By utilizing the notions of the communal sphere and segmented urban society developed in Chapter 1, this chapter investigates the relationship between society and the state as mediated through the spatiality of the city. It studies Iranians’ political practices in public spaces that contested the state during the 1905–6 Constitutional Revolution. It seeks to better understand the troubled relationship between society and the state and its geographical manifestations. As a result of this troubled relationship, Iranian society managed to delimitate the absolutist monarchy and bind it to certain political and social norms. Two theoretical concepts stand out in this context: the public sphere and the political public space. This chapter deals with the relationship between these two concepts in a different geography, beyond the dominance of Western European and North American narratives. Drawing in part on Jürgen Habermas’s discussion in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, here I understand the public sphere as a medium between society and the state that enables the former to exert influence on the latter. Political public spaces provide unique platforms for people’s collective political activities, and do so in ways that intersect with other aspects of urban life.

Chapter one introduces South Asia’s people, geography, and history until the late twelfth century, and examines indigenous religious traditions as well as ones introduced by forces from Central Asia and the Iranian world. For India, by which we mean historic South Asia, we discuss differences in the north and south by focusing on Chandella patronage in north India of temples at Khajuraho, and Chola rule in south India and the construction of the Rajarajeshvara temple in Thanjavur. Contemporary with the construction of the Rajarajeshvara temple is Mahmud of Ghazni’s rise to power in what is modern Afghanistan and his subsequent raids into India. While Ghaznavid sway over India was short-lived it paved the way for the introduction of Islam and Ghurid dominance.

First, this chapter analyzes the non-elite socialization places in which anti-secular opinions were produced and expressed such as mosques, Qur’an courses, houses and coffeehouses. It shows the people’s insistence on their religious practices by receiving secret Qur’an courses or by disobeying the Turkish call to prayer. Second, it outlines a wide range of ways people expressed their critical views, ranging from seditious conversations, rumors, placards and anonymous critical letters to authorities, to writing on walls, doors and trees. Third, this chapter examines the rhetoric and discursive strategies anti-secular talks used. Fourth, it reveals how those social groups or individuals who had lost their authority or economic advantages due to secular reforms or those people who were discontented with economic conditions took part in the production and dissemination of anti-secular and anti-regime discourses. This chapter also shows how the non-elite daily socialization places contested the state’s secular propaganda and socialization spaces such as People’s Houses and Rooms.

While the night posed a challenge to authority of the sultan, it was also opportunity to showcase the power of the ruler. By illuminating mosques, Sufi lodges and palaces; in public and private light spectacles, and through court-produced texts, Ottoman sultans in the eighteenth century sought to associate themselves with light and through this association, to project their power and legitimate it in the eyes of their subjects and rivals. The two mediums, words and light, were intentionally and intricately connected to serve this purpose. While Ottoman use of actual and figurative light to project royal power and legitimacy had a long history, the palace elite of the early eighteenth century, and in particular the ruling clique of the so-called Tulip Era (narrowly defined 1718–1730), took it to a whole new level.