicity in the Shalil incident 30 and absolved of any share in the fine. The ascendancy of the pro-Riza Khan faction within Bakhtiyari was now complete. Sardar As‘ad in particular benefited from his alliance with Riza Khan. In 1924 he was taken into the Cabinet as Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, becoming Minister of War in 1927, a post he retained until his fall from favour in late 1933. Riza Khan had now succeeded where the British and the khans themselves had failed and had stabilized the apex of the tribal pyramid, having brought about a decisive breach among the senior khans by permanently co-opting Sardar As‘ad to the side of the government and imposing a crushing financial penalty on the majority tribal leadership. This apparently permanent triumph of Sardar As‘ad meant an end to the conventional uncertainty and instability inherent in the former, collective, Bakhtiyari leadership. From 1923 to 1933 Sardar As‘ad constituted the sole but enduring Bakhtiyari presence at the centre of power, the majority of the khans abandoning any pretence at a national role.

TheKhavanin-i Buzurgand Dr Millspaugh No sooner had the khans capitulated to the War Minister’s demands over the Shalil settlement, however, than the government brought fresh pressure to bear on them in the form of a bill from Dr Millspaugh, the American financial adviser, for arrears of revenue amounting to the enormous sum of 2,300,000 tumans. 31 The American Financial Mission, headed by Arthur C.Millspaugh, had arrived in Iran in the autumn of 1922. Millspaugh had immediately embarked on a thorough and fundamental overhaul of the financial administration. A large number of new taxes were introduced, all tax exemptions granted by the Qajar shahs (including those conferred as a reward for services to the state) were cancelled, and Millspaugh also publicly identified particular individuals whom he deemed guilty of gross delinquency in the payment of taxes. 32 Among the most important of the latter were the Bakhtiyari khans who, accordingly, suddenly found themselves turned into a test case for the new Financial Mission. For Millspaugh the enforcement of the payment of

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taxes, including arrears, was vital to the restructuring of Iranian finances. For Riza Khan, however, the demand for the payment of revenue, including large accumulations of arrears, constituted, as well as a symbolic assertion of authority, a powerful weapon in his immediate struggle with refractory elements among the old elite and he used it with devastating effect throughout the south. The Ministry of Finance had originally demanded 2,300,000 tumans from the khans but, under British pressure, re-examined the case and reduced this figure to 1,500,000 tumans, offering the khans the option of paying in instalments spread over a number of years. None the less, the khans reacted with appalled incredulity. Sardar Jang as usual appealed to Loraine for advice, insisting that the money claimed was far in excess of what the khans could possibly owe, and that in any case there were very substantial sums which ought to be offset against this total. According to Sardar Jang these counter-claims consisted of the remission of revenue in respect of services rendered to the government by the khans at their own expense, particularly for their armed assistance in the constitutional wars, and as compensation for Bakhtiyaris killed in these wars, and were supported in some cases by royal firmans and other documents. 33 Loraine made the British position clear. Although he promised he would work towards a fair and reasonable assessment of the khans’ arrears, he warned the khans that there was no question but that they must now accept their financial obligations towards the government and must come to a proper agreement with the Ministry of Finance regarding both the settlement of arrears and the future payment of revenue. This was exactly the same advice he was then giving to Britain’s other protégé in the south, Shaykh Khaz‘al of Muhammarah. Loraine specifically advised Sardar Jang to prepare a statement of the revenue which the khans admitted to be owed by them to the government and to produce the various firmans and other documents to which he had referred, in order that the whole question might be discussed and resolved at a conference between the khans and the financial adviser. 34 At the same time Loraine did his best to moderate the attitude of the Ministry of Finance, urging Dr Millspaugh to be conciliatory towards the khans and not to reject their counter-claims without careful consideration. The khans, however, were unused to the formal, legalistic approach recommended by Loraine. They attempted rather to resist the financial adviser’s demand with their habitual tactic of procrastination. They tried to argue that the government owed them money rather than vice versa, and generally resisted the spirit of Loraine’s advice, showing a marked tendency to evade rather than accept what the government insisted were their obligations. 35 It was only when Peel, the British consul at Ahwaz, arrived in Tehran for his annual visit to the capital that the khans, at his insistent prompting, took any definite steps to prepare a financial statement. Peel also, at Loraine’s request, had a number of meetings with the American official who was handling the case, and presented the khans’ argument that the Ministry’s claim was inaccurate and that their ability to pay was strictly limited. 36 The khans themselves still took few practical steps in their own defence and,

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in particular, failed to make any official reply to the financial adviser’s letter which had contained the original demand. They were clearly unprepared for the speed and decisivenesss with which the Ministry of Finance would act when officials of the Revenue Department, supported by the army, promptly seized a number of private estates owned by the khans. This sudden and drastic action had its intended effect. Although the khans first engaged in a bout of protracted haggling among themselves, punctuated by threats that they would throw themselves on the mercy of the Shah, they none the less eventually wrote to Dr Millspaugh nominating Sardar Jang and the ilbaygi, Amir Jang, to represent them in discussions with the Ministry of Finance. A number of conferences duly followed, in which Peel played a crucial role in assisting the khans in the presentation of their case, and the American adviser finally agreed to accept in full settlement the sum of half a million tumans: 50,000 tumans in cash at once, and the balance in yearly instalments. 37

Internal conflicts within the Bakhtiyari confederation The junior Haft Lang khans The great khans of the Bakhtiyari had been placed on the defensive by Riza Khan’s seizure of power and, from 1921 onwards, were clearly retreating politically. By the end of 1923 their defeat and the ascendancy of the new regime had been clearly demonstrated by the character of the final settlement of the Shalil incident and their capitulation following the shock of their confrontation with the Ministry of Finance. In this period, however, the nascent state power in Tehran was not the only danger to the khans’ position. The rule of the khavanin-i buzurg was also threatened from within the tribe itself. Indeed, by the early 1920s the Bakhtiyari confederation was already disintegrating under the pressure of a number of internal dynamics. In these years, dangerous and overt schisms threatening confederational cohesion developed with greater or lesser rapidity on several levels. These internal fractures and challenges forced the khans, in order to survive as an elite, to try, however reluctantly, to accommodate themselves to and seek support from the new regime in Tehran. One early challenge came from within the Haft Lang elite itself, from the younger generation of khans. In fact, for some years before and throughout the 1920s the leadership of the khavanin-i buzurg was riven by a generational conflict of a new type, with ideological and political, as well as personal, dimensions. This conflict, although it had first arisen in the post-1909 situation, and thus in origin pre-dated the contextual transformation wrought by Riza Khan’s coup, was brought to a head by the tensions and crises erupting in Bakhtiyari as a result of the assertiveness of the new regime. The hostility displayed by the younger generation of Haft Lang khans towards their elders had two principal causes. It resulted, first, from the consistent exclusion by the senior khans of the numerous younger generation from any

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position of power either within or outside Bakhtiyari. The resulting resentment of the younger generation was dangerously aggravated by the rapid shrinkage of opportunity available to the Bakhtiyari elite after the 1921 coup. 38 After this date the immediate and visible decline in Bakhtiyari power and influence caused the younger khans’ general insecurity and uncertainty about the future to increase exponentially. The second cause of the conflict, undoubtedly related to the first, was the widespread dissatisfaction of the younger generation at what they perceived to be the general incompetence and failure of their elders and their awareness of the threat this represented to the survival of a Bakhtiyari entity. In the chaotic conditions prevailing in southern Iran during and immediately after the Great War, the younger generation of Haft Lang khans appear to have developed a certain consciousness of themselves as a group, and they shared a perception of the deterioration in the circumstances of the Bakhtiyari and the need for reform and regeneration. The cohesion of the junior khans, and their determination to act to effect change, was increasingly evident throughout the summer of 1921, and in September assumed a visible and organized form. They openly formed an association among themselves called the Bakhtiyari Star (Sitarah-i Bakhtiyari), and published in Isfahan a pamphlet which outlined the programme of this association. 39 The programme of the Bakhtiyari Star contained a large number of organizational proposals and political demands. The organizational proposals were sophisticated and the political demands of a fairly advanced and radical character. The main body of the programme began by making various recommendations for the political organization of Bakhtiyari. It advocated the establishment of a central assembly (anjuman) to deal with all questions of importance and also the establishment of assemblies in the districts and among the tribes. The assemblies were to be elected by universal suffrage although representatives had to be educated. Elections were to be secret, equal, direct and universal. The programme went on to make a number of demands regarding the political, social and cultural advancement of Bakhtiyari and for the establishment of general democratic freedoms. These included: the abolition of distinctions, ranks and titles; security for people in their homes; freedom of speech, of writing, of thought, of forming associations, of the press; separation of religion from the state; compulsory primary education for both boys and girls; free compulsory primary education for the children of the poor, both boys and girls; technical, scientific and industrial schools for both boys and girls; compulsory military education for compulsory military service when the state required it; compensation to be paid to anyone illegally arrested or sentenced; public sanitation, medicines and doctors to be free to the poor. A second article was devoted to proposals regarding land and agriculture. It began by demanding the abolition of any financial revenues which were modifications of slavery and the abolition of forced labour. It then rather startlingly put forward the demand that the sub-assemblies assume control of all forests, grazing grounds, vaqf lands and mines. The next article stipulated that

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proprietors should only own land in reasonable proportions, so that Iranian democracy may be safeguarded. There then followed several articles proposing measures aimed at improving the lot of the peasantry. These included fixing fair rents for the lease of land; compensation for natural disasters such as floods or droughts; and the establishment of agricultural schools. The next section of the programme dealt with workmen and labour, and made similar sorts of recommendations. These included the eight-hour day; a day’s holiday on Friday; no work at ‘unusual hours’; no child labour; no hard and strenuous tasks to be given to women; two months paid maternity leave for women; wages to be fixed by a council consisting of representatives of the workmen and of the employers and of the central assembly; and the supervision of industrial relations by the provincial assemblies. Subsequent articles also advocated respect for the rights of women, and insisted specifically that inheritance should be according to the laws of Islam, noting that at present nothing was given in Bakhtiyari to female children. The programme thus set out exhibited certain remarkable features. The articles calling for the limitation of landownership and linking such limitation to the preservation of Iranian democracy, and proposing the collective ownership of natural resources, and the demands for the establishment of formal institutions of democratic self-government, struck at the heart of both the political power of the khans within the tribe, and the basis of their wealth. Furthermore there was, in the programme, a clear and strong awareness of identity, and the Bakhtiyari Star was both explicitly and implicitly an ethnically based party. The first article of the section entitled ‘General Principles’ stated unambiguously that only Bakhtiyaris might enjoy membership of the party. The introduction emphasized the differences between the various peoples of Iran and their different stages of cultural and political development, and insisted on the need for separate and autonomous development, while another article insisted that each tribe separately should be allowed to enjoy internal liberty and autonomy. Two issues immediately arise concerning this document. The first concerns the general significance and wider meaning of the Bakhtiyari Star project. The second concerns the origins of the political ideas which the programme expressed and the route by which these ideas had been transmitted to the junior khans. The younger generation of khans were more clearly and more acutely aware than their elders of the weakening of traditional tribal ties. They themselves had been profoundly affected by the different environment which the Bakhtiyari elite had come to inhabit, having grown to maturity in the cities of Isfahan and Tehran, divorced from the tribal way of life and without intimate knowledge of their followers, and they keenly felt their own irrelevance to tribal life. They observed the emergence of a new tribal leadership in the form of a layer of middle-ranking kalantars, who lived alongside the ordinary nomads and carried out the everyday duties formerly reserved for the khans. They also perceived the alienation of the tribesmen from the khans and the consequent danger to their

