Iran: Empire of the Mind

by Michael Axworthy

  The movement continued to grow in exile, and split in the 1860s, with a new leader, Baha’ullah, announcing himself as a new prophet (‘He Whom God Shall Make Manifest’), as predicted by the Bab. Most Babis followed him, and since that time his movement has been known as the Baha’i faith. Within Iran Baha’is have been persecuted and killed in almost every decade since that time.

  The story of Qorrat al-Ain and her advocacy of women’s emancipation is an important point in the history of women in Persia; and therefore for the story of Iranian society as a whole. And there are some surprises here. From the viewpoint of the early twenty-first century, with the Islamic regime in power in Iran, and with what is often thought of (not entirely accurately) as a traditional role for women re-imposed since the revolution of 1979, one might assume that before the twentieth century all Iranian women, in accordance with that tradition, were closeted at home and never went out except heavily veiled. But this is not at all the case. Before the social changes brought by industrialisation and urbanisation, the structure of society was very different. Before 1900 up to half the population were nomadic or semi-nomadic, and in such societies, tightly integrated and often living at the economic and geographical margin, women’s roles were of necessity more equal and less restricted. Broadly, women ran the domestic arrangements while the men ranged widely looking after the flocks, but with the men away the women had to take important decisions (often as a group) and carry responsibility; and when time came to move, everyone had to take an active part8. Traditional tribal costumes vary enormously across Iran even today, and are often colourful and eye-catching, with no veil in sight.

  Of the remainder of the population, the majority were peasant farmers and labourers. But among these people too, women had an essential economic role and some independence (insofar as anyone in the poorer classes could properly be thought of as independent). Women had to work hard in the fields and probably did the majority of the routine work, of all but the heaviest sort. Again, a veil of the enveloping chador kind was normally quite incompatible with that sort of activity.

  Even in the towns and cities, the majority of people were relatively poor and in those households most women would have had to work outside the home. And there were significant numbers of prostitutes, to whom the rules of respectability certainly did not apply. So the set-up we might think of as typical, of heavily veiled women seldom leaving the home and even in the home kept apart from males that were not relatives, was in fact untypical before 1900, and limited to middle- or high-class families in towns (precisely the class that looms large historically, being the literate, book-writing, book reading class — perhaps only 4 per cent of families overall, or less). But that set-up was, or became, an aspiration for many men who could not afford to make it a reality. One could think of the heavy veil as a kind of elite fetish, like some of the fashions of nineteenth-century Europe, which similarly immobilised women; being wholly impractical and incompatible with work of any kind. For a man’s wife to be out of the house and out of his control, especially in the towns (perhaps partly because of the presence of prostitutes in the towns), exposed him potentially to derision and ridicule. But for her, or them, to be kept at home and to emerge only veiled, was expensive and a sign of the man’s status. It would be easy to overlook or underestimate the significance and implications of this trope among men in Iranian society, and elsewhere; rather than being an outgrowth of traditional religion and society (there is little justification for it in the Qor’an or the earliest hadith, which originated in different social circumstances), it may largely underpin them. Possession of material goods had its patterns and its social consequences, but so also did the possession of women.

  As the population later became steadily more urban and in some ways at least more prosperous, more women were more restricted, stayed more in the home and wore the heavy veil. But we should not think of those arrangements as typical of pre-industrial Iran; one could accurately say that for the majority of Iranian women, they were a 20th-century innovation.

  The conflict with the Babis around the time of his accession was only one of the problems Naser od-Din had to deal with. There was a serious revolt in Khorasan that took two years to overcome, an army mutiny in Tehran, and serious infighting between officials at court, in which the Russian and British ambassadors both meddled, anxious that each might outdo the other. In this confused and dangerous situation the Shah’s first minister, Amir Kabir, attempted to steer the government in a reforming direction, urging the Shah to take a personal interest in the detail of government. His influence over the young Shah stemmed from the time he had spent with him as his right-hand man when Naser od-Din had been crown prince and governor of Azerbaijan. He was disliked by the Russians because they thought him to be pro-British, but the British were none too keen on him either.9

  Amir Kabir was an able and intelligent man, dedicated to the interests of the monarchy and the country. He made a review of finances, and enforced a retrenchment in state expenditure, especially on payments and pensions to courtiers (this inevitably made him unpopular with some courtiers). He set up a state-funded school or polytechnic along western lines, the Dar al-Funun (which in later years collaborated to publish translations of western technical books and literature), and organised a thoroughgoing reform of the army to bring it properly up-to-date. He set about some improvements in agriculture and even tried to build some factories for manufactured products. All this was achieved within three years, showing what was possible, and promising greater things for the future, but the thickets of court politics proved too much for Amir Kabir. He made the mistake of trying to intercede with Naser od-Din on behalf of the Shah’s half-brother; offending both the Shah, and the Shah’s mother, who had significant influence at court. Amir Kabir’s critics succeeded in eroding the Shah’s confidence in him, without which he was powerless. In November 1851 he was dismissed as prime minister and sent to Kashan. At the beginning of 1852 Naser od-Din, at the instigation of his courtiers and relatives, and following the precedent set by his grandfather and father before him, had his former first minister murdered. With Amir Kabir died hope for any kind of serious push for development in Persia, at a time when elsewhere in the world (not just in Europe) the motors of industrialisation and major structural change were accelerating.

