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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
The American public came to know Iran through its missionaries who had lived among the Persians. For their part, Iranians grew familiar with Americans through interactions with these missionary pioneers as well. While American Presbyterians quickly established and expanded their institutional presence in the country, it became abundantly clear to them that Muslim converts to Protestantism remained few and far between. Missionary perceptions of Iranian Muslims, however, left an indelible imprint on American public understanding of Iran and its people. The paper argues that religious ideology frequently colored perceptions and influenced policy-making. Even after more than a hundred years of interaction, cultural representations were refracted through religious difference and similarity. Despite the increasingly secular cultures of Iran and America in the early twentieth century, religion remained a salient ideology for the public in both societies—one that has had a profound impact on the nature of US–Iranian relations. Thus, it is important to analyze the origins and impact of this contact beginning in the nineteenth century.
1 Perkins, Justin, A Residence of Eight Years in Persia, among the Nestorian Christians (New York, 1843), vii.Google Scholar
2 al-Saltanah, Hajj Mirza Muhammad Ali Mu'in, Safarnamah-i Shikagaw: Khatirat-i Hajj Mirza Muhammad Ali Mu'in al-Saltanah bih Urupa va Amrika, 1310 AH, ed. by Shahidi, Homayun (Tehran, 1363/1984).Google Scholar
3 Mirza Muhammad Ali Mahallati, better known as Hajji Sayyah, is credited with being the first Iranian to travel around the world. He visited the United States and eventually became a naturalized US citizen. For more on this story, see Ali Ferdowsi, “Hajj Sayyah,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, online version: http://www.iranica.com.
4 Perkins, A Residence in Persia, 10–11.
5 For more on this subject, see my article, “Manifest Destinies: A History of US–Iranian Relations, 1796–1925,” forthcoming.
6 McAlister, Melani, Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interest in the Middle East, 1945–2000 (Berkeley, CA, 2001);Google Scholar Little, Douglas American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2002);Google Scholar Kuklick, Bruce, Puritans in Babylon: The Ancient Near East and American Intellectual Life 1880–1930 (Princeton, NJ, 1996);Google Scholar Lewis, Bernard, What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East (New York, 2002);Google Scholar Khalidi, Rashid, Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East (Boston, 2004);Google Scholar Gerges, Fawaz A., America and Political Islam: Clash of Cultures or Clash of Interests? (Cambridge, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Makdisi, Ussama, Artillery of Heaven: American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East (Ithaca, NY, 2008);Google Scholar Sharkey, Heather, American Evangelicals in Egypt: Missionary Encounters in an Age of Empire (Princeton, NJ, 2008).Google Scholar The works of Makdisi and Sharkey investigate American involvement in the Middle East principally through the role of evangelicals charged with the task of conversion. Both historians are interested in the ways in which evangelicals addressed America's imperial ambitions. Also, Kidd, Thomas, American Christians and Islam: Evangelical Culture and Muslims from the Colonial Period to the Age of Terrorism (Princeton, NJ, 2008);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Grabill, Joseph L., Protestant Diplomacy and the Near East: Missionary Influence on American Policy, 1810–1927 (Minneapolis, MN, 1971).Google Scholar
7 Ali Pasha Saleh, Cultural Ties Between Iran and the United States (1976); Yeselson, Abraham, United States–Persian Diplomatic Relations, 1883–1921 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1956).Google Scholar
8 Marr, Timothy, The Cultural Roots of American Islamicism (New York, 2006);Google Scholar Abd-Allah, Umar F., A Muslim in Victorian America: The Life of Alexander Russell Webb (New York, 2006);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Kashani-Sabet, F., “From ‘Mahomet’ to the ‘Moslem Sunrise’: Early American Expressions of Islam,” forthcoming; and Ghaneabassiri, Kambiz, A History of Islam in America: From the New World to the New World Order (Cambridge, 2010).Google Scholar
9 For more on this subject, see my essay, “The Portals of Persepolis: The Cultural Dimensions of US–Iranian Relations, 1882–1925,” online version: New Horizons, Middle East Center, University of Pennsylvania. Elements of this research have been presented at several public venues, including in 2004 and 2006 (University of Pennsylvania), 2008 (Columbia University) and 2010 (University of Maryland).