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own leadership. They realized the essential need to carve out a new and plausible role for themselves, distinct from the discredited rule of their elders. If the existing situation continued they would never be able to oust their seniors, but would be obliged to wait for their own succession by seniority of age. But they feared that, when eventually their time arrived, they could claim little legitimacy in customary tribal terms and the tribes would no longer want or need them. The Sitarah may be seen as the junior khans’ attempt to reorganize Bakhtiyari on a new, modern basis. Instead of asserting their authority as tribal khans, they would now do so as political leaders, preserving for themselves both their own leadership and the loyalty and allegiance of their constituency, mobilizing the rank and file on a democratic and radical basis. The junior khans believed the degeneration of conditions in Bakhtiyari to be a result of the stranglehold of a corrupt and ossified leadership and the general thrust of the programme is strongly democratic. This radicalism was a weapon against their elders, with democracy used to engage the rank and file against the authority of the khans, and with legitimacy conferred by modern ideals which acted as a counterweight to the pull of traditional loyalties. The Sitarah would also undertake a redefinition of Bakhtiyari ethnicity. This would be made overt and would no longer be a tribal sense of belonging based on kin and genealogy, but a modern, quasi-national identity. Interesting as they are, the individual provisions of the programme may be less important than its overall intentions: to guarantee a leadership role for the detribalized Haft Lang families; to preserve Bakhtiyari distinctiveness and to construct a new identity for the Bakhtiyari; to interpret the needs of the population, to articulate the necessary social change, and to introduce a mode of political activity which was capable of carrying the tribal population and its leadership through the transition to modernity. The junior khans had grown up largely in the cities of Isfahan and Tehran where many had received a modern education. They had extensive experience of Europe, through travel or, in some cases, through an English education in missionary schools in Isfahan. It was natural that, in these environments, they would imbibe the nationalism and social reformism prevailing among the educated urban elites during the constitutional and post-constitutional years. 40 The Sitarah programme was in many respects typical of this outlook and there is some evidence of concrete links between the junior khans and local urban reformers such as Kay Ustuvan Khan-i Mu‘tamid, the president of the Isfahan branch of the Kumitah-i Ahan, the Iron Committee, who seems to have suggested some of the programme’s main features. 41 The influence of European social-democratic thought on the programme is clearly evident, perhaps as mediated through the newly established Soviet presence in Isfahan. 42 The programme’s concern for the lot of the peasantry and the conditions of workmen is particularly surprising, in that it emanates from a class of landowners and has little direct relevance to nomadic life. It indicates the extent to which the junior khans had moved away from the tribal and nomadic milieu;

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there was indeed nothing in the programme which related directly to the needs of pastoral nomadism. The programme was entirely and recognizably the product of modern urban traditions of political reform. It is also possible that demands relating to the conditions of industrial employment, such as the eighthour day and so on, may have been raised as a direct consequence of the experience of many Bakhtiyari tribesmen of working in the oilfields. The Bakhtiyari Star, with its objective of constructing a modern identity for the Bakhtiyari and articulating the need for and direction of political and social change, contained a clear challenge to the traditional rule of the senior khans. The reaction of the latter was predictable. They began their counter-attack by severely criticizing individual points contained in the programme and ended by denouncing the younger khans as Bolsheviks. 43 The Sitarah continued to exist throughout the summer of 1922, under the leadership of Sardar Fatih, and the junior khans, while attaching great theoretical importance to generalized reform, concentrated their efforts on minor improvements and obliged the reluctant senior khans to undertake some improvements to local roads and communications. 44 However, the senior khans’ unco-operativeness and cynicism successfully frustrated any broader social changes which the junior khans attempted to initiate. The eruption of the Shalil crisis in mid-1922 and the ensuing assault by the regime on the khans temporarily submerged the discontent of the junior khans and the Sitarah then sank without trace. None the less, the junior khans remained unreconciled to the rule of their elders and to the confederation’s increasing subordination to the central government, and certain of them continued to play an oppositional role in internal tribal politics, a generational fault line continuing to fissure the confederation throughout the decade. The tribal rank and file One of the most important factors prompting the junior khans to try to develop new political strategies and initiatives had been the increasing, and increasingly obvious, alienation of the mass of ordinary tribespeople from chiefly rule. By the early 1920s the khans’ ties with, and their influence over, the tribes were rapidly weakening. The senior khans were losing, indeed were abandoning, their tribal base, from which they had historically derived their strength and which had always been the source of their power. The discontent of the tribes with their khans was not new in 1921. Indeed, a certain resentment was perhaps endemic. 45 However, as a dangerous phenomenon, it had, like the frustrations of the junior khans, its origins in the situation which had arisen between 1908 and 1911 when the khans had begun to play a national role and to acquire both great wealth and the trappings of office. Since that time the tribes’ dissatisfaction had increased steadily. By 1921 these feelings showed no sign of abating but had reached such a pitch that the tribal hierarchy threatened to disintegrate under the pressure. 46 After 1909 a gulf had opened up between the ruling khans and their nomadic

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followers, and the distance separating them, in cultural, political, economic and even purely geographical terms, had continued to widen. The fathers of the senior khans had been in every respect tribal chiefs. They had lived with their families in black goat-hair tents, migrating each spring and autumn with their followers. They lived intimately with their tribesmen and derived legitimacy from the quality of their leadership. By the 1920s, however, the khans had long since ceased to accompany the tribes. They had settled down in what their followers regarded as palaces, which they had built in Chahar Mahal, a province adjacent to but quite distinct from Bakhtiyari. Many of them had taken up a more or less permanent residence in Tehran, and visited Bakhtiyari only rarely. Their wives had adopted veiling in imitation of town-dwellers. They no longer shared their people’s lives as their fathers had done and their position as leaders, arbitrators and rulers no longer depended on their abilities and experience but was artificially maintained by their wealth and their ties with the British. 47 The Bakhtiyari people keenly resented these developments. They argued that it was by exploiting tribal ties that the khans had persuaded them to take up arms and leave their country to win for them their national eminence. Having won for the khans their high positions the tribesmen believed themselves entitled to a share of the new power and wealth in the same way as they were entitled to shares of resources in Bakhtiyari itself. They felt cheated by the growing gulf between themselves and their khans, who now lived in grand houses, sent their children to Europe and governed provinces, and they considered the reciprocal basis of tribal life to have been violated. They accused the khans of appealing to their sentiments of Bakhtiyari solidarity when convenient, but of going back on this principle when it came to dividing the spoils. 48 The disillusionment felt by the tribespeople towards their khans was fully reciprocated. 49 The khans’ wealth was now drawn mainly from their landholdings and their oil interests, their salaries as ilkhani and ilbaygi being of minor importance and their own flocks a negligible factor. The khans, their transformation into absentee landlords and their absorption into the traditional urban elite now largely complete, were eager to divest themselves of responsibility for their followers by the 1920s. This was especially so because of the system of basta kashi. With their rapid ascent, the khans had dispensed with the customary tribal division of resources but, aware of the necessity of maintaining a hold over their followers, had converted them into armed retainers (bastagan), dependent on regular cash payments, the system known as basta kashi. By the early 1920s their bastagan no longer served any useful purpose for the khans, who found them to be only a drain on their resources and they were highly receptive to suggestions that the bastagan be disarmed and dissolved. 50 The khans’ opportunity to rid themselves of their bastagan came in 1925. In the summer of 1925, after the submission of the Shaykh of Muhammarah, the regime in Tehran made a major attempt to disarm the civilian population throughout the south. 51 But rural disarmament was a complex and difficult task and the military authorities met with only mixed success, imposing the policy mainly on the settled communities while leaving much of the nomadic

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population with its weapons. Yet although other southern tribal confederations such as the Qashqa’i and the Khamsah largely escaped or avoided the military authorities’ efforts in this period, the army was largely successful in disarming the Bakhtiyari. But the policy was imposed unevenly even among the Bakhtiyari tribes, the Haft Lang being almost completely, but the Chahar Lang only partially, disarmed. 52 The Haft Lang Bakhtiyari succumbed to disarmament relatively easily and quickly because of the active co-operation of their khans. Immediately Riza Khan had declared his intention to begin disarmament in the south, he had begun negotiations with the ilkhani regarding the implementation of the policy, Riza asking the ilkhani whether he needed troops to help him, the ilkhani declining. In fact, unlike other tribal leaderships, the senior Bakhtiyari khans welcomed the measure and co-operated readily with the government. 53 The policy was implemented in Bakhtiyari only and entirely by the khans themselves, without any outside intervention, either civil or military. In this way the khans threw off the financial burden of maintaining their bastagan but in so doing lost one of their remaining pillars of influence among the tribes. The Chahar Lang During 1923 another fault line within the Bakhtiyari tribal confederation had begun to fissure. The confederation consisted of the two major lineages of the Haft Lang and the Chahar Lang and, during the late nineteenth century, the Chahar Lang had drifted into subordination to the Haft Lang and its khans had found no place within the Ilkhani/Haji Ilkhani ascendancy. 54 In the early 1920s Riza Khan’s primary targets among the Bakhtiyari were the ruling great khans of the Haft Lang whose autonomy and power he wished to weaken and undermine. He accordingly adopted a policy of conciliation towards the subordinate Chahar Lang Bakhtiyari tribes, attempting to drive a wedge between the two branches of the confederation. As in the case of his overtures to Sardar As‘ad, he met again with an enthusiastic response. Elements among the Chahar Lang, led by the formidable Bibi Maryam, were eager to seize the opportunity to break away from the control of the Haft Lang khans and pressed Riza Khan to adopt a policy of complete separation. 55 In the early summer of 1923, while the crisis over the Shalil incident was still unresolved, Riza launched a campaign which had as its objective the removal of the Chahar Lang from the authority of the Haft Lang ilkhani and ilbaygi. The Tehran government duly ordered the separation of the Chahar Lang tribes, numbering some 2000 families, from the Bakhtiyari hukumat, and placed them under their own ilkhani and ilbaygi, who were made completely independent of any central tribal authority, and the Bakhtiyari confederation, unified since the mid-nineteenth century, collapsed. The Haft Lang ilkhani and ilbaygi threatened repeatedly to resign unless Riza Khan restored their authority over the whole of Bakhtiyari, yet, in response to these threats and to ardent appeals from both the Haft Lang khans and the British about the danger of chaos and anarchy among the tribes and especially in the vicinity of the oilfields, Riza Khan merely insisted that only the Chahar Lang

