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From Istanbul to Tabriz: Modernity and Constitutionalism in the
Ottoman Empire and Iran
Fariba Zarinebaf
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Volume
28, Number 1, 2008, pp. 154-169 (Article)
Published by Duke University Press
For additional information about this article
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From Istanbul to Tabriz:
Modernity and Constitutionalism in the
Ottoman Empire and Iran
Fariba Zarinebaf
any scholars consider the Iranian constitutional revolution of 1906 –11 as a turning point in the history of modern Iran that ushered in a long century of popular
struggles and resistance against the absolutism of the shahs (Qajars and Pahlavis)
and Western imperialism. The historiography of the Iranian constitutional revolution is rich
and varied; the recent publication in Iran of primary sources like newspapers, memoirs, political tracts, parliamentary debates, and consular reports only enhances it further.1 The international dimension of the Iranian constitutional revolution is receiving more attention with
access to foreign consular reports in the British, Turkish, and French archives.2 Except for a
few notable studies, the Turkish constitutional movements of 1876 and 1908, by comparison,
have received much less attention from scholars of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. 3 Despite two divergent historiographies, a comparative study of the Ottoman and Iranian constitutional movements is just beginning to receive some attention.4 With a few notable excep-
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Research for this essay was funded by a grant from the Iran Heritage Foundation in London. This essay was presented at the centennial of the Iranian constitutional revolution at Oxford University in June 2006. I thank the Başbakanlik Archives in Istanbul,
the Atatürk Library, the interlibrary loan at Northwestern University Library, and the Middle East staff at Regenstein Library
at the University of Chicago. I also thank my father for his invaluable insights. A shorter version of this article was published in
the Turkish journal Toplumsal Tarih, no. 166 (October 2007).
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s 1. For recent publications of these sources in Iran, see Mansoureh
Ettehadieh, “‘Newspapers and Journals Reprinted from 1991 to
2001’ and ‘Historical Works Relating to the Qajar Era Published in
Iran, 1996 – 2001,’ ” Iranian Studies 34 (2001): 195 – 226; Peter Avery,
“Printing, the Press, and Literature in Modern Iran,” in Cambridge
History of Iran, vol. 7, From Nadir Shah to the ­Islamic Republic,
ed. Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly, and Charles Melville (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), 815 – 69; and Mansour Bonakdarian, Britain and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of
1906 – 11: Foreign Policy, Imperialism, and Dissent (Syracuse, NY:
Syracuse University Press, 2006).
2. The opening of the Russian archives will shed light on a very
important player in the constitutional revolution. That history
is still to be written. On the influence of Indian intellectual currents on Persian nationalism, see Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, Refashioning Iran: Orientalism, Occidentalism, and Historiography
(London: Palgrave, 2001).
3. Hakki Tarik Us, Meclis-i Mebusan, 1293:1877; Zabit Ceridesi,
2 vols. (Istanbul: Vakif Matbaasi, 1939 – 40); Şerif Mardin, The
Genesis of the Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1962); Robert Devereux, The First Ottoman Constitutional
Period: A Study of the Midhat Constitution and Paliament (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1963), Niyazi Berkes, The
Development of Secularism in Turkey (Montreal: McGill University
Press, 1964); and Feroz Ahmad, The Young Turks (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969). For a critical historiography of the Young Turk revolution, see Şükru Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution: The Young
Turks, 1902 – 1908 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
4. Thierry Zarcone and Fariba Zarinebaf-Shahr, eds., Les Iraniens
d’Istanbul (Louvain: Peeters, 1993); Nader Sohrabi, “Constitutionalism, Revolution, and State: The Young Turk Revolution of 1908
and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906 with Comparisons to the Russian Revolution of 1905” (PhD diss., University
of Chicago, 1996); Sohrabi, “Historicizing Revolutions: Constitutional Revolutions in the Ottoman Empire, Iran, and Russia,
1905 – 1908,” American Journal of Sociology 100 (1995): 1383 – 1448;
and Sohrabi, “Global Waves, Local Actors: What the Young Turks
Knew about Other Revolutions and Why It Mattered,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 44 (2007): 45 – 79.
5. I have undertaken a larger study on the history of
Tabriz during the constitutional era.
6. I do not discuss the European intellectual influences, particularly of the Enlightenment and the
French Revolution, since this topic has already received a great deal of attention by scholars of both
modern Turley and Iran. See Vanessa Martin, Islam
and Modernism: The Iranian Revolution of 1906 (London: I. B. Tauris, 1989).
7. Mardin, Genesis of the Young Ottoman Thought.
in the Ottoman Empire and Iran
155
From Istanbul to Tabriz: Modernity and Constitutionalism dependence dealt a heavy blow to the position
of non-Muslims. The Ottoman state manifested
the strongest modernist impulse, which can be
traced back to the eighteenth century; under
pressure from Western powers and in order to
save the empire from further disintegration, a
new class of bureaucrats and reformists created
a pan-Ottoman discourse for a modern type of
government that would grant citizenship rights
to all male subjects regardless of religion and
ethnicity and would continue the Tanzimat
reforms. But Islam and Turkish ethnic sentiments were emerging as the dominant intellectual paradigms in the aftermath of wars of
independence and the Russo-Turkish wars that
led to the ethnic cleansing of the Balkans and
the Caucasus and created millions of Muslim
refugees crossing into the Ottoman lands. The
Transcaucasian Muslim refugees of Crimean
and Azeri background identified with both the
Sunni Ottomans and the Shi‘i Iranians and settled in both states. In both states, these groups
played an important role in forging a nationalist
discourse.
The intellectual interaction between Otto­
man and Iranian reformists and intellectuals
took place in several phases that began first in
the Ottoman Empire during the Tanzimat reforms (1839 – 78) and culminated in the granting of the first Ottoman constitution of 1876 by
Sultan Abdülhamid II (1876 –1909). The second
period started in the last decade of the nineteenth century and culminated in the Iranian
constitutional revolution of 1906 –11 and the
Young Turk revolution of 1908.7 In both states,
the first phase of reform started with modernization projects traceable to the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries that were initiated by reformist bureaucrats in response to
Western and Russian military victories and
territorial gains. Military academies, modern
schools, modern bureaucracy, the printing
press, and newspapers were the products of the
Fariba Zarinebaf tions, most of the existing historiography has
emphasized the role of Western thought in the
development of Turkish and Iranian modernity,
while local and regional influences have been
ignored. Moreover, less attention has been paid
to the reception of Western ideas and the subsequent cross-fertilization of modernist discourse
among different intellectual and social groups.
The aim of this study is to shed light on the relationship between Turkish and Iranian reformists, intellectuals, and activists by drawing on
Turkish archival material, consular reports, narrative sources, Persian newspapers, and books
printed in Istanbul.5 I highlight the role of Iranian and Ottoman reformists in this formative
period in the articulation of two competing
discourses: Western liberal constitutionalism
based on French and Belgian models and an Islamist constitutionalism (mashrutay-i mashru’ah)
that was popular among the ulema and more
traditional classes. 6 In Iran the merchants, in
alliance with some members of the Shi‘i ulema,
played an important role in the mobilization of
urban masses in the constitutional movement of
1906 –11. The conservative outcome of the Iranian constitutional movement had to do with
the active participation of these two tightly knit
social groups, which composed the traditional
middle class and survived until the Islamic revolution of 1979. The urban masses made up of
artisans and professional members of guilds
played an important role in the success of the
Iranian revolution of 1906. The latter vein of
Iranian constitutionalism laid the foundation
for the constitution of the Islamic Republic in
1979. In the Ottoman Empire, the merchant
bourgeoisie was largely non-Muslim and prone
to nationalist ideologies that promoted independence (Armenians and Greeks); the ulema were
closely tied to the state and were independent of
the middle class. The reforms of the Tanzimat
era undermined the status of the lower-ranking
ulema, while the nationalist movements for in-
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first phase of the reform movements. Graduates of modern schools became the leaders of
the second phase of the reform movement for
national awakening and constitutionalism. The
print media, particularly newspapers, offered a
forum for the exchange of ideas among the intellectuals and a growing literate middle class.
Persian newspapers printed in Istanbul, Cairo,
Calcutta, Tiflis, and European capitals enjoyed
more freedom in expressing criticism of the
government and in bypassing censorship laws.
The use of the telegraph was equally important
in communication among the revolutionaries in
various cities and between Iran and the Ottoman Empire. It goes without saying that both
Ottoman and Iranian thinkers and bureaucrats
were directly influenced by Western liberal philosophy during their educational sojourns in
Europe; many became members of freemason
lodges that were established in the second half
of the nineteenth century. During this period,
diplomatic, commercial, and cultural contacts
among intellectuals and reformists in Tabriz
and Istanbul as well as Transcaucasia assumed
great importance.