  Ugly Sisters: Russia, Britain and the Concessions

  A new first minister, Mirza Agha Khan Nuri, took Amir Kabir’s place, and proved more to the liking of the court: he was as corrupt and reactionary as they could have wished, and no further reform went forward. Later in the decade the Russians gained influence and another Persian army set out to reconquer Herat. This time they succeeded in taking the city (in October 1856), but precipitated war with Britain. British troops landed at Bushire and defeated Persian troops there, and again the Persians were obliged to make peace. The Peace of Paris, signed in March 1857, stipulated that Persia abandoned all claim to Afghan territory. In 1858 Nuri fell from office and from that time Naser od-Din Shah ruled as his own first minister, but never found fully satisfactory arrangements for doing so.10

  Throughout this period and the decades that followed the British and Russians interfered so insistently in government that in some respects the Shah’s independence appeared merely nominal. That this was not made more obvious was only due to the Shah’s unwillingness to pursue projects that might displease the European powers. He was willing to offend one of them at any time, if he had the support of the other, but could not afford to alienate both together. Thus for example, at a time when railways were spreading all over the globe, rightly seen as the very embodiment of progress, yielding benefits for communications and commerce that could have been highly valuable for Persia too (particularly so given the huge distances and impossible roads of the Iranian plateau) no railways were built, because the British and Russians both disliked the idea, for strategic reasons — railways could have delivered hostile armies more rapidly to their respective borders. By the en
d of Naser od-Din’s reign in 1896 there was still only one railway in Persia; a narrow-gauge line built by the Belgians, running out of Tehran to a little shrine town five miles away (the shrine of Shah Abd ol-Azim, which was to prove a fateful backdrop to several important events over the next few years).11

  What were the real interests of Britain and Russia in Persia at this time? How damaging was their involvement? There are a number of different elements to these questions. Britain and Russia stood for different things in the nineteenth century, and for different aspects of the European model. Britain stood for, or appeared to stand for progress, liberalism, science, commerce and Improvement. Russia stood rather for the traditional order in Europe, for the adaptation of modern tools to maintain the status quo of the old dynastic monarchies, for the Orthodox Christian church and against political radicalism. Both had their attractions for different interests and groups in Persia. But both states, whatever impression they might give, were primarily concerned with their own strategic interests, in which the interests of the Persians had little part; as had been nakedly obvious in the Napoleonic period. Both had other, greater priorities; and both loomed much larger to Persians than Persia had real significance in the calculations of either. Each power would edge ahead of the other if it could, but was normally content to reach a modus vivendi with the other over Persia, which meant stasis and avoiding surprises. This rivalry was good in one way; it made it difficult for either power to take Persia as a colony. One could claim that Britain prevented Russia from overwhelming Persia altogether in the nineteenth century, and vice-versa. But the negative was that both powers were suspicious of change or of vigorous Persian reformers who might shake things up, or give an advantage to their rival. As time went on the Shah was more and more suspicious of change and reform too. The result was stagnation.

  After a decade of personal rule, the Shah appointed a first minister again in 1871. This was Mirza Hosein Khan, who had served the Shah overseas as a diplomat, notably in Istanbul, where he had seen the effects of some of the Tanzimat reforms in the Ottoman empire. He was convinced that similar change needed to happen in Persia, and encouraged Naser od-Din Shah to travel so that he could see some of the developments taking place in other countries for himself. In 1872 Mirza Hosein Khan succeeded in persuading the Shah to agree to the Reuter concession. This was a remarkable initiative, a blueprint for development of the most sweeping kind, including a railway from the Caspian to the south, mining rights and all kinds of industrial and other economic improvements. It could have brought benefits, but it abandoned a huge swathe of sovereign rights to a foreigner (the Baron de Reuter, a British Jew born in Germany and the founder of the Reuters news agency). In return for the concession the Shah received £40,000 as an advance.

  Over the previous decades, the Iranian economy had changed and shifted in response to an increasing penetration of markets by foreigners. Many Iranian products proved unable to compete with cheap imports, while agriculture reorientated to produce more for export (cotton and opium for example). The reduced capacity for domestic food production contributed to a number of severe famines, especially in 1870-71, in which it has been estimated that up to a tenth of the population perished.12 The changes left many people angry and contributed to the opposition to the Reuter concession. The Shah returned from a visit to Europe in 1873 to powerful demands for the removal of Mirza Hosein Khan, and he duly went.

