28. The Reuter Concession

Edirne to Acre 

Afghani was in contact with the Bahais in Akka until the end of the 1880s.[1] The Bahais were active, not only in the Ottoman Empire, but also in political ferment in Iran the early 1870s. In his “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” Juan R.I. Cole noted a convergence between the Young Ottomans—which included members from the Union d’Orient—and the Bahais, since they had the same enemies in the Ottoman state and shared many reform ideals. Ottoman officials would exile Bahaullah and his entourage in the summer of 1868 from Edirne to Acre on the coast of Ottoman Syria, where he spent the rest of his life. At the same time, they sent Azal to Cyprus. From about 1868, Bahaullah began advocating parliamentary government.[2] “Although he framed his views in an apocalyptic style,” explained Cole, Bahaullah’s “writings of the late 1860s and early 1870s brought the nascent Bahai movement into the mainstream of modernist liberalism in the Middle East.”[3] As Cole remarked, “The swiftness with which Bahaullah attracted to himself tens of thousands of adherents was remarkable…”[4] As Cole further explained:

 

Bahaullah’s exile to Iraq (1853-63), to Rumelia (1863-68), and finally to Palestine (1868-92) in the Ottoman Empire brought him into direct contact with the debate on modernist reform in Ottoman lands. He responded to the concerns of the Turkish and Arabic press and had contact with reformist thinkers and officials. He communicated the concerns he developed in this Ottoman context to the esotericist and underground Babi community back in Iran, where such public debate was proscribed. The interaction between Iranian millenarianism, Ottoman and Qajar reformism, and European modernity formed the context of the new religion’s social teachings.[5]

 

Following the Persian government’s concern over the revival of the Babi community under Bahaullah’s leadership, Hosein Khan agitated in favor of their desire to have him removed from Baghdad.[6] On invitation from Sultan Abdul Aziz himself, Bahaullah and his entourage arrived in Istanbul on August 16, 1863, where he was welcomed by various government ministers, and by prominent personalities.[7] Many other visitors came as well, including high Turkish officials such as Yusuf Kamil Pasha (1808 – 1876), a former Grand Vizier with whom Bahaullah discussed the possibility of an international language. Yusuf Kamil undertook the Turkish translation of the novel by Jesuit-educated François Fénelon (1651 – 1715), Archbishop of Cambrai, titled Les Aventures de Télémaque, about the educational travels of Telemachus, son of Ulysses, of Homer’s Odyssey, accompanied by his tutor, Mentor, who is revealed early on in the story to be Minerva, the Latin Venus, goddess of wisdom, in disguise. Fénelon was closely associated with the Jacobite Andrew Michael Ramsay.

Bahaullah also met with Mehmed Emin Ali Pasha—himself a Freemason[8]—and Grand Vizier five times during the reign of Sultan Abdul Majid and Sultan Abdul Aziz.[9] The Austrian ambassador, Anton von Prokesch-Osten (1795 – 1876), later recalled:

 

‘Ali Pasha has spoken to me with great veneration of the Bab, interned at Adrianople, who he says is a man of great distinction, exemplary conduct, great moderation, and a most dignified figure.  He has spoken to me of Babism as a doctrine which is worthy of high esteem, and which destroys certain anomalies that Islam has taken from Jewish and Christian doctrines, for example this conflict between a God who is omnipotent and yet powerless against the principle of evil; eternal punishments, etc. etc.  But politically he considers Babism unacceptable as much in Persia as in Turkey, because it only allows legal sovereignty in the Imamate, while the Osmalis for example, he claims, separate temporal from spiritual power.  The Bab, at Adrianople [Edirne], is defrayed all expenses by the order of and to the charge of the Persian government.[10]

 

A representative of the Persian embassy called on Bahaullah bearing the compliments of Hosein Khan, and an apology for not being able to call in person. Bahaullah, however, refused to return these visits or to make the customary calls on the Shaykh al-Islam, the foreign minister, and the Grand Vizier to arrange an audience with the Sultan. Years later, Hosein Khan, confessed that he had felt pride in Bahaullah’s “dignified aloofness.”[11] Nevertheless, Hosein Khan soon believed he had made a mistake in having Bahaullah brought to Istanbul. The ambassador now urged the Ottoman government to transfer Bahaullah to somewhere less conspicuous, either Bursa in Anatolia or Edirne in European Turkey, a stronghold of the Dönmeh.[12]

