29. The Persian Constitutional Revolution

Sword of Religion

The Reuter Concession is believed to have set the foundation for the Tobacco Protest in 1890, which, according to Keddie, “unquestionably gave new prestige to Afghani’s tactics among Iranian modernizers.”[1] In July 1891, Bahaullah, in his Tablet to the World, responded to the Tobacco Protest, calling for reform to return to Iran’s glory days and denouncing the Qajar dynasty, while lamenting the “thick clouds of tyranny” that had “darkened the face of the earth, and enveloped its peoples.”[2] Bahaullah referred to the passage in his Most Holy Book, written nearly twenty years earlier, that prophesied “a democracy of the people” would rule in Iran, but regretted that usurpers and tyrants continued to remain in power.[3] He singled out for condemnation the Qajar prince Mahmud Mirza Jalal al-Dowleh, the governor of Yazd, who that Spring had been involved in the killing of seven leading Bahais. Echoing his letter to Queen Victoria, he advocated that an Iranian parliament, like “the system of government which the British people have adopted in London,” should be established and that Iranian representatives should meet with the shah to fix a gathering place.[4]

Browne’s history of the period, The Persian Revolution of 1905–1909, begins with a chapter titled “Sayyid Jamalu’d-Din, the Protagonist of Pan-Islamism.” Browne explains the reason for opening a book with an account of Afghani, which well encapsulate his astounding, though devious, career:

 

It is a matter still open to discussion whether great men give rise to great movements, or great movements to great men, but at least the two are inseparable, and in this movement towards the unity and freedom of the Muslim peoples none played so conspicuous a role as Sayyid Jamalu’d-Din, a man of enormous force of character, prodigious learning, untiring activity, dauntless courage, extraordinary eloquence both in speech and writing, and an appearance equality striking and majestic. He was at once philosopher, writer, orator and journalist, but above all politician, and was regarded by his admirers as a great patriot and by his antagonists as a dangerous agitator. He visited, at one time or another, most of the lands of Islam and a great many European capitals, and came into close relations, sometimes friendly, more often hostile, with many of the leading men of his time, both in the East and the West.[5]

 

Indicative of Afghani’s adaptability to whatever ideology, religion or nationality suited his schemes is a letter he wrote to the British—who he had so vociferously denounced in the past—this time seeking their protection from Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1895:

 

I am an Afghan (Cabul) and I depend on England. I have passed a great part of my life in the Orient with the single aim of uprooting fanaticism, the most harmful malady of this land, of reforming society and establishing there the benefits of tolerance.[6]

 

Before rejecting this request, the Foreign Office had asked the India Office for information on Afghani, which provides further insight into his devious duplicity:

 

…While here [in Egypt] he became very friendly with Riaz Pasha [Ryad Pasha] and many other Egyptian Freethinkers… He was in Hyderabad for about 20 months, during his stay he associated chiefly with the rising generation of freethinkers, the followers of Sayed Ahmed of Aligarh [Syed Ahmad Khan]. But in spite of all their kindness and hospitality towards him, he published a book in Persian against their doctrines. He seemed to hold strong views on such subjects as “Revival of Islam” and “Union is strength.” His story about his expulsion from Egypt was that he was a mason, and that the khedive mistook him for a conspirator.

…In December 1889 the Sheikh went to Tehran, much to the annoyance of the Shah… He made a number of converts to his own particular faith which he called “Naturalism.” Whilst in Persia he thought it proper to conform outwardly to the Shiah faith.[7]

 

In 1891–92, Afghani spent several months in England, where he met Malkam Khan, founder of the Faramosh Khaneh, who adopted his conspiratorial strategy of using the “sword of religion” to manipulate political outcomes. Malkam’s tactic, which he began publishing in his newspaper Qanun in 1890, was to prove the compatibility of modernizing laws with Islam. And while his earlier attempts at reform had been directed mostly privately to governmental leaders, and even to the Shah himself, beginning in 1889, with his dismissal as Minister to London, Malkam began to appeal predominantly to non-officials, including the Ulema.[8] And then, in 1892, Malkam’s Qanun no longer just argued that modern law was compatible with Islam, but actually began an appeal to the leading Ulama to take the initiative in calling together a constituent assembly to depose the oppressors, meaning the Shah as well as his Grand Vizier, and to reintroduce a true Islamic legal system.[9]

Referring to Malkam Khan and his conspiratorial brethren in the Faramosh Khaneh—Mostashar al-Dowleh and Hosein Khan—Keddie stated: “The alliance between much of the religious leadership of Iran and the most advanced and Westernized political activists is virtually without parallel either in the Islamic or the non-Islamic world.”[10] However, as Keddi indicated, there had been important and marked switch in strategy, from working within the government against the Ulema, as in the Reuter Concession, to working with the Ulema against the government in the Tobacco Protest.[11] More important than Malkam as an architect of the religious-radical alliance, she notes however, was Afghani.[12] On his two trips to Iran in the late 1880’s, Afghani influenced a number religious leaders and political and religious radicals in the use of his tactic of attacking the government’s policies on essentially religious grounds.[13] These men had favored and supported the Reuter Concession of 1872, partly because they thought that British investment might be the only way effective way to bring modernization to Iran and to strengthen it against Russia. However, Keddie believes, with the failure of their efforts with the Reuter Concession, “around the late 1880s the Westernizers lost whatever hopes they had had in significant reform being achieved by top governmental men.”[14]

Keddie indicates that the tactic of the alliance of Ulema and the radical modernizers—Afghani and his cohorts—would have its first major success in the Tobacco Protest.[15] By the time of the movement against the tobacco concession of 1890, most of the modernizers, including the Malkam Khan and his Faramosh Khaneh network, conspired outside the government, becoming instead allied with the majority of the Ulema against the government.[16] In a public lecture on Persian civilization delivered in London soon after his dismissal, Malkam admitted that his main objective was to disguise the political philosophy of the West in the terminology of the Quran, Hadith and the Shiah Imams.[17] Although Malkam’s Islam was purely for outward effect, having apparently converted back to Christianity at one point, he confessed frankly that he and the Iranian reformers had agreed together that the only means of succeeding in making European reforms acceptable to Iranians was to present them in an Islamic guise.[18] After first noting the Muslims’ great hostility to the Europeans, because of the impression among Muslims that the Europeans were trying to impose Christianity and undermine Islam, Malkam openly explained the utility of religion:

 

…except that one thing of polygamy, there is not a single point in which Islam is really in contradiction with your civilising principles….