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themselves could decide whether to submit to the Haft Lang khans. 56 When the Haft Lang attempted to reassert their authority and fighting broke out between them and the Chahar Lang, Riza Khan sent the army to support the Chahar Lang chiefs in their autonomy. The centrifugal tendencies within the confederation having been thus stimulated, another subdivision, the Janaki, also began to demand their autonomy from the Haft Lang hukumat, which they achieved in 1924. 57 The peasantry As the 1920s wore on, the khans began to experience another type of challenge to their position, this time in their capacity as landowners. The khans, in common with the landowning elite in general, frequently imposed extremely harsh conditions on their peasantry. In 1928 the peasants in the khans’ villages in Chahar Mahal revolted against their authority, claimed that the land and the water belonged to God, and that the produce of the land belonged to those who worked the land, namely themselves. 58 They refused to pay anything to the khans or to give them the share of the produce customarily due to them. Discontent and action of this kind had in fact begun in one or two villages several years before, in 1924, but it was only in the summer of 1928, when it received some definite official encouragement, that it spread to a large number of villages and a committee of peasants was formed. This committee adopted a programme and began to direct the movement, and from this point on the peasants began to demonstrate an openly threatening attitude towards their landlords, the khans. 59 In this peasant movement the government saw an opportunity to strike further at the position of the khans. The khans themselves were refused any official help against the peasants, and any action which the khans tried to take resulted in appeals by the peasants, assisted by the village committee, to the new ‘adliyyah courts. 60 The prestige of the khans was dealt a further blow when they were, in the middle of this dispute, deprived of their last remaining non-tribal official position, the governorship of Chahar Mahal itself. 61 The khans, aware of the suspicion with which they were still regarded by the Shah, and convinced that he was determined to damage their interests even more, found themselves powerless against their peasants, who received a consistently sympathetic hearing from the authorities. During the summer some of the committee went to Tehran and were actually received by the Prime Minister. At this point, however, the government began to retreat and sent a commission to Chahar Mahal to investigate. This commission examined the peasants’ grievances and the khans’ title to the land in dispute, and in July submitted their report which, in almost all villages, was in fact in favour of the khans. The villagers nevertheless refused to accept the decisions of the commission, with the result that Tehran replaced the new civil governor of Chahar Mahal with a military officer, who was authorized to use force if necessary to oblige the peasants to abide by the decisions of the commission and

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to pay the landlords their dues. The military governor was determined to carry out his instructions, and with his help the khans again began to receive from their peasants the payments in kind and cash to which they believed themselves entitled as landowners. 62 Although the government had supported the peasants initially as a tactic to weaken the Bakhtiyari khans, an awareness appears to have spread quickly through the landowning elite at large and to Riza Shah himself of the danger of any permanent peasant success against the khans, especially in stimulating peasants elsewhere to try to emulate their actions. It was probably only this danger that induced the Shah finally to uphold the khans’ rights as landowners. The khans themselves, however, had been thoroughly cowed by their experience and now confined themselves to seeking to obtain only what they considered to be the minimum of their just dues. The khans were worried further by the fact that the Bakhtiyari tribesmen, although they had not been involved in the peasant rebellion, had none the less followed it with close attention. The khans feared the possibility that the revolutionary ideas animating the peasantry might lead to trouble among the tribes. Such a development was by no means unlikely given the political radicalism expressed periodically by some of the younger khans, the resentment of the rank and file, and the latter’s inchoately but insistently expressed demand for a more equitable division of resources. There was no doubt that the tribesmen were being influenced to some degree by their contact with the new ideas current among the peasantry of Chahar Mahal. The British took the khans’ fears one stage further, expressing concern that, should the tribesmen adopt the ideas of the peasants, the resulting turmoil might reach the oilfields at Masjid-i Sulayman where a large number of Bakhtiyaris were employed. 63

The Bakhtiyari and the modernizing state: the 1929 rebellion By the late 1920s the great khans had lost all of their power, most of their influence and a considerable proportion of their wealth. Their authority was limited solely to their chieftainship of the Haft Lang tribes and even this was now disputed by the raft of reforms introduced by the regime in the mid- to late 1920s. For example, the new Ministry of Justice, the Adliyyah, began to undermine the patriarchal dispensation of justice by the khans within the tribe while Millspaugh’s financial reforms had turned the khans from tax farmers into little more than officials of the Ministry of Finance. Furthermore, the regime’s radical agenda was no longer threatening only the position of the great khans. In these years several major pieces of legislation were enacted which promised to have, cumulatively and in the long term, a profound effect on general conditions in Bakhtiyari and on the tribal way of life. In 1924 the Majlis passed laws providing for the conduct of a national census and for the establishment of a bureau for the registration of births and deaths. These measures were the necessary preliminaries to the introduction of

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conscription, the compulsory military service law being passed in 1925. Although no systematic attempts to take recruits from the tribes were made until the 1930s, yet apprehension at the measure was widespread and profound. 64 The Uniform Dress Law, passed by the Majlis in December 1928, threatened the symbolic expression and reproduction of tribal identity. In 1928 and 1929 extensive legislation was passed concerning the registration of landed property and title deeds, potentially undermining the tribespeople’s customary rights to pastures. During 1927 a policy with which Riza Shah was to become particularly identified, and for which he attracted especial opprobrium from the tribes, also began to be discussed in earnest: the prohibition of pastoral nomadism and the forced settlement of the nomadic tribes on the land and their conversion into agriculturalists. 65 In 1929 the fears of the tribes at the imposition of the accumulating new legislation allied with the resentments of some of the younger generation of khans to produce the most serious disturbance in Bakhtiyari of the Riza Shah period. At the beginning of 1929 the apparent calm prevailing throughout most of rural Iran was abruptly shattered. One by one, the tribal areas of western, southern, central and south-eastern Iran erupted into rebellion, the south almost slipping out of government control altogether. These upheavals were all precipitated by broadly similar grievances arising from Tehran’s centralizing drive. The tribes were angry at the attempts made by the government to disarm them, they were embittered over the ever-increasing taxes they were forced to pay, they hated the new dress law, feared the growing reach of the conscription commissions, and the imposition of the census registration which was their preliminary, resented the frequent replacement of their own leaders by military officers, suffered from the establishment of new government monopolies on commodities such as opium and tobacco and were apprehensive at the activities of the Department for the Registration of Title Deeds and at rumours of forced sedentarization. The tribal revolts began in January with a serious outbreak in Kurdistan, in the early summer the province of Fars descended into turmoil as first the Qashqa’i and then the Khamsah rose up, and by early July there were signs of impending trouble in Bakhtiyari. 66 Although generally motivated by similar grievances, each tribal outbreak also had its own specific concerns. An important element of the Bakhtiyari revolt was the continuing discontent of the junior khans at the rule of their elders, now living the lives of absentee landlords in Tehran and completely divorced from tribal affairs. A number of junior Haft Lang khans, notably Sardar Fatih and Sardar Iqbal, together with the Chahar Lang khan, Ali Mardan Khan Chahar Lang, and Sardar Fatih’s brother-in-law, Sartip Khan of the Kuhgilu, thus put themselves at the head of a growing feeling of tribal revolt at government oppression to lead a movement which was as much directed against the senior khans as at Tehran. 67 The Bakhtiyari were, however, not in open revolt as a confederation. The rebels were composed almost entirely of the Zarasvand tribe of the Haft Lang, the tribe from which the great khans were drawn, and the

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Chahar Lang under Ali Mardan Khan and it seems that the overall leader of the revolt was Ali Mardan Khan. 68 Apparently inspired by the example of the Qashqa’i, the rebel Bakhtiyari put forward demands that the Uniform Dress Law and conscription should not be applied to them, and for the abolition of the Census Department, the Department for the Registration of Title Deeds, and the government monopolies. 69 There is some evidence, however, that certain of the younger khans had more ambitious objectives and hoped to use the rebellion to realize fundamental change not just within Bakhtiyari but in the regime at Tehran itself. Sardar Fatih, for example, apparently drew up detailed plans for the capture of Isfahan and Tehran and for the deposition of Riza Shah. 70 Sardar As‘ad Bakhtiyari, the Minister of War, had himself concluded that subversive propaganda by the younger khans against their elders was responsible for the rebellion and that it was a movement of the younger khans against both the old leadership and the government. Expressing the view of many of the senior khans in Tehran, he favoured a strong response to the rebellion and informed the Shah that, in his opinion, the only thing to be done was to send the army to teach these recalcitrant khans and tribesmen a lesson. 71 Hostilities between the Bakhtiyari and the army actually began in early July when a series of military engagements left the tribesmen with the upper hand. The army had been forced to fall back to a defensive position outside Isfahan itself when Riza Shah, in a state of intense anxiety and aware of the army’s weakness, decided it was necessary to have recourse to conciliatory methods. 72 He summoned several meetings of the senior khans in Tehran and finally sent two of the most venerable, Samsam al-Saltanah and Amir Mufakham, to the south to use their influence to restrain the tribes. Samsam succeeded where the army had failed and persuaded the tribesmen to disperse. In return the unpopular ilkhani, the brother of Sardar As‘ad, the Minister of War, and the ilbaygi were removed and the tribes allowed to choose their successors, the hated military governor of Chahar Mahal was removed, and the leaders of the revolt were given pardons by the Shah, who also promised that conscription would not be applied to the Bakhtiyari for five years. The tribal insurgencies of 1929, particularly of the Bakhtiyari and the Qashqa’i, threatened the government with the loss of its control throughout south-central and southern Iran. The popular perception of the weakening of central control encouraged the peasantry to defy the new government opium monopoly and gave renewed impetus to those elements in the towns who were determined to resist the clothing law and conscription. During July, for example, when the Bakhtiyari revolt was at its fiercest, Pahlavi hats were discarded by the poorer classes in Isfahan with impunity. 73 By the autumn, however, the tribes had been largely conciliated and had dispersed on their migrations. They had achieved no real redress of their grievances but only paper concessions, and the civil and military authorities were able to regroup and rebuild their position. The 1929 uprising was the final attempt by the Bakhtiyari to resist the central government. In 1932 Tehran began to make serious efforts to implement the

