Iran: Empire of the Mind (29 page)

Eighteenth-century Persia was not just a place of massacre and misery. Many, if not most places away from the major towns and cities probably continued in relative tranquillity for most of the period. And other developments were at work; changes in Shi‘a theology and in the religious–social structure of Shi‘ism that were to have crucial importance in the longer term. The old argument between tradition and reason, which had rolled back and forth in a Sunni context between the Mu’tazilis and their opponents in the time of the Abbasids, resurfaced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in a different form, in a dispute between what came to be called the Akhbari and Usuli schools that was not to be resolved finally until the nineteenth century. The Akhbaris asserted that ordinary Muslims should read and interpret the holy texts for themselves, without the need for intermediaries. The traditions (hadith)—especially the traditions of the Shi‘a Emams—were the best guide. The Usulis rejected this doctrine, saying that authoritative interpretation (
ijtihad
) on the basis of reason was necessary; and required extended scholarly training, which could only be achieved by specially talented scholars among the ulema, called
mojtaheds
. Almost all areas of human conduct were open to
ijtihad
(the Akhbaris had taken the view that disputes that could not be resolved by the precedents in the holy texts would have to be referred to the secular powers).

The Usulis eventually won the argument, thanks largely to the leadership of the great mojtahed Aqa Mohammad Baqer Behbehani (1706-1790), though the Akhbaris, whose views were closer to the orthodoxy of Sunnism,
had a moment of near-triumph during the reign of Nader Shah, supported by Nader’s ambiguous but broadly pro-Sunni policy.
²⁵
The dispute was not fully resolved until the early Qajar period. In time a theory of interpretation and a hierarchy developed on this basis. Each Shi‘a Muslim had to have a
marja-e taqlid,
an ‘object of emulation’ or religious role model. This had to be a living person, a mojtahed. In practice this meant one or two of just a few mojtaheds in each generation, and helped to create a hierarchy of mojtaheds, the senior, more authoritative among whom were later given more exalted titles:
hojjatoleslam
(proof of Islam)
, ayatollah
(sign of God) and later still, grand ayatollah (as in other contexts, competition for the titles produced a kind of inflation;
²⁶
more people acquired the original titles, so new, more elevated ones had to be invented).

In this way a religion that formally still asserted the illegitimacy of all authority on earth, in the absence of the hidden Emam, paradoxically came to give a few religious scholars great potential power. This power eventually came to flex its muscles not just in religion but also in politics. The position of the ulema was further strengthened by the fact that the leading marjas often lived in Najaf or Karbala in Ottoman Iraq, beyond the reach of the Persian authorities. Shi‘ism acquired a hierarchical structure, comparable to those of the Christian churches, but markedly different from the less hierarchical arrangements of Judaism and Sunni Islam. The combination of beliefs, in the illegitimacy of secular authority, in the righteousness of the oppressed, and in the legitimacy of an organised hierarchy of clerics, looks with the benefit of hindsight like a recipe for eventual religious revolution.

There was—is—a further important element in this religious culture: the various manifestations of popular Shi‘ism, including most importantly the Ashura processions and the
ta’zieh
. Every year, on the anniversary of the martyrdom of the Emam Hosein at Karbala, Shi‘a Muslims in Iran and elsewhere take part in processions through towns and villages to commemorate the bitter events of that day. The best way to think of these is as re-enacted funeral processions, in which devotion to and identification with the martyrs of Karbala is as vivid and strong as the feeling for the dead at a real funeral. Bazaar guilds and strongmen from
the
zur-khaneh
(the house of strength—traditional associations of men who gather to build their fitness through juggling heavy clubs, wrestling and other sweaty pursuits—but often with religious overtones) compete to display their devotion and grief. Some carry large, heavy symbolic coffins representing the coffin of Hosein, and huge multi-pointed symbolic banners representing his war-standard, and others beat themselves with chains. Some also cut their heads with swords, but this is an excess that has been increasingly frowned on by the religious authorities. The Ashura demonstrations build a collective sense of grief, bitterness, injustice and guilt (the last from the failure of the Kufans to save Hosein), reliving emotionally the grim events of Karbala. Western news media find images of these processions irresistible when they need to illustrate accounts of Shi‘a religious fanaticism, but the emotions of grief and guilt, and the symbolic representations of suffering (even the blood in some cases) are strikingly similar to those in traditional Good Friday processions in many Catholic countries in Europe and elsewhere. It would be possible to interleave film sequences of both in such a way that the gloom, tears and intensity of the participants would be almost indistinguishable.

The ta’zieh is a form of religious street theatre, unique in the Islamic world (but similar in spirit and function to the religious mystery plays of Medieval Europe). Again, the usual theme is Karbala, but the performance may focus on different aspects of the drama. The performers recite familiar lines describing the action and the audience may join in. Again, those watching experience and show tears and intense emotion. The ta’zieh normally occurs in the month of Moharram and Ashura, but
rowzeh-khans
(preachers) used to recite unperformed versions at any time of the year. Through the nineteenth century many eminent Iranians erected buildings, as acts of piety, to house the ta’zieh performances. Previously they had taken place in tents or impromptu at street-corners.
²⁷

All these manifestations have served to remind Shi‘a Muslims of the central events of their religion, but also to reinforce a commitment to collective religious feeling, around a sense of injustice that may readily express a transferred sense of social injustice that many more or less oppressed and downtrodden communities of Shi‘as have felt at different
times and places. The emotions and the custom of street processions may serve as a kind of precedent or template for collective action and collective solidarity, as has appeared at several points in Iranian history.