Seyyid Hasan Taqizade (1878 –1970), a
leading constitutionalist figure who was elected
to the majlis twice as the deputy of Tabriz and
Azerbaijan, described the history of these contacts in his autobiography in the following
manner:
Preliminary steps to acquire western accomplishments began in Tabriz. One important thing
which helped progress on the road of civilization was that, because of the presence in Tabriz
of Abbas Mirza and his vizir, Qaim Maqam Farahani, who was a very intelligent man, this city
became the exclusive center of Iranian foreign
relations. Foreign ambassadors usually came
here and Iranian envoys abroad, with few exceptions, went out from Tabriz. Modern civilization
came to Azerbaijan primarily from two sources:
through knowledge of the Turkish language
there were intellectual ties first with Istanbul
and Ottoman territories and second with Rus-
8. Robert Landen, The Emergence of the Modern Middle East: Selected Readings (Columbia: University of
South Carolina, 1970), 128 – 29. See also Iraj Afshar, ed.,
Zendegi-yi Tufânî: Khâtirât-i Seyyid Hasan Taqizade
(Tehran: ‘Ilmi, AH 1358/1979), 26 – 45. Taqizaded went
to Istanbul via ­Tiflis and Batumi.
sian territories, especially Transcaucasia and
to a degree Astrakhan (in the Crimea). Agha
Muhammad Tahir, the founder and owner of
the newspaper Akhtar in Istanbul, which for a
time was the only modern-style newspaper in
Persia, was a Tabrizi. So were the two editors of
that newspaper, Hajji Mirza Mehdi and Mirza
Mehdi. The latter afterwards went to Egypt and
founded the newspaper Hekmat (1892) in Cairo,
which lasted almost until the beginning of the
constitutional movement and whose articles
were very influential.8
Taqizade was born to an ulema family of
Sheikhi background in Tabriz, studied modern
sciences and English in the American missionary school (Memorial), and read with great interest books and newspapers published in Istanbul, the Caucasus, and Europe.9 He established
the first secular bookstore (Tarbiyat) with Mirza
Muhammad Ali Khan Tarbiyat (“Education”)
in 1903.10 Taqizade and Tarbiyat published an
influential newspaper called Ganjinah-yi funun
(Treasure of Knowledge) in Tabriz and founded
the Secret Center together with twelve young
radicals, including several merchants like Ali
Karbalâ’î (“Monsieur”), who traveled to Baku
for business; two tanners; and a linguist. The
members promoted Western secular education and were interested in French political
philosophy and the Young Ottoman movement
in the Ottoman Empire.11 Taqizade traveled
to Istanbul via Tif lis, which he described as
the gateway to Europe. In Tiflis he met Mirza
Jalil Muhammad Qulizade Tabrizi, founder of
the well-known satirical paper Molla Nasr adDin and whom he called the Molière and Tolstoy of Muslim Russia. In Istanbul he lived in
the Iranian neighborhood next to Valide Hani,
the caravansary of Iranians, for six months. He
spent most of his time in bookstores in Beyoğlu,
borrowing and reading banned books like
those written by Namik Kemal. He also read the
Persian opposition newspapers and literature
in Istanbul and came into contact with the authors.12 He met the editors of the Persian news-
9. The role of Western missionaries (American and
French) has not received much attention in the spread
of modern education in Iran. Because of its large Christian minority, Azerbaijan was one of the first places
for the establishment of Western missionaries.
10. Afshar, Zendegi-yi Tufani, 35 – 36.
11. Ervand Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982),
75 – 76.
12. They were Mirza Yusuf Khan Mustashar al-Dawleh
Tabrizi, the author of Yek Kalama and Ganj-i Danesh;
Najaf Quli Khan, the author of Mizan al-Mavâzin; Haji
Zeyn al-Abidin Marâgha’î; Jamal al-Din al-Afghani;
Haji Mirza Hasan Khan Kabir al-Mulk; Mirza Agha Khan
­Kirmani; Sheikh Ahmad Ruhi; and Huseyn Danish.
13. Afshar, Zendegi-yi Tufani, 37 – 43. Travel from Iran
to Istanbul usually went through the Caucasus and
the Black Sea, via Tiflis, Baku, Batumi, Trabzon, and
Istanbul.
14. Marâgha’î died in Istanbul; Talibuf died in Dagestan. Both were born in Iranian Azerbaijan. Abd
­al-Rahim Talibuf, Kitâb-i Ahmad, ed. B. Mo’mini (Tehran: Shabgir, AH 2537/1977), 122 – 3 7. Talibuf claims
that he was inspired by Rousseau’s Emile. He wrote
his book in two volumes. Talibuf advocated unity
­between Shi‘is and Sunnis.
15. Fariba Zarinebaf-Shahr, “The Iranian (Azeri) Merchant Community in the Ottoman Empire and the
Constitutional Revolution,” in Zarcone and ZarinebafShahr, Les Iraniens d’Istanbul, 203 – 12 . See also Charles
Burghess and Edward Burghess, Letters from Persia,
1828 – 1855, ed. Benjamin Schwartz (New York: New
York Public Library, 1942), 84 – 85; and Vanessa Martin, ed., Anglo-Iranian Relations since 1800 (London:
Routledge, 2005).
16. Fariba Zarinebaf-Shahr, “Tabriz under Ottoman
Rule, 1725 – 1730” (PhD diss., University of Chicago,
1991).
in the Ottoman Empire and Iran
157
From Istanbul to Tabriz: Modernity and Constitutionalism percent ad valorem). After the opening of the
Tabriz-Trabzon-Istanbul route in the 1830s,
the volume of trade with Russia, the Ottoman
Empire, and Europe increased enormously
in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The introduction of steamships and European
shipping on the Black Sea made travel between
Tabriz and Istanbul (via Tif lis) shorter and
safer; Istanbul and Trabzon became the ports
of Tabriz. Greek and Persian merchants carried
on the bulk of trade between Manchester, Istanbul, and Tabriz and imported cotton textiles
and shawls and exported silks, hides, carpets,
dried fruits, and so forth. Traffic on this route
became greater than that on the old overland
route via Erzurum and Anatolia.15
Because of its strategic location, Tabriz
was the seat of the Qajar heir apparent; the
frontier between Iran, the Ottoman Empire,
and Russia; and the center of modernization
and international trade.16 The Qajar prince and
governor of Azerbaijan, Abbas Mirza (d.1833),
established a modern army (of six thousand soldiers) modeled after the nezam-i jedid of Selim
III (1789 –1807) and built a canon factory and
a musket plant by importing cast iron from the
Ottoman Empire. He set up a translation office,
established Iran’s first permanent missions in
Paris and London, and hired Western (French)
military advisers. He founded the printing press
(1816) and sent the first group of Iranian students to Europe to acquire Western education
in military science, engineering, modern languages, and medicine. Trade, modern reforms,
and the presence of European and Russian
diplomatic and merchant communities made
Tabriz the largest (three hundred thousand
residents) and most cosmopolitan and modern
city in nineteenth-century Iran.17
Fariba Zarinebaf paper Akhtar and Zeyn al-Abidin Marâgha’î, the
author of the Travelogue of Ibrahim Beg, which
was printed in Istanbul and banned in Iran.13
Taqizade also traveled to Dagestan in 1906
and met Abdul-Rehim Talibuf (1834–1911), the
author of Ketab-i Ahmad, which was printed in
Istanbul in 1890 – 93.14 These two books played
an important role in the political awakening of
many Iranians. They were written in the form
of imaginary conversations about the causes
of the economic and cultural backwardness of
Iran and the need for legal, educational, and
economic reforms as well as a constitutional
form of government to limit the absolutism of
the shah and his ministers and to preserve the
independence of Iran.
In his travels, Taqizade received financial
support and lodging from the Iranian communities in Baku, Tiflis, Istanbul, Paris, and London. In the absence of rigid borders between
Iran, Russian Transcaucasia, and the Ottoman
Empire, Iranian merchants of mostly Azeri
background traveled to the Ottoman Empire
via the Caucasus and resided in major towns
and cities. The bilingual background of Azeris
who spoke both Azeri Turkish and Persian (as
well as Russian in some cases) made these contacts possible. The cessation of religious hostilities between the Sunni Ottomans and the Shi‘i
Iranians played an important role in the easing
of tensions, although border disputes and Otto­
man skirmishes continued into the twentieth
century. The signing of the Treaty of Erzurum
with the Ottoman Empire in 1823, 1841, and
1876; the Treaty of Turkmanchai with Russia
in 1814 and 1828; and the Anglo-Persian Treaty
of 1841 opened up Iranian markets to English
and Russian goods and granted their merchants
freedom of trade and lower customs rates (4 – 5
17. Abbas Amanat, Pivot of the Universe: Nasir ­ad-Din
Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy, 1851 – 1 896
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 74 – 75.
Many leading bureaucrats like Amir Kabir first served
in the court of Qajar, the heir apparent in Tabriz.
