Attempts at Constitutionalization in Iran
Encyclopedia
The Iranian Constitutional Revolution
Iranian Constitutional Revolution
The Persian Constitutional Revolution or Iranian Constitutional Revolution took place between 1905 and 1907...

 was a short-lived push for democratic rule
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

 in the form of a constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...

 within a highly elitist yet decentralized society under the Qajars
Qajar dynasty
The Qajar dynasty was an Iranian royal family of Turkic descent who ruled Persia from 1785 to 1925....

. The mounting disgust amidst the clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....

, bazaar
Bazaar
A bazaar , Cypriot Greek: pantopoula) is a permanent merchandising area, marketplace, or street of shops where goods and services are exchanged or sold. The term is sometimes also used to refer to the "network of merchants, bankers and craftsmen" who work that area...

is, farmer
Farmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...

s, intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...

s, and other segments of the populace with respect to the Shah(s)’ policies during the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century illustrates a classic example of an environment ripe for protest
Protest
A protest is an expression of objection, by words or by actions, to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations...

, as a wide array of people in society felt an increasing need to express their grievances with an oppressive and largely autocratic
Autocracy
An autocracy is a form of government in which one person is the supreme power within the state. It is derived from the Greek : and , and may be translated as "one who rules by himself". It is distinct from oligarchy and democracy...

 government.

Foundation and causes

While no concrete date has been agreed upon with respect to the origins of the Constitutional Revolution itself, the seeds for revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...

 were sown with increasing foreign influence within the country (namely British and Russian influence) during the 19th century. Various concessions
Concession (contract)
A concession is a business operated under a contract or license associated with a degree of exclusivity in business within a certain geographical area. For example, sports arenas or public parks may have concession stands. Many department stores contain numerous concessions operated by other...

 granted to foreign powers by the Shah(s) ranging from capitulation
Capitulation (surrender)
Capitulation , an agreement in time of war for the surrender to a hostile armed force of a particular body of troops, a town or a territory....

s to the Reuters Concession of 1872 created contempt and distrust amidst the clergy, bazaaris and merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...

s amongst others, but none proved more inflammatory than the Tobacco Règie of 1890, in which the Shah granted Britain a monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...

 over the production, sale, and export of all Iranian tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

.

Despite initially being kept secret, the agreement for the Tobacco Règie was eventually leaked and criticized through a series of articles published in late 1890 by a Persian newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 in Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

, the capital of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

. The agreement sparked unprecedented protest due to tobacco being a widely grown product within Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

 that provided the livelihood for many landholders, shopkeeper
Shopkeeper
A shopkeeper is an individual who owns a shop. Generally, shop employees are not shopkeepers, but are often incorrectly referred to as shopkeepers. Today, a shopkeeper is usually referred to as a manager, though this term could apply to larger firms .*In many south asian languages like Hindi, Urdu,...

s, and exporters. Moreover, the clergy viewed it as fundamentally violating Islamic law
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

 as Iranian consumer
Consumer
Consumer is a broad label for any individuals or households that use goods generated within the economy. The concept of a consumer occurs in different contexts, so that the usage and significance of the term may vary.-Economics and marketing:...

s and merchants were being implicitly coerced into buying and selling tobacco from and to the monopoly. The clergy’s loathing of the Règie led to a coalition of massive protests led by the ulama
Ulama
-In Islam:* Ulema, also transliterated "ulama", a community of legal scholars of Islam and its laws . See:**Nahdlatul Ulama **Darul-uloom Nadwatul Ulama **Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal**Jamiat ul-Ulama -Other:...

 (clergy) in the form of a tobacco boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...

 as well as street demonstrations. The government reacted by shooting into a non-violent crowd, resulting in even greater protests and culminating in the concession eventually being cancelled in 1892. The fiasco left more than a bad taste in the mouths of the citizenry; the Tobacco Règie resulted in several deaths as well as a debt of 500,000 pounds to the British.