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policy of sedentarization, which had first been discussed in the mid-1920s. At the beginning of the year the ilkhani gave a guarantee in writing that after that winter the tribes would give up the migration and would settle permanently in either the summer or winter quarters. At the same time Riza Shah aggressively pursued his objective of severing the southern tribes from their hereditary leaders. The Bakhtiyari khans, as well as other tribal leaders, Sawlat al-Dawlah of the Qashqa’i, Qavam al-Mulk of the Khamsah, and Shaykh Khaz’al of Muhammarah, had all been for some time compelled to remain permanently in Tehran. Now matters came to a head. In August 1932 Sawlat al-Dawlah and his eldest son were imprisoned and in August 1933 Sawlat was murdered in prison. In November Sardar As‘ad, still Minister of War, a large number of Bakhtiyari khans and Qavam al-Mulk of the Khamsah were arrested and accused of plotting against the Shah’s life. 74 In April 1934 Sardar As‘ad was murdered in prison and, in November, eight people implicated in the so-called Bakhtiyari plot were executed; four were Bakhtiyaris, two Boyr-Ahmadis, one Qashqa’i and one Mamasani. Among those executed were Sardar Fatih, Ali Mardan Khan Chahar Lang and Sartip Khan Kuhgilu, leaders of the 1929 revolt who had all been pardoned previously by the Shah. Twenty others, all Bakhtiyaris, were sentenced to long prison terms, including four khans to life. 75 These imprisonments and executions produced little reaction among the tribes in the south. Even as the arrests had been carried out, Riza Shah had been able to rely on elements within Bakhtiyari loyal to him to carry out his orders. The Shah told the ilkhani and the ilbaygi that they were to remain at their posts and they telegraphed this information to their subordinates, the tribal kalantars and kadkhudas with the instruction that things were to carry on as normal. In any case the tribes were in no position to show any resistance. Their economy, like that of rural Iran generally, had been deteriorating for some time, while the introduction of conscription in the more accessible areas of Bakhtiyari had added to the tribes’ hardship by creating a shortage of labour. 76 Disarmed, heavily taxed, under pressure to settle, despite the fact that a government building commission had itself enumerated the massive difficulties involved in preparing suitable permanent dwellings, and now effectively leaderless, the tribal population was profoundly demoralized. 77 During the 1920s each sector of tribal society had perceived differently the consequences of and opportunities presented by rapid social change. Each group had responded according to its own immediate interests, eagerness to secure advantage in internal tribal conflict easily overcoming fear of the Tehran regime, and each had allowed itself to be co-opted by the regime in the pursuit of its own limited objectives. By the early 1930s Riza Shah was able to dispense with all the Bakhtiyari factions. The power of the khans was destroyed and, from then on, the only response available to the tribes to the political repression, economic hardship and forced settlement of the 1930s was a retreat into banditry.

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Notes 1 There is some discussion of the first Pahlavi regime’s tribal policies in Richard Tapper, Frontier Nomads of Iran: A Political and Social History of the Shahsevan (Cambridge, 1997); Lois Beck, The Qashqa’i of Iran (New Haven and London, 1986); Pierre Oberling, The Qashqa’i Nomads of Fars (The Hague, 1974). 2 For the Bakhtiyari prior to the rise of Riza Khan, Gene Garthwaite, Khans and Shahs: A documentary analysis of the Bakhtiyari in Iran (Cambridge, 1983) is invaluable. Some historical information and attempts at constructing theoretical frameworks for the study of the Bakhtiyari, although from an anthropological perspective, may be found in David Brooks, ‘The Enemy Within: Limitations on Leadership in the Bakhtiari’, and Jean-Pierre Digard, ‘On the Bakhtiari: Comments on “Tribes, Confederation and the State”’, both in Richard Tapper (ed.), The Conflict of Tribe and State in Iran and Afghanistan (London, 1983). 3 The memoirs of Ja‘afar Quli Khan Sardar As‘ad have been edited and published but, although they are concerned largely with the 1920s and early 1930s when Sardar As‘ad occupied a succession of high government positions, they provide little insight into the inner workings of the regime. Ja‘afar Quli Khan, Amir Bahadur, Khatirat-i Sardar As‘ad Bakhtiyari, edited by Iraj Afshar (Tehran, 1372). 4 For some Iranian army views of tribal campaigning see, inter alia, Kavih Bayat, ‘Asha’ir az Didgah-i Manabi‘-yi Nizami-yi Mu‘asir 1300–1350’, Tarikh-i Mu‘asiri Iran, vol. 1, winter 1372, pp. 121–139; Ahmad Amirahmadi, Khatirat-i Nakhustin Sipahbud-i Iran (Tehran, 1373); Kavih Bayat (ed.), ‘Amaliyyat-i Luristan: Asnad-i Sartip Muhammad Shahbakhti, 1303 va 1306 shamsi (Tehran, n.d.). 5 For a discussion of the army’s operational difficulties in this period see Stephanie Cronin, The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran (London and New York, 1997). 6 Ibid. 7 For the Bakhtiyari in the nineteenth century see Garthwaite, Khans and Shahs. 8 Ibid. 9 The Qashqa’i seem, paradoxically, to have stabilized in opposition to the British; see Beck, The Qashqa’i of Iran. 10 W.T.Strunk, ‘The Reign of Shaykh Khaz‘al ibn Jabir and the Suppression of the Principality of ‘Arabistan: a study in British imperialism in south-western Iran, 1897–1925’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Indiana, 1977. 11 See Garthwaite, Khans and Shahs. 12 Loraine to FO, 30 December 1921, FO 371/7802/E6/6/34. 13 Loraine to FO, 13 August 1922, FO 371/7807/E8043/6/34. 14 Loraine to FO, 22 August 1922, FO 371/7808/E8385/6/34. 15 Fitzpatrick, Isfahan, to Minister, Tehran, 3 August 1922, FO 371/7809/E9337/6/34; Loraine to FO, 13 August 1922, FO 371/7807/E8043/6/34. 16 Intelligence Summary no. 33, 19 August 1922, FO 371/7828/E10849/285/34; Loraine to FO, 22 August 1922, FO 371/7808/E8403/6/34; IS no. 35, 2 September 1922, FO 371/7828/E10188/285/34. 17 Loraine to FO, 9 August 1922, FO 371/7807/E7956/6/34. 18 For the general political background see Houshang Sabahi, British Policy in Persia,

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19

20 21

22 23 24 25

26 27

28 29 30 31

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

40 41

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1918–1925 (London, 1990); Cyrus Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah: From Qajar Collapse to Pahlavi Power (London and New York, 1998). Annual Report 1923, Loraine to MacDonald, 4 March 1924, FO 371/10153/E3362/ 2635/34; Crow, Isfahan, to Minister, Tehran, 19 November 1922, FO 371/9043/ E6343/1416/34. An account of Sardar Jang’s mission of enquiry may be found in Loraine to Curzon, 10 May 1923, FO 371/9043/E6343/1416/34. Annual Report 1923. According to Muhammad Taqi Bahar, for example, Riza Khan served under the command of Sardar As‘ad in an operation against the tribal forces of Rahim Khan Chalabianlu in the Ardabil region during the constitutional wars. Muhammad Taqi Bahar, Malik al-Shu‘ara, Tarikh-i Mukhtasar-i Ahzab-i Siyasi-yi Iran (Tehran, 1323), vol. 1, p. 71. Loraine to Curzon, 10 May 1923, FO 371/9043/E6343/1416/34. Annual Report 1923. IS no. 16, 21 April 1923, FO 371/9019/E5824/69/34. Loraine to FO, 2 April 1923, FO 371/9042/E3431/1416/34; Loraine to FO, 6 May 1923, FO 371/9043/E4580/1416/34; Consul, Ahwaz, to Loraine, 15 July 1923, FO 371/9043/E8161/1416/34. Loraine to Curzon, May 10 1923, FO 371/9043/E6343/1416/34. Riza Khan set out his demand for compensation ‘commensurate with the honour of the Army’ in two letters to Loraine, dated 1 and 3 May. FO 371/9043/E6343/1416/ 34. Loraine to FO, 30 April 1923, FO 371/9043/E4392/1416/34. Ibid. Loraine to Curzon, 6 September 1923, FO 371/9043/E10191/1416/34. For an appreciation of the size of this sum, it may be noted, for example, that the budget for the year 1924 to 1925 provided only for revenue of nearly 23 million tumans. IS no. 42, 18 October 1924, FO 371/10132/E10388/255/34. A.C.Millspaugh, The American Task in Persia (New York, 1925), pp. 185–188. Loraine to Curzon, 6 September 1923, FO 371/9043/E10191/1416/34. Ibid. Annual Report, 1923. Loraine to Curzon, 6 September 1923, FO 371/9043/E10191/1416/34. Ibid. Annual Report, 1922, Loraine to Curzon, 16 July 1923, FO 371/9051/E8057/8057/ 34. The programme may be found in Bridgeman to Curzon, 5 October 1921, FO 371/ 6407/E13435/2/34. A very slightly amended version of this programme, produced in response to the severe criticism which had greeted its first appearance, may be found in Consul-General, Isfahan, to Loraine, 17 February 1922, FO 371/7805/E4742/6/34. The programme is also reproduced in Rawshanak Bakhtiyar, ‘Zindigi va Marg-i Khan Baba Khan As‘ad’, Kitab-i Anzan, Vizhah-i Farhang, Hunar, Tarikh va Tamaddun-i Bakhtiyari, vol. 1, pp. 76–98. Rawshanak Bakhtiyar, ‘Zindigi va Marg-i Khan Baba Khan As‘ad’, p. 86. Bridgeman to Curzon, 5 October 1921, FO 371/6407/E13435/2/34; Consul-General Isfahan, to Loraine, 17 February 1922, FO 371/7805/E4742/6/34. The Kumitah-i Ahan was an association of moderate reformers once headed by Sayyid Ziya; see Husayn Makki, Tarikh-i Bist Salah-i Iran, 8 vols (Tehran, 1323), vol. 1, pp. 188–

