Iranian Millenarianism and Demorcratic Thought in the 19th Century

Bibliographic Data

ID8967443
AuthorsJuan R I Cole, Juan Cole (0000-0002-0540-1474, corresponding author)
Year1992
Volume24
Issue1
Pages1-26
Publication date1992-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0020743800001392
OpenAlexW1976144048
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited20

Between 1905 and 1911, Iranians were engaged in a protracted struggle over whether a constitutionalist regime would replace royal absolutism. 1 Little in Iran's political culture before 1905 had hinted at this conflict before it broke out, and for the past thirty years historians have been seeking this genealogy for it. Most have searched among the papers of officials and diplomats, often examining unpublished or posthumously published manuscripts with little or no contemporary circulation, at least before the revolution, 2 but we might get closer to its context if we look at what was going on outside the governmental elite. Here I will explore the growth of belief in representative government within an Iranian millenarian movement, the Bahai faith, in the last third of the 19th century, as an example of how the new ideas circulated that led to the conflict. 3 Historians have noted a link between millenarianism and democratic or populist thought elsewhere, after all; for instance they have long recognized the importance of chiliastic ideas in e English Revolution of the 17th century. The republicanism of American dissidents and revolutionaries was also sometimes tinged with a civil millennialism. The Bahais of Iran, too, combined democratic rhetoric with millenarian imagery in the generation before the Constitutional Revolution. 4

Absolute monarchy · Ancient history · Charisma · Constitutionalism · Context (archaeology · Democracy · Elite · Faith · Millenarianism · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Theology · Throne · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Philosophy · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East

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