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In the late nineteenth century, the discovery of oil and the economic boom in Baku
attracted many Iranian Azeri workers to Baku.
Local oil barons like Zeyn al-Abidin Taqiyev invested their wealth in the modernization of the
city, making Baku the jewel of the Caspian Sea.
Russian and European firms were very active in
the oil sector, and a large Russian, European,
and Iranian/Azeri community settled in Baku.
By 1897, their number in Russia had grown to
73,920, of whom 60,405 lived in the Caucasus
(23,968 in Baku and 8,142 in Tiflis).18 Many were
common laborers and lived in miserable conditions. Zeyn al-Abidin Marâgha’î, a merchant
from Iranian Azerbaijan who lived and traded in
Transcaucasia and Istanbul, deplored the condition of Iranian émigrés and merchants in Baku
and Tiflis in his travelogue.19 Their exposure to
Marxist ideas and their social marginalization
radicalized many Iranians who participated in
oil strikes in Baku. The Iranian Azeri émigré
community established the Social Democratic
Party of Iran in Baku in 1904. The party drew
inspiration from Russian social democracy and
Marxism, established contacts with the Secret
Center in Tabriz, and lent military assistance
to revolutionaries such as Sattar Khan during
the Qajar repression of constitutionalists and
the Russian siege of Tabriz in 1908. The party
called for workers’ rights to organize and strike
and work an eight-hour day. It also advocated
women’s rights; the distribution of land among
peasants; a progressive income tax; freedom of
speech, press, and public meetings; and toleration of all religions.20 Ottoman and Russian modernity and political movements reached Iran
via this route, and Tabriz, Baku, and Istanbul
became the centers of cultural and political
contact.21
18. This figure is based on the first national census
in Russia. See Hassan Hakimian, “Iranian Diaspora
in Caucasus and Central Asia in the late Nineteenth
Century,” Encyclopedia Iranica (Costa Mesa, CA:
Mazda Publishers, 1995), 7:375 – 7 7. According to this
author, many Iranians worked in construction, railways, and the oil industry and their number in the
last field grew from 11 percent in 1893 to 29 percent
in 1915.
The establishment of Iranian embassies
and consulates in the Ottoman, European, and
Russian capitals and port cities raised the level of
diplomatic and intellectual interaction. In many
instances, merchants served as consular representatives (shehbenders) and translators whose
main mission was to protect the interests of the
growing Iranian merchant communities and pilgrims. In cities like Istanbul with a sizable and
growing European presence, Iranians came into
contact with Ottoman reformers and intellectuals as well as European communities. Iranian
Muslim merchants of predominantly Azeri background felt at ease in the capital of a Muslim
empire that boasted both Eastern and Western
traditions, a wide commercial and diplomatic
network, and an international community.
According to Khan Malek Sassani, the
Iranian chargé d’affaires in Istanbul (1919 – 21),
sixteen thousand Iranians (four thousand families) lived in Istanbul in 1889, 80 percent of
whom were from Azerbaijan. 22 Other than Istanbul, the largest Iranian communities in Anatolia were in Adana (2,714), Izmir (955), Aleppo
(850), Erzurum (721), Van (448), and other cities, totaling 10,800 families that received tezkires
in 1889.23 Most of them were merchants; some
had become Ottoman subjects and married Ottoman women despite the Ottoman prohibition
against the marriage of Sunnis and Shi‘is. The
community had a printing press that published
Persian books like the travelogue of Marâgha’î
and the Persian newspaper Akhtar in 1876.24 It
had its own caravansary in Valide Hani, shops,
schools, mosques, even coffeehouses, and a cemetery in Üsküdar. Iranian merchants dominated
the Istanbul carpet trade with Europe.25 They imported European luxury goods and woolen and
cotton textiles into Tabriz via Trabzon, and many
19. Haj Zeyn al-Abidin Marâgha’î, Sayâhatnâmah-yi
Ibrahim Beg, ed. M. Sepanlu (Tehran: Nashr-i Asfâr,
1985), 18 – 6 6. He was critical of the failure of the
­Iranian government to protect Iranian goods and
merchants who were losing out in competition to
Russian and Western merchants. He praised Taqiyev
for his progressive ideas and investment in Muslim
enterprises. Ibid., 24.
20. Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, 77.
21. See Zarcone and Zarinebaf-Shahr, Les Iraniens
d’Istanbul, 203 – 12. On the Azeri press in Baku, see A.
Holly Shissler, Between Two Empires: Ahmet Ağaoğlu
and the New Turkey (London: I. B. Tauris, 2003), 128 – 32.
22. Khan Malek-e Sassani, Yâdbudhây-i Safârat-i
­Istanbul (Tehran: Firdusi, AH 1345/1966), 94.
23. Ibid., 97 – 1 00. See also Fariba Zarinebaf-Shahr,
“Iranian Diaspora in Ottoman Turkey,” Encyclopedia
Iranica, 7:373 – 75.
24. Marâgha’î, Sayâhatnâmah-yi Ibrahim Beg.
25. Tsutomu Sakamoto, “Istanbul and the Carpet Trade
of Iran since the 1870’s,” in Zarcone and Zarinebaf­Shahr, Les Iraniens d’Istanbul, 213 – 31.
The Tanzimat reforms of 1839 – 78 were initiated by a group of Ottoman bureaucrats after
the bloody elimination of the janissary corps in
1826 and the suppression of provincial ayans by
Sultan Mahmud II (1808 – 39), thus paving the
way for centralization, modernization of the
bureaucracy, and fiscal and legal reforms in
several stages. The semiconstitutional charter
known as Hatt-i şerif-i gülhane drafted by Reşit
Pasha in 1839 introduced the concept of the
equality of Ottoman subjects before the law
and the protection of the property, honor, and
lives of all Ottoman subjects regardless of religion. Traditionally, Ottoman subjects had been
divided into millets based on religious identity
and maintained a degree of cultural, legal, and
social autonomy. As people of the book, they
paid the poll tax in return for protection but
were not allowed to serve in the military or the
26. Mardin, Genesis of the Young Ottoman Thought,
18. According to Mardin, the group was inspired by political movements in Italy (led by Giuesepe Mazzini),
France, and Spain.
27. Uriel Heyd, “The Ottoman Ulama and Westernization in the Time of Selim III and Mahmud II,” in The Modern Middle East, ed. Albert H. Hourani, Phillip Khoury,
and Mary Wilson (London: I. B. Tauris, 1993), 34 – 36.
28. Mardin, Genesis of the Young Ottoman Thought, 14.
in the Ottoman Empire and Iran
159
From Istanbul to Tabriz: Modernity and Constitutionalism Ottoman Reforms and Discontent
administration or to build new churches. In
Istanbul, only half of the population was Muslim, while 40 percent were Christian (Greek
Orthodox and Armenian Orthodox) and the
rest (10 percent) were Jewish, Catholic, or Protestant. Although these reforms were never fully
implemented and the millet system continued
to exist, the concept of equality of Muslims and
non-Muslims led to more demands for equality and privileges by non-Muslims, such as
the building of new churches. These reforms
strengthened the hand of Ottoman bureaucrats
like Ali Pasha and Fuad Pasha and generated
opposition among the lower-ranking ulema
and the populace at large, culminating in the
kuleli rebellion in Istanbul in September 1859.26
Government control of pious foundations, the
introduction of the European penal code and
mixed tribunals, and the concept of equality between Muslims and non-Muslims were at
the heart of this opposition.27 The jurisdiction
of the Sharia courts became confined to family law and inheritance-related matters. To put
these reforms into practice, Ottoman provincial
councils made up of Muslims and non-Muslims
introduced the principle of proportional representation among the empire’s various ethnic
and religious communities. The limited application of these reforms, however, and continuing
unrest in the Balkans (Herzegovina, Crete, Lebanon, the Romanian principalities, and Serbia)
made these reforms ineffective. An opposition
group called the Patriotic Alliance was led by
Mehmed Bey, who had received an education in
Paris and returned to Istanbul and was calling
for a constitutional government. The rest were
Namik Kemal Bey, a poet and the publisher of
the periodical Tafsir-i Efkâr ; Ayetullah Bey; and
Refik Bey, owner of the periodical Mir’at. Mustafa Fazil Pasha, brother of Kedive Isma‘il of
Egypt, joined this group and became its leader
in 1866. 28 Namik Kemal (1840 – 88), the most
important thinker of this group, forged a syn-
Fariba Zarinebaf made fortunes from this trade. Many poorer
Iranians who owned tobacco shops and drove
carriages also lived in Istanbul. The volume of
trade on this route declined in the last decade
of the nineteenth century when trade with Europe shifted to the Persian Gulf with the opening of the Suez Canal, causing economic distress
and even bankruptcies among the Iranian merchants in Istanbul. Iranian merchants became
critical of Qajar policies in granting commercial
concessions to foreign merchants and failing to
protect the interests of Iranian merchants and
voiced their discontent in Akhtar and another
Persian newspaper, Sorush. They formed their
own society called Anjuman-i Sa’âdat in 1908,
established contact with the town council (anjuman) in Tabriz, and supported Iranian activists
and exiles, whose number in Istanbul grew in
the late nineteenth century. In Istanbul, Iranian
bureaucrats and intellectuals came into contact
with the Young Ottomans and were inspired by
the Tanzimat reforms.