“By exiling Bahaullah and the other Iranians from Edirne in the summer of 1868,” notes Cole, Sultan Abdul Aziz “pushed the Bahai leader into openly condemning the tyranny of absolutism and advocating parliamentary democracy.”[13] The Bahai turn in this direction converged with several other dissident movements of the time, including the foundation of the Patriotic Alliance, the forerunner of the Young Ottomans, in opposition to Ali Pasha and Fuad Pasha. In a candid moment in January of 1866, Ottoman Foreign Minister Ali Pasha had confessed to the Austrian ambassador that Bahaullah, then in exile in Edirne, was “a man of great distinction, exemplary conduct, great moderation, and a most dignified figure” and spoke of Babism as “a doctrine which is worthy of high esteem.”[14] However, Bahaullah branded Sultan Abdul Aziz a tyrant and predicted that social unrest and division would soon overtake the empire. In a letter concerning Ottoman Foreign Minister Fuad Pasha, one of those who exiled him, who died in Nice of heart trouble early in 1869, Bahaullah wrote, “Soon will We dismiss the one [Ali Pasha] who was like unto him, and will lay hold on their Chief [the sultan] who ruleth the land.”[15] The prediction seemed to have been fulfilled by Abdul Aziz’s deposition and suicide in 1876, followed by the implementation of an Ottoman constitution and the election of the first Ottoman parliament.[16]

 

One Word

Although as Iranian ambassador Hosein Khan had showed some enmity to the Bahais up to 1868, and arranged for their expulsion to Edirne, he later had a change of heart and once set free a Bahai courier caught at Aleppo. In the early 1870s, Bahaullah questioned a visitor from Iran about the behavior of Hosein Khan and described the reformer as “wiser than the rest” of Iranian politicians.[17] The Young Ottoman movement exercised a general influence on Iranian thinkers resident in Istanbul, such as Malkam Khan, who were in contact with the Young Ottomans and wrote for the London-based newspapers. Malkam had once sought refuge with Bahaullah in Baghdad from the wrath of the Shah, and probably knew Bahais in Istanbul.[18]

Another associate of Malkam was Mirza Yusef Khan Mostashar al-Dowleh (1823 – 1895), the Consul General of Iran in Tbilisi from 1864 to 1867. Mostashar al-Dowleh was a member of the Clemente Amitié, a Scottish Rite lodge in Paris belonging to the Grand Orient, which recruited adepts from among the Muslim ruling elite. In 1869, Mostashar al-Dowleh had also received the prestigious Rose-Croix at an elaborate ceremony held at the headquarters of the obedience.[19] Mostashar al-Dowleh is best known for his treatise Yek Kalameh (“One Word”), written while in Paris, which introduced social liberalism and constitutionalism to Persia, and is considered one of the most important modernist works of the time. Like Malkam, Mostashar al-Dowleh cloaked his ideas in Islamic terms, identifying mashrutiyyat (constitutionalism) with mashru’iyyat (holy law). Also, like Malkam, he was a protégé of Hosein Khan, with whom he shared an admiration for the Tanzimat reforms and an ambition to import similar reform projects in Persia.[20] Mostashar al-Dowleh also corresponded with Mirza Fatali Akhundov, with whose help he wrote the treatise “Yusuf’s Code.”[21]

While he was Consul-General in Tiflis, and later in Paris, Mostashar al-Dowleh continued to exchange ideas with his colleagues in Istanbul. Included in their circle was the Persian ambassador to Austria-Hungary, Nariman Khan Qavam al-Saltaneh (b. 1830), who had been part of Farrokh Khan’s delegation in Paris and had joined the collective initiation ceremony at the Sincère Amitié, and Hosein Khan who was then stationed in London. Hosein Khan also seems to have been influenced by Akhundov, whom he met in Istanbul.[22] In 1871, Hosein Khan returned to Tehran to assume the post of Minister of Finance and, a few months later, Prime Minister, inviting Malkam and Mostashar al-Dowleh to work with him as special advisers.[23] For the first time, all three found themselves in a position to put into practice in Persia their hoped-for reforms in the government of Nasser ad-Din Shah, emulating the Tanzimat experiments in the Ottoman Empire.[24]

