Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East

The Bakhtiyari Tribes in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution

Arash Khazeni

The Bakhtiyari tribes have at different times played an important part in the history of Persia. Their chiefs would descend into the plains at the head of large bodies of brave and daring horsemen. Sometimes they threatened Isfahan, the capital; at others they encountered the enemies of their country.

In June 1909, eight hundred Bakhtiyari horsemen (sawars) rode from their summer pastures in the Zagros Mountains toward Tehran to restore the Majlis (Parliament), and defend the constitutional movement in Iran. By early July, a twelve-hundred-man Bakhtiyari cavalry with one mountain gun had gathered at Rubat Karim, just southwest of Tehran, and planned to join nationalist mujahideen from Gilan and the Caucasus at the Karaj River.¹ The Bakhtiyari and the nationalist mujahideen entered Tehran on 12 July from the hills north of the city through the Bahjatabad Gate and then moved to make their headquarters at Baharistan, the site of the old Parliament bombarded by the forces of Muhammad ‘Ali Shah during the coup of 1908.² By 16 July, the number of Bakhtiyari tribesmen in Tehran had swelled to nearly two thousand, forcing the shah's Russian-led Cossack Brigade to surrender and compelling the sovereign to seek refuge in the Russian Legation.³ As the event unfolded, it appeared that under the banner of constitutionalism (mashrutiyat), the Bakhtiyari were poised to become the next tribal dynasty of Iran.

As supporters of the constitutional cause, the Bakhtiyari tribes were fondly portrayed in the revolutionary press as "the protectors of the nation" (hami-yi millat) from Qajar rule and European imperialism.⁴ An article in the 5 July 1909 edition of the revolutionary newspaper Habl al-Matin (Firm Rope) beckoned the tribes to come to Iran's aid: "Oh lucky Bakhtiyari, oh persevering Qashqa'i, oh brave Shahsavan, oh Pushtikuhian, oh Kalhurian—rise up (‘barkhizid'). Unite for Islam and the nation. Put aside your differences and drive away the foreigners from the sanctuary. Don't stand content while your country's independence is blown [End Page 377] to the wind."⁵ Edward G. Browne, author of The Persian Revolution (1910), hailed the Bakhtiyari tribes as supporters of the constitutional cause, calling them "the brave and hardy Bakhtiyaris who so often played a part in Persia's endless wars."⁶

Other observers remained skeptical of the Bakhtiyari's motives in the revolution. ‘Ali Akbar Dihkhuda, the writer for the newspaper Sur-i Israfil (Trumpet Call of Israfil), feared that the Bakhtiyari were supporting the constitutional cause as a pretext for ascending the throne and warned that they were "a lot more dangerous than the weakened Muhammad ‘Ali Shah."⁷ Over time, however, certain activities of the Bakhtiyari discredited the tribes and their commitment to constitutional principles. Indeed, from the beginning of the Bakhtiyari's involvement in the revolution, some observers were doubtful of their intent. In his articles for the Times of London and in Persia and Turkey in Revolt, David Fraser portrayed the Bakhtiyari as indifferent to the constitutional cause and still committed to nomadic ideals of liberty. Fraser's reports in the Times tended to portray "the Bakhtiyaris as completely indifferent to the Constitution, and as actuated solely by tribal ambitions, innate love of fighting, and hatred of a dynasty at whose hands they had suffered much."⁸ Between 1909 and 1911, the Bakhtiyari's disregard for the law in the cities and on the roads revealed the tribes' tenuous commitment to constitutionalism.⁹ The Bakhtiyari's final break with the revolution occurred in 1911 when they clashed with the left-leaning Democrats and accepted the Russian ultimatum, closing down the Majlis. The Bakhtiyari, one of the groups that had ostensibly fought the most for the revolution, had come to abandon the cause.

The question of the Bakhtiyari's motivations has persisted in the historiography of the constitutional revolution. Some authors have interpreted the role of the Bakhtiyari in the revolution as that of nationalists.¹⁰ While some have pointed out that the Bakhtiyari had tribal, not national, interests in mind when they entered the constitutional movement.¹¹ Still others have emphasized Bakhtiyari collusion with the British as a prelude to their emergence in national politics.¹² Despite the differences in perspective, much of the focus in these prior accounts of the Bakhtiyari's role in the constitutional revolution has centered around the motives of ‘Ali Quli Khan Sardar As‘ad, the well-traveled Haft Lang chieftain turned nationalist, who in spring 1909 unified the Bakhtiyari tribes behind the constitutional cause.¹³ However crucial Sardar As‘ad may have been to the Bakhtiyari's emergence in the constitutional revolution, his motivations did not always match those of the tribesmen he gathered. While the narrative of the Bakhtiyari tribes in the constitutional revolution cannot avoid the individual of Sardar [End Page 378] As‘ad, we could also attempt to see the history of the Bakhtiyari in the revolution "from below."¹⁴

This study is an attempt to move Bakhtiyari history beyond the world of the elite khans and the questions of Anglo-Iranian diplomacy in which their modern history has often been framed.¹⁵ Alternatively, this essay will attempt to examine the constitutional revolution in terms of its significance for Bakhtiyari ethnicity. The revolution raises interesting questions about tribal identity in Qajar Iran, as it marked the encounter between the tribes and the culture of modern politics and did not fail to bring about changes in tribal language and consciousness. D. L. R. Lorimer, a British agent and linguist with years of experience in Luristan, noted that as the Bakhtiyari visited Tehran and other cities, their outlook "was proportionately extended as they gained an increased familiarity with ordinary Persian and an enlarged vocabulary."¹⁶ The Bakhtiyari vernacular was growing and incorporating extratribal words, and culturally the tribes were looking beyond the geographical limits of the Zagros Mountains. The constitutional revolution had brought the Bakhtiyari closer to the national culture. This is not to say, however, that the Bakhtiyari simply became Persians. The following pages also attest to the persistence of Bakhtiyari vernacular identity. The constitutional period was a time of dynastic instability in Iran during which pastoral and tribal societies asserted their power. Armed with modern rifles that symbolized their semi-independent status, the Bakhtiyari tribes raided the roads and occupied the cities. Indeed, the persistence of tribal identity gives meaning to the Bakhtiyari's desertion of the constitution and the return to their mountains at the close of the revolution.

This essay also attempts to place the history of the Bakhtiyari's involvement in the constitutional revolution within the context of development and transition in southwestern Iran. It suggests that the encounter of pastoral nomads with Iranian nationalism can be traced back to the late Qajar period, before Riza Shah Pahlavi's attempts at military pacification (sarkub-i nizami) and sedentarization (takht-i qapu) of the tribes in the 1920s and 1930s. By then the Bakhtiyari tribes had already seen the beginnings of state centralization, through the development and opening of their land in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by British companies and then through their involvement in national representative politics during the Iranian constitutional revolution. We may suggest that changes in Bakhtiyari land and society during the late Qajar era set the stage for Riza Shah's campaign to sedentarize the tribes and explains why "the disintegration of Bakhtiyari power" happened relatively easily in the 1920s and 1930s.¹⁷ The role of the Bakhtiyari in the constitutional revolution represents a somewhat awkward moment in modern Iranian history, for here were pastoral tribes that took part in a nationalist event. This seems difficult to reconcile with a historiography that has privileged the urban classes, the natural carriers of nationalist sentiments, and has often dismissed the tribes as anathema to the emergence of a unified, independent, and modern Iran.¹⁸

There exists an array of sources for the history of the Bakhtiyari in the constitutional [End Page 379] period, including tribal chronicles, British ethnographies and archival materials, and Persian newspapers. The recording of Bakhtiyari history in part suggests the great changes the tribes were undergoing at the time. Several detailed tribal and personal histories recount the activities of the Bakhtiyari during the constitutional revolution. The oldest of them is the Tarikh-i Bakhtiyari (History of the Bakhtiyari), a collaborative project completed in 1915, under the direction of ‘Ali Quli Khan Sardar As‘ad and largely authored by ‘Abdul Husayn Lisan al-Saltana Sipihr between 1909 and 1911. It was the first written history of the Bakhtiyari tribes.¹⁹ The original manuscript consists of about six hundred lithographed pages, with some of the text being made up of quotations translated into Persian from Western ethnographies by John Malcolm, Austen Henry Layard, and George Nathaniel Curzon, among others. The more valuable portion of the work was devoted to original historical and topographical information, including references to Bakhtiyari organization, administration, and customs. The Tarikh-i Bakhtiyari also gives ample coverage to the tribes' role in the constitutional revolution and is invaluable as a Bakhtiyari narrative of mashrutah.

Apart from the original Tarikh-i Bakhtiyari, other tribesmen such as Iskandar Khan ‘Akasha, Khusraw Khan Sardar Zafar, and Bibi Maryam left personal memoirs and histories of the constitutional period.²⁰ The memoirs of ‘Akasha, a horseman from the Babadi tayafah (tribe) of the Bakhtiyari who fought both for and against the mashrutah at different times, reveal that some of the lesser khans, kalantars, and their followers were keen observers of the struggle for constitutionalism in Iran.²¹ Contemporary newspapers, notably Habl al-Matin, covered Bakhtiyari activities in Isfahan and Tehran between 1908 and 1913. In addition, the writings of Western observers, including Edward G. Browne, David Fraser, and Morgan Shuster, as well as the correspondences and reports of the British Foreign Office, also surveyed the activities of the Bakhtiyari in the constitutional period.²² Together these sources provide a view of the constitutional revolution as experienced by one of the tribes on the peripheries of Iran.

