In September 1927 the senior Shia ʿulamāʾ of Iran and Iraq found themselves in an intractable situation. A year earlier Reza Shah (r. 1925–41) had ordered the Iranian government to enforce the Conscription Law, which had been enacted toward the end of his premiership in 1925. The law required that every man above the age of twenty-one serve for two years in active military service, followed by twenty-three years of reserve service.Footnote 1 As conscription recruiters began their work in early 1927, public protests erupted in major urban centers. The protest of Esfahan’s ʿulamāʾ against the Conscription Law, spearheaded by the city’s leading mojtahed Ḥāj Ᾱqā Nūrollāh Najafī Eṣfahānī (d. 1927), attracted support from certain influential clerics and the populace alike. In no time a relatively large number of clerics and seminary students from other Iranian cities, especially Tehran, Shiraz, Mashhad, and Tabriz, joined Nūrollāh and his supporters who had taken up residence in Qom. This put the senior ayatollahs in that city and elsewhere in the precarious position of having to take a stand on the unpopular law. While the Conscription Law, combined with other reforms undertaken at the same time, alarmed the ʿulamāʾ, their varied reactions uncovered profound divisions and differences, highlighting the fact that the ʿulamāʾ did not constitute a homogenous group. Despite the grave threat posed to the ʿulamāʾ’s authority and prestige as a result of Reza Shah’s reforms, the Shia ʿulamāʾ in Iran and Iraq fell short of taking a united position against the government assault on the clerical establishment, which in turn ensured the failure of the anti-conscription movement. In fact, their varied reactions betrayed their respective interests and priorities depending on concrete circumstances of their locales as well as their ranks.
The divisions within the Shia clerical establishment provide insight into how the ʿulamāʾ positioned themselves vis-à-vis Reza Shah’s extensive reform program initiated shortly after his 1926 coronation. The ʿulamāʾ had to strike a balance between their role as the foremost guardians of the Sharīʿa on the one hand, and their social and material interests on the other. However, the ʿulamāʾ’s need to guard their social status and political interests more often than not took precedence over their religious duties. This was the crux of their divisions which in turn rendered Reza Shah’s victory possible. This paper focuses on intra-ʿulamāʾ relations, their varied ranks and disparate interests, and their relations with the Reza Shah government and court. Our examination of numerous letters and telegrams exchanged between different ʿulamāʾ as well as between the ʿulamāʾ and the government will allow us to zero in on each faction without lumping them into a reified social category. Intelligence reports and government directives will further help us delve into the disagreements and divisions that plagued various ranks of the ʿulamāʾ, and that ultimately caused the failure of the anti-conscription movement. The outcome is a complex picture that casts doubt on the putative forces of modernity and tradition—forces that are commonly posited in accord with a priori categorization, rather than empirical investigation grounded in concrete evidence.
The clerical reaction to Reza Shah’s reform, especially the anti-conscription movement, sheds ample light on how the fluid boundaries of tradition and modernity were crossed by the agents of the opposing camps. Just as the champions of modernity had to tap into cultural and political resources available in the reservoir of religion and tradition, so also the guardians of Sharīʿa and their institution underwent drastic change in the face of modern reforms. As we learn from the tense, and sometimes violent, confrontation of the state and the ʿulamāʾ in the 1925–41 period, resolution was never attained without a great deal of conflict, but it owed much to compromises made for the greater good as perceived by the parties involved.
A Convenient Alliance
Reza Shah’s accession to the throne in 1926 was not bad news for Shia clerics. Their congratulatory telegrams to the shah, pouring in from major cities and religious centers in Iran and Iraq, echoed their jubilant mood.Footnote 2 The clerics’ welcoming reaction to the new shah was not entirely unwarranted. In five short years after his successful coup in 1920, Reza Khan had consolidated power by enhancing his control over the army and the government as minister of war, chief of the armed forces, prime minister, and finally as shah. While the country’s political and economic ills were too numerous to be cured in such a short time, Reza Khan had shown marked determination to rein in the disorder that had engulfed Iran before, during, and after the Great War (1914‒18).Footnote 3 Throughout this brief period, Reza Khan took great pains to secure the trust of the senior clergy, making sure that his ambitious reform ideas would not stir up opposition from the clerics.Footnote 4 Reza Khan’s public show of piety before his coronation is well attested by contemporary sources. More important for his purposes was the seizing of opportunities to offer his help when the ʿulamāʾ most needed it.
The first and most notable opportunity came in early 1923 when the Iraqi government expelled a number of Shia ʿulamāʾ due to their boycott of the British-orchestrated elections in that country.Footnote 5 Subsequently, in July of the same year, the Iraqi government deported to Iran two grand ayatollahs, Mīrzā Mohammad Hossein Nāʾīnī (d. 1936) and Sayyed Abolhassan Eṣfahānī (d. 1946), who had joined the campaign to boycott the Iraqi elections. In March 1924 Reza Khan’s bid to change the political system from constitutional monarchy to republic faced fierce resistance from both the clergy and the Majles (assembly), and ultimately failed.Footnote 6 To deflect the adverse consequence of his ambitious campaign, then Prime Minister Reza Khan assured the senior ʿulamāʾ in Qom that he would no longer pursue his highly divisive project to replace the Qajar monarchy with a republic.Footnote 7 In April 1924, Reza Khan made another gesture of solidarity with the clergy when he traveled to Qom to bid farewell to Ayatollahs Nāʾīnī and Eṣfahānī who were now returning to Iraq thanks to a diplomatic resolution attained by the Reza Khan administration with the Iraqi government. While in Qom, Reza Khan met with Nāʾīnī, Eṣfahānī, and Sheikh ʿAbd al-Karīm Ḥāʾerī Yazdī (d. 1937), founder of the Qom Seminary System (Howzeh ʿElmīyyeh Qom), and won them over as he gave up his republican project in an attempt to prevail over his rivals and opponents, most notably the last Qajar monarch, Ahmad Shah (r. 1918‒25).Footnote 8 Remarkably, upon their return to Najaf, Nāʾīnī and Eṣfahānī issued a statement that reportedly declared those opposed to the current government of Iran as disbelievers much like those who fought the prophet Muhammad at the battles of Badr and Ḥunayn.Footnote 9
Subsequent to subduing the rebellious Sheikh Khazʿal in 1924, Reza Khan made a trip to Iraq and, according to eye-witness accounts, held meetings with Nāʾīnī and Eṣfahānī, as well as a few other distinguished clerics, such as Sheikh Javād Javāherī and Mīrzā Mahdī Ᾱyatollāhzādeh, at the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf.Footnote 10 These meetings proved instrumental in securing the ʿulamāʾ’s consent for Reza Khan’s long-term plans. Reza Khan’s approach in this early period was far from “antagonistic toward the clergy.”Footnote 11 Quite the contrary, Reza Khan successfully earned the trust of its leaders and, given his conciliatory and cordial attitude toward the Shia clergy in Iran and Iraq, the latter had reason to anticipate the future shah’s full support for the clerical establishment and its privileged position in Iranian society. Little did they know that the days of mutually advantageous state‒clergy relations, which the ʿulamāʾ had enjoyed under the Safavids and the Qajars, were numbered. Despite assurances given by Reza Khan in the aforementioned meetings, the senior ʿulamāʾ’s high hopes were soon to be dashed. They were not prepared, however, to withdraw their support from Reza Khan in spite of their reservations about his ambitious plans.
