strengthen the power of shah, and the conservative clerics led by Shaykh Fazlullah Nuri who wanted
to see the Constitution subordinated to Islamic (i.e. clerical) control.
Up to this point, it is certainly incorrect to say that the Baha'is played a negligible role in the
Constitutional Revolution. In about February 1907, however, ‘Abdu'l-Baha issued strict instructions
for the Baha'is to withdraw from involvement in the political process.
68
He gives a number of reasons
for his decision in letters that he wrote at about this time. In one place he states that, although he
hopes that the Constitution be firmly established in Iran, since that is clear from the text of
Baha'u'llah's Kitab Aqdas, he ordered the Baha'is to withdraw from involvement for their own
protection, since the Azalis were making accusations to the shah that the Baha'is supported the
Constitution. If ‘Abdu'l-Baha were then to also encourage this support for the Constitution, it would
cause the shah to fall upon the Baha'is and massacre them. Since the Azalis had also told the
constitutionalists that the Baha'is were supporting the shah, the Baha'is could expect no help from the
constitutionalists either.
69
Second, he is said to have felt that the reform movement was being held
back by the continuing accusations that it was in fact a smokescreen for the advancement of ‘Babism’
(i.e. the Baha'i Faith) and that the withdrawal of the Baha'is would assist the reform movement.
70
Third, ‘Abdu'l-Baha had repeatedly warned against factionalism and disunity. In particular he urged
the shah and the constitutionalists, through messages that he sent to both sides through intermediaries,
to reconcile their differences and to act together in the interests of the nation, otherwise the country's
prosperity would suffer and there was even a danger of invasion by foreign powers.
71
Since he was
attempting to play a mediatory role, ‘Abdu'l-Baha may well have felt that this would be impeded if
the Baha'is were openly supporting one side.
In late 1908, after Muhammad ‘Ali Shah's coup d'état, ‘Abdu'l-Baha wrote to several
statesmen in Iran and, through intermediaries, to the shah himself. He called for the shah and the
people to be reconciled and united and urged the restoration of the Constitution.
72
There was another brief period, after the overthrow of Muhammad ‘Ali Shah and the
restoration of the Constitution, when ‘Abdu'l-Baha contemplated involving the Baha'is again in the
political process. In a letter written to an Iranian Baha'i, ‘Azizullah Varqa, at this time, ‘Abdul-Baha
instructs the Baha'is to strive to get some of the leading Baha'is (the Hands of the Cause) into
parliament, although it is not clear whether this means to try to get them elected as regular members
or to try to have the Baha'i Faith recognised as a religious minority with its own seats in parliament as
the other religious minorities had.
73
‘Abdu'l-Baha's encouragement of the Baha'is to participate in the
political process may appear surprising when he had forbidden involvement just over two years
earlier, but the situation was very different. Engagement in the political process two years before
would have involved the Baha'is taking sides in the increasingly bitter and divided political arena.
74
68
Marzieh Gail, Arches of the Years (Oxford: George Ronald, 1991), p. 31; Afnan, Tarikh Shiraz, p.
556, seems to indicate a similar date.
69
Sulaymani, Masabih Hidayat, vol. 4, pp. 555-6; Edward G. Browne, Persian Revolution
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910), pp. 427-9.
70
Browne, Persian Revolution, pp. 424-5.
71
Browne, Persian Revolution, pp. 426, 427-9; Sulaymani, Masabih-i Hidayat, vol. 4, p. 555; ‘Abdu'l-
Baha, Makatib-i ‘Abdu'l-Baha, vol. 5 (Tehran: Mu'assisih Milli Matbu‘at Amri, 132 B.E./1975), p. 173;
although this last is a letter of ‘Abdu'l-Baha written in 1908 or 1909, he refers to this appeal being made in the
early days of the Revolution ('dar badāyat-i inqilāq'); see also Yazdani, Iran dar Ahd Qajar, pp. 258-9, 267.
72
Sulaymani, Masabih-i Hidayat, vol. 4, pp. 553-6; Yazdani, Iran dar Ahd Qajar, p. 291.
