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Refashioning Iran: Language and Culture During the Constitutional Revolution
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
Extract
The dialogic interaction among India, Europe, and the Arab-Islamic culture in the 18th and 19th centuries led to a refashioning of Iran and a rescripting of “the people” and “the nation” in Iranian political and historical discourses. The newly imagined Iran, constructed of textual traces and archaeological ruins, fashioned a new syntax for the reconstruction of the past and the formation of a new national time, territory, writ, culture, literature, and politics. Language, the medium of communication and signification, and the locus of tradition and cultural memory, was restyled. Arabic words were purged, “authentic” Persian terms forged, and neologisms and lexicography were constituted as endeavors for “national reawakening.” Iran-centered histories displaced dynastic and Islam-centered chronicles. In order to recover from historical amnesia, people reinvented pre-Islamic Iran as a lost Utopia with Kayumars as a Persian prophet predating Adam, Mazdak as a theoretician and practitioner of freedom and equality, Kavah-yi Ahangar as the originator of “national will” (himmat-i milli), and Anushirvan as a paradigmatic just-constitutional monarch.
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Footnotes
This essay is dedicated to Firaydun Adamiyat, in appreciation of his historiographic contributions. It is a product of extensive dialogue with many friends and colleagues, including Catherine Peade, C. M. Naim, Palmira Brummett, Khosrou Shakeri, Valentine Moghadam, and Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, as well as Shahla Haeri, Houchang Chehabi, and Abbas Amanat; I am especially thankful to Afsaneh Najmabadi for her intellectual support. Needless to say, I alone am responsible for the rhetoricality and theatricality of its approach.
References
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51. Nostalgia for classical literature was also an important component of both Arab and Turkish nationalism. In this regard, S. Moreh wrote, “The return to classical Arabic sources seems to have been inevitable especially among the Muslim poets and writers not only because it suited admirably the poetry of the court and of religious and national revival (being a genre suitable for addressing rulers and crowds from a platform) but also to emphasize their cultural identity by recalling its glorious and profound classical heritage. This seemed to them the best answer to the alien European literature and the invading and aggressive Christian civilization of the West” (“The Neoclassical Qaṣīda: Modern Poets and Critics,” in Arabic Poetry: Theory and Development, ed. G. E. von Gruenbaum [Wiesdbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1973], 156).
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54. Among such published texts were Firdawsi's Shāhnāmah (1785, 1811, 1829), the Divan of Hafiz (1791, 1826, 1828, 1831), Sa'di's Pandnāmah (1786), Būstān (1809, 1828), and Gulistān (1809, 1827,1830, 1833), Hatifi's Laylī va Majnūn(1788), Nizami's Sikandar nāmah (1812, 1827), Amir Khusraw's Layll va Majnūn (1811) and Akhlāq-i Jalālī (1810), Husayn Va'iz Kashifi's Anvār-i Suhayli (1804, 1805, 1813, 1823), Jami's Yūsuf va Zulaykhā (1809, 1821, 1829), Kaykhusraw Isfandyar's Dabistān-i maẓāhib (1809, 1818, 1860), Muhammad Husayn Tabrizi's Burhān-i qāṭi’ (1818, 1858“), and Dasātir (1811, 1818).
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68. For samples of the writing of the first three in pure Persian see respectively: Tabrizi's letter to Napoleon, in Farhad Mirza, Zanbīl (Tehran, 1345 S./1966), 26- 32; ibid., 364-79; Ḥadīqat al-shu'arā (Tehran, 1365 S./1986). For Tusirkani see Farāzistān. Bagishlu served in Constantinople as the chargé d'affaires and consul of Iran. He is the author of the controversial essays Alifbā-yi Bihrūzī and Pīrūz-i nigārishi Pārsī. For more details see Taqizadah, Hasan, “Luzūm-i ḥifż-i Farsi-yi faṣiḥ,” Yādgār 5.6 (Isfand 1326/Feb. 1948): 14Google Scholar. For a sample of Shahrukh Kirmani see Furūgh-i Mizdīsnī (Tehran, 1909).