As to the principles which are found in Europe, which constitute the root of your civilisation, we must get hold of them somehow, no doubt; but instead of taking them from London or Paris, instead of saying this comes from such an ambassador, or that it is advised by such a Government (which will never be accepted), it would be very easy to take the same principle, and to say that it comes from Islam, and that this can be soon proved. We have had some experience in this direction. We found that ideas which were by no means accepted when coming from your agents in Europe, were accepted at once with the greatest delight when it was proved that they were latent in Islam. I can assure you that the little progress which we see in Persia and Turkey, especially in Persia, is due to this fact, that some people have taken your European principles, and instead of saying that they came from Europe, from England, France or Germany, have said: “We have nothing to do with Europeans; these are the true principles of our own religion (and, indeed that is quite true) which have been taken by Europeans!” That has had a marvelous effect at once.[19]

 

A number of influential Ulama joined Malkam’s Faramosh Khaneh, since in Iran, as indicated by Z.A. Arabadzhyan in “Shiite clergy among Iranian Masons,” unlike in the Catholic West, some of the clergy were not opposed to involvement in Freemasonry. This resulted in two camps emerging, one of the conservative Ulama who defended traditional Shiah Islam, and the modernizers, who called for Western-inspired reforms. This led to the justifiable accusations that these Mason Ulama were in service the Western colonial powers.[20]

As Arabadzhyan pointed out, the influential role played by the Ulama in Iran is attributable to the particular way that the relationship between the clergy and government evolved in Iran. Under the reign of Nasser ad-Din Shah, difficulties began to emerge, initially sparked by the actions of Amir Kabir, his powerful Grand Vizier. It was then, explains Arabadzhyan, that the dual partisanship among the Ulama began to develop in the country.[21] On the one hand, some of the directions of the movement laid down by Amir Kabir began to materialize, in particular at Dar ul-Funun, and with young people being sent to study in Europe. This allowed the Iranians to become better acquainted with European achievements and bring the relevant information home. Thanks to these contacts, Afghani’s fellow conspirator Malkam Khan created the first Iranian Masonic lodge, Faramosh Khaneh, which began to spread the ideas of enlightenment among the people, as well as its successor, the League of Humanity. On the other hand, the positions of clericalism were strengthened, which was expressed in the increase in the influence of the Ulama on the Shah and in the growth in the number of members of the clergy. There were 359 high-ranking theologians in the country alone, of whom 175 reached the level of Mujtahid, a theologian who met all the conditions for interpreting religious laws.[22]

Among the prominent Ulama was Mirza Mohammad Jafar Hakim el-Akhi, who at one time was the Deputy Master of the Faramosh Khaneh, and played a significant role in spreading the reformist ideas of Malkam Khan. At the court of Fath Ali Shah, Mirza Mohammad received the title of Mujtahid Elahi. He was included in the Iranian delegation at the negotiations on the conclusion of the Treaty of Turkmenchay which concluded the Russo-Persian War (1826–1828). Another prominent religious figure in Faramosh Khaneh was Hajji Mirza Zayn ul-Abidin (1820 – 1904), who became Imam Jum’a of Tehran, to succeed his father, by decree of Nasser ad-Din Shah, at the age of eighteen. His accession as the Imam Jum’a of Tehran was of great importance for the propaganda of the ideas of Malkam Khan among the believers and their attraction to Faramosh Khaneh. The initiation of Mirza Zayn ul-Abidin, who sympathized with England and the English order, was kept secret for a long time. Since most of the members of the Iranian lodge were Muslims and needed an Imam Jum’a during ceremonies and meetings, he was also elected as the Imam Jum’a of Faramosh Khaneh.[23]

Certain reformist Ulama played a role in the founding of Faramosh Khaneh, because Nasser ad-Din Shah sent two Ulama, Sayyid Sadiq Tabatabai and Sayyid Ismail Behbahani, to study the activities and goals of order, and they concluded that, to the best of their understanding, the creation lodge did not harm the faith, did not contradict the crown or the foundations of the state.[24] Tabatabai, who himself became a member of the order, had a negative attitude towards Freemasonry at first, but after a six-hour conversation with Malkam Khan at one of the private meetings in Tehran, his attitude towards Freemasons changed.[25]

 

Pan-Islamism

Departing from Europe in 1886, Afghani had spent much of the next four years back in his native Iran. At first, he tried to persuade Nasser ad-Din Shah to lead a campaign against the British. Failing in this, he turned to conservative Ulama and reform-inclined intellectuals. To the Ulama, he advocated a crusade against the infidels of the West. To the intellectuals, he emphasized that reforms, especially of a political and educational nature, would strengthen the country against Western imperialism. These lectures attracted large audiences, and thereby aroused Nasser ad-Din’s concern. In 1891, Nasser ad-Din and the Grand Vizier Amin al-Soltan were enraged by a leaflet critical of the government for a series of concessions, including the tobacco monopoly granted to an Englishman in 1890. Having taken sanctuary in the shrine of Shah Abdol-Azim, a fifth generation descendant of Hasan ibn Ali, Afghani was captured and deported in chains to the Ottoman Empire. Although he had failed to expel the British and introduce reforms during his years in Iran, Afghani succeeded in leaving behind in Iran many followers, especially among the Ulama and the graduates of the Dar ul-Funun.[26]

From London, together with Malkam Khan, Afghani began agitating against Shah Nasser ad-Din and his policies, in league his Masonic brothers from Faramosh Khaneh and radical Azalis. E.G. Browne met Afghani only once, at the home of Malkam Khan in London, but he recalled years later, “I have still a vivid recollection of that commanding personality.” He added:

 

We talked a good deal about the Babis, as to whom he was very well informed… though he had no great opinion of them. In the course of conversation I asked him about the state of Persia, and he answered, so far as I can recollect, that no reform was to be hoped for until six or seven heads had been cut off; “the first,” he added, “must be Nasiru’d-Din Shah’s, and the second the Aminu’s-Sultan’s.” It is curious to note that both of these were assassinated, though Sayyid Jamalu’d-Din [Afghani] survived the Shah less than ten months, and was survived by the Aminu’s-Sultan for ten years.[27]

 

Many popular uprisings against the constitutionalists, organized by the Ulama, were accompanied with accusations of their adherence to Mazdakism, an offshoot of Zoroastrianism, and Babism.[28] As explained in Encyclopedia Iranica:

 

Often loosely applied, Babi affiliation (which came increasingly to mean Azali affiliation) was applied to or used as a badge by several important individuals active in demanding social change in Iran, in a manner paralleling the connection with Freemasonry used by Malkom Khan and others.[29]

 

The Babi movement, explained K. Paul Johnson, “originated in the relatively flexible and occult-oriented synthesis of Ahsa’i [founder of Shaykhism], but evolved into a militant, intolerant sect with grandiose political goals.”[30] And while the Bahai movement later moderated their radicalism, it was retained by the Azalis, who “survived within a network of family loyalties and with occasional outburst of clandestine antigovernment activism.”[31] According to Wilson, political subversion was an inevitable consequence of the Bab’s claims:

 

In accordance with this principle the Babis looked upon Mohammed Shah and Nasr-ud-Din as no longer the rightful rulers. They were, ipso facto, supplanted by the Bab, the Sahib-i-Zalma or Lord of the Age. The Kajars [Qajars] were called them “unlawful kings.”… Disloyalty was an essential corollary of Babism and not a consequence of the repression and persecution with it met.[32]

 

