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Ulama (Arabic: علماء‎ ʿUlamāʾ , singular عالِم ʿĀlim, "scholar"), also spelt ulema, refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of sharia law. While the ulama are well versed in legal fiqh (jurisprudence) being Islamic lawyers, some of them also go on to specialize in other fields, such as hadith or tafseer.

In a broader sense, the term ulama is used to describe the body of Muslim scholars who have completed several years of training and study of Islamic disciplines, such as a mufti, qadi, faqih, or muhaddith. Some Muslims^[which?] include under this term the village mullahs and imams, who have attained only the lowest rungs on the ladder of Islamic scholarship; other Muslims^{[clarification needed]} would say that clerics must meet higher standards to be considered ulama. This is why it is claimed^[who?] that in Western society there are for the most of the time no ulama present, with the outcome of Muslims in the West searching for qualified knowledge from Islamic countries, to attain some accepted qualification. The Internet gives some streams of ulama speaking on a video record, which is very rare.^[1]

The word ulama in English is plural, and indeclinable.

Teaching[link]

Ulama learned at Islamic religious schools, madrasahs, where they teach students about Islam and other areas of study. It is believed in Islam that a well-rounded education is something every Muslim must acquire in order to understand God’s religion in its entirety. By the end of their education, they acquire an Ijazah, an academic degree in Islamic law and jurisprudence, a practice that dates back to the first several centuries of Islam.^{[citation needed]} Ulama also hold seminars where they give lectures and speeches about the area of Islam in which they specialize.

Afghanistan's Taliban regime was also headed by a mullah, Mullah Omar. However, in most countries, they are merely local power figures.

Judicature[link]

In certain Muslim countries, like Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, where there are sharia courts, Islamic clergy become judges. Therefore, one of the jobs of ulama is the interpretation and maintenance of Islamic law in such countries.

Advisory[link]

In some countries like Saudi Arabia, Islamic clergy fulfill the role of a counsel for the king. There are also jobs for them in various governmental institutions.

Preaching[link]

There are various jobs available for the Islamic clergy at mosques, such as leading public prayers, preaching, and delivering sermons, especially at Friday prayers and some have made missionary activities a lifelong activity.

Ummah[link]

The ulama in most nations consider themselves to represent the ijma "consensus" of the Ummah "community of Muslims" (or to represent at least the scholarly or learned consensus). Many efforts to modernise Islam focus on the reintroduction of ijtihad and empowerment of the ummah to form their own ijma.

Madhhab[link]

Sunni ulama usually work within a tradition (madhhab) that starts with one of five classic jurists.

• Shafi'i (most common in Indonesia, Malaysia, Jordan, Palestine and Egypt)
• Hanafi (most common in Turkey, the Balkans, Central Asia, Indian subcontinent, Egypt)
• Maliki (most common in North Africa, West Africa,)
• Hanbali (most common in Saudi Arabia and several of the Persian Gulf states)
• Zahiri (rare)

Some ulama are not associated with any school. They believe that it is necessary to derive rulings directly from the Qur'an and the Hadith.

History[link]

An Ottoman scholar.

The formative period of Islamic jurisprudence stretches back to the time of the early Muslim communities. In this period, jurists were more concerned with pragmatic issues of authority and teaching than with theory.^[2] Progress in theory happened with the coming of the early Muslim jurist Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi`i (767–820), who codified the basic principles of Islamic jurisprudence in his book ar-Risālah. The book details the four roots of law (Qur'an, Sunnah, ijma, and qiyas) while specifying that the primary Islamic texts (the Qur'an and the hadith) be understood according to objective rules of interpretation derived from scientific study of the Arabic language.^[3]

The 19th and 20th centuries were marked by a considerable loss of authority and influence of the ulama in most Islamic states. Many secular Arab governments attempted to break the influence of the ulama after their rise to power. Religious institutions were nationalized and the system of waqf "religious donations", which constituted the classical source of income for the ulama, was abolished.

In 1961, Gamal Abdel Nasser put the Al-Azhar University, one of the highest Islamic intellectual authorities, under the direct control of the state. "The Azharis were even put in army uniforms and had to parade under the command of army officers" (G. Keppel, Jihad). In Turkey, the traditional dervish tekkes and Islamic schools were dissolved and replaced by state-controlled religious schools in the 1950s and 1960s. After the independence of Algeria, President Ahmed Ben Bella also deprived the Algerian ulama of their power.

Authors[link]

Many ulama have left behind them only a lifetime of mediating disputes and giving sermons; their respectable contributions did not include authorship. Other ulama have been prolific authors, writing translations of the Quran or Quranic commentaries, studies of hadith, works of philosophy, religious admonition, etc. There are enormous bodies of religious literature that form not only the substance of the courses in Islamic seminaries, but inspirational reading for the ordinary Muslim. Most of this literature has not been translated into English, but remains in its original language (usually Arabic, Urdu, Persian, or Turkish). Some has been printed; some remains in manuscript form.