It is against this background that some senior ʿulamāʾ continued to invest in their relationship with the shah and leverage it as necessary. During his premiership, Reza Khan had kept in contact with a number of clerics who regularly met or communicated with him through various means.Footnote 12 Many from among the ʿulamāʾ remained hopeful that the shah would keep his promise, made before and during his coronation, to protect Shia Islam and its guardians (that is, the ʿulamāʾ) against modern threats such as materialist ideologies and moral corruption. In a meeting with Reza Shah, Imām Jomʿeh Khoʾī touched the shah’s sword and his own turban at the same time, uttering “these two must protect each other; we must protect [your] power and monarchy, and you must protect the clergy. Only then will Islam survive.”Footnote 13 This kind of familiar rapport was confirmed by yet another gesture of piety shortly after the abolition of the Qajar dynasty in 1925 when Reza Khan Sardar Sepah decided to relocate to the Golestān Palace; he asked Imām Jomʿeh Khoʾī to prepare a deed of waqf for the palace which presumably did not have a legitimate owner. Accordingly, Prime Minister Reza Khan—soon to be shah—began to pay rent to a religious endowment trust for his new residence.Footnote 14
Upon ascending the throne in 1926, Reza Shah embarked on launching an array of modernizing reforms that prima facie had far-reaching implications for the authority and power of the ʿulamāʾ. The judicial reform, introduced in early 1927 by the minister of justice, Ali Akbar Dāvar, was the first government assault on the ʿulamāʾ’s status and source of income. It sought to end clerical dominance over local courts and effectively wrested judicial authority from the ʿulamāʾ by bringing local courts under state jurisdiction. Later in that year, the enforcement of the Conscription Law struck a second blow to the Shia clerical establishment in Iran, raising the stakes for the ʿulamāʾ and seminary students. The former’s initial reaction to the law was circumspect inasmuch as it did not pose a palpable threat to Sharīʿa. However, as the damaging ramifications of the law became apparent, the ʿulamāʾ tapped into the public resentment that manifested in widespread protests and confrontation with conscription agents. Reza Shah would have been remiss had he not anticipated the frantic clerical response. In fact, he and his nationalist advocates in the government and the press were poised to deal with the widespread protests against the highly unpopular Conscription Law. Already in 1924 the clerics in the fourth Majles, led by Sayyed Hassan Modarres (d. 1937), Reza Khan’s ardent opponent, had refused to lend their support to the proposed conscription bill before significant concessions were made to them by then Prime Minister Reza Khan.Footnote 15 The concessions effectively exempted the ʿulamāʾ and seminary students from military service. However, the bill still included several loopholes that left the granting of exemptions to government discretion.Footnote 16 While the concessions had provided ostensible exemptions to clerics, the law left the mid- and low-ranking clerics at the mercy of government agents. The enforcement of the Conscription Law, then, set the stage for a confrontation that both sides had tried so hard to avoid, but to no avail.
Falling out with the ʿUlamāʾ
Reza Shah’s amicable attitude toward the ʿulamāʾ did not deter him from pursuing his modernizing reforms. These reforms, especially in education, the judiciary, and the military, immediately raised grave concerns on the part of the ʿulamāʾ. The widespread public anger toward the compulsory military service provided them with an opportunity to assume the leadership of the anti-conscription movement. For their own part, the Esfahan ʿulamāʾ, led by Ḥāj Ᾱqā Nūrollāh, started a campaign which they hoped would bring their comrades in other cities on board. Having relocated to Qom on 12 September 1927, the movement of the Esfahan ʿulamāʾ attracted about 300 clerics and seminary students, including a few distinguished ʿulamāʾ from other cities as well as several from Nūrollāh’s extended family, who for the next three months took up residence in Qom.Footnote 17 After settling in Qom, the group met on a daily basis to draft and send communiques to the shah, the government, the Majles, and the ʿulamāʾ in other cities. They would then reconvene at the shrine of Ḥaḍrat Maʿṣūmeh to meet with a larger crowd of seminary students and laypeople.Footnote 18 Soon more malcontent clerics from Tehran, Mashhad, Qazvin, and Shiraz joined the protest in Qom.Footnote 19
The ʿulamāʾ’s initial success in garnering massive support owed much to their roles as representatives of the public who had major grievances.Footnote 20 Due to its profound impact on people’s livelihoods, especially in the lower socioeconomic classes, the law caused an uproar in both urban and rural areas. On 4 October 1927, Neẓām al-Dīn Ḥekmat, governor of Esfahan, reported the eruption and spread of protests against the Conscription Law. Informing ʿAbd al-Hussein Teymūrtāsh, minister of the court, Ḥekmat wrote that on that day “a large crowd went to the Shah Mosque, apparently forcing the ʿulamāʾ to join them in the mosque.”Footnote 21 Ḥekmat confirmed the unpopularity of the Conscription Law, relating that “the entirety of the populace is opposed to this matter [conscription] because they are not used to the law; moreover there has been so much negative propaganda that the Muslim and the Jew and the Armenian are united in this activity [i.e. protest].”Footnote 22 It would be impossible to enforce the law, he asserted, “with tolerance and patience,” adding that the use of force would be inevitable. In keeping with his recommendation, he had ordered the arrest of Ṣadr al-Moḥaddethīn, a popular preacher who had agitated against the law two nights earlier. In time the governor had to give in to the demands of the protestors by releasing the preacher and firing the Esfahan chief of police.Footnote 23
The ʿulamāʾ’s representation of public resentment toward conscription and government officials’ abuse of power is reflected in their communication with the government and the Majles. Relying on the legislation’s unpopularity, the Qom protestors sent a telegram to the Majles in which they tried to make a case for rescinding the Conscription Law on the grounds that it had caused “public resentment” as well as “division and hatred.”Footnote 24 Signed by the representative clerics of Esfahan, Fars, Hamedan, Khorasan, Arak, Qom, and Kashan, the telegram made no other demands than abrogation of the Conscription Law. A similar telegram from the people and ʿulamāʾ of Yazd to the Majles, while expressing their satisfaction with the end of the Qajar dynasty and paying respect to the newly founded Pahlavi dynasty, invoked the unpopularity of conscription. They reiterated that the enforcement of the law would not be in the best interest of the people and the monarchy, and asked for its immediate cancelation.Footnote 25 The typical response from the court, the government, or the Majles to such communications was to acknowledge the demand and decline it gently.Footnote 26 Reza Shah himself tried to placate the ʿulamāʾ by meeting with a group of them as well as some merchants and Majles deputies on 24 October. According to a British intelligence summary, the meeting “rather heartened the mullahs, who regard it as an admission that the Shah is frightened of religious opinion.”Footnote 27 Consequently, the ʿulamāʾ raised the stakes for the shah and his government by protesting against anti-Sharīʿa legislation enacted by the Majles.Footnote 28 Though this communication did not specify a particular law, it almost certainly alluded to the much-hated reform of the Department of Justice and the new court system.Footnote 29 Whereas the request for the abrogation of the Conscription Law was made humbly and respectfully, the ʿulamāʾ did not hesitate to voice their anger at the threat posed to the Sharīʿa “with a loud voice, so that all Muslims could hear it”; they even threatened to take proper action were the Majles not to stop its anti-Sharīʿa legislation.Footnote 30
Aside from their representation of both public grievances and the supreme place of Sharīʿa, the clerics were equally, perhaps more, concerned about their own loss of authority in the face of reform. A report from Maḥmūd Jam, governor of Kerman, to Teymūrtāsh highlighted clerical agitation that “ostensibly intended to preserve Islamic piety, but in truth [tried] to protect their own influence in opposition to social progress undertaken by His Majesty’s court and government.”Footnote 31 His report reveals the presence of “some other elements that are not inherently backward [relative to the ʿulamāʾ] but, from a political point of view, feel threatened by these incidents and fan the flames of this fire of backwardness.”Footnote 32 The report offers no specifics as to the identity of these “other elements.” It can be surmised that the influential Sheikhīs of Kerman displayed similar antipathy toward conscription. Be that as it may, the anti-conscription movement provides insight into how the interests of various social groups converged in a short span of time. This convergence provided the ʿulamāʾ with an opportunity to take on a leadership role. To do so, however, they first had to unite their own ranks against Reza Shah and his nationalist-royalist adherents who wholeheartedly advocated for modernizing reforms.