In 1872, Hosein Khan persuaded Nasser ad-Din Shah to seek to develop Iran’s economy and resources by granting a concession to a British citizen, Baron de Reuter (1816 – 1899), known as the Reuter concession, that ultimately would have given him an exclusive monopoly to all of Persia’s economic resources. Reuter was born in a Jewish family as Israel Beer Josaphat in Kassel, Electorate of Hesse. His father, Samuel Levi Josaphat, was a rabbi. Reuter was a reporter, media owner, and the founder of the Reuters news agency, which became part of the Thomson Reuters conglomerate. Hosein Khan, Mostashar al-Dowleh and Malkam were generously bribed to bring the treaty negotiations to a successful conclusion.[25] Lord Curzon remarked, “[t]he concession was dated July 25, 1872. When published to the world, it was found to contain the most complete and extraordinary surrender of the entire industrial resources of a kingdom into foreign hands that has probably ever been dreamed of, much less accomplished, in history.”[26] Opposition from bureaucratic factions and clerical leaders, however, forced the Shah to dismiss Hosein Khan and cancel the concession.[27]

 

Réveil de l’Iran

In July 1873, the Paris lodge Sincère Amitié held a reception for a group of visiting Iranian Masons, including Mirza Rida Khan and Nariman Khan. Malkam Khan was expected to attend, but at the last moment sent his apologies. The meeting closed with a speech by a Jewish Mason, Dalsace, in which he urged the Iranian guests to assist in bettering the status of the Jewish community in Iran, and reminded them of a similar appeal addressed to Nasser ad-Din Shah during his visit to Europe by Cremieux, president of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), a prominent member of the Grand Orient.[28] In 1865, the first Alliance school had been opened in Baghdad, through which the Jews of Hamadan and Tehran made contact with Alliance headquarters in Paris. But the Alliance’s efforts to establish schools in Iran in the following years remained ineffective. As a consequence, on July 12, 1873, a meeting took place in Paris between Nasṣer ad-Din Shah and the members of the central committee of the AIU under the leadership of Cremieux. Attending were Hosein Khan and Malkam Khan. Signatures were exchanged on an agreement reflecting the contents of the meeting. In his reply dated July 18, the Hosein Khan agreed with the contents of Cremieux’s letter and emphasized that the Iranian government would act as quickly as possible to aid the establishment and maintenance of Alliance schools.[29]

Hosein Khan’s successor as Persian envoy, Hasan Ali Khan Garrusi (c. 1820 – 1900), had been initiated into the lodge Sincère Amitié in 1860, as was his successor Mohammed Muhsin Khan (d. 1910), who was also a member of the Proodos lodge.[30] Muhsin Khan joined the Persian army in 1848, was embassy secretary second class in Saint Petersburg in 1855, deployed in the Anglo-Persian War from 1856 to 1857, and embassy secretary under Hasan Ali Khan Garusi from 1858 to 1865 and chargé d’affaires in Paris in 1866. Iranians were initiated into Masonic lodges in Istanbul on the recommendation of Muhsin Khan, and he continued to reinforce his prominence in those lodges until his return to Persia in 1889.[31] He also became involved in the affairs of the lodge Italia Risorta, which was affiliated to the Italian Grand Orient, whose past Grand Master was Giuseppe Mazzini.[32] In 1875, Italia Risorta appointed Giuseppe Garibaldi as Worshipful Master for life, since, like their Italian brethren, its members had a profound esteem for both Garibaldi and Mazzini.[33] By May 1888, Muhsin Khan was awarded the 33º by a delegation headed by Antonio Geraci, representing the Italian Grand Orient, that came to visit him at the Persian embassy. In a report describing the reception given to two visiting Persian Masons at the Étoile du Bosphore, Muhsin Khan was the Grand Master of the Italia Risorta.[34]

