Iran: A Modern History

1174 Pages·2017·46.42 MB·English

by  Abbas Amanat

IRAN
A Modern History
Abbas Amanat
Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS
New Haven & London
Published with assistance from the Kingsley Trust Association Publication Fund
established by the Scroll and Key Society of Yale College.
Copyright © 2017 by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be
reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying
permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for
the public press), without written permission from the publishers.
Maps by Bill Nelson.
Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or
promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or
[email protected] (U.K. office).
Set in Adobe Garamond by Newgen. Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017942532
ISBN 978-0-300-11254-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the captives in the cage, Convey the glad tidings of
blooming meadows.
Hafez
To Maryam
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
PART I: A SHI‘I EMPIRE
ONE. Shi‘ism and the Safavid Revolution (1501–1588)
TWO. The Age of ‘Abbas I and the Shaping of the Safavid Empire (1588–
1666)
THREE. The Demise of the Safavid Order and the Unhappy Interregnums
(1666–1797)
PART II: RESHAPING OF THE GUARDED DOMAINS
FOUR. The Making of the Qajar Era (1797–1852)
FIVE. Naser al-Din Shah and Maintaining a Fragile Balance (1848–1896)
SIX. The Constitutional Revolution: Road to a Plural Modernity (1905–1911)
PART III: A NATION RECAST
SEVEN. The Great War and the Rise of Reza Khan (1914–1925)
EIGHT. Reza Shah and the Pahlavi Order (1925–1941)
NINE. Chaotic Democracy, Oil Nationalization, and Denied Hopes (1941–
1953)
TEN. The White Revolution and Its Opponents (1953–1963)
ELEVEN. Development, Disarray, and Discontent (1963–1977)
TWELVE. Cultures of Authority and Cultures of Dissent
PART IV: A CONTESTED REVOLUTION AND THE RISE OF THE
ISLAMIC REPUBLIC
THIRTEEN. The Making of the Islamic Revolution (1977–1979)
FOURTEEN. The Guardian Jurist and His Advocates
FIFTEEN. Consolidation of the Islamic Republic (1979–1984)
SIXTEEN. Facing the Foe: The Hostage Crisis, the Iraq-Iran War, and the
Aftermath (1979–1989)
SEVENTEEN. Society and Culture under the Islamic Republic
Epilogue
Notes
Further Readings
Index
Plates
PREFACE
Covering half a millennium of history of any country or region is a
formidable task. When it comes to the history of early modern and modern
Iran, it becomes daunting. It took nearly two decades for me to try to cover a
complex period that witnessed five dynastic changes, at least three
revolutions, three civil wars, four episodes of foreign occupation, and the
inception of a new Islamic government. I hope I have produced a coherent
narrative that threads the events of this past into meaningful themes, just as
every knot feeds into the larger pattern of a Persian carpet. Yet history, as
historians are anxious to caution their readers, has many random twists and
turns, which seldom lend themselves to an orderly design. What emerges, as
in this book, may seem to be disarray up close, but from afar, with the benefit
of hindsight, it reveals a pattern with many discernable paths.
I have tried in this book to trace the roots of Iranian modernity, or more
accurately, modernities, over a half millennium. To many readers, the rise of
a potent messianic movement five centuries ago may seem a far cry from any
notion of modernity, at least the way it is often understood. Yet there is in
fact a relationship between the rise of a state with an enforced religious creed
—in this case, the Safavid Empire upholding Shi‘ism—and emergence of a
modern nation state in later centuries. Encounters with Europe in the
nineteenth and the twentieth centuries and the adoption of Western-style
modernity, in all its permutations, only reinforced Iran’s own sense of
identity and its distinct pattern of continuity. Despite territorial losses at the
periphery and its inherent material disadvantages, Iran was among very few
non-Western countries that preserved its sovereignty and much of its
territorial integrity in the age of high imperialism. It did so, it can be argued,
in part because it rendered, and still is rendering, its own Persianized version
of modernity, not without many trials and errors.
In this book, by and large I have respected a dynastic periodization, not
only because changes of dynasties mattered in and of themselves, but also
because many times they were emblematic of sociopolitical, economic, and
cultural shifts. Emphasis on members of the elite I also deemed inevitable, for
such personalities often proved agents of important, and at times disastrous,
changes. Understanding personality traits of Isma‘il I and ‘Abbas I of the
Safavid dynasty were as crucial in the shaping of modern Iran as were those
of Aqa Mohammad Khan Qajar, Reza Shah Pahlavi, and, more recently,
Ayatollah Khomeini. Yet invariably I have tried to balance these political and
biographical narratives with attention to socioeconomic and cultural trends.
Likewise, I have tried, to the extent possible, to locate the Iranian past in
broader regional landscapes. This is as much an effort to look at Iranian
history inclusively or to deter perceptions of exceptionalism as it is an effort
to display the vibrant bonds that tied Iran to both neighboring lands and
prevailing global trends. Yet I resisted globalizing the Iranian past beyond
reasonable limits. We cannot ignore shared patterns that tie Iran to its
neighboring lands. Nor can we deny the dictates of geography, religion, and
political culture that set Iran apart from South Asia and from Central Asia,
Anatolia, Mesopotamia, or Arabia.
The book consists of an introduction, four parts, and an epilogue. Part I
(1501–1797) covers the early modern era, from the rise and then shaping of
the Safavid Empire to the end of the eighteenth century. Part II (1797–1911)
covers the long nineteenth century, from the consolidation of the Qajar
dynasty and encounters with European powers to the Constitutional
Revolution at the turn of the twentieth century. Part III (1914–1977) covers
developments from World War I and its aftermath to the end of the Pahlavi
era. Part IV (1977–1989) is devoted to the shaping of the Islamic Revolution
