Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T18:16:28.048Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Division and Discord among the Shia ʿUlamāʾ: New Lights on the Failure of the 1927 Anti-Conscription Movement in Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Najm al-Din Yousefi
Najm al-Din Yousefi*
Affiliation:
California State University, Chico
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay delves into the 1927 anti-conscription movement and the causes of its failure. It argues that the Shia ʿulamāʾ of Iran and Iraq suffered from endemic divisions within their ranks, which in turn kept them from agreeing on a unified position against the extensive socioeconomic and military reforms under Reza Shah. The essay sheds light on the government’s use of religious justification that facilitated modern reforms. It also demonstrates how certain elements within the clerical establishment helped the Reza Shah government to win the senior clerics over or at least neutralize their opposition. This allows us to discern the fluid boundaries of tradition and modernity as modernizing reforms checked the Shia ʿulamāʾ’s long-standing authority in Iranian society.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 5 , September 2017 , pp. 705 - 733
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Yousefi would like to thank Sayyed Mohammad Hossein Manzur al-Ajdad for his immense help in unraveling numerous complexities of the Persian documents pertaining to the five Grand Ayatollahs that he had previously collected and published (Tehran: Shirazeh, 1385/2006) as well as for providing a copy of the deed of waqf for the Golestān Palace. Yousefi is also grateful to Mohammad Nafissi, William Ochsenwald, Rodney Thomson, and the anonymous reviewers of Iranian Studies for their useful comments and suggestions for improvement. He is solely responsible for any errors or shortcomings that remain. Unless otherwise stated, all translations are by the author.

References

Abrahamian, Ervand. Iran between Two Revolutions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Akhavi, Shahrough. Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran: Clergy-State Relations in the Pahlavi Period. Albany: State Uninversity of New York Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Amīr Ṭahmāsb, ʿAbdollāh. Tārīkh-e Shāhanshāhī-ye Aʿlāhaḍrat Reza Shah Pahlavi [History of the Monarchy of His Majesty Reza Shah Pahlavi]. Tehran: Maṭbaʿeh Majles, 1305/1926.Google Scholar
Ᾱshnā, Hessām al-Dīn, ed. Khoshūnat va Farhang: Asnād-e Maḥramāneh-ye Kashf-e Ḥejāb (1313–1322/1934–1943) [Violence and Culture: Confidential Records concerning the Removal of the Ḥejāb]. Tehran: Iranian National Archives, 1371/1992.Google Scholar
Atabaki, Touraj. “The Caliphate, the Clerics and Republicanism in Turkey and Iran: Some Comparative Remarks.” In Men of Order: Authoritarian Modernization under Atatürk and Reza Shah, edited by Atabaki, Touraj and Zürcher, Erik J.. 44–64. London: I.B. Tauris, 2016.Google Scholar
Banani, Amin. The Modernization of Iran, 1921–1941. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1961.Google Scholar
Burrell, R. M., and Jarman, Robert L., eds. Iran Political Diaries 1881–1965. Vol. 8: 1927–1930. London: Archive Editions, 1997.Google Scholar
Chehabi, Houchang E. “Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes: Dress Codes and Nation-Building under Reza Shah.” Iranian Studies 26, no. 3/4 (1993): 209–29. doi: 10.1080/00210869308701800CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cronin, Stephanie. “Conscription and Popular Resistance in Iran, 1925–1941.” International Review of Social History 43 (1998): 451–71. doi: 10.1017/S002085909800025XCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cronin, Stephanie. “Reform from Above, Resistance from Below: The New Order and Its Opponents in Iran, 1927–1929.” In The State and the Subaltern: Modernization, Society and the State in Turkey and Iran, edited by Atabaki, Touraj. 71–93. London: I. B. Tauris, 2007.Google Scholar
Esmāʿīlī, ʿAlīrezā. “Asnādī dar bāreh-ye Nehḍat va Mohājerat-e ʿUlamā-ye Eṣfahān beh Qom (1306 H.S.)” [Documents concerning the Movement and Emigration of the Esfahan ʿUlamāʾ to Qom (1927)]. Ganjīneh-ye Asnād 6 (1375/1996): 7–77.Google Scholar
