Islamic Democracy (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux,
2003); Russell Hardin, Liberalism, Constitutionalism and
Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999);
Malise Ruthven, Islam in the World, 2d ed. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000).
Constitutional Revolution
The Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11
“represents the first direct encounter in modern
iran between traditional Islamic culture and the
West” (Enayat, 166). It had a lasting effect on Ira-
nian politics and helped to form Ayatollah rUhUl-
lah khomeini’s formulation of Islamic governance,
crystallized in his conception of the “guardianship
of the jurist” (wilayat-i faqih), which was to have a
decisive impact on the religious, democratic, and
constitutional character of the 1979 revolutionary
republic.
Western powers had been meddling in Iran
since the Napoleonic wars in the 19th century.
Britain and Russia, in particular, had geopolitical
designs and economic interests that left Iran only
partly independent. The qaJar dynasty’s survival,
in fact, depended on these two European powers.
Treaties, terms of trade, and foreign concessions
fundamentally restructured the Iranian economy,
decimating craft production, while the importa-
tion of cheap consumer goods “did not necessarily
bring a better life to most Iranians. More sugar,
tea, tobacco and especially opium were consumed
... while prices of basic foodstuffs rose” (Keddie
1981: 57). At the same time, Western philosophi-
cal and political ideas such as liberalism, rep-
resentative government, and constitUtionalism
began to circulate among workers, merchants,
and elites alike. The Tobacco Protest of 1891–92
was a prelude to the Constitutional Revolution, as
the Muslim modernist and pan-Islamist Jamal al-
din al-aFghani persuaded key Ulama to mobilize
merchants of the bazaar alongside their fellow
Iranians to boycott tobacco products.
Periodic protests over customs (tax) reforms,
a series of strikes, and the operation of secret
societies signaled widespread dissatisfaction with
the regime’s capitulation to foreign powers. Japan’s
victory in the 1904–05 Russo-Japanese War and
the Russian Revolution of 1905 further embold-
ened the protesters. The actual catalyst for the
Constitutional Revolution was the caning (of
the feet) of two sugar merchants for raising their
prices. Mullahs, merchants, and protesters took
sanctuary (bast) outside Tehran and called for,
among other things, a “house of justice.” The
ruler, Muzaffar al-Din Shah (r. 1896–1907), issued
a decree consenting to the request but failed to
act on it. A growing coalition of forces shared a
nationalist identity: leftist social democrats, secu-
lar and religious reformers, orthodox ulama, Free-
masons, merchants, shopkeepers, students, and
guild members. Nationalist slogans and calls for
a constitutional monarchy rallied the opposition
taking bast in Qom and at the British legation’s
compound in Tehran.
In August 1906, the shah’s royal proclama-
tion permitted the formation of a majlis (national
assembly or parliament) and the drafting of a
constitution. The first majlis convened in October
1906, and a new constitution, modeled in part
on the Belgian constitution of 1831, was ratified
on December 30, 1906, just prior to the death of
Muzaffar al-Din. Supplementary constitutional
laws were signed the following year by the new
shah, Muhammad Ali (r. 1907–09). With minor
amendments, this constitution remained legally in
effect until the 1978–79 revolution.
Prominent Shii mullahs were proponents of
a constitution recognizing tWelve-imam shiism
as the official religion of the country, including
Sayyid Muhammad Tabatabai, Sayyid Abdullah
Bihbihani, Mulla Muhammad Kazim Khurasani,
and Muhammad Husayn Naini. An early sup-
porter of the revolution, Shaykh Fadlullah Nuri,
turned against the constitution and the majlis
when he realized the ulama were not to be
accorded the final say as to whether legislation
was in keeping with Islamic tenets, particularly
the sharia. Nuri led the anticonstitutionalist cler-K 164 Constitutional Revolution