Iran's Constitutional Revolution of 1906 and Narratives of the Enlightenment

Iran's Constitutional Revolution of 1906 and Narratives of the Enlightenment
Author: Ali M. Ansari
Publisher: Gingko Library
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2016-11-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1909942944

The Constitutional Revolution of 1906 opened the way for enormous change in Persia, heralding the modern era and creating a model for later political and cultural movements in the region. Broad in its scope, this multidisciplinary volume brings together essays from leading scholars in Iranian Studies to explore the significance of this revolution, its origins, and the people who made it happen. As the authors show, this period was one of unprecedented debate within Iran’s burgeoning press. Many different groups fought to shape the course of the Revolution, which opened up seemingly boundless possibilities for the country’s future and affected nearly every segment of its society. Exploring themes such as the role of women, the use of photography, and the uniqueness of the Revolution as an Iranian experience, the authors tell a story of immense transition, as the old order of the Shah subsided and was replaced by new institutions, new forms of expression, and a new social and political order.

History of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution

History of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution
Author: Aḥmad Kasravī
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2006
Genre: Constitutional history
ISBN: 9781568592534

"By the dawn of the twentieth century, Iran was sinking deeper into crisis. It was losing its economic and political independence to the Russian and British empires as a profligate absolute monarchy threw the country ever deeper into debt. A few intellectuals saw the rule of law as the solution to this, and eventually their ideas were taken up by a broad coalition of merchants, clerics, and artisans. In 1906, it forced the Shah to grant Iran a constitution and soon a parliament (Majles) was elected - both firsts in the Muslim world. Ahmad Kasravi's History of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution chronicles this event and the ensuing struggles. Alternately elegiac and brutally honest, Kasravi's work is central to modern Iranian political consciousness in a way few other author's works are to their nation's. It is respected across the political spectrum. It will strike the reader how fresh the issues raised by the revolution and the ensuing struggles are today. For example, the history presents a spirited defense of secular nationalism but gives a refreshingly honest view of the Islamic polemic against it. Kasravi was born in an impoverished borough of Tabriz. Raised to be a clergyman, he became a zealous champion of constitutionalism, having witnessed his town's constitutionalists' courageous fight for the Majles and the rule of law. Moved by the terrible suffering his province of Azerbaijan underwent in the course of the revolution, he drafted a version of the present history around 1922. The present volume introduces the reader to life in Iran before the Constitutional Revolution, the ferment among the intellectuals and reformers during this period, the revolution's immediate causes, the ensuing mobilizations, and the granting of the Constitution and the opening of the Majles. It closes with a survey of the first period of Iran's constitutional experiment"--Unedited summary from volume 1 cover.

The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906-1911

The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906-1911
Author: Janet Afary
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 488
Release: 1996
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780231103503

During the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906 to 1911 a variety of forces played key roles in overthrowing a repressive regime. Afary sheds new light on the role of ordinary citizens and peasantry, the status of Iranian women, and the multifaceted structure of Iranian society.

Britain and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906-1911

Britain and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906-1911
Author: Mansour Bonakdarian
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Total Pages: 640
Release: 2006-06-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780815630425

In this thoroughly researched account, Mansour Bonakdarian provides an in-depth exploration of the substantial British support for the Iranian constitutional and national struggle of 1906-1911, illuminating the opposition in Britain to Anglo-Russian imperialist intervention in Iran. In painstaking and compelling detail Bonakdarian analyzes, in particular, the role of the Persia Committee, a lobbying group founded in 1908 for the sole purpose of changing Britain's policy toward Iran. This book's strength lies in its coverage of how Sir Edward Grey's policy toward Iran was shaped and the extent to which this policy was affected by sustained criticism from a number of disparate groups including dissenters, radicals, socialists, liberal imperialists, and conservatives. The volume and breadth of primary archival materials used is extensive. Not only have all the standard collections been examined, such as the Foreign Office files and the Cabinet and Grey papers, but also numerous private archives in international libraries have been consulted. Bonakdarian's deep understanding of the Iranian issues yields a rich and balanced approach to the literature in the field. With clear and systematic arguments, he offers an account of diplomatic history that is accessible and persuasive. His scholarship is certain to reinvigorate dialogue on the subject of Anglo-Iranian relations.

