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The condition of intellectuals in Iran

Part 1: Islamic conquest to 1942

Bagher Momeni                         

One could equally speak of “the calamity of Iranian intellectuals”.

If we extend the term to include thinkers and scholars in previous epochs, the description of calamity can be extended even to the remote past. Such were the Majian Gaumata  (died 522 BC), Mani who founded Manichaeism (276-215 BC), Mazdak founder of the egalitarian religion Mazdaism (died in the first half of the 6th Century AD) among countless other pre-Islamic thinkers and social and intellectual reformers put to death at the hands of Archeminian and Sassanian kings and Zoroastrian high priests.

Turning to the 13 centuries since the Islamic conquest of Iran the number of intellectual thinkers and reformers who died at the hands of autocratic kings and religious reaction are truly uncountable.

Silenced in their prime

Some walked up the scaffold, were stoned to death or were beheaded before they were even 40. Ibn al-Muqaffa’ Abdollah Ruzbeh who translated the classic Kalileh va Dimneh and some Manichaean texts and many other works from the pre-Islamic Iranian language Pahlavi to Farsi was killed in 756 AD on orders of the Caliph Mansur accused of polytheism and Manichaeism. He was about 36 years old. Philosopher and mystic Ein al-Qozzat Abdolah Abulma’ali (1098-1131 AD) was hanged as a non-believer aged 33. Shahabeddin Sohrvardi (1153-1191 AD) philosopher and illuminati theologian was strangled aged 38.

Seven centuries later Seiyed Ali Mohammad Bab (1821-1850 AD) religious reformer and claimant to being the resurrected Mahdi 1 was shot at the age of 29 and many intellectuals close to him, including the early feminist woman warrior-intellectual Fatmeh Qarr’at al-Ein (1817 - August 1851), were slaughtered along with thousands of Bab’s followers. The irony was that the order for the massacre came from another reformist intellectual - the then Chief Minister Mirza Taghi Khan Amir Kabir, himself murdered some years later at  the orders of the Shah.

Half a century later Iran enters the chapter of the Constitutional Revolution (1905-8) which for the history of intellectual life registers nothing but calamity. The first young victim was Mirza Jahangir Khan Sur Esrafil (1875-1908) pioneer journalist, strangled at the orders of the absolutist monarch. His crime was to support the constitutional monarchists. The last in this line was Dr Taghi Arani the many-layered Marxist intellectual and teacher who was arrested for being a communist and after suffering a long period of torture was deliberately infected with typhus in prison and died on January, 4 1940. He was only 35.

Different routes to silence

But if we go beyond the young pioneer thinkers the caravan of deaths is beyond counting. Two examples: in 775 AD al-Moqanna’ Hashem ibn Hakim and his white-shirted followers in Khorasan and Transoxania (modern Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) committed suicide and one and a half centuries later (922 AD) his red shirted followers were hanged after being defeated in a 21-year struggle. 

The tragedy appears in different forms. Legend has it that Hassan Sabbah (died in 1124), Khajeh Nizam al-Mulk (1017-92), and Omar Khayyam (1050-1123) were school mates. The first rebelled against the ruling powers and founded the Ismaili Shi’ite sect and took to assassinating political opponents 2. The second rose to become the chief minister under the Mogul king and reorganised the state and religion in the kingdom and ironically died at the hands of an Ismaili assassin sent by his old friend and the third withdrew into astronomy, poetry, overhauling the calendar, and satisfying himself with grape-water, heavenly and earthly beauties. It was only decades after his death that some of his heretical philosophies saw the light of day.

If the above story of a shared schooling has little historic credibility, there is a more recent example of social comrades ending up in totally divergent paths. All three started their political career by spreading progressive ideas of democracy, the rule of law and liberation from absolutism. In their different ways all three were prevented from fulfilling their historic role - enlightenment:  pioneer journalist Mirza Jahangir Khan Sur Esrafil was murdered in his youth (see above), Said Hossein Taghizadeh (died 1969) rose to become minister and senator under another autocratic Shah, and Ali Akbar Dehkhoda (1880-1965) withdrew into his mountain of ancient books 3. This pattern is repeated again and again. The pioneering intellectual is either murdered, joins the system of authority or withdraws into obscurity.

