Iranian Constitutional Revolution and the Clerical Leadership of Khurasani
My first book is an extensively revised edition of my doctoral dissertation. Its general subject is the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1906-1911) which was a first of its kind in the Middle East and the Muslim world. Persians’ quest for more accountability and justice led to constitutionalism as a movement, which found its origins in the minds of those who had traveled to Russia and Europe and were enamored by how laws could curb the absolutist powers of monarchs and end lawlessness.
As is detailed in the Introduction, I focus more on the role of religion, which in the case of Iran is Twelver Shiism, in the way it propagated and supported the concept of constitutionalism that by its origins was a secular concept born in the heart of the land of the infidels (meaning the West). More specifically, I look at significant support of the only Shiite clerical authority whom although was Persian but lived and worked in neighboring Iraq in the Shiite Holy city of Najaf. Mullah Muhammad Kazim Khurasani was the epitome of the position he occupied which called for self-less dedication of his mind, body, and power to help secular thinkers establish the closest form of a political system that could adhere to conditions that would be the most just and equitable to all.