Numerous letters and telegrams exchanged between the ʿulamāʾ stressed the need for unity against the impending threat posed to Islam and the clerical establishment.Footnote 33 An August 1927 letter from the Esfahan ʿulamāʾ addressed to their Kermani counterparts lamented the ongoing assault on Islam and asked the rhetorical question: “do you know what kind of atrocious forlornness (ghorbat-e fajīʿ) has befallen Islam?” They reminded their comrades of the attacks launched by scores of disbelievers (malāḥedeh), heretics (zanādeqeh), and sinners (fasaqeh), and emphasized the need to unite and make sacrifices. They further urged the ʿulamāʾ to enhance their communications and informed them of the plan to dispatch a representative from every locality to Tehran to present the shah with their concerns and demands.Footnote 34 Likewise, a letter signed by four distinguished ʿulamāʾ of Mashhad, one of whom (Ayatollah Sayyed Hossein Qomī) was to become for a few months in 1946 the next Source of Emulation, stressed the urgency of protecting Islam against foreign and domestic enemies of the clerical establishment and piety.Footnote 35 The fact that the clerics had to be reminded of the importance of unity, however, uncovered the bitter truth that it was far from their reach. The Shia clerical organization with its loose hierarchy hardly suited a well-coordinated sociopolitical movement. As a rule, a private jurist (faqīh or mojtahed) and his emulators (sg. moqalled) cannot be compelled to follow another jurist’s rulings.Footnote 36 Thus, had it not been for the perceived threat posed by reform to clerical authority, such a large number of Shia ʿulamāʾ would not have rallied around the anti-conscription cause.
Distressed by the prospect of clerical unity, the shah and his government launched their multi-pronged campaign that effectively neutralized the clerical movement and undermined its leadership, albeit with considerable difficulty. To begin with, the government employed a combination of coercion and cooptation of the ʿulamāʾ to thwart their bourgeoning unity. Depending on what the actual situation demanded, governors and their employees oppressed the more vulnerable clerics while at the same time enticing others, and made the best of their ties with the clerics sympathetic to Reza Shah. A November 1927 report from the governor of Kerman to the Ministry of the Interior enumerated a number of measures that he had adopted to dissuade the ʿulamāʾ from joining the protest in Qom. These measures included threatening supporters who held a government job; creating division between the ʿulamāʾ in their attempts at electing delegates to represent them in Tehran; and coopting Ayatollah Mīrzā Mohammad Reza Kermānī, the city’s leading mojtahed. Jam’s communication with Ayatollah Kermānī reveals the effective nature of the government strategy. He sent the ayatollah a verbal message to the effect that
you have a respectable and favorable status in the eyes of all Kermānīs and you are also subject to regal favors; you have achieved this position as a result of your support of the government and by not getting involved in such matters. Your enemies are using you to taint you [i.e. your prestige] and to undermine your status. Of course, you will bear these points in mind.Footnote 37
Furthermore, prominent clerics were enlisted by the court and the administration to allay the public fear of conscription and other reforms while using them to facilitate negotiations with the protestors. Notably Sheikh ʿAbd al-Karīm Ḥāʾerī Yazdī, the most prominent mojtahed in Qom, felt compelled to help placate the Esfahan ʿulamāʾ. Contrary to the oft-repeated assertion about Ḥāʾerī’s political non-involvement,Footnote 38 he played an active, albeit quiet, role in controlling the crisis. Although selective in raising issues with the shah and the government, he was far from apolitical. On 24 October 1927, Ḥāʾerī telegraphed the shah and asked him to send Teymūrtāsh to Qom, so he could share with the shah “some necessary remarks on [Ḥāʾerī’s] behalf.”Footnote 39 Reza Shah was quick to oblige. The next day Teymūrtāsh arrived at Ḥāʾerī’s residence in Qom.Footnote 40 In his negotiations with Ḥāʾerī, Teymūrtāsh made explicit that the abrogation of the Conscription Law was out of the question, but the government would consider granting exemption based on certifications issued by the honorable ʿulamāʾ. The following day Ḥāʾerī took the initiative to bring in Sayyed Abolqāsem Dehkordī and Mīrzā Maḥmūd Bonakdār, two representatives of the Esfahan ʿulamāʾ, to negotiations. According to a confidential letter that a few weeks later Ḥāʾerī sent to Sheikh Moḥsen ʿAlāʾ al-Moḥaddethīn, his trusted friend in Najaf, the two delegates were pleased with the arranged compromise, but regrettably changed their minds after consulting with the other leaders, thus making Ḥāʾerī very uneasy.Footnote 41 Teymūrtāsh immediately reported to the shah that the ayatollah “had changed his initial decision, referring the matter to negotiation with, and exhortation of, the other [ʿulamāʾ].”Footnote 42 The shah chastised the minister of the court for going too far with his mandate for negotiation. He sent Teymūrtāsh a harsh message through his chief of staff:
Bring to the ayatollah’s attention that it was solely out of respect for him and his request, not for negotiating with others, that an envoy [Teymūrtāsh] was sent to Qom; it was not envisaged that he would take advantage of your arrival to negotiate and exchange ideas with others; he must be careful that the adverse effect of these negotiations would not spread all over the country and, moreover, he should not feel sad about a few individuals’ inappropriate diatribes; he should feel sad when foreign troops occupy the entire country, stampeding its national honor and character [khaṣāyeṣ-e mamlekatī]. You, too, should know that no modifications will be made to the law … Plus, most of Esfahan’s bazaars are open and these gentlemen are a bunch of runaways who cannot live in Esfahan.Footnote 43
It must have been after this failed mission that Teymūrtāsh toyed with the idea of bombarding Qom, an idea that was rejected outright by Prime Minister Mokhber al-Salṭaneh Hedāyat and Ḥabībollāh Khān Sheybānī, chief of the General Staff.Footnote 44 In any case, neither the shah nor the protestors was ready for a compromise. For his part, Ḥāʾerī refused to do more than deliberate and negotiate. Less than a month later, on 20 November, he ventured to prepare a telegram to the government to request the abolishment of conscription, but the governor of Qom stopped the communication and convinced Ḥāʾerī to consider sending a verbal message via Sharīʿatmadār, a pro-government cleric.Footnote 45 Under the circumstances, Ḥāj Ᾱqā Nūrollāh and his comrades reached out to the well-respected ʿulamāʾ in Iraq, most notably Grand Ayatollahs Sayyed Abolhassan Eṣfahānī and Mīrzā Mohammad Hossein Nāʾīnī, whose influence and personal relationship with Reza Shah was expected to tip the balance in favor of the clerics. Unfortunately for Nūrollāh and his fellow compatriots, however, the ʿulamāʾ in Iraq were no better equipped to provide the much-needed help and, despite their sympathetic gestures, failed to offer more than oscillating counsel and patronizing exhortation.
