Persian Constitutional Revolution
The Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1911 was the first mass revolutionary movement in modern Iranian history. It grew from a historically unprecedented alliance between the Shia ulema, who supplied legitimacy and crowd mobilisation, and the Tehran bazaari merchant class, who supplied financing — both united by resentment of the Qajar court's ruinous concessions of the economy to British and Russian capital, such as the Reuter and D'Arcy concessions. Mass protests and a great sanctuary (bast) in 1906 forced Mozaffar al-Din Shah to grant a constitution and convene the first Majles (national assembly). The settlement immediately fractured over the meaning of constitutionalism: the cleric Sheikh Fazlullah Nuri insisted sovereignty belonged to God through the Sharia and the clergy, while secular liberals argued for popular sovereignty — a theological fault line that would recur with the same actors in 1979. The revolution survived royalist counter-coups (the 1908 bombardment of the Majles, the Tabriz resistance led from Azerbaijan) before being curtailed by Russian intervention in 1911. It permanently established constitutionalism as a reference point in Iranian politics.
- Year: 1905 CE
- Category: Political
