Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam
120: The Constitutional Revolution in Persia - 6
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA
On June 2, 1908, a joint delegation of Russian and British ambassadors met the Persian foreign minister and threatened that Russia would intervene militarily unless the threats against the Shah ceased forthwith. The next day, under cover of panic created in the capital by Russian agents and paid hirelings, the Shah fled from his palace to the King’s Gardens located outside the city, under a Russian armed escort. On June 4, he invited some of the notables of the Majlis to meet with him and discuss matters of mutual concern. Upon their arrival, the treacherous Shah ordered the Cossacks to arrest them. On June 7, the Shah declared martial law and put a Russian, Colonel Liakhoff, in charge of maintaining order in the capital. He sent a message to the Majlis demanding the shutting down of the free press and the expulsion from the capital of the political leaders and the editors of major newspapers.
These demands were impossible to meet and as negotiations continued, the Shah ordered the movement of more arms and ammunition from the city to the King’s Gardens. On June 23, a brigade of Cossack horsemen, under command of Liakhoff and his Russian staff, entered the courtyard around which were located the Majlis building and an adjoining mosque. The deputies were locked up in the Majlis building. Liakhoff ordered the placement of heavy guns at strategic locations around the courtyard and started a bombardment, which soon reduced the Majlis building and the mosque to rubble. A large number of deputies and several defending youths, were slain. Those who were not killed, or who could not escape, were taken prisoner and hauled away, chains around their necks. Some of the deputies sought refuge in the British embassy but were refused entry. Others, like Hajji Mirza Ibrahim, were shot while resisting attempts by the soldiers to strip them naked in public. Some were hauled off to the King’s Gardens and strangled. Included among those killed on that fateful day were the great orators AqaSeyyed Jamaluddin and the MalikulMutakkallimun, both from Isfahan, who were the backbone of the mass movement that had organized schools and social services in Tehran and the provincial capitals.
The Shah promoted Colonel Liakhoff to be the martial law officer for Tehran. Determined, cold blooded and ruthless, Liakhoff let loose a reign of terror in the capital. Houses belonging to deputies, their relatives and sympathizers were looted and hundreds were killed in cold blood. Tehran turned into a city under occupation and witnessed the dance of death and destruction for several days.
News of the reign of terror in Tehran reached the provinces and a national resistance movement began. Tabriz, the second largest city in Persia, was in the vanguard of this movement. The Constitutionalists, under the leadership of one Sattar Khan, occupied the administrative headquarters and declared that they no longer recognized the Shah. The surrounding villages joined the uprising so that Tabriz, in essence, became a city-state, opposed to the Shah and run by the constitutionalists.
In response, the Shah unleashed the notorious Shahseven tribe upon Tabriz. The unruly men of this tribe were known for their love of plunder and loot. They attacked the villages around the city, killing the men, abusing the women, looting their belongings and were successful in cutting off all roads into and out of the city. The Constitutionalists garrisoned the town and stopped the advance of the Shahseveners. As the siege of Tabriz progressed, and food supplies in the city became scarce, the Shah, to put additional pressure on the Constitutionalists and force Tabriz into submission, dispatched contingents of Silahkhuri and Cossack troops under the command of Russian officers. Undaunted, the city held on, the Silahkhuri troops were beaten back, the Cossack advance was brought to a standstill; the siege dragged on for months.
More ominous were the moves of the Russian army to the north. The Czar was no lover of constitutional reforms. The recent success of the Young Turks in Istanbul in forcing Sultan Abdul Hamid II to reinstate the Ottoman constitution (1908) had given the Czar additional cause for concern. But the Russians also knew that any foreign intervention in Persia would meet with mass opposition. The Czar therefore chose a cautious approach, acting with Britain to ensure the protection of European property, but otherwise staying clear of the civil war between the Shah and the Constitutionalists. A British gunboat appeared off the Persian Gulf port of Bandar Abbas to show the flag, while a column of Russian troops entered Azerbaijan and marched to Tabriz without opposition either from the constitutionalists or the Shah’s forces. The siege of Tabriz was lifted, food supplies were brought in, the Shahseveners were dispersed and the city resumed a semblance of normalcy.
The fall of Tabriz did not mean the end of the uprising. In Isfahan to the south, and Rasht to the north, new armies arose under the leadership of the Bakhtiari dervishes. The Bakhtiaris were a Sufi order and had fought through the centuries on the side of justice and fair play in the many feuds and wars that had raged in Persia. They were resolute warriors, tough, resilient, like their brethren Naqshbandis in the Caucasus and the Jazuliyas in far-away West Africa. The southern armies from Isfahan were under the proven and capable leadership of Sardar e Asad and Shamsam us Sultan. The northern armies from Rasht were under the command of the equally capable Nasrus Sultana Muhammed Wali Khan. Both armies, after overcoming local resistance from the Shah’s forces, were poised to march on Tehran.
The mobilization of Bakhtiari dervishes set off alarm signals in London and St. Petersburg. Hoping to preserve a semblance of power for the Shah, they advised him to accommodate the nationalists and reinstate the Majlis, if only to buy time. But the Shah remained stubborn and noncommittal. The Czar sent a blunt warning to the Nationalists that unless the northern armies stopped their march, the Russian army might intervene. A contingent of Russian troops did land at Anzali on their way to Tehran. But this saber rattling failed to impress the Bakhtiari. The northern armies moved on Qizwin, on the approaches to Tehran, while the southern armies advanced upon Qum, the spiritual capital of Persia. On June 12, 1909, advanced columns of the Bakhtiari troops entered Tehran. Resistance from the Cossack brigade was heavy but after several days fighting, the Cossacks surrendered and the Shah took refuge in the Russian embassy. There was jubilation in the capital. The leaders of the conquering armies met on July 16, 1909 with the ulema and the available members of the Majlis and deposed Muhammed Ali Shah. His young son, Ahmed Mirza was placed on the throne as Sultan Ahmed Shah.
Thus ended the Constitutional Revolution that began with the Tobacco Concession of 1891, and after a struggle lasting 18 years, succeeded in eliminating the tyranny of the Shah. It brought the rule of law to Persia where previously there was rule by dictate. It succeeded in preserving the independence and territorial integrity of Persia in the face of the avowed intent of Britain and Russia to partition and occupy the land. It awakened the latent nationalism of the Persians and it presaged the nationalist movement of Mosaddegh in 1954. And it propelled the ulema to the forefront of the national struggle, an element that was to show itself with volcanic power in the Iranian Revolution of 1978.
(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)
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