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189. 42 The Soviet Consulate in Isfahan opened in June 1922. 43 Consul-General, Isfahan, to Loraine, 17 February 1922, FO 371/7805/E4742/6/34; Annual Report, 1922. 44 Fitzpatrick, Consul, Ahwaz, to minister, Tehran, 20 July 1922, FO 371/7809/E9958/ 6/34. 45 Major Noel’s report, Isfahan, 12 May 1921, FO 371/6405/E9256/2/34. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Loraine to Curzon, 13 November 1923, FO 371/9043/E11754/1416/34. 51 IS no. 21, 8 August 1925, FO 371/10842/E5218/82/34. 52 The Bakhtiari Tribe, C.A.Gault, Consul, Isfahan, 1944, L/P&S/12/3546. 53 The Bakhtiyari governor of Chahar Mahal, Sardar Mu‘azzam, was especially instrumental in the implementation of the policy. Bahram Amiri, ‘Zindiginamah: Hamasah-i Ali Mardan Khan Bakhtiyari’, Kitab-i Anzan, Vizhah-i Farhang, Hunar, Tarikh va Tamaddun-i Bakhtiyari, vol. 2, pp. 73–90. 54 The Bakhtiari Tribe, C.A.Gault, Consul, Isfahan, 1944, L/P&S/12/3546. 55 Loraine to Curzon, 20 September 1923, FO 371/9043/E10202/1416/34. For Bibi Maryam see Julie Oehler, ‘Bibi Maryam: A Bakhtiyari Tribal Woman’, in Edmund Burke 111 (ed.), Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East (London and New York, 1993), pp. 129–142. 56 Consul-General, Isfahan, to Consul, Ahwaz, 10 October 1923; Consul-General, Isfahan, to Consul, Ahwaz, 11 October 1923; Peel, Ahwaz, to Tehran, 13 October, 1923; Consul-General, Isfahan, to Consul, Ahwaz, 14 October 1923; ConsulGeneral, Isfahan, to Consul, Ahwaz, 15 October 1923; Monson, Tehran, to Peel, Ahwaz, 16 October 1923; Peel, Ahwaz, to Loraine, 21 October 1923, FO 371/9043/E11815/1416/34. 57 Loraine to Curzon, 13 November 1923, FO 371/9043/E11754/1416/34; Annual Report, 1924, Loraine to Chamberlain, 22 May 1925, FO 371/10848/E3401/3401/ 34. 58 Report on the Situation in Bakhtiari, 22 September 1928, R.G.Monypenny, Consul, Ahwaz, FO 416/83/pp. 141–146. 59 There is a brief description of the general character of relations between landowners as a class and the peasantry in Ann K.S.Lambton, Landlord and Peasant in Persia (London, 1953), p. 263; for a discussion of peasant movements in modern Iran see Janet Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906–1911: Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, and the Origins of Feminism (New York, 1996), pp. 145–176. 60 The modern secular courts established through the reorganization of the judicial system by Ali Akbar Davar, Minister of Justice, in 1927. 61 Their last in the sense of a post as a Bakhtiyari right or possession. Although Sardar As‘ad remained Minister of War this was because of his own personal standing with the Shah, not because the Bakhtiyari had any special customary rights in relation to the post. 62 Report on the Situation in Bakhtiari, 22 September 1928, R.G.Monypenny, Consul, Ahwaz, FO 416/83/pp. 141–146.

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63 Ibid. 64 See Stephanie Cronin, ‘Conscription and Popular Resistance in Iran, 1925–1941’, International Review of Social History, vol. 43, 1998, pp. 451–471. 65 This policy appears to have been first considered concretely in relation to the Lurs. See Annual Report, 1927, Clive to Chamberlain, 21 May 1928, FO 371/13069/E2897/ 2897/34. By 1928 the government was already building walled villages for the settlement of the nomadic Lurs. Annual Report, 1928, Clive to Henderson, 14 July 1929, FO 371/13799/E3676/3676/34. For the Shah’s intention, by 1928, to apply this policy to the Bakhtiyari see Report on the Situation in Bakhtiari, 22 September 1928, R.G.Monypenny, Consul, Ahwaz, FO 416/83/pp. 141–146. 66 Annual Report, 1929, Clive to Henderson, 30 April 1930, FO 371/14543/E2445/ 522/34. An account of the Qashqa’i rising may be found in Kavih Bayat, Shurish-i ‘Asha’ir-i Fars (Tehran, 1365). 67 Clive to Henderson, 27 July 1929, FO 371/13782/E3918/95/34. 68 IS no. 15, 27 July 1929, FO 371/13785/E3919/104/34; Ja‘afar Quli Khan Amir Bahadur (ed.), Khatirat-i Sardar As‘ad Bakhtiyari (Tehran, 1372), pp. 232–233; Bahram Amiri, ‘Zindiginamah: Hamasah-i ‘Ali Mardan Khan Bakhtiyari’, pp. 78– 79. 69 Clive to Henderson, 27 July 1929, FO 371/13782/E3918/95/34. 70 Knatchbull-Hugessen to Simon, 1 December 1934, FO 371/17889/E7530/40/34. 71 Consul-General Bristow, Isfahan, to Clive, Tehran, 11 July 1929, FO 371/13781/ E3668/95/34; Ja‘afar Quli Khan Amir Bahadur (ed.), Khatirat-i Sardar As‘ad Bakhtiyari (Tehran, 1372), pp. 232–233. 72 Clive to Henderson, 10 August 1929, FO 371/13782/E4084/95/34. 73 Ibid. Isfahan had been the centre of the anti-conscription movement two years before; see Stephanie Cronin, ‘Conscription and Popular Resistance in Iran’. 74 Hoare to Simon, 16 December 1933, FO 371/17889/E41/40/34. 75 Knatchbull-Hugessen to Simon, 1 December 1934, FO 371/17889/E7530/40/34. See also Rawshanak Bakhtiyar, ‘Zindigi va Marg-i Khan Baba Khan As‘ad’. 76 Annual Report, 1933, Hoare to Simon, 24 February 1934, FO 371/17090/E1620/ 1620/34. 77 Memorandum respecting the Bakhtiari Tribes, A.E.Watkinson, Consul, Ahwaz, October 1933, Mallet to Simon, 20 October 1933, FO 371/16970/E6755/5362/34.

INDEX Page references for illustrations are in italics abdication31 ‘Abduh, Muhammad179 Abish Khan223 Abrahamian, Ervand78 abrogation of capitulations6, 78, 85–90, 96; and clergy85, 87; contexts94–6; Millspaugh Mission88–9 Acton, Lord80 ‘Adl al-Mulk see Dadgar, Husayn adult education123 Afghani, Sayyid Jamal al-Din183 Afghanistan4, 96, 166, 198 Afshar, Mahmud20, 145 Afshar, Mastureh153, 157 Agaoglu, Ahmet103–6 agriculture220, 226, 249 Ahar222 Ahmad Shahxiii , 20, 62, 63, 67; deposition69, 74; and Mudarris68, 73 air force37 Akhavi, Shahrough83 Akhundzadeh, Mirza Fath Ali153 ‘Ala, Husayn Khan70, 132, 133 Alam, Amir Asadollah195 ‘Alam, Ibrahim see Shawkat (Shukat) al-Mulk, Amir of Qayinat and Sistan Alam-e Nesvan 3, 7, 153–4, 170; clothing and fashion172–5; family law reform159–63; unveiling196, 197; veiling and unveiling166–72; women’s employment163–6 Alarlu221, 223, 226 ‘Alavi, Buzurg30, 134 ‘Aleshan Khan (Geyikli)222, 223, 225 Ali Mardan Khan Chahar Lang255–6, 257 Amanullah, King of Afghanistan166, 190, 191 Amir Arshad222–3, 230 Amir ‘Ashayer (Shatranlu)222, 223, 224 Amir Aslan Bey (‘Isalu)222, 225

Index

283

Amir Jang (Bakhtiyari)244, 245, 247 Amir Mufakham (Bakhtiyari)256 Amirahmadi, General Ahmad Aqa20, 44, 45, 210 Amir-Fazli, General Isma’il Agha44 ‘Amiri, Sultan Muhammad Khan22 anarchy218 Anatolia105, 106 Anglo-Persian Agreement 191916, 95 Anglo-Persian Oil Companyxxv , 62, 80, 84, 125 Anglo-Russian Agreement 1907105, 217 Angut227 Ankara95, 97, 99–103 Ansari, Fatemeh164 anti-Americanism78 Anushiravan17 Anvar23 Anzali160 Aqa Muhammad Khan17 Aqa Najafi64 Aqayan, Alix22 aq-saqal 225 Arabistan38 Arabs209–10 Arak brigade50 Arani, Iran159 Arani, Dr Taqi see Erani, Taqi ‘Arapli223 arbitrary rule15, 17, 23, 24; landlords and merchants28–9; ordinary men and women and religious community29–30; poets, writers and intellectuals31–2; politicians26–7, 67 Ardabil9, 196, 219, 221, 222, 223 Ardalani, Maryam160 Arfa, Hassan106–7 Arfa, Colonel Yusuf Khan52 Armenians131, 191, 197 armoured cars37 army1, 18–9, 36, 56–8, 71, 135, 143, 154, 377; conscription43–4; expenditure45; Jahansuz group56–9; military effectiveness6, 37, 44–5, 47–8; officer corps45–6; opposition to Riza Shah48–56; organization37–43, 46–7; pacification of tribes44–5, 214, 215–16, 217, 218, 223–5, 228–9, 235, 244–5, 259; political reliability5–6;

Index

284

training125, 126, 130, 138; tribal levies221 Asadi, Muhammad Vali Khan, Misbah al-Saltana22, 26, 28, 193 äshrarhq 217 Ashtiyani, Abbas Iqbal145 Ashtiyani, Mirza Hashim22 assassination plots49, 55 Astara223 Atatürk see Kemal, Mustafa Aubin, Eugène216 Austria96 authoritarianism1, 4, 5, 8 autocracy24–31, 213 autocratic secular nationalism146 Avery, Peter155 Ayandih 146 Ayrum, General Mahmud Khan44 Ayrum, General Muhammad Husayn44, 45 ‘Azamat Khanom (Polatlu)222, 223, 224 Azerbaijan: Ardabil9; education128, 136; political importance110, 231; revolts16, 215; Russia226; tribes217, 218–19, 221, 222, 223, 227; Urumia massacres88; veiling and unveiling166, 167, 201 Azerbaijani, Mirza Abolqasem Azad189 Badamchi, Hajj Muhammad Taqi22 Bafqi, Ayatullah Muhammad Taqi183 Baha’is192, 197 Bahar, Muhammad Taqi Malik al-Shu‘ara23, 24, 29, 30, 142, 145, 153 Bahram Khan222 Bahram Khan (Qoja-Beyli)223, 224 Bahrami, Farajullah23, 26 Bakhtiyarixxvi , 8, 95, 211, 214, 217, 219, 220; 1929 rebellion60, 261–5; internal conflicts253–61; khavanin-i buzurg 242–3; and Millspaugh252–3; organization213; pacification28, 223; and Riza Shah247–8; settlement programme225, 264; Shalil incident248–52, see also Ali Mardan Khan Chahar Lang;

Index

285

Amir Jang; Amir Mufakham; Husayn Quli Khan Ilkhani; Samsam al-Saltanah; Sardar As’ad; Sardar Iqbal; Sardar Jang; Sardar Muhtasham Bakhtiyari Star248–51 Balkan Pact 193496 Baluchestan219 Baluchis127, 212 Bamdad, Badr ol-Moluk162, 166 Banani, Amin83 Bandar Shah127 Baraheni, Reza197 Barzand227 basta kashi 252 Bavand, Lahak Khan see Salar-i Jang, Lieutenant Bayat, Murtizaquli Khan22 Bayranvands210, 214 bazaar64, 67, 68, 70, 71 Belgium88, 96, 134 beys 221, 225 Bibi Maryam253 Bihar al-Anwar (Majlisi)176 Bihbahani, Sayyid Muhammad22, 144 Birjand51 Blind Owl, The (Hidayat)29 Bolsheviks62, 96; and army55, 56, 59; and Socialist Party67; and tribes227, 228, 247 Boré, Eugène124 boundaries98–9 bowler hats22, 28, 144 Boyce, Annie Stocking162 Boyer-Ahmadi220 boy-scouting129 Britain66, 84, 142; 1921 coup16; abrogation of capitulations90, 91, 92, 100; air force39; Anglo-Persian Agreement16, 100; Anglo-Russian Agreement110; arms sales45; and bazaar74; First World War16;