Confusion and Indecision in Najaf
As negotiations between the Iranian government and the protestors in Qom reached a stalemate, the Shia ʿulamāʾ of Iraq were forced to take a stance, which turned out to be ambivalent and haphazard. On the one hand, many of them and a great number of their students hailed from Iran, hence their sympathy toward the movement. The clerics and students from Esfahan were particularly instrumental in organizing meetings and protests in Najaf and Karbala as well as pressuring the senior clergy to become more vocal. Furthermore, as the evidence below shows, the ʿulamāʾ must have felt threatened by the anti-clerical policies of the Reza Shah government. On the other hand, the ʿulamāʾ in Iraq were hardly subject to the adverse effects of Reza Shah’s reform, such as the Conscription Law, the limiting of clerics’ social and judicial authority, and the negative propaganda launched against the clerical establishment by the liberal press and their advocates in the government.Footnote 46 Moreover, many senior ʿulamāʾ in Iraq had an overwhelmingly positive relationship with Reza Shah; time and again he had offered them a helping hand on occasions of dire need in Iraq under mandatory rule. It had not been long since Reza Khan “arranged certain compensations for the insult that the British mandatory government of Iraq had given them.”Footnote 47
Both Nāʾīnī and Eṣfahānī had a long history of political involvement in early twentieth-century Iran. Nāʾīnī’s support of the Constitutional Revolution (1906–11), particularly his Tanbīh al-Umma wa Tanzīh al-Mella, a treatise on the Islamic foundations of the constitutional government is too well known to be discussed here.Footnote 48 Eṣfahānī, too, subscribed to constitutionalism, thanks to his close connection with Nāʾīnī and Ᾱkhūnd Khorāsānī (1839–1911). After the victory of the Constitutional Revolution, Ᾱkhūnd Khorāsānī and Sheikh ʿAbdollāh Māzandarānī (1840‒1912) nominated Eṣfahānī as one of the first-rank (ṭarāz-e avval) mojtaheds to the first Majles. He was subsequently elected by the Majles as one of the five mojtaheds who would validate future legislation, but he resigned from his post due to personal reasons. Such a distinguished history made Nāʾīnī and Eṣfahānī invaluable allies, hence Reza Khan’s investment in a fruitful relationship with them before his accession to the throne. Nāʾīnī appears to have maintained a closer relationship with Reza Shah. Even after the disastrous impact of Reza Shah’s reform on the clerical establishment became clear, Nāʾīnī continued to dispense advice, however little effect it may have had, while relying on the shah for special favors.Footnote 49
For his part, Ḥāj Ᾱqā Nūrollāh, too, was an eminent mojtahed whose advocacy of pan-Islam and constitutionalism as well as his anti-imperialist activism invoked awe and respect among such influential Najaf ʿulamāʾ as Ᾱkhūnd Khorāsānī, Sheikh Abdullāh Māzandarānī, and Nāʾīnī, to name a few. Sometime in 1911, during his sojourn in Iraq, he played a key role in collaborating with those same ayatallohas and a few others to formulate a framework for non-sectarian Islamic unity.Footnote 50 His exercise of Islamic rule in Esfahan, which included an attempt at controlling the local economy and forming a militia group, brought him to the attention of more politically ambitious ʿulamāʾ.Footnote 51 Like Eṣfahānī, Ḥāj Aqa Nūrollāh was nominated as a first-rank mojtahed to scrutinize Majles legislation, but he too declined the nomination.Footnote 52 Reza Khan was well aware of Nūrollāh’s influence and kept in contact with him when he was minister of war and prime minister.Footnote 53 Reza Khan’s memoir of his 1924 expedition to Khuzestan informs us that when he arrived at Esfahan, a group of ʿulamāʾ, including Nūrollāh, paid him a visit. Following the visit, Nūrollāh sent a letter to express his willingness to accompany Reza Khan “in this holy war that is tantamount to jihad against the enemies of the country’s sovereignty.”Footnote 54 Reza Khan, too, took care to be on good terms with Nūrollāh; on one occasion he went out of his way to inquire about the ayatollah’s wellbeing.Footnote 55 Given his revolutionary past as well as his exceptional relationship with the Najaf ʿulamāʾ, Nūrollāh had reason to believe that his movement would elicit wholehearted support from that direction, and this seemed to be the case for a while.
No sooner had the clerical agitation erupted in Iran than the Najaf ʿulamāʾ decided to send their representatives to the shah to register their support and raise some issues of their own. In response to an inquiry by the Grand Ayatollah Eṣfahānī, Prime Minister Hedāyat confirmed that the shah would be willing to receive the ʿulamāʾ’s emissary. Ḥojjat al-Islām Ḥāj Ᾱqā Hossein Borūjerdī (the future Source of Emulation, 1946–61) was thus introduced as the special envoy of the Najaf ʿulamāʾ.Footnote 56 His departure, however, was delayed by the senior clergy’s confusion and their inability to reach a consensus about their requests from the shah. Meanwhile, unimpressed by the meager success of the anti-conscription movement, Grand Ayatollah Eṣfahānī advised Ḥāj Ᾱqā Nūrollāh that the latter should be mindful of the adverse consequences of the movement’s failure. In his 9 October letter to Nūrollāh, Eṣfahānī recognized the clergy’s responsibility to speak up against “religious corruptions” (mafāsed-e dīnīyyeh), but he quickly added,
As much as I have mulled over [this problem], there seems to be no resolution, save for divine intervention (madad-e gheybī), but to win the shah (maqām-e salṭanat) over, which itself is contingent upon avoiding misunderstanding that would affirm the fantasies of secularists (la-madhhabān) and provide a proof and evidence for them, for they have made it appear as though clerical influence is an obstacle to monarchical power and the country’s prosperity.Footnote 57
As the highest Shia authority with a large following, Grand Ayatollah Eṣfahānī decided that it would be in his and the clergy’s best interest to avoid confrontation with Reza Shah. He was willing to speak to state policies implicating religious matters, but he would not go so far as to demand the abrogation of the Conscription Law. Though Eṣfahānī informed Nūrollāh about the decision to send an emissary from Najaf, his diffident stance, coupled with Nāʾīnī’s conciliatory attitude, kept the ʿulamāʾ in Iraq from offering the succor their counterparts in Iran so desperately needed. A number of factors came into play to create a division between the ʿulamāʾ of Najaf and their politically ambitious cohort in Iran.
First, Ayatollah Eṣfahānī vacillated between maintaining a good relationship with the Iranian government and providing necessary support to fellow ʿulamāʾ who championed the clerical cause. While the Najaf ʿulamāʾ remained indecisive about sending their emissaries to Tehran, Ayatollah Eṣfahānī tried to keep up pressure on the government. On 18 November, in a meeting with Maḥmūd Arfaʿ, the Iranian vice consul in Najaf, Eṣfahānī emphasized his love for Iran and its government as well as his support for the country’s progress, glory, and power. However, he cited letters and other communications sent to him from Iran, communications that had raised concerns about anti-Islamic behavior in public and the ongoing insults directed at the clergy in the press.Footnote 58 The vice consul responded that the letters were ill-intended canards, written by corrupt individuals who wished to upset the ayatollah. He further added that the government had neither advocated anti-Islamic propaganda nor adopted anti-Sharīʿa policies. “Regarding the respect of the ʿulamāʾ and the clerics,” he challenged the ayatollah,
Consider the ʿulamāʾ [in Iraq] and how the [Iranian] government and authorities give them respect; such is the case with the ʿulamāʾ in Iran. If, however, someone postures as an ʿālem [religious scholar], interferes in political matters, and wants to cause anarchy in the country, the government should of course stop him from doing so … and perhaps you yourself would order [such agitation] to be stopped.Footnote 59
The ayatollah remained unmoved. His information, he boasted, was more accurate than that of the government. Arfaʿ came away with the impression that the ayatollah had insinuated that the government was out of touch with reality. He also contrasted this exchange with an earlier, presumably more positive, meeting he had with the ayatollah on 22 September.Footnote 60 Despite his uncompromising position in this and some other meetings with government officials, as we will see later, Eṣfahānī proved vulnerable to being cajoled by both the Iranian consulate and certain elements within the clerical institution.
