The Qajars, Colonialism, and the Constitutional Revolution

In the spring of 1828, in a small village called Turkmenchay near Tabriz, the representatives of Iran and the Russian Empire sat down over a document that would transform Iran's geography forever. With the signing of that treaty, vast lands beyond the Aras River — Yerevan, Nakhchivan, and what had remained of the soil of the Caucasus — were severed from the body of Iran. This was the second piece to fall away in less than two decades; the first had been cut off by the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813. What was left behind was not merely new borders, but a pervasive sense of humiliation and helplessness that settled into the memory of Iranians for generations.

The Treaty of Turkmenchay did not take land alone; it laid a heavy indemnity upon Iran's empty treasury, granted Russian subjects special legal privileges (capitulations), and turned the Aras River into a border that split families, languages, and ancient ties in two. Defeat in two wars against a neighbor that possessed cannon and a modern military order made Iran understand that the world no longer turned on the axis of the past.

The origins of this dynasty go back to the closing decades of the eighteenth century, when Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, a commander from the Turkic-descended Qajar tribe, after years of war and suppression, managed to overcome the chaos that followed the collapse of the Zand dynasty and gather a scattered Iran beneath a single crown. Having been castrated in childhood at the hands of rivals, he was known as a stubborn and merciless ruler. In 1796 he placed the crown upon his head, but shortly afterward was killed by his own servants, and his legacy passed to his nephew Fath-Ali Shah.

Agha Mohammad Khan chose the small village of Tehran — situated at the foot of the Alborz and near the tribal homeland of the Qajars — as his capital, a choice that has endured to this day. Tehran was transformed from a marginal town into the political center of gravity of Iran. Under Fath-Ali Shah the court acquired an outward splendor, but it was precisely in this period that the catastrophic wars with Russia began and revealed that the splendor of the court had no military backing commensurate with the new age.

Qajar Iran found itself between two expanding empires: Russia, which pressed in from the north, and Britain, which, anxious over the road to India, fixed its eyes upon it from the south. Historians have called this struggle for influence the “Great Game.” In this arena Iran was not the principal player but the field of others' rivalry; every concession granted to one side provoked pressure from the other. The affair of Herat is a clear example of this vise: Iran's efforts to recapture that city were repeatedly met with British military opposition, for London regarded Herat as the gateway to India.

This geographic position severely limited the court's freedom of action. It was in this atmosphere that the idea of reform — building a modern army, fiscal order, and new institutions — became a vital necessity for a number of perceptive statesmen.

Mirza Taqi Khan Farahani, titled Amir Kabir, the chief minister of the young Naser al-Din Shah, sought to put this necessity into practice. During the short years of his ministry (1848 to 1851) he devoted himself to organizing the finances, curbing the reach of foreign influence, checking corruption, and modernizing the army. His most enduring legacy was the Dar al-Funun: the first modern institution of higher education in the European style, opened in Tehran in 1851, where engineering, medicine, artillery, and foreign languages were taught.

But Amir Kabir's reforms threatened the interests of the courtiers and the foreign powers. The intrigues against him mounted, the Shah turned away from him, and finally in 1852 he was put to death in the Fin bath at Kashan. The fate of Amir Kabir has, in Iran's national narrative, become a symbol of the suppression of reform and the sacrifice of prudence at the feet of jealousy and dependency; though historians hold varying views about the scope and durability of his reforms.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Qajar shahs, ever struggling with a treasury deficit, turned to selling “concessions” to foreign subjects: the exclusive right to exploit mines, railways, banks, and trade. The most famous of these was the Reuter concession of 1872, which was so all-encompassing that Lord Curzon called it the complete surrender of a country's resources to a foreigner. Domestic pressure and Russian opposition rendered that concession stillborn, but the pattern of grants continued.

The climax came in 1890, when the monopoly over the purchase, sale, and export of tobacco throughout the entire country was granted to a British company. In response, a fatwa attributed to Mirza-ye Shirazi, the great source of emulation, forbade the use of tobacco. The nationwide boycott became so widespread that it is said that even in the Shah's harem the water pipes fell silent. In the end the government was compelled to cancel the concession. Many regard this event as the “final rehearsal of mass politics”: the first time that a coalition of clerics, bazaar merchants, and intellectuals was able to impose the collective will upon the court.

The experience of the tobacco affair had shown that the people could exert an effect upon autocratic power. In 1905, a blend of economic discontent, anger at dependency on foreigners, and the aspiration for the rule of law gave rise to a broad movement that demanded the establishment of a “House of Justice” and then a national parliament. The sit-in of the protesting groups and the strike of the bazaar forced the Shah to retreat. In 1906 Mozaffar al-Din Shah signed the decree of constitutionalism, and the first National Consultative Assembly (Majlis) was opened. The Constitution of 1906 and its Supplement limited the powers of the Shah and defined rights for the nation — an event considered the beginning of modern politics in Iran.

But the reaction was not long in coming. Mohammad-Ali Shah, who was at odds with the constitution, in 1908 with the help of the Cossack Brigade and under the command of Russian officers, bombarded the Majlis. The shelling of Baharestan scattered the constitutionalists and began a period that became known as the “Lesser Despotism.” In the midst of this, Tabriz became the focal point of resistance; Sattar Khan and his companions stood firm against the siege. In the end, constitutionalist forces from Tabriz, Gilan, and the Bakhtiari advanced toward Tehran, deposed the Shah in 1909, and restored the Majlis. The victory, however, was not complete or lasting; internal strife and foreign pressure kept the constitution in an unstable condition until 1911.

In the very years when Iranians were striving for law and a parliament, two foreign powers reached an accord over the fate of their country. In 1907, Britain and Russia, setting aside their longstanding rivalry, divided Iran into spheres of influence in an agreement: the north to Russia, the southeast to Britain, and the middle as a neutral zone. This document, concluded without consulting the Iranian government, openly violated national sovereignty and was a heavy blow to the hopes of the constitutionalists.

The year 1908 also held within it another event that would shape the fate of the coming century: at Masjed Soleyman, in the southwest of Iran, oil was discovered on a commercial scale for the first time in the Middle East. This discovery turned Iran into one of the most important energy sources in the world and laid the foundation of future conflicts — from the Anglo-Persian Oil Company to the nationalization of oil. Thus Iran, on the threshold of the twentieth century, entered the new age simultaneously with a legacy of humiliation and with an underground wealth that it did not yet know what storms it would bring in its train.