The Bakhtiari and the Revolution

The Bakhtiari, a confederation of pastoral tribes in the Zagros mountains, played a decisive part in the Constitutional Revolution. In 1909 their khans, led by Ali-Qoli Khan Sardar As’ad and Najafqoli Khan Samsam al-Saltaneh, took Isfahan and marched on Tehran to restore the constitution, and for the next three years Bakhtiari leaders held many of the highest offices in the state.

A tribal confederation of the Zagros

The بختیاری (Bakhtiâri) were pastoral nomads who moved their flocks each year between winter pastures in the lowlands of Khuzestan and summer pastures in the high Zagros, a migration that still takes place on a smaller scale today. They spoke a Lori dialect and were divided into two great branches, the Haft Lang and the Chahar Lang. Their chiefs, the khans, lived in fortified houses in Chaharmahal and owned villages and land as well as herds.

In the nineteenth century one Haft Lang family rose above the rest. Hosayn-Qoli Khan was recognised by the Qajar government as ایلخانی (ilkhâni), paramount chief of the whole tribe. His power alarmed the governor of Isfahan, Naser al-Din Shah’s son Zell al-Soltan, and in 1882 he was put to death on the governor’s orders. His sons survived, and their rivalry with their cousins for the title of ilkhani shaped Bakhtiari politics for decades.

Roads, oil and the British

By 1900 the Bakhtiari were drawn into the wider economy. The British firm Lynch Brothers built a mule road across their mountains around 1900, linking Isfahan with the Karun river trade. After William Knox D’Arcy obtained his oil concession in 1901, the khans signed an agreement with his syndicate in 1905: they would guard the drilling sites in return for payments and a small share in the company working on their land. When oil was struck at Masjed Soleyman in 1908 (see the D’Arcy concession), the khans gained a new income and close ties with British business, which shaped how the British saw them during the revolution.

Joining the constitutionalists

When Mohammad Ali Shah closed the Majlis by force in June 1908 (see the bombardment of the Majlis), the khans had several reasons to oppose him: dislike of the shah’s governors, rivalry within the tribe, ambitions of their own and, for some, real sympathy with the constitution. Ali-Qoli Khan Sardar As’ad had travelled in Europe and met Iranian constitutionalists in exile, and his sister, Bibi Maryam, is remembered for supporting the cause.

In January 1909 Samsam al-Saltaneh entered Isfahan with Bakhtiari horsemen at the invitation of townspeople and clerics hostile to the shah’s governor, and took control of the city. Sardar As’ad came back from Europe in the spring and, in June, led Bakhtiari riders north. In July 1909 they joined the constitutionalist force from Gilan under the Sepahdar and entered Tehran; Mohammad Ali Shah took refuge in the Russian legation and was deposed. The military story is told on the page on the constitutionalists’ conquest of Tehran.

Bakhtiari government, 1909–1912

Victory turned the khans into a ruling group. Sardar As’ad became minister of the interior and then of war, Bakhtiari horsemen formed a large part of the government’s armed force, and members of the family were appointed governors of provinces including Isfahan, Yazd and Kerman. In the second Majlis they sided with the Moderates against the Democrats. In August 1910 Bakhtiari troops and Yeprem Khan’s police disarmed the irregular fighters camped in Atabak Park, a sign of the new order’s distrust of the revolution’s radical wing.

In 1911 the khans defended the constitutional regime when the deposed shah tried to return. Bakhtiari and Armenian forces defeated his supporters in the autumn of that year. But it was also a Bakhtiari government that ended the revolution. Samsam al-Saltaneh became prime minister in the summer of 1911, and when Russia issued its ultimatum demanding the dismissal of the American treasurer Morgan Shuster, his cabinet accepted it. On 24 December 1911 the government used Bakhtiari forces and the police to close the Majlis (see Morgan Shuster and the Russian ultimatum).

How historians judge the khans

Views differ. Older nationalist histories, and the Bakhtiari’s own Tarikh-e Bakhtiari, compiled under Sardar As’ad, present the khans as saviours of the constitution. Historians such as Gene Garthwaite and Ervand Abrahamian stress self-interest: the khans used the revolution to win offices, governorships and revenues, and their British connections made them acceptable to London. Janet Afary sees the Bakhtiari ascendancy as one of the forces that pushed the revolution in a conservative direction after 1909. Most agree that without Bakhtiari cavalry the constitutionalists could not have taken Tehran in 1909.

After the revolution

The khans remained powerful through the First World War. Their decline came under Reza Shah, who disarmed the tribes, pushed many nomads to settle and broke the khans’ independent power in the 1920s and 1930s. Ja’far-Qoli Khan, Sardar As’ad’s son and Reza Shah’s own minister of war, was arrested in 1933 and died in prison in 1934. The Bakhtiari remained an important community, and Bakhtiari families continued to produce prominent figures in twentieth-century Iran.