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thesis between Islamic and Western political
concepts and introduced the concepts of fatherland (vatan), liberty (hüriyyert), and consultation
(meşveret). He advocated checks on the absolutist
rule of the sultan based on the ideas of Baron
de Montesquieu and the implementation of justice based on the Sharia to achieve harmony in
an ideal Islamic state.29 In his opinion, rule was
a trust given to the ruler by the will of the community, and the Islamic state was a “republic at
its inception.”30 But majority rule and individual
rights could not transgress the boundaries of
the moral law of the Sharia.
According to Şerif Mardin, no document
exists that describes the agenda of the Patriotic
Alliance. The group was inspired by political
movements in Italy (led by Giusepe Mazzini
[1805 – 72]), France, and Spain. Mardin states
that a letter from a Turco-Egyptian pasha to the
sultan demanding a constitution in 1866 and
the uprising in Crete played important roles in
the political awareness of this group. The group
was opposed to the monarchical rule of Sultan
Abdülaziz (1861– 76) and the interference of the
great powers in the internal affairs of the empire after the Crimean War of 1856. Members
wrote articles criticizing government policies in
periodicals like Tafsir-i Efkâr and Muhbir. Tafsir-i
Efkâr printed and discussed the news of the
proclamation of the Egyptian constitution in
1866 and the opening of the Romanian parliament. The foreign press in Istanbul led by Courier
d’Orient started a rigorous constitutional campaign in 1867. 31 In March 1867, Mustafa Fazil
Pasha, brother of Egyptian Khedive Isma‘il, who
resided in Istanbul, wrote a letter to the sultan
demanding a constitution as a cure for the empire’s ills. This letter was soon published in the
French daily Liberté. Namik Kemal translated it
and distributed fifty thousand copies in the cap-
29. Ibid., 283 – 336. Namik Kemal wrote on Ottoman
history; he completed six plays, short biographies,
novels, essays, and several translations and articles
that he contributed to Hürriyet and Ibret.
30. Mardin, Genesis of the Young Ottoman Thought,
296 – 97.
31. Ibid., 32 – 33. Courier was widely read by Turkish
intellectuals. Its owner, Giampietry, was in contact
with Mustafa Fazil Pasha, who claimed credit for this
proposal.
ital.32 Namik Kemal and his collaborators were
subsequently banished from Istanbul, and their
papers were closed down; they eventually escaped to Paris at the invitation of Mustafa Fazil
Pasha. Mustafa Fazil Pasha, who was bypassed
for succession in favor of Khedive Isma‘il’s son
and had sold all his property in Egypt, provided
important financial support to this group and
their periodical in exile, Hüriyyet.33 The return
of Mustfa Fazil Pasha to Istanbul, the thawing
of his relationship with Sultan Abdülaziz, the
difficulties of life in exile, and the differences
of opinion among the Young Ottomans led to
their return to Istanbul after the death of Ali
Pasha in 1871. The appointment of Midhat
Pasha as the grand vizier in 1872, the deposition of Abdülaziz, and the accession of Murad V
as sultan in 1876 drastically changed the political atmosphere in favor of the Young Ottomans.
The young sultan and his grand vizier seemed
committed to the principle of liberty and representative government and assembled a grand
council of notables to discuss constitutional reform. The mental illness of Murad V, however,
opened the way for the accession in 1876 of his
brother Abdülhamid II, who at first supported
the constitutionalists.34 He encouraged the formation of a constitutional committee in October 1876 and appointed both Ziya and Namik
Kemal to it.
Midhat Pasha, the grand vizier and a leading figure in the drafting of the constitution,
had served as governor of the Balkan provinces
in Salonika, Danube, and Niş for a few years and
was a firm believer in cooperation between Muslims and non-Muslims in order to save the empire from collapsing.35 He formed a commission
of twenty-eight men that included three nonMuslims and drafted more than twenty proposals based on translations of the French, Belgian,
32. Mardin, Genesis of the Young Ottoman Thought,
281 – 82.
33. Ibid., 42 – 43.
34. Ibid., 72 – 73.
35. Enver Ziya Karal, “Non-Muslim Representatives
in the First Constitutional Assembly, 1876 – 1877,” in
Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, ed. Benjamin Braude and
Bernard Lewis (London: Holmes and Meier, 1982),
387 – 4 01. The opponents of the constitution used
the inequality of Muslims and non-Muslims promised in the Sharia against the participation of non-
­Muslims in the parliament and the administration.
They also opposed any man-made law based on consultation (shura). The pro-constitutionalists used the
Koranic verse 42:38, “Discuss among yourselves.”
These tensions were very similar to those among
the Iranian opponents of the constitution. But in
Iran, the Shi‘i ulema first appeared to be divided on
this question; Ayatollah Tabâtabâ’î and Bihbahânî as
well as Mirza Muhammad Hussein Nâ’inî were pro­constitutionalists, while Fazlullâh Nurî turned against
it on similar grounds. In ‘Atabât, Ayatollah Khurasanî
and Mâzandarânî initially supported the constitutional movement but were opposed to radical secularists like Taqizade.
36. Mardin, Genesis of the Young Ottoman Thought,
311. The council of the state was nominated by the
sultan and was in charge of preparing and drafting laws that would be accepted or rejected by the
elected deputies and the senate.
37. Karal, “Non-Muslim Representatives,” 391.
Iranian Reformists in Istanbul
in the Ottoman Empire and Iran
161
From Istanbul to Tabriz: Modernity and Constitutionalism growing power of Midhat and Kemal, dismissed
the former and arrested Kemal on charges of
trying to depose him. Namik Kemal was exiled
to Mytilene, Rhodes, and Chios and died on 2
December 1888.40
Sultan Abdülhamid II ordered the closure
of the parliament, using the Russian invasion as
justification for an emergency measure, and suspended the constitution in February 1878. The
Ottoman Empire faced a serious crisis of legitimacy at home and abroad. With the loss of most
of its non-Muslim subjects in the Balkans and
the flow of more than 1 million Muslim refugees, the empire had acquired a distinctly Muslim character. Pan-Islamic unity among the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Iran, and India became
an attractive idea to the sultan, his advisers, and
some leading ulema like Muhammad ‘Abduh
and Seyyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani as well as
many Iranian intellectuals. An Ottoman-Iranian
alliance against British and Russian imperialism
united Iranian and Ottoman intellectuals and
reformists.
Fariba Zarinebaf and Prussian constitutions. Namik Kemal advocated the constitution of the Second Empire of
France (1830) and rejected those of America, as
a result of its republicanism, and Prussia. Based
on the French model, the constitution would
create a system of government composed of
three branches: a council of state and a senate
appointed by the sultan and a lower chamber
elected indirectly by the people and supervised
by the sultan.36
Sultan Abdülhamid finally accepted the
translation of the French constitution but retained considerable executive authority.37 On 3
December 1876, an imperial firman proclaimed
the constitution. Provincial administrative councils set up by direct elections were in charge of
sending electors to the assembly in proportion
to the number of Muslims and non-Muslims
in each province. Istanbul’s twenty districts
each chose two electors, one Muslim and one
non-Muslim, who met at the municipality and
selected ten representatives, five Muslims and
five non-Muslims. Following the first elections,
of 115 deputies, 67 were Muslim and 48 were
non-Muslim.38
The great powers did not show much support for the constitution while discussing the
question of nationalities and the Balkan crisis
at an international conference in Istanbul. The
British press and the Western press in general
were very hostile to the constitution. This led
to the dismissal of Vizier Midhat Pasha and his
banishment to the provinces.39 The Russian invasion in April 1877 resulted in Ottoman defeat,
Austrian control of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the
granting of autonomy to Bulgaria and Romania, and the mass migration of more than 1 million Muslims from the Balkans. Several months
later, the sultan, who was becoming weary of the
Leading Iranian bureaucrats and reformists
who spent some time in Istanbul and were exposed to Ottoman reformist trends were Prime
Minister Amir Kabir (1848 – 51); Malkum Khan
(1833–1908), an official in the embassy who
lived in Istanbul from 1861 to 1871; and Mirza
Muhsin Khan Mu’in al-Mulk, the Iranian ambassador to Istanbul from 1880 to 1898.41 Mu’in
al-Mulk was born in Tabriz to a merchant family. His father traveled to Istanbul and took his
son, who learned French in Istanbul. His father
returned to Iran during the premiership of
Amir Kabir. Mu’in al-Mulk became a translator
for the government and served as a member of
38. Ibid., 394. The nine Balkan provinces sent twentytwo Muslims and twenty-two non-Muslims, while ten
Anatolian provinces sent twenty-one Muslims and
twelve non-Muslims. See also Feroz Ahmed, “Unionist Relations with the Greek, Armenian, and Jewish
Communities of the Ottoman Empire, 1908 – 1914,” in
Braude and Lewis, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman
Empire, 401 – 34.