Aftermath of the Tobacco Règie and economic downturn

In the aftermath of the botched Tobacco Règie, political instability reached a new apex with the assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...

 of Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar in 1896. Despite some beliefs that the largely, if not entirely, autocratic, corrupt rule imposed by the Shah would end with his death, capitulations and concessions continued under Muzaffar al-Din Shah. The failure of the Tobacco Règie worked to decrease the perceived stranglehold the British had on the region with respect to the other foreign powers, which led to the growing influence of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n interests and new concessions granted to the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

.

The role of foreign influence in Iran (then Persia) may have changed slightly following 1892, but the dynamics of Iran’s domestic front remained severely bleak. A government now thoroughly in debt
Debt
A debt is an obligation owed by one party to a second party, the creditor; usually this refers to assets granted by the creditor to the debtor, but the term can also be used metaphorically to cover moral obligations and other interactions not based on economic value.A debt is created when a...

 was spending its increasingly meager revenues (due to harsher, more detrimental concessions allotted to foreign powers) to pay for the Shah’s luxurious lifestyle and needlessly expensive trips to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, both of which required more loan
Loan
A loan is a type of debt. Like all debt instruments, a loan entails the redistribution of financial assets over time, between the lender and the borrower....

s when the revenues ran short of the Shah’s expenses. An already bankrupt government had become wholly dependent on foreign loans as the call for political reform became more and more prevalent. Inflation
Inflation
In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...

 caused by a cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...

 epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...

, a bad harvest, and the disruption in trade caused by the 1905 Russo-Japanese War
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...

 resulted in rapid price increases of vital goods such as bread and sugar, furthering the cries for reform.

First protests

In 1905 protests broke out over the collection of Iranian tariff
Tariff
A tariff may be either tax on imports or exports , or a list or schedule of prices for such things as rail service, bus routes, and electrical usage ....

s to pay back the Russian loan for Mozzafar-al-Din Shah's royal tour. In December 1905, two Persian merchants were punished in Tehran
Tehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...

 for charging exorbitant prices. They were bastinadoed (a humiliating and very painful punishment where the soles of one's feet are caned) in public. An uprising of the merchant class in Tehran ensued, with merchants closing the bazaar. The clergy following suit as a result of the alliance formed in the 1892 Tobacco Rebellion.

The two protesting groups sought sanctuary in a mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...

 in Tehran, but the government violated this sanctuary and entered the mosque and dispersed the group. This violation of the sanctity of the mosque created an even larger movement which sought refuge in a shrine
Shrine
A shrine is a holy or sacred place, which is dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon or similar figure of awe and respect, at which they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated....

 outside Tehran. On January 12, 1906 the Shah capitulated to the demonstrators, agreeing to dismiss his prime minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...

 and to surrender power to a new "house of justice," (the forerunner to the parliament). The Basti - protestors who take sanctuary in mosques - returned from the mosque in triumph riding royal carriages and hailed by a jubilant crowd.

In a scuffle in early 1906 the government killed a seyyed (descendant of the Prophet Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

). A more deadly skirmish followed a short time later when the government’s Cossack Brigade
Cossack Brigade
Cossack Brigade can refer to:* a military brigade composed of Cossacks* Free Cossack Brigade of Vadim Yakovlev* Persian Cossack Brigade of Vsevolod Lyakhov...

 killed 22 protesters and injured 100. The bazaar again closed and the ulema went on strike, a large number of them taking sanctuary in the holy city Qom
Qom
Qom is a city in Iran. It lies by road southwest of Tehran and is the capital of Qom Province. At the 2006 census, its population was 957,496, in 241,827 families. It is situated on the banks of the Qom River....

. Many merchants went to the British embassy which agreed to offer protection to Basti in the grounds of their legation.