10 Dehqani-Tafti, Hasan B., Masih and Masihiyat nazd-i Iraniyan (London, 1992–94);Google Scholar Levy, Habib, Comprehensive History of the Jews of Iran: The Outset of the Diaspora; ed. and abridged by Ebrami, Hooshang; trans. from Persian by Maschke, George W. (Costa Mesa, CA, 1999).Google Scholar Also, Mansoori, Ahmad, “American Missionaries in Iran, 1834–1934” (PhD diss., Ball State University, 1986), 24–42.Google Scholar
11 Kelly, Laurence, Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran: Alexander Griboyedov and Imperial Russia's Mission to the Shah of Persia (London, 2006).Google Scholar For accounts of the Russo-Persian Wars, see Atkin, Muriel, Russia and Iran, 1780–1828 (Minneapolis, 1980).Google Scholar For a Persian account, see Mirza, Jahangir, Tarikh-i Naw, ed. by Iqbal, ‘A. (Tehran, 1949).Google Scholar
12 Yonan, Isaac Malek, Persian Women (Nashville, TN, 1898), 148–50.Google Scholar For a recent account, see Badiozamani, Badi, Iran and America: Rekindling a Love Lost (California, 2005).Google Scholar
13 These important studies shed light on the Iranian–American encounter: Bill, James A., The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations (New Haven, CT, 1989);Google Scholar Badiozamani, Iran and America; Majd, Mohammad Gholi, Oil and the Killing of the American Consul in Tehran (Lanham, MD, 2006);Google Scholar Mansour Bonakdarian, “U.S.–Iranian Relations, 1911–1950,” http://128.36.236.77/workpaper/pdfs/MESV3-2.pdf; Kenneth Pollack, The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America (2004); Zirinsky, Michael, “A Panacea for the Ills of the Country: American Presbyterian Education in Inter-war Iran,” Iranian Studies, 26, no. 1 (1993), 119–37;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Ricks, Thomas, “Power Politics and Political Culture: US–Iran Relations,” in Iran: Political Culture in the Islamic Republic, ed. by Farsoun, Samih and Mashayekhi, Mehrdad (London, 1992).Google Scholar Davis, Matthew Mark, “Evangelizing the Orient: American Missionaries in Iran, 1890–1940” (PhD diss., Ohio State University, 2001);Google Scholar Mujani, Ali, Barrisi-i Munasibat-i Iran va Imrika az Sal-i 1851–1951 (Tehran, 1375/1996).Google Scholar Older studies include the following: Yeselson, United States–Persian Diplomatic Relations; Saleh, Cultural Ties Between Iran and the United States; Roosevelt, Kermit, Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran (New York, 1979);Google Scholar Mansoori, Ahmad, “American Missionaries in Iran, 1834–1934” (PhD diss., Ball State University 1986).Google Scholar
14 Yahya Armajani, “Christian Missions,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, online version: http://www.iranica.com/articles/christianity-viii.
15 Sargent, John, A Memoir of the Rev. Henry Martyn (London, 1819), 383, 378.Google Scholar
16 For a detailed discussion of Shi ‘i refutations of Martyn, see Amanat, Abbas, “Mujtahids and Missionaries: Shi‘i Responses to Christian Polemics in the Early Qajar Period,” in Religion and Society in Qajar Iran, ed Gleave, Robert (London and New York, 2005), 247–69.Google Scholar
17 For more on this idea in general—though not in specific reference to Martyn—see Porter, Andrew N., Religion Versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914 (Manchester, 2004).Google Scholar