Ottoman ulama[link]

In order to become one of the ulama in the Ottoman Empire, one had to have studied at a madraseh and be an expert in all the religious sciences, specializing in one or two specifics. In addition, the student had to have been tested and approved by higher ranking ulama. Such assessment by experts gave the ulama legitimacy in the eyes of the public, because it imitated the way the Caliphs after the death of the Prophet Muhammad were appointed. In 14th and 15th century Ottoman Empire, there were not many madrasehs, and so the ulama traveled to countries such as Persia and Egypt to further their education. Upon the conquering of Istanbul however, the sultan converted eight churches into madrasehs and placed eight of the best ulama as the heads.^[4] The ulama in the Ottoman Empire had a large influence over politics because it was believed that secular institutions were all subordinate to religion; the ulama were emblems of religious piety, therefore rendering them powerful over state affairs.^[5] Ulama worked as priest-like authorities who had the role of interpreting and enforcing Islamic shariah law. These jobs were distributed amongst two types of ulama: Muftis, who interpreted Shariah law and the Qadi, who enforced Shariah law. The Ottomans had a strict hierarchy of ulama, with the Sheikh ul-Islam holding the highest rank. A Sheikh ul-Islam was chosen by a royal warrant amongst the qadis of important cities. The Sheikh ul-Islam had the power to confirm new sultans, but once the sultan was affirmed, it was the sultan who retained a higher authority than the Sheik ul-Islam. The Sheikh ul-Islam issued fatwas, which were written interpretations of the Quran that had authority over the community. The Sheikh ul-Islam represented the law of shariah and in the 16th century its importance rose which led to increased power. Sultan Murad appointed a Sufi, Yayha, as his Sheikh ul-Islam during this time which lead to violent disapproval. The objection to this appointment made obvious the amount of power the Sheikh ul-Islam had, since people were afraid he would alter the traditions and norms they were living under by issuing new fatwas.^[6]

See also[link]

• Islam
• Islamic jurisprudence
• List of Islamic studies scholars
• Mullah
• Shi'a clergy

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Zaman, Muhammad Qasim (2002). The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09680-5. 

Further reading[link]

Look up ulama in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ulama

• Inalcik, Halil. 1973. "Learning, the Medrese, and the Ulema." In The Ottoman Empire: The Classical AGe 1300–1600. New YOrk: Praeger, pp. 165–178.

• Heyd. Uriel. "Some Aspects of The Ottoman Fetva." School of Oriental and African Studies Bulletin; 32 (1969), p. 35–56.

• Bein, Amit. Ottoman Ulema, Turkish Republic: Agents of Change and Guardians of Tradition (2011) Amazon.com

• Hatina, Meir. Ulama, Politics, and the Public Sphere: An Egyptian Perspective (2010). ISBN 978-1-60781-032-2

Guidelines to the Jurisprudence of Ottoman Ulema – Mehmet Ipsirli http://www.muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=416

• Tasar, Murat. "The Ottoman Ulema: their understanding of knowledge and scholarly contribution." The Turks. 3: Ottomans. Editors: Hasan Celâl Güzel, C.Cem Oğuz, Osman Karatay. Ankara: Yeni Türkiye, 2002, pp. 841–850.

• Zilfi, Madeline C. 1986. "The Kadizadelis: Discordant Revivalism in Seventeenth Century Istanbul." Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45 (4): 251–269.

Shaykh Habib Ali Al-Jifri
Native name	الحبيب علي زين العابدين الجفري
Born	(1971-04-16) April 16, 1971 (age 41) Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Residence	Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Ethnicity	Arab
Occupation	Islamic scholar, academic, author
Home town	Hadhramaut, Yemen
Title	Shaykh
Religion	Islam
Denomination	Sunni (Sufism)
Parents	Abdul Rahman bin Ali Al-Jifri (father) Marumah bint Hassan Al-Jifri (mother)
Website
www.alhabibali.com/en/

Habib Ali Zain al-`Abideen al-Jifri (Arabic: الحبيب علي زين العابدين الجفري‎; born April 16, 1971) is an Islamic scholar from Hadhramaut, Yemen of the Shafi'i school of Fiqh, and the Ashari school of Aqida.

Background[link]

Shaykh Habib Ali al-Jifri was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He is a sayyid (a descendent of the Islamic prophet Muhammad) and traces his lineage to the family of 'Ali, the fourth Caliph of Islam and cousin of the Prophet Muhammad.

He follows the Ba'Alawi sufi order, a tradition that has been based in Yemen for approximately 800 years and traces back to the Prophet Muhammad.

Education[link]

Al-Jifri grew up in an educated environment, and became interested in Islamic sciences, studying under a number of scholars in the Hejaz and Hadhramaut, Egypt, Syria and other countries, and receiving their sole discretion. He is the holder of degrees in Islamic sciences.

Career[link]

Al-Jifri is the founder and director-general of the nonprofit privately-funded Tabah Foundation for Islamic Studies in Abu Dhabi, UAE. He is a member of the board of Dar al-Mustafa Islamic University in Tarim, Yemen. He runs the Islamic Center in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

He is a member of the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Jordan, and is also affiliated with various other international Islamic organizations.