Muhsin Khan came to the attention of Sir Arthur Hardinge (1828 – 1892), British envoy to Persia from 1900 to 1905. In 1887, Hardinge went to Istanbul under Sir William White, moving in 1890 to Bucharest, Romania. He accompanied the Russian Tsarevich Nicholas II on his trip to India 1890–91, and was then acting Consul-General in Cairo in 1891, under Lord Cromer. In 1894, he was appointed Consul General to Zanzibar and then Colonial Head, 1895–1900, at the British East Africa Protectorate, overseeing there the construction of the Uganda Railway and the crushing of an Arabic ethnic rebellion. In October 1900, he was appointed Consul-General in Persia, a post which was later upgraded to Minister. In a dispatch dated September 6, 1901, Hardinge reported that Muhsin Khan had been “the worshipful master of a Moslem lodge” during his years in Istanbul, and that after his return to Persia in 1890 he had organized a Masonic lodge in Tehran, while serving as Minister of Justice and then Minister of Foreign Affairs.[35] It numbered among it, Hardinge noted, “certain persons who take advantage of their connection with it for purposes utterly alien to the principles of Freemasonry and seek to use it as a bond of union between the aristocratical discontents of the Opposition and Court parties and Mahommedan fanatics whose views and objects are entirely different.”[36]

In November 1906, a little more than a year after Hardinge’s recall from Tehran, the traditional primacy of the French Grand Orient among Persian Masons was reaffirmed with the establishment in Tehran of the lodge Réveil de l’Iran (“Awakening of Iran”), with the permission of the monarch, Mohammad Ali Shah (1872 – 1925), becoming the first regularly affiliated lodge to operate in Persia.[37] This resulted from the initiative of a dozen French and Persian Masons, most of whom had already been initiated into the degree of Master in the lodges of Paris, primarily the Clémente Amitié. The Grand Master of the Clémente Amitié wrote to Adib al-Mamalek Farahani (1860 – 1917), the poet and one of the first members of the Réveil de l’Iran:

 

I have no doubt that, should our Masonic brothers in Tehran work together, they would be able to enlighten the most ignorant and most backward of its population... A Masonic centre in the East could, with the diffusion of its principles, revitalise the intelligent and knowledgeable members of the Persian parliament.[38]

 

Farahani, produced a Masonic poem entitled Ai’in-i Framasun va Faramushkhana (“The Rites of the Freemasons and the House of Oblivion”), which attempted to combine Persian and Islamic elements. According to Farahani’s poem, all the Prophets were propagators of Freemasonry, and the Kabbah in Mecca, first built by the Prophet Abraham, was the first Masonic lodge. The Twelve Imams of the Shiah inherited the Masonic secrets from the Prophet Mohammed. The true significance of Ahul Bait (“People of the House”), descendants of Mohammed’s son-in-law Ali, is “People of the Lodge.” He also uses the “Brethren of Purity” to refer to the Masons. Although all prophets preached nothing other than Masonry, Zoroaster was the Prophet of Light, and it was from him that the light was conveyed to the Prophet Mohammed.[39]

The Réveil de l’Iran was established with the help of teachers and administrators of the school of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) in Tehran.[40] Although not founded to serve in the spread of French influence around the world, the prominence given by the AIU to the teaching of French, and its missionary zeal to westernize, led to a convergence with the goals of French foreign policy. “This fact,” explains Soli Shahvar, “whether intentionally or not, resulted, in practice, in the AIU serving French interests abroad.”[41] The first Worshipful Master of the Réveil de l’Iran was the French music professor at Dar ul-Funun, Jean-Baptiste Lemaire, who began recruiting new members from a wide variety of backgrounds.[42] Lemaire was also the head of a school in Tehran of the Alliance Française (AF), along with other faculty of Dar ul-Funun.[43] The AF was founded in Paris in 1883 to promote French cultural, political, and commercial interests in foreign countries, with illustrious names among the board members, including Ferdinand de Lesseps, Louis Pasteur, and Jules Verne.[44] The French ambassador was also a founding member and Jean-Baptiste Feuvrier (1842 – 1926), who served as the personal physician to Naser ad-Din Shah, was elected as its chairman.[45]

