236 • 14 MODERNIZING RULERS IN THE INDEPENDENT STATESabsorption process has led to a mosaic of tribal nomads and sedentary
peasants with distinctive folkways. Persian is the national language, but
many of the people speak variants of Turkish, Kurdish, or Arabic. Its reli¬
gion is Islam, but Persians adhere to its Twelve-Imam Shi'i branch. More
often than not in its history, Persia has been a distinct political entity, but
historians commonly describe it by the name of its ruling family during
the time in question—and Persia's dynasties have been numerous indeed.Historical Recapitulation
You may recall that Persia's ruling family from the late eighteenth century
was the Qajar dynasty. It was under the Qajars that the country shrank to its
currently recognized borders, losing to Russia the Caucasus Mountains and
parts of Central Asia and renouncing all claims to Afghanistan and what is
now Pakistan. Tehran, a village near the Elburz Mountains, became Persia's
capital under the Qajars, as it has remained ever since. Most Persians take
no pride in the Qajar dynasty. Its westernization lagged behind that of the
Ottoman Empire, and its resistance to Russian expansion was feeble. It in¬
vited commercial penetration and exploitation by British and other foreign
merchants. Its subjects, led by their ulama (whom they call mollahs) and
bazaar merchants, resisted political and economic subjection to these out¬
siders. This resistance was called Muslim fanaticism (by nineteenth-century
imperialists) or Persian nationalism (by twentieth-century writers); no
doubt political and religious feelings were mixed together. One result was
the 1906 constitution, which set up a representative assembly, the Majlis, to
limit the shah's power.
Constitutionalism alone could not build a great nation. Unable to weld
the diverse military units into one army, hamstrung by strong and lawless
tribes, lacking the power to collect the taxes to pay for its expenses, Qajar
rule was weak. Besides, Britain and Russia agreed in 1907 to set up spheres
of influence in Persia. Russian troops occupied the northern third of the
country before and during World War I. Several armies vied to control the
British-held parts of the south, protecting the new wells, pipelines, and re¬
finery of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. During the war, a German
colonel formed a rebel army in lands just north of the Persian Gulf. Else¬
where in central Persia, German agents incited acts of murder and sabotage
against British and Russian consuls and merchants. The 1917 Bolshevik
Revolution briefly reduced Russian pressure on Persia, as the new commu¬
nist regime gave up all the czarist claims. Germany's defeat in 1918 left
Britain as the sole foreign contender for control.