The Bakhtiyari Tribes in the Late Qajar Period, circa 1882–1909

The constitutional revolution occurred at a time when the tribes in Iran were becoming increasingly subject to state expansion and centralization. Although pastoral nomads remained semi-independent on the peripheries of the "guarded domains" into the twentieth century, it may be suggested that in the late Qajar era, Iran's tribal hinterlands were being opened up. The Qajar dynasty (1795–1925) precipitated this process in the late nineteenth century as Nasir al-Din Shah (r. 1848–1896) indirectly ruled the peripheries through the traditional methods of appointing paramount chiefs (ilkhan and ilbayg), which in the case of the Bakhtiyari happened in 1867, as well as through the manipulation of tribal confederacies and the appointment of powerful prince governors (hakim), such as Mas'ud Mirza Zill al-Sultan of Isfahan, to keep the tribes in check.²³ Although central authority slackened during the reign of Muzaffar al-Din Shah Qajar (r. 1896–1906), even then there were proposals to establish a high council of tribes in Tehran.²⁴ A report from the Tarikh-i Bakhtiyari written in 1906 by Mirza ‘Abdul Rahim Kashani describes how the [End Page 380] Bakhtiyari fled when they saw a traveler, fearing he should be a tax collector (zabit) from the governor or an agent from the khans.²⁵

The increasing power and influence of the Bakhtiyari tribal confederacy and their Ilkhan Husayn Quli Khan in the late nineteenth century threatened Nasir al-Din Shah. In 1881, the shah dispatched Hajji Mirza ‘Abd al-Ghaffar Najm al-Mulk on a journey ostensibly to Mecca, but the real purpose was to complete a report on Khuzistan and the Bakhtiyari hinterland.²⁶ The shah also sent Hajji Muhammad Quli, who was a trusted descendant of a Turkmen ghulam of Muhammad Shah and also known as Hajji Nayib, to report on the Bakhtiyari under the pretext of buying horses.²⁷ In 1882, under orders from Nasir al-Din Shah, Zill al-Sultan executed Husayn Quli Khan and imprisoned two of his sons, Isfandiyar Khan and ‘Ali Quli Khan, in Isfahan. The murder of Husayn Quli Khan would remain a source of enmity between the Bakhtiyari and the Qajars for years to come.²⁸ Thereafter, Nasir al-Din Shah kept the Bakhtiyari "precariously under check through the juxtaposition of tribal chiefs."²⁹ This policy in turn nurtured rivalries between the Ilkhani and the Hajji Ilkhani families of the ruling Duraki Haft Lang clans, fracturing the Bakhtiyari confederacy and setting khan against khan.

Moreover, the Bakhtiyari Road and the D'Arcy oilfields transformed the Bakhtiyari land. By building a road through the Bakhtiyari Mountains in 1899 and, more important, by developing the oil industry in the Bakhtiyari winter pastures (garmsir or qishlaq), the British had hastened the integration of the tribes into an expanding market economy, as well as established the infrastructure needed to control the Bakhtiyari territory and its natural resources. Thus, in the years leading up to the constitutional period, British-led development largely overcame geographical limitations in southwestern Iran, penetrating the mountains and other once inaccessible places. Likewise, national movements such as the constitutional revolution reached the peripheries of Iran.

By the turn of the century and on the eve of the constitutional revolution, the Bakhtiyari tribal confederacy underwent a crisis of leadership. Following the death of Isfandiyar Khan, who held the position of ilkhan between 1900 and 1903, various Bakhtiyari khans sought control over the tribes and the profits from the oil concession. Perhaps the most influential of the khans was ‘Ali Quli Khan Sardar As‘ad. Born circa 1856, he was the fourth son of Husayn Quli Khan Ilkhani from his most noble wife, Bibi Mihrijan.³⁰ In 1876, ‘Ali Quli Khan was appointed a colonel (sarhang) of the Bakhtiyari horsemen in the service of Mas'ud Mirza Zill al-Sultan, the governor of Isfahan, and later, in 1881, was appointed brigadier (sartip) of the hundred Bakhtiyari horsemen who made up Prime Minister ‘Ali Asghar Khan Amin al-Sultan's elite guards in Tehran.³¹ In 1882, he was imprisoned in Isfahan with his brother Isfandiyar Khan after the execution of their father, Husayn Quli Khan. Following his release from Isfahan a year later, ‘Ali Quli Khan established himself as the Bakhtiyari's man of letters, translating a seventeenth-century English travelogue into Persian and opening a tribal school in the Bakhtiyari Mountains.³² In 1879, [End Page 381] he had made the pilgrimage to Mecca with his mother, becoming Hajji ‘Ali Quli Khan. In 1900, he also traveled to various European cities via India and Egypt, returning to Iran after residing in Europe for two years, during which time he became a freemason. During the reign of Muzaffar al-Din Shah (1896–1906), Hajji ‘Ali Quli Khan acquired the title Sardar As‘ad and, according to Mahdi Malikzada, emerged as an important figure in the semiclandestine Revolutionary Committee (Komitih-i Inqilabi).³³ In late 1906, however, with the coronation of Muhammad ‘Ali Shah and the selection of Lutf ‘Ali Khan Amir Mufakhkham as head of the elite royal guards, Sardar As‘ad fell out of favor in Tehran. True to his belief that "one should live in civilized places or else the mountains" (dar mamalik-i mutamadunah ya jabal), corresponding to two conceptions of freedom, the constitutional and the pastoral, he left again for Europe, seeking treatment for his failing eyesight.³⁴

In Paris, he made contacts with other Iranian exiles opposed to the Qajars. According to Mukhbir al-Saltana Hidayat, who was also in Paris at the time, Sardar As‘ad's door was always open and people were frequently gathered at his table (ashkhas sar-i sufrih-i u hazir mishawand). In the afternoons, Persian expatriates gathered around Sardar As‘ad at the Café de la Paix, next to the opera.³⁵ Following Muhammad ‘Ali Shah's bombardment of the Majlis and the onset of the lesser autocracy (istibdad-i saghir), Sardar As‘ad was encouraged from various partisans to return to Iran, take charge of the Bakhtiyari sawars, and direct them toward the restoration of the constitution. In his memoirs, Mukhbir al-Saltana Hidayat recalls urging Sardar As‘ad to act following the proconstitutional uprising of the Bakhtiyari in Isfahan: "It isn't the time to sit in Paris, go to Isfahan and take charge of this event . . . . if things do not go well you can return. Paris is not going anywhere and you can be in comfort again. But if the plan works, you will become a different kind of sardar" (sardar-i digari khahid bud).³⁶

In February 1909, the Bakhtiyari chieftain left Paris for London, where he met with Charles Hardinge, the British undersecretary for foreign affairs; Henry Blosse Lynch, the developer of the Bakhtiyari Road; and members of the Persia Committee.³⁷ Discussions centered on the Bakhtiyari oilfields but certainly touched on political events in Persia as well. Sardar As‘ad promised to visit the oil works himself when he returned to Iran and ensure that the tribes did not threaten the workers. He sought the removal of D. L. R. Lorimer, the unpopular and strict British Consul at Ahwaz, and the Indian Guards that had been brought in to protect the oil company in 1907. As Sardar As‘ad was on his way to lead the tribes in a march on Tehran to restore the Majlis, there was also some discussion of the role the tribes were taking in the Iranian constitutional revolution, although the particulars of this exchange remain unclear. The conflict between the Bakhtiyari tribes and the D'Arcy Oil Syndicate in Khuzistan reveal the complexity of Bakhtiyari-British relations. It cannot be said that the Bakhtiyari were pawns of British domination, because the Bakhtiyari tribes were also resisting and sabotaging British oil exploration in the Zagros Mountains.