He has strong connections with many centers and academies involved with international dialogue in religions and civilizations, including the Center for Faith and Culture at Yale University in the United States. He is also a contributor to A Common Word Between Us and You, an Islamic-Christian dialogue. He received the annual award of the Augen Biser Foundation in Germany for the year 2008 for his contribution to Islamic-Christian dialogue.

Al-Jifri is a noted critic of Wahhabism, he has made his reputation on conference and television appearances. He wrote the book Jesus Christ the Son of Mary and His Most Blessed Mother.

He was interviewed by Dalia Mogahed from the Gallup Centre for Muslim Studies.^[1]

Awards and recognition[link]

In 2009, Al-Jifri was listed 37th in the world’s 500 most influential Muslims by Georgetown University’s The Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talaal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre of Jordan.

See also[link]

• Arab people
• Ba'Alawi
• Shafi'i
• Sufism

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Website
• A Common Word
• The 500 Most Influential Muslims

This Yemeni biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This article about an Islamic scholar is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Mohammad Mosaddegh
60th and 62nd Prime Minister of Iran
In office 28 April 1951 – 16 July 1952
Monarch	Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi
Deputy	Hossein Fatemi
Preceded by	Hossein Ala'
Succeeded by	Ahmad Qavam
In office 21 July 1952 – 19 August 1953
Monarch	Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi
Deputy	Ahmad Zirakzadeh
Preceded by	Ahmad Qavam
Succeeded by	Fazlollah Zahedi
Leader of National Front
In office 1 January 1949 – 5 March 1967
Deputy	Karim Sanjabi
Preceded by	Party created
Succeeded by	Karim Sanjabi
Member of Parliament of Iran
In office 1 May 1920 – 1 May 1948
Constituency	Tehran
Personal details
Born	(1882-06-16)16 June 1882 Tehran, Iran
Died	5 March 1967(1967-03-05) (aged 84) Ahmadabad-e Mosaddeq, Iran
Political party	National Front
Spouse(s)	Zia od-Saltane (1901-1965)
Children	5
Religion	Shi'a Islam
Signature

Mohammad Mosaddegh or Mosaddeq (Persian: محمد مصدق‎, IPA: [mohæmˈmæd(-e) mosædˈdeɣ] ( listen)*), also spelled Mossadegh, Mossadeq, Mosadeck, or Musaddiq (16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967), was the Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 until being overthrown in a coup d'état in 1953.

His administration introduced a wide range of social and political reforms but is most notable for its nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913 through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC/AIOC) (later British Petroleum or BP).^[1]

Mosaddegh was removed from power in a coup on 19 August 1953, organised and carried out by the United States CIA at the request of the British MI6 which chose Iranian General Fazlollah Zahedi to succeed Mosaddegh.^[2]

The coup is sometimes known as the TPAJAX Project^[3] after its CIA cryptonym, however, in Iran it is referred to as the 28 Mordad 1332 coup, after its date on the Iranian calendar.^[4], which is incorrect as the Operation's proper name was TPAjax (TP standing for Tudeh Party of Iran the Russian backed communist party of Iran} Mosaddegh was imprisoned for three years, then put under house arrest until his death.

Early life[link]

Mossadegh was born to a prominent family in Tehran in 1882; his father, Mirza Hideyatu'llah Khan, a Bakhtiari tribesman, was a financial administrator in Khorasan province under the Qajar dynasty and his mother, Shahzadi Malika Taj Khanum, was the granddaughter of the reformist Qajar prince Abbas Mirza, and a great granddaughter of Fat′h-Ali Shah Qajar.^[5][6][7] When Mosaddegh's father died in 1892, his uncle was appointed the tax collector of the Khorasan province and was bestowed with the title of Mosaddegh-os-Saltaneh by Nasser al-Din Shah.^[8] Mosaddegh himself later bore the same title, by which he was still known to some long after titles were abolished.^[9]

In 1901, Mosaddegh married Zahra Khanum (1879–1965), a granddaughter of Nasser al-Din Shah through her mother. The couple had five children, two sons (Ahmad and Ghulam Hussein) and three daughters (Mansura, Zia Ashraf and Khadija).

Education[link]

A young Mosaddegh

Mosaddegh received his Licence en Droit as well as his Doctor of law from the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.

Mosaddegh also taught at the University of Tehran at the start of World War I before beginning his long political career.^[10]

Early political career[link]

Mosaddegh started his political career with the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1905/07. At the age of 24, he was elected from Isfahan to the newly inaugurated Persian Parliament, the Majlis of Iran. During this period he also served as deputy leader of the Humanitarian Society, Jameeyate Ensaniat, under Mostowfi ol-Mamalek.^[11] In protest of the Anglo-Persian Treaty of 1919, he relocated to Switzerland, from where he returned the following year after being invited by the new Iranian Prime Minister, Hassan Pirnia (Moshir-ed-Dowleh), to become his Minister of Justice. While en-route to Tehran, he was asked by the people of Shiraz to become the Governor of the Fars Province. He was later appointed Finance Minister, in the government of Ahmad Qavam (Qavam os-Saltaneh) in 1921, and then Foreign Minister in the government of Moshir-ed-Dowleh in June 1923. He then became Governor of the Azerbaijan Province. In 1923, he was re-elected to the Majlis.