  The Reuter concession was strongly disliked by the Russians, and the Shah had discovered while in Europe that the British were no better than lukewarm about it. Along with the domestic opposition, this was enough for the Shah to find an excuse to cancel it in the same year; but there followed an extended dispute over the advance, which the Shah held on to. Eventually, in 1889 de Reuter was given another concession in compensation—he was allowed to set up the Imperial bank of Persia, with the exclusive right to print paper currency. Up to that time, the British were able to use the Reuter dispute to prevent Russian proposals for a railway from going ahead. But in 1879 the Russians helped the Shah to set up the Iranian Cossack Brigade, led by Russian officers. This became the most modern, best-disciplined armed force in the country and was loyal to the Shah, but it was also an instrument of Russian influence.

  For a period in the 1870s the British government considered a more positive attitude towards Persia, which could have resulted in Persia becoming a genuine ally rather than a dupe and a catspaw.13 This episode was prompted by Russian conquests in Central Asia, notably the surrender to them of Khiva in 1873; but also by the deterioration of British influence in Afghanistan. In 1879 Lord Salisbury (as Foreign Secretary) briefly set aside the policy of ‘masterly inactivity’ governing Britain’s attitude to the borders of India and considered a plan that would have given Herat to Naser od-Din Shah, along with a subsidy from the British government and help with internal reforms. Persia would have become a partner and an ally, an essential element in Britain’s colonial defences, rather than a theatre for spoiling actions to prevent the Russians gaining influence. It would have been in Britain’s interests to help build Persia up, rather than keeping Persia down. Talks went on between the British and the Persians in London, led on the Persian side by Malkom Khan, who was the head of the Persian diplomatic mission there. But in the end Naser od-Din Shah broke off the negotiations. The British believed that this was because the Russians had intervened to block them. The Liberal government that followed was not inclined to take up the talks again and the opportunity was lost, but the episode shows that the Realpolitik pursued by the British vis-à-vis Persia was not necessarily the inevitable and logical corollary to their imperial position. A cynical policy, or a policy of realpolitik as its proponents would call it, may sometimes be pursued out of laziness and lack of imagination rather than anything else. The cynical policy maker cannot predict the future any more than the moralist, but he knows at least that he cannot be accused of starry-eyed idealism. Sometimes that edge is all it takes to allow the cynic to dominate. Truly far-sighted politicians sometimes insist that if you get the principles right then the small change of policy will look after itself, but often the principles get lost along the way, and cynicism and short-termism prevail. The cynicism of British policy in Persia was to do great damage in the longer term.

  Malkom Khan was an significant figure in the latter part of the nineteenth century. He was born in 1833, the son of an Armenian father who had converted to Islam, and who had so admired Sir John Malcolm that he named his son after him. Malkom Khan was educated in Paris, and on his return to Persia taught at the Dar al-Funun, but the Shah became suspicious of his reforming ideas and his influence, and his later service as a diplomat outside Iran had something of the character of exile. Eventually, at the end of the 1880s, Malkom Khan fell from favour altogether, but stayed on in London to produce the newspaper Qanun, which pressed for an end to arbitrary government and the establishment of the rule of law, based on a constitution. This paper was brought into Iran and was widely read among the educated elite until Malkom Khan was reconciled to the government after Naser od-Din’s death. Malkom Khan died in 1908.

  Reform-minded officials continued to come and go in the Persian government through the 1880s, but without the full commitment of the Shah they were unable to get any traction. The Shah continued to negotiate concessions to foreigners, but in 1890 went too far with a tobacco concession, granting monopoly rights to a British company that enabled them to buy, sell and export tobacco without competition. This drew opposition from a formidable alliance of opponents; from landlords and tobacco growers, who found themselves forced to sell at a fixed price; from bazaar traders, who saw themselves once more frozen out of a lucrative sector of the economy; from the readership of new reform- and nationalist-oriented newspapers operating from overseas, and from the ulema, who were closely aligned to the bazaar traders and disliked the foreign presence in the country. This combination of interests became the classic pattern, repeated in later movements. Coordinated
largely through the network of connections between the mullahs across the country (making use of the new telegraph system), mass protests against the concession took place in most of the major cities in 1891, culminating in something like a revolt in Tabriz, and a demonstration in Tehran that was fired on by troops, leading to further demonstrations. One of the most important mojtaheds, Hajji Mirza Hasan Shirazi, issued a fatwa in December 1891 calling for a nationwide boycott, and this was so widely obeyed that even the Shah’s wives stopped smoking. Early in 1892 the government was forced to cancel the concession, incurring a large debt.

  Naser od-Din was bruised by the furore over the tobacco concession. From around this time onward, the Russian interest tended to predominate at court, and (the two went together) the Shah followed a more repressive policy, restricting contacts with Europe, banning the Persian-language newspapers imported from overseas, limiting the expansion of education that he had earlier favoured, and again favouring reactionary, anti-reform ministers (some apparently said the Shah now preferred courtiers who did not know whether Brussels was a place or a vegetable14).