Sardar As‘ad was among several khans vying for power and prestige among the Bakhtiyari, however. Among them was Najaf Quli Khan Samsam al-Saltana, who, in contrast to Sardar As‘ad, his younger half-brother, was a more traditional Lur leader, with a reputation for bravery in raids and forays. He had not yet reached fifteen years of age when his father, Husayn Quli Khan, had sent him to lead a thousand sawars on a raid against Arab tribes in Khuzistan.³⁸ Samsam al-Saltana became ilkhan of the Bakhtiyari following the death of Muhammad Husayn [End Page 382] Khan Sipahdar in 1905; but the following year, Sardar As‘ad replaced him as ilkhan. After being removed from office, Samsam al-Saltana permitted his followers to raid caravans, thus discrediting Sardar As‘ad's leadership. In the spring and summer of 1906, it was rumored that a group of thirty robbers, under Samsam al-Saltana, were marauding the roads to Isfahan.³⁹ He also incited the Lurs of Kuhgilu to rob the oil fields and plunder sections of the Bakhtiyari Road, difficulties that surmounted to his reinstatement as ilkhan by the central government in 1907.⁴⁰

With the ascension of Muhammad ‘Ali Shah to the throne, Lutf ‘Ali Khan Amir Mufakhkham (formerly Shuja al-Sultan) of the Hajji Ilkhani Bakhtiyari, who had served Muhammad ‘Ali Shah during his days as crown prince (vali'ahd) and governor of Azerbaijan, was appointed as the head of the royal guard in the capital. Following the coup in 1908 and the subsequent revolt in Tabriz, the shah ordered Amir Mufakhkham to gather a cavalry of Bakhtiyari horsemen to put it down, and soon five hundred horsemen were sent from their summer quarters, or yaylaq, to Tehran to meet the shah's orders.⁴¹ Amir Mufakhkham received support from other members of the Hajji Ilkhani clan and network, including his younger brother and tribal strongman Nasir Khan Sardar Jang (formerly Sarum al-Mulk), commander of the tribal cavalry stationed in Tehran. Although Sardar Jang was "poorer in property" than the other ruling chiefs, he was known as "a man of force and determination."⁴² Once committed to the defense of Muhammad ‘Ali Shah Qajar, he did not quit the task, and in October 1908 it was reported that he had left to quell the uprising in Tabriz at the head of five hundred Bakhtiyari sawars.⁴³ Sultan Muhammad Khan Sardar Ashja‘ (formerly Muyin Humayun), the commander of the Bakhtiyari Horse in Arabistan, halfheartedly sided with his brothers Amir Mufakhkham and Sardar Jang at first, although the kalantars did not support Muhammad ‘Ali Shah. Khusraw Khan Sardar Zafar of the Ilkhani family also threw in his lot with the royalist khans and was instrumental in gathering horsemen for Tehran, but did so with the hope that the shah would appoint him ilkhan of the Bakhtiyari over his rival half brother Samsam al-Saltana.⁴⁴ During Sardar As‘ad's term as ilkhan in 1906, Sardar Zafar (formerly Salar Arfa) served as ilbayg. His involvement in the constitutional revolution was noncommittal, driven by tribal rivalries and the consideration of which side would prevail in the end. Sardar As‘ad would eventually convince him to withdraw his support from the loyalists. Thus internal rivalries within the Bakhtiyari tribal confederacy shaped the tribes' emergence in the constitutional revolution.

The Bakhtiyari Sawars and the Liberation of Isfahan

Summoned by the loyalist khans for the defense of Muhammad ‘Ali Shah, the Bakhtiyari sawars were hosted generously upon their arrival in Tehran, being taken to Bagh-i Shah, where they were allowed to set up their tents.⁴⁵ However, after it was announced that the sawars should prepare to march on Tabriz with Amir Mufakhkham, the tribesmen refused to go, claiming they could not ride behind a chief who preferred the royal court to his own tribe.⁴⁶ The Bakhtiyari sawars in Tehran simply sought to return to the tribal territory in the Zagros Mountains. Iskandar Khan ‘Akasha of the Babadi tribe, whose men, along with regiments from the Chahar Lang and the Bakhtiyarwand, were among the sawars loyal to and being paid by Sardar Ashja‘, left a rare account of the mood of the Bakhtiyari cavalry in Tehran in late 1908 in his memoirs.⁴⁷ As the Bakhtiyari sawars disbanded in Tehran, some detachments drifted toward [End Page 383] the constitutionalists taking sanctuary in Shah ‘Abdul ‘Azim Mosque, who sought to convince the tribesmen to switch sides, luring them with offers of cash and "worldly possessions" (mal-i dunya).⁴⁸ The news of this possible link between the Bakhtiyari and the constitutionalists terrified Muhammad ‘Ali Shah, and in an effort to avoid the shah's anger, the khans in Tehran were forced to scramble to reign in their independent-minded sawars. Sardar Ashja‘, who was unsure as to what path to take (dast u pay-i khud ra gum kardih bud), visited Iskandar Khan ‘Akasha's encampment outside Tehran and sought to convince him to back the shah. Iskandar Khan claims to have responded to this request by reminding Sardar Ashja that "all the people of Iran seek the constitution (mashrutah talab mibashand) and it will not be long until this is accomplished, so why not make a good name for yourself" by defending it.⁴⁹ With great difficulties and despite much reluctance, Sardar Ashja‘ and the other khans in Tehran had persuaded the Bakhtiyari horsemen to march to Tabriz under Amir Mufakhkham when news arrived that Bakhtiyari retinues led by Samsam al-Saltana and Ibrahim Khan Zargham al-Saltana had taken Isfahan on behalf of the constitutionalists.⁵⁰

Protests in Isfahan against the bombardment of the Majlis, the Russian occupation of Tabriz, and the appointment of the anticonstitutional Iqbal al-Dawla as governor-general of Isfahan set the stage for the Bakhtiyari's emergence in the constitutional revolution. Seeking a military force to withstand the government troops, the Revolutionary Society (anjuman) of Isfahan called on the Bakhtiyari tribes, who had long shared the people of Isfahan's dislike for Zill al-Sultan, to liberate the city from the Qajars. The Isfahan anjuman sent a messenger to deliver a Quran to Samsam al-Saltana in Shalamzar, along with an invitation for the Bakhtiyari to come to the aid of the city.⁵¹ Taking into consideration the divisions among the tribes and the designs of the loyalist Sardar Zafar on the post of ilkhan, Samsam al-Saltana called for a tribal council (jalasah), inviting all the khans and lords (kalantars) of the tribes to gather in Shalamzar within one week.⁵² Around 250 chiefs and headmen reportedly arrived for the council, and when posed with the option of liberating Isfahan, the representatives of the tribes deliberated for a day and decided they were ready to go to the city in support of the constitutional cause. They added that they wanted to be certain that Isfahan was sincerely behind the mashrutah movement and that Ibrahim Khan Zargham al-Saltana, a powerful khan from the Ilbaygi branch of the Duraki Haft Lang, descending from Riza Quli Khan, and cousin of Samsam al-Saltana, with great sway over sections of the Bakhtiyari, would support their move.

Representatives from the Isfahan Anjuman assured the khans of the city's support, pledged that the tribal cavalry would be welcomed in the city, and promised to pay the stipends of Bakhtiyari horsemen and footmen.⁵³ Following a consultation with the darwish of Chahar Mahal, Sayyid Ahmad Nurbakhsh Dihkurdi, Zargham al-Saltana decided to join in the march on Isfahan and ordered the armed tribesmen under his command to gather at Paradumba.⁵⁴ It is said that Bibi Sahib Jan, Samsam al-Saltana's wife, also from the Ilbaygi branch of the ruling clan, wrote letters in her own hand to the wives of the uncommitted chiefs, urging them to send their husbands to defend Isfahan.⁵⁵ Once the loyalties of Isfahan and Zargham al-Saltana were secured, Samsam al-Saltana ordered the headmen kadkhudas and whitebeards (rish safids) of the clans to gather armed horsemen and to bring them to Shalamzar, recalling the tribe's intent "to end oppression" (kar-i ma raf‘-i zulm ast).⁵⁶ Samsam al-Saltana and Zargham al-Saltana then met each other, each with a large contingent, in the [End Page 384] village of Dizak in Chahar Mahal, where they displayed signs of solidarity in the view of their retinues.⁵⁷

By 1909, it appeared that the Bakhtiyari tribes were ready to march on Isfahan. In the provincial capital, there were expectations that a large number of Bakhtiyaris were approaching town. Fearing for British lives and property when the Bakhtiyari entered town, Consul Grahame of Isfahan saw the situation as "very grave."⁵⁸

On 2 January 1909 Zargham al-Saltana headed toward Isfahan with 110 sawars chanting "‘Ali-an Wali Allah."⁵⁹ When the governor heard of the Bakhtiyari's impending arrival he ordered his soldiers to drive the city's mujahideen from the Masjid-i Shah, where they were gathered. One hour before dawn the following day, trumpets were heard from the buildings of the Talar-i Istable (stables) and the Masjid-i Shah came under a barrage of artillery and bullets. The royal troops entered Maidan-i Naqsh-i Jahan and opened fire on the mosque from positions in the Ali Qapu Palace but discovered that the mujahideen were returning fire from fortifications on the roof of the mosque. In the course of battle, the minarets of Masjid-i Shah were hit, with several of the mujahideen being wounded. Reinforcements for the troops entered the Maidan through the coppersmith's bazaar (bazaar-i misgaran) but were fended off and retreated to the Mosque of Shaykh Lutf Allah, on the opposite side of the Maidan (square). Many of the government troops turned to looting the bazaar. Malikzada described the artillery and gunfire in Naqsh-i Jahan as so fierce that it shook the city and covered the Maidan in dust.⁶⁰

