Bazaaris

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  • Beginning in the 19th century, the Qajar dynasty found itself in a precarious situation due to an increasing foreign presence in Iran. 
  • Reeling from devastating losses against the Russian Empire in 1813 and 1828 as well as the British Empire in 1857 the Qajar government forced to grant countless concessions to these foreign powers,  
  • Iranian bazaaris (merchants) were left in a highly vulnerable position as they couldn’t compete with the numerous economic advantages gained by foreign merchants.

• Iranians in the capital of Tehran refused to smoke tobacco and this collective response spread to neighboring provinces. In a show of solidarity, Iranian merchants responded by shutting down the main bazaars throughout the country. As the tobacco boycott grew larger, Nasir al-Din Shah and Prime Minister Amin al-Sultan found themselves powerless to stop the popular movement.
• As a result of the tobacco movement, the clergy (ulema) firmly established not only their religious legitimacy but also their political legitimacy. 

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  • Furthermore their alliance with the bazaaris (merchants) proved to be a resounding success. 
  • From 1892 onwards the clergy were seen as defending the interests of the common individual while the shah was portrayed as placing his own personal benefit ahead of the welfare of the Iranian population. This was the turning point for defending the unrepresented majority. 
  
  

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  • 1951: Mossadegh named prime minister;
  • 1953: Mossadegh falls in coup d’etat.
  • Refused to form a party, and after elections entered the parliament officially as a member for Tehran. His platform called for adoption ot a “negative equilibrium,” the playing of Russia and Britian against each other, at times looking for support from a “third force,” such as Germany, France, or the United States.
  • In order to prevent a return to dictatorship (of Reza Shah) he called for the transfer of the armed forces from the control of the Shah to the Cabinet.
  • He was also the first Middle Eastern leader to cr eate a vast following by using the radio; tens of thousands if Iranians poured into the street when he summoned them.
  • His passionate belief that his country had been exploited by the British, and his unwillingness to compromise; 
  • French-educated nationalist; 
  • Became Prime Minister in 1951;
  • Nationalized Anglo-Iranian Oil Company; 
  • Removed from power in 1953.
  
  

The Jaleh Square Massacre 

Black Friday is the name given to September 8, 1978) and the shooting of protestors by security forces in Jaleh when the Iranian government declared Martial Law. The deaths and the reaction to them has been described as a pivotal event in the Iranian Revolution when any "hope for compromise" between the protest movement and the Shah's regime was extinguished.

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  • Demonstrations continued after 8 September.
  • In October, the first of the strikes in the public sector occurred. 
  • By November, workers in the oil industry, the customs department, the post office, government factories, banks and newspapers were on strike,
  
  

Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. was the mastermind of the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Operation Ajax, which orchestrated the coup against Iran's democratically-elected Mohammed Mossadegh administration, and returned Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, to Iran's Peacock Throne in August 1953 for the purpose of returning Western control of Middle Eastern oil supplies.

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  • December of 1891: a fatwa by the most important religious authority in Iran, marja-i taqlid Mirza Hasan Shirazi.
  • He declared the use of tobacco to be tantamount to war against the Hidden Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi. 
  • The reference to the Hidden Imam, a critical person in Shia Islam, meant that Shirazi was using the strongest possible language to oppose the monopoly.
  • Fatwa’s attribution to Shirazi commanded the respect and obedience of Muslims throughout Iran. 

After a short exile in Italy, the CIA completed the coup against Mossadegh, and returned Shah to Iran. Gen. Zahedi replaced the deposed Prime Minister Mosaddegh, who was arrested, tried, and originally sentenced to death. Mosaddegh's sentence was commuted to three years' solitary confinement in a military prison, followed by house arrest until his death. As part of that, the CIA organized anti-Communist guerrillas to fight the Tudeh Party if they seized power in the chaos of Operation Ajax.

Operation Ajax's formal leader was senior CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., while career agent Donald Wilber was the operational leader, planner, and executor of the deposition of PM Mosaddegh. The CIA sent Major general Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr. to persuade the exiled Shah to return to rule Iran. Schwarzkopf trained the security forces that would become known as SAVAK to secure the shah's hold on power.