The same tragedy reappears in another form especially in the second half of the 19th century: exile Among the many dozens one can name Iran’s first playwright, Mirza Fathali Akhundzadeh (1812-1878) who introduced political theatre to Iran, Abdol-Rahim Talbof (1834-1910), Mirza Malkam Khan whose paper Ghanun (law) influenced the Constitutionalists enormously, and Mirza Agha Khan Kermani (1854-1896) all highly influential in forming the ideas which culminated in the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-8. All of them spent most or all their life in exile.

Some of our intellectuals suffered what, for a thinker, is tantamount to a living death: being unable to communicate your thoughts. The pioneer of the Iranian modern novel, Sadegh Hedayat (1902-1951), modern Farsi poetry, Nima Yushij (1897-1959) and modern Iranian theatre, Abdol-Hossein Nushin all had only a brief moment in time to blossom: the short breathing space between the departure of one dictator (Reza Shah) and the appearance of another (his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi). Hedayat committed suicide in Paris, far from his people, Nushin was exiled to the USSR where there was no place for his artistry and spent his time studying Iranian epic poetry until his lonely death in exile, and Nima withdrew to the silence of seclusion for the remainder of his life.

Works destroyed

Exile or imprisonment also caused yet another tragedy for the intellectual: their neglect or destruction of their works. Akhundzadeh’s fear of being associated with his book Maktubat was so strong that, despite living abroad, it was first published in the Soviet Union in 1924, 46 years after his death. It had to wait for almost a century after his death to see print in Iran, and then in secret, away from the eyes of the censors and only in a limited edition of 500. The fate of Mirza Agha Khan Kermani’s books were even more tragic. He himself was beheaded by the order of the autocrat Mohammad Ali Shah. His book, “Three Correspondence” (Seh Maktub) appeared abroad in a limited edition of 1000 in 1992, a century after his death. A second book “One Hundred Lectures” (Sad Khatabeh) is still in hand-written form in a handful of large libraries or gathers dust in the attic of some admirer.

Tragedy did not just hit those who swam against the tide. Even those who helped the authorities subjugate other intellectuals did not escape the sword. I have already alluded to the great reformer and moderniser Mirza Taghi Khan Amir Kabir, who had his wrist cut in 1852 by order of Naser’eddin Shah whose Chief  Minister he was. More recently Ali Akbar Davar, the brain behind Reza Shah’s autocratic rule and organiser of Iran’s modern bureaucracy and judiciary, committed suicide on orders of the Shah in 1936.

Forward to the past

What happened to Iranian intellectuals bears little comparison to their fate in the West. In the West society evolved naturally and the intellectual developed alongside it, struggling against, and gradually pushing back or defeating home-grown reaction and autocracy. The intellectual realm was gradually extended in an atmosphere that became increasingly free.

Iran’s history has repeatedly and at frequent intervals gone through major upheavals. Over the last 1400 years the country has been the scene of numerous invasions from culturally more backward tribes: Arab, Turk, Mogul, Afghan. The country saw major upheavals and numerous cultural relapse.

At a time when Europe was stepping into the era of enlightenment Iran entered an age of cultural darkness with the Safavid Dynasty (1501-1732). During the whole of this period all thought was religious, without a single exception. Not for one moment does a spark light up the air.

Moreover, unlike his/her European counterpart who looked ahead, the Iranian thinker always looked back to a past that they had lost. Intellectuals gave their life, sometimes literally, in order to keep or recreate what they had once possessed. The conquerors not only prevented the natural growth of civilisation, but inevitably imposed their own more primitive culture on the country. The clock was, so to speak, turned back again and again .

For Iranian intellectuals the struggle for social progress was often no more than a return to roots and the ideas of their predecessors: for ideas that were ceaselessly and everywhere searching for the victory of light over darkness. Hundreds of renowned thinkers and dozens of large sects with a variety of beliefs were accused of polytheism because they turned to their past culture and civilisation. And because they wanted to restore Manichaeism and Mazdaism 4 to Iran. These were religions which in contrast to the unitary nature of Islam believed in the duality of creation in the form of light and darkness, the ceaseless battle between the two and the ultimate victory of light over darkness. The duty of humankind is to help the victory of light in its struggle. It is no coincidence that the whole of Iranian literature is suffused with hatred for the night and a greeting of the dawn, which sadly continues up to the present.

