70 Islam and Modernity
parties to combat opponents. Communalism as a political weapon was to recur
in Egypt until the time of writing, with the various Islamists playing on antago-
nism to Copts to gain support and revenue in Upper Egypt and elsewhere. The
difference now, however, is that communalism, while popular, is stigmatised by
respectable political activists and theorists of all hues, including the mainstream
Islamists. This is much like populist racism in Europe, denied by all respectable
parties but always tempting for politicians who want cheap popularity. This
shift in the politics of communalism comes after more than a century of modern
politics, mostly secular and nationalist.
The period of political modernity in Iran
Iran presents us with a political history distinct from that of Ottoman lands.
The Qajar state (1794–1925) was decentralised, with much power in the hands
of local elites. It did not have a signifi cant standing army and relied on tribal
forces for its wars (with disastrous consequences). The religious institutions
and personnel enjoyed considerable autonomy from the state, forming parts of
the decentralised power elites of landlords, merchants and clerics, many with
private militias. The clerics controlled wide networks of merchants, guilds and
the popular classes. The tentative steps to modernity, and the increasing power
and infl uence of Britain and Russia in the country, led to waves of discontent
and protest, often directed by the clerics and culminating in the agitations for the
Constitution in the opening years of the twentieth century and the Constitutional
Revolution of 1906.^14 The campaign for the Constitution was initiated and sup-
ported by a number of diverse constituencies, both traditional and modern. The
ideas were those of modern educated intellectuals of the upper classes. They
were supported by some clerics, for different motives. Some traditional clerics
saw in the constitution and parliament a way of limiting the now threatening
power of the Shah and his European fi nanciers and bankers, which made them
liable to taxation. Others, notably Ayatullah Mirza Muhammad Husayn Naini,
became articulate advocates of the Constitution, providing a religious rationale
for its implementation (Enayat 1982: 164–9; Martin 1989: 165–200). A third
constituency were bazaar merchants, fed up with arbitrary rule and taxation
and allied to some of the ulama. Few of the clerics understood the meaning and
implications of the Constitution, and took sides on that basis. Naini supported
it with a theological treatise; Ayatollah Fazlullah Nuri opposed it as un-Islamic.
Most of the clerics who supported the Revolution saw only its practical implica-
tions of limiting the power of the Shah in their favour in the new representative
system (Martin 1989). The Revolution was followed by much confl ict, reac-
tion and war, in which Britain, and especially Russia, played decisive parts.
The situation fi nally stabilised with the accession to power of Reza Shah in
- He was a modernising dictator, who admired his Turkish contemporary,