The Bakhtiyari tribes entered Isfahan early on the morning of Sunday, 3 January, from the direction of the neighborhood (mahala) of Chahar Suq-i Shirazian. Describing the Bakhtiyari's arrival into the city, the British consul Grahame recalled hearing "shots from the street and bullets whistling across the garden." Going outside from the consulate, he saw "a band of mounted men wheel round and gallop off" and was told they were Lurs accompanying Zargham al-Saltana.⁶¹ When the tribesmen reached Naqsh-i Jahan and moved toward the Masjid-i Shah, they were fired on by government troops entrenched all around the square, and one Bakhtiyari was killed. As they reached the mosque, the Bakhtiyari dismounted their horses, and Zargham al-Saltana chose twelve select khans and khanzadihs, as there were twelve Shi'i saints, instructing them to begin the fight against the roughly two hundred royalist troops stationed in the city. The Bakhtiyari became engaged in the battle and soon soldiers could be seen falling from the heights of the ‘Ali Qapu Palace, where the government's guns were perched. According to Bakhtiyari lore, Zargham al-Saltana's son ‘Abu al-Qasim fired a legendary shot that struck a soldier square in the head, toppling him to the ground from the palace. By noon, the sound of cannons had ceased and the city was in the control of the Bakhtiyari, leading Iqbal al-Dawla to seek refuge in the British Consulate, while many more of his scattered troops became uncontrollable and turned to pillaging the bazaar.⁶² In a telegraph to George Barclay, the British minister in Tehran, Grahame reported that there was "much plundering and firing all night" and that there was "no responsible authority in town: complete anarchy."⁶³ The consul noted that the Bakhtiyari uprising in Isfahan "calls itself a nationalist movement but private grievances of Bakhtiari chiefly Samsam and Zargham are probably the real reason." Although he added, "There may be a certain sediment of nationalism in the cup."⁶⁴

Zargham al-Saltana sent news of the capture of Isfahan to Samsam al-Saltana, and on 5 January 1909, the ilkhan entered town at the [End Page 385] head of a thousand more Bakhtiyari sawars and was "acclaimed as a national hero."⁶⁵ The tribesmen were put to the task of arresting and dispersing the government soldiers who were looting the bazaar. On the same day, Barclay telegraphed Grahame, directing him to "tell the Ilkhani that we look to him for the maintenance of order and for the security of our nationals."⁶⁶ Muhammad ‘Ali Shah, however, refused to appoint Samsam al-Saltana as provisional governor of Isfahan on the grounds that he had no confidence in him and instead appointed the Farman Farma, who in turn refused to proceed to Isfahan.⁶⁷

Within days, it was reported that Isfahan was in the possession of the Bakhtiyari, who were guarding the city and maintaining satisfactory order.⁶⁸ Grahame reported to Tehran that the "Persian Government must be made to realize that all power is now in the hands of the Bakhtiari who alone for the present can afford adequate protection . . . . at present there are about 1000 armed Bakhtiaris in possession of the town, citadel, and arsenal."⁶⁹ The Bakhtiyari were maintaining order in the town, providing guards for foreign firms, and collecting merchandise robbed in the sack of the bazaar by Iqbal al-Dawla's soldiers. Moreover, the consul of Isfahan related that he had confidential news that "tends to show that all Bakhtiari Khans at this end are in harmony and are in touch with their relatives in Paris and I have reason to believe that they even contemplate an advance upon Tehran."⁷⁰ On 8 January, Samsam al-Saltana called on the people of Isfahan to elect representatives for a provincial assembly (anjuman-i valayat-i) within three days or else the tribes would retire to their mountains, leaving Isfahan to the shah's mercy.⁷¹ According to David Fraser, a reporter for the London Times, "The mullahs preached to the city's fathers to give their daughters to the Bakhtiyaris as inducement for them to remain."⁷² The assembly soon began to meet three times weekly at Chihil Sutun Palace. The Bakhtiyari recovered many of the goods looted by the government troops and returned them to their owners. They disarmed the soldiers and ousted them from Isfahan. Samsam al-Saltana then promised a safe escort to Iqbal al-Dawla, who was taken by thirty-two Bakhtiyari guards from the British Consulate to Tehran.⁷³

Having also taken control of the telegraph house, Samsam al-Saltana began sending news of the Bakhtiyari liberation of Isfahan all over Iran, as well as to constitutionalists taking refuge in the Ottoman Empire.⁷⁴ He sent a telegraph to Sattar Khan, whom he regarded as a warrior like himself, referring to him as a fellow sufferer (hamdard) and brother (baradar) and recounting the sacrifices made by his tribes for the nation (including coming to Isfahan at a time of year when the rest of the tribes were in the garmsir, or winter quarters).⁷⁵ Telegraphs honoring him and applauding the efforts of the tribe soon arrived from the ulama of Najaf, the local anjuman of Azerbaijan, Sattar Khan, and other nationalist leaders, as well as constitutionalists in Istanbul.⁷⁶ He declared in public that he was "not a governor (hakim) and had only come to establish the constitutional government," adding also that he had no intention of bringing an entourage of servants and footmen (farash va shatir) to Isfahan.⁷⁷

Distraught by the news of Isfahan's capture, Muhammad ‘Ali Shah implored the Farman Farma to march to Isfahan at the head of four regiments and artillery and oust the constitutionalist Bakhtiyari.⁷⁸ When the Farman Farma declined to go, the shah appealed to the loyalist Bakhtiyari khans, making them swear their allegiance to him on the Qur'an. The shah [End Page 386] then ordered Amir Mufakhkham, along with Khusraw Khan Sardar Zafar and Sultan Muhammad Khan Sardar Ashja‘, to ride against their fellow Bakhtiyari in Isfahan.⁷⁹ A confrontation between the opposing tribal factions seemed imminent, and rumors circulated that government troops were on their way to subdue the constitutional movement in Isfahan. Grahame reported that Isfahan was bracing itself—"numerous doors have been put up in all quarters of the town to act as barricades," and "notices have been posted threatening all persons who may befriend the enemy and promising to pay men to serve on Samsam's side."⁸⁰ The Bakhtiyari for their part were constructing sangar (trenches and fortifications) outside of the town, stockpiling arms, and practicing firing their rifles daily as Samsam al-Saltana gathered more tribesmen from the surrounding districts. In a conversation with the British consul at Isfahan, the ilkhan stated that he was ready to retire but added that if the shah sent forces, "he could not abandon the people of Isfahan nor they him." It was his opinion that the Bakhtiyari khans in Tehran "cannot and will not fight with him" as they could not raise a force.⁸¹ Meanwhile, Barclay claimed that he had "reason to believe that Sardar Assad from Paris has urged the Bakhtiaris at Tehran and at Ispahan to throw in their lot with the nationalists."⁸²

The Bakhtiyari Tribes in Tehran, circa 1909

From Paris, Sardar As‘ad became increasingly active in directing the actions of the Bakhtiyari tribes in the revolution. He sent messages to the royalist Bakhtiyari khans, discouraging them from waging war on fellow tribesmen and recommending that they withdraw their support from the shah.⁸³ By the end of January 1909, he had persuaded his younger brother Sardar Zafar, who had occupied Qom with his sawars, to reach an understanding with Samsam al-Saltana.⁸⁴ There were disagreements within the Bakhtiyari camp loyal to Muhammad ‘Ali Shah, and soon Sardar Zafar withdrew his support from the shah following messages from Sardar As‘ad delivered to him by an employee of the Lynch Transport Company and later by Yusuf Khan Amir Mujahid.⁸⁵ When Amir Mufakhkham blamed Sardar Zafar for a scuffle that occurred between men of the Bakhtiyari cavalry and the Cossack Brigade in Qom, the latter disbanded his four hundred sawars, letting them return to the Bakhtiyari country, and also sent word of his support to Samsam al-Saltana. Sardar Ashja‘, who also lacked faith in his brother Amir Mufakhkham, was compelled to change sides as well.⁸⁶ Moreover, it was reported that Bakhtiyaris serving the shah in the north were protesting against the oath they had been made to take and were disturbed by "the idea of being led against their own tribesmen," and many were reported to have deserted.⁸⁷ Amir Mufakhkham and Sardar Jang were the only Bakhtiyari chiefs who remained loyal to Muhammad ‘Ali Shah.