during its first phase. In this final part, wherever I deemed it necessary, I have
made brief observations about the post-1989 period in the hope of bringing
the narrative to a close. I tried to strike a balance between early modern and
modern periods, even though in practice about two-thirds of the book is
devoted to the twentieth century, given the weight of the events between the
Constitutional Revolution and the Islamic Revolution.
Attention to long-term themes also helped determine the book’s size and
organization. I strived to trace overarching themes and articulate arguments
while still preserving a narrative. The famous verse by the Persian poet Rumi
often echoed in my mind: “The secret of the beloved is best to be told in the
stories of the others.” The reader will notice throughout such recognized, and
stubborn, themes as natural resources and the limits of human habitat, the
tension between the sedentary center and the nomadic periphery, the interplay
between the state and the urban elite (including the clerical establishment),
tension between rulers and ministers, the chronic resurgence of alternative
socioreligious movements, and the persistence of cultural and artistic
memories. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a greater engagement
with European imperial powers, greater awareness of material weaknesses,
dilemmas of reform and development, the ideal and realities involved in
becoming modern, evolving notions of national identity, and the mastery of
internal economic resources all loomed large. Finally, greater reliance on
exportable natural resources helped the state consolidate and further its
modernizing project. Yet over time, an autocratic vision of transforming Iran
lost its popular mandate, generated nostalgia for a fast-disappearing world,
and fostered a revolutionary aptitude with strong Islamic undercurrents.
There are topics and personalities that are absent from this book, or appear
in passing, and others who take up perhaps more than their fair share. Men
far more than women dominate this narrative. Rewriting an essentially
patriarchal history is formidable, if not at times impossible. The same can
also be said about the silenced multitudes of the downtrodden, the
marginalized, the nonconformists, and the powerless in a master narrative,
often penned by agents of political power and compilers of hagiographies. I
have tried, nevertheless, to retrieve some of these voices and incorporate
them into my story.
In retrospect, debates about gender and ethnicity, everyday life, popular
culture, public and private spheres, ecology and environment, and
complexities of cultural identities could have received greater attention. Yet I
hope I have shown at least historical glimpses of a society and a culture more
diverse and more complex than often appear in monolithic and monotonous
accounts of Iran. Reference to poetry and literary trends, for instance, is one
way to enrich our understanding of those recesses of collective memory that
the official narrative often ignores or denies. These are the contours of a
collective memory that connects the Safavid times to the Qajar era, and to the
Constitutional Revolution and the rise of Pahlavi state, the National
Movement of the postwar era, and eventually to contemporary times.
The presence of my own voice in the style and substance of this book is
undeniable, and this is not foreign to those students of history who seek to
strike a balance between historical objectivity and the deeper traits of
authorial subjectivity. What can playfully be called “history with attitude”
does not aim to unfairly interrogate the past, or pass ahistorical judgments,
but instead to raise critical questions, to problematize the conventional
wisdom, and perhaps to render some uninhibited though subtle answers. As a
child of a generation who witnessed an age of heady Westernism and the
furious responses to it—that is, the latter decades of the Pahlavi era and the
dawn of the Islamic Revolution—I find it almost imperative to address
problematiques that were crucial, and still are, to the shaping of Iran (and the
rest of the Middle East): frustrated struggles for democracy and tolerance, the
transforming face of nationalism, the rise and fall of autocratic regimes,
disillusionment with ideologies, and, of course, contentious grappling with
Western powers and a globalizing culture. At the end of many years, one
afterthought may best sum up these feelings: “a sorrowful stroll in the garden
of memories,” as the poet Forough Farrokhzad has it.
This interpretive approach allowed for only a few endnotes. Likewise,
engaging the scholarly literature directly proved beyond the scope of this
project. The annotated bibliography at the end of the book addresses such a
need. To sustain the flow of the narrative, direct citations were also kept to
minimum. Maps and illustrations are intended to enrich the text and enhance
its arguments.
The transliteration system is that of the International Journal of Middle
East Studies, but with several important modifications. First, in today’s
Persian, the vowels e and o represent sounds similar to those in the English
language and thus have been substituted for the Arabicized i and u in the
IJMES system; hence Mohammad and not Muhammad (unless in an Arabic
phrase or Arabic book title) and mojtahed and not mujtahid. If some place-
names and technical terms have acquired a universal currency, they are
preferred over literal transliteration; hence Isfahan and not Esfehan.
Likewise, the Persian attributive ezafeh finds its true voice. It is no longer
awkwardly rendered as -i but as -e, hence Bagh-e Shah and not Bagh-i Shah.
In some other instances, the Persian pronunciation of well-known proper
names and place-names was preferred; hence Azarbaijan and not Azerbaijan
or Adharbaijan, and Alborz and not Elburz. Iran is preferred over Persia
throughout, but Persian culture and literature is preferred over Iranian, unless
the latter attribute is specifically intended. Finally, no diacritical symbols
were employed except on a very few occasions when the lack of a diacritical
mark on a long a would have caused confusion—hence ā instead of a in ‘Abd
al-‘Āli al-Karaki. All the translations, prose and verse, are mine unless noted
otherwise.
Over the years many friends and colleagues helped with research and