Second, using its network of sympathetic clerics, the consulate took its strategy out of the ʿulamāʾ’s own playbook: the opposition to conscription lacked sufficient religious justification. The clergy, in other words, could not contend that the government’s efforts to create a strong standing army violated the tenets of Islam. To the contrary, as argued later by Prime Minister Hedāyat, one can make a case for the country’s need for a strong army by drawing precisely on the Islamic ideas of defense and jihad. Of course, Eṣfahānī and Nāʾīnī could have come to the same conclusion without the prime minister’s persuasion. Days after the tense meeting between Ayatollah Eṣfahānī and the vice consul, the latter reported that the senior ʿulamāʾ had come under tremendous pressure from the seminary students and clerics originating from Esfahan. Rebuking the senior clergy for their indolence, the angry students and clerics had demanded that Ayatollah Eṣfahānī and other senior clerics send a telegram to the Majles to express their support of the anti-conscription protests in Qom.Footnote 61 The senior clergy, however, had decided that the protestors’ communication with the Majles “was untimely and inappropriate.” Vice Consul Arfaʿ had reportedly asked Ayatollah Eṣfahānī’s son about his father’s decision. The response was unequivocal:
He will certainly not get involved, nor will he approve of the emigration [lit. ḥarkat, moving] of the Esfahan ʿulamāʾ to Qom, asserting that the ʿulamāʾ in Qom had interfered in the country’s political affairs which is entirely at odds with, and irrelevant to, the clergy’s terms of reference, and [that] compulsory military service is the government’s responsibility, and mandatory conscription is not against the sacred Sharʿ; it is even praiseworthy.Footnote 62
The protesting ʿulamāʾ in Qom may have been aware of their feeble case and its insufficient religious ground. They had thus tried to reinforce it by questioning other statutes with ramifications for religious law and clerical authority. But this turned out to be a strategic mistake on their part, which only undermined their position. Although they attracted Grand Ayatollah Eṣfahānī’s sympathy for their opposition to anti-Islamic propaganda and legislation, they seem to have lost popular support by extending their demands to Sharīʿa-related areas as well as putting the government in a difficult position. Nevertheless, the students and clerics of Esfahan residing in Najaf kept up their psychological pressure on the Ayatollahs Eṣfahānī and Nāʾīnī, taking them to task for their alleged apathy to the plight of their fellow clerics in Iran. They had reportedly managed to obtain a telegram from them, not to the Majles or the court, but a consoling note to the protesting ʿulamāʾ in Qom.Footnote 63 However, the vice consul suspected that the two ayatollahs were simply hedging their bets. Had they truly been displeased with the clerical movement in Iran, he surmised, they would have advised the protestors accordingly.Footnote 64 Evidently, the vice consul had no knowledge of the communication between Eṣfahānī and Ḥāj Ᾱqā Nūrollāh cited above. Undeterred by the ʿulamāʾ’s oscillating positions, Arfaʿ maintained his communication with them both in person and indirectly through individuals trusted by both the senior clergy and the government. To be on the safe side, then, the consulate continued its campaign of cooptation and coercion in line with the strategy adopted by the government in Tehran and the provinces. More importantly, the consulate kept the agitators and their supporters at bay and at the same time successfully intimidated the organizers who had collected endorsements from seminary students and clerics.Footnote 65
Third, and arguably the most important factor, was the Iranian consulate’s role in undermining the ʿulamāʾ’s flimsy consensus by using influential luminaries to monitor the ʿulamāʾ’s deliberation and decision-making, most notably the Khorāsānī network consisting of Ᾱkhūnd Khorāsānī’s eldest son, Mīrzā Mahdī Ᾱyatollāhzādeh,Footnote 66 grandson, Mīrzā Maḥmūd, and personal secretary, Sheikh Muḥsen ʿAlāʾ al-Moḥaddethīn. Throughout the anti-conscription movement, the Khorāsānī network never stopped feeding the ʿulamāʾ the information they were receiving through their own sources from Qom or from the government and the court in Tehran. Impeccably coordinated with the government, the Iranian consulate, and the court, the counter-information campaign manipulated the senior ʿulamāʾ by casting doubt on the credibility of their support while magnifying their risks of involvement, and succeeded in dissuading them from adopting a united position.
As Ayatollahs Eṣfahānī and Nāʾīnī were exploring different courses of action, a letter from Ayatollah Ḥāʾerī to ʿAlāʾ al-Moḥaddethīn, his trusted friend in Najaf, arrived and gave credence to the futility of the anti-conscription movement. In it Ḥāʾerī recounted his 25–26 October meetings with Teymūrtāsh, and how he had taken it upon himself to facilitate negotiations between the court and the representatives of the Esfahan ʿulamāʾ in Qom.Footnote 67 To Ḥāʾerī’s exasperation, however, the protesting clerics did not honor the agreement reached through his mediation, and thereby exacerbated the crisis. ʿAlāʾ al-Moḥaddethīn chose to present the letter to Ayatollahs Eṣfahānī and Nāʾīnī, among others, which gave them further justification to withhold their express support. In all likelihood, ʿAlāʾ al-Moḥaddethīn had been urged by Mahdī Ᾱyatollāhzādeh and his son Maḥmūd to share the letter with the ayatollahs.Footnote 68 Two days later, Maḥmūd Ᾱyatollāhzādeh apprised Teymūrtāsh that his meetings with the ayatollahs had stirred up “hatred of the honorable Esfahanis’ movement and emigration to Qom,” and that Ḥāʾerī’s letter, too, had reinforced that “hatred.”Footnote 69 Maḥmūd had nevertheless learned that the protestors had sent the Najaf ayatollahs another letter via a covert courier.Footnote 70 Although Maḥmūd Ᾱyatollāhzādeh had no information about the content of this letter, he suspected it was a plea for support of the movement and for deprecation of Teymūrtāsh. After they received the letter from Qom, Ayatollahs Eṣfahānī and Nāʾīnī changed their minds again and decided to dispatch two emissaries, Ayatollah Borūjerdī and Sheikh Aḥmad Shāhrūdī, to deliver their letters to the shah. It was further decided that the emissaries would go to Qom to meet with the ʿulamāʾ before they proceeded to Tehran.Footnote 71 Although Borūjerdī and Shāhrūdī refused to go to Iran given what they had learned from Ayatollah Ḥāʾerī’s letter to ʿAlāʾ al-Moḥaddethīn, Ayatollahs Eṣfahānī and Nāʾīnī pressured them to embark on this critical mission.Footnote 72 Soon it became known that the letters signed by Ayatollahs Eṣfahānī and Nāʾīnī had expressed support for the anti-conscription movement and declared Majles legislation devoid of legitimacy since they were not approved by five mojtaheds as required by the Iranian constitution.Footnote 73 The consulate immediately advised border control to arrest the envoys and confiscate their letters should they attempt to cross the border to Iran.Footnote 74
Before Borūjerdī and Shāhrūdī could set off for Qom, Mīrzā Mahdī Ᾱyatollāhzādeh and his son Maḥmūd convinced Ayatollahs Eṣfahānī and Nāʾīnī to change the content of their letters and drop the demand for rescinding the Conscription Law. The dispatch of the special envoys was thus delayed again.Footnote 75 According to the vice consul, once Ayatollah Borūjerdī found out that the Iranian government was displeased with his mission, he approached Ayatollahs Eṣfahānī and Nāʾīnī and told them bluntly, “I am not going.”Footnote 76 He then returned the letters to Ayatollah Eṣfahānī. The vice consul further stated that many of the Najaf ʿulamāʾ were not even aware of the idea of sending envoys to Tehran:
therefore a group of respected ʿulamāʾ who always remain neutral and do not get involved in such matters believe that the Najaf ʿulamāʾ should not at this time approve of the demands made by the Esfahan ʿulamāʾ and thus protect their own prestige and status. Even in a meeting where a group of ʿulamāʾ were present, concerning the demand of the two Ḥojjat al-Islāms, Eṣfahānī and Shīrāzī, about compulsory conscription, it was said, “can the gentlemen who are opposed to compulsory conscription issue a ruling (ḥukm) that compulsory conscription is religiously prohibited (ḥarām) and in violation of the Sharʿ? They certainly cannot.”Footnote 77
The Khorāsānī network remained fully involved until the prospect of Najaf support began to fade away. On 8 December, Mīrzā Mahdī met Ayatollah Eṣfahānī for five hours until shortly before midnight.Footnote 78 He urged the ayatollah to help disperse the maverick clerics gathered together in Qom. He did not leave the ayatollah’s residence until he had made sure that Eṣfahānī recognized the gravity of backing the shah in this conflict and refrained from sending emissaries to Tehran. Maḥmūd also apprised Teymūrtāsh that Mīrzā Mahdī, his father, had convinced Ayatollah Eṣfahānī to persuade the protesters to return to their towns.Footnote 79 At this time Prime Minister Hedāyat and the minister of the court, Teymūrtāsh, planned another trip to Qom. We have no evidence that this trip was prompted by the developments in Najaf, but the timing could not have been more felicitous for the shah and his government. Sometime in mid-December, the Najaf ʿulamāʾ notified the shah via a telegram about their change of plan: they would not send an envoy to Tehran. They also asked for leniency and respect for the protesting ʿulamāʾ in Qom. The shah acknowledged the receipt of the telegram on 16 December.Footnote 80 The letter from Najaf must have set his mind at ease.
