Momen constitutional movement bahais
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Evidence of the spread of this accusation against the Baha'is through the ranks of the constitutionalists comes from E.G. Browne, who heard it expressed in 1908 by Muhammad Nasir Khan Zahir al-Sultan, a cousin of Muhammad ‘Ali Shah, who was an active constitutionalist and who presumably heard this from his Azali colleagues. 82 It was probably also Azalis who were responsible for the production of forged letters from ‘Abdu'l-Baha expressing support for the shah which were spread about in 1910. When in 1910 the Baha'i scholar Fazil Mazandarani was sent by ‘Abdu'l-Baha to initiate a dialogue with the reformist cleric Ayatullah Khurasani, he was confronted with such a forgery while he was being interrogated in Iraq. 83 As pointed out in the opening of this article, this view gained sufficient currency that one finds it repeated even in scholarly works of recent times. As a result of this Azali activity, a negative atmosphere was created against the Baha'is. Thus we find the anomalous position of strong supporters of the Constitution and of social reform, who in other circumstances were calling for free speech and human rights, voicing highly illiberal sentiments against the Baha'is. Sattar Khan, the leader of the Tabriz constitutionalists, for example, called for the implementation of the fatwa of the ‘ulama’ calling for a general massacre of the Baha'is. 84 The leader of the constitutionalist forces in Fars, Sayyid ‘Abdul-Husayn Lari, issued orders for a general massacre of the Baha'is in 1909 and his lieutenant Shaykh Zakariya Kuhistani proceeded to carry this out in Nayriz, killing some 18 Baha'is and causing others to die of starvation and the cold when they were driven out of the town. 85
the Shi‘i clerics. While the Azalis were the driving force of the constitutional movement, they were intelligent enough to realise that they could never by themselves get the masses of the people aroused and demonstrating in the streets so as to force the Qajar monarchy into making concessions. They therefore brought into alliance with themselves an unlikely hotchpotch of leading personalities to be the figureheads of the movement—people who were well known to the masses and who could be expected to bring with them either a considerable personal following or wealth with which to fuel the demonstrations. In particular, when the Azalis saw the potential of the Shi‘i clerics in mustering popular support in the episode of the Tobacco Regie in 1891–1892, they realised the potential of the Shi‘i clerics for garnering mass support. (‘Abdu'l-Baha had drawn exactly the opposite conclusion from the episode of the Tobacco Regie and had, at that time, written his Treatise on Politics, Risalih- yi Siyasiyyih, warning against involving the clerics in politics and reminding Iranians that each time this had happened in their history, the result had been disastrous for Iran—for example in the Russo- Persian wars in the early nineteenth century.) In this way, the Azalis were able to hook personalities into the reform movement who had no real interest in reform or constitutionalism but were there because they expected some personal gain from their involvement. Indeed, it could be said that none of the masthead figures in the reformist camp, except for Sayyid Muhammad Tabataba'i, were there because they supported the ideas of the Constitution. They were rather there because the Azalis had cajoled and manipulated them into this camp with the promise of being able to advance personal agendas and rid themselves of hated rivals.
82 Browne, Persian Revolution, pp. 424-5; that this individual was Zahir us-Sultan can be seen from Browne comments on him on pp. 204, 208n. I am grateful to Dr John Gurney for confirming that this is also his assessment of this matter. 83 Mazandarani, Zuhur al-Haqq, vol. 8, part 2, p. 838. 84 Ishraq-Khavari, Ma'idih, vol. 5, pp. 224-225. 85 Muhammad Shafi‘ Rawhani-Nayrizi, Lama‘at al-Anwar (2 vols. in 1, Bundoora, Vic., Australia: Century Press, 2002), pp. 292-353; Muhammad ‘Ali Faizi, Nayriz-i Mishkbiz (Tehran: Mu'assisih Milli Matbu‘at Amri, 130 B.E./1973), pp. 142-62. The mujtahid Sayyid ‘Abdullah Bihbihani, for example, who had supported the shah during the Tobacco Regie and who was said to have neither the enthusiasm for the Constitution of Tabataba'i nor the religious learning of Nuri, 86 was persuaded to join the reformist camp by playing on his rivalry with Nuri and his hatred of the Prime Minister ‘Ayn al-Dawlih. 87 Bihbihani was also induced to side with the constitutionalists by the prospect of monetary gain since most of the leading merchants of the capital were supporting the constitutionalists and plying the ‘ulama’ who did likewise with money. One writer was witness to the fact that, prior to the Revolution, all Bihbihani could afford as transport was a single old donkey, while after the Revolution his stables contained a fine coach and 35 horses. 88
late 1906 to create a united front to present to the shah and compel him to allow the Constitution. Thus using greed and longstanding rivalries and hatreds, the Azalis levered prominent clerics and statesmen who had no interest in supporting political reform into the reformist camp. 89 Hence the wry comment of Nazim al-Islam Kirmani: ‘people who used to make a living out of tyranny and despotism are now inclining towards justice and constitutionalism.' 90