18 Sargent, Memoir, 392.
19 Fischel, Walter J., “The Bible in Persian Translation: A Contribution to the History of the Bible Translations in Persia and India,” The Harvard Theological Review, 45, no. 1. (Jan. 1952): 21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also Abbott, Nabia, “Arabic-Persian Koran of the Late Fifteenth or Early Sixteenth Century,” Ars Islamica, 6, no. 1 (1939): 91–94.Google Scholar
20 “A LATE LONDON PAPER. (1815, March 30). THEOLOGY: RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE Communication from the King of Persia to the British and Foreign Bible Society relative to the late Rev. H. Martyn's translation of the New-Testament into Persian From his excellency Sir Gore Ousley, Bart. Ambassador Extraordinary from his Britannic majesty to the Court of Persia, addressed to the Right Hon. Lord Teignmouth, President of the British and Foreign Bible Society Translation of his Persian Majesty's letter, referred to in the preceding In the name of the Almighty God, whose glory is most excellent Concert of Prayer. The Weekly Recorder; a Newspaper Conveying Important Intelligence and Other Useful Matter Under the Three General Heads of Theology, Literature, and National Affairs (1814–1821), 303. Retrieved September 6, 2009, from American Periodicals Series Online.” (Document ID: 1394979122).
21 “PATEH [sic] ALI SHAH KAJAR . (1815, April). Article 2—No Title. Connecticut Evangelical Magazine and Religious Intelligencer (1808–15), 8(4), 156 . Retrieved September 6, 2009, from American Periodicals Series Online.” (Document ID: 532592582).
22 There are numerous biographies of Martyn and several centers dedicated to him: George Smith, Henry Martyn: Saint and Scholar, First Modern Missionary to the Mohammedans (1892); David Bentley-Taylor, My Love Must Wait: The Story of Henry Martyn (1975); Martyn, J.C., Henry Martyn (1781–1812), Scholar and Missionary to India and Persia: A Biography. Volume 16 of Studies in the History of Missions (Indiana, 1999).Google Scholar See also the Henry Martyn Centre for the Study of Mission and World Christianity: http://www.martynmission.cam.ac.uk/; and the Henry Martyn Institute for Research, Interfaith Relations, and Reconciliation: http://www.hmiindia.com/.
23 Algar, Hamid, Religion and State in Iran: The Role of Ulama in the Qajar Period (Berkeley, CA, 1969);Google Scholar Amanat, “Mujtahids and Missionaries,” 247–69.
24 Sargent, John, A Memoir of the Rev. Henry (Boston, 1832).Google Scholar Before the arrival of the Americans, missionaries from the Basle Missionary Society and the Scottish Missionary society also settled in Iran for a time. Dr. William Glen, affiliated with the latter society, succeeded in translating the Old Testament into Persian. In 1876, Isfahan became a permanent base for the British Church Missionary Society. For more, see Reverend Wilson, S. G., Persian Life and Customs: With Scenes and Incidents of Residence and Travel in the Land of the Lion and the Sun (New York, 1900).Google Scholar Timothy Marr also notes the popularity of Martyn among American missionaries: see Marr, T., The Cultural Roots of American Islamicism (Cambridge, 2007), 120.Google Scholar
25 Fischel, “The Bible in Persian Translation,” 25.
26 The Missionary Register, vol. 25 (1838), 84.
27 The Missionary Register, vol. 25 (1838), 84.
28 For more on this subject, see my essay, “From ‘Mahomet’ to the ‘Moslem Sunrise.’”
29 Perkins, A Residence in Persia, 268.
30 Perkins, A Residence in Persia, 270.
31 Perkins, A Residence in Persia, 388.
32 Armajani, “Christian Missions in Persia.” See also Missionary Review of the World, 21: 737–739. Also, Walcher, Heidi A., In the Shadow of the King: Zill al-Sultan and Isfahan under the Qajars (London, 2008);Google Scholar Gulnar Eleanor Francis-Dehqani, “CMS Women Missionaries in Iran, 1891–1934: Attitudes Toward Islam and Modern Women,” in Women, Religion, and Culture in Iran, ed. by Sarah F. D. Ansari and Vanessa Martin (2002): 27–50.