In 1892, Afghani, who had tried to establish relations with the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II at least as early as 1885, was asked by a member of the Ottoman court to come to reside in Turkey.[33] Afghani travelled there with diplomatic immunity from the British Embassy. Afghani spent the last six years of his life in the Ottoman Empire. To avoid the topic of political reform, which was too dangerous in Istanbul, Afghani channeled his energies into safer projects. He urged Sultan Abdul Hamid II to organize a Pan-Islamic movement against the Russians, who now appeared more of a threat than the British. He continued to call for the reform of Islam, adapting principles of the Quran to the discoveries of modern science, and the replacement of traditional knowledge with the new knowledge of modern Europe. In addition, he continued to use both secular and religious arguments in his propaganda war against the Nasser ad-Din Shah.[34]

Even though he was not a believer, Afghani recognized the effectiveness of using religion to rally the masses to a particular cause, by agitating for Pan-Islamism, which advocates the unity of Muslims under one Islamic country or state, often a Caliphate. Afghani would have derived this impression from the Indian jihad movement of the Sepoy Rebellion and the later Mahdist movement in the Sudan. As such, as Keddie observed:

 

It is no accident that the rise of Pan-Islamic sentiment followed exactly the path of Western attacks on Islamic lands. Appearing first in India and in Russian Central Asia after their conquest by England and Russia, Pan-Islamic sentiment became a live issue in the Ottoman Empire after the Russo-Turkish War, the French conquest of Tunisia, and the British occupation of Egypt. In Iran it spread particularly after the rise of Western concessions and growing Western control in the late 1880’s and the 1890s. Afghani was as much responding to as initiating a trend; and there is good evidence that he began to present himself as a defender of Islam and Pan-Islam only about 1881, with the writing of the Refutation of the Materialist.[35]

 

Afghani was employed by Sultan Abdul Hamid II to direct an Iranian and Shiah circle in support of Pan-Islamism—the unity of all Muslims, Sunni and Shiah, under his religious leadership—in writing letters to Shiah Ulama in Iran to solicit their support.[36] Among this circle were the Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani (1854 – 1896) and Sheikh Ahmad Rouhi (1847 – 1896), who had both formerly been Azali-Babis. Rouhi was the son of Mullah Mohammed Jafar, a distinguished Shiah Muslim theologian who was imprisoned on the suspicion of being a Babi.[37] In 1889, E.G. Browne began a correspondence with Subh-i-Azal, then in Cyprus, and was even more closely associated with Rouhi, Subh-i-Azal’s chief disciple and advisor.[38] Both Rouhi and Kermani were married to daughters of Subh-i-Azal and wrote on Babism, collaborating on the well-known work Hast behest (“The Eight Heavens”).[39] Hasht Behesht, which is one of the reference books on Babism, is critical of the Bahai Faith and Bahaullah, and sees the Constitutional Revolution as the downfall for the Qajar dynasty.[40] Most copies of the book were destroyed by Shiah in Iran, but a copy was brought to E.G. Browne.[41] In the book, Kermani is described as being descended from Genghis Khan, one great-grandfather being a great Zoroastrian Mobad, while his mother’s family could be traced back to an Indian Nawab married into the Safavid family. Kermani and Rouhi also became friendly with Mirza Habib Esfahani (1835 – 1893), and they worked together on Persian translation of the satirical novel The adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan.[42]

That Malkam Khan was believed by some Azali Babis to be in contact with the Hidden Imam Mahdi and the reincarnation of Jesus Christ is confirmed in a letter Kermani wrote to Malkam:

 

It has become a matter of common talk among some of their excellencies the Babis that one of the signs of the manifestation of the Hidden One [Mahdi] shall be the descent of Jesus from the heavens and his propagation of true religion. They firmly believe that Malkum Khan is this Jesus who brings back to life the souls of the dead and cures the palsied and the leprous. Soon, through his Jesus-like exhalations, the faith of the Imam will prevail. It seems that their leader has issued a clear declaration to this effect… In short, they regard your excellency as sacred.[43]

 

Also in this circle of Pan-Islamists was Abul-Hasan Mirza Shaykh al-Ra’is (c. 1848 – 1918), a Qajar prince and dissident. A grandson of Fath Ali Shah, and the son of Mohammad Taqi Mirza (791 – 1853), the Hessam os-Saltaneh (“Saber of the Monarchy”) and Governor-General of the provinces of Kermanshah and of Boroujerd in Western Iran, Shaykh al-Ra’is was exposed to Babism by his mother, a convert to the religion.[44] He received the title Shaykh al-Ra’is from his cousin Nasser ad-Din Shah. After studying literature and philosophy in Iran, he moved to the Shiah shrine cities of Iraq where he became a student of Mirza Hasan Shirazi, and attained the status of a Mujtahid. He spent the 1880s partly in the Ottoman Empire and partly in Iran, where he occasionally faced opposition for heterodoxy.[45] In 1893, he moved to Istanbul, was initiated into a Masonic lodge[46] and joined Afghani’s Pan-Islamist circle.[47] In the same year, he wrote Ittihad-i Islam (“The Unity of Islam”).

Nikki Keddie found and translated the account of the formation of the circle, from a preface to Hasht Behesht, written by Rouhi’s brother, Afzal ul-Mulk Kermani, with “Sayyed” referring to Afghani:

 

The Ottoman Sultan came to believe in the unity of the different Islamic groups and asked Sayyed Jamal ed Din to write to the Shi’ite ulama in Iran and Iraq and call them to unity. The late Sayyed Jamal ed Din . . . said if he had the power of the sultanate and the necessary money . . . he could accomplish this great work with the help of a circle of patriotic (mellat parast) intellectuals. The Ottoman Sultan gave guarantees and obligations for this. The Sayyed formed a society of Iranian and other Shi’ite men of letters who were in Istanbul. This Society was made up of twelve men: Novvab Vala Hajj Sheikh ol Ra’is, Feizi Efendi Mo’allem Irani, Reza Pasha Shi’i, Sayyed Borhan ed Din Balkhi, Novvab Hossein Hindi, Ahmad Mirza, Hasan Khan (the Iranian Consul General), Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani, Sheikh Ahmad Ruhi, myself, Abdol Karim Bey and Hamid Bey Javaherizadeh Esfahani. When the Sayyed’s group was formed, he spoke to it as follows: Today the religion of Islam is like a ship whose captain is Mohammad, peace be with him, and all Moslems are passengers of this holy ship, and this unhappy ship is caught in a storm and threatened with sinking, and unbelievers and freethinkers (ahl-e zandaqeh) from every side have pierced this ship. What is the duty of the passengers of such a ship, threatened with sinking, and its inhabitants close to perdition? Should they first try to preserve and save this ship from the storm and from sinking, or instead bring the ship and each other to the verge of ruin through discord, personal motives, and petty disagreements? All with one voice answered that preserving the territory of Islam and saving this holy ship was the religious duty of every Moslem.[48]

 

