Like Turkey, Iran was not a new state created by the Great Powers, but a country with a long historical and cultural tradition that went back thousands of years. As of 1501, the Safavids had been established as the ruling dynasty of Iran, and since the rule of the Safavids, Iran had become a Shiite controlled state. And as a state governed by Shiite Islam, Iran was the natural competitor with their Sunni Muslim Ottoman neighbors. The Safavids ruled until the early 18th century followed by a prolonged period of political instability. And it was at the end of the 18th century that the Qajar Dynasty came to power and lasted until 1925. Iran was characterized by a weakness of central government. One could say that Iran had a long tradition of weak central government. This had very much to do with the lay of the land. Either very high mountain ranges in the north and the west or huge deserts in the center that covered almost all of Iran's land space. So until the advent of modern means of transport and communications, it was very difficult to maintain effective central government or economic modernization for that matter. Iran had no real army to speak of, like the Ottomans or Muhammad Ali in Egypt had. Accept for usually not very impressive forces raised by provincial governors. Iran was a country territorially isolated and very, very far from Europe. And therefore in the 19th century, we see in Iran a very slow pace of reform. There are some changes in education, but always about half a century later and less extensive than we saw with the Ottomans or Egypt. There is growing economic influence of outside forces and ensuing economic difficulties. And Iran was a country historically troubled by the threat of external influence and penetration. The borders of Iran were particularly problematic. Iran was populated by a series of minorities that lived along the borders. And these ethnic minorities along Iran's borders straddled the borders with part of their population in Iran and part in neighboring countries. The Azeris with part of their population in Iran and part in Azerbaijan. The Kurds in Iran and in Iraq and Turkey. The Arabs in Iran and in Iraq or the Baluchis in the east who have part of their population in Iran and part in Pakistan. In 1900, Iran had a population of about 10 million. And in this Iranian state, one has to make special mention of the extraordinary power of the men of religion in the Shiite branch of Islam. In the Shiite branch of Islam the men of religion tend to be a lot more influential and powerful than their Sunni rivals. In Sunni Islam as we have already noted, the gates of each Jihad that is of independent interpretation were closed in the 10th century. But the gates of each Jihad were never closed in Shia and there was always the opportunity which continues until the present day for the men of religion in Shiite to engage in independent interpretation each Jihad. In the late 18th century, there were two schools of thought that emerged in Shiite Islam in Iran. The one was called the Akhbari school and the other was the Usuli school. The Akhbari's argued that all answers could be found in the Quran and the Sunna, that is the traditions of the prophet. Usuli's argue that answers should be given by living interpreters, the mujtahid. The man who conducts each Jihad independent interpretation. And the Usulis argue that answers should be given by living mujtahids and it was they who emerged victorious. So you have the principle of imitation with the living mujtahid. The interpreter is imitated by the believers. And there is this very small number of the most senior Ayatollahs who are these interpreters. And the rank and file, who are the believers and those that are the imitators of the imitated who is the interpreter of religion. These men of religion are financially independent of the regime because they are paid and maintained by the believers. And as such, they have a very strong economic and political link with the masses which gives them a great deal of political influence and at the same time, considerable independence of the regime. As opposed to the Sunni Ulama who were usually bureaucrats of the ruling regime as it was in the Ottoman empire and indeed in Egypt of Muhhamad Ali. So in Iran we have a Constitutional Revolution in 1906. And this constitution remained in force for five years until 1911. It was the result of a relatively small movement. But the Ulama, the men of the religion were a central driving force in this group that forced a constitution of the Shah of Iran. They were taking advantage of the weakness of the Qajar Regime of the central government to further enhance their own influence by imposing a constitution on the Shah. But this constitutional revolution, though likened to the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 is not similar to the Young Turk Revolution at all. In the Turkish case, in the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, we're talking about a society that was already undergoing change after a very long period of reform. This was as a result of a long standing modernization process. But in the Iranian case, the Constitution Revolution of 1906, the modernization process hadn't even begun in any serious fashion. In Turkey, it was the forces of Modernity that were in action in creating the revolutionary of the Young Turks. But in Iran, it was actually a coalition of various forces of tradition and opponents of modernization that had imposed the constitution on the regime.
