Iran's Constitutional Revolution

Merchants, clergy and intellectuals forced Qajar rulers to accept a parliament and constitution — the Middle East's first sustained constitutionalist movement, fought partly over foreign concessions.

Why it matters

A generation of Iranians fought over the same questions as 1789 Paris — representation, law, sovereignty — under the new pressure of oil, empire and telegraph-wired public opinion. Its parliament, the Majles, still anchors Iranian politics.

Threads

This event sits on Governance.

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Sources

• Encyclopædia Iranica — Constitutional Revolution