Then, explains Rouhi, Afghani asked all members to write to every acquaintance and friend in India, Iran and Arab lands, including Balkh, and Turkestan, about the kindness and benevolence of Sultan Abdul Hamid II toward all Muslims of whatever denomination they might belong to. If the Shiah Ulama were to join the plan, the Sultan would give every one of them, according to his rank, special favor and a monthly salary, and would order Ottoman officials to observe the same good conduct toward Iranians in Mecca and Medina as toward their own Sunni followers, and bestow on them the holy cities of Iraq. Having agreed, about 400 letters were written to all points in the Muslim world. After six months, about 200 petitions from the Arab and Iranian Shiah Ulama with some gifts were sent the Sultan through Afghani, who was overjoyed. To avoid accusations of secret sympathies for Shiism, the Sultan chose to assign the task to the Sublime Porte, the central government of the Ottoman Empire, with the secret collaboration of the Sheikh ul Islam. Rouhi was delegated to go to the holy cities of Iraq to investigate the receptiveness of the Ulama and to report back to the Sublime Porte. One of the writings from the holy cities fell into the hands of Mirza Mahmud Khan Qomi, the Iranian Consul at Baghdad, who sent it, enclosed with a petition, to Nasser ad-Din Shah, warning that Afghani was planning the surrender of Iran to the Ottoman Sultan, that he was taking most of the Ulama with him on his Pan-Islamic plan, and that soon a major revolt would be set in motion.[49]

Nasser ad-Din Shah was greatly concerned by the report and immediately telegraphed Seyyed Mahmoud Tabatabai-Diba Ala al-Molk (1845 – 1925), the Iranian ambassador in Istanbul, and asked him to intervene.[50] Kermani, Rouhi, and another member were arrested and sent to Trabzon. After being freed from jail, Kermani found Afghani in Istanbul in 1895, and together they began planning the assassination of Nasser ad-Din.[51] They both collaborated with Malkam in his London-based paper Qanun to attack Qajar rule.[52] Also writing for Qanun was Mohammed Muhsin Khan, who had also been initiated to the Sincère Amitié in 1960, and who had also belonged with to the “Proodos” lodge in Istanbul with Malkam. From 1872 to 1890, Muhsin Khan was ambassador to Istanbul. His contributing to Malkam’s Qanun was the reason why he was recalled from Constantinople to Tehran in 1891. He received the title of Moshir od-Dowleh. In 1892, he served as Minister of Commerce and Justice. In November 1896, Muhsin Khan became Foreign Minister and finally Prime Minister. Kermani later returned to Iran and shot and killed Nasser ad-Din on May 1, 1896. While Kermani was executed by public hanging in August of the following year, the Iranian government was not successful in extraditing Afghani from Turkey. Afghani died of cancer a few months before Kermani’s execution.[53]

 

Anjomans 

The assassination of Nasser ad-Din Shah’s and Kermani’s subsequent execution marked a turning point in political thought in Iran, that would ultimately lead to the Persian Constitutional, considered the first major democratic movement in the modern Middle East.[54] The Constitutional Revolution took place between 1905 and 1911, during the reign of his son and successor, Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar (1853 – 1907), who signed the 1906 constitution shortly before his death. The revolution has been referred to as an “epoch-making episode in the modern history of Persia.”[55] Mozaffar ad-Din Shah, who had first met him as a boy in 1862, met Arminius Vambery again in 1900, on his return from Paris passed through Budapest. Vambery remarked that Mozaffar ad-Din, although willing to introduce reforms, did not know where to start, and was intimidated by this Grand Vizier, Amin al-Soltan, who had helped him secure the throne after his father’s assassination.[56]

The leading Ulama, reports Arabadzhyan, had played an important role in persuading, or even forcing, the gravely-ill Mozaffar ad-Din Shah to sign the draft constitution drawn up by Iranian Freemasons, shortly before his death in 1906.[57] “In Iran,” explains Arabadzhyan, “a country with a deeply religious population, the attraction of Ulama to the ranks of the Freemasons, and subsequently to the ranks of the constitutionalists, who covered up the propaganda of liberalism with discussions about the indisputable advantages of Islam and the conformity of their lodges with its dogmas, was necessary so that the clergy would not unleash their wrath on the Masonic lodges.”[58] A number of the Ulama, despite the hostility of their colleagues to Malkam Khan, joined the Faramosh Khaneh, among them Hajji Mirza Zayn ul-Abidin, and Sayyid Sadiq Tabatabai, who had justified the founding of the order to Nasser ad-Din Shah, and his son, Mirza Sayyed Mohammad Tabatabai (1842 –1920), was one of the leaders of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution.[59]

Malkam Khan is considered one of the fathers of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution.[60] Malkam Khan, explains Algar, “found it expedient to institute the Faramosh Khaneh in imitation of the Masonic lodge; and his initiative was followed in turn by many other secret or semi-secret groups that were particularly numerous in the time of the Constitutional Revolution.[61] We find, for example, Shaykh Muhsin, son of the renowned Mujtahid in Tehran, Shaykh Hadi Najmabadi (1835 – 1903), requesting Malkam to draw upon his experience and supply him with a set of regulations for a semi-secret society he had just established in Tehran.[62] Mirza Sayyed Mohammad Tabatabai, whose father was a member of the Faramosh Khaneh and who himself is alleged to have had Masonic affiliations, and who worked closely with Afghani, was active in the work of the secret societies of the early constitutional period.[63] It was primarily in these societies that the tactical-if partially accurate-identification of the dictates of religion with those of westernizing reform was impressed on the Ulama, and through them that their co-operation with the constitutional movement was secured. “Indirectly, then,” remarks Algar, one of the aims of the Faramosh Khaneh “may have been achieved, and Malkam’s vision of the Masonic lodge as a suitable means for political operation in Iran justified.”[64]

Among the members of Réveil de l’Iran were many religious figures who advocated limiting the power of the Shah by the constitution and the Majlis (Persian parliament), which played a major role in the overthrow of the absolutist system.[65] The Ulama who spoke on the side of the constitutionalists were many: Seyid Abdullah Behbahani, Mirza Sayyed Mohammad Tabatabai, the son of Sayyid Sadiq Tabatabai, Malek al-Motakallemin, and others. Many of them were members of the Réveil de l’Iran.[66] Sayyed Mohammad Tabatabai joined the Réveil de l’Iran, since he believed that, being part of the system of lodges of the Grand Orient of France, it was in no way connected with England. Many years later, his son Sayyid Mohammed Sadiq Tabatabai recalled: “During the revolution, my father and I joined the French Masonic lodge. After its completion, we suddenly discovered that an English hand was emerging from the sleeves of the French lodge, the goal of which was the colonial enslavement of our country. My father and I immediately left this lodge”[67]

According to Mangol Bayat, the lists of membership of the Masonic lodge Réveil de l’Iran “read like a who’s who of prominent constitutionalists of the time.”[68] The most comprehensive study to date of Freemasonry in Iran, Ismail Ra’in, claims that the European Powers orchestrated the revolution. The Réveil de l’Iran, he determined, was their instrument, with Henri Morel of the Alliance Française commanding every move.[69] Ahmad Pojuh, the translator of Edward G. Browne’s history of the revolution, asserts that the entire movement was led by patriotic Masons taking their instructions from Europe.[70] In an article published in Tehran in 1952, Ibrahim Khan Hakim al-Mulk—who became Grand Master of the Réveil de l’Iran in 1900, and received the Rose-Croix in 1901—boasted of his role as the founder of Freemasonry in Persia, and declared:

