04.05.2023
Dynasty after dynasty
The last shah liked to boast of a history that made the House of Windsor look like mere parvenus. But, as Yassamine Mather shows, there were numerous breaks, conquests and regime changes brought in from the outside
Until 1979 and the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran - before 1935 generally known as Persia - supposedly had an almost uninterrupted 2,700-year history of royal dynasties. Clearly, by contrast, the House of Windsor are mere parvenus.
Most Iranians know about the Achaemenid dynasty (705-329 BCE), which presided over an empire that, by the time of Cyrus II (559-530 BCE), stretched from Egypt and south-eastern Europe in the west to the Indus Valley in the east. The Sasanid dynasty (224-651) is also familiar to them, since, although it existed in the pre-Islamic period, many of the traditional customs and traditions of Shia Islam date from this period.
Its last ruler was Yazdegerd III, who came to the throne when he was just eight years old. However, this was a time of major conflict between courtiers, army and powerful members of the aristocracy. It was inevitable that a weakened, divided empire would not be able to withstand the Arab-Muslim revolution that first erupted in the mercantile wadis, trading posts and desert expanses of an entirely peripheral Arabia. By the year 651, what began in Medina and Mecca had conquered the fabulously rich Sasanid empire. The death of Yazdegerd III marks the end of the pre-Islamic era in Iran and, after a relatively short interval, the beginning of what became a distinct version of Islam. In a sense, therefore, the more advanced Iranians conquered their conquerors.
However, although local governors oversaw various parts of Iran, in the period up to 750 the country was ruled by Islamic Arabs - the Rashidun Caliphate, followed by the Umayyad Caliphate. We then have a period of dynasties, starting with the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258) and ending with the Qajar dynasty (1794-1925) and finally the Pahlavi dynasty (1925-79).
Here, though, in this article, I want to concentrate on the last two of these dynasties and introduce the contradictory role of the Shia clergy, which at times opposed the ‘modernisation/westernisation from above’ espoused by both dynasties. But I will also deal with the collaboration between sections of the clergy and the ruling monarchs in suppressing the anti-dictatorial, democratic struggles of the Iranian people.
Qajar
The Qajar dynasty had a Turkic origin and it was one of the Qajar tribe’s chieftains, Agha Mohammad, who founded the dynasty - replacing the Zand dynasty, which was weakened by infighting and incompetence in 1794. Agha Mohammad’s aim was to reunify Iran. However, the dynasty’s reign, lasting over 130 years, saw both territorial losses and gains. It lost control of large areas of central Asia as a result of the expansionism of the Russian empire, which had been very much in competition with the British Raj in India. However, the Qajars had also at times been able to exploit the tensions between Britain and Russia to their advantage.
Agha Khan, who was known for his cruelty and was assassinated in 1797, was succeeded by his nephew, Fath-Ali Shah, who was in power during the Napoleonic war. At that time Iran held territory in Georgia, Armenia and North Azerbaijan. Russia tried to use Iran as a buffer against the British in India, but failed to persuade Iran to join the war on its side.
Supporters of the Qajar dynasty emphasise the role of its initial rulers, who united Iran after years of internal war. However, historians will remind you of the Treaty of Gulistan, as well as the rebellion by Ulama religious scholars that led to a Russian victory after a two-year war (1826-28). The subsequent Treaty of Turkmanchai conceded territory to Russia, as well as substantial trade benefits.
Probably the most important ruler of the Qajar dynasty was Naser al-Din Shah, who reigned for almost 50 years (1848-97). Naser al-Din Shah appointed, as his first minister, Amir Kabir, who later became known as a ‘reformer’. He is still celebrated for his attempts at ‘modernisation’, the creation of an arms industry, setting up western-style military and civil service training schools, the Dar al-Funun. Amir Kabir had his opponents within the royal court, and these included the powerful queen mother. They convinced the shah to remove him from office in 1851 - and to have him killed in 1852. His reforms were reversed and, during the rest of Naser al-Din Shah’s rule, dependence on Russia and Britain increased.
The shah’s next first minister, Mirza Hosein Khan Sepahsalar, who took office in the early 1870s, was also called a reformer and moderniser, as he too tried to reorganise the ministries and the military. However, he was very much in favour of dependence on various colonial powers and believed that they could help develop Iran economically. He and another senior royal advisor, Malkom Khan, convinced Naser al-Din Shah to accept the wide-ranging Reuter Concession of 1872. This gave control of most of Iran’s assets to Baron Julius de Reuter, a British banker and businessman, who as a result had an extraordinary degree of control over roads, the extraction of resources, various factories and public works in exchange for a stipulated sum for five years and 60% of all the net revenue for 20 years. Nationalists as well as clerics opposed the deal.
Eventually the British government cancelled the deal, considering Reuter’s ambitions unrealistic, and Naser al-Din Shah was assassinated by a follower of the religious clergy in 1896.
