One unexamined backdrop of the Constitutional Revolution is the persecution of Jews, Babis and Baha’is during the turn of the 20th century. Many of the same forces, which became instrumental during the Constitutional Revolution, were affected by these episodes. The Iranian Constitution and especially provisions in the 1907 Supplement were major breakthroughs in guaranteeing “equal rights in civil law for all Iranians.” These provisions abandoned centuries of discriminatory treatment of non-Muslims based on an exclusivist reading of the Shari`a. Their passage was the outcome of a heated debate in and out of Majlis that included the opposition of some conservative ulama. They also came at the high cost of new persecution episodes for non-Muslims during and after the Constitutional period. This paper seeks to examine continuity and change in the experience of non-Muslims in the Constitutional period and the historical process leading to an inconsistency in the definition of Iranian citizenship. The new law denied full citizenship rights to a significant portion of Iranians who, as Baha’is, were euphemistically branded as Iran’s “unrecognized minority.” This provision had lasting consequences for the rights of the Baha’i community.

This paper argues that the standard narratives explaining the origins of Shi’ite nationalism in Iran reflect a later collective memory of the movement’s origin that obscures many forgotten events and discursive threads that aided in the production of this nationalist sentiment. By shifting the focus to the decade before the standard origin, I argue that the anti-Baha'i movement was one of the most significant catalysts for what became the Shi'ite nationalist movement and that its importance has been forgotten in Iran's collective memory. I am not claiming that the anti-Baha'i sentiment of the period has been forgotten, but rather that what has been forgotten is the central role that it played in uniting and mobilizing what eventually became the Shi'ite nationalist movement and its role in shaping the national and international policies that precipitated the rift with the shah that ended clerical royalism and eventually led to the articulation of claims of alternate sovereignty. My findings are based on extensive archival research in addition to a study of clerical memoirs and speeches, newspaper articles, and numerous other sources. Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi has made a somewhat similar argument regarding the importance of anti-Baha'ism between 1941 and 1955. He concludes by speculating on anti-Baha'ism's possible influence on the Shi'ite nationalism of the 1960s. After extensive research, I am able to confirm his speculation, and to go much farther, but I also want to address the larger issue of why the histories of Iranian minorities continue to be treated as distinct from the history of Iran proper. My title, of course, alludes to Afsaneh Najmabadi’s influential critique of the ways in which the standard histories of Iranian Constitutionalism have ignored gender, taking prominent contemporary concerns (such as the scandal over the “Daughters of Quchan”) and converting them into narrative silence that does not threaten the later collective memory of the movement’s origins. This paper not only argues that the anti-Baha’i movement was as important to Shi’ite nationalism as the “Daughters of Quchan” was to Iranian Constitutionalism, but also suggests that, just as a great deal is lost by the marginalization of “women’s history,” the ghettoization of “minority history” has a similarly detrimental effect in this field.

For centuries, the minorities, particularly the Jews, in Iran were restricted and prevented from advancement in social and financial circles. By the end of the 19th century, western values, missionary schools and the Iranians’, particularly the Shah’s trips to Europe, allowed the Jews some relief and participation in social life. By the early 20th century, Jews enlightened by what was happening in Europe and their education at the schools of the missionaries and Alliance Israélite Universelle, realized that they themselves had to take care of the needs of their community, as help from the government would be long in coming. In this spirit, many organizations were formed and through them needs of the community were addressed, initially in the shape of clinics and the famous Sapir Hospital. At the same time, Jewish women in each and every city rose to the occasion and began taking care of needs of their community, initially through small gatherings and later larger organizations. This was quite innovative, as Jewish women were a restricted minority among a restricted minority. The most active of these was Sazman-e Banovan-e Yahud-e Iran (The Organization of Iranian Jewish Women), which established not only orphanages, but day care centers, schools for nursing and social work in Tehran (the very first in Iran). In the field of commerce, the Jews had been forerunners in cities like Hamadan from late 19th century. As soon as they were allowed to leave the mahallehs and could improve their financial status, they became very active various industries, among them, plastics, tiles and bathroom fixtures, which were among the first of Iranian products to be exported. Their activities however, were not always appreciated and rivalry and jealousy cause much scrutiny. This presentation will look at the elements that brought such achievements to such a small and downtrodden community and how they made a contribution to the larger Iranian society. It will also examine the role of the Pahlavis in this progress. Community papers, published Jewish and oral histories and memoirs and Iranian and Western travelogues, as well as the Bulletin of Alliance Israélite Universelle, are all sources of this study.

The 1979 revolution in Iran was one of the most popular revolutions of the twentieth century. It was supported by all the classes of the Iranian society, and crossed social strata, positions, and religious affiliations. A lot is known about the participation of different parts, such as students, urban professional, religious leaders, bazaris, leftists, Armenians (as a group), yet little is known about the participation of Jews in the revolutionary movements. This article sheds light on a little-known story in the life of the Jewish Iranian community. This paper seeks to tell the story of different segments of the Jewish community during the tremulous years of the “Islamic Revolution”. While not much has been written about other minorities’ activities during the Islamic Revolution, much less so has been written about the activities of the Jewish community. This paper is not attempting to overturn the meta-narrative regarding the Iranian Jewry; rather it seeks to reveal an angle that was overlooked until now. This paper examines two main arenas in which the Jews facilitated the revolution: the Society of Jewish Iranian Intellectuals, and Sapir Charity Hospital in Tehran, by using different kinds of sources, varied from oral history, to official documents, and personal archives of partakers. This paper seeks to bring back the minorities contribution to the most important national revolution in Iran. The research is based on Interviews conducted with key figures, official documents and personal archives, and different press sources.