 

Regardless of what the enemies of Iran are now saying, the progress of the past half-century is due to the devotion and cooperation of the pure-minded masons, who relentlessly worked hand in hand to promote their own sacred and honourable objectives.[71]

 

Even before official recognition was received from the headquarters of the Grand Orient in Paris, Réveil de l’Iran began initiating a large number of prominent persons, many of whom were connected to the Constitutional movement.[72] Two pseudo-Masonic organizations were also active in the same years as the Réveil de l’Iran, engaging like it in attempts to promote the cause of constitutional government in Persia. These were the Anjoman-e Okhovat (“The Secret Brotherhood”) and the Jama’-i Adamiyat (“League of Humanity”), who like Malkam’s Faramosh Khaneh, were secret societies known as Anjoman, which played a major role in the Iranian Enlightenment, which brought new ideas into traditional Iranian society from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century.[73] The society was based on the philosophical doctrine of the tenth-century Brethren of Sincerity.[74] Anjoman-e Okhovat owed its foundation in 1899 to Mirza Ali Khan Zahir-al-Dowleh (1844 – 1904), a brother-in-law of Mozaffar ad-Din Shah, and a disciple of Ṣafi-ʿAli Shah, the head of the Nimatollahi Sufi order, who held a close personal relationship with Aga Khan II.[75]

However, Anjoman-e Okhovat gave up the traditional structure of a Sufi order in favor of one drawn from Freemasonry.[76] Although the society professed a non-political objectives, many of its members were politically active during the constitutional movement and were simultaneously active in the lodge Réveil de l’Iran. Anjoman-e Okhovat included many devoted followers from the ranks of princes, the nobility and court officials. Among them were as Zahir od-Dowleh and the Crown Prince Mohammad Hassan Mirza Qajar (1899 – 1943). Ṣafi-ʿAli Shah died on April 6, 1899, and was succeeded, in accordance with his wish, by Zahir al-Dowleh, now called Ṣafa-ʿAli Shah. By way of his personal influence at the court, Zahir od-Dowleh had married the Shah’s sister, and with the help of the then Prime Minister Amin al-Soltan, Zahir od-Dowleh succeeded in obtaining a royal decree on December 19, 1899 which granted official sanction to the activities of the Anjoman-e Okhovat.[77] Zahir od-Dowleh was buried in a cemetery near his garden where he died, which was named after him, and became the final resting place for numerous Iranian artists, poets, and musicians.[78]

The second organization, the League of Humanity, a successor to the Faramosh Khaneh, was organized in Tehran in the last decade of Nasser ad-Din Shah’s reign and owed its existence to a follower of Malkam named Mirza ‘Abbas Quli Khan Qazvini, later surnamed Adamiyat (“Humanity”), a senior official in the Ministry of Justice. The League of Humanity was inspired by the liberal humanism of Auguste Comte. Qazvini was influenced by a meeting with Malkam during the latter’s visit to Tehran in 1886 to undertake the production of copies of Malkam’s treatises on reform for private distribution, for which the League of Humanity was initially devoted.[79] Malkam composed a special treatise on the aims and organization of the society, and made frequent if cryptic references in his London-based Qanun to the organization.[80] Qazvini’s son, Fereydoun Adamiyat, a well-known historian of the constitutional movement, wrote that the society had three main aims: to use social engineering to attain national renewal, to gain individual freedom to foster the use of human reason, and to obtain legal equality for all, irrespective of ethnicity and religion. Their secret oath of initiation declared, “Equality in rights and duties is the only true foundation of human relations. Equality alone can create firm bonds of national solidarity. Equality alone can guarantee the individual his just rewards and obligations.”[81] Active until 1908, the League of Humanity was able to recruit more than three hundred members, primarily court and government officials, together with a few prominent merchants. Most important among them, although short-lived, was the enlistment of the support of Grand Vizier Amin al-Soltan for the cause of reform a mere week before his assassination in August 1907.[82]

 

Constitutional Revolution of Iran 

In July 1906, clashes occurred between the government and the constitutionalists in Tehran, resulting in the deaths of several people, including a certain Sayyid Abdul Hamid. This caused sharp protests from a group of religious figures led by Mujtahids Sayyid Abdullah Behbahani and Mohammed Sadiq Tabatabai, who himself joined the Réveil de l’Iran. Afterwards, on July 15, 1906, they and another 200 of their supporters—mostly from among the Ulama—left the capital and went to the city of Qom, where they sought asylum. The asylum lasted for about two months, until the government agreed to a number of demands regarding the introduction of a constitution. About two months later, the asylum ceased and the Ulama returned to Tehran.

Revolutionary activity spread throughout Tehran, forcing the Shah to accept a constitution, allow the formation of a Majlis (parliamentary assembly), and hold elections. Neither the British nor the Russian governments approved of the new political arrangement, and preferred a stable puppet government, which allowed foreign concessions and supported their designs in the region.[83] In August 1907, after the ascension to the throne of Mozzafar’s son, Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar (1872 – 1925)—grandson of the modernizer Amir Kabir—the Anglo-Russian Convention Russia was signed, where Tibet, Afghanistan and Iran were divided into spheres of interest, while Russia acknowledged Britain’s rights over India. Iran was divided into a Russian zone in the north and a British zone in the south, with the center of the country remaining neutral.

The political activity of the League of Humanity can be demonstrated in the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 onwards. Its Tehran members, led by Qazvini, attempted in May of that year to dissuade government troops from firing on demonstrators. Later, when the constitution had been proclaimed and the first Majlis convened, the League strove for moderation and reconciliation between Mohammad Ali Shah and his opponents in the Majlis, at one point succeeding in enrolling the monarch himself as a member of the League. In these activities, the League of Humanity was guided from afar by Malkam Khan, then Iranian ambassador in Rome and playing out the last stage in his political career.[84] With the dissolution of the first Majlis in 1908 and Malkam’s the death in the same year while on a visit to Switzerland, the League of Humanity, losing both its main purpose of activity and its direction, ceased to exist.[85]

The British switched their support to Mohammad Ali, abandoning the Constitutionalists. The Shah later tried to subdue and eliminate the Majlis with the military and political support of Russia and Britain. Mohammad Ali bombarded the Majlis in 1908, using the Persian Cossack forces, commanded by Colonel Vladimir Liakhov (1869 – 1919).[86] In July 1909, pro-Constitution forces marched from Iran’s provinces to Tehran, deposed the Shah, and re-established the constitution. On July 16, 1909, the parliament voted to place Mohammad Ali Shah’s 11-year-old son, Ahmad Shah Qajar (1897 – 1930) on the throne. Mohammad Ali abdicated following the new Constitutional Revolution and he has since been remembered as a symbol of dictatorship.[87]