39. Karal, “Non-Muslim Representatives,” 394 – 95.
40. Mardin, Genesis of the Young Ottoman Thought,
76 – 7 7.
41. Hamid Algar, Mîrzâ Malkum Khân: A Study in the
History of Iranian Modernism (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1973); Algar, “Participation of Iranian
Diplomats in Masonic Lodges of Istanbul,” in Zarcone
and Zarinebaf-Shahr, Les Iraniens d’Istanbul, 33 – 4 4;
Homa Nategh, “Mirza Aqa Khan, Sayyed Jamâ al-Din
et Malkom Khan a Istanbul, 1860 – 1897,” in Zarcone
and Zarinebaf-Shahr, Les Iraniens d’Istanbul, 49 – 52.
Algar is very critical of Malkum Khan’s character and
ideas and his opportunism. Malkum Khan was apparently very pro-British, helping them to gain concessions, and he attributed Ottoman reforms to British
pressures. He also supported Abdülhamid’s pan­Islamic policies.
162
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the Iranian embassies in St. Petersburg, Paris,
and London before his appointment as ambassador to Istanbul.42 He served as the Iranian
ambassador in Istanbul for eighteen years and
became closely associated with Sultan Abdül­
hamid II. One positive outcome of this friendship was Abdülhamid’s initial support for the
establishment of the Persian weekly newspaper
Akhtar in Istanbul in 1876.
Naja Quli Khan, the Iranian consul general, supported the paper and placed it under
the editorship of Muhammad Tahir Tabrizi.
Nasir ad-Din Shah (1848 – 96) personally subscribed to the paper and read it with great interest. The paper was distributed in Tabriz,
Tehran, Isfahan, and Baku, and in India, in
Hyderabad and Lahore.43 Akhtar drew some of
its financial support from the Iranian merchant
community that resided in Istanbul. Its purpose
was to inform and educate the Iranian community in Istanbul about the news in the empire
and Europe. Since it was printed in Istanbul, it
escaped the censorship of the government in
Iran. It translated and printed the text of the
Ottoman constitution of 1876 in February 1877.
The content of the Ottoman constitution and
the elections to the parliament were discussed
in several issues, and the paper began informing its Iranian readers about the benefits of a
constitutional type of government. At times,
it even promoted the agenda of Abdülhamid
II; that is, the need for Muslim unity and the
loyalty of all Muslims, Sunnis and Shi‘is alike,
to the caliph-sultan, no doubt under the influence of Afghani, who contributed to Akhtar and
called for the boycott of the Tobacco Regie.
Akhtar was briefly suspended for reporting
and exposing to a British company the harmful
effects of the tobacco concession on local merchants and producers in its November issue in
1890 (no. 430), following Sabah, a Turkish newspaper, and the European press.44 Akhtar played a
leading role in informing the Iranian merchants
about the content of the tobacco concession,
which led to widespread boycotts and rebellions
in Tabriz, Shiraz, Isfahan, and Tehran in 1891.
Edward Browne, a British orientalist and a firm
supporter of the Iranian constitutional movement who subscribed to Akhtar, claims that he
changed his mind about serving the Regie when
he received this issue of Akhtar in London.
Some members of the Iranian community
were members of Masonic lodges in Istanbul.
Mu’in al-Mulk was politically very active in the
foreign diplomatic community in Istanbul and
became a member of the Masonic lodge, the
Grand Orient in Istanbul.45 According to Algar,
many Iranian diplomats belonged to Masonic
lodges active in Istanbul, like the French Grand
Orient and the Greek Proodos. They came into
contact with the Young Ottomans as well as European, Greek, and Armenian intellectuals.46
Malkum Khan was born to a family of Armenian merchants in Isfahan, attended Catholic
missionary school, and converted to Islam. He
served in diplomatic missions in Istanbul and
there joined Masonic lodges. In 1859, after his
first stay in Istanbul and his contacts with Reşid
Pasha, Malkum Khan, with the help of his father, Ya’kub Khan, composed a pamphlet called
Daftar-i tanzimat (The Book of Tanzimat), which
introduced Ottoman reformist institutions like
shuray-i devlet (the council of state), divan-i adliye
(the council of justice), and kanun-i ceza (the
penal code) into Iran. In his treatise Kitabcha-yi
ghaybi (The Secret Notebook), composed in 1859, he
put forward his ideas concerning the need for
legal reform and the adoption of Western laws
as the foundation of state and society. Malkum
Khan spent some time in France and witnessed
the French Revolution of 1858 in Paris. Upon his
return, he established the first freemason lodge
in Iran in 1858. Later, in his Daftar-i qanun (Book
of Law), composed in 1883 – 84, he put forward
42. Sassani, Yâdbudhây-i Safârat-i Istanbul, 255 – 64.
43. Orhan Koloğlu, “Un journal Persan d’Istanbul:
Akhtar,” in Zarcone and Zarinebaf-Shahr, Les Iraniens
d’Istanbul, 133 – 40; and ‘Anja Pistor-Hatam, “The Persian Newspaper Akhtar as a Transmitter of Ottoman
Political Ideas,” in Zarcone and Zarinebaf-Shahr, Les
Iraniens d’Istanbul, 141 – 47. Pistor-Hatam argues that
the paper was first financed and supported by the Persian and Ottoman governments but soon fell under
the control of the Iranian community in Istanbul.
44. E. G. Browne, The Persian Revolution, 1905 – 1909
(Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 1995), 46 – 49.
Browne has translated the text of the news from the
Turkish newspaper Sabah that printed this information for the first time.
45. Sassani, Yâdbudhây-i Safârat-i Istanbul, 261.
46. Algar, “Participation of Iranian Diplomats in Masonic Lodges.”
47. Algar, Mîrzâ Malkum Khân, 190 – 91.
50. Ibid., 44 – 79.
48. Ibid., 187 – 88. Algar describes the paper as a propaganda periodical sheet against the Qajar government.
51. Ibid., 67 – 76.
49. Mirza Yusuf Mustashâr al-Dawlah-yi Tabrizi, Yek
kalameh ve yek nâmeh, ed. Seyyid Muhammad Sadiq
Fayz (Tehran: Sabah, 1962).
52. Mustashâr al-Dawlah, Yek kalameh, 11 – 17.
53. Ibid., 81 – 90.
in the Ottoman Empire and Iran
163
From Istanbul to Tabriz: Modernity and Constitutionalism Nasir ad-Din Shah appointed Mustashâr
al-Dawlah minister of justice in 1881, but he became disillusioned with the degree of corruption and injustice and quit his post. He contributed articles to Akhtar that were critical of the
system of justice in Iran. 52 He wrote a letter in
1888 to Muzaffar ad-Din Mirza when the latter
was the governor of Azerbaijan, asking him to
form an alliance with the Ottoman government,
other Muslim states, and France against Russia
and England. To gain economic and political independence, the government had to guarantee
everyone’s liberty and equality and provide for
good and just government based on laws that
would be in harmony with Islam. 53 He was arrested, beaten up, and imprisoned for several
months on the order of Nasir ad-Din Shah for
his critical articles in Akhtar. His book Yek kalameh was presented by his enemies to Nasir ad
Din Shah, who accused him of collaborating
with Malkum Khan and dismissed him from his
new post in the foreign mission in Tabriz. He
was arrested in 1891 and was beaten over the
head with his book until he fainted. His house
was looted, his property was confiscated, and
he was incarcerated and tortured at a prison in
Qazvin. He died in Qazvin in 1895.
Much like Namik Kemal, both Mustashâr
al-Dawlah and Malkum Khan paid lip service to
Islam and couched their Western-oriented philosophy of law and progress in universal humanitarian terms not alien to religion. They based
their ideas on the tradition of reform, Islamic
modernism, advice literature, and just government. These men were involved in an intense
intellectual dialogue and in forging a synthesis
between Ottoman and Iranian reformist ideals,
Islamic legal and political principles (din ve devlet, shura), the Iranian and Ottoman traditions
of “mirror for princes,” and modern European
political concepts inspired by the ideals of the
French Revolution (liberty, fraternity, and equality). They led a life of literary and intellectual
production, activism, and service to the state,
Fariba Zarinebaf the elements of a new penal code that reformed
the Sharia.47 In 1890 he set up the monthly newspaper Qanun (Law) in London, which lasted
until 1898 (twenty-two issues were published)
and was modeled after the Turkish press, especially the exilic opposition paper Hüriyyet. In his
editorials, he attacked the Iranian ministers and
advocated the incorporation of European ideals of enlightenment and progress and the separation of the executive from the judiciary and
religious from civil law as models for reform in
Iran.48 Mustashâr al-Dawlah, a leading Iranian
reformist, wrote articles critical of the Iranian
system of justice in Qanun.