Meanwhile, Sardar As‘ad was campaigning in Paris in favor of the constitutional revolution. He sent a letter to the London Times, stating that the sole object of his tribe's entrance into Isfahan was "to put an end to the disorders that had broken out in that city and to preserve the peace," also adding that they intended to deny "any pretext for foreign intervention in national affairs."⁸⁸ Soon after, on 17 February 1909, Sardar As‘ad departed from Paris and reached Iran sometime in the spring, entering through the province of Khuzistan, where he met with Shaykh Khaz'al, the chief of the neighboring Bani Ka‘b Arab tribe in the Persian Gulf region of Muhammara. Shaykh Khaz‘al offered ten thousand pounds toward the purchase of land near Ram Hurmuz, and because Sardar As‘ad needed cash to recruit retinues from among the tribes, he accepted the sum. From there, Sardar As‘ad took the Bakhtiyari Road to Isfahan, gathering sawars for his cavalry along the way. He also sent his son Ja‘far Quli [End Page 387] Khan Sardar Bahadur to the garmsir, where he recruited additional cavalry and delivered them to his family's summer palace in Junaqan.⁸⁹

The Bakhtiyari remaining under Amir Mufakhkham had begun their expedition southward and were encamped at Khaledabad, eighty miles from Isfahan, when Samsam al-Saltana telegraphed the Diplomatic Corps in Tehran on 2 May 1909 and announced that, as the shah had not granted the constitution, the Bakhtiyari tribes intended "to march on the capital and enforce their demands at the point of the sword."⁹⁰ Samsam al-Saltana and Sardar As‘ad made contact with Muhammad Vali Tunikabuni the Sipahdar and the mujahideen of Gilan regarding a plan to close in on Tehran from the north and south.⁹¹ Barclay reported that rumors were current in Tehran that the Bakhtiyari were moving on the capital.⁹²

On 6 May, the shah informed Barclay that the military operations against the Bakhtiyaris in Isfahan had collapsed and been abandoned.⁹³ The shah then quickly retreated by signing a proclamation announcing measures for the reestablishment of the constitution, forcing Sardar As‘ad to return to Isfahan and disband his sawars.⁹⁴ In June, however, when the shah raised objections during the drafting of the new electoral law, the Bakhtiyari cavalries reassembled, and on this occasion Sardar As‘ad was determined not to turn back. On 17 June, an eight-hundred-man Bakhtiyari cavalry moved toward Tehran, leading the shah to appeal frantically to the Russian Legation for help.⁹⁵ The British and Russian consuls at Isfahan were ordered to pursue the Bakhtiyari and encourage them to turn back.⁹⁶ Within a week, the British consul Grahame had caught up with the Bakhtiyari in Qom, twice fired upon as he entered the city. Grahame tried to convince Sardar As‘ad that there was no need to fight for a constitution that had already been restored and although he warned him that the Bakhtiyari's march on the capital was displeasing to the Powers and "would only complicate matters and delay the restoration of order," the Bakhtiyari would not be diverted from moving on Tehran.⁹⁷ Sardar As‘ad then "telegraphed jointly all the foreign legations asking that the Powers should now interfere no further" in Iran's internal affairs as "they and all other Nationalists were about to force on His Majesty the fulfillment of pledges made to his people."⁹⁸ News arrived to the consuls' dismay that Samsam al-Saltana had gathered reinforcements for his brother, estimated at "about six hundred Bakhtiyari mounted rifles."⁹⁹ In a series of dispatches on the "Bakhtiyari Advance" published in the Times in late June 1909, Fraser suggested that the Bakhtiyari were out "to dethrone the Shah."¹⁰⁰ There was panic in Tehran as word spread that the Bakhtiyari tribesmen were on the way, and many feared they would be looted.

Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Tehran, Nasir Khan Sardar Jang and four hundred sawars returned from Tabriz and joined Amir Mufakhkham's horsemen, who had ridden from Khaledabad to Kashan to Qom in pursuit of Sardar As‘ad and his men.¹⁰¹ Seeking to avoid a confrontation with the Bakhtiyari loyal to the shah, Sardar As‘ad wrote to Amir Mufakhkham offering him all of his own wealth and the office of ilkhan in order to avoid a battle between the Bakhtiyari tribes. However, as Amir Mufakhkham had already secured a written promise from the shah entitling him to the Ilkhani family's property and wealth, he refused Sardar As‘ad's offers.¹⁰² When these attempts for conciliation failed, Sardar As‘ad temporarily avoided confrontation by changing the route of his cavalry, which had swelled to twelve hundred men, leading them to an encampment at [End Page 388] Rubat Karim, southwest of the capital. From there, they planned to make junction with Sipahdar and the Gilan mujahideen at Karaj.¹⁰³

On 10 July, the proconstitutionalist Bakhtiyari, now united with the mujahideen from the north, came face to face with fellow tribesmen at the village of Badamak on the Karaj River, fifteen miles to the west of Tehran. During the evening, Amir Mufakhkham attacked the combined revolutionary forces, reporting numerous casualties among his enemies. In the early morning, however, he realized that his forces had been surrounded during the night and called in for reinforcements, soon receiving assistance from the Cossack Brigade.¹⁰⁴ Iskandar Khan ‘Akasha recalls in his memoirs that some Bakhtiyari tribesmen who were caught on opposing sides recognized and sought to protect one another.¹⁰⁵ On the first day, eleven proconstitutional Bakhtiyari sawars were killed and twenty more wounded. The two days of fighting at Badamak finished inconclusively—about fifteen Bakhtiyari, along with sixty to seventy horses, were killed from Amir Mufakhkham's side, while Sardar As‘ad's forces suffered more than twenty casualties and lost seventy horses. Early in the morning of 12 July, the Bakhtiyari and the mujahideen moved quietly out of the village of Badamak toward the capital.¹⁰⁶

Entering Tehran at six A.M. through the northern Bahjatabad Gate, a direction from which they were not expected, the Bakhtiyari cavalry avoided the government soldiers stationed to guard the southern gates. Instead, they came into the capital from the hills north of the city. The Bakhtiyari immediately took control of the quarter that housed the foreign legations, replacing guards and police with tribesmen and organizing tribal patrols to preserve order. They set up their headquarters at Baharistan, the site of the ruined Parliament. News of the capture of Tehran spread through the surrounding villages and caravansaries. People in Tehran cheered the tribes on, some wearing red badges to show their support for the constitution.¹⁰⁷

The nationalist armies faced their most intense clash at Cannon Square (Maidan-i Tupkhana), where they met the shah's Cossack Brigade under Colonel Liakhoff. However, as hundreds more Bakhtiyari poured into the capital, bringing the total number of tribesmen stationed there to nearly two thousand, Muhammad ‘Ali Shah took refuge in the Russian Legation and the Cossack Brigade surrendered on 16 July.¹⁰⁸ The Revolutionary Committee chose the twelve-year-old Ahmad Shah as his father's successor, and Azad al-Mulk was appointed as the regent. The coronation of the young Qajar heir did not hide the fact the Bakhtiyari tribes had attained the greatest influence in the country as a revolutionary army. The authority of the Bakhtiyari exceeded even their military credentials as Sardar As‘ad became minister of the interior (wazir-i dakhilih) and various khans were made provincial governors. Samsam al-Saltana remained governor-general in Isfahan, until replaced in 1910 by Sultan Muhammad Khan Sardar Ashja‘; Nasir Khan Sardar Jang was appointed governor in Yazd, and Sardar Zafar in Kirman. The Bakhtiyari had suddenly become the most dominant group in the national government.

The Nation and the Tribes

Following the reestablishment of the constitution, the Bakhtiyari threw their strength behind the Ittidali, or Moderate party, which was made up of members of old established families such as Nasir al-Mulk. The Bakhtiyari supported the Moderates in their clashes with the parliamentary Democrats and the mujahideen who backed them. Throughout Tehran, it was popularly believed and feared that the Bakhtiyari khans had vast contingents of horsemen in their native mountains whom they could call upon if necessary. The Bakhtiyari were the most powerful men in the country at the time.

From the time of their entry into Tehran, the Bakhtiyari cavalry became perhaps Iran's most effective military force, and under the command of Sardar As‘ad's son, Ja‘far Quli [End Page 389] Khan Sardar Bahadur, and other khans, their horsemen were dispatched to put down rebellions all over the country. In the winter of 1909, the reactionary Shahsavan tribe plundered Ardabil and threatened to march on Tehran and restore Muhammad ‘Ali Shah to the throne. A detachment consisting largely of three hundred Bakhtiyari cavalry under the leadership of Sardar Bahadur, as well as Yeprem Khan, his mujahideen from the Caucasus, and their Maxim guns, were sent to Azerbaijan to pursue and defeat the Shahsavan.¹⁰⁹

The Bakhtiyari also faced resistance from otherwise proconstitutional tribes who resented their domination of national affairs. In the south, the heavily armed Qashqa'i tribes of Fars and their ilkhan Isma'il Khan Sawlat al-Dawla supported the constitution but challenged the Bakhtiyari when they meddled in the affairs of Fars. Among the most influential figures in Fars during the constitutional period, Sawlat al-Dawla, similar to Sardar As‘ad and the Bakhtiyari, sought to harness the events of revolution to improve the position of his tribes. In April 1907, when popular demonstrations broke out in Shiraz against Qawam al-Mulk, the chief of the Khamsah tribe, the provincial rivals of the Qashqa'i, Sawlat al-Dawla entered the town at the head of a large group of Qashqa'i tribesmen in support of the constitution and contributed eight hundred tumans to the popular party. In January 1909, there were rumors in the south that as a result of the Bakhtiyaris success in Isfahan, the Qashqa'i chief was being incited to try a similar coup in Fars.¹¹⁰ Following the overthrow of Muhammad ‘Ali Shah, Sawlat al-Dawla Qashqa'i became threatened by the growing power of the Bakhtiyari, whose khans maintained a friendship with the Qawam al-Mulk of Shiraz and the Khamsah tribes. Resenting the Bakhtiyari alliance with his provincial rivals, the Khamsah, Sawlat al-Dawla allied with Shaykh Khaz'al and Ghulam Riza Khan, the Wali of the Pusht-i Kuh Lurs, to form the "League of the South," a bloc against growing Bakhtiyari power. In 1910, when Sardar As‘ad convinced the government to depose Sawlat al-Dawla as ilkhan of the Qashqa'i, the restive chieftain ordered three hundred sawars to Isfahan and threatened to march on Tehran, but he turned back when two thousand Bakhtiyari horsemen were sent to confront them.¹¹¹

