Iran: American Historical Review (1991) (original) (raw)

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 129.174.33.13 on Thu, 22 Oct 2015 18:12:53 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Iran SHAUL BAKHASH THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION OF 1979 not only generated its own controversies among historians but also brought into sharper focus earlier debates on issues in nineteenth and twentieth-century Iranian history. The literature on the history of Iran over the last two centuries is not extensive. Archival and documentary sources are limited, particularly for the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries, and the scholars who have worked in the field are few. Thus the critical mass of scholars and studies necessary to give rise to meaningful controversies among historians, or to generate new research once problems have been identified, has generally been lacking. Even when scholars have differed on the interpretation of the data, they have not often used articles in scholarly journals to address these differences directly. Nevertheless, a number of interesting issues have emerged, some of which this article will examine: the political implications of the Shi'i doctrine of the state and the role of the Shi'i ulama, or religious leaders, in the great political movements of the last two centuries; those who suffered or benefited from economic development since the mid-nineteenth century and the overall impact of economic modernization on Iranian society; and the causes of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Many historians have noted the prominence of the ulama in major movements of political protest since the nineteenth century, including the tobacco protest movement of 1890-1891, the constitutional revolution of 1905-1911, the oil nationalization crisis of 1951-1953, the uprising ignited by the arrest of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in June 1963, and the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In a much-cited article, Ann K. S. Lambton, a historian who has written extensively on aspects of institutional and social history, the structure of the state, and political thought in Iran in the Islamic period, ascribed this oppositional role of the Shi'i ulama at least in part to the Twelver Shi'i doctrine of the state and the related doctrine of the Hidden Imam.' Twelver Shi'ism-the form of Shi'ism dominant in Iran-holds that the leadership of the community passed from the Prophet Muhammad to a series of infallible imams, the twelfth of whom, the Mahdi, removed himself from this world in the ninth century. The Hidden Imam (or the Lord of the Age, as he is also known) will return in the fullness of time to establish the government of truth and justice. Shi'i jurists also held that during the absence I would like to thank my colleague, Jack R. Censer, who read and commented on an earlier version of this article. I Ann K. S. Lambton, "Quis Custodiet Custodes: Some Reflections on the Persian Theory of Government," Studia islamica, 5 (1956): 125-48; and 6 (1956): 125-46. 1479 This content downloaded from 129.174.33.13 on Thu, 22 Oct 2015 18:12:53 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1480 Shaul Bakhash