Mirza Yusuf Tabrizi, known as Mustashâr
al-Dawlah, was born to a merchant family in
Tabriz in 1822. He worked in the British Consulate in Tabriz, was appointed as Iranian general
consul in Astrakhan for eight years (1853 – 61),
spent six months as the Iranian minister in St.
Petersburg, and became the consul general in Tiflis for four years. He was then appointed chargé
d’affaires to Paris for three years (1866 – 69). In
1870, during his second appointment to Paris,
he wrote his book Yek kalameh. In this book, he
placed the principles of the French constitution
in an Islamic framework based on the Koran
and the tradition of the prophet Muhammad.49
He basically advocated nineteen principles of
reform highlighted by the need for a constitutional monarchy modeled after the French system. He claimed that the principles of equality
of all before the law, a representative government based on consultation (meşveret, shura),
just rule, the separation of the executive from
the judiciary, a jury system, a law code, personal
liberty, and protection of life and property, freedom of speech and assembly, were within the
Koran and the Islamic tradition. 50 He believed
the main foundation of European progress to
be the principles of absolute liberty (hurriyet-i
mutlak), education, good administration, military organization, and interaction with nonMuslims and European governments.51
164
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founding or writing for opposition newspapers
and providing advice to rulers. Namik Kemal,
Mustashâr al-Dawlah, and other Iranian activists like Afghani, Mirza Agha Khan Kirmani,
and Sheikh Ahmad Ruhi shared a common fate
of exile, banishment, imprisonment, and death
for their ideas. Their idea of Islamic modernism
was appropriated by Sultan Abdülhamid II.
Abdülhamid’s call for pan-Islamic unity
under the caliph-sultan was an attempt to gain
legitimacy and unite all his Muslim subjects
against British and Russian imperialism. He was
also inspired by Afghani’s (1839 – 97) anti-British
crusade in India and Egypt that aimed at bringing all Muslims, Shi‘i and Sunni, together to
battle the British and Russians. Afghani, or Asadabadi, was a Shi‘i reformist preacher of Azeri
origin who became an activist and agitator and
chose the surname Afghani to cover his Shi‘i
background while he was in India and Egypt.
He sought the support of Sultan Abdülhamid
when he was expelled from Iran for his role in
the Tobacco Rebellion of 1891. He spent some
time in London and went to Istanbul in 1892
at the invitation of Abdülhamid II, where he
died or was allegedly poisoned by order of the
sultan five years later. In Istanbul he formed an
Iranian and Ottoman pan-Islamist circle with
two leading Azali-Babi thinkers, Mirza Agha
Khan Kirmani, who wrote for the Persian newspaper Akhtar, and Sheikh Ahmad Ruhi. 54 With
the support they received from the sultan, they
wrote letters to the Shi‘i ulema inviting them
to join their pan-Islamic group. In May 1896,
after the assassination of Nasir ad-Din Shah by
Mirza Reza Kirmani, a disciple of Afghani, the
Iranian government demanded the extradition
of all three men to Iran. Abdülhamid’s government kept an eye on Afghani and the Iranian
community in Istanbul. The Persian newspaper
Akhtar was suspended permanently for its political tone critical of Nasir ad-Din Shah.
The editorials in Akhtar debated the
compatibility of Islamic notions of governance
(din ve devlet), liberty (hüriyyet), equality (musavat), just rule (‘adâlat), and constitutional gov-
ernment (meshruteh). 55 Akhtar translated and
printed the text of the Ottoman constitution in
February 1877, while the news of its promulgation was suppressed in Iran. 56 The editorials in
Akhtar offered commentaries and analysis on
the principles of the Ottoman constitution that
introduced political vocabularies like kanuniesasi (fundamental laws), majlis (assembly), and
shura (consultation) to Persian readers. But it
had serious shortcomings because it gave supreme authority to the sultan, whose personality
was sacred as the caliph of Muslims and whose
duty was to protect Islamic law rather than the
constitution. The sultan had the authority to
suspend the parliament, which he used when
the Russians attacked in 1878, thus ending the
short life of the first parliament after it had sat
for only two sessions. The significance of the
Ottoman constitution was debated in Akhtar
in the context of European (British) pressures
for reform, Russian threats, Balkan uprisings,
and the need for equal rights among Ottoman
subjects regardless of religion. Following the
debates in the Turkish press, the editorials in
Akhtar emphasized the patrimonial rights of
the Ottoman sultan over all his subjects, which
contradicted the promise of liberty and equality in the constitution. At the same time, Akhtar
reflected Ottoman optimism that the granting
of the constitution would satisfy European demands and unite all the subjects of the empire
as equal Ottoman subjects (taba’a) with loyalty
to a common state and only contractual rights
to the sultan. Abdülhamid supported Akhtar financially because it promoted his pan-Islamic
policies, which attracted many Muslim activists
to his cause.
The economic crisis of the last decades of
the century in Iran and the Ottoman Empire,
marked by budget crises, high inflation, Western economic ascendancy, and the granting of
unfavorable concessions, undoubtedly affected
the lot of many Iranians trading in the empire.57
Their grievances were reflected in the editorials
of Akhtar. As stated above, the paper was shut
down permanently by the Ottoman government
54. Nikki Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of
Revolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
2003), 62.
55. Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions.
56. Akhtar, no. 4 ( 7 February, 1877).
57. Zarinebaf-Shahr, “Iranian (Azeri) Merchant Community,” 203 – 12.
58. See Koloğlu, “Un Journal Persan d’Istanbul”; and
Pistor-Hatam, “Persian Newspaper Akhtar.”
59. Keddie, Modern Iran, 68 – 69. On the Fundamental
Laws, see Browne, Persian Revolution, 353 – 7 1.
60. According to Mansour Bonakdarian, Sir Edward
Grey (British foreign secretary, 1905 – 16) encountered
considerable opposition to this agreement from the
radicals in the parliament — Edward Browne and Lord
George Nathaniel Curzon (governor general and viceroy of India, 1899 – 1905) — as well as Iranian nationalists like Taqizade, though the agreement pledged to
respect Iran’s independence and territorial integrity.
Bonakdarian, Britain and the Iranian Constitutional
Revolution, 71 – 96.
in the Ottoman Empire and Iran
165
From Istanbul to Tabriz: Modernity and Constitutionalism Sheikh Muhammad Va’ez. First, they demanded
the dismissal of both the governor and the
Belgian customs officials and a representative
house of justice (adâlatkhâne). This protest later
evolved into a demand for a representative majlis and a constitution with the input of the intellectuals. The shah first agreed to an adâlatkhâne
in January 1906 and accepted a majlis in August
1906. The first majlis opened in October 1906.
After the election of deputies from Tehran, it
undertook to write the Fundamental Laws based
on the French and Belgian constitutions, which
the shah signed in December 1906.59 The death
of the shah in January 1907 and the accession
of his son Muhammad Ali, who was very hostile
to the majlis and the constitutionalists, led to
tensions and conflicts between the more radical
deputies like Taqizade, the deputy of Tabriz and
the leader of the Social Democratic Party, and
the conservative ulema like Bihbahânî. This
conflict of opinion revolved around the role of
the Sharia in the legal system and that of the
ulema in drafting laws that would not be contrary to the Sharia. The Supplementary Laws of
1907 were the product of the resolution of this
conflict in favor of conservative preachers like
Sheikh Fazlullâh Nurî.
The Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907, which
divided Iran into two spheres of influence and
a neutral zone, ended any hope of British support for the constitutionalists and against Russian intervention. 60 The coup of Muhammad
Ali Shah with the help of the Russian Cossack
brigade headed by General Liakhoff in June
1908 and the bombardment of the majlis resulted in the execution of nationalists and the
exile of leading intellectuals like Ali Akbar Dihkuda and Taqizade to Istanbul and Europe.
The subsequent civil war and the siege of Tabriz
by royalist forces and the reactionary ulema in
June 1908 and the Russian occupation in April
1909 ended the first phase of the constitutional
Fariba Zarinebaf after the assassination of Nasir ad-Din Shah in
1896.58 Shortly thereafter, the two Babi contributors to Akhtar, Mirza Agha Khan Kirmani and
Ruhi, were extradited to Iran and executed in
Tabriz by the Qajar governor and prince, Muhammad Ali Mirza in 1897. After Akhtar, Shams
was printed under the directorship of Sayyid
Hasan Shams Tabrizi and with the support of
Tefvik Beg in Istanbul, but it did not enjoy the
popularity of Akhtar. Persian books, political
treatises, and newspapers printed abroad prepared the ground for the constitutional movement in Iran.