In 1925, the supporters of Reza Khan in the Majlis, proposed legislation to dissolve the Qajar dynasty and appoint Reza Khan the new Shah. Mossadegh voted against such a move, arguing that such an act was a subversion of the 1906 Iranian constitution. He gave a speech in the Majlis, praising Reza Khan's achievements as a statesman, while encouraging him to respect the constitution and become the Prime Minister, not the Shah. On December 12, 1925, the Majlis deposed the young Shah Ahmad Shah Qajar, and declared Reza Shah the new monarch of the Imperial State of Persia, and the first Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty.^[12]

In 1941 Reza Shah Pahlavi was forced to abdicate in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi by the British. In 1944, Mosaddegh was once again elected to parliament. This time he took the lead of Jebhe Melli (National Front of Iran), an organisation he had founded with nineteen others such as Hossein Fatemi, Ahmad Zirakzadeh, Ali Shayegan and Karim Sanjabi, aiming to establish democracy and end the foreign presence in Iranian politics, especially by nationalising the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company's (AIOC) operations in Iran.

Prime minister[link]

Support for oil nationalization[link]

Most of Iran's oil reserves were in the Persian Gulf area and had been developed by the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) for export to Britain. For a number of reasons — a growing consciousness of how little Iran was getting from the AIOC for its oil; refusal of the AIOC to offer of a ‘50–50% profit sharing deal' to Iran as Aramco had to Saudi Arabia; anger over Iran's defeat and occupation by the Allied powers — nationalization of oil was an important and popular issue with "a broad cross-section of the Iranian people."^[13]

General Haj-Ali Razmara, the Shah's choice, was approved as prime minister June 1950. On 3 March 1951 he appeared before the Majlis (parliament) in an attempt to persuade the deputies against "full nationalization on the grounds that Iran could not override its international obligations and lacked the capacity to run the oil industry on its own." He was assassinated four days later while praying in the mosque by Khalil Tahmasebi, a member of the militant fundamentalist group Fadayan-e Islam.^[14] This order of events, while appearing in many mainstream historical accounts, confronts countervailing evidence. Firstly, "[US]embassy staffers early on speculated that Razmara might either be assassinated or become involved in a power struggle with the Shah."^[15] These two concerns appear to converge according to Stephen Kinzer, who notes that:

“[e]vidence emerged to suggest that the fatal shot had been fired not by Tahmasibi but by a soldier acting on behalf of the Shah or members of his inner circle, and that Asadollah Alam had knowingly driven him to his fatal rendezvous. Years later a retired Iranian colonel wrote in his memoir that the fatal shot had come from a Colt revolver, available only to soldiers. “An army sergeant, in civilian clothes, was chosen for the deed”, he asserted. “He had been told to shoot and kill Razmara with a Colt, the moment Tahmasibi began to shoot… Those who had examined the wounds in Razmara’s body were in no doubt that he had been killed by a Colt bullet, not by the bullet of a weak gun.”^[16][17]

While this account is corroborated by several other studies,^[18] it remains a point of contention among historians. After negotiations for higher oil royalties failed, on 15 March and 20 March 1951, the Iranian Majlis and Senate voted to nationalize the British-owned and operated AIOC, taking control of Iran's oil industry.

Another force for nationalization was the Tudeh or Communist party. In early April 1951 the party organised nationwide strikes and riots in protest against delays in nationalization of the oil industry along with low wages and bad housing in the oil industry. This display of strength, along with public celebration at the assassination of General Razmara made an impact on the deputies of the Majlis.^[19]

Election as prime minister[link]

On 28 April 1951, the Majlis (Parliament of Iran) named Mosaddegh as new prime minister by a vote of 79–12. Aware of Mosaddegh's rising popularity and political power, the young Shah appointed Mosaddegh to the Premiership.

The new administration introduced a wide range of social reforms: Unemployment compensation was introduced, factory owners were ordered to pay benefits to sick and injured workers, and peasants were freed from forced labor in their landlords' estates. Twenty percent of the money landlords received in rent was placed in a fund to pay for development projects such as public baths, rural housing, and pest control.^[20]

On 1 May, Mosaddegh nationalized the AIOC, cancelling its oil concession due to expire in 1993 and expropriating its assets. The next month a committee of five majlis deputies was sent to Khuzistan to enforce the nationalization.^[21][22] Mosaddegh explained his nationalisation policy in a 21 June 1951 speech:

The confrontation between Iran and Britain escalated as Mosaddegh's government refused to allow the British any involvement in Iran's oil industry, and Britain made sure Iran could sell no oil. In July, Mosaddegh broke off negotiations with AIOC after it threatened "to pull out its employees", and told owners of oil tanker ships that "receipts from the Iranian government would not be accepted on the world market." Two months later the AIOC evacuated its technicians and closed down the oil installations. Under nationalized management many refineries lacked the trained technicians that were needed to continue production. The British government announced a de facto blockade, reinforced its naval force in the Persian Gulf and lodged complaints against Iran before the United Nations Security Council.^[21]

