It may at first seem strange to speak of the politics of Iranology since until recently Iranology was so much confined within the limits of archaeology, linguistics, bibliography and other “micro” studies that any suggestion about its possible implications smacked of too conspiratorial an outlook of history. Yet if one sets aside the often unverifiable question of deliberate or non-deliberate political motives, there remains little doubt that Iranology has always been involved with politics. This statement is not difficult to prove in the case of the present phase of Iranology, when an increasing number of Iranian scholars are taking the initiative in the field, and a growing number of issues relating to the contemporary sociopolitical life of Iranians have become susceptible to political interpretation. The difficulty arises with regard to the formative period of Iranology when it was a preserve of European Orientalism and whose great pioneers were long thought to be inspired by nothing less than a pure love of knowledge. It is with this formative period of Iranology that the present paper purports to deal.

In 1946 a short autobiographical account of Ḥaydar Khān ᶜAmū Ughlū, the Caucasian revolutionary who participated in the Iranian Constitutional movement, 1905-1909, appeared in the Persian monthly journal, Yādigār. The article, which was accompanied by an introduction as well as by some concluding remarks, was unsigned. The editorial policies of the journal, however, indicate that unsigned articles were written by ᶜAbbās Iqbāl, the editor. Iqbāl does not attempt to establish the authenticity of this account, nor do other historians who have used it in their research. While in the absence of the document its authenticity cannot be established, it is possible to make some comments concerning the probability that this may be authentic and that the events mentioned in the autobiography took place, the role Ḥaydar Khān played in these events, and the significance of these events for the Iranian political structure.