The Final Act
Prime Minister Hedāyat believed that Teymūrtāsh was “skillful in negotiations with the embassies, but ignorant of the ʿulamāʾ’s parlance.”Footnote 81 In contrast to Teymūrtāsh’s obsession with Western-oriented reform, Hedāyat was intent on dissociating modernization from European political ideas, hence emphasizing the Islamic character of conscription:
Gradually I felt the problem would not be resolved with the activities of Teymūrtāsh and the advice of [ʿAlī Akbar] Dāvar and Noṣrat al-Dowleh [Fīrūz],Footnote 82 and they do not let me get involved … On the other hand, I have responsibility toward the country’s interests. I wrote an explication of my own to [the ʿulamāʾ in] Qom, not of the kind that the foreign (civilized or progressive) nations have done such and such, but relying on Islam’s creeds, I made evidence of the verse: “prepare against them whatever forces you [believers] can muster, including warhorses, to frighten off [these] enemies of God and of yours”Footnote 83 and also [the Prophetic tradition] “Islam prospers under the men’s swords.” If a thief enters a home at night, is it the youth’s duty, or the old men’s, to defend? The country is the nation’s abode, and defense does not befit decrepit men; and also [relying on] the ruling that all Muslims share the responsibility of jihad.Footnote 84
Ḥāj Ᾱqā Nūrollāh’s response contended that it was unfortunate to cut off the workers’ livelihood while there were more volunteers than needed. It also made a reasonable proposal for compulsory military training, in lieu of a two-year active service, a proposal which was not even acknowledged.Footnote 85 However, Hedāyat followed up with another letter whereby he made explicit that the Conscription Law was not subject to negotiation, but the government was willing to discuss details of its implementation. The government could forcefully reopen the Esfahan and Shiraz bazaars with a single declaration, he added, but out of respect for the clergy it preferred to resolve the issue through proper negotiation. Remarkably, Hedāyat recognized that public demand had put the clergy under pressure, but such popular demands, he pointed out, “were at odds with the country’s independence and the strengthening of the foundation of Islam.”Footnote 86 Hedāyat received no reply to his letter because, as he surmised, the ʿulamāʾ had no response to offer.Footnote 87
Faced with the stalemate, the shah asked Hedāyat to do whatever he could to bring the crisis to a close. To Teymūrtāsh’s dismay, Hedāyat decided to go to Qom to meet with the ʿulamāʾ. Wary of this decision, Teymūrtāsh believed that the trip would yield no results other than to weaken the government’s position. Hedāyat begged to differ: “Rest assured that we will go and will attain success,” he said to Teymūrtāsh, “[because] there is a difference between resorting to European civilization and resorting to the Quran, especially in dealing with individuals who have no recourse but to the Quran.”Footnote 88 On 10 December, they set off for Qom. To make a more positive impression, they took with them two well-known clerics.
We went in the company of Imam Jomʿeh [Khoʾī] and Ẓahīr al-Islām. The gentlemen [i.e. protestors] knew their case was feeble and my argument strong; they needed an excuse to leave Qom [i.e. end the protest]. We made peace on the condition that five ʿulamāʾ would remain in the Majles, [Sayyed Hassan] Modarres being one of them. Complete agreement to decide the other four [mojtaheds] was not attained.Footnote 89
Hedāyat’s strategy proved effective; it reinforced the strategy adopted by the consulate in Iraq. The ʿulamāʾ could hardly claim that conscription and the defense of the country ran counter to Islamic law. Quite the contrary, linking conscription and defensive jihad effectively disarmed the pious protesters and their leaders. Whereas the anti-conscription movement came into being by the ʿulamāʾ’s tapping into public resentment of a new law and the alleged threat posed to Islam, the government's strategy substantiated the necessity of conscription for both national sovereignty and the Islamic faith, hence forcing the ʿulamāʾ into a compromise position. It is at this time that Nūrollāh and three other prominent clerics addressed themselves to Hedāyat and Teymūrtāsh in a letter wherein they lauded Reza Shah’s services to the country and Islam. Tellingly, they emphasized that
no reasonable person could question the necessity of an army for the country. However, the people’s unfamiliarity with the new rules of conscription and its poor implementation by [government] agents and others have caused the people distress and anxiety, hence our movement.Footnote 90
They thus asked that the law be abrogated or else suspended and revised in accordance with the constitution after the seventh Majles convened in September 1928. They further seized the opportunity to renew their demand for reinstitution of five mojtaheds in the Majles, greater scrutiny over anti-Islamic propaganda in the press, and the restoration of local Sharīʿa courts.Footnote 91 However, the government and Majles did not agree to more than a lenient enforcement of the law, something that they had reiterated all along.Footnote 92 When Teymūrtāsh and Hedāyat returned on 13 December, they wrote a response that was delivered by two delegates whom the Qom ʿulamāʾ had sent to Tehran for the purpose of obtaining a written guarantee. The letter signed by Hedāyat and Teymūrtāsh gave assurances, albeit on vague terms, to consider other clerical demands:
As for the presence of five first-rank ʿulamāʾ in the National Assembly, as you recall, the constitution has specified a procedure, that is, the honorable sources of emulation must introduce to every Majles twenty first-rank mojtaheds, knowledgeable about the exigencies of the age, so that five [mojtaheds] can be selected from among them … the government has no opposition to the presence of first-rank [mojtaheds] in the Majles and will assist in the matters in due time. Regarding the other issues stated [in your letter], the honorable gentlemen can be assured that the government will instruct its agents to exercise full scrutiny so that there would not be material against piety and the clergy … As for religious courts, since it concerns the legislature, it will be referred [to the proper authorities] and the gentlemen’s request will be granted.Footnote 93
The protesting ʿulamāʾ were disappointed when they read the letter.Footnote 94 However, as Hedāyat had discerned, Nūrollāh and his supporters needed an excuse to end their protest. The Esfahan bazaars, which had been closed in solidarity with the movement since early October, had already reopened on 4 December, that is, before the final negotiations.Footnote 95 The protesting ʿulamāʾ had run out of the wherewithal that had sustained the movement for over three months; Nūrollāh and his donors from among disgruntled merchants could no longer provide for the out-of-town protestors in Qom.
In addition to the lack of unity among the senior ʿulamāʾ of Iran and Iraq, mention must be made of the lack of unity within the anti-conscription leadership and its ineffective performance. Though we have little information about their daily meetings in Qom, the leaders’ inability to elect representatives to conduct negotiations with the government highlights the contention within the movement’s leadership. Muṣṭafā ʿAlāmīr, governor of Qom, had previously reported extreme difficulty in getting the ʿulamāʾ to authorize two representatives to negotiate on their behalf.Footnote 96 In mid-November, when ʿAlāmīr invited Ḥāj Ᾱqā Nūrollāh to meet with him, he replied that were he to come alone and agree on a resolution, he would be reprimanded by his comrades who would refuse to accept any such agreement.Footnote 97 It was thus decided that he would be joined by some of his companions in negotiating with the government; however, no one was prepared to accompany him to the meeting. As a result, the governor and government envoys negotiated with a larger group consisting of Ḥāj Ᾱqa Nūrollāh, Ayatollah Feshārakī and twelve other protestors.Footnote 98 They suggested that conscription be temporarily suspended, so that the ʿulamāʾ could return home with the trappings of victory. In seeking a face-saving exit out of the stalemate, they asked for “a favor to allow us to return to our locales [because] if we left without a favor and achievement, the troublemakers [lit. mofsedīn, corrupt individuals] would provoke the people to gather around us, causing things that may embarrass us.”Footnote 99 A similar suggestion was made two weeks prior to the final negotiations when they asked to stay a little longer so that the government could conclude the recruitment of conscripts in Esfahan.Footnote 100 Nonetheless, the protestors had enough reason to disperse after the return of their delegates from Tehran. Despite their disappointment at the nominal assurances reflected in the joint letter of Hedāyat and Teymūrtāsh, they used the letter to declare a victory, which they knew full well they had not accomplished.