Mosaddegh shaking hands with Mohammad-Reza Shah in their first meeting after Mossadegh's election as Prime Minister

The British government also threatened legal action against purchasers of oil produced in the formerly British-controlled refineries and obtained an agreement with its sister international oil companies not to fill in where the AIOC was boycotting Iran. The entire Iranian oil industry came to a virtual standstill, oil production dropping from 241,400,000 barrels (38,380,000 m³) in 1950 to 10,600,000 barrels (1,690,000 m³) in 1952. This Abadan Crisis reduced Iran's oil income to almost nil, putting a severe strain on the implementation of Mosaddegh's promised domestic reforms. At the same time BP and Aramco doubled their production in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq, to make up for lost production in Iran so that no hardship was felt in Britain.

Still enormously popular in late 1951, Mosaddegh called elections. His base of support was in urban areas and not in the provinces.^[24] This fact was reflected in the rejection of Mosaddegh's bill for electoral reform (which no longer disqualified illiterates from electoral participation) by the conservative bloc, on the grounds that it would "unjustly discriminate patriots who had been voting for the last forty years".^[25]

According to Ervand Abrahamian: "Realizing that the opposition would take the vast majority of the provincial seats, Mosaddegh stopped the voting as soon as 79 deputies – just enough to form a parliamentary quorum — had been elected."^[26] An alternative account is offered by Stephen Kinzer. Beginning in the early 1950s under the guidance of C.M. Woodhouse, chief of the British intelligence station in Tehran, Britain's covert operations network had funneled roughly £10,000 per month to the Rashidian brothers (two of Iran's most influential royalists) in the hope of buying off, according to CIA estimates, "the armed forces, the Majlis (Iranian parliament), religious leaders, the press, street gangs, politicians and other influential figures".^[27] Thus, in his statement asserting electoral manipulation by "foreign agents", Mosaddegh suspended the elections. His National Front party had made up 30 of the 79 deputies elected. Yet none of those present vetoed the statement, and the elections were postponed indefinitely. The 17th Majlis convened on February 1952.

Tension soon began to escalate in the Majlis. Conservative opponents refused to grant Mosaddegh special powers to deal with the economic crisis caused by the sharp drop in revenue and voiced regional grievances against the capital Tehran, while the National Front waged "a propaganda war against the landed upper class".^[24]

Resignation and uprising[link]

On 16 July 1952, during the royal approval of his new cabinet, Mosaddegh insisted on the constitutional prerogative of the prime minister to name a Minister of War and the Chief of Staff, something the Shah had done hitherto. The Shah refused, and Mosaddegh announced his resignation appealing directly to the public for support, pronouncing that "in the present situation, the struggle started by the Iranian people cannot be brought to a victorious conclusion".^[28]

Veteran politician Ahmad Qavam (also known as Ghavam os-Saltaneh) was appointed as Iran's new prime minister. On the day of his appointment, he announced his intention to resume negotiations with the British to end the oil dispute, a reversal of Mosaddegh's policy. The National Front — along with various Nationalist, Islamist, and socialist parties and groups^[29] — including Tudeh — responded by calling for protests, strikes and mass demonstrations in favor of Mosaddegh. Major strikes broke out in all of Iran's major towns, with the Bazaar closing down in Tehran. Over 250 demonstrators in Tehran, Hamadan, Ahvaz, Isfahan, and Kermanshah were killed or suffered serious injuries.^[30]

After five days of mass demonstrations on Siyeh-i Tir (the 30th of Tir on the Iranian calendar), military commanders ordered their troops back to barracks, fearful of overstraining the enlisted men's loyalty and left Tehran in the hands of the protesters.^[31] Frightened by the unrest, Shah dismissed Qavam and re-appointed Mosaddegh, granting him the full control of the military he had previously demanded.

Reinstatement and emergency powers[link]

More popular than ever, a greatly strengthened Mosaddegh convinced parliament to grant him emergency powers for six months "to decree any law he felt necessary for obtaining not only financial solvency, but also electoral, judicial, and educational reforms".^[32] Mosaddegh appointed Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani as house speaker. Kashani's Islamic scholars, as well as the Tudeh Party, proved to be two of Mosaddegh's key political allies, although relations with both were often strained.

With his emergency powers, Mosaddegh tried to strengthen the democratic political institutions by limiting the monarchy's unconstitutional powers,^[33] cutting Shah's personal budget, forbidding him to communicate directly with foreign diplomats, transferring royal lands back to the state and expelling his politically active sister Ashraf Pahlavi.^[31]

In January 1953 Mosaddegh successfully pressed Parliament to extend "emergency powers for another 12 months". With these powers, he decreed a land reform law that established village councils and increased the peasants' share of production.^[32] This weakened the landed aristocracy, abolishing Iran's centuries-old feudal agriculture sector, replacing it with a system of collective farming and government land ownership. Mosaddegh saw these reforms as a means of checking the power of the Tudeh Party, which had been agitating for general land reform among the peasants.

