Qajar Pact, The: Bargaining, Protest and the State in Nineteenth-Century Persia (International Library of Iranian Studies) - Softcover

Vanessa Martin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1788311159 ISBN 13: 9781788311151

Publisher: I.B.Tauris, 2017

Synopsis

'The Qajar Pact' seeks to explore new perspectives on the 19th century Iranian state and society, and is the first broad study of lower social groups during the period 1834-1896. Vanessa Martin argues that Qajar government was certainly despotic, but was also founded on a consensus understood in deed rather than word, derived from consultation and bargaining. Looking at urban society, the author shows how all levels were involved, and focuses on the role of non-elite groups, whose networks organised the struggles with the authorities. The Islamic principles governing the relationship between state and society were derived ultimately from the concept of al-Mizan, the balance, which formed the basis for the consensus. As the discussion reaches the eve of the constitutional revolution, the changes of the 1890s reveal how the mass of contemporaries saw the revolution, and what they expected from it, and how the international economy shaped opinion. Three case studies discuss the political participation of the people: Bushire, where they aided the elimination of intermediary powers, and collaborated with the state against the British; Shiraz, where the relentless struggle to control a turbulent population interacted with the relationship between state and tribes; and Isfahan, where state and populace had learned to manage each other up to the 1890s. Four thematic chapters cover firstly women in popular political demonstrations, linking them to the choreography of the passion plays; the role of the lutis, the unruly poor, in ensuring social justice in communal battles with the state; the lives of soldiers as an example of one of the poorest social groups, demonstrating the abiding weakness of the army, compared to the prospering cities; and finally the lot of slaves in an Islamic society, with reference to one particular case, Hajji Bashir Khan. The range of sources used includes many from Iranian archives.

About this title

About the Author

Vanessa Martin is Professor of Middle Eastern History at Royal Holloway, University of London. She is the author of 'Creating an Islamic State' and 'Islam and Modernism' (both I.B.Tauris).

Edition details

• Publisher: I.B.Tauris
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1788311159
• ISBN 13: 9781788311151
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 224