But to characterise the grief of Ashura as a kind of training-ground or launch pad for street demonstrations or even mob violence (notwithstanding that has happened, in exceptional circumstances) would be a gross distortion. The more normal association in Shi‘ism is with passive melancholy, modesty, a belief in the righteousness of humble self-sacrifice, and in the virtue of quietly doing good in adverse circumstances.

The eighteenth century in the Islamic world (the concept itself is questionable—in Islamic terms we are talking mainly about the twelfth century, though the centuries do not exactly correspond in the two calendars) has often been depicted as a period of decline and decadence. It is easy to see why that was the case—the Ottoman empire lost territory, the Safavid monarchy collapsed, and so did the Moghul dynasty, ushering in the period of European colonial dominance. These are facts that cannot be gainsaid. But there were important signs of change, development and vigour in the Islamic world too, that have often been overlooked; some of which were significant in their own right, others that contained the seeds of major future developments. We have already looked at the importance of the reign of Nader Shah (its significance emerges more fully in the light of the Persian/Russian wars of 1804-1828). The Akhbari/Usuli dispute and its outcome were important for the future development of the Shi‘a ulema in Iran, and the Iranian revolutions of the twentieth century cannot be properly understood without them.

There were other significant developments in the Islamic world in this period—notably the rise of Wahhabism in Arabia. This was a truly fundamentalist movement within Sunnism, deeply hostile to Sufism, Shi‘ism, any real or apparent kind of departure from monotheism, and any form of what it called ‘innovation’—all of which it considered heretical (according to some accounts
²⁸
the movement’s founder, Abd al-Wahhab, studied for a time in Isfahan, though this must be doubtful). It insisted on a return to what its exponents considered to be the earliest principles of Islam, as exemplified by Mohammad himself and his earliest converts. In alliance
with the Al-Saud family, Wahhabism made progress in Arabia until the early nineteenth century, destroying shrines and tombs in their fervour, and sacking Karbala itself in 1802; a deep shock and insult to Shi‘a Muslims. By 1818 Ottoman forces had defeated the Al-Saud and reasserted their control of the Arabian peninsula and the holy places. But the Al-Saud and the Wahhabis returned to take control of most of the Arabian peninsula in the twentieth century.

Fig. 10. Fath Ali Shah, whose reign was one of recovery for much of Persia, but was marred by the loss of territory to the Russians in the Caucasus and the general encroachment of European powers on Persian sovereignty.

Fath Ali Shah

After the death of Agha Mohammad Shah, Persia could again have slid into chaos and civil war, as had happened after the death of Karim Khan Zand. That this did not occur was largely due to the foresight of Agha Mohammad Shah in the 1780s and after, resolving feuds within the Qajar tribe, and preparing the succession for his nephew Fath Ali Khan, and for Fath Ali Khan’s son Abbas Mirza.
²⁹
There were some disturbances in Azerbaijan, and Fath Ali marched to assert his authority. He defeated his enemies near Qazvin, and went on to punish the old Shah’s murderers and have Agha Mohammad’s body buried in Najaf. He then had himself crowned, on 21 March 1798, the feast of Noruz, the New Year.

Fath Ali Shah has some prominence in the history of Iran, for a variety of contingent and unrelated reasons. One is that it was during his reign that Europeans suddenly began travelling to and reporting back
from Persia in larger numbers, and as state representatives operating out of diplomatic missions. This was because his reign coincided with the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, and the European powers were reaching out in competition with each other to find new allies. Another reason is that Fath Ali Shah encouraged a new wave of portrait-painting, the favourite subject of which was himself, resplendent with waist-long black beard and spangled from arms to belt to crown with jewels. So a wealth of arresting images of him have survived to the present day. Unlike his uncle and other predecessors like Karim Khan Zand and Nader Shah, Fath Ali Shah loved magnificence. A further claim to fame was his prodigious fathering of children—it has been calculated that he had by the end of his reign a total of 260 sons by 158 wives. Finally, he reigned for a relatively long time—thirty-seven years—and from that fact alone he later symbolised an era.

Some of these factors have combined to give a broadly negative impression of Fath Ali Shah that may not be wholly justified. Many of the Europeans who reported back about Persia at his time made invidious and sometimes ignorant and prejudiced comparisons between Persia and Europe. Many of them did not fully realise the degree of the trauma and destruction Persia had suffered over the previous century, nor the very different nature of state and government in Persia. The other, inescapable fact was that Persia lost large swathes of valuable territory in the Caucasus to the Russians during the reign of Fath Ali Shah, and the performance of his armies in the wars he fought against the Russians was poor for the most part.

But from another perspective Fath Ali Shah’s reign looks more successful. Building on his uncle’s achievements, he avoided serious civil war (no small thing in itself), and his reign saw a modest renewal of economic activity and prosperity. Persia lost territory, but preserved her independence and kept the bulk of her lands free from warfare in a dangerous and destructive period of international conflict. It could have been worse. Sir John Malcolm, probably the most knowledgeable and balanced foreign observer of Persia at this time, wrote in 1814:

Fortunately Persia is at present happier and more tranquil than it has been for a long period; and its reigning monarch, who has already occupied the throne seventeen years, by the comparative mildness and justice of his rule has already entitled himself to a high rank among the Kings of Persia.
³⁰

Encounter with the West: Diplomacy and War