However, during this time Iranians were "becoming poorer and unhappier by the day" thanks to the British boycott. Mosaddegh's political coalition began to fray, his enemies increased in number.^[34]

Partly through the efforts of Iranians working as British agents, several former members of Mosaddegh's coalition turned against him. They included Mozzafar Baghai, head of the worker-based Toilers party; Hussein Makki, who had helped lead the takeover of the Abadan refinery and was at one point considered Mosadegh's heir apparent; and most outspokenly Ayatollah Kashani, who damned Mosaddegh with the "vitriol he had once reserved for the British".^[35]

Overthrow of Mosaddegh[link]

Plot to depose Mosaddegh[link]

Soldiers surround the Parliament building in Tehran on 19 August 1953.

The British government had grown increasingly distressed over Mosaddegh's policies and were especially bitter over the loss of their control of the Iranian oil industry. Repeated attempts to reach a settlement had failed and in October 1952, Mosaddegh declared Britain an enemy, and cut all diplomatic relations.^[36]

Engulfed in a whole range of problems following World War II, Britain was unable to resolve the issue single-handedly and looked towards the United States to settle the issue. Initially America had opposed British policies. After U.S. mediation had failed several times to bring about a settlement, American Secretary of State Dean Acheson concluded that the British were "destructive and determined on a rule or ruin policy in Iran."^[37]

The American position shifted in late 1952, when Dwight D. Eisenhower had been elected U.S. President. In November and December, British intelligence officials suggested to American intelligence that the prime minister should be ousted. British prime minister Winston Churchill suggested to the incoming Eisenhower administration that Mossadegh, despite his open disgust with socialism, was, or would become, dependent on the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party,^[38] resulting in Iran "increasingly turning towards communism" and towards the Soviet sphere at a time of high Cold War fears.^{[39][40][41][42]} After the Eisenhower administration had entered office in early 1953, the United States and the United Kingdom agreed to work together toward Mosaddegh's removal and began to publicly denounce Mosaddegh's policies for Iran as harmful to the country. In the meantime the already precarious alliance between Mosaddegh and Kashani was severed in January 1953, when Kashani opposed Mosaddegh's demand that his increased powers be extended for a period of one year.

Operation Ajax[link]

Mosaddegh at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

In March 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was headed by his younger brother Allen Dulles, to draft plans to overthrow Mosaddegh.^[43] On 4 April 1953, Allen Dulles approved US$1 million to be used "in any way that would bring about the fall of Mosaddegh". Soon the CIA's Tehran station started to launch a propaganda campaign against Mosaddegh. Finally, according to The New York Times, in early June, American and British intelligence officials met again, this time in Beirut, and put the finishing touches on the strategy. Soon afterward, according to his later published accounts, the chief of the CIA's Near East and Africa division, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. the grandson of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, arrived in Tehran to direct it.^[44] In 2000, The New York Times made partial publication of a leaked CIA document titled, Clandestine Service History – Overthrow of Premier Mosaddegh of Iran – November 1952-August 1953. This document describes the point-by-point planning of the coup by agent Donald Wilbur, and execution conducted by the American and British governments. The New York Times published this critical document with the names omitted. The New York Times also limited its publication to scanned image (bitmap) format, rather than machine-readable text. This document was eventually published properly – in text form, and fully unexpurgated. The complete CIA document is now web published. The word ‘blowback' appeared for the very first time in this document.

The plot, known as Operation Ajax, centered on convincing Iran's monarch to issue a decree to dismiss Mosaddegh from office, as he had attempted some months earlier. But the Shah was terrified to attempt such a dangerously unpopular move, and it would take much persuasion and many U.S. funded meetings, which included bribing his sister Ashraf to successfully change his mind.^[45]

Mosaddegh became aware of the plots against him and grew increasingly wary of conspirators acting within his government.^[46] According to Dr. Donald N. Wilber, who was involved in the plot to remove Mossadegh from power, in early August, Iranian CIA operatives pretending to be socialists and nationalists threatened Muslim leaders with "savage punishment if they opposed Mossadegh," thereby giving the impression that Mossadegh was cracking down on dissent, and stirring anti-Mossadegh sentiments within the religious community. A referendum to dissolve parliament and give the prime minister power to make law was submitted to voters, and it passed with 99 percent approval, 2,043,300 votes to 1300 votes against.^[47] According to Mark J. Gasiorowski, "There were separate polling stations for yes and no votes, producing sharp criticism of Mosaddeq" and that the "controversial referendum...gave the CIA's precoup propaganda campaign an easy target". On or around Aug. 16, Parliament was suspended indefinitely, and Mosaddeq's emergency powers were extended.