Branches of the AF were established in Germany, Russia, Belgium, Italy, Australia and the United States, as well as in Egypt and the Ottoman Empire. In each town, the AF set up a school, with its own administrative board, a library, and an advisory committee recruited from among its employees, the local European community and sympathetic local nationals. In 1889, Lemaire’s father-in-law, Dr. Joseph Désiré Tholozan (1820 – 1897, the French physician of Shah Nasser ad-Din, after lengthy negotiations with the Central Committee in Paris and high-ranking Persian court officials, opened the AF school in Tehran and Shiraz. Joseph Richard, a Frenchman who was a member of the Dar ul-Funun faculty, was appointed the first director of the school. Paul Henri Morel, an instructor of French at the Faculty of Political Science, was the advisory committee’s first secretary. Morel was also the publisher of a French gazette called Echo de Perse, which had aroused the hostility of the Shah and was thus subsequently closed down. Julien Bottin, a French engineer, also figured in the committee, together with many other European and Persian diplomats, businessmen, educators and other professionals. In 1900, Joseph Vizioz was brought from Istanbul to direct the school.[46]

Also a member of the committee was Alphonse L.M. Nicolas (1864 – 1939), the French orientalist expert on Persian language and culture.[47] Nicolas worked as an interpreter and diplomat with the French Consular Service in Persia for most of his life. Nicolas was among the first Western orientalist to devote substantial attention to the life and teachings of the Bab, and his work continues to serve as an important source for the study of the early history of Shaykhism, Babism and the Bahai Faith. An ongoing disagreement between Nicolas’ father and Arthur de Gobineau, then secretary and chargé d’affaires at the French legation in Persia, led Nicolas to read Gobineau’s Les Religions et Les Philosophies dan l’Asie Centrale. While Nicolas agreed with his father’s assessment of Gobineau’s work as riddled with errors resulting from his limited grasp of Persian, it was through Gobineau’s work that Nicolas was first exposed to the Bab. As a result of his research, Nicolas befriended an employee of the consulate who was a Bahai, and who introduced him to local Babis and Bahais.[48] Over the course of translating the Bab’s The Seven Proofs from Persian to French, Nicolas developed a growing appreciation for the teachings and person of the Bab, and came to identify himself as a Babi.[49]

However, the full development of the institute only occurred when Dr. Justin Schneider took over the directorship. Schneider was a physician of the French military and was appointed by Kamran Mirza Nayeb es-Saltaneh (1856 – 1929), a Qajar prince and third surviving son of Nasser ad-Din Shah who served as Iran's Commander-in-Chief, to join the circle of royal physicians in the capital in 1894. In 1899, Schneider was appointed director of the AF. Most of the Frenchmen involved with the AF, Bottin, Lemaire, Morel, and Vizioz and were acknowledged Freemasons who were affiliated with the Grand Orient, and were to play a vital role in establishing, organizing and recruiting for the Réveil de l’Iran.[50]

“In a manner similar to French missionary or Masonic activity,” explained Shahvar, much like the AIU, “the AF’s cultural activities also came to serve France’s political and commercial interests, and to become a tool for the promotion of those interests.”[51] Nasser ad-Din Shah was told by Comte de Montfort, the Austrian officer hired in 1879 to run Tehran’s police, that the AF was actually a “Freemason-like… society for revolutionary and religious propaganda,” while the people behind it were “equally as dangerous as the Babis.”[52] Frightened, Nasser ad-Din Shah ordered the closure of the school and of the AF. The French ambassador to Iran believed that the British were behind the plot. In the opinion of Robert John Kennedy, the British chargé d’affaires to Iran at the time, the Shah was prepared to close down all foreign schools in Iran because he feared that they promoted revolutionary ideas.[53]

 

Tobacco Protest 

In the spring of 1886, Afghani sailed from England to the Iranian port of Bushehr, where his long-time servant, Abu Torab, had shipped his seized books and papers from Egypt, and apparently planning to then go on to Russia, where he was invited by Blavatsky’s publisher Mikhail Katkov, who was attempting to organize anti-British agitation in Central Asia and India.[54] However, Afghani stayed several months in Bushehr, during which time the Iranian Minister of Press and Publications, E’temad os-Saltaneh (1843 – 1896), invited him to Tehran, presumably with the blessing of the Nasser ad-Din Shah. In Tehran, Afghani was the guest of the wealthy merchant Amin-al-Zarb (1872 – 1932), a client of the Grand Vizier, Amin al-Soltan (1858 – 1907). Put off by the strong anti-foreign statements Afghani made in their first interview, the Shah broke relations with him, and asked Amin-al-Zarb to take him to Russia.[55]