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  • Agreed with Mossadegh only on what they did not want -- manipulation by foreigners and foreign control of Iran’s wealth. 
  • Otherwise Kashani was interested in restoring the role of Islamic law and in Pan-Islamic interests, including what he saw as the shared Muslim interests in recovering Palestine from Zionism.  
  • After a fallout, Kashani turned against Mossadegh. who thought and Regarded Kashani as an intellectually shallow, crowd-pleasing mullah.
  • But recognized that, as a group, mullahs benefited from the existence of a few politically active mullahs.
  
  

Erfan

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  • Erfan: the destruction of the distinction between subject and object (an experience of the world in which seer and seen are one).
  • Teachers of erfan seek to impart to their students a sense of the fearlessness toward everything external, including all the seemingly coercive political powers of the world.
  • Played an important role in creating the political style of the two most political Iranian religious figures of the last two centuries, Jamal ad-Din (al-Afghani, or “the Afghan”) and Ruhollah Khomeini.

Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (Kinzer)

• was founded in 1908 following the discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleiman, Iran. It was the first company using the oil reserves of the Middle East.
• negotiated an oil concession with the Shah Mozzafar al-Din Shah Qajar of Persia. He assumed exclusive rights to prospect for oil for 60 years in a vast tract of territory including most of Iran.
• By 1953 both the US and the UK both had new, more anti-communist and more interventionist administrations. The United States no longer opposed intervention in Iran. Britain was unable to subvert Mossadegh as its embassy and officials had been evicted from Iran in October 1952, but successfully appealed in the U.S. to anti-communist sentiments, depicting both Mossadegh and Iran as unstable and likely to fall to communism in their weakened state.
• If Iran fell, the "enormous assets" of "Iranian oil production and reserves" would fall into Communist control, as would "in short order the other areas of the Middle East".
• The shah issued an edict removing Mosaddeq from power and General Fazlollah Zahedi, led tanks to Mosaddeq's residence overthrowing him from office.
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    • 1953:The Shah obligingly signed very favorable terms to split oil revenue with the US and Great Britain.

The 1964 (diplomatic) immunity bill

The Iranian government, at the request of the U.S, asked the parliament to approve a bill giving American military advisers, their support staffs, and their families diplomatic immunity. 

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  • “Does the Iranian nation know what has happened in recent days in the Assembly? Does it know what crime has occurred surreptitiously and without the knowledge of the nation? Does it know that the Assembly, at the initiative of the government, has signed the document of the enslavement of Iran?” (Bold added.)
  • The bill passed by 74-61.  
  • Khomeini on the immunity bill (the sermon distributed throughout Iran on cassettes and in clandestinely printed leaflets):
  • “If the Shah should run over an American dog, he would be called to account but if an American cook should run over the Shah, no one has any claims against him.”
  
  

The Majles

• The Iranian Parliament or People's House, is the national legislative body of Iran.

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  • In July 16, 1909, the Majles voted to place Mohammad Ali Shah's 11 year old son, Ahmad Shah on the throne.
  • After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the Senate was abolished and the Iranian legislature thus became unicameral. In the 1989 revision of the constitution, the National Consultative Assembly became the Islamic Consultative Assembly.
  • Over its history the Parliament is said to have evolved from being "a debating chamber for notables," to "a club for the shah's placemen" during the Pahlavi era, to a body dominated by members of "the propertied middle class" under the Islamic Republic.

Talib (Majd)

the role of the media. What is it doing to their religion 

confessions sent to the mullah’s over the internet. 

Taghiyeh (Majd) 

Nothing, you better fill this one out !

Taghiyeh (Majd) 

• Taqiyyah has no place in Sunni Islam. Within the Shia theological framework,[1] the concept of taqiyya refers to a dispensation allowing believers to conceal their faith when under threat, persecution or compulsion.[3] ‘
• Pg. 59 Ayatollah can lie on behalf of his people to protect the shia community. “in theory.” supreme of leader of iran is the grand ayatollah. 

Ta’arouf (Majd)

Iranians love poetry; they love music; they love socially showing off. And in some cases, ta'arouf is about a political advantage: if you can ta'arouf well, you're given big, big marks. Ta'arouf allows people to criticize other people without being rude; and Iranians are very much into polite society. 

- “It’s a way to criticize people without being rude.” Stephanie Hetland

• Pride and Humility
• Questrion of superiority 

Qajar dynastyQajar dynasty