73
‘Abdu'l-Baha, Makatib ‘Abdu'l-Baha, vol. 2 (Cairo: Kurdistan al-‘Ilmiyya, 1330/1911), p. 263;
Yazdani, Iran dar Ahd Qajar, p. 300.
74
See for example his statements to the American Baha'is in Tablets of ‘Abdu'l-Baha, vol. 2, (Chicago:
Now with the overthrow of Muhammad ‘Ali Shah, there was a possibility of the Baha'is creating unity
around a platform of progressive social reform. Several of the leaders of the Constitutional Revolution
at this stage were well informed about and sympathetic to the Baha'i teachings, including, for
example, the leaders of the two main columns of forces that converged on Tehran in 1909: Sardar
As‘ad, the Bakhtiyari leader, had taken on a Baha'i, Mirza Habibullah Shirazi, as tutor to his children
and as collaborator in translating books from French into Persian;
75
Muhammad Vali Khan
Tunukabuni Nasr al-Saltanih (Sipahsalar-i A‘zam) was considered a Baha'i both by the Baha'is and
the population when he was governor in Rasht in 1899–1903 and in Tabriz in 1913.
76
Both of these
men met with ‘Abdu'l-Baha in Paris.
77
Despite these promising elements, this initiative of ‘Abdu'l-
Baha to have the Baha'is play a constructive role in Iranian politics and society was not to be. The
conservative clerics succeeded in having a new electoral law passed in July 1909 which had articles in
it specifically to prevent the Baha'is from membership in the parliament.
78
Thus the lack of significant Baha'i involvement in the later stages of the Constitutional
Revolution stemmed from a number of factors both internal (‘Abdu'l-Baha's initial prohibition on
taking part in public disorder or disruption and his later ban on all political involvement) and external
(the opposition of the clerics; their influence on the wording of the various bills that were passed such
that the Baha'is were in effect barred from recognition as a minority and were unable to take part in
the political process; and the creation of an antagonistic atmosphere by the Azalis).
The Creation of an ‘Enemy Within’
This exclusion of the Baha'is from the political process then led on to a further development which
was the creation of an atmosphere of fear, suspicion and hatred towards the Baha'is; the creation of an
‘enemy within’. It is not difficult to see how this situation arose. Several of the major groups who had
come to power or had increased their power as a result of the Constitutional Revolution had great
enmity towards the Baha'is—in particular the Azalis and the Shi‘i clerics.
The result of the intimate involvement of the Azalis with the constitutionalist movement was
that they managed to create in the minds of the reformers an antipathy towards the Baha'is. The Azalis
asserted to the constitutionalists that the Baha'is were in fact against the Constitution and loyal to the
shah.
79
Both Sayyid Hasan Kashani, editor of the Habl al-Matin, an Azali,
80
and Taqizadih, who was
so closely allied to the Azalis that he was thought by some to be an Azali,
81
made this accusation.
Bahai Publishing Society, 1915), pp. 342-3 and his talk recorded in Star of the West vol. 4 (13 July 1913), p.
122.
75
Abbas Milani, The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the riddle of the Iranian Revolution
(London: Tauris 2000), p. 43.
76
Marzieh Gail, Summon Up Remembrance (Oxford: George Ronald, 1987), p. 100; Moojan Momen,
The Bābī and Bahā'ī Religions, 1844-1944: Some Contemporary Western Accounts (Oxford: George Ronald,
1980), pp. 375, 515.
77
Balyuzi, Baha'u'llah , pp. 300-309; Muhammad ‘Ali Faizi, Hayat-i Hazrat-i ‘Abdu'l-Baha
(Langenhain: Bahā'ī-Verlag, 1986), p. 175.
78
Afary, Revolution, p. 263.
79
See ‘Abdu'l-Baha's comments on this in ‘Abdul-Hamid Ishraq-Khavari, Ma'idih-yi Asmani (9 vols.,
Tehran: Mu'assisih Milli Matbu‘at Amri, 121-29 B.E./1964-1972) vol. 5, pp. 224-225. See also Browne, Persian
Revolution, pp. 427-8 .
80
‘Alaqihband, Tarikh, p. 356; Browne, Persian Revolution, pp. 428.
81
‘Alaqihband, Tarikh, p. 417; Bayat, Iran's First Revolution, p. 152.