Fragile and Erratic Amelioration (1874–1883)
Fragile and Erratic Amelioration (1874–1883)
Shortly before Nasir al-Din Shah pronounced equality for the Jews, Britain had contemplated pressuring him to endorse “religious liberty” in Iran, but eventually decided against it. One reason was that the introduction of “religious liberty” would be opposed by Mushir al-Dawlah's adversaries, including the ulama. When the Shah arrived from Europe, he issued orders to equalize the rights of all of his subjects, including special injunctions for the Jewish population. In subsequent months and years, the Shah implemented a number of measures to ameliorate the Jews' condition. This chapter discusses the discrimination and persecution suffered by the Jews in Iran during the nineteenth century and how the Shah tried to address them. It examines the protection provided to Iranian Jews through “gunboat diplomacy,” the effect of famine in the late 1870s and early 1880s and the Kurdish uprisings between 1879 and 1881 on Jews, the Isfahan problem, the Shi'i inheritance law, and the prohibition against keeping shops in bazaars.
Keywords: Jews, Iran, al-Din Shah, discrimination, persecution, Europe, famine, uprisings, Mushir al-Dawlah, gunboat diplomacy
Stanford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