The accession to the throne of Muzaffar
ad-Din Shah in 1896 coincided with the growing
economic crisis exacerbated by fresh loans from
Russia in 1900 and 1902 and economic concessions by Iran to the subjects of Russia and Great
Britain. Furthermore, the shah’s extravagant
trips and courtly expenditures, the arbitrary
rule of Qajar, and Belgian customs officials
led to social discontent and unrest throughout
the country and in major towns in 1903. The
Russo-Japanese War of 1904 – 5 and the Russian
Revolution of 1905 emboldened the opposition
led by intellectuals, merchants, and progressive ulema. Secret centers and anjumans were
established that smuggled newspapers abroad
into Iran and disseminated the news of Qajar
oppression through secret leaflets (shabnames).
The bazaar and mosques played an important
role in the mobilization of the masses.
The revolution started in December 1905
when the governor of Tehran beat the feet of
sugar merchants for not lowering the price.
In protest against this act of the governor, a
large number of mullahs, merchants, and artisans took refuge (bast) in the royal mosque of
Tehran and retired later to the shrine of ‘Abd
­al-’Azim. The ulema were led by the liberal muj­
tahid Seyyid Mohammaf Tabâtabâ’î and radical preachers Seyyed Jamâl al-Din Isfahani and
166
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movement.61 Taqizade fled to London and Cambridge where he was hosted by Edward Browne
in 1908. In Browne’s house, he came into contact with Young Turk leaders like Ahmed Reza
Beg and exchanged ideas with them about constitutionalism. According to Taqizade, in these
meetings Browne encouraged cooperation between the Young Turks and the constitutionalists in Iran.62 According to Taqizade, the British
supported the Young Turks against the sultan
on account of his pro-German sentiments and
policies. After being exiled to Istanbul in 1910,
there, Taqizade spent two years, met Morgan
Shuster, the American lawyer and financial adviser to the majlis on his way to Iran, and lived
with Muhammad Emin Resulzâde, who had
fled Tehran and Baku under Russian pressure.
He also came into close contact with the Young
Turk leaders like Ahmed Reza Beg and attended
one of the sessions of the Ottoman parliament.63
During the counterrevolution in Iran, Istanbul
became the center for the Iranian exiles who
gathered there from Iran and Europe.
Ali Akbar Dihkhuda, who had also fled
to Istanbul, established the Persian newspaper Sorush in Istanbul in 1909; it lasted for six
months and was the official organ of Anjuman-i
Sa’âdat (the society for the welfare of Iranians
in Istanbul). Iranian and Azeri intellectual figures like Huseyn Danish and Ahmad Ağaoğlu
contributed editorials to the paper in support of
Iranian constitutionalists during the civil war in
Tabriz.64 After the restoration of constitutional
government by the Young Turks in July 1908,
the Iranian constitutionalists in Tabriz, Qazvin,
Kermanshah, and Tehran wrote petitions and
sent telegrams to the Ottoman consulates and
government asking for their support, and some
took refuge in Ottoman consulates.65 Anjuman-i
Sa’âdat in Istanbul received word of the siege of
61. Janet Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 211 – 31.
62. Afshar, Zendegi-yi Tufânî, 157. Taqizade claims
that Ahmed Reza Beg, who was the speaker of the
parliament, recognized him and invited him to sit in
the front row. Research on the two years that Taqizade spent in Istanbul would shed great light on his
connections to the Young Turks. According to Bonakdarian, Wilfrid Blunt, the British writer and diplomat,
had advised Browne to go to Istanbul and seek Young
Turk support for the Iranian constitutionalists. Bonakdarian, Britain and the Iranian Constitutional Revo-
Tabriz via telegraphs and spread the news to
the Iranian communities in the Ottoman Empire and to the Shi‘i ulema in the holy cities of
Najaf and Karbalâ. 66 The Young Turk newspapers like Tanin supported the Iranian constitutionalists during the counterrevolution and the
royalist siege of Tabriz from June 1908 to July
1909.67 Tanin expressed its sincere support for
the Iranian constitutionalists and reported that
two hundred people had taken refuge in the Ottoman embassy in Tehran in June 1908.68 The
same issue discussed the new Ottoman constitution of 1908. The Turkish newspaper Sabah set
up an account to collect contributions to help the
constitutionalists in Tabriz.69 According to Anjuman, the local newspaper in Tabriz, the Young
Turks honored Sattar Khan for his defense of
the constitution and the sultan gave him a medallion. The Anjuman-i Sa’âdat send a letter to
Anjuman of Tabriz in November 1908 claiming
that it rather than the sultan gave Sattar Khan
the medallion of honor.70 The ­Anjuman-i Sa’âdat
in Istanbul sent telegraphs to the local council
in Tabriz regularly and expressed its support for
the constitutionalists.71
Ottoman and Iranian Constitutions
The first Ottoman constitution was the culmination of modern reformist principles of state
building, demand for equal rights by Ottoman
ethnic and religious minorities, and a response
to European pressures to carry out legal and political reforms among the empire’s non-Muslim
subjects.72 The aim of the Ottoman bureaucrats
was to unify the empire by forging a new identity
and loyalty to the state among the empire’s various subjects, although the principle of religious
and communal identity remained part and parcel of the Ottoman constitution, in line with the
Sharia and the Ottoman millet system.
lution, 125. On Browne’s formation in London of the
Persian Committee, which was critical of Grey’s Persia policy, see Bonakdarian, Britain and the Iranian
Constitutional Revolution, 133 – 37.
63. Afshar, Zendegi-yi Tufânî, 157 – 7 1.
64. Thierry Zarcone, “‘Ali Akbar Dihkhuda et le Journal
Surūsh d’Istanbul (Juin-November 1909),” in Zarcone
and Zarinebaf-Shahr, Les Iraniens d’Istanbul, 243 – 51.
On Ağaoğlu, see Shissler, Between Two Empires.
65. Hariciye-Siyasiye dossiers 743/80, 743/70 – 7 2,
743/76, Başbakanlik Archives, Istanbul.
66. Anjuman (Tabriz), 2 (Şevval AH 1326/October 1908),
(Tehran, AH 1376/1997).
67. Tanin, no. 4 (June 1908), Atatürk Library, Istanbul.
68. Tanin, no. 7 (August 1908).
69. Anjuman, no. 35 (24 Zilhijja AH 1326/December 1908).
70. Anjuman, no. 22 (Zilkade AH 1326/November 1908).
71. Anjuman, no. 31 (Zilhijja AH 1326/December 1908).
72. For an English translation of the Ottoman constitution of 1876, see www.worldstatesmen.org/Otto manConstitution1876.htm (accessed 16 July 2007).
73. For an English translation of the Iranian constitution of 1906, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_ Constitution_of_1906 (accessed 23 January 2008).
74. For the translation of the Ottoman constitution,
see Landen, Emergence of the Modern Middle East.
For the English translation of the Iranian constitution, see Browne, The Persian Revolution, 1905 – 1909
(Washington, DC: Mage, 1995).
75. Browne, Persian Revolution, 363 – 96.
76. Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions, 90.
77. Afary, Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 89 – 115.
in the Ottoman Empire and Iran
167
From Istanbul to Tabriz: Modernity and Constitutionalism entire Persian nation (articles 35 – 57). After
the victory of the conservative sheikh Fazlullâh
Nurî, the Iranian Supplementary Laws declared
that none of the legal enactments of the National Assembly should be at variance with the
sacred principles of Islam. Therefore, the National Assembly should select a “supreme committee” composed of five mujtahids elected by
the deputies from among twenty mujtahids who
shall determine whether or not such laws that
may be proposed are in conformity with the
principles of Islam.75 The judiciary was divided
into civil and religious courts with extensive
jurisdiction over religious laws. The executive
had the authority to ban “heretical” organizations and publications.76 This was a radical departure from the Ottoman constitution, which
had minimal reference to Islam and the Sharia.
The active role of the Iranian Shi‘i ulema in the
constitutional movement was an important factor in this development. It was the precursor of
the Guardian Council in the constitution of the
Islamic Republic.
The drafting of the Supplementary Laws in
Iran, however, reflected the ideological struggle
and deep polarization between the conservative
ulema led by Bihbahânî and Sheikh Fazlullâh
Nurî and the more secular-minded representatives like Taqizade and Sad ad-Dawleh. Both Fereydun Adamiyat and Janet Afary rightly point
out the intense struggle going on inside and
outside the parliament. According to Afary, the
secularists received support from the provincial
council in Tabriz and the radical press like Sur-i
Israfil, Musavat, and Molla Nasr al-Din. The last
two were inspired by Russian social democracy,
strong in the Caucasus.77 Adamiyat regards the
Supplementary Laws of 1907 as a victory for the
secularists, but Afary is right to be more cautious in her final assessment. The Supplementary Laws were a compromise between the conservative ulema, who stood for the strong role of
the Sharia, and the ulema (mashrutay-i mashru’a)
Fariba Zarinebaf Despite its shortcomings and short life
(one year), the first Ottoman constitution had
a major impact on political developments in
the empire by inspiring not only the Young
Turks who engineered the 1908 revolution but
also the Young Iranians who came into contact
with Ottoman political thinkers in Istanbul and
played a major role in the constitutional revolution in Iran.