During this time, changes were made to the draft of the Iranian constitution. In particular, the name of the parliament, previously agreed upon by all parties, including Mozaffar al-Din Shah, was changed. Instead of the old name of Majlis Shura Islami (“Islamic Consultative Assembly”), it became known as the Majlis Shura Melli (“National Council Assembly”). This change was made by a large group of liberals, already elected as deputies of the Majlis, who decided to revise the constitution in the direction they preferred. All these people were not only elected to the Majlis, but also very soon joined the Réveil de l’Iran.[88]

Mohammed Sadiq Tabatabai, who himself joined the Réveil de l’Iran, was elected to the Majlis of the first convocation. After the dissolution of the Majlis by Mohammad Ali Shah, he had emigrated to Europe for some time and there had numerous contacts with Iranian and Italian Freemasons. In Rome, during a reception given by the lodge of the Grand Orient of Italy, where he was brought by the Iranian ambassador Entesam os-Saltaneh, also a Freemason and a member of the Anjoman-e Okhovat, the Italian participants asked Tabatabai whether he was a relative of “Ayatollah Tabatabai,” one of the leaders of the Constitutional Revolution. They were much surprised both by the fact that he was his son and by the fact that he himself was a Mullah, since the Catholic Church was very much opposed to Freemasonry, while the Iranian Ulama and the most influential religious authorities were supporters of liberties and freedoms.[89] To this, Tabatabai provided the following disingenuous response, failing to outline that the conflict between Islam and Freemasonry was not political, but religious:

 

In general, Islam is a religion of freedom and will. The duty of every Muslim is to eliminate evil and suppress despots. And Islam gives many confirmations of this. In addition, during the revolution for the sake of achieving freedom and constitutionality in Iran, all the Mullahs were unanimous and only one person at the very end spoke out against it, but this happened only because of personal contradictions. When they [the Italian Masons who listened to Tabatabai] realized that the greatest Mujtahideen and even those with the degree of Marja al-Taqlid [Grand Ayatollah] in Iran also interfered in political issues, they were even more surprised and asked: “How does your faith give you the right to participate in socio-political affairs?” I answered: “The philosophical basis of the Islamic faith is serving the people, strengthening social principles and participating in activities aimed at maintaining peace, freedom and independence of Muslim states, and conversely, seclusion, withdrawal from the world, laziness and causing trouble to someone are sinful.”[90]

 

When the revolutionaries managed to overthrow Mohammad Ali Shah, one of their first acts was create a tribunal to try the monarchists. The tribunal consisted of eight people, representatives of major religious figures, representatives of the Majlis deputies, or the Majlis deputies themselves, six of whom were Iranian Freemasons, including the chairman of the tribunal, Sheikh Ibrahim Zanjani, who headed the religious figures of Zanjan, a member of the Réveil de l’Iran. All the Masonic members of the tribunal, according to Bagher Ageli, secretly acted in the interests of England, for the sake of maintaining its prestige and authority.[91] Among the victims of revolutionary terror was Sheikh Fazlullah Nouri (1843 –1909), who had the overwhelming majority of the Ulama behind him, was hanged by the revolutionaries after their victory in July 1909, in one of the squares of Tehran.[92] Sheikh Fazlullah Nouri was charged with “sowing corruption and sedition on earth.”[93]

 

Society of Learning

While historians have seen reformers such as Jamal ud-Din al Afghani, Malkam Khan and Mirza Kermani as intellectual forebears of the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11, noted Cole, given the evidence, Bahaullah “must be added to this canon.”[94] Bahaullah called for the kind of limits on the absolute power of the Shah that went far beyond the program of reformers such as Hosein Khan, who merely advocated for cabinet government.[95] Nineteenth-century sources make it clear that the reformist and constitutionalist ideas of Bahaullah’s tablets to the kings circulated widely among Bahais during the 1870s and after.[96] Some of Bahaullah’s letters to the rulers were bound together and circulated in manuscript copies in this period. In 1890, they were published in Bombay, and a copy of this book was purchased for E.G. Browne in Hamadan in 1896.[97]

Sheikh Nouri had persistently spoken out against the Freemasons, whom he put on a par with the Babis, and believed that the Ulama supporting the Constitutional Movement and the Freemasons indirectly approved of the Babis.[98] “The Babi heresy and revolt of the mid-nineteenth century,” remarked Keddie, “has been studied at length by Gobineau, Nicolas, Browne, and Russian scholars, but its importance in the modern Iranian revolutionary process has not been assessed, nor has it been compared with similar movements elsewhere.”[99] Edward Browne noted, in his study of the Babi religion, that it was “a remarkable fact that several very prominent supporters of the Persian Constitutional Movement were, or had the reputation of being, Azalis”[100]

As also recounted by E.G. Browne, in The Persian Revolution of 1905-1906, as the dying Mozaffar ad-Din Shah signed the first Iranian Constitution, jubilant crowds gathered before the seat of the National Assembly, the city was illuminated for two whole nights, and commemorative poems were written by Shaykh al-Ra’is and others.[101] Another Bahai who played a prominent role in the Constitutional Revolution, Shaykh al-Ra’is had joined the Pan-Islamic circle in Istanbul that included Afghani, Kermani and Rouhi. Shaykh al-Ra’is opened a correspondence with Malkam Khan in which he employed the terminology of the latter’s League of Humanity.[102] Malkam’s Qanun reported of the prince’s presence in Istanbul: “Now Shaykhu’r-Ra’is has joined him [Jamal ud Din al Afghani], and it is said that he is attempting with the support of the Sultan, to become the Mazhar-i A’zam (“Supreme Manifestation”).”[103] As noted by Algar, the meaning of the latter phrase is obscure, but probably has some reference to a Babi or Bahai idea.[104] The Ottomans declined to continue offering him asylum, and, after visiting Abdul Baha in Acre, Shaykh al-Ra’is went to India.[105]

After the Constitutional Revolution, the Mostashar al-Dowleh—Azali member of the Faramosh Khaneh Masonic lodge, who instigated the Reuter Concession with Hosein Khan and its founder Malkam—rose to prominence as an intellectual among the educated class, who hailed him as one of the first Iranian libertarian and modernist writers.[106] Mostashar al-Dowleh’s book, “One Word,” seems to have had a significant influence on the Constitutional Revolution. Somewhat similar to the Mustafa Fazil’s letter to Sultan Abdul Aziz (1867), Mostashar al-Dowleh’s book’s became the manifesto of the constitutional revolutionaries.[107]

Notable Azalis involved in the movement included Mirza Jahangir Khan (1875 – 1908), a teacher at the Dar ul-Funun, who edited the important Constitutionalist newspaper Ṣūr-e Esrafīl and was executed following the coup d’état of 1908. Mirza Jahangir Khan was one of the founders of the Anjoman-e Bagh-e Meykadeh, one of the most influential secret societies during the constitutional movement.[108] Another member was Mirza Nasrallah Esfahani Malek-al-Kotakallemin (1861 – 1908), a pro-Constitution cleric, who was active with other free-thinking Ulema in promoting reform ideas, but who was killed in 1908. Another Azali was Mohammed Afzal-ul-Mulk Kermani, brother of Shaikh Ahmad Rouhi, Afghani’s conspirator in Pan-Islamism in Istanbul. His brother was Shaikh Mahdi Bahr-al-Ulum Kermani, a member of the first and second Majlis. Also included was the son of Subh-i-Azal, Haji Mirza Yahya Dowlatabadi (1862 – 1939), the well-known educationalist who served as a member of the second and fifth Majlis.[109]