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70. Kirmani, Sah maktūb,265.
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72. At the end of this book there appears an essay on the problems of the scripts and suggestions for its reform.
73. For “grammar,” Mirza Habib used the concept of dastūr, instead of the more prevalent Arabic term naḥw. His writings on grammar are historically important for he tries to formulate the rules of Persian language without being constrained by the traditional categories of Arabic grammar.
74. Written as a textbook for the dār al-funūn, and published in 1316/1898.
75. Adamiyat, Firaydun, Andīshahā-yi Mīrzā Āqā Khān-i Kirmānī (Tehran, 1357 S./1978), 162, 274Google Scholar.
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77. On Bagishlu's views on reforming the Persian alphabet see his Alifbā-yi Bihrūzī, which is written in pure Persian.
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81. For I'timad al-Saltanah's and Jalal al-Din Mirza's positions see respectively: I'timad al-Saltanah, Taṭbīq-i lughāt-i jughrāfīyā'ī (Tehran, 1311/1893), 68; Firaydun Adamiyat, Andīshahhā-yi Tālibuf-i Tabrīzī, 2nd ed. (Tehran, 1363 S./1984), 85.
82. “I'lām,” Irān: rūznāmah-yi sulṭ ānī 56.1 (31 March 1903): 3. Majlis-i ākādimī, a forerunner of Farhangislān (established in 1935), is not mentioned in any contemporary accounts of language reform in Iran. Such selective amnesia occurs in much of the literary history of Iranian modernism in which the Qajar period is depicted as ‘aṣr-i bikhabari (the age of unawareness).
83. For valuable studies of the Constitutionalist literature see Yahya Aryanpur, Az Şabā tā Nīmā, and Browne, Press and Poetry.
84. In orthodox Iranian political discourse, both Islamic and pre-Islamic, religion was viewed as the foundation of the state, and the state as the guardian of religion. According to a classic formulation, “State and religion are twin brothers. Whenever a disturbance breaks out in the country, religion suffers, too: heretics and evil-doers appear. Whenever religious affairs are in disorder, there is confusion in the country: evil-doers gain power and render the Ruler impotent and despondent; heresy grows rife and rebels make themselves felt” (al-Mulk, Nizam, The Book of Government or Rules for Kings, trans. Hubert Darke [London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978], 60Google Scholar). On a pre-Islamic articulation of this view see The Letter of Tansar, trans. M. Boyce (Rome: Instituto Italiano peril Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1968), 33-4.
85. Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, “Constitutionalist Imaginary [sic] in Iran and the Ideals of the French Revolution,” Iran Nameh 8.3 (Summer 1990): 421-2.
86. Qānūn 2 (Sha'ban 1308/22 March 1890), 3.
87. On the Shi'i ulama and constitutionalism see Hairi, Abdul-Hadi, Shī'īsm 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.
88. The changing grammar of Shi'i politics is quite evident in the discourse of the Islamic Republic of Iran in which traditional Islamic concepts have gained transparently secular usage.
89. For such articulations see Algar, Hamid, Mirza Malkum Khan: A Biographical Study in Iranian Modernism (Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Natiq, Huma, “Rūznāmah-yi Qānūn: pīsh darāmad-i ḥukūmat-i Islāmī, 1890-1903,” Dabīrah 4 (Fall 1367 S./1988): 72-102Google Scholar.
90. For one such recent view see Bahram Choubine's “Pīshguftār” to Kirmani, Sah maktūb, 22-5.
91. Shirazi, Fursat, “Zindagānī-yi Furṣat,” in Divān-i Furṣat, ed. ‘Ali Zarrin Qalam (Tehran, 1337 S./1958), 16-25, 73Google Scholar; Kirmani, Āyinah-yi Sikandarī, 22.
92. It appears that the connotative transformation of the concept of andīshah from “fear” to “thinking” is related to the displacement of the politics of coercion with the politics of consensus.
