The Iranian Ulema and the Ottoman Empire during the Iranian Constitutional Movement (1906-1911)
San Francesco Complex, 21 June 2019 10:00 am
Speaker: Denis Hermann – Institut Français de Recherche en Iran
In Qajar Iran such as the Ottoman empire, one of the main reformist ideas that emerged in the XIXth century and whose experimentation was the source of extreme tensions and political struggles was the constitutionalist idea as a corollary of the necessary consultation (mashvīrat) of subjects. To varying degrees, the reformist actors thought constitutionalism and parliamentarism as an unavoidable condition for rethinking relations between subjects and sovereigns, and rationalizing the political, economic, fiscal and military institutions. This political project would allow its defenders to fight against internal and external tyranny, and thus escape the absorption by the West perceived as possibly imminent and total.
Convincing that more research on this relationship between Qajar Iran and the Ottoman Empire during the modern period are necessary I will insist here on the complex relationship between the Iranian Ulema (pro and anti-constitutionalists) and the Ottoman Empire during the Iranian constitutional movement of 1906-1911.