Faghfoory, Mohammad H. “The Impact of Modernization on the Ulama in Iran, 1925–1941.” Iranian Studies 26, no. 3/4 (1993): 277–312. doi: 10.1080/00210869308701803Google Scholar
Faghfoory, Mohammad H. “The Ulama–State Relations in Iran: 1921–1941.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 19, no. 4 (1987): 413–32. doi: 10.1017/S002074380005649XCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hairi, Abdul-Hadi. Shīʿīsm and Constitutionalism in Iran: A Study of the Role Played by the Persian Residents of Iraq in Iranian Politics. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977.Google Scholar
Hedāyat, Mahdīqolī Mokhber al-Salṭaneh. Khāṭerāt va Khaṭarāt: Tūsheʾī az Tārīkh-e Shesh Pādeshāh va Gūsheʿī az Dowreh-ye Zendegī-e Man [Memories and Perils: Provisions from the History of Six Monarchs and a Glimpse of My Lifetime]. Tehran: Zavvār, 1344/1966.Google Scholar
Ḥerz al-Dīn, Moḥammad. Maʿāref al-Rejāl fī Tarājem al-ʿUlamāʾ wa al-Udabāʾ [Biographies of Religious Scholars and Littérateurs]. Vol. 1. Qom: Manshūrāt Maktabat Ᾱyatollāh al-ʿUẓmā al-Marʿashī al-Najafī, 1405/1984.Google Scholar
Keddie, Nikki R. “The Iranian Power Structure and Social Change 1800–1969: An Overview.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 2, no. 1 (1971): 3–20. doi: 10.1017/S0020743800000842CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keddie, Nikki R. “The Roots of the Ulama’s Power in Modern Iran.” Studia Islamica, no. 29 (1969): 31–53. doi: 10.2307/1595086CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kefāyī, ʿAbdolhossein Majīd. Margī Dar Nūr: Zendegānī-ye Ᾱkhūnd Khorāsānī, Ṣāḥeb Kefāyah [Death in Light: The Life of Ᾱkhūnd Khorāsānī, Author of Kefāyat al-Uṣūl]. Tehran: Zavvār, 1359/1980.Google Scholar
Lambton, Ann K. S. “A Reconsideration of the Position of the Marjaʿ al-Taqlīd and the Religious Institution.” Studia Islamica, no. 20 (1964): 115–35. doi: 10.2307/1595045CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manẓūr Al-Ajdād, Sayyed Moḥammad Ḥossein. Marjaʿīyyat dar ʿArseh-ye Ejtemāʿ va Sīyāsat: Asnād va Gozāreshhāyī az Ᾱyāt-e ʿEẓām Nāʾīnī, Eṣfahānī, Qomī, Hāʾirī va Burūjirdī [The Institution of the Source of Emulation at the Social and Political Arena: Documents and Reports on Grand Ayatollahs Nāʾīnī, Eṣfahānī, Qomī, Hāʾirī va Borūjerdī]. 1st ed. Tehran: Shīrāzeh, 1379/2000.Google Scholar
Martin, Vanessa. “Aqa Najafi, Haj Aqa Nurullah, and the Emergence of Islamism in Isfahan 1889–1908.” Iranian Studies 41, no. 2 (2008): 155–72. doi: 10.1080/00210860801913370CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Vanessa. “Mudarris, Republicanism and the Rise to Power of Riza Khan, Sardar-i Sipah.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 21, no. 2 (1994): 199–210. doi: 10.1080/13530199408705600CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mīrzāṣāleḥ, Gholām-Ḥossein. Reza Shah: Khāṭerāt-e Soleymān Behbūdī, Shams Pahlavī, ʿAlī Īzadī [Reza Shah: Memoires of Soleymān Behbūdī, Shams Pahlavī, ʿAlī Īzadī]. Los Angeles, CA: Ketāb Corp., 2007.Google Scholar
Najafī, Mūsā. Andīsheh-ye Sīyāsī va Tārīkh-e Nehḍat-e Ḥāj Ᾱqā Nūrollāh Eṣfahānī [The Political Thought and History of the Movement of Ḥāj Ᾱqā Nūrullāh Eṣfahānī]. 3rd ed. Tehran: Moʾasseseh-ye Moṭāleʿāt-e Tārīkh-e Mo'āṣer-e Iran, 1384/2005.Google Scholar
Najmabadi, Afsaneh. “Iran’s Turn to Islam: From Modernism to a Moral Order.” Middle East Journal 41, no. 2 (1987): 202–17.Google Scholar
Qāʾem-Maqāmī, Jahāngīr. “Tārīkhcheh-ye Sarbāzgīrī Dar Iran” [A Brief History of Conscription in Iran]. Barresīhā-ye Tārīkhī 2, no. 2 (1346/1968): 64–92.Google Scholar
Sardar Sepah, Reza Khan. Safar-Nāmeh Khūzestān [The Khūzestan Travelogue]. Tehran: Markaz-e Pazhūhesh va Nashr-e Farhang-e Siyāsī-ye Dowrān-e Pahlavī, 1303/1924, reprint. 1355/1976.Google Scholar
Ṭālebīyān, Sharīf, Ḥassan, , ʿArabshāhī, Rūḥollāh, ʿArabshāhī, Mohammad, and Ḥassan, Mofīd. Eḥyāgar-e Howzeh-ye Khorāsān: Gozarī bar Zendegānī va Ᾱthār-e Faqīh-e Ahl-e Beyt Mīrzā Mahdī Eṣfahānī [The Reviver of the Khorāsān Seminary System: A Review of the Life and Works of the Faqīh Mīrzā Mahdī Eṣfahānī]. Tehran: Ᾱfāq, 1394/2015.Google Scholar
Upton, Joseph M. The History of Modern Iran: An Interpretation. Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960; 1965.Google Scholar
Vāḥed, Ṣīnā. Shahīd Ayatollah Ᾱqāzādeh [The Martyr Ayatollah Ᾱqāzādeh]. Tehran: Jahād-e Dāneshgāhī, 1363/1984.Google Scholar