With their compromise-cum-triumph, the protestors had little reason to stay in Qom. Only two days after the final negotiations did nine “third-rank ʿulamāʾ” enter Esfahan.Footnote 101 Arrangements were also made to greet Sayyed Abolqāsem Dehkordī, who was expected to arrive on 18 December; he was one of the two representatives who had met with Teymūrtāsh in the late October negotiations. According to the police report, “the gentlemen stayed home for three days providing an account of their achievement and the royal favors.”Footnote 102 At Dehkordī’s residence, Malek al-Muḥaqqeqīn, who had just returned from Qom, invited the people to come to the mosque so he could share with them some details about the ʿulamāʾ’s victory in Qom. On the night of 19 December, he took the pulpit, but postponed his talk to the following night since few people had shown up.Footnote 103 The Esfahan chief of police did not wait till the next night; he met Malek al-Muḥaqqeqīn in person and warned him against rekindling the protest. Malek al-Muḥaqqeqīn heeded the warning, but asked that he be allowed to address the people only for one night, since he had already invited them to the mosque. He did not make good on his promise, however. Although he praised the shah and the government for their favors, while at the same time criticizing the Majles’ “traitor delegates for all the corruption and shortcomings,” he invited the audience to come back for another sermon the following night. He concluded by reminding the audience, if erroneously, of the rescinding of the Conscription Law and its postponement to the seventh Majles.Footnote 104 The Esfahan chief of police reported that he was in contact with popular preachers to counteract agitation as the Majles elections were drawing close.
In the meantime, Ayatollah Feshārakī and Sayyed al-ʿErāqayn, two prominent clerics in positions of leadership, returned to Esfahan and walked through “arches of triumph” (Ṭāq-e Noṣrat) that their supporters had set up. According to the governor of Esfahan, the two ayatollahs kept praying for the shah, raising hopes about the royal compassion and expressing their gratitude for the favors afforded them by the shah.Footnote 105 Nūrollāh’s nephew, Sheikh Mahdī, and Ṣadr al-ʿulamāʾ did not stay much longer; they left for Esfahan on 23 December, leaving Nūrollāh in Qom with a small group of loyal supporters, including the ʿulamāʾ of Shiraz. Nūrollāh’s brother in law, Nāẓem al-Islām, also reminded ʿAlāmīr, governor of Qom, to fulfill the promise made to him earlier and help him secure a post in the Esfahan court of appeal.Footnote 106 The government’s cooptation of Nūrollāh’s supporters appeared to have succeeded at last. Nevertheless, the ailing Ḥāj Ᾱqā Nūrollāh refused to leave Qom. He declared that he was awaiting the fulfillment of government promises although ʿAlāmīr suspected that Nūrollāh’s temporizing intended to keep as many supporters around him as possible until he recovered from his illness.Footnote 107 As most adherents were returning to their localities, Nūrollāh asked the Kashan ʿulamāʾ to promise to stay with him. However, when ʿAlāʾmīr approached the Kashan ʿulamāʾ, he was asked for 300 tūmāns because the ʿulamāʾ had incurred debts during their three-month stay in Qom, so they claimed, and did not have enough money to secure transportation for their party. Unfortunately for Nūrollāh and his movement, he died on 25 December.Footnote 108 The bazaars in Esfahan closed for a week in his honor while public mourning rites were held in that city.Footnote 109
Meanwhile in Najaf, Grand Ayatollah Eṣfahānī remained particularly mindful of mending the damage caused to the shah‒clergy relationship by the protests. His letter to an unidentified personality of preeminence asked for help to
alleviate the misunderstanding that has come to pass between the great monarchy and clerics [which] has distracted his royal attention from dispensing favorable interests [on the clergy], and perhaps it has been brought to his revered mind that this caste [of clergy] has little interest in the monarchy or, God forbid, is opposed to the Islamic government [of Reza Shah] whereas the glory of monarchy is the greatest hope of every devout [Muslim], for the independence of the Islamic country and protection and guardianship of Islam and Muslims depend on it.Footnote 110
Likewise, Nāʾīnī did not give up hope of influencing Reza Shah’s policies. A September 1928 letter to the shah praised his promotion of religion (dīn-parvarī) while “offering with the utmost importance and urgency [his] secret pro-government (dowlat-khāhī) advice.”Footnote 111 Nāʾīnī reminded the shah of the chief role of the “sacred force of Islamic piety (quvveh-ye moqaddaseh-ye dīyānat-e Islāmī)” in curing the dangerous diseases (lit. shaqāqlūsī, Sphacelus) of republicanism and Bolshevism. He hoped that the hidden Imam Mahdī (Ḥaḍrat-e Valī-e ʿAṣr) would protect the shah’s heart from such poison, but he saved the punchline for last: the decay of government and marginalization of the clerics were the critical goals of those striving to uproot piety from the country.Footnote 112 The traditional formalities notwithstanding, this letter clearly voiced concerns about the ongoing changes that resulted from the reform, changes that diminished the Shia ʿulamāʾ’s historic position in Iranian society. Nāʾīnī’s letter, as well as that of Eṣfahānī, reveals wishful thinking on the part of the senior ʿulamāʾ in the wake of Reza Shah’s reforms. Reza Shah, too, preferred to keep the senior clergy on his side or at least neutral while reform was underway. A year or so after the Qom showdown, Reza Shah sent, as a token of appreciation, gracious handwritten letters along with diamond rings to Grand Ayatollahs Eṣfahānī and Nāʾīnī as well as Mīrzā Mahdī Ᾱyatollāhzādeh.Footnote 113
With the dismal ending of the anti-conscription movement, Reza Shah felt more confident to push through his reform program, some of which had a devastating impact on the clerical establishment and its long-standing authority. The rebellious clerics, on the other hand, lost their fervor and some of them found it expedient to change sides. According to a 1928 British intelligence summary from the province of Azerbaijan,
some of the mullahs have been preaching in favour of military service lately. It is presumed that that has been done at the instigation of the local authorities in order that the strength of local opposition to such service may be gauged.Footnote 114
Nevertheless, the ʿulamāʾ’s suspicion of the shah’s assurances given at the end of the Qom protest was not entirely unfounded. Despite the guarantees of leniency in enforcing the law and special accommodations for the clerics, government agents and the police intently and strictly targeted lower-ranking clerics and seminary students.Footnote 115 In all likelihood, the harsh treatment of clerics by the government was intended to restrain them from agitating against the uniform dress code and the removal of the veil, two controversial reform programs introduced after the failure of the anti-conscription movement. The Iranian government proved determined to suppress clerical opposition in reaction to the execution of the new laws.Footnote 116
The uniform dress law enacted by the Majles in 1928 added insult to injury in that a cleric not recognized as such by the government had to give up his robe and turban while also being subject to conscription. Article II of the law exempted “mojtahids in possession of ijazahs [licenses] furnished by the sources of emulation, and engaged in spiritual matters” as well as “religious authorities in villages and districts who have passed a specified examination.”Footnote 117 However, it soon became clear that too many clerics had been licensed as mojtaheds or as religious authorities in villages and districts. A report from the governor of Arak to Teymūrtāsh complained that the article exempting those in possession of licenses had created “a turban-making factory” in his province.Footnote 118 These licenses, he related, were issued by Ḥāj Sheikh ʿAbd al-Karīm Ḥāʾerī; those who did not have a license would receive it upon request. Raising the issue with Ḥāʾerī, Teymūrtāsh lamented the phenomenon in a letter in which he emphasized, rather disingenuously, that the goal of the uniform dress code was to ennoble the religious establishment by purging those unworthy of clerical dress.Footnote 119 The allegedly haphazard issuing of ijtihād licenses, he charged, defeated the very purpose of the law, hence the need for greater scrutiny. Ḥāʾerī did not budge. He affirmed that the licenses were issued, or otherwise approved, after satisfying due process.Footnote 120 However, his response to Teymūrtāsh revealed the crux of a threat posed to the clergy’s economic status as a result of Reza Shah’s reform:
a large, even innumerable group of individuals whose livelihood is confined to this job and have no other way of making a living have come to me while being extremely terrified, keeping me busy with [issuing] licenses despite [my] decrepitude and multitude of responsibilities.Footnote 121