Afghani remained in Russia between 1887-89, involving himself in futile attempts to promote a Russian war against the British, purportedly hoping it would lead to Muslim uprisings.[56] As indicated by Blunt, taking offence at the British refusing his contribution for the second time, Afghani “threw himself into the opposite camp, that of the advocates of a Russo-Turkish alliance against England.”[57] In a dispatch from October 23, 1886, Lord Cromer reported that an Indian judge had told him that “the well-known Gellal Eddin” had gone to St. Petersburg “whither it is supposed he was invited by order of the Russian Government.”[58] When Afghani was in Moscow in 1887, the Moscow Gazette published a notice providing details of his career, noting that he was mentioned in Erneste Vauquelin’s Memoirs of the Egyptian Revolution. According to the article, Afghani’s “object in visiting Russia was to make himself practically acquainted with a country on which 60,000,000 Indian Mussulmans place sole reliance and which they hope will afford them protection and emancipate them from the detested English yoke.”[59]

Afghani was reported to be in St. Petersburg in August, where, according to the Ottoman Ambassador, he was disappointed at the lack of interest he received from the Russian officials, except for the Tsar’s mentor Konstantin Pobedonostsev (1827 – 1907).[60] In 1888, the CID, the Indian intelligence service, reported  that Afghani was at St. Petersburg where “he had impressed upon some Russian officials the prospects of a general rising in India whenever the Russians chose to give the signal.”[61] Towards the end of 1889, Afghani left Russia for Persia. At first, he tried to persuade Nasser ad-Din Shah to lead a campaign against the British. Failing to do so, he turned to conservative Ulama, to whom he advocated a crusade against the infidels of West, and to the reforming intellectuals, to whom he emphasized his usual revivalist message that political and educational reforms would strengthen the country against the imperialistic West. These lectures attracted large audiences, and thereby aroused Nasser ad-Din Shah’s concern.[62]  In January, 1891, the Nasser ad-Din Shah and the Prime Minister 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. Attributing the leaflet to Afghani and his fellow agitators, they had him taken by forced march to Iraq in the dead of winter.[63]

From London, Malkam Khan’s Qanun, like Afghani, attacked the Shah’s and al-Soltan’s concession-granting policies. While in exile in Istanbul, Malkam had managed to obtain the post of consul general in Cairo, but his exile ended in 1871, when Nasser ad-Din reconsidered the possibility of reform, and appointed Malkam special advisor with the title of Nizam al Mulk (“Regulator of the Realm”). However, with further changes in the government, Malkam was sent to London as ambassador. In 1878, Malkam was a delegate to the Congress of Berlin, which dealt with the fate of the Ottoman Empire. However, in 1889, Malkam secured the signature of Nasser-ad Din Shah for a lottery concession in Persia. He later sold later the concession in London, when the Shah, owing to religious objections to gambling, had asked him to cancel it. Due in part for this reason, Malkam was dismissed from his post and deprived of all his titles and privileges. Malkam then became an ardent critic of the Shah, attacking him in his monthly newspaper Qanun which was published in London.[64]

In his private correspondence with leading Iranians, Malkam suggested that they follow policies of opposition and reform. When one of Malkam’s correspondents, an associate of Afghani’s, Mirza Yahya Khan Moshir od-Dowleh (1832 – 1892), an Iranian politician and minister during the Qajar era, showed the Nasser ad-Din Shah such a letter in March 1891, the Shah was enraged. He denounced anyone corresponding with Malkam as a traitor, asked the British government to expel him and suppress Qanun, and withdrew all of Malkam’s Persian titles and decorations. Nevertheless, Afghani and Malkam’s influence continued to grow during 1891, when some of their ideas bore fruit in the tobacco protest movement.[65]