33 Farhang, 18 December 1879, 1. See same issue, p. 2 for news about the construction of a new mosque in Isfahan. Also, for more on rawzah khani during the Shi‘i holy month of Safar a few years later, see Farhang, 27 December 1883, 1.
34 William Guest, Fidelia Fiske (1870), 43.
35 Guest, Fidelia Fiske, 46.
36 Annual report of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, no. 85 (1922): 374.
37 Farhang, no. 172, 12 October 1882, 3–4.
38 Julius Richter, A History of Protestant Missions in the Near East (1910), 320–21. Also see Robert Ellliott Speer, The Hakim Sahib, the Foreign Doctor: A Biography of Joseph Plumb Cochran (1911) for more on the medical work of American Presbyterians in Iran. On ideas of hygiene and cleanness in Iran during the nineteenth century, see Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, “Hallmarks of Humanism: Hygiene and Love of Homeland in Qajar Iran,” American History Review (October 2000), 1171–1203.
39 Serial Set Volume No. 1526, Vol. 3, 42nd Congress, 2nd Session, “Famine in Persia,” 10 April 1872.
40 Mrs. H.M. Humphrey, “Horrors of Famine: Fearful Street-Scenes in the City of Oroomiah, Persia. Starvation, Despair, and Death on Every Hand – Three Thousand Persons Already Perished. American Missionaries the Only Hope of the Sufferers – An Appeal to the Benevolence of Chicago. Journal Written by Siyad, a Nestorian Christian, and Translated by Mrs. Brea”, Chicago Daily Tribune, 26 July 1880. Retrieved 20 May 2011, from ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849–1987), Document ID: 587783762. “Horrors of Famine: The Terrible Sufferings of Famishing Persians,” The Washington Post, 31 July 1880, 2.
41 Richter, A History of Protestant Missions in the Near East, 318.
42 Robert Elliott Speer, Presbyterian Foreign Missions: An Account of the Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (1901), 227.
43 Richter, A History of Protestant Missions in the Near East, 319.
44 Annual report of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, in the United States of America, 41–46 (1878): 38.
45 PHS, Board of Foreign Mission Correspondence, r. 271, MF, 10 F, 761a, p. 1.
46 Keddie, Nikki, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (New Haven, CT, 2006), 44–48 for a summary of this affair.Google Scholar
47 PHS, Board of Foreign Mission Correspondence, r. 271, MF, 10 F, 761a, p. 2.
48 During the Iranian constitutional revolution of 1906, the Persian community of Bombay founded a society called the Dawat al-Islam (the Call to Islam) and an accompanying periodical. One issue of this newspaper discussed the publication of a work by Mullah Habib Allah Kashani which rejected Babism. The author of the essay also implored the ‘ulama to continue discrediting Babism from their pulpits. Dawat al-Islam, no. 15, First Year, (1906–07).
49 “For Young People, Ibrahim The Persian Martyr,” The Missionary Herald (Feb. 1894): 90. Accessed via American Periodicals Series Online (APS) at http://proxy.library.upenn.edu:2151/login?COPT=REJTPTE0NGQmSU5UPTAmVkVSPTI=&clientld=3748
50 Reverend Wilson, S. G., Persian Life and Customs: With Scenes and Incidents of Residence and Travel in the Land of the Lion and the Sun (New York, 1900), 300–01.Google Scholar
51 Foreign Relations & the United States (FRUS): Persia, 1890–91, 682. Retrieved from http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS
52 FRUS, 1890–91, 683.
53 For a complementary account of this episode, see Davis, “Evangelizing the Orient,”125–71.
54 RG 59, Dr. Cochran to Mr Pearson, 18 March 1904, p. 1. For the earlier correspondence, see RG 59, 14 March 1904, Dr. Cochran to Mr. Pearson, 14 March 1904. The citation here comes from the document dated 18 March 1904.
55 Cochran to Pearson, 18 March 1904, 1
56 Cochran to Pearson, 18 March 1904, 3.
57 Cochran to Pearson, 18 March 1904.
58 United States Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, with the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 5, 1905, Pearson to Secretary of State, p. 722. Accessed online.