93. Bahaikra Charch Dakani [a pseudonym], Shaykh va shūkh (unpublished manuscript in the library of Ayatullah Mar'ashi Najafi, #3747, Qum). This manuscript was kindly provided by Dr. Mahmud Mar'ashi, director of the Mar'ashi Foundation, Qum. For a valuable introduction to Shaykh va shiikh see Natiq, Huma, “Farang va Farang-ma' ābi va risālah-yi intiqādī-yi ‘ Shaykh va Shūkh,'” in Muṣībat-i vabā va balā-yi ḥūkumat (Tehran, 1358 S./1979), 103-29Google Scholar.
94. Millat, Khadim-i [a pseudonym], Muṣāḥibah-yi Islāmīyah-yi Islām, ākhānd, va hātif al-ghayb (Baku, 1321/1904)Google Scholar.
95. For the above-mentioned works, with the exception of Guftugū, see respectively: Malik, Rahim Rizazadah, Sūsmār al-Dawlah (Tehran, 1354 S./1975), 132-65Google Scholar; Khan, Mirza Malkum, "Rafīq va vazir," in Majmū'ah-yi āṣār, ed. Muhammad Muhit Tabataba'i (Tehran, 197?), 54-71Google Scholar; Talibuf, 'Abd al-Rahim, Āzādī va sīyāsat, ed. Iraj Afshar (Tehran, 1357 S./1978), 192-240Google Scholar; Fitrat Bukhara'i, Munāżirah-yi mudarris-i Bukhārā'i bā yak nafar Farangī dar Hindūstān (Istanbul, 1327/1909); Mirza Ghulam Husayn Nuri (Nayyir), Şuḥbat bā sar-i rafīqam va yā nālah-yi gharībānah-yi Nayyir (Tblisi, 1909); Choubine, Bahram, ed., Rawyā-yi ṣādiqah ([Paris], 198?)Google Scholar; anonymous, Mukālimah-yi sayyāh-i Irāni ba shakhṣ-i Hindi (n.L: Paradise Press, n.d.).
96. For a more elaborate study of the changing connotation of “millat” and the polarization of the political space see Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, The Formation of Two Revolutionary Discourses in Modern Iran: The Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1906 and the Islamic Revolution of 1978-1979 (Ph.D. dissertation. University of Chicago, 1988).
97. For a valuable analysis of the position of the Shi'i ulama during the Constitutional Revolution see Arjomand, , “The Ulama's Traditionalist Opposition to Parliamentarianism: 1907-1909,” Middle Eastern Studies 17 (1981): 174-90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
98. For a chronicle of the struggles leading to the granting of the Constitution see Ervand Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions, 69-92; Bayat, Mangol, Iran's First Revolution: Shi'ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1906 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 106-42Google Scholar. For the position of Muzaffar al-Din Shah on constitutionalism see “Mużaffar al-Din Shāh va mashrūṭīyat,” Armaghān 32 (1332 S./1953): 104-7.
99. Nazim al-Islam Kirmani, Tārīkh-i bīdārī1: 561.
100. On the class affiliations of the elected deputies to the First Majlis see Ittihadiyah, Mansurah, Paydāyish va taḥavvul-i aḥzāb-i sīyāsī-yi mashrūṭīyat: dawrah-yi avval va duvvum-i majlis-i shūra-yi millī (Tehran, 1361 S./1982), 101—18Google Scholar.
101. Kasravi, Tārīkh-i mashrūṭah-yi Irān, 120; Malikzadah, Tārīkh-i inqilāb-i mashrūṭīyat-i Irān (Tehran, 1363 S./1984), 2: 176; Bastani-Parizi, Talāsh-i āzādī,89.
102. Kasravi, Tārīkh-i mashrūṭah, 120.
103. The inauguration was initially supposed to be on 15 Sha'ban, but since it coincided with the birthday of the “Twelfth Shi'i Imam,” and since the constitutionalists wanted it to be an independent day, the Majlis was inaugurated on 18 Sha'ban 1324. In a message from the shah the inauguration of the Majlis was regarded as “the strengthening of the unity between the representatives of dawlat and millai” (Kashani, Vāqi' āt-i ittifāqīyah dar tārīkh 1: 106).