His successor was Muzaffar ad-Din Shah, whose bizarre and complicated funding by Russia of an extravagant tour of Europe caused much opposition. This included bazaar merchants and their allies in the Shia clergy, who argued that tax breaks on imports, exports and manufactured textiles were destroying the country’s economy. A small group of radicals opposed to the shah’s rule claimed that he was selling the country to pay for the foreign debts he had accumulated.
Iran increasingly became a semi-colony, but not of one great power but of two rival powers.
In the summer of 1906, around 12,000 men camped in the gardens of the British embassy in what was called a “vast open-air school of political science”. The British foreign office was supporting the call for a parliament (majles) for their own political and economic interests. Britain was concerned about countering Russian influence, and support for the constitutionalists was a way to do that.
On August 5 1906 the shah was forced to issue a decree granting a constitution and the creation of an elected majles. But the new order that limited royal powers only lasted for a few months. By 1907 the new king, Muhammad Ali Mirza, was renouncing his father’s concessions. However, this triggered huge protests across the country.
Russia and Britain might have gone to war over Iran. The British ruling class and the foreign office were acutely aware of their vulnerability in India, the jewel of their global empire, and therefore tried to constitute Afghanistan, Nepal, Iran and Ottoman Turkey as buffer states which could block Russian expansionism. However, living on borrowed time after the 1861 ‘freeing’ of the serfs, humiliated by defeat in the Russo-Japanese war and the subsequent the 1905 revolution at home, tsar Nicholas II was more than willing to agree a compromise. In September 1907 the imperial rivals agreed to become allies and divide Iran into two spheres of influence. Their respective ambassadors duly notified the shah … and popular anger and rage against outsiders treating the country as a mere object of exploitation undoubtedly contributed towards the formation of a definite national consciousness.
Not surprisingly, the Qajar dynasty saw a period of massively increased international trade. Iranian merchants who were exporting agricultural products and later carpets to Europe became rich. The period was also marked by urbanisation, an end of the legal slave trade in the country and, as would be expected, a decline in tribal nomadism. Eager European missionaries, both Protestant and Catholic, arrived, claiming to be pioneers of health and education; but, of course, what they were really interested in was souls … and, objectively, readying minds for colonial domination. No less to the point, oil was discovered in 1908, increasingly a vital strategic asset. Britain’s royal navy, under First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, oversaw the transition from cumbersome coal-powered warships to the much faster, longer-range, oil-powered Dreadnaughts. In 1914 the British government took a majority stake in the Anglo-Persian oil company.
For the majority of Iranians, this was a period of major economic upheaval, famine, but also revolt. At the end of the day, the so-called ‘constitutional revolution’ was suppressed following the intervention of Russian and British military forces. Iran was occupied throughout World War I. And it almost goes without saying that, after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, the British were left as the sole occupying power.
By this stage the Qajar king was a mere puppet, and in 1919 the British negotiated a treaty with three ministers, granting what amounted to protectorate status for Iran - but the majles refused to ratify this de facto incorporation of the country into the British empire. However, the commander of the British troops in Iran, major general Lionel Charles Dunsterville, encouraged an eager young colonel in the Cossack Brigade, Reza Khan, to lead a military coup. After forcing out his predecessors, in 1925 he got the majles to approve the ending of the Qajar dynasty and declared himself the new shah - ending the century of the Qajars, who, while hardly illustrious, had reluctantly agreed to partial constitutional reforms.
Pahlavi
Reza Khan, who was by now Reza Pahlavi, appointed himself as the shah, and ruled the country from December 15 1925 until 1935, at which time he changed the name of the country to Iran.
According to The New York Times:
At the suggestion of the Persian Legation in Berlin, the Teheran government, on the Persian New Year – March 21 1935 - substituted Iran for Persia as the official name of the country. It has been suggested that this decision was the result of the Nazi revival of interest in the so-called Aryan races, cradled in ancient Persia. As the ministry of foreign affairs set forth in its memorandum on the subject, ‘La Perse’, the French designation of Persia, connoted the weakness and tottering independence of the country in the 19th century, when it was the chessboard of European imperialistic rivalry. ‘Iran’, by contrast, conjured up memories of the vigour and splendour of its historic past … The very name, ‘Iran’, means ‘Land of the Aryans’.1
Reza Shah’s rule was a period of major structural developments, including industrialisation, road construction projects and the Trans-Iranian railway, plus the establishment of the first institutions of higher education and state-sponsored European education (mainly for sons of elite families).
In his drive to modernise Iran from above, he banned traditional clothes for men, as well as the chador (long black veil) and hijab (headscarf) for women. This dictatorial rule caused intense dissatisfaction amongst the Shia clergy throughout the country. The clergy gave its support to women who resisted compulsory unveiling (in most cities women had their veils forcibly removed by the police or local gendarmes - exactly the opposite of what we saw after the 1979 revolution).
But Reza Shah did not tolerate any opposition: troops were sent to massacre protestors at mosques. Newspapers publishing critical articles were closed down and liberals were imprisoned. He also used the salient of state power to accumulate a massive fortune, becoming one the country’s biggest landowners. It is reported that by the end of his rule he owned nearly 3,000 villages, as well as a whole range of lucrative enterprises.