In the summer of 1910, after the Sipahdar cabinet fell and a Bakhtiyari-Democrat government emerged, Sardar As‘ad was appointed minister of war. In that post, Sardar As‘ad initiated reforms in the Iranian army and sought the disarmament of the civilian population of Tehran.¹¹² Bakhtiyari tribesmen were employed in disarming the mujahideen, nearly one thousand unemployed gun-toting volunteers from Azerbaijan and Gilan who were scattered through the streets of Tehran.¹¹³ At times the mujahideen gathered for demonstrations at Atabak Park, near the foreign legations. In August, when more than three hundred mujahideen and the grassroots hero Sattar Khan barricaded themselves in Atabak Park, refusing to give up their arms, Bakhtiyari tribesmen and Armenian volunteers were ordered to suppress them. Although the Bakhtiyari again served the cause of the constitutional government during the shootout at Atabak Park, their defeat of Sattar Khan and the mujahideen also meant that they had fought against one of the national symbols of the struggle for mashrutiyat.¹¹⁴

Tensions between Sawlat al-Dawla Qashqa'i and the Bakhtiyari again resurfaced in 1911, when the rivalry between the Qashqa'i chieftain and Qawam al-Mulk threatened the stability of Fars and its capital of Shiraz, and the new provincial governor Nizam al-Saltana arrested Qawam al-Mulk and his brother Nasir al-Dawla ostensibly for failing to capture certain brigands.¹¹⁵ Sardar As‘ad and the Bakhtiyaris in the capital "moved heaven and earth with [End Page 390] the Government" to arrange the release of the Qawams, but Nizam al-Saltana, who had sided with Sawlat al-Dawla in the feud, refused to release the captives.¹¹⁶ The governor then released the Qawams, only to have them attacked on the way to Tehran by a group of Kashkuli Qashqa'i outside Khan-i Zinian, killing Nasir al-Dawla and causing Qawam al-Mulk to flee and take sanctuary in the British Consulate.¹¹⁷ By the summer of 1911, Shiraz was enveloped by chaos as Qashqa'i and Khamsah tribesmen gathered in the city quarters and outside the city gates. In September, the Bakhtiyari-led cabinet dismissed Nizam al-Saltana as governor of Fars, but he refused to abandon his post, instead inviting Sawlat al-Dawla to come to Shiraz with a large Qashqa'i contingent.¹¹⁸ Although the acting British consul at Shiraz reported that by October the Qashqa'i were retreating from the city in large numbers and migrating with the tribes to the garmsir, Nizam al-Saltana and Sawlat al-Dawla both left Shiraz as "fugitives," the latter encamped some six miles outside of town after he "declared publicly that he would raise such disorders on the Bushire Road as had not before been seen."¹¹⁹

During this period, the Bakhtiyari-Democrat cabinet fell and Sardar As‘ad resigned from the government. With the Majlis divided and a potential Qashqa'i rebellion brewing in Fars Province, Sardar As‘ad left Iran and traveled to Europe to seek treatment for his eyes.¹²⁰ Shortly afterward, in July 1911, amid rumors of the return of Muhammad ‘Ali Shah at Gumish Tappih near Astarabad, a new cabinet was formed with Samsam al-Saltana as minister of war and premier, ensuring the continued services of the Bakhtiyari cavalry. After the government declared martial law, Samsam al-Saltana sent Ja‘far Quli Khan Sardar Bahadur to the Bakhtiyari with fifty thousand tumans to raise sawars.¹²¹ The six hundred Bakhtiyari cavalry garrisoned in Tehran and paid each month by the treasury as "a guard of honor and dignity" were prepared for an expedition and were to be joined by an additional two thousand Bakhtiyari sawars on their way from the south.¹²² In August 1911, Bakhtiyari horsemen under Muyin Humayun mounted a "Nationalist expedition" against the royalist troops of Rashid al-Sultan, routing them at a narrow pass in the mountains of Firuzkuh, northeast of the capital.¹²³ Later, about nine hundred Bakhtiyari cavalry helped to repel two thousand Turkmen tribesmen marching on Tehran from the northeast under the direction of one of the ex-shah's generals.¹²⁴ At Imamzadah-yi Jafar, the sound and effect of the Maxim guns "threw the Turkman into confusion," and when the Bakhtiyari charged, they fled via the Mashhad Road to the Khurasan frontier, leaving sixty to seventy dead, three hundred to four hundred wounded and captured.¹²⁵

Again, in late summer 1911, when the ex-shah's brother Salar al-Dawla gathered thousands of Kurdish tribes in northwestern Iran, marched on Kirmanshah and Hamadan, and then advanced on Tehran, the Bakhtiyari cavalry defeated them.¹²⁶ In September, the former royalist and serving governor of Luristan Amir Mufakhkham was put in charge of the Bakhtiyari campaign against Salar al-Dawla, but his sawars were routed, with two hundred men killed and captured and a number of guns lost.¹²⁷ Later in the month, however, Bakhtiyari horsemen under the leadership of Sardar Bahadur, Sardar Muhtasham, and Sardar Jang, joined by Yeprem Khan's volunteers and artillery, defeated Salar al-Dawla at a village between Qom and Nuvaran called Bagh-i Shah.¹²⁸ [End Page 391]

As the Bakhtiyari khans and their sawars were working to maintain order all over Iran, they were losing control over the Bakhtiyari tribes in Khuzistan. Preoccupied by the politics of the capital and provincial cities, the ruling khans found less time to maintain order in their own mountains. The task of governing the tribes while the khans were away fell upon the acting ilkhan and ilbayg, and the khans in Tehran selected Amir Mufakhkham and Amir Mujahid, respectively, to serve in these posts. The real authorities on the ground, however, were the smaller khans, headmen, and deputies, known as kadkhudas and kalantars, appointed by the chiefs and in charge of collecting taxes from the tribal subsections, taking revenues on the number of ploughs of land sown and the number of heads of cattle that passed in the spring. The khans' wives, or bibis, were also responsible for maintaining order among the Bakhtiyari tribes during the absence of the ruling khans.¹²⁹ In Bakhtiyari society, women had customarily enjoyed relative freedom and held great influence over their husbands and sons. They were "never veiled," and until the constitutional period were used to accompanying the men everywhere, even going in to camp with them at the yearly gathering of the tribes at Chagakhur.¹³⁰ After 1909, with many tribesmen absent for months at a time in Tehran or in distant provinces, the women helped maintain order among the tribes, especially in the summer quarters (yaylaq), in addition to managing the khans' estates and ray'at (peasantry) in Chahar Mahal.¹³¹ In addition, British physician Elizabeth MacBean Ross found that the Bakhtiyari bibis were politically aware and concerned with the constitutional revolution. They read the newspapers and even listened to phonographs sent from Samsam al-Saltana in Tehran with his speeches recorded on them.¹³² As Lady Ross recalled, the Bakhtiyari women took an interest in the suffragettes and desired "to read history," asking questions about Robespierre, Marat, and Louis XVI.¹³³

Despite the emanation of the khans' power, the spirit of mashrutah among the lower-ranking and younger tribesmen led them to attempt to cast off the authority of the ruling khans. The movement of the young khans grew in part out of class tensions that had been developing among the Bakhtiyari since the late nineteenth century, when the ruling chiefs of the Haft Lang became sedentary landlords in Bakhtiyari and Chahar Mahal, as well as partners in modern development projects, such as the Bakhtiyari Road and the D'Arcy Oil Syndicate concessions. As British developers and the collaborating khans sought control of the Bakhtiyari land and its resources, the subsistence-based pastoral economy of the tribes collided with new capitalist interests. The road also had a noticeable effect on the migrations of tribes, and on its bridges the ruling khans were more effectively able to tax the flocks that passed. Beginning in 1905, the Haft Lang khans resorted to selling the tribes' winter pasture lands in the plains of Khuzistan to the D'Arcy Oil Company; these included Masjid-i Sulaiman, where commercial quantities of oil would be discovered in 1908. The tribes of the garmsir, mostly Chahar Lang, were dependent on the land for subsistence and survival. In protest, the tribes disrupted work at the oil fields, at times threatening to bring operations to a complete halt. The dispatches of the general manager of the fields, George Reynolds, are filled with references to attacks and thefts committed against the company and its employees by locals. In December 1905, Reynolds complained to Samsam al-Saltana that tribesmen at Mamatain told a company surveyor, "We will not allow you to work in this country and if you don't have a guard we will break your head."¹³⁴ Sheep, mules, and equipment belonging to the company were carried off in the night.¹³⁵ At [End Page 392] times, "wandering Lurs" scared the company's mules away and took target practice at the boilers.¹³⁶ The increase in banditry and brigandage by the Bakhtiyari during the constitutional period was in part a reflection of the tribes' discontent over the disparities between their own lives and those of the ruling khans.¹³⁷ As one observer noted, "The ancient tribal feeling of the Bakhtiyari is being disturbed at present. The wave of unrest and discontent with their rulers which is sweeping over the whole Muhammedan world has reached the tribesmen."¹³⁸