The Constitution

The revolution formally began in August 1906, when Muzaffar al-Din Shah signed a royal decree which called for the election of a Constituent Assembly, known as “Constitution Day
Constitution Day
Constitution Day is a holiday to honor the constitution of a country. Constitution Day is often celebrated on the anniversary of the signing, promulgation or adoption of the constitution, or in some cases, to commemorate the change to constitutional monarchy:...

” in contemporary Iran. Preceded by protests headed by the three most respected mojtaheds in Tehran, Sayyed Abdallah Behbehani, Sayyed Muhammad Tabatabai, and Sheikh Fazlollah Noori
Sheikh Fazlollah Noori
Sheikh Fazlollah Noori was a prominent Shiite Muslim cleric in Iran during the late 19th and early 20th century who fought against the Iranian Constitutional Revolution and was executed for treason as a result...

, the call for a constitution was triggered by the Qajar government’s poor response to economic upheaval (marked by government debt
Government debt
Government debt is money owed by a central government. In the US, "government debt" may also refer to the debt of a municipal or local government...

 and high levels of inflation). Increasingly negative perceptions of the impact of Western countries led to increasing resentment amidst the Iranian citizenry, which in turn galvanized support in favor of a written constitution which would in turn allow for a means to check the Shah’s power in the form of a legislature
Legislature
A legislature is a kind of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend, and repeal laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise or lower taxes and adopt the budget and...

.

The Constituent Assembly, a group of delegates composed mainly of merchants, clerics, guild elders, and liberal notables, drafted the electoral law based on six classes (tabaqats) of the population, namely, Qajar princes, ulama and seminary
Seminary
A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...

 students, nobles (a’yan) and notables (ashraf), well-established merchants, landowners with property of a certain minimum value, and guildsmen with a certain amount of income. It should be noted that many professions of a lower socio-economic status, such as porter
Porter (carrier)
A porter, also called a bearer, is a person who shifts objects for others.-Historical meaning:Human adaptability and flexibility early led to the use of humans for shifting gear...

s, laborer
Laborer
A Laborer or labourer - see variation in english spelling - is one of the construction trades, traditionally considered unskilled manual labor, as opposed to skilled labor. In the division of labor, laborers have all blasting, hand tools, power tools, air tools, and small heavy equipment, and act...

s, and camel
Camel
A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...

 drivers, were excluded, and that the middle class guilds (who often chose members of the ulama as their representatives) were the dominant group with respect to electoral representation.

The law then said that the electorate
Electorate
Electorate may refer to:* voters, people entitled to vote in an election* electoral district or constituency, the geographic area of a particular election* The dominion of a Prince-elector in the Holy Roman Empire...

 was to be divided up into 156 constituencies, with 96 seats allocated to Tehran, displaying a disproportionate amount of representation in the city. Candidates had to be fluent in Persian (the fact that many people in Persia did not speak Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

 made this a select group in itself), at least 25 years of age, and male, all of which in turn narrowed down the list of candidates and continued to detract from the notion of “democratic representation” through the Majles. It was also mandatory that all government officials must be Shi’a Muslims
Shi'a Islam
Shia Islam is the second largest denomination of Islam. The followers of Shia Islam are called Shi'ites or Shias. "Shia" is the short form of the historic phrase Shīʻatu ʻAlī , meaning "followers of Ali", "faction of Ali", or "party of Ali".Like other schools of thought in Islam, Shia Islam is...

 and that no law passed by the Majlis could be contradictory to Islamic Law (Shari'a).

The first Majles, or National Assembly, opened in October 1906, and consisted of more than sixty bazaaris, twenty-five clerics, and fifty landlord
Landlord
A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant . When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner...

s and notables, all of whom eventually divided into two parties called the Moderates (Mo’tadel) and the Liberals (Azadikhah).

The Majles was meant to be an integral part of the new constitution
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...