But he did not approve their licenses, he asserted, if he was not certain of their piety and ethics.Footnote 122
The struggle between the reform-minded shah and the clergy did not abate, but it forced the latter to undergo drastic changes in response to reform. As we have seen with Grand Ayatollahs Eṣfahānī and Nāʾīnī, the senior clergy remained engaged with the shah and his government, trying their best to minimize the adverse effects of the new government policies. Reza Shah, however, grew increasingly impatient and intolerant of criticism, be it religious or secular. The violent arrest in March 1928 of Sheikh Mohammad Taqī Bāfqī is but one example of how the shah dealt with clerical opposition after the failure of the anti-conscription movement. As the reform juggernaut gathered momentum, Reza Shah could flout clerical concerns altogether. In 1935, when Ayatollah Ḥāʾerī expressed grave concerns in his letter to Reza Shah about the “current state of affairs that are at odds with the laws of sacred Sharʿ and the Jaʿfarī sect,”Footnote 123 the enraged shah chose not to respond directly. Rather, he had Prime Minister Forūghī inform Ḥāʾerī of the shah’s anger over the allegations of anti-Islamic practices, which in turn had prompted his order to deal harshly with slanderers. Urging the ayatollah to keep up his past pro-monarchy record, he concluded that “those who pursue such matters and distress the people’s minds with allegations and falsities will suffer the consequences.”Footnote 124
Ḥāʾerī’s concerns bring up a crucial aspect of the anti-conscription movement. For all its self-serving undertone, the clerical leadership represented popular resistance against Reza Shah’s oppressive reform “from above,” reform that sacrificed the people’s culture and livelihood at the altar of modernization. From forced sedentarization of Iranian nomads to uniform dress code to conscription, the Pahlavi modernization employed extreme measures to uproot the traditional culture and premodern socioeconomic relations; it scarcely heeded the backlash that was manifested in popular uprisings and protests that erupted in response to the reforms. Despite their marked accomplishments in certain areas such as general literacy and girls’ education, reforms crippled democratic institutions and civil liberties, and failed to imbue the public with a sense of ownership and participation. “Since the seventh and eighth years of the Pahlavi monarchy, hopes turned into disappointment,” Mokhber al-Salṭaneh Hedāyat noted in his political autobiography;
the general order of the affairs, the founding of factories, the building of the railroad, and the widening of the streets looked beautiful as they were attainable, [but] the foundation of justice became unstable and all those accomplishments were not worth this shortcoming.Footnote 125
Conclusion
The failure of the 1927 anti-conscription movement was brought about by a combination of factors. In the first place, the social organization of the clerical establishment hampered the ʿulamāʾ’s efforts to enlist their cohorts, especially in the highest ranks of the Shia clergy. A loose hierarchy and lack of centralized decision-making did not lend themselves to a well-orchestrated social movement. In the second place, the individualistic nature of the Islamic legal profession undercut the efforts to organize a popular movement, for the decision as to whether or not a particular policy was anti-Islamic was subject to juristic interpretation. Even if most clerics could, as a matter of principle, agree on the dangers of the new secular order, they would still disagree about the proper course of action due to such considerations as public interest (maṣlaḥa) and juristic opinion (ijtihād). These other considerations provided justification for the diversity of opinion, which translated readily into divisions in their ranks, and which made them prey to the lures of personal interest.Footnote 126 Viewed in this light, the ʿulamāʾ suffered from inherent divisions in their profession. The British annual report on Persia of 1927 was largely correct when it suggested, if with some exaggeration, that the ʿulamāʾ were
continuously squabbling amongst themselves, no one amongst them is recognised as a leader, each one thinks he is a bigger man than the others, and dissension is rife. They still have an enormous natural influence over the masses, but their very inability to accord their differences deprives them of the power which they possess.Footnote 127
Thus, a successful political movement with the Shia clergy in positions of leadership (for example, the boycott by Ayatollah Shīrāzī of the tobacco concession [1891], the Constitutional Revolution, and the 1979 Iranian Revolution) owed much more to the presence of contingent factors such as public grievances and the support of secular segments of society than to the religious establishment per se.
Aside from the division and discord among the ʿulamaʿ during the anti-conscription movement, the government deftly used religious phraseology and juristic justification to question the legitimacy of the anti-conscription movement. Well acquainted with the clerical organization, certain players within the government made the best of its vulnerabilities to undermine clerical unity. This strategy enabled the Reza Shah administration to weaken the clerical establishment through the imposition of government oversight and the limiting of its ability to recruit students for its seminaries without appearing too hostile to Shia Islam itself. Moreover, the Reza Shah government had some success in placating the ʿulamāʾ about the threat posed to their prestige and social status. Whereas the Conscription Law and the uniform dress code had far-reaching implications for clerical authority and its power structure, especially the madrasa system and its teachers, students, and donors, the government masqueraded the reforms as a gift to the ʿulamāʾ; that is, it was an attempt to rid the ʿulamāʾ of the charlatans and pretenders who abused the clerical robe and turban to make an easy living. The government assured both the ʿulamāʾ and the public that the much-needed reforms did not target the Islamic faith, nor did they aim to subvert the clerical establishment. Indeed, promotion of Islam and glorification of the ʿulamāʾ were a common theme emphasized in the government’s communication and negotiations with its adversaries. Time and again the ʿulamāʾ were assured that the government was as concerned about Islamic piety as themselves. Equally important was the tact with which the government carried out its plans, especially in its negotiations with the ʿulamāʾ. The role played by Hedāyat, Teymūrtāsh, and the Iranian consulate in Najaf is particularly noteworthy.
To be sure, Reza Shah’s reforms had a cataclysmic impact on the ʿulamāʾ and the clerical institution. However, an unintended consequence of the reforms, one that neither the shah nor the Shia ʿulamāʾ could anticipate, was to spur modernization of the clerical establishment and its younger generation. Not only did many clerics join the modern institutions founded through Reza Shah’s reforms (such as the Institute for Religious Sermon and Preaching, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Education, College of Theology), the seminary system also underwent modernization as it reformed the centuries-old institution and adopted new methods of instruction. Though both the content and method of instruction remained largely “traditional,” neither was immune to “modern” influences. The reorganization of the Qom seminary system under Grand Ayatollah Borūjerdī could not have come about without modernization of Iranian society during the Pahlavi era.Footnote 128 Be that as it may, the fact remains that the secular reform did not decimate religious learning and its foremost institution, the madrasa. There is reason to doubt the report that after the death of Ḥāʾerī “all madrasas of Tehran, Mashhad, and Esfahan were closed down by the government.”Footnote 129 Independent reports give evidence about the resilience of the clerical establishment, such as the revival of the Mashhad seminary system under Mīrzā Mahdī Eṣfahānī.Footnote 130 Furthermore, after the 1935 massacre at the Gowharshād Mosque in Mashhad, Mīrzā Aḥmad, son of Ᾱkhūnd Khorāsānī, took over the Soleymān Khān Madrasa in that city to ensure that it would continue its activities.Footnote 131 Likewise, empirical evidence casts doubt on the speculation that the “position of the ulama seems bound to continue in general decline as literacy, secular schools, and scientific education spread.”Footnote 132 The triumphant Iranian Revolution of 1979 indicates that the ʿulamāʾ were even more powerful after the massive secularization under Reza Shah and his successor Mohammad Reza. If anything, the real threat to the authority of the Shia ʿulamāʾ of Iran has not stemmed from secularization, but ironically from an Islamic government that has encroached on independent civil institutions, including the seminary system.