to push forward. One of their main concerns was to halt the advances being made by the Baha'is among their congregations. Kasravi quotes the private letter of one of the anti-constitutionalist clerics Sayyid Muhammad Yazdi to his son-in-law in Najaf, writing of how the Babis had infiltrated the Majlis and were even leaders of it and of what damage this had done to the religion of Islam, with people even being encouraged to read newspapers rather than the Qur'an (he writes that reading newspapers was now a religious obligation and saying prayers and reading the Qur'an were forgotten). 91 As Kasravi points out, we see here that the enmity of the ‘ulama’ towards the Baha'is was not just a formal response to the religious claims of Baha'u'llah, it was the concern of a religious professional about the loss of his prestige, congregation and income, all of which were intimately tied in with the amount of respect and attachment the people had towards the Qur'an and their religious obligations. Even in the build-up of events leading to the Constitutional Revolution, the Baha'is had paid a heavy price, being subjected to persecutions in many parts of Iran and a genocidal outburst in Yazd in 1903 led by the clerics, as part of the campaign against Amin al-Sultan. 92 Then, once the Constitution 86 Mahdi Bamdad, Tarikh Rijal Iran (6 vols. Tehran: Zavvar, 1347/1968-1351/1972), vol. 2, pp. 284-5, 287. 87 Bayat, Iran's First Revolution, pp. 112, 123; Afari, Revolution, pp. 49-50. 88 ‘Alaqihband, Tarikh, p. 443. This writer additionally accuses Bihbihani of receiving money from the Russian Embassy; ‘Alaqihband, Tarikh, p. 444. 89 Bayat, Iran's First Revolution, pp. 109-111. The reactionary Amin al-Sultan was cajoled into supporting the reformists with his very considerable financial and political resources in the hope that he could unseat the Prime Minister ‘Ayn al-Dawlih and regain power (Bayat, Iran's First Revolution, pp. 112-3). Other examples of such rivalries being used to lever people into the reformist camp are given in Bayat, Iran's First
Nazim al-Islam, who were the main agents for putting together this coalition; Bayat, Revolution 70, 180, 221. 90 Nazim ul-Islam Kirmani, Tarikh Bidari, vol. 2, pp. 224. 91 Ahmad Kasravi, Tarikh Mashrutih-yi Iran (4th ed., Tehran: Amir Kabir, n.d.), pp. 289-90. There were some of the ‘ulama’, such as Khurasani and Mazandarani in Najaf and Tabataba'i in Tehran who felt that the best way to deal with the Baha'i threat was to have a modernist movement arise within Iran among Muslims and thus neutralise the attractions of the Baha'i Faith (cf. Afari, Revolution, p. 29), but most, such as Shaykh Kazim Yazdi in Najaf and Shaykh Fazlullah Nuri in Tehran, feared that the Constitutionalist movement was in fact a covert way for the Baha'is to spread their ideas among Iranian Muslims and so both Constitutionalism and the Baha'is should be opposed. 92 Accounts of these episodes can be found in Momen, Bābī and Bahā'ī Religions, pp. 373-404. had been granted, Shaykh Fazlullah Nuri took the lead in insisting that any rights and freedoms given in the Constitution and the supplementary laws that accompanied it did not benefit the Baha'is. They were not to be one of the recognised religious minorities and provisions for freedom of belief and freedom of publication were worded in such a way as to exclude the Baha'is from their purview. Having sought the assistance of the ‘ulama’ to gain their Constitution, the reformers were not in a position to refuse these negations of the principles of the Revolution. This weakness of the position of the reformers left Nuri free to issue abusive and vituperative attacks on the Baha'is. The fact that no- one felt able to insist on correcting these lies in public, lest they too be accused of being a ‘Babi’, set a precedent that this type of behaviour was acceptable under the Constitution. Later laws passed after overthrow of Muhammad ‘Ali Shah in 1909 also prevented the Baha'is from becoming members of parliament. Thus the Baha'is became simultaneously the enemies of the Qajar state, the Shi‘i ‘ulama’ and the secular reformers. The net result of this was described thus by Nazim al-Islam Kirmani, who himself played no small role in these events:
It has become the norm in Iran that whenever it is desired to overthrow someone and remove them from the political scene, they say that he is a Babi. For example as long as the Majlis has power, if anyone says something that is not liked by others, they immediately say: ‘The Babis are the enemies of the Majlis and do not want there to be a Majlis in Iran.’ And if, God forbid, at some time either the Shah or the ‘ulama’ fall out with the Majlis and want to create the conditions for its overthrow, then they would say: ‘The Babis have established this Majlis.’ Similarly when it was the matter of schools, we saw that at first when these schools were being established, the people said: ‘It is the Babis who are establishing these schools.’ However, after Hujjat al-Islam Aqa Sayyid Muhammad Tabataba'i established the Islam School and this became widely known, then suddenly anyone who was saying bad things about these schools was now called a Babi. This is how we Iranians do things and how we eliminate people from the scene. 93