, as it was to have final say over various laws, decrees, budget
Budget
A budget is a financial plan and a list of all planned expenses and revenues. It is a plan for saving, borrowing and spending. A budget is an important concept in microeconomics, which uses a budget line to illustrate the trade-offs between two or more goods...

s and concessions, while holding the authority to select cabinet ministers. Civil rights under the Majles were to be guaranteed to all citizens. Despite all of these intentions, and regardless of any role the Majles could have played within the Qajar government under pressure from the citizenry, the Constitutional Revolution began to weaken as quickly as it had begun.

1908 coup

Despite optimistic beginnings given the level of pressure exhibited by the population through protests and demonstrations, by June 1908 the successor to Muzaffar al-Din Shah, Muhammad Ali Shah Qajar felt politically strong enough to lead a military coup against the Majles, due to three factors. The first of these was the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, the second being the Majles’ attempts to reform the tax
Tax
To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law. Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...

 system and the third being a series of secular reforms proposed by certain Liberals.
The beginning of the end of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution lay in the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, which was a defensive mechanism used by Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 to check Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

’s growing power in the region and in Europe by appeasing Russia (Iran was partitioned into three parts, with the north being given to Russia, the southwest to Britain and the rest to remain a neutral buffer zone
Buffer zone
A buffer zone is generally a zonal area that lies between two or more other areas , but depending on the type of buffer zone, the reason for it may be to segregate regions or to conjoin them....

). This greatly hindered the efforts of the constitutionalists as Iran’s autonomy
Autonomy
Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...

 was negated completely, and became the first factor which allowed the Shah enough room to operate and largely crush nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

 rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...

.

The Majles’ attempts to reform the tax system further weakened the constitutionalists’ goals as the Majles sought to reform the tax system by taking authority away from local mostowfis (accountant
Accountant
An accountant is a practitioner of accountancy or accounting , which is the measurement, disclosure or provision of assurance about financial information that helps managers, investors, tax authorities and others make decisions about allocating resources.The Big Four auditors are the largest...

s) and giving it to the finance ministry, which in turn sparked hostility from the Shah and his supporters. The Shah’s hostile response stemmed mainly from the Majles’ proposal to decrease the funding of the court treasury
Treasury
A treasury is either*A government department related to finance and taxation.*A place where currency or precious items is/are kept....

, which led to the deterioration of palace stables, armories, kitchens, warehouses, kilns, harem
Harem
Harem refers to the sphere of women in what is usually a polygynous household and their enclosed quarters which are forbidden to men...

, and workshops, all of which contributed to forcing the Shah’s hand in an eventual series of coups. The third factor that enabled the Shah to force his hand was that certain Liberals’ proposed significant secular reforms and accused the clergy of acting within their own interests, leading Sheikh Fazlollah Nuri to break apart from his colleagues Sayyed Abdallah Behbehani and Sayyed Muhammad Tabatabai, and hold a rally accusing the Liberals of undermining religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

. Sheikh Fazlollah Nuri was the third senior Mojtahed in Tehran at the time, the same individual who had previously joined with Behbahani and Tabatabai at the Sanctuary in Qom in leading a series of massive protests which the trio against the Shah which the three threatened to spread to Karbala
Karbala
Karbala is a city in Iraq, located about southwest of Baghdad. Karbala is the capital of Karbala Governorate, and has an estimated population of 572,300 people ....

 and Najaf
Najaf
Najaf is a city in Iraq about 160 km south of Baghdad. Its estimated population in 2008 is 560,000 people. It is the capital of Najaf Governorate...

, leading to a virtual religious strike throughout Iran. The protests in Qom were essential to paving the way for Constitutional reform, which in turn made the fragmentation of support amongst the ulama that much more devastating when Nuri dissented from his colleagues, as his students inevitably followed his example of rebuilding a relationship with the Shah.
In June 1908, the Shah appointed the Cossack Brigade Commander, Colonel Liakhoff as the military governor of Tehran, at the same time bombarding the Majles building and placing Behbehani and Tabatabai under house arrest
House arrest
In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...