Overthrow[link]

In August 1953, the Shah finally agreed to Mossadegh's overthrow, after Roosevelt told that the U.S. would proceed with him or without him^[48] and formally dismissed the Prime Minister in a written decree, an act explicitly permitted under the constitution.^[49] As a precautionary measure, he flew to Baghdad and from there hid safely in Rome. He actually signed two decrees, one dismissing Mosaddegh and the other nominating the CIA's choice, General Fazlollah Zahedi, as Prime Minister. These decrees, called Farmāns, were specifically written as dictated by Donald Wilbur the CIA architect of the plan, which were designed as a major part of Wilbur's strategy to give the impression of legitimacy to the secret coup, as can be read in the declassified plan itself which bears his name. Wilbur was later given a letter of commendation by Alan Dulles, CIA head, for his work. It too is now declassified, and appears in Wilbur's autobiography.^{[citation needed]}

Tehran strongman Shaban Jafari played a major role in Mossadegh's overthrow.

Soon, massive protests, engineered by Roosevelt's team, took place across the city and elsewhere with tribesmen paid to be at the ready to assist the coup. Anti- and pro-monarchy protesters, both paid by Roosevelt,^[48] violently clashed in the streets, looting and burning mosques and newspapers, leaving almost 300 dead. The pro-monarchy leadership, chosen, hidden and finally unleashed at the right moment by the CIA team, led by retired army General and former Minister of Interior in Mosaddegh's cabinet, Fazlollah Zahedi joined with underground figures such as the Rashidian brothers and local strongman Shaban Jafari,^[50] to gain the upper hand on 19 August 1953 (28 Mordad). The military joined on cue: pro-Shah tank regiments stormed the capital and bombarded the prime minister's official residence, on Roosevelt's cue, according to his book. Mosaddegh managed to flee from the mob that set in to ransack his house, and, the following day, surrendered to General Zahedi, who was meanwhile set up by the CIA with makeshift headquarters at the Officers' Club. Mosaddegh was arrested at the Officers' Club and transferred to a military jail shortly after.^[51] On 22 August, the Shah returned from exile.

Zahedi's new government soon reached an agreement with foreign oil companies to form a consortium and "restore the flow of Iranian oil to world markets in substantial quantities", giving the U.S. and Great Britain the lion's share of Iran's oil. In return, the U.S. massively funded the Shah's resulting government, including his army and secret police force, SAVAK, until the Shah's overthrow in 1979.^[52] Mosaddegh's supporters were rounded up, tortured or executed. The minister of Foreign Affairs and the closest associate of Mosaddegh, Hossein Fatemi, was executed by order of the Shah's military court. The order was carried out by firing squad on October 29, 1953.^[53]

Trial and final years[link]

Shortly after the Shah's return, Mosaddegh was tried and convicted of treason by the Shah's military court. On December 21, 1953, he was sentenced to death but his sentence was later commuted to three years' solitary confinement in a military prison. Afterwards, he was kept under house arrest at his Ahmadabad residence, where he died on 5 March 1967.^{[54][55][56][57]}

Legacy[link]

Iran[link]

The secret U.S. overthrow of Mosaddegh served as a rallying point in anti-US protests during the 1979 Iranian Revolution and to this day he is said to be one of the most popular figures in Iranian history.^[58] Despite this, he is generally ignored by the government of the Islamic Republic because of his secularism and western manners.^[59]

The withdrawal of support for Mosaddegh by the powerful Shia clergy has been regarded as having been motivated by their fear of the chaos of a communist takeover.^[60] Some argue that while many elements of Mosaddegh's coalition abandoned him it was the loss of support from Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani and other clergy that was fatal to his cause, reflective of the dominance of the Ulema in Iranian society and a portent of the Islamic Revolution to come. The loss of the political clerics effectively cut Mosaddegh's connections with the lower middle classes and the Iranian masses which are crucial to any popular movement in Iran.^[61]

U.S. and other countries[link]

Prime Minister Mosaddegh with US President Truman in 1951

The US role in Mosaddegh's overthrow was not formally acknowledged for many years, although the Eisenhower administration vehemently opposed Mossadegh's policies. President Eisenhower wrote angrily about Mosaddegh in his memoirs, describing him as impractical and naive. However, Eisenhower did not admit any involvement with the coup.

Eventually the CIA's involvement with the coup was exposed. This caused controversy within the organization and the CIA congressional hearings of the 1970s. CIA supporters maintained that the coup was strategically necessary, and praised the efficiency of the agents responsible. Critics say the scheme was paranoid, colonial, illegal, and immoral—and truly caused the "blowback" suggested in the pre-coup analysis. The extent of this "blowback," over time, was not completely clear to the CIA, as they had an inaccurate picture of the stability of the Shah's regime. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 caught the CIA and the US very much off guard (as CIA reporting a mere month earlier predicted no imminent insurrectionary turbulence whatsoever for the Shah's regime), and resulted in the overthrow of the Shah (himself a non-democratic ruler) by a fundamentalist, non-democratic faction opposed to the US, headed by Ayatollah Khomeini. In retrospect, not only did the CIA and the US underestimate the extent of popular discontent for the Shah, but much of that discontent historically stemmed from the removal of Mosaddegh and the subsequent clientelism of the Shah. The US-backed coup, in effect, had ended Iran's last fully democratic government, and there would be no return of democracy even after the Shah's removal.