Thus, in June 1910, there were reports that the lesser khans and clan heads were showing a "refractory spirit," complaining that for more than a year that they had supplied men and lost lives with nothing in return, while the Bakhtiyari khans rose to the highest positions in the land. They were prepared to pay their taxes directly to the central government and to elect their own heads of the tribes, throwing off their allegiance to the old khans unless their taxes were lightened.¹³⁹ In December 1910, Khuda Karam Khan, the influential chieftain of the Janiki Chahar Lang wrote to Sardar As‘ad saying that he had been forced to divide the Janiki between his sons and could no longer maintain his position over the tribe.¹⁴⁰ That winter there were continuing reports out of Isfahan and Ahwaz that a rebellion was stirring against the big khans; there was news that various minor khans from the Chahar Lang, led by the Mahmud Salihi and joined by some of the Haft Lang, were "trying to throw off the yoke of the Ruling Bakhtiari Chiefs, and have telegraphed to Tehran, asking to be given a separate Government . . . . The Bakhtiari Khans are now reaping the first fruits of ‘azadi' among their own tribesmen."¹⁴¹ Bakhtiyari sawars returning from military campaigns made a demonstration at the Anjuman of Isfahan, complaining that their leaders had broken their promise of pay to them and taken all the spoils for themselves. They remained in Isfahan, pressing their demands for pay and showing the ruling khans the meaning of mashrutah as interpreted and claimed by their own tribesmen.¹⁴² Meanwhile, in the Bakhtiyari mountains, malcontent tribes marauded the roads and had the avowed intention of attacking Isfahan.

Late in 1910, Sardar Bahadur and Sardar Muhtasham led a group of horsemen to settle or put down the growing rebellion against the khans in the Bakhtiyari country and Isfahan.¹⁴³ By the end of January, it was reported that with the Bakhtiyari cavalry sent to subdue them, the rebelling Lurs had left Isfahan and trickled away into Chahar Mahal and the Zagros. By spring, however, Zargham al-Saltana, also disillusioned and feeling uncompensated for his sacrifices for the constitution, made common cause with the malcontent young khans in the south.¹⁴⁴ There were continuous reports of raiding and looting by Chahar Lang and Bakhtiyarwand tribes, as well as news that Zargham al-Saltana was collecting sawars in Paradumba. According to rumors in Isfahan, the malcontent young khans and kalantars of the garmsir had gathered around Zargham al-Saltana and were about to march on the city.¹⁴⁵ In June 1911, as Chahar Lang and Haft Lang tribes clashed in the region beyond Deh Kurd, Zargham al-Saltana had discussions with Sawlat al-Dawla Qashqa'i, who urged him to move on Isfahan and offered to help when the Qashqa'i tribes reached their yaylaq south of the city. In response, however, Sardar Muhtasham and Sardar Bahadur marched to Dih Kurd at the head of six hundred horsemen and prepared to mount an expedition against the Chahar Lang and Zargham's sawars. By the end [End Page 393] of the month, it was reported that the discontented Chahar Lang tribesmen had largely disbanded and given up their open revolt.¹⁴⁶

The Persistence of Bakhtiyari Tribal Identity

For all the efforts of the khans and their retinues on behalf of the revolution, the Bakhtiyari tribes were also among the forces of regionalism and insecurity that prevailed throughout the countryside during the constitutional period. This lack of restraint made the tribes appear to be halfhearted supporters of the constitution, and soon it was said that they even had difficulty in pronouncing the word mashrutiyat. Such anecdotes aside, it could be asked what mashrutiyat meant to the Bakhtiyari tribes. To most of them, mashrutah did not mean the struggle for a nationalist government, but rather a time of opportunity for the Bakhtiyari tribes. During the constitutional period, Bakhtiyari tribal identity was preserved in the long-standing push and pull in Iran between the city and the countryside, the center and the periphery. There is, then, a vernacular history of the Bakhtiyari in the constitutional revolution, a history unlike the official narrative of the Bakhtiyari's role in the movement. Through this lens, we can begin to see the Bakhtiyari's raids and ultimate desertion of the constitutional cause not as a failure to unite behind the nationalist struggle but as the assertion of Bakhtiyari tribal identity.

Bakhtiyari raids, which were endemic in the provinces during times when authority was weak, saw an upsurge during the constitutional revolution. During the years of Husayn Quli Khan's rule, when intertribal fighting between the Bakhtiyaris had ceased, bandits had been kept in check and plundering raids brought to an end. Following the ilkhan's death in 1882 and the subsequent rivalries between the khans, the authority of the Haft Lang over the tribes waned. Provincial crime intensified following Muzaffar al-Din Shah's accession to the throne and even more so after the removal of the governor of Isfahan, Zill al-Sultan in 1907. There were reports of Bakhtiyari tribesmen looting the provinces. The numerous disturbances on the roads to Isfahan and the lack of control over the tribes had much to do with the khans' distraction by national politics and absence from the tribal territories. British administrative reports, correspondences, and gazetteers described the southern roads as a haven for "highwaymen" and "marauders." An Isfahan agent reported that the Bakhtiyari Road was safe only when the Chahar Lang were away in their winter quarters, and the route between Yazdikhast and Abadih was in the hands of cattle-thieving brigands.¹⁴⁷ Bakhtiyari brigands plundered caravans, robbed posts, and stole herds of cattle on the outskirts of Isfahan. In 1908, the attacks of the Bakhtiyari and other Lur tribes in Khuzistan against the employees of the D'Arcy Oil Company became aggressive enough for the British to import Indian guards to protect company lives and property.¹⁴⁸ Similar to the rebellions by the young khans and kalantars, widespread raids by the Bakhtiyari on the roads acknowledged that tribesmen, knowing that there was a breakdown of order during the revolution, asserted their independence.

An important factor contributing to the insecurity in the provinces was the arming of the tribes. The increasing availability of modern European rifles to the tribes of southern Iran was a problem that vexed Qajar and British authorities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Mass-produced rifles of European make had became accessible not only to khans and kalantars but to the rank and file of the tribes as well. European rifles were artifacts of the tribes' encounter with the modern world, ones that could be taken up against the agents of state centralization if need be.

Horseback riding and shooting (sawari wa tufang indakhtan) were traditionally esteemed skills among the Bakhtiyari.¹⁴⁹ Among the tribes, the heroes of Iranian folklore were revered, and Firdawsi's epic Shahnama (Book of Kings) was like a code of war.¹⁵⁰ It had largely been during the dynastic instability of the [End Page 394] eighteenth century, marked by the Afghan conquest of Isfahan in 1722 and the subsequent relocation of tribes to fight in Khurasan under Nadir Shah, that matchlock rifles (tufangha-yi fitila-yi), later flintlock rifles (tufangha-yi chakhmaghi), began to be used by tribes in Iran. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, many of these matchlock and flintlock rifles were made with some alterations into percussion-cap rifles (tufangha-yi chashni). Although matchlock and flintlock rifles remained in use throughout the provinces during the constitutional period, they were no longer being manufactured and were becoming obsolete. Most people sought guns imported from the West, and in Isfahan, once an important center for gun making, all the smiths were busy at work, replicating European makes.¹⁵¹

The arming of the Bakhtiyari leading up to the constitutional period also had to do with the British view of them as a martial tribe. Nineteenth-century observers, including Austen Henry Layard, who wrote one of the earliest imperial ethnographies on the Bakhtiyari, had left vivid although biased descriptions of the Bakhtiyari as warlike tribes, "constantly firing off their loaded guns, . . . dancing their war-dance and shouting their war-songs."¹⁵²

Later in the nineteenth century, the Bakhtiyari's martial character augmented British hopes to raise a counterforce in the south to the Russian-led Cossack Brigade in the north. Thus, in the 1890s, Mortimer Durand proposed the armament of the Bakhtiyari tribes for the purpose of creating such a pro-British force in the south.¹⁵³ The armament of the Bakhtiyari reached a crucial stage after the turn of the century, as the tribe assumed responsibility for guarding roads in Luristan and oil fields in Khuzistan.¹⁵⁴

By the late nineteenth century, Martini Henrys and modern European rifles of that class could be obtained in Fars and Khuzistan with 100 rounds of ball cartridge at prices varying from forty to fifty tumans.¹⁵⁵ Thus by the time of the constitutional revolution, Bakhtiyari sawars attached to the ruling khans were using revolvers and automatics, even though some tribesmen who occupied Isfahan apparently did so equipped with no more than heavy sticks (chub or gurz). In the Tarikh-i Bakhtiyari, a list of the guns available during the revolution appears, along with an estimate of their values. They include five-shot German rifles (panj tir almani-yi buland naw), five-shot revolvers (panj tir almani-yi kutah naw), Browns, Mackenzies, Mausers (tupanchih Mauser), and Wrendels.¹⁵⁶