. In a series of two military coups (the first being a failure while the second achieved the Shah’s ends) many nationalist leaders were either arrested or executed. The Qajar monarchy
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...

 regained control over the government, maintaining only a limited form of the revolution’s reforms and new institutions.

Civil War and Legacy of the Revolution

Despite the submission of most of Iran to royalist
Royalist
A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of government, but not necessarily a particular monarch...

 forces under the Shah, the city of Tabriz
Tabriz
Tabriz is the fourth largest city and one of the historical capitals of Iran and the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. Situated at an altitude of 1,350 meters at the junction of the Quri River and Aji River, it was the second largest city in Iran until the late 1960s, one of its former...

 in northwestern Iran carried out a resistance against the Shah. Mojahedin (holy warriors) and Feda’iyan
Fedayeen
Fedayeen is a term used to describe several distinct militant groups and individuals in West Asia at different times in history. It is sometimes used colloquially to refer to suicide squads, especially those who are not bombers.-Overview:...

 (self-sacrificers), numbering approximately one thousand volunteers, joined forces with Muhammad Vali Sepahdar (the leading feudal nobleman in Mazanderan), who defected from helping the Shah’s forces retake Tabriz and was joined by not only his men but the Bakhtiyari tribes, some of whom were legitimately seeking political reform while others simply wanted control of the government themselves. The volunteers came from Iranian, Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

n, and Georgian
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

 communities and were organized by the Russian Social Democrats
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , also known as Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or Russian Social Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party...

, Armenian nationalist Dashnaks and Iranian Hemmat Party, all three of which were revolutionary groups who focused on Iran after the 1905 revolution in Russia had been put down. By July 1909, the resistance groups began to close in on Tehran and the Shah was forced into exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...

, having his son Ahmad become Shah under a regent
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...

.

Despite the convening of a second Majles, which had reformed electoral laws by creating a single class of voters, the government was still plagued by bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....

 and decentralization
Decentralization
__FORCETOC__Decentralization or decentralisation is the process of dispersing decision-making governance closer to the people and/or citizens. It includes the dispersal of administration or governance in sectors or areas like engineering, management science, political science, political economy,...

. Deeply distrustful of both Russia and the British, Iran consulted the U.S. government and brought in an American finance
Finance
"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...

 expert named Morgan Shuster
Morgan Shuster
William Morgan Shuster , American lawyer, civil servant, and publisher, who is best known as the treasurer-general of Persia by appointment of the Iranian parliament, or Majles, from May to December 1911.-Background:Shuster was born in Washington, DC and educated in the Columbian University and Law...

. Upon Morgan Shuster attempting to incorporate reforms which would enable more efficient tax collection with the help of an officer within the British Legation
Legation
A legation was the term used in diplomacy to denote a diplomatic representative office lower than an embassy. Where an embassy was headed by an Ambassador, a legation was headed by a Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary....

, Russia protested that use of a British officer in the above reforms was in direct violation of the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, which said that Russia would control any such officials in northern Iran. When Russia sent an ultimatum
Ultimatum
An ultimatum is a demand whose fulfillment is requested in a specified period of time and which is backed up by a threat to be followed through in case of noncompliance. An ultimatum is generally the final demand in a series of requests...

 calling for the removal of Shuster in 1911 and began to advance troops toward Tehran, the revolution had officially died.


Despite the Iranian Constitutional Revolution not having the long-term success the populace hoped that it would, the financial reforms of the pre-existing feudal system, as well as significant liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 in the political system, were byproducts of the constitutionalists’ efforts. The granting of greater civil jurisdiction in the courts, involvement of women in political demonstrations, and the future option of the Majles as a check against both domestic politics and foreign intrusion all remained after the revolution’s demise. Finally, both the Tobacco Movement and the Constitutional Revolution showcased the strength of the combined forces of Iran’s middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....

es (especially merchants) and the clergy. A near repeat of this configuration occurred, with greater success, in 1979.
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