Index

286

invasion33, 37, 47–8, 59, 61, 84; Iranian students139; Khaz‘al215; and Riza Shah20, 21, 22, 24–5, 81, 84; Treaty of Paris82; tribes222, 243, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250–1, 252–3, 261; university129, 130; withdrawal65; women165, 204 Buhlul, Shaykh183 Bujnurd53 Bullard, Reader45 Bunakdar, Hajj Muhammad Taqi22 bunichah system37 burqa 166 Bushire21 calendar144, 194 capitulations78, see also abrogation of capitulations census6, 255, 256 Central Division39, 40, 44–5, 50, 52–3 centralization1, 119, 141, 153; education7, 123, 130–3, 135, 141–2 chador (chadur) 28, 162, 165, 166, 189; Alam-e Nesvan 8, 168; army officers204 Chahar Lang237, 244, 252–3, 256 Chahar Mahal253–4 chargats 162 Charvériat, M.89 Christians22 cinemas146 civil code83, 144, 156, 157, 158 clergy80, 143; control over education132–3, 146; dress111–12; and judicial reforms81, 86–7; and Riza Shah29–30, 85–6, 95–6, 147; unveiling202, see also ‘ulama’ Clive, Sir Robert88, 89–90 clothing see dress commercial code83 Committee of Iron22 communism see Bolsheviks Communist Party134 companionate marriage155

Index Congress of Oriental Women178 conscriptionxxviii, 6, 36, 41–2, 219; bunichah system38; Reformist Party69; tribes262, 263 Constitution1, 81, 141 Constitutional Revolution31, 63, 78, 141, 154; army modernization37; bazaar75; and chaos15–16, 18, 213; institutions84; Mudarris67; women194 cosmetics169 Cossack Division36, 47–8, 49, 57, 58, 79 Cottam, Richard W.230 Council of Guardians64, 66 Council for National Schools119 coup d’état 15, 31, 62, 78 criminal code82 Cumhuriyet 99, 100, 101, 103–6, 108 Curzon, Lord95 Czechoslovakia43 Dabir-i A‘zam see Bahrami, Farajullah Dadgar, Husayn22, 26 Dalikanlu221, 222 Damirchili225 Danesh (Danish) 154, 178 Daneshsara-ye moqaddamati 194–5 Danishkadah-i afsari 121, 125 Dar al-funun 120, 121 Dar al-mu‘allimin 121, 122, 132, 134 Dargahi, Colonel Muhammad26, 49 Darrus197 Dashti, Ali19, 27, 145 dastmal 162 Davallu, Brigadier Jan Muhammad Khan50 Davar, Ali Akbar82, 86, 91; suicide27, 83, 86–7; support for Riza Shah20, 21, 23, 67, 151, 158 Dawlatabadi, Siddiqa160–1, 167, 178, 190 Dawlatabadi, Yahya23, 63–4, 66, 70, 184, 192 Dehkhuda, Ali Akbar29 Department of Physical Education129 Department of Public Enlightenment129 Diba, ‘Abdulhusyn26 dictatorship15, 18, 26

287

Index

288

diplomacy96 Divine Effulgence15–7 divorce144, 156, 157, 179 Dizli, Mahmud Khan211 dressxxvi , 6, 144; men196; religious students133; tribes224, 262, 263; Turkey111–12; women’s clothing and fashion172–5, see also hats; unveiling; veiling Dust Muhammad Khan211 Eastern Division39, 50–1, 53 education1, 6, 79, 119, 134–6, 143, 154; army38, 47; centralization130–3; modernization124–30; nationalism133–40; scholarship31; secularization146, 152; unveiling171; women8, 163, 165–6, 183, 184, 186, 187–8, 202, 203, 204, 205 Education Act 1906119, 120 Egypt143, 160, 179 elbeys 221 elementary education119–20, 122, 126, 128, 134–5 employment144; women163–6, 186 Erani, Taqi30, 56, 134 Ervani, Mohammad Ali159 ‘Eshqi, Mirzadeh see ‘Ishqi, Mirzadeh Esma‘il Khan see Sawlat al-Dawlah, Isma‘il Khan Qashqa’i etatism63, 80, 91, 141–4, 147 Ettela‘at see Ittelaat family-law reform154–8, 179 family names65 fantasia184 Faraj, Hajji222 Farangistan 146 Farhangistan 129 Farman Farma (Farmanfamayan) (Prince Firuz Nusrat al-Dawleh)20, 26, 62, 69, 79, 83, 85, 91 Farrah-yi Izadi 15–7 Farrukhi Yazdi, Muhammad30, 143, 146

Index

289

Fars211, 212, 218; divisional command46, 47; tribal revolts60, 218, 262 fashion168–70 Fath Ali Shah78, 230 Fatih, Sardar251, 256, 257 Fazlollah Bey (Talesh-Mikeilli)225, 226 Ferdowsi16, 102, 104, 106 Ferrin, Augustin84, 91 Fifty-Three56 First World War15, 64, 78, 84, 142, 209, 217 flags95, 97, 98, 101, 103, 107–8, 109 foreign schools130–2 Foucault, Michel196 France84; 1919 Agreement16; abrogation of capitulations90, 91, 92, 93; Iranian students138, 139; irrigation schemes232; military training38, 47; religion85; schools126, 135, 137, 183; university129, 130 Frederick ‘the Great’80 Fundamental Law of Education 1911119 Furughi, Muhammad Ali Zaka al-Mulk24, 26, 28, 29, 31, 98, 141, 145, 153, 179, 193 Furughi brothers29 Galesh221 Gendarmerie37, 47–8, 49, 51, 58; tribes228–9, 235 Germany54, 56, 58, 81, 84, 143; abrogation of capitulations92, 93; First World War16; Iranian students138, 139–40; physical education134; school136–7; tribes222 Geyikli221, 222, 224, 226 Ghani, Qasim145 Ghods, M.Riza78 Gholam (Alarlu)224 Gibson, Thomas129 Gilan16, 96, 218, 223, 241 Gilani, Sayyid Ashraf al-Din Husayni, Nasim-i Shomal142 God’s Grace15–7 Göklän Turkmens219 Gorgan197, 217, 219

Index

290

Gowharshad mosque193, 199 Great Britain see Britain Greece96 guilds64, 67 Gulsha’iyan, ‘Abbasquli31 Haft Lang237, 240, 244, 248–51, 253, 254, 256 hair care169–70 Hairi, A.H.69 Ha’iri, Shaykh ‘Abd al-Karim Yazdi68, 144, 182–3, 192 Haj Aqa Jamal66 Haji Shaykh Javad66 Hamadan37 Hatam Khan225 hats144, 192, 219, 257; women30, 167, see also bowler hats Hay’at-i ‘Ilmiyya63 Hayirizada, Sayyed Abulhasan22 Hayrpetian, Loretta160 Hayyim (Haim), Samu’il22, 91 headscarves27, 28, 163 hejab (hijab) 162, see also veiling Herrick (US Ambassador, Paris)89 Hidayat, Mahdi Quli Mukhbir al-Saltana24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 145, 191, 193, 197 High Council of Education126 higher education121, 124–5, 132–4, 158–9 Hikmat, Ali Asghar22, 126, 130, 145, 192, 193–4 Hikmat, Nizam al-Din see Mushir al-Dawla Hikmat, Riza see Sardar Fakhir history146 Hizb-i Islah Taliban64–7 Hosain Aqa Khan (Alarlu)225 Hosein ‘Ali223 Hosein ‘Ali Khan222 Howard, Sir Esme89 Husayn Quli Khan Ilkhani (Bakhtiyari)239 Imam Jum‘a of Shiraz22 Imbrie, Robert70, 83, 133 Imperial Bank of Persia62, 84 Inchah53 Independent Democrats of Iran20 Independents20 India, nationalism142 Indo-European Telegraph84 industrialization79, 142, 154, 160 Inönü, Ismet101–2

Index

291

intellectuals7, 67, 141, 145–6; and Riza Shah31–2, 56, 148 international relations95– , see also abrogation of capitulations Iqbal al-Saltanah8, 211, 213 Iraj Mirza29, 177, 189 Iran-i Javan 145 Iranian National Archives3 Iraq4, 41, 68, 96 ‘Isa Bey222 ‘Isalu221, 222, 226 Isfahan21, 37, 144, 211, 218, 241, 250, 251 Isfahani, Sayyid Abulhasan20, 68 Isfahani, Hajj Aqa Jamal22 Isfahani, Mirza Abu Talib68 ‘Ishqi, Mirzadeh29, 145, 154, 177, 189 Iskandari, Sulayman Mirza18, 20, 22, 63, 143, 145 Islam1, 71, 81, 90, see also Shi‘ism Islamic Revolution71, 80 Isma‘il, Shah17, 141 Isma‘il Khan see Sawlat al-Dawlah, Isma‘il Khan Qashqa’i Istanbul97, 107–9 Italy54, 88, 96, 132, 143 I‘tisami, Parvin180 Ittelaat 98–9, 103, 146 Izmir97, 107 Ja‘far Khan az Farang Amadah (Muqaddam)146 Ja‘farli222 Jahanbani, General Prince Amanallahxvii , 26, 44, 50, 212, 223, 244 Jahanbani, Colonel Prince Muhammad Husayn49, 50–1 Jahan-e Zanan 154, 163 Jahansuz, Muhsin53, 54, 55, 56 Jahansuz group53–6 Jam, Mahmud194 Jamalzadah, Muhammad Ali29, 30, 146 Jangalis210, 223, 241 Japan86 Javat Khan (Hajj-Khojalu)221, 222, 223, 225–6, 228 Jews22, 197 judicial system1, 6, 64, 78, 79, 83; and abrogation of capitulations95; and clergy85, 152; family law161 Just Ruler16–7 Kaikhusraw, Arbab22, 91