The Iranian Supplementary Fundamental
Laws of October 1907 (articles 1– 57) followed
very closely the French (1830), the Belgian
(1831), and the first (1876) Ottoman constitutions but departed from them in important
ways.73 Following the French and Belgian constitutions, articles 8 –10 of the Ottoman constitution and articles 8 and 9 of the Iranian Supplementary Laws of 1907 defined the rights of
Ottoman and Persian nations as equal before
the law and gave them protection of life, property, domicile, and honor.74 The idea of indirect
elections and two chambers was drawn from the
French constitution of 1830. The Islamic character of the Ottoman and Iranian constitutions
was stated in their declaration that Islam was
the official religion of the state (Twelver Shiism
in Iran). Article 11 of the Ottoman constitution recognized the free expression of all religions, whereas the Iranian Supplementary Laws
spelled out Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism as recognized religions outside Islam.
Following the French constitution and Islamic notions of rule, the Ottoman constitution
elaborated the sacred and executive authority
of the sultan, who belonged to the Ottoman
dynasty and was the caliph of all Muslims (articles 3 – 7) and exempt from all responsibilities.
Similarly, the Iranian constitution defined sovereignty as a trust and divine gift confided by the
people to the king, who in turn established the
constitution as a favor with the assistance of
the Imam of the Age, the care of the proofs of
Islam, the ulema, and, last, the people of the
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in the judiciary and those who advocated secular laws, popular principles of sovereignty
(mashrutay-i mutlak), freedom of religion, and
equality among all religions.78 The ambiguity of
the Iranian constitution reflected different understandings of a constitutional type of government by different social classes and groups in
society.79 Both constitutions were based on limited suffrage that denied equal rights to women;
apostates (Babis), in the case of the Iranian constitution; and ethnic minorities.
While both the Ottoman and Iranian
constitutions specified three branches of government, the Iranian constitution drew a clear
and important distinction among the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary (articles
26 – 29). The sultan and the shah appointed
and dismissed members of the executive and
the ministers of state and opened and ended
the sessions of the parliament. The sultan and
the shah could dismiss the parliament in special
circumstances.
After a period of thirty-one years, the
Young Turks restored the Ottoman constitution
in 1908 and revised it on 22 August 1909; they
took out twenty-one articles and added three
new ones. The sultan was obliged to be loyal to
the constitution, the government was responsible to the parliament, and the legislative and
executive branches were balanced out and their
relations regulated. The absolute supremacy of
the sultan was abolished.
The Balkan wars in the Ottoman Empire
and World War I and the allied occupation of
Istanbul ended the Young Turk government. It
was left for Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Reza
Shah to continue state building under strong
leadership and a weakened parliament and civil
society. While the Kemalist republic completed
institutional secularization in Turkey, the ulema
and secularists forged an alliance with Reza
Shah in Iran in the hope of saving the nation,
the Sharia, and the constitutional monarchy.
Conclusion
The constitutional movements in Turkey and
Iran had a great deal in common, but they had
some major differences as well. The first Ottoman constitutional movement of 1876 was a
continuation of the Tanzimat reforms led by Ottoman statesmen and a reflection of the changing Ottoman attitudes toward non-Muslims. It
was also to some degree a response to Western
pressures to improve the status of non-Muslims
and an attempt to rein in Balkan nationalism
and centrifugal forces among non-Muslim subjects. 80 The Iranian constitutional movement
was a grassroots and urban movement with the
active participation of artisans, merchants, the
progressive ulema, and a small but vocal group
of the intelligentsia. Iran faced similar issues
of religious dissent among the Babis, centrifugal disintegration in the north (Azerbaijan
and Gilan), and great power rivalry. The loss
of territories in the Caucasus to Russia during
the first half of the nineteenth century and the
granting of concessions to the subjects of Russia
and England mobilized Iranian merchants, artisans, ulema, and intellectuals. What united the
middle class, the artisans, the ulema, and the
intellectuals was a struggle against Western (and
Russian) economic penetration of Iranian markets and the policies of Qajar rulers in “selling
out” the resources of the country to foreigners.
In the Ottoman Empire, the struggle against
imperial powers took on similar expressions, although the Ottoman economy and society were
far more open to Western economic domination. The active role of the Shi‘i ulema in Ottoman Iraq had to do with their relative freedom
of action outside the Iranian borders. The initial support Ottoman sultan Abdülhamid gave
to Iranian activists in Istanbul and Atabât sheds
a new light on his legacy as the “Red Sultan.”81 A
revised history of the Qajar era would also contribute to our understanding of a more complex
society that underwent change and experienced
78. F. Adamiyat, Idi’uluji-yi Nihzat-i Mashrutiyat-i Iran
(Tehran: Payâm, AH 2535/1976), 408 – 23.
79. Sohrabi, “Constitutionalism, Revolution, and
State,” 176 – 93.
80. Roderic Davison, “Turkish Attitudes concerning
Christian-Muslim Equality in the Nineteenth Century,” in Hourani, Khoury, and Wilson, Modern ­Middle
East, 64.
81. See Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains:
Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire, 1876 – 1909 (London: I. B. Tauris, 1998).
82. Touraj Atabaki and Eric Zürcher, eds., Men of
Order: Authoritarian Modernization under Atatürk
and Reza Shah (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004). See the
introduction and the article by Houchang Chehabi,
“Dress Codes for Men in Turkey and Iran,” 209 – 37.
in the Ottoman Empire and Iran
169
From Istanbul to Tabriz: Modernity and Constitutionalism Furthermore, their representatives would be in
a position to put an end to unfavorable concessions to the subjects of Great Britain and Russia,
protect the interests of local merchants and producers, and create a more just government in the
framework of a constitutional type of monarchy,
however limited in scope. The divisive issues in
both movements were the question of the sovereignty of the people, the extent of the sacred and
executive authority of the sultan and the shah,
the legislative authority of the national assembly,
and the role of Islam, the Sharia, and the ulema
in the legislative branch and the judiciary. These
issues directly impacted the religious dimension
of both constitutions and the citizenship rights
of religious and ethnic minorities. The Committee of Union and Progress, composed of young
military officers and secret cells in the Balkans,
was inspired by Balkan nationalism and pushed
for centralizing and radical reforms and an end
to the reign of the caliph-sultan Abdülhamid II.
In many ways, Atatürk’s state building and secular reforms were a continuation of the Young
Turk policies. While the liberal elements lost
out in Turkey, in Iran the growing polarization
between the liberal secularists like Taqizade and
the more conservative ulema like Sheikh Fazlullâh Nurî was never really resolved, even after
the execution of the latter. Turkish and Iranian
constitutionalists supported each other and
made a united front whenever the opportunity
presented itself. They also reached out to more
liberal elements abroad, particularly the Social
Democrats in Russia and the liberal members of
Parliament in Great Britain. The success of both
movements, however, was hampered by World
War I and occupation.
Fariba Zarinebaf modernity that was very similar to the same
process in the Ottoman Empire. Neither experienced direct colonialism like Egypt and India.
Instead, commercial, diplomatic, and intellectual contacts grew stronger between these two
states during this period. The Turkish-speaking
Azeri intellectuals and merchants played an
important role in this interaction. Therefore,
political debates on the nature of reform, the
form of government, the role of Islam and the
Sharia, freedom and liberty, and independence
from foreign control among Ottomans, Iranian
reformists, intellectuals, and activists started far
earlier than one might imagine, influenced one
another mutually, and contributed to the formation of a civil society and public sphere with a
rich range of print media. These debates were
printed in the numerous newspapers, satirical
journals, and books (in the form of travelogues
and biographies) in Istanbul, Tabriz, Tiflis, and
Baku during the second half of the nineteenth
century. A shared discourse on government and
civil society and the modernization and independence of Muslim societies emerged during
this period that continued into the republican
era and the reign of Reza Shah.82 This discourse
was anticolonial, protonationalist, and modernist. But Ottoman and Iranian modernity had
a great deal more in common with each other
than with the Western models. Iranian reformists like their Ottoman counterparts sought to
limit the absolutist rule of the sultans and the
shahs, modernize the army, reorganize the central administration and the legal system, and
spread secular and Western education. The
unintended consequence of these reforms was
the creation of a civil society and a quest for full
citizenship rights. The graduates of missionary
and modern secular schools who became activists aimed at pushing these reforms further by
creating checks and balances on the absolutist
power of the ruler and his ministers who would
be responsible to the elected representatives.