While Afghani was in Iraq, a mass movement against the British tobacco concession, led by the Ulama and the merchants broke out. Jean-Baptiste Feuvrier, chairman of the Réveil de l’Iran, the Tehran lodge of the Grand Orient, wrote a travelogue about his life in Iran, the Trois ans à la cour de Perse (“Three Months at the Persian Court”), which is a major source of information in relation to the Tobacco Concession and the Tobacco Protest.[66] In May 1891, Sayyid Ali Akbar, a prominent Mullah of Shiraz, expelled from Iran for his participation in the movement, went to Afghani who then wrote a letter to the Grand Ayatollah Mirza Shirazi (1815 – 1895)—a secret Bahai[67]—asking the Mujtahids to “save and defend [the] country” from “this criminal who has offered the provinces of the land of Iran to auction amongst the Great Powers.”[68] Thus, Afghani had some influence on the cancellation of the concession and the victory of the movement against the concession, which climaxed in a widely obeyed December 1891 Fatwa issued by Shirazi against tobacco use.[69]

In 1891, when two Bahais were arrested with followers of Malkam Khan, a persecution of the Bahais ensued, and later on seven Bahais were executed in Yazd. In a letter Abdul Baha, who had formerly been full of praise for Afghani, likely in an effort to distance himself from suspicion, rebuked him and Malkam and their subversive activities whereby they tried to involve the Bahais and to overthrow Nasser ad-Din Shah.[70] At a time when Afghani intensified his opposition to the Bahais, Abdul Baha wrote to him saying that he was wrong in thinking that the Bahais were oppressed with exile and suffering, and that on the contrary, Afghani would hear the sounding of the trumpet,” meaning the divine decree of his own end.[71] Additionally, when Afghani and his co-conspirators were involved in revolutionary activity Iran and the Ottoman Empire, Abdul Baha sent a letter to Sultan Abdul Hamid II via Ahmed Izzet Pasha (1864 – 1937), eventual Grand Vizier of the empire, informing him of Afghani’s deceitful intentions. The Sultan replied with appreciation for the warning. As Necati Alkan explains, “Accordingly, Ahmed Izzet became the private secretary of Abdülhamid and had knowledge of his secrets. Every time when the suspicion of the “superstitious”  Abdülhamid toward ‘Abdu’l-Baha was aroused, the pasha would tranquilise him.”[72]

 

 


[1] Alkan. Dissent and Heterodoxy in the Late Ottoman Empire, p. 124

[2] Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 5.

[3] Ibid., p. 7.

[4] Ibid., p. 4.

[5] Ibid., p. 3.

[6] John Walbridge. Essays and Notes on Babi and Baha’i History (H-Bahai Digital Library, 2002). Retrieved from https://www.h-net.org/~bahai/bhpapers/vol6/waless/chap4.htm

[7] Adib Taherzadeh. The Child of the Covenant (Oxford, UK: George Ronald, 2000), pp. 68–69.

[8] Roderic Davison. Reform in the Ottoman Empire: 1856-1876 (Princeton, New Jersey Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 90.

[9] Keddie. An Islamic Response to Imperialism, p. 67.

[10] Walbridge. Essays and Notes on Babi and Baha’i History

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 6.

[14] Ibid., p. 5.

[15] Ibid., p. 6.

[16] Juan R.I. Cole. “Autobiography and Silence: The Early Career of Shaykhu'r-Ra'is Qajar.” History of Iran (Iran Chamber Society, Decemer 29, 2024). Retrieved from https://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/early_career_shaykhur_rais_qajar.php

[17] Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 11.

[18] Ibid., p. 7.

[19] Baya. “Freemasonry and the Constitutional Revolution in Iran: 1905-1911,” p. 121.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Nazim al-Islam Kermani. History of the Iranian Awakening, p. 183.

[22] Baya. “Freemasonry and the Constitutional Revolution in Iran: 1905-1911,” p. 121.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Persia and the Persian Question, Vol. I (London, Frank Cass and Co., 1966), p. 480.

[27] Elton L. Daniel. The History of Iran (The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations, 2000).

[28] Algar. “An Introduction to the History of Freemasonry in Iran,” p. 285.