Index

292

kalaghi 162 Kanisanana, Mahmud Khan211 Kanun-e Banuvan 154, 170, 179, 193 Karabakir, General Kazim210 Karnama-ye Zindan (Bahar)30 Kashani, Sayyid Abu’l Qasim22, 144, 199 Kashf-e Hejab see unveiling Kashkulixxv Kasravi, Sayyid Ahmad143, 145, 154, 181 Kazimi, Murtaza Mushfiq29, 146 Kemal, Mustafa50, 62; abolition of Caliphate72; education110; Riza Shah’s visit102, 104–5, 106, 107–8, 111–14; Treaty of Sèvres100 Kerman (Kirman)21, 219 Kermani, Mirza Aqa Khan154, 189 Kermanshah198 Khajehnuri, Ebrahim191 Khal‘atbari, Adel156 Khal’atbari, Amir Arsalan158 Khalfari225 Khalili, Reza160 Khalisi, Ayatullah66 Khalisizada67 Khalkhal219, 221 Khamsah212, 217, 219, 240, 253, 256 khankhani 218 khavanin-i buzurg 237, 240–1; internal threats253–61; and Millspaugh252–3; and Riza Shah247–8; Shalil incident248–52 Khaz‘al, Shaykh56, 69, 79, 209–10, 239–40, 247; Britain222, 247; submission39, 95, 217, 223, 264 Khiou222, 224, 228 Khiyabani, Shaykh Muhammad16, 22, 222 Khomeini, Ayatullah Ruhollah71, 78, 183–4 Khorasan217, 219 Khorramshahr197 Khoruslu227 Khu’i, Imam Jum‘a-yi22 Khumayni, R. see Khomeini, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khurasan53, 124, 211, 212 Khurasani, Ayatullah-zadeh-yi22 Khurramabad127 Khusraw I17

Index

293

Khuza‘i, Amir Lashkar Husayn Aqa20 Khuzestan210, 218 Khvajah-Nuri, Ibrahim146 Kirmanshah144 Kitabkhanah-i Milli 129, 135 Kuchek Khan218, 222 Kuhgilu241 Kurdistan209, 211, 212, 216, 218, 219, 256; schools164 Kurdsxxii , xxiii , 98, 217, 219, 230; rebellion214, 216, 222 Ladies’ Centre154, 170, 179, 193 Lahuni, Ja‘afar Sultan-i211 Lahuti, Major Abu’l Qasim Khan29, 48, 142 Lambton, A.K.S.231 language127, 129, 130, 131, 143, 154 Larud222 Law for the Production of a Medical Certificate 1938156, 157, 158 Law of Uniformity of Dress128, 255, 256 League of Nations95– , 96 Learned Council64 legal codes1, 6, 78, 83, see also civil code legitimacy15–7, 21, 23–4, 31, 68 libraries129, 134 Life in Prison (Bahar)30 Liqvani, Lutfullah22 literature7, 29–30, 146– Loraine, Sir Percy19, 24, 84, 236, 244–5, 246–7 Louis XIV80 Luristan127, 209, 210, 212, 213, 218, 219, 220 Lurs210, 212, 214, 220, 238, 241, see also Bayranvands McNeeley, Connie97 madrasas 129 Mahmudi, Homa156 Mah-Par (Siasi)191 Majlisxx , xxi , xxii , 2, 63, 69–70, 80, 141; abrogation of capitulations90; civil code86; conscription43, 44, 69; Constitutional Revolution15–16; middle class20, 21; republicanism70–1; support for Riza Shah22–3; taxation68

Index

294

Majlisi, ‘Allama Muhammad Baqir176 Makki, H.65 maktabs 120, 128, 199 Maku212 Malcolm, Sir John176 Malik al-Mutikallimin22 Malik-i ‘Adil 17 Malik-zadeh, Mirza Mahdi22 Malkam (Malkom) Khan154, 189 Mamasani220 Maravah Tappah53 Mard-i Azad 146 marriage7, 144, 155–8, 179 Marriage Act 1931156, 157, 158 Marx, Karl142 Marxism31 Mashad21, 36, 47, 143; mutinies55–6; revolt23, 29–30; unveiling199, 204 Masudi, Abbas95, 99, 103, 108 Matin-Daftari, Ahmad145 Mazandaran219, 223 Mazanderani, Mohammad Hasan Ha’eri189 Mein Kampf (Hitler)54 Menashri, David120 merchants27, 64, 68, 80 Meshkin221–2, 226 Meshkin-Shahr228, see also Khiou midwives159 Millspaugh, Dr Arthur38, 51, 83; Bakhtiyari242, 252–3, 262; termination of mission84, 88–9 Ministry of Education119, 120, 125, 126; adult education128; physical education134; religious education133; unveiling171, 198, 200; women’s education203 Ministry of Finance38, 43, 246–7, 255 Ministry of Foreign Affairs87 Ministry of the Interior87, 179, 194, 196, 212 Ministry of Justice85, 120, 125, 255 Ministry of War45, 133, 192; finances39–40, 45, 54, 68, 131; purdah199 Misbah al-Saltana see Asadi, Muhammad Vali Khan, Misbah al-Saltana

Index

295

modernization1, 4, 5–6, 63, 79–80, 102, 105, 119, 141, 183; army37–48; education7, 123, 124–30, 136, 141–2; judicial reforms86; and tribes9, 241–2, see also unveiling Moghan9, 221, 223, 224, 227, see also Shahsevan Moghanlu225, 228 Mohammad ‘Ali Shah217, 221 Mokhtar (Mukhtar), General Rokneddin56, 197 Mu‘azzami, Muhammad Khan22 Mu‘azziz, Sardar8, 211 Mudarris, Hasanxviii , 5, 20, 64–5, 69, 70, 71, 144; arrest86, 95; compromise25–6; death83, 85; and republicanism65, 70, 71; supporters23 Muhammad Husayn Amin al-Zarb, Hajj22 Muhammad Husayn Mirzaxiii Muhammarah, Shaykh of see Khaz‘al, Shaykh Mukhbir al-Saltana see Hidayat, Mahdi Quli Mukhbir al-Saltana Mulla Khalil212 Muqaddam, Hasan146 Muqaddam, Husayn146 Musaddiq, Muhammadxx , 18, 20, 24–5, 63, 69, 70, 80 Mushar, Yusuf126 Mushir al-Dawla19, 20, 22, 23, 62, 63, 69, 145 Mustashar al-Dawla II see Sadiq, Sadiq Mustawfi, ‘Abdullah28 Mustawfi al-Mamalik20, 23, 24, 25, 49, 64, 67 mut‘a 154, 157, 179, 196–7 Mu‘tamid, Kay Ustuvan Khan-i251 Mu‘tamin al-Mulk20, 62, 67, 69 mutinies39, 41, 48, 51–3 Muzaffar al-Din Shah95 Naderi, Mohammad-Reza190 Nadir Shah17, 22, 142 Na‘ini, Ayatullah Muhammad Husayn20, 68, 69 Najaf-qulu (Alarlu)223 Nameh-ye Banuvan 154 names66 Namih Javanan 146 Naser al-Din Shah15, 95, 230 Naser Khan Qashqa’i218, 219 Nasrollah Khan of Yortchi223, 225

Index national anthems95, 97, 98, 101, 109 National Library129, 135 national sovereignty95, 96 nationalism1, 81, 105, 119, 142; and abrogation of capitulations81, 94; and army37, 43, 45, 48; education7, 123, 132, 133–40, 141, 142; Jahansuz group56, 57; and secularization147, see also flags; national anthems Naw Ruz incident82 Nehat, Ali108 neqab 162 Netherlands96 newspapers2–3, 135; Constitutional Revolution16; foreigners135; repression2, 158, 159; secularization151; Turkish visit102, 103–4, 106, 107, 108–11; unveiling185; women183, see also Alam-e Nesvan ; Cumhuriyet ; Ittela’at Nicolson, Harold25 night letters91 nomads9– , 27, 217, 226, 231; settlement programme220, 225, 231–5 Nouruz Khan (Qoja-Beyli)222, 223, 225 Nowruz 191 Nuri, Shaykh Fazllulah182 Nurullah, Hajj Aqa64 Nusrat see Farman Farma Oberling, Pierre220 officer corps39–40, 42, 43–4, 58; Jahansuzgroup56–9; opposition to Riza Shah50–2; pay54 oil63, 84, 142, 242 Ojarud227 Oliphant, Lancelot23 Olympic Games129 opera101, 104 opium monopoly6 Ovey, Esmond68

296

Index

297

Ozma, Fakhri156 Özsoy 102, 104 pacification43, 216, 218–20, 224– , 230, 231– , 236–8–239, 252 Pahlavi, Princess Ashraf183, 194 Pahlavi, Mohammed Riza, Crown Prince55, 198, 230; boy scouting134; and Musaddiq83; and ulama181, 189 Pahlavi, Princess Shams180, 192, 194 Pakravan, Mirza Fathullah Khan86, 88 PARS News Agency146 Pasha, General Fekredin99 Pasha, Kazem102 pastoralism220, 226, 231 Pasyan, Colonel Muhammad Taqi Khan47, 241 Payk-e Sa‘adat-e Nesvan 154 peasantry249, 251, 254 Peel, E.G.P.247 Persian108, 127, 129, 130, 131, 142, 154 Philip, Hoffman82, 85, 86–9 physical education129, 136 picheh 8, 162, 163, 165, 189, 190 Pir-Evatlu223 Pirniya, Hasan20, 22, 23, 62, 64, 69, 145 Pishdaris211 Poland86 Polatlu221, 222, 223 polygamy7, 155, 157 population1, 143 press see newspapers primary education119–20, 122, 126, 128, 134–5 Prison Scrap-notes (‘Alavi)30 property27, 55, 255 prostitution159, 195–6 Puladin, Colonel Mahmud Khan40, 44, 48–9 purdah7, 188, 191– , 193, 196–7, 198 Qara-Daghis217, 218, 221, 222–3, 229 Qaraguzlu, Yahya Khan126 Qarn-i Biystum 146 Qashqa’i8, 211, 218, 253; education132; First World War222; organization213, 246; revolts224–5, 262, 263; settlement programme225; support for Riza Shah216, 218, 223–4, 235,

Index

298

see also Naser Khan Qashqa’i; Sawlat al-Dawlah Qavam al-Dawla, Shukrullah Khan22 Qavam al-Mulk22, 211, 240, 257 Qavam al-Saltanaxii , 19, 48, 62, 64–5 Qazwini (Qazvini), ‘Arif29, 143, 177, 189 Qoja-Beyli221, 222, 224, 225–6, 228 Qomi, Ayatollah Hosein193, 199 Qorrat al-Ayn165, 188 Qum68 radio7, 146 Rafi‘, Hajj Aqa Riza, Qa’im-maqamal-Mulk22 Rahim Khan (Chalabianlu)217, 221 Rahimi, Colonel Ali Shah Khan51 Rahnama, Zainul‘abedin20, 23, 27 Rajab Ali Khan165 Rakhshan, Mehrtaj160 Rasht21 Reformist Party63–7 religious education127–8 republicanism6, 62–71; army opposition50, 52–4 Revival Party19, 42, 63, 65, 154 Riaza, Dr Husayn169 Rice, Clara178 Riza (Reza) Shah (Riza Khan)xii , xiii , xiv , 1, 78–81, 90, 91; army modernization37–48, 60–1, 217; army opposition48–56; autocracy24–33, 152; Bakhtiyari243, 245, 247–8, 249–52, 259–60, 261, 263, 264–5; and clergy86, 95–6; coup15, 65; dictatorship15; education131–2; and Jahansuz group56–9; legitimacy15; and Millspaugh89; and Mudarris68–9; premiership19–25; and Reformist Party69; republicanism6, 65, 69–75; secularnationalism147–50; stamping out chaos18–19; support5, 81; tribes215, 216, 218, 220, 222–5, 228, 235, 259; University of Tehran130; unveiling171–2, 196, 197–8, 199–201, 204–5;