By ‘othering’ the Baha'is and making them into an ‘internal enemy’, the Shi‘i ‘ulama’ had neutralised a potential threat and avoided having to confront the Baha'is in open discussion and debate (they had on numerous occasions in the past lost face when in open debate with Baha'i propagandists). This was a continuation of a situation that suited both the Qajar state and the Shi‘i clerics. As Tavakoli-Targhi has commented, instead of engaging with the Baha'is in a dialogue that would have promoted a national democratic public sphere of discourse, the Qajar state together with the Shi‘i clergy opted to try to violently suppress the movement. Moreover they used accusations of ‘Babism’ as a means of repressing other secular demands for modernisation and democracy. The Qajar state and the Shi‘i clergy thus became the architects of the heritage of the repressive and authoritarian political structure that Iran was to experience for the next century. 94
The Results of the Constitutional Revolution for the Baha'is and for Iran
93 Nazim al- Islam Kirmani, Tarikh Bidari, p. 400. 94 Mohammad Tavakoli-Targhi, "Baha'i-sitizi va Islam-gara'i", Iran Namih, 19:1-2 (2001), pp. 79-124, translated as "Anti-Baha’ism and Islamism in Iran", in Brookshaw and Fazel, The Baha'is of Iran, pp. 200-31.
After the Constitutional Revolution, the Baha'is thus found themselves in a worse situation than before. It is true that the position of the Baha'is drew on an already established scapegoating and ‘othering’ of the Babi community even before the Revolution but the establishment of the Constitution gave a legal basis to this. Before the Revolution, any local cleric or governor could whip up persecution of the Baha'is on a whim or to further their own advantage, but the law was whatever the shah or the governor decided and so the Baha'is were in a position to negotiate and alter their standing. After the Revolution, their social exclusion was now enshrined in an independent code of laws. While the Constitutional Revolution had refashioned the ‘Shi‘i nation’ into the ‘nation of Iran’, the Baha'is were excluded from this refashioned nation. 95 As Iran became more centralised and the government more bureaucratic during the Pahlavi regime, room for manoeuvre and negotiation became severely limited. Moreover, due to the hostility of the clerical and Azali leadership of the Revolution, an atmosphere of hatred and an assumption that it was acceptable to say whatever one wanted about the Baha'is had been created. The preconditions were thus established during the Constitutional Revolution for the ‘othering’ of Baha'is, for the creation of ‘an enemy within’. The fact that a large religious minority had been excluded from the Constitution and thus effectively excluded from Iranian society was to act as a poisonous precedent for the next 100 years. Over the succeeding decades, it meant that conspiracy theories could be concocted and published without fear of contradiction, linking the Baha'is as ‘enemies within’ to external powers such as Britain, Russia and later America and Israel. It led to anyone who proposed reform or a campaign against corruption being accused of being a Baha'i and thus being silenced. It made it easier for the government to create other ‘enemies within’ of their opponents and violently suppress them rather than engaging them in debate. Instead of the emergence of a public sphere of discourse in which all could engage openly and honestly, the sphere of national public debate tilted towards one that was imbued with fear, the main protagonists often being demagogues and the agenda much of the time a series of exaggerated conspiracy theories. Once portrayed as ‘enemies within’, it became acceptable to mistreat and persecute the Baha'is, since they ‘deserved’ it. This is the same pathway that the Nazis trod on their way to unleashing a genocide upon the Jews in Germany and the same pathway that justified Stalin in sending millions of ‘enemies of the state’ to their deaths in Siberia. 96 This pathway, moreover, justifies the government in taking on authoritarian and totalitarian powers in order to deal with the perceived threat from the ‘enemy within’. It encourages emotive demagoguery instead of sane and rational public debate. This atmosphere even penetrates to the academic world, which feels obligated to concoct the evidence to support attacks upon the ‘enemies within’. One cannot find a single book or article published within Iran in the last 100 years on the subject of the Baha'is that does not repeat baseless accusations and promote fantasy conspiracy theories. Thus, what happened to the Baha'is in the Constitutional Revolution has not only had an adverse effect upon the Baha'is. It has poisoned Iran's national life, its politics and its academy in ways that still require a great deal of research.
95 Mohammad Tavakoli-Targhi, "Refashioning Iran: Language and Culture during the Constitutional Revolution", Iranian Studies, vol. 23 (1990) p. 93. 96
a genocide, see Moojan Momen, 'The Baha'i community of Iran: a case of "suspended genocide"?' Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 7 (2005), pp. 221–241. Yüklə 318,37 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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