Barring brief instants of historic time, our intellectual has always lived in the night, has spoken in hatred of the night and has been in struggle against the night. A recent example is the father of modern Iranian poetry, Nima Yushij. He has over ten poems with names including the word night, not counting dozens of others where the poet shivers in fear of night and awaits dawn. In only two poems, appearing in a seven-eight year brief interlude in a life of over 60 years, does the cock crow, the night flee and dawn arrives.

The Constitutional Revolution 1905-8

If the European intellectual left behind the dark ages and the Inquisition finally and for ever with the enlightenment, their Iranian counterpart, who in the space created by  new ideas now steps into the path of the Encylopaedists and carries the title of “enlightened thinker” (Monavvar al-fekr), begins a new era in his/her life’s tragedy and a new struggle between light and dark.

Time has, apparently, not changed. The door revolves round the same axis. The motion of history, as the poet Hafiz said, “is on the same character and manner as was”. Our intelligencia has at this stage left behind the Arab, Turk and Mogul occupations, has absorbed the whole historic experience into him[her]self and has achieved a blend of civilisation, that while reflecting all their influence, remains uniquely his or hers. Driven by his/her intellectuality and a very human and natural desire to push forwards s/he is attracted to the culture and civilisation which had developed in the West in an open climate and through a process of global give and take.

But now our intelligencia does not face primitive forces of invasion and occupation. Instead s/he faces the invasion of Western neo-colonialism, having at its disposal the most advanced achievements of human civilisation, and trying to harness the craving of the Iranian “enlightened thinker” for those very achievements to its own self-interests.

A new calamity is about to begin; everything becomes topsy turvey and the Iranian intellectual is pulled left and right by several grinding stones:

Some take refuge with the colonialists against the despot and others with reaction against the colonialist. Our intellectuals, almost despite themselves, stumble from one pothole to another. Some turn to nationalism. Others advocate Islamic unity. Yet more turn back the clock a thousand years, and identifying with exiled Zoroastrians of ions ago, call the ghosts of the Arab conquerors to combat. Or fascinated by mere appearances they mistake the mirage for modern culture and civilisation. These either become stuck in a dead end or tumbled down the slippery slope of decay.

In the midst of such confusion there are a mere handful of intellectuals who draw a clear line between themselves and colonialism, despotism, and reaction by lighting the torch of advanced civilisation in the heart of society. A tragic destiny would only be natural for such Promethian characters. They either cried out in the wilderness or lost their head.

Akhunzadeh’s writings gather dust in his attic; Yusef Mostashar al-Dowlah was blinded by having his book repeatedly banged on his head, Mirza Agha Khan Kermani was beheaded; Malkam lived in exile all his life. Even the reformist aristocracy like Moshir al-Dowlah and Amin al-Dowlah had to leave their ministerial post under pressure of religious and political reaction.

Despite all this the movement for a constitutional monarchy5succeeds through the direct or indirect influence of such intellectuals. The despotic monarch packed up and left and the field was opened up for opinions to be expressed. Alas! The era of freedom and circulation of views was brief, too brief. The revolution caused instabilities mixed with muddled thinking and plenty of conflict. The setting was set for the emergence of a new despot.

Darkest of dark

The colonial powers helped set up a new autocrat spiced with the colours of modernism. The new dictator, Reza Shah, established his rule by suppressing progressive movements in various parts of the country and killing their leader-intellectuals such as Sheikh Mohammad Khiabani (1880 - September 14, 1920), Haydar Amu-Oghlu (killed 1921), Colonel Mohammad Taghi Pessian (murdered October 4, 1921). Reza Shah combined trappings of modernism with a ruthless thought terror in ways only possible in a modern state The new ruler, whose main business was to protect the interests of the greatest colonial power of its time in Iran, 6 also had to act as a dam against the spread of the new communist ideology that had now taken over Iran’s northern neighbour and had been welcomed by progressive and democratic Iranian intellectuals.

A new problem was introduced into the intellectual life of the country. Some progressive intellectuals became confused by the modernising face of the new dictator. In its pursuit of centralisation and totalitarianism, the new regime on the one hand launched military campaigns against feudalism and to put an end to the chaos caused by the warlords. On the other, as part of his superficial modernisation of the state, Reza Shah launched a campaign against the power and interference of the Shi’ite clergy and organised the new state bureaucracy. Faced with these actions a section of the progressive intelligencia become relatively paralysed. The revolutionary intellectual faced an added problem. S/he now has to stand up, at one and the same time, against both reaction and a modernism closely linked to the dictator.