Index

299

women181, 184, 185, 186–7, 188, 189–90, see also Turkish visit Romania96 Rotstein, Theodore19 ruband 162 Ruhollah (Alarlu)223 rupush 194 rusari 27, 28, 163 Russia see Soviet Union Rüstü, Tevfik98, 99, 101 Sa‘adabad Treaty 193795 Sadeqi, Ashraf160 Sadiq, ‘Isa125, 132, 145 Sadiq, Sadiq22 Saeed, Jamal al-Din, Dr164 Safavids176 Sag-e Velgard (Hidayat)30 Said Pasha, General Ali97–8 Salar al-Dawlah211 Salar-i Amjad, Colonel Riza Quli Afshar50–1 Salar-i Jang, Lieutenant52–3 Salmas52, 210, 211 Samsam al-Saltanah (Bakhtiyari)245, 256 San‘ati-zadeh, Abd al-Husayn29 Sarab221 Sardar As‘ad Bakhtiyari, Ja‘afar Quli Khan95, 211, 252; arrest and murder27, 87, 225, 264; minister of war242, 251, 252, 263; support for Riza Shah216, 249–50 Sardar Enayatullah Khan191 Sardar Fakhir22 Sardar Iqbal (Bakhtiyari)255–6 Sardar Jang (Bakhtiyari)243, 244, 245, 246–7 Sardar Muhtasham (Bakhtiyari)245 Sardar Rashid, Abbas Khan211 Sari160 Sartip Khan Kuhgilu255–6, 257 Sawlat al-Dawlah, Isma‘il Khan Qashqa’i27, 211, 218, 219–20, 230, 240, 257 Sayyah, Dr Fatima181 Sayyid Ya‘qub22 Sayyid Zia22, 62 School of Political Science141 Schulenburg, Count67, 86, 88 Schurman88, 89 Second World War142 secondary education120–1, 126, 134 secularizationxxviii, 5–7, 141–4, 153;

Index

300

calendar199; and conscription69; constitutionalists66; education124, 132–3, 142, 146; legacy152; literature151; and republicanism65 settlement programme212, 216, 220, 226–30, 231, 236, 256, 258 sexually transmitted disease155, 156–7, 158 shab-nameh see night letters Shadillu, Sardar Mu’azziz-i214 Shadlu Kurds219 Shadman, Sayyid Fakhr al-Din145 Shafaq-i Surkh 146 Shah Abbas I17, 142 Shahabad127 Shahname (Ferdowsi)16, 102, 104, 106 Shahsevan9, 95, 216, 217, 218; before disarmament225–8; under Riza Shah228–35, see also Ardabil; Meshkin Shahzada Fathullah Mirza64 Shalil incident237, 243–6, 253 Shaqaqi223 Shari‘at-Sangalaji, Mirza Riza Quli182–3 Shatranlu221, 222 Shawkat (Shukat) al-Mulk, Amir of Qayinat and Sistan22, 28, 211 Shaybani, General Habiballah Khanxvii , 26, 44, 48, 49 Shaykh al-Islam, Aqa Mirza Hasan182 Sheean, Vincent177–8 Shi‘ism68, 81, 176, 183 Shiraz21, 144, 193 Shirazi, Ayatullah-zadeh-ye22 Shirazi, Mirza Hasan63 Shiva’i, Qamar Banu168 Shokufeh 154 Shumiyatsky19 Shushtari, Sayyid ‘Ali182 Siasi (Siyasi), Ali-Akbar19, 145, 191 Simitqu, Isma‘il (Isma’il Agha Shikak) (Simko)xxiii , 209, 211, 212, 213, 218, 219, 223, 224, 238 Sipahsalar College128 Sistan21 Sitarah-i Bakhtiyari 248–51 Socialist Party20, 42, 63, 65, 67, 146 Soheili, Ali199 Sohrabi, Maryam160

Index

301

Soraya, Queen of Afghanistan166, 191 South Persia Rifles218 sovereignty95, 96 Soviet Union84, 96; 1919 Agreement16; abrogation of capitulations90, 92, 100; Anglo-Russian Agreement110; and army mutinies55, 56; First World War16; invasion33, 37, 47–8, 59, 61, 84, 235; Iranian students139; and Riza Shah20, 21, 84; schools135, 136; Treaty of Turkomanchay82; tribes222, 226, 229, 247; withdrawal214, see also Bolsheviks Soviet-Iran Friendship Agreement 192195 Spain86 Standard Oil Company39 Stark, Freya221 state-building141–4, 236 Status of Forces Agreement78 Stray Dog (Hidayat)30 Sulat al-Dawla see Sawlat al-Dawlah, Isma‘il Khan Qashqa’i Sulayman Mirza see Iskandari, Sulayman Mirza Sultani, Sultan ‘Ali27 Sweden44, 96 Switzerland134 Tabataba’i, Sayyid Muhammad Sadiq62, 144, 145 Tabataba’i, Sayyid Ziya22, 62 Tabriz21, 30, 37, 42, 144, 222–3, 226 Tadayyun, Sayyid Muhammad20, 22, 63, 120, 124, 127 Tahmaspi, Amir Lashkar ‘Abdollah Khan40, 50, 213–4, 223, 224 Taj al-Saltana176 Tajaddud, Riza22, 26 Tajaddud faction (Tajdid Party) see Revival Party Tajaddud-i Iran 145 takhtaqapt 212, 216, 220, 226–30, 231, 236, 255, 257 Talesh221 Talesh-Mikeilli225, 227, 228 Taliqani, Hojat al-Islam Abu al-Hasan182 tanks43 Taqavi brothers29 Taqizadah, Sayyid Hasan18, 20, 23, 24, 26, 29, 70, 145, 154, 181 Tarian, Varto160 tariffs87–9

Index

302

Tats228 taxation1, 65; tribes223, 228, 230, 242, 252–3 Taymurtash, Abd al-Husaynxix , 20, 22; abrogation of capitulations89, 90, 92–3, 94; arrest and murder27, 83, 87, 95; education130, 131–2, 135; unveiling188, 197, 198 Taymurtash, Iran Khanum124 Teacher Training Act 1934122 teachers121, 122, 159; foreign136, 137; unveiling197, 198 Tehran21, 144; army38–9, 41, 51; Bakhtiyari246, 258; bazaar67, 70–1, 72, 74, 75; Bolshevik threat16; martial law73; opposition to republicanism70; taxation66, 68; tribal schools132; unveiling198 Tehran-i Makhuf (Kazimi)146 telephone146 temporary marriage155, 157, 179, 197 title deeds6, 255, 256 Tobacco Boycott79, 189 Tocqueville, Alexis de15 Tomaniantz, Aliksandr22 trade unions2, 146 Trans-Iranian Railway1, 54, 66 Treat (US chargé d’affaires, Tehran)91 treaties see capitulations Treaty of Erzerum 184798 Treaty of Friendship and Commerce 185678 Treaty of Gulistan 181378 Treaty of Lausanne 192396 Treaty of Paris 185778 Treaty of Sèvres 192096, 105 Treaty of Turkomanchay 182878, 86 Trenton fund132 tribesxxviii, 3, 6, 8– , 27, 80, 91, 209–14, 216; in army38, 39; conscription43–4; education132, 141–2; pacification39, 44–5, 59, 60, 235–7, 241–3, 244–5; and republicanism65;

Index

303

revolt suppression44–5; Riza Shah’s policies222–5; settlement programme231–5, 236, 242; under later Qajars220–2; veiling194, see also Bakhtiyari; Shahsevan Tuffan 146 Tunukabuni brothers29 Turkey3, 95; abolition of Caliphate65, 72; abrogation of capitulations90; and army officers52; conscription43; education130; First World War16; international relations100; Iranian imitation83; and Iranian tribes222; language136; nationalism148; republicanism65, 74; unveiling171, 172, 193, 197–8, 199, 204; women150, 165, 184 Turkish visit6, 95, 97, 109, 191–2; Agaoglu’s articles108–11; Ankara ceremonies104–8; border crossing102–4; from Ankara to Istanbul111–14 Turkmens (Turkomans)127, 211, 217, 219, see also Göklän Turkmens; Yamut Turkmens ulama: and army53; conscription43; judicial system67, 86, 87; and Mudarris68; popular influence85; Reformist Party67; and republicanism65, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75; and Riza Shah21, 23, 95, 150; turbans29; unveiling199; and women8, 181, 183–4, 187–90, seealso clergy Uniform Dress Law 1928128, 255, 256 United Kingdom see Britain

Index

304

United States80, 84; 1919 Agreement16; abrogation of capitulations89–94; Iranian students138, 139; religion85; schools126, 135, 136, 137; Status of Forces Agreement81–2; termination of Millspaugh Mission88–9; Treaty of Friendship and Commerce 185682; women165 University of Tehran1, 29, 121, 124–5, 132, 135, 180 unveiling7, 8, 144, 181, 183, 188, 190–6, 198–9; Alam-e Nesvan 166–72; reaction and resistance202–4 urbanization143 Urquhart, R.W.227 Urumia84 Vakil, Fatemeh160 Vali‘ahd 64, 66, 69 Varaq-para-ha-yi Zindan (‘Alavi)30 veiling7, 161–2, 188–90, 198, 199, see also unveiling Vico184 Vusuq al-Dawla, Hasan24 Westernization120 Wilber, Donald220 women1, 2, 7, 145, 153–4, 170, 176–8, 180–1; clothing and fashion172–5; education125, 126, 128–9, 140, 141; employment163–6; family law reform159–63; physical education134; Turkey108; and ulama187–90, see alsochador ; headscarves; unveiling; veiling World War One15, 63, 78, 84, 141, 142, 209, 217 World War Two142 Yaki bud Yaki Nabud (Jamalzadah)30, 146 Yamut Turkmens217, 218 Yazadi (Yazdi), Farrukhi see Farrukhi Yazdi, Muhammad Yazd21, 219

Index

305

Yazdanpanah, Brigadier Murtaza Khan39, 40, 44, 50, 55 Yortchi221, 222, 223 Young Iran Club19, 22 Young, Morrisxxvi Yugoslavia96 Yushij, Nima30 Zaban-e Zanan 154 Za‘faranlu Kurds230 Zagros218, 219, 220 Zaka al-Mulk24, 26, 28, 29, 31, 98, 141, 145, 153, 179, 193 Zand, Karim Khan142 Zarasvand256 Zarghami, General Azizallah55 Zeiveh222 Ziya al-Mulk64 Zoroastrians22, 191