Iranian Constitutional Revolution

From 1905 to 1911 Iranians forced the Qajar shah to accept a constitution and an elected parliament, the first constitutional revolution in the Middle East.

Overview

Merchants hit by tariff concessions to foreigners, clergy angered by growing European influence, and intellectuals demanding the rule of law merged into protests beginning in 1905. Mozaffar al-Din Shah granted a constitution in August 1906, and the first Majles convened that October. His successor Mohammad Ali Shah bombarded the parliament with Russian-officered artillery in 1908, triggering civil war won by constitutionalist tribal forces from Tabriz and the Bakhtiari in 1909, who deposed the shah. Russian ultimatums and occupation of the north then strangled the young democracy, and by 1911 the experiment was hollowed out. Its memory anchored every later Iranian struggle for representative government, from Mossadegh to 1979.