The Struggle to Establish New Laws and Institutions, 1911–1926

Abstract

As we have seen, the period immediately after the Constitutional Revolution witnessed a struggle over basic concepts of law and justice. Although some important institutional and conceptual shifts were established by the constitution, there was still much conflict, confusion, and ambiguity over the legal process. In the absence of codified law and legal procedure, this confusion would continue until the introduction of the first law codes by Mirza Hasan Khan Moshir al-Dawleh (heretofore referred to as Moshir al-Dawleh) in 1911. This chapter will focus on the period from 1911 to 1926, a period mostly characterized by weak central government and instability, but one that saw important steps in the process of building a modern state which has been largely ignored in the historical literature.