Abstract
The dialogic interaction with India, Europe, and the Arab—Islamic culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries contributed to the refashioning of Iran and rescripting of “the people” (millat) and “the nation” (vatan) in Iranian political and historical discourses. The newly imagined Iran, constructed of textual traces and archaeological ruins, fashioned a new syntax for reconfiguring the past and refiguring national time, territory, writ, culture, literature, and politics. Language, the medium of communication and the locus of tradition and cultural memory, was restyled. Arabic words were purged, “authentic” Persian terms forged, and neologism and lexicography were constituted as endeavors for “reawakening Iranians” (bidari-i Iranian). Iran-centered histories displaced dynastic and Islam-centered chronicles. To recover from a historical amnesia, pre-Islamic Iran was reinvented as a lost Utopia with Mahabad as the progenitor of humanity, Kayumars as the first universal king, Mazdak as a theoretician and practitioner of freedom and equality, Kavah-’i Ahangar as the originator of “national will” (himmat-i milli), and Anushirvan as a paradigmatic just-constitutional-monarch. This inventive remembrance of things pre-Islamic inspired a conscious effort to dissociate Iran from Islam and the Arabs.
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Notes
Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, “Constitutionalist Imaginary in Iran and the Ideals of the French Revolution,” Iran Nameh, 8: 3 (Summer 1990), 421–2.
See Mirza Malkum Khan, “Ishtihar Namah-’i Awliya-yi Adamiyat,” in Majmuah ‘i Asar, ed. Muhit Tabatab’i (Tehran: Intisharat-i ‘Ilmi, n.d.), 182–7; idem, “Risalah-’i Ghaybiyah,” in Majmuah-’i Asar, 219–37 [1–19].
Istibdad is usually translated as “despotism” and/or “tyranny.” What was viewed as istibdad from the late nineteenth century onward was not “oppression” but increased governmentalization of everyday life. Additionally “despotism” has a highly charged connotation within the Orientalist discourse. Therefore, I find “authoritarianism” as a more appropriate translation of istibdad. For a historical study of this concept see ‘Abd al-Hadi Ha’iri, “Sukhani Piramun-i Vazhah’i Istibdad dar Adabiyat-i Inqilab-i Mashrutiyat-i Iran,” Iran va Jahan-i Islam: Pazhuhish’hayi Tarikhi Piramun-i Chihrah’ha, Andishah’ha, va Junbishha (Mashhad: Intisharat-i Astan-i Quds-i Razavi, 1368), 223–31.
For a more elaborate study of the changing connotation of the “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 1905–1909 and the Islamic Revolution of 1978–1979, Ph.D dissertation, University of Chicago, 1988.
Nazim al-Islam Kirmani, Tarikh-i Bidari-yi Iraniyan: Muqaddamah, ed. ‘Ali Akbar Saidi Sirjani (Tehran: Intisharat-i Bunyad-i Farhang-i Iran, 1346/1967), 1: 561.
On the class belonging of the elected deputies to the First Majlis, see Mansurah Ittihadiyah, Paydayish va Tahavvul-i Ahzab-i Siyasi-i Mashrutiyat: Dawrah’i Avval va Duvvum-i Majlis-i Shura-yi Milli (Tehran: Nashr-i Gustarah, 1361 [1982]), 101–18.
On the concept of mashrutah see ‘Abd al-Hadi Ha’iri, “Sukhani Piramun-i Vazhah-’i Mashrutah,” in Iran va Jahan-i Islam, 212–22; Hasan Taqizadah, “Mashrutiyat,” Iran Nameh, 1: 4 (Summer 1983), 511–12. For one of the earliest usage of the Persian usage of shurut in relation to a parliamentary form of government see Mirza Salih Shirazi, Guzarish-i Safar, 310.
Kasravi, Tarikh-i Mashrutah-’i Iran, 120; Malikzadah, Tarikh-i Inqilab-i Mashrutiyat-i Iran (Tehran: ‘Ilmi, 1363), 2: 176; Bastani-Parizi, Talash-i Azadi, 89.
For this decree see Kasravi, Tarikh-i Mashrutah ‘i Iran, 120.
The inauguration was initially planned for the 15th of Shaban, 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 the 18th of Shaban of 1324. In a message by the Shah, the inauguration of the Majlis was regarded as “the strengthening of the unity between the representatives of dawlat and millat.” See Kashani, Vaqi’at-i ttifaqiyah dar Tarikh, 1: 106; [Ibrahim Safa’i], Nihzat-i Mashrutah bar Payah-’i Asnad-i Vizarat-i Umur-i Kharijah (Tehran: Daftar-i Mutali’at-i Siyasi va Bayn al-Milali, 1370), 184.
See Ahmad Ashraf, “Maratib-i ijtima’i dar dawran-i Qajariyah,” Kitab-i Agah, 1 (Zimistan 1360/Winter 1981): 72–3.
According to the 26th article of the Supplementary Constitutional Law, “All powers of the state are derived from the rnillat.”
Concerning the circumstances leading to the drafting of the Fundamental Laws, see ‘Abd al-Husayn Nava’i, “Qanun-i Asasi va mutammam-i an chigunah tadvin shud?” Yadgar, 4: 5 (Bahman 1326 [Jan. 1947]), 34–47.
Shaykh Fazl’allah Nuri, Majmu‘ah-’i az Rasayil, Plamiyah’ha, Maktubat, … va ‘Ruznamah=i Shaykh-i Shahid Fazl’allah Nuri, ed. Muhammad Turkuman (Tehran: Khadamat-i Farhangi-i Rasa, 1962 [1983]), 1: 108. For an analysis of Nuri’s political positions during this period see Firaydun Adamiyat, “Aqayid va ara-yi Shaykh Fazl’allah Nuri,” Kitab-i Jum‘ah, 31 (28 Farvardin 1359 [April 17, 1980]), 52–61.
“Surat majlis va nutqha-yi ahali-i Yazd barayi intikhab-i vakil, shab-i 6 Ramazan 1325,” Sur-i Israfil, 17 (14 Shavval 1325), 4.
Shaykh Fazl’allah Nuri, Lavayih-i Aqa Shaykh Fazl’allah Nuri, ed. Huma Rizvani (Tehran: Nashr-i Tarikh-i Iran, 1362), 29, 62, and 62.
Said Amir Arjomand, “The Ulama’s Traditionalist Opposition to Parliamentarianism: 1907–1909,” Middle Eastern Studies, 17 (1981), 179.
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© 2001 Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi
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Tavakoli-Targhi, M. (2001). Postscript. In: Refashioning Iran. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403918413_8
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