The predatory habits of Bakhtiyari mercenaries also carried into the cities. In 1910, Fraser wrote that the Bakhtiyari horseman had been "carried into the vortex of city life, given pay in cash, tempted and seduced by new delights," becoming "a gambler, a tavern haunter, and a convert to crime in the city."¹⁵⁷ For Fraser such events confirmed that to most tribesmen liberty still meant "the freedom to follow their nomadic inclinations."¹⁵⁸ In the summer of 1911, when Muhammad ‘Ali Shah attempted to return to the throne from the Turkmen sahra or steppes, leading to Samsam al-Saltana's appointment as premier, more Bakhtiyari tribesmen marched to defend the capital. As Morgan Shuster, the American financial advisor appointed treasurer-general by the Majlis, described in The Strangling of Persia, the Bakhtiyari horsemen's arrival in Tehran brought demands for cash. Shuster noted that the mercurial Samsam al-Saltana offered "to put a pistol to the breast [of Muhammad ‘Ali Shah] and kill him," though he later called on Shuster to make [End Page 395] 100,000 tumans available as bounty on the head of the shah and 25,000 tumans on that of each of his brothers.¹⁵⁹ In July and August 1911, more Bakhtiyari tribesmen with their khans began to arrive in Tehran from the south with such demands for money and compensation that Shuster threatened to resign as treasurer-general.¹⁶⁰

Moreover, Shuster's efforts to raise a tax-collecting corps of gendarmes, a planned force of fifteen thousand men, mounted and armed with Mauser pistols and rifles, to collect revenues and maintain order made the Bakhtiyari wary. The treasurer-general's attempt to modernize the military forces, which at the time consisted largely of an "indefinite number of unorganized Bakhtiyaris spread out in Isfahan, and on the road to Tehran," brought him into opposition with Samsam al-Saltana, who became hostile to the zealous treasurer's protests against the plundering of the treasury and "refused to keep his promise to assist in the organization of the Treasury Gendarmerie."¹⁶¹ This opposition spilled into the open in November 1911 when Shuster sent the treasury gendarmes to collect taxes from Ala al-Dawla, a Qajar prince and acquaintance of the premier. When Shuster sent a group of gendarmes to the gate of Ala al-Dawla's residence and informed him that his property was being seized until he paid back taxes, the prince left by another gate for the house of Samsam al-Saltana, where "with tears in his eyes" he convinced the premier to send Bakhtiyari sawars to drive off the gendarmes, with the tribesmen seizing their guns.¹⁶² Two days later, however, Samsam al-Saltana issued an apology claiming that he was an old man and "had gone quite out of his head," and the guns of the gendarmes were returned to them and the due taxes were paid.¹⁶³ Just one week later, however, the premier, who had earlier refused to allow the gendarmes to have a barracks, demanded the removal of the force from Shu'a al-Saltana's park.¹⁶⁴ It seemed as though Shuster's formation of the gendarmes and tax reforms had swung the Bakhtiyari toward the Russian camp during winter 1911.

The final break between the Bakhtiyari tribes and the constitutional movement occurred in the last days of 1911, when the khans chose not to resist the Russian occupation of Qazvin and accepted the Russian ultimatum to close down the Majlis. Dismayed by Shuster and the Democrats' reforms and fearful of the tribe's future should Muhammad ‘Ali Shah return to the throne, Samsam al-Saltana approached Russian and British ministers and proposed a Bakhtiyari coup over the Majlis.¹⁶⁵ In December 1911, the premier stormed from the chamber of the Majlis "declaring that he would call his Bakhtiyaris and kill all the Democrats."¹⁶⁶ There was widespread speculation that the tribe was moving to establish a Bakhtiyari dynasty or else planning to withdraw altogether from the state, retreat to their mountains, and leave the country open to the return of Muhammad ‘Ali Shah.¹⁶⁷ When Sardar As‘ad, so instrumental in steering the tribe along a nationalist line in the past, returned to Iran from Europe in late 1911, some expected him to mobilize the tribes again behind the constitutional cause, but instead he urged the acceptance of Russian terms.¹⁶⁸ This move was made to avoid the Russian occupation of Iran, yet there could be no doubt that the Bakhtiyari had deserted the constitutional cause.¹⁶⁹

Thus in early 1912 the Bakhtiyari were left in power in the capital and were in a position to contemplate the establishment of a Bakhtiyari dynasty. According to Yahya Dawlatabadi, Sardar As‘ad had sought to discern the reactions of Iranians in Europe should the Bakhtiyari take the throne.¹⁷⁰ The Bakhtiyari khans were also acquiring provincial governorships, following [End Page 396] the Qajar practice of dispersing appointments among princes. Each khan kept a retinue of between sixty and one hundred sawars, some of whose depredations made the Bakhtiyari's name infamous in the provinces. The country's roads were under tribal control and the Bakhtiyari Road from the Karun to Isfahan was closed in the summer and fall of 1912. The nationalist press now condemned the Bakhtiyari as the cause of insecurity (na amni) throughout the countryside; although they had given their lives for the constitution, they did not follow its laws (dar hich qanun-i nimirawand).¹⁷¹ The Bakhtiyari sawars had gained power in the revolution as a military force, yet the constitutional period in many ways marked the dissolution of pastoral prestige and the twilight of the tribes as the armies of Iran. There were signs of the formation of a centralized standing army in Iran in the aftermath of the constitutional revolution, as seen in the creation of the national gendarmes. A regularly paid and provisioned gendarmerie capable of policing the country and its roads was developed under the direction of Swedish officers, recruiting men from all places and classes, including the tribes.¹⁷² Although for a while the treasury paid the national gendarmes as well as the private retinues of the Bakhtiyari khans, the long-standing balance of power between pastoral nomads and the state in Iran was beginning to shift.

Conclusion: Back to the Mountains

In January 1913, after Samsam al-Saltana had resigned as premier and Sardar Muhtasham as minister of war, after there were no longer any Bakhtiyaris in the cabinet, Bakhtiyari militias stayed in the capital, in the area of Khiaban-i ‘Ala al-Dawla Street.¹⁷³ Although there was a scheme under discussion by which some Bakhtiyari cavalry would enter the gendarmes, the tribesmen eventually clashed with gendarmes stationed in the city.¹⁷⁴ By summer 1913, their battles had poured into the streets, alleys, and bazaars of Tehran.¹⁷⁵ According to the British minister Walter Townley, "The position was no easy one, either for the Government, which could not forget in a moment all the services that the Bakhtiaris had rendered the cause of the Constitution in Persia, or for the two legations which were morally bound to advise that all possible support should be given to the force commanded by alien officers, a fact that itself predisposed the Cabinet in favor of the Bakhtiyaris, despite the unpopularity that they had acquired in the country."¹⁷⁶ In August 1913, the Bakhtiyari in Tehran bowed to pressure from the gendarmes and the cabinet, and under Sardar As‘ad's order for the tribe to follow Townley's directives, all armed Bakhtiyari, apart from small escorts reserved for the khans, left Tehran and returned to the Zagros Mountains in detachments of thirty at a time.¹⁷⁷ In Isfahan as well, where the retinues of the various khans had swelled as their kin (bastigan) arrived in town wanting money and appointments and desiring to become a boss of some sort, and where Bakhtiyari rebels (ashrar) had burned and looted the constitutional assembly, the people sought to be rid of the Bakhtiyari, sending the city's notables, headed by Aqa Najafi, to ask the tribes to return to their mountains.¹⁷⁸ Townley himself looked back on the experiences of the Bakhtiyari tribes in the constitutional period:

One has but to put oneself in their place for a moment to realize what it meant to them. They had played a most prominent part in all the events which had resulted in the expulsion of the ex-Shah from Persia; they had fought against him when he returned; they had defended the country against Salar-ed-Dowleh; and the wheel of political fortune had brought them into high office, several of them having been Cabinet Ministers, whilst one of their number had been the Prime Minister. Then out of an incident, with a [End Page 397] force commanded by foreign officers, they were to see themselves humbled, by their tribesmen being disarmed in the face of all Persia, and their numbers at the capital reduced, as if they had been mere malefactors instead of men who had served their country well.¹⁷⁹

In 1909, the Bakhtiyari horsemen descended the Zagros Mountains, crossed the Iranian plateau, and fought for the Iranian constitutional revolution. The revolution was a time of opportunity for the tribes, bringing them political power and exposing them to life in the cities and the culture of modern politics. By the end of 1911, however, the Bakhtiyari had abandoned their experiment with constitutionalism and modern politics and were looking back to their mountains. The Bakhtiyari tribes returned to the Zagros after having taken part in a revolutionary movement that reaffirmed their place among the Iranian peoples. The history of the Bakhtiyari tribes in the constitutional period is also the history of the waning the nomad state—a state built on the ongoing conflict between the center and the periphery. Modern changes had transformed the pattern of politics in Iran, and state military power would no longer be based on pastoral tribes. [End Page 398]