59 US Department of State, Pearson to Secretary of State, 723.
60 US Department of State, Pearson to Secretary of State, 723.
61 US Department of State, Pearson to Secretary of State, 724.
62 US Department of State, Pearson to Secretary of State, 725.
63 The Missionary Review of the World, 28 (1905): 910. For another source on Bible distribution in Iran during this period, see Bible Society Record, 53 (1908), 73.
64 The Missionary Review of the World, 29 (1906): 867.
65 Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, in the United States of America, Volumes 56–60 (1893), 149. According to this source: “The single station of Oroomiah, which constituted the whole Mission twenty-five years ago, with its little band of missionaries, four clerical and one medical, has been expanded into six well-manned stations … Including the women the whole missionary staff has increased from eleven to fifty-nine persons, among whom are four lady physicians.” J. Bharier lists the population of Iran at 9.86 million for 1900. Bharier, Julian, Economic Development in Iran, 1900–1970 (New York, 1971), 26.Google Scholar
66 Habl al-Matin, no. 19, 2 April 1900, 16. For another account of this incident, see The Church Missionary Gleaner, 27 (1900): 139.
67 Habl al-Matin, no. 20, 9 April 1900, 14.
69 PHS, Reel 271, Samuel Jordan, “An Unprecedented Opportunity—Wanted—A College for Persia,” 1.
68 Richmond Pearson to Secretary of State, Tehran, 12 August 1906, http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.
70 PHS, Reel 271, Wishard to Vanneman, Tehran, 27 November 1906.
71 For studies of the Constitutional Revolution, see the following works: Afary, Janet, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906–1911 (New York, 1996).Google Scholar For studies of Baskerville, see Thomas M. Ricks, “Power Politics and Political Culture: US–Iran Relations,” in Iran: Political Culture in the Islamic Republic, ed. by Samih Farsoun and Mehrdad Mashayekhi (1992); Davis, “Evangelizing the Orient,” 171–211.
72 PHS, Reel 274, Tabriz, Persia, 16 April 1909. For a brief obituary of Nevins providing basic biographical information, see Auburn Seminary Record, 15, no. 5, 10 January 1920, 284.
74 PHS, Reel 274, Tabriz, Persia, 16 April 1909.
73 PHS Reel 274, Tabriz, Persia, Baskerville to W. F. Doty, US Consul in Tabriz, 1 April 1909.
75 PHS, Reel 274, Tabriz, Persia, 16 April 1909.
76 PHS, Reel 274, Tabriz, Persia, 16 April 1909, 3.
77 PHS, Reel 274, Tabriz, Persia, 16 April 1909.
78 PHS, Reel 274, Tabriz, Persia, 16 April 1909, 5.
79 PHS, Reel 274, Tabriz, Persia, 16 April 1909, 10.
80 PHS, Reel 274, Tabriz, Persia, 16 April 1909.
81 For example, see http://www.iranian.com/History/Aug98/Baskerville/index.html. Also Hamid Dabashi, Iran: A People Interrupted (2007), 83–84.
82 Zirinsky, Michael, “American Presbyterian Missionaries at Urmia during the Great War,” Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, 12, no. 1 (1998): 6–27.Google Scholar
83 Rockefeller Archive Center, RF Collection, Record Group 1.1, Series 100 N, Box 76, “Conference between Mr. W. A. Shedd of the Board of Foreign Missions,” 14 October 1915, 5–8.
84 Ittihad, 30 Rabì al-Avval 1333/15 February 1915, 1.
85 A Century of Mission Work in Iran (Persia), 1834–1934: A Record of One Hundred Years of the Work of the Iran (Persia) Mission of the Board of the Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A (Beirut, 1934), 40.
86 Zirinsky, “A Panacea for the Ills of the Country,” 134.
87 FRUS, Vol. IV, Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs, (Murray) to the Under Secretary of State (Welles), 21 August 1939, 530. Accessed online 22 December 2007.
88 Zirinsky, “A Panacea for the Ills of the Country,” 134.