Another Azali was Shaikh Mahdi Sharif Kashani (d. 1922), a son of the important Azali cleric Mullah Mohammad Jafar Naraqi, who was a member of the Anjoman-e Maʿaref (“Society of Learning”), founded in 1898 under the patronage of the then prime minister Amin al-Soltan, in order to promote the cause of Western-type education in Iran.[110] Anjoman-e Maʿaref was under the control of Dr. Justin Schneider, director of the Alliance Française, and member of the Réveil de l’Iran.[111] With royal protection against the ultraconservative Ulama, the Anjoman-e Maʿaref was able to open fifty-five private secondary schools in Tehran during the brief period between its formation and the revolution. The leading personality in both the library and the society was a popular preacher named Hajji Mirza Nasrallah Malek al-Motakallemin, who despite his popularity and orthodox Shiah image, was a secret Azali, a former colleague of Afghani, and a staunch advocate of modern civilization.[112] On the day Liakhov bombarded the Majlis, Jahangir Khan, along with Malek al-Motakallemin and Qazi Ardaghi, was writing a report for Sur-e Esrafil, a journal published between May 1907 and March 1909, that started following the Constitutional Revolution. The three were arrested and executed on June 23, 1908, in front of the Bagh-e Shah (“King’s Garden”) after being tortured.[113]

After supporting the constitutionalists in 1905-1907, Abdul Baha, then the head of the Bahai movement, declared his community’s neutrality for the remainder of the conflict, but remained convinced that his father, Bahaullah, had prophesied the revolution and the constitution.[114] Bahais were excluded as heretics from membership in the Majlis, giving them little stake in it and convincing them that it was turning into a tool of Shiah theocracy.[115] Abdul Baha responded much more hopefully to the Iranian reformism of the 1870s, writing a Persian book in Palestine in 1875 known in English as The Secret of Divine Civilization, which he published in Bombay in 1882, from where it was distributed throughout Iran, gaining a wide following.[116] Abdul Baha argued for limitation on the absolute power, elected governmental institutions, relieving of the poverty, the improvement of the country’s infrastructure, the setting up of a modern school system, and the systematization of Iran’s secular and religious laws and legal systems. He also advocated global disarmament and the establishment of a union of the nations, and the renewal of religion to combat modern atheism.[117]

The revolution ended in December 1911 when Ahmad Shah Qajar’s ministers oversaw the expulsion of the deputies of the Second Majlis from the parliament “with the support of 12,000 Russian troops.”[118] During World War I, Persian territory was occupied by Great Britain, the Russians, and the Ottomans. The abortive Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1919 involved Great Britain and Persia, and centered on the drilling rights of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC). The proposed agreement was issued by British Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, to the Persian government in August 1919, but was never ratified by the Majlis. After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the new Soviet government abandoned the former Russian sphere of influence in the five northern provinces of Iran, branding the concept as “Tsarist Imperialism.” With Britain remaining the sole power in the region, Curzon hoped to make Iran not a protectorate but a client state of Britain alone.[119] Lord Curzon also had effusive words of praise to share about the Bahai faith:

 

Tales of magnificent heroism illumine the bloodstained pages of Bábí history. Ignorant and unlettered as many of its votaries are, and have been, they are yet prepared to die for their religion, and fires of Smithfield did not kindle a nobler courage than has met and defied the more refined torture-mongers of Tihran. Of no small account, then, must be the tenets of a creed that can awaken in its followers so rare and beautiful a spirit of self-sacrifice. From the facts that Babiism in its earliest years found itself in conflict with the civil powers and that an attempt was made by Bábís upon the life of the Shah, it has been wrongly inferred that the movement was political in origin and Nihilist in character. It does not appear from a study of the writings either of the Báb or his successors, that there is any foundation for such a suspicion…[120]

 

After the British-backed coup d’état in 1921, installing Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878 – 1944), Iran’s parliament amended the constitution on December 12, 1925, replacing the 1797–1925 Qajar dynasty with the Pahlavi dynasty as the legitimate sovereigns of Iran. In 1935, APOC was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) when Reza Shah formally asked foreign countries to refer to Persia by its endonym Iran. In 1954, it was renamed again to The British Petroleum Company. The 1906–1907 constitution, though not adhered to, remained until after the Islamic Revolution when a new constitution was approved in 1979, establishing the Islamic Republic of Iran under the Ayatollah Khomeini, also a reported Freemason.[121]

 


[1] Nikki R. Keddie. “The Origins of the Religious-Radical Alliance in Iran.” Past & Present, 34 (1966), p. 76.

[2] Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 18.

[3] Bahaullah. “Lawh-i dunya.” p. 47; cited in Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 18.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Cited in Johnson. Initiates of Theosophical Masters, p. 95.

[6] Keddie. “Religion and Irreligion in Early Iranian Nationalism,” p. 282.

[7] Ibid., p. 282.

[8] Ibid. p. 73.

[9] Ibid., p. 76.

[10] Ibid., p. 70.

[11] Ibid., p. 71.

[12] Ibid., p. 74.

[13] Ibid., p. 75.

[14] Ibid., p. 72.

[15] Ibid., p. 75.

[16] Ibid., p. 71.

[17] Abrahamian. Iran Between the Two Revolutions, p. 67.

[18] Keddie. “The Origins of the Religious-Radical Alliance in Iran,” p. 73.

[19] Malkom Khan. “Persian Civilization.” Contemporary Review, lix (February, I89I), pp. 238-44; the quotation is on pp. 242-3; cited in Keddie. “The Origins of the Religious-Radical Alliance in Iran,” p. 73.

[20] Arabadzhyan. “Shiite clergy among Iranian Masons.”

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Abrahamian. Iran Between the Two Revolutions, p. 64.

[27] Johnson. Initiates of Theosophical Masters, p. 95.

[28] Arabadzhyan. “Shiite clergy among Iranian Masons.”

[29] “AZALI BABISM” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

[30] Johnson. Initiates of Theosophical Masters, p. 109.

[31] Denis MacEoin. From Shaykhism to Babism, p. 139; cited in Johnson. Initiates of Theosophical Masters, p. 109.

[32] Wilson. Baha’ism and its Claims, pp. 133–134; cited in Johnson. Initiates of Theosophical Masters, p. 108.

[33] Keddie. “AFGHANI, JAMĀL-AL-DĪN.”

[34] Abrahamian. Iran Between the Two Revolutions, p. 64.

[35] Keddie. “The Origins of the Religious-Radical Alliance in Iran,” p. 74.

[36] Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 18.

[37] Keddie. “Religion and Irreligion in Early Iranian Nationalism,” p. 284.

[38] Johnson. Initiates of Theosophical Masters, p. 96.

[39] “AZALI BABISM” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

[40] Sayyd Muqdad Nabavi Rezai. Once upon a time, Bábism’s endeavors (2014).