In this way on the eve of the establishment of a modern dictatorial order the Iranian intellectual has to grapple with a new tragedy. Some liberal intelligencia belonging to the old aristocracy withdrew as soon as the dictator tightened his hold. Others, as we discussed, knowingly or unknowingly, welcomed the advance guard of the new order. Yet others rose up against it and bit the dust in their efforts to circulate their independent views.

One after another, Mohammad Mossadegh, Soleiman Mirza Eskandari, Mohammad Ali Forughi 7 withdrew to their homes. The poet Aref Ghazvini (1879-1933) died alone after years of forced internal exile under guard. Mohammad Reza Mirzadeh Eshghi (1893-1924) 8  was assassinated at the age of 33 for the sin of propagating revolutionary thought and a love for freedom. Mohamad Farrokhi-Yazdi 9  (1888-1939) died in the prisons of the modern autocrat accused of socialist tendencies as did Taqi Arani 10, in the same year, for being a communist.

Violent or tragic death was not confined to the anti-dictatorship, revolutionary socialist or communist freedom lover. Anyone with an independent view or free thought, even if they stepped along the same intellectual-political path as the autocrat, was condemned to death merely for their individuality.

An example is Mohsen Jansuz (1914 - March 12, 1940) who was arrested aged 25 and shot on the totally trumped up charge of armed rebellion against the monarchy and attempt against the life of the crown prince. His main crime was to have nationalist-chauvinist ideas which he had discussed with some close friends. He had also translated Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Yet within a short while after taking power, Reza Shah’s regime had itself given sway to nationalist and chauvinist views and at the same time openly displayed Germanophil tendencies. The dictator’s rage could not tolerate an independent intellectual with character, even when in the service of his own ideas.

Similarly, Ali Akbar Davar, one of the Pahlavi king’s most faithful servants, architect of the modern state and the founder of the most important new organs of this state, was ordered to commit suicide.

Only a few independent-thinking individuals survived these dark years: those mainly spreading safe and divisive ideas. The modern autocrat was busy reining in their power and influence of the clergy. He therefore needed to give space to intellectual activity along the limited lines of some types of nationalism, modernism and secularism. A number of progressive nationalist and popular intellectuals fell into this trap. They mistook a superficial modernism for intellectual and cultural development, or anti-Arab and anti-Islamic Iranism for an anti-imperialist nationalism. Even such enlightened intellectuals as Sadegh Hedayat, Zabihollah Behruz and Bozorg Alavi11  were not immune from this fallacy and, to various levels, devoted their intellectual energy to it.

The most persistent example of these who wasted his energy for a period was the historian Ahmad Kasravi (1890-1945). Yearning for a “clean language” he spent years cleansing the Farsi language from Arabic words, and fought hard against Sufism and Shi’ism. He even went so far as to introduce a new religion and put himself forwards as a prophet.

His work may have attracted the nationalist, and somewhat superficial, appetite for anything new of some in the younger generation. Yet it was not out of step with the intellectual system of the dictator. For this reason the autocrat did not obstruct his activities. Yet even Karsavi did not escape death. After the occupation of Iran by the Allies in 1942, in the interregnum of freedom after the dictator was removed, he was stabbed to death by two fanatical Muslims right inside the Justice Ministry. They did so without fear of being caught or punished.

The fear and intellectual sterility of this period of Reza Shah’s dictatorship is starkly reflected in some of the surviving literary works of the time. Nima, in the closet of his home, shouted in dread:

Where on this murky night shall I hang my tattered garment

In this murky night, which lasted twenty years, those intellectuals who had something to say either wallowed in their own blood, disappeared into a corner of total silence, were led up deviant by-roads, or placed their thought and intellect entirely at the service of the autocratic order and in glorifying the dictator.

One can perhaps claim that at no time in our history has the calamity of the intellectual been as grave. During this period not a single progressive creation in art, thought or literature was offered to Iranian society. The talents that, so to speak, stepped into being during this period had to wait until Reza Shah’s totalitarian rule was dismantled. For a period, the intellectual life of Iran went into a deep coma resembling death. If the World War had not taken place and Iran not occupied by the Allies, there is no knowing how long this deathly crisis of the intelligencia would have lasted.

The last part of this article will be published in the next issue

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