104. Dawlatabadi, Ḥayāt-i Yaḥyā 2: 84.
105. See Ashraf, Aḥmad, “Marātib-i ijtimā'ī dar dawrān-i Qājȧrīyah,” Kitāb-i ȧgāh 1 (Winter 1360 S./1981): 72-3Google Scholar.
106. According to article 26 of the supplement to the Constitutional Law, “All powers of the state are derived from the millat.“
107. On this point see Mustafa Rahimi, Qānūn-i asāsī va uṣūl-i dimukrāsī (Tehran, 1357 S./1978), 106-8.
108. Irān-i now 134 (16 February 1910).
109. Ibid.
110. Concerning the circumstances leading to the drafting of the Fundamental Laws see Nava'i, ‘Abd al-Husayn, “Qānūn-i asāsx012B; va mutammim-i ān chigūnah tadvīn shud?” Yādgār 4.5 (Bahman 1326/January 1947): 34-47Google Scholar.
111. Turkuman, Muhammad, Majmī'ah-'i az rasā'il, i'lāīyahhā, maktūbāt, … va rūznāmahhā-yi shaykh-i shahīd Fażl'allāh Nūrī (Tehran, 1362 S./1983), 1: 108Google Scholar. For an analysis of Nuri's political positions during this period see Adamiyat, Firaydun, “'Aqāyid ārā'-i Shaykh Fażl'allāh Nūrī,” Kitāb-i jum'ah 31 (28 Farvardin 1359/17 April 1980): 52-61Google Scholar. The same ideas were articulated in a gathering for the election of the Majlis deputies in the city of Yazd, a city with a large Zoroastrian population. One of the clerics present at the session pointed out: “We should not allow Zoroastrians to become dominant. I hear that one of the articles of the laws of the Majlis is equality. Zoroastrians must be kept wretched and held in contempt. According to reports, in other cities Zoroastrians ride horses, mules, and donkeys. They wear elegant and colorful clothes and hats. This behavior is against the shari'ah. The Zoroastrians, even if they are wealthy, can only wear milla cotton garments” (Ṣūrat-i majlis va nuṭqhā-yi ahālī-yi Yazd barāyi intikhābi vakx012B;l, shab-i 6 Ramażān 1325,” Şūr-i Isrāfīl 17 [14 Shavval 1325]: 4).
112. For the meaning of āzādī in classical Persian literature see ‘Ali Asghar Mudarris, “Fiṭrat va x0101;zādī,” in Muḥīṭ-i adab, ed. Habib Yaghma'i (Tehran, 1357 S./1978), 411-24. Concerning the meaning of āzādī in contemporary Persian literature see Isma'il Khu'i, Āzādī, ḥaqq va ‘adālat (Tehran, 2536 Shahanshahi/1977), 262-5.
113. Turkuman, Majmū'ah, 320.
114. Shaykh Fazl Allah Nuri, Lavāyih-i Āqā Shaykh Fażl'allāh Nūrī, ed. Huma Rizvani (Tehran, 1362 S./1983), 29.
115. Ibid., 62.
116. Ibid.
117. Nuri, Rasā'il, i'lāmīyahhā, maktūbāt, 107.
118. Said Arjomand, Amir, “The Ulama's Traditionalist Opposition to Parliamentarianism: 1907-1909,” Middle Eastern Studies 17 (1981): 179CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
119. On the prosecution and the charges against Shaykh Fazl Allah Nuri see “Muḥ ākamah va i'dām-i Ḥājj Shaykh Fażl'allāh-i mujtahid-i Nūrī” Kitāb-i jum'ah 35 (25 Urdibihisht 1359/15 May 1980): 137-45; Kashani, Muhammad Mahdi Sharif, Vāqi' āt-i ittifāqīyah dar rūzgār (Tehran, 1362 S./1983), 3: 375-8Google Scholar.
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