[41] Hassan Javadi. “Malkam and Brown; The role of Qanun newspaper in Iranian Enlightenment.” Persian History Journal, 5, pp. 23–30.

[42] Keddie. “Religion and Irreligion in Early Iranian Nationalism,” p. 293.

[43] Undated letter. Hadardt-i Bab, pp. 123-12; cited in Algar. Mirza Malkum Khan, p. 222.

[44] Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 19.

[45] “Shaykh al-Ra’is Qajar (d. 1920) and his Ittihad-i Islam.” Iranian Studies. Retrieved from https://associationforiranianstudies.org/content/shaykh-al-ra%E2%80%99-qajar-d-1920-and-his-ittihad-i-islam

[46] Algar. Mirza Malkum Khan, p. 225, n. 90.

[47] Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 19.

[48] Keddie. “Religion and Irreligion in Early Iranian Nationalism,” p. 293.

[49] Ibid., p. 293–294.

[50] Ibid., p. 294.

[51] Michael Axworthy. A history of Iran: Empire of the Mind (Basic Books, 2016). p. 198.

[52] Camron Michael Amin. “The Press and Public Diplomacy in Iran, 1820–1940.” Iranian Studies, 48:2 (2015), p. 273.

[53] Keddie. “AFGHANI, JAMĀL-AL-DĪN.”

[54] “Assassination of Nasser-al-Din Shah.” Iran Review (May 7, 2016). Retrieved from http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/Assassination-of-Nasser-al-Din-Shah.htm

[55] “Constitutional Revolution.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. VI, Fasc. 2. 1992. pp. 163–216.

[56] Vambery. The story of my struggles, p. 252.

[57] Arabadzhyan. “Shiite clergy among Iranian Masons.”

[58] Ibid.

[59] Algar. “An Introduction to the History of Freemasonry in Iran,” pp. 284.

[60] Abrahamian. Iran Between the Two Revolutions, p. 69.

[61] Algar. “An Introduction to the History of Freemasonry in Iran,” p. 292.

[62] Abrahamian. Iran Between the Two Revolutions, p. 80.

[63] Ibid.

[64] Algar. “An Introduction to the History of Freemasonry in Iran,” p. 292.

[65] Arabadzhyan. “Shiite clergy among Iranian Masons.”

[66] Ibid.

[67] Ibid.

[68] Bayat. “Freemasonry and the Constitutional Revolution in Iran: 1905- 1911,” pp. 137–138.

[69] Cited in Bayat. “Freemasonry and the Constitutional Revolution in Iran: 1905- 1911,” p. 144.

[70] Ibid.

[71] Ibid.

[72] Public Records Office, London, F.O. 60/637. Cited in “FREEMASONRY ii. In the Qajar Period.” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

[73] Fereydun Adamiyat. The Thought of Freedom and the Introduction to the Constitutional Movement (Tehran: Sokhan Publications, 1961), pp. 130–131.

[74] Raei, Shahrokh. “Anjuman-i Ukhuvvat.” In: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas & Everett Rowson (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd ed. (Brill Online, 2020).

[75] Daftary. The Ismailis, p. 477.

[76] “FREEMASONRY ii. In the Qajar Period.” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

[77] “ANJOMAN-E OḴOWWAT.” Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved from https://iranicaonline.org/articles/anjoman-e-okowwat

[78] “Zahir-od-dowleh Cemetery and Ribat.” www.toiran.com. Retrieved from https://www.toiran.com/en/city-tehran/historical_sites/Zahir-od-dowleh-Cemetery-and-Ribat/624

[79] Algar. “An Introduction to the History of Freemasonry in Iran,” p. 289.

[80] Ibid.

[81] Abrahamian. Iran Between the Two Revolutions, p. 77.

[82] “FREEMASONRY ii. In the Qajar Period.” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

[83] Morgan Shuster. The Strangling of Persia: A Story of European Diplomacy and Oriental Intrigue (The Century Company, 1912), p. 283.

[84] Algar. “An Introduction to the History of Freemasonry in Iran,” p. 290.

[85] Ibid..

[86] Sandra Mackey. The Iranians: Persia, Islam, and the Soul of a Nation (Dutton, 1996), pp. 150–155.

[87] Soltan Ali Mirza Kadjar. “Mohammad Ali Shah: The Man and the King.” In Qajar Studies. Travellers and Diplomats in the Qajar Era. Journal of the International Qajar Studies Association, volume VII (2007).

[88] Arabadzhyan. “Shiite clergy among Iranian Masons.”

[89] Ibid.

[90] Ibid.

[91] Ibid.

[92] Ibid.

[93] Ervand Abrahamian. Tortured Confessions (University of California Press, 1999), p. 24.

[94] Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 23.

[95] Ibid., p. 10.

[96] Ibid., p. 13.

[97] Ibid., p. 13.

[98] Arabadzhyan. “Shiite clergy among Iranian Masons.”

[99] Keddie. “Religion and Irreligion in Early Iranian Nationalism,” 267.

[100] E.G. Browne. Materials for the Study of the Bābī Religion, p. 221; cited in “AZALI BABISM.” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

[101] Browne. The Persian Revolution of 1905-1906, p. 133; cited in Cole. “Autobiography and Silence.”

[102] Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 20.

[103] Algar. Mirza Malkum Khan, p. 226.

[104] Ibid., n. 102.

[105] Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 20.

[106] Gholam Ali. Pashazade. “A treatise by Mirza Yusuf Khan Mustasharadullah.” Zamaneh Journal of History. 35, pp. 34–40.

[107] Sadeq Z. Bigdeli. The first Generation of Muslim Intellectuals and the “Rights of Man” (University of Western Sydney Law Review, 15 (2011), p. 31.

[108] Ahmad Kasravi. History of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1940), p. 243.

[109] “AZALI BABISM.” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

[110] ʿA. Anwār, “ANJOMAN-E MAʿĀREF,” Encyclopædia Iranica, II/1, pp. 86-88, available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/anjoman-e-maaref

[111] Bayat. “Freemasonry and the Constitutional Revolution in Iran: 1905- 1911,” pp. 131–132.

[112] Abrahamian. Iran Between the Two Revolutions, p. 64.

[113] Rokneddin Khosravi. “Roads of Freedom Riders, in memory of: Jahangir Khan Sur Israfil.” Chista Journal, 50, pp. 801–814.

[114] Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 9.

[115] Ibid., p. 2.

[116] Ibid., p. 12.

[117] Ibid.,,” p. 11-12.

[118] Mackey. The Iranians, pp. 150–155.

[119] Philip Henning Grobien. “The Origins and Intentions of the Anglo-Persian Agreement 1919: A Reassessment.” Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies (2022), pp. 1–16.

[120] Persia, Vol. 1 (1892). Cited in “The Bábí Movement — Some contemporary appreciations.” The Bahai Faith. Retrieved from https://www.bahai.org/documents/essays/various/the-bab-appreciations

[121] Arabadzhyan. “Shiite clergy among Iranian Masons.”

Divide & Conquer