[29] “ALLIANCE ISRAÉLITE UNIVERSELLE.” Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved from https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/alliance-israelite-universelle

[30] Algar. “An Introduction to the History of Freemasonry in Iran,” p. 287.

[31] William R. Denslow. 10,000 Famous Freemasons. p. 158.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Emanuela Locci (ed.). History of the Grand Orient of Italy (Westphalia Press, 2019), p. 171.

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

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

[36] Ibid.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Bayat. “Freemasonry and the Constitutional Revolution in Iran: 1905- 1911,” p. 138.

[39] Algar. “An Introduction to the History of Freemasonry in Iran,” p. 288–289.

[40] Musa Faqih Haqqani. “Freemasonry and Persian constitutional movement.” Resalat, 3, pp. 32–40. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20200323095800/https://www.magiran.com/article/1169884

[41] Shahvar. The Forgotten Schools, p. 40.

[42] Algar. “An Introduction to the History of Freemasonry in Iran,” p. 287.

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

[44] Shahvar. The Forgotten Schools, p. 39.

[45] “FRANCE xv. FRENCH SCHOOLS IN PERSIA” Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved from https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/france-xv

[46] Mangol Bayat. “Freemasonry and the Constitutional Revolution in Iran: 1905- 1911.” Andreas Önnerfors & Dorothe Sommer (eds.). Freemasonry and Fraternalism in the Middle East (University of Sheffield, 2008), pp. 130–132.

[47] Bayat. “Freemasonry and the Constitutional Revolution in Iran: 1905- 1911,” p. 130.

[48] Moojan Momen. “The Work of A.L.M. Nicolas (1864-1937).” The Bábí and Baháʼí Religions: Some Contemporary Western Accounts (Oxford: George Ronald, 1981), p. 37.

[49] Edith Sanderson. “An Interview with A. L. M. Nicolas of Paris.” In: National Spiritual Assembly of the Baháʼís of the United States and Canada (ed.). The Baháʼí World. Volume I of the Babi Studies Series. Vol. 8 (New York: Baháʼí Publishing Committee, 1942), pp. 885–886.

[50] Bayat. “Freemasonry and the Constitutional Revolution in Iran: 1905- 1911,” p. 132.

[51] Shahvar. The Forgotten Schools, p. 39.

[52] Ibid., p. 34.

[53] Ibid., p. 34.

[54] Kedourie. Afghani and ‘Abduh, p. 56.

[55] Keddie. “AFGHANI, JAMĀL-AL-DĪN.”

[56] Ibid.

[57] Browne. The Persian Revolution of 1905-09 (London: Frank Cass, 1966.) pp. 403.

[58] F.O. 60/594, despatch from Baring, Cairo, 23 October, 1886, Secret no. 424; cited in Kedourie. Afghani and ‘Abduh, p. 56.

[59] F.O. 60/594, despatch from Morier, St. Petersburg 27 August, 1887, no. 299, reporting conversation with the Ottoman Ambassador; Blunt, Gordon in Khartoum, p. 501; cited in Kedourie. Afghani and ‘Abduh, p. 56.

[60] Kedourie. Afghani and ‘Abduh, p. 57.

[61] F.O. 60/594, memorandum of the Thagi and Dakaiti Dept., 1896; cited in Kedourie. Afghani and ‘Abduh, p. 57.

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

[63] Keddie. “AFGHANI, JAMĀL-AL-DĪN.”

[64] “Mirza Malkam Khan.” Encyclopedia of World Biography (January 9, 2025). Retrieved from https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/mirza-malkam-khan

[65] Kedourie. Afghani and ‘Abduh, p. 337.

[66] Jean Calmard. “Feuvrier, Jean-Baptiste.” In Ehsan Yarshater (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Volume IX/6: Festivals VIII–Fish (London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1999). pp. 569–571

[67] Alkan. Dissent and Heterodoxy in the Late Ottoman Empire, p. 141.

[68] Roy P. Mottahedeh. The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran (Oneworld Publications, 2000), pp. 216–217.

[69] Keddie. “AFGHANI, JAMĀL-AL-DĪN.”

[70] Alkan. Dissent and Heterodoxy in the Late Ottoman Empire, p. 139.

[71] Ibid., p. 141.

[72] Ibid.

Divide & Conquer