Iran's Constitutional Revolution

Iran's Constitutional Revolution
Author: H. E. Chehabi
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-10-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0755649230

Born out of a fundamental tension between the old-fashioned and inadequate Qajar monarchy of Mozaffar al-Din Sah and Mohammad Ali Shah, and new reformist democratic ideals, the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906 represents a pivotal moment in the formation of modern Iran. The collapse of the state through financial indigence and foreign pressure - which in the end also consumed the new regime - created a vacuum, which became the subject of many different visions. These included the anti-constitutionalist arguments of Fazlollah Nuri; the moderate Shi'i vision of Tabatabai'I; the more gradualist secular approach of bureaucrats such as Sani-e Dowleh and Nasser Al-Molk; the various radical visions of Taqizadeh and Sattar Khan, as well as the Bakhtiaris. What were the reformists' various aims and how much did they accomplish in the years before Reza Shah seized power? How do events in Iran compare with similar uprisings in other parts of the world? And what role does the Constitutional Revolution continue to play in defining Iranian self-identity? This important and authoritative new book explores all the many different facets of the Revolution, drawing on newly available sources as well as cutting edge research from around the globe to present a definitive account.

Revolution and Constitutionalism in the Ottoman Empire and Iran

Revolution and Constitutionalism in the Ottoman Empire and Iran
Author: Nader Sohrabi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 457
Release: 2011-10-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1139504053

In his book on constitutional revolutions in the Ottoman Empire and Iran in the early twentieth century, Nader Sohrabi considers the global diffusion of institutions and ideas, their regional and local reworking and the long-term consequences of adaptations. He delves into historic reasons for greater resilience of democratic institutions in Turkey as compared to Iran. Arguing that revolutions are time-bound phenomena whose forms follow global models in vogue at particular historical junctures, he challenges the ahistoric and purely local understanding of them. Furthermore, he argues that macro-structural preconditions alone cannot explain the occurrence of revolutions, but global waves, contingent events and the intervention of agency work together to bring them about in competition with other possible outcomes. To establish these points, the book draws on a wide array of archival and primary sources that afford a minute look at revolutions' unfolding.

Iran's First Revolution

Iran's First Revolution
Author: Mangol Bayat
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 327
Release: 1991-11-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 0195345037

In order to understand Iran's religious revolution of 1978-1979, it is important to look closely at an earlier revolution in the country, the constitutional revolution of 1905-1909. This revolution, which resulted in the establishment of Iran's first parliamentary democracy, was a seminal event in the country's history. The most thorough and comprehensive history of the revolution to date, Bayat's book examines the uneasy alliance of clerical, bureaucratic, landowning, and mercantile elements that won the support of the masses for a more democratic government, especially the clerical dissidents that gave the revolution an aura of religious legitimacy. Bayat argues that the recent religious revival in Iran is much less surprising when one sees how constitutionalists at the beginning of the century had to couch their calls for reform in the language of the Koran, claiming that political reforms constituted a return to Islam.

Revolutionary Iran

Revolutionary Iran
Author: Michael Axworthy
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 536
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199322260

In Revolutionary Iran, Michael Axworthy offers a richly textured and authoritative history of Iran from the 1979 revolution to the present.

Democracy in Iran

Democracy in Iran
Author: Ali Gheissari
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2009-07-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0195396960

In this book, Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr look at the political history of Iran in the modern era, and offer an in-depth analysis of the prospects for democracy to flourish there. After having produced the only successful Islamist challenge to the state, a revolution, and an Islamic Republic, Iran is now poised to produce a genuine and indigenous democratic movement in the Muslim world. Democracy in Iran is neither a sudden development nor a western import, and Gheissari and Nasr seek to understand why democracy failed to grow roots and lost ground to an autocratic Iranian state.