In March 2000, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated her regret that Mosaddegh was ousted: "The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development and it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America." In the same year, The New York Times published a detailed report about the coup based on declassified CIA documents.^[2]

Due to his worldwide popularity, defiance of Britain, and fight for democracy, Mosaddegh was named as Time Magazine's 1951 Man of the Year. Others considered for that year's title included Dean Acheson, General (and future President) Dwight D. Eisenhower and General Douglas MacArthur.^[62]

In early 2004, the Egyptian government changed a street name in Cairo from Pahlavi to Mosaddegh to improve relations with Iran.

Mosaddegh in the media[link]

The figure of Mohammad Mosaddegh is an important element in the 2003 French TV production Soraya,^[63] which deals with the life of the Shah's second wife and former Queen of Iran, Princess Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari. Mosaddegh's role is played by the French actor Claude Brasseur.

An independent video game called The Cat and the Coup was released in 2011. It features the player playing as Mosaddegh's cat reversing Mossaddegh's life to the beginning.

During the debates with the 2012 Presidential candidates, Texas congressman Ron Paul stated the reason why Iran has resorted to becoming a theocratic dictatorship was because of the CIA backed Coup in 1953 overthrowing Mohammad Mosaddegh which led up to the 1979 Iranian Revolution causing many problems over the last 30 years ^[64]

See also[link]

• 1953 Iranian coup d'état
• Anglo Iranian Oil Company
• Operation Ajax
• Abolhassan Diba
• Hossein Fatemi
• Dariush Forouhar
• List of Iranian intellectuals
• Abadan Crisis timeline

References[link]

• In pronouncing his name, Mohammad Mosaddegh, (Persian: محمد مصدّق‎, IPA: [mohæmˈmæd(-e) mosædˈdeɣ] ( listen) the -[e] is the Izāfa, which is a grammatical marker linking two words together. It is not indicated in writing, and is not part of the name itself, but is used when a first and last name are used together.

Further reading[link]

• Abrahamian, Ervand, Khomeinism: essays on the Islamic Republic. Berkeley: University of California Press, c 1993. 0-520-08173-0
• Abrahamian, Ervand, Iran Between Two Revolutions, By Ervand Abrahamian, Princeton University Press, 1982
• Amir Taheri, The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution. Encounter Books, 2009, ISBN 978-1-59403-240-0
• Farhad Diba, Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh; A Political Biography. London: Croom Helm, 1986, ISBN 0-7099-4517-5
• Mostafa Elm, Oil, Power, and Principle: Iran's Oil Nationalization and Its Aftermath. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8156-2642-8
• Mark Gasiorowski, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Shah: Building a Client State in Iran, Cornell University Press, 1991, ISBN 0-8014-2412-7
• Mary Ann Heiss, Empire and Nationhood: The United States, Great Britain, and Iranian Oil, 1950–1954, Columbia University Press,1997, ISBN 0-231-10819-2
• Sattareh Farman Farmaian & Dona Munker, Daughter of Persia: A Woman's Journey from Her Father's Harem through the Islamic Revolution. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006. ISBN 0-307-33974-2
• Stephen Kinzer, All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, John Wiley & Sons, 2003, ISBN 0-471-26517-9
• Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, Times Books, 2006, ISBN 0-8050-7861-4
• Nikki R. Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution, Yale University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-300-09856-1
• Homa Katouzian, Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran, I B Tauris & Co, 1991, ISBN 1-85043-210-4
• Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran, edited by Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne. Translated into Persian as Mosaddegh va Coup de Etat by Ali Morshedizad, Ghasidehsara Pub. Co.
• Mark J. Gasiorowski, The 1953 Coup D'État in Iran, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 19, No. 3, p. 261–86 (1987). JSTOR
• Tom Gabbay, "The Tehran Conviction" William Morrow, (2009), ISBN 978-0-06-118860-2
• Mehdi Shamshiri: Zendegi Nameh Mohammad Mossadegh. (farsi) 2 ed. lulu.com. ISBN 978-0-578-08305-6.
• Christopher de Bellaigue, "Patriot of Persia". ISBN 978-1-84792-108-6.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mohammad Mosaddegh

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Single Article Law of March 20, 1951

• Dr Mosasdegh's genealogy (Qajar website)
• (Persian) Ardeshir Zahedi website contains number of articles related to Mosaddegh
• James Risen: Secrets of History: The C.I.A. in Iran — A special report; How a Plot Convulsed Iran in '53 (and in '79). The New York Times, 16 April 2000.
• New York Times Archive containing declassified US intelligence Documents on the Coup of 1953
• In Memory of 19 August 1953 by Sasan Fayazmanesh, 18 August 2003.
• Mosaddegh's photo album
• Mohammad Mosaddegh and the 1953 Coup in Iran Book and declassified documents from the National Security Archive, 22 June 2004
• The Secret CIA History of the Iran Coup – U.S. National Security Archive
• An alternative view by Ardeshir Zahedi
• "50 Years After the CIA's First Overthrow of a Democratically Elected Foreign Government"
• How to Overthrow A Government: The 1953 U.S. Coup in Iran
• A short account of 1953 Coup in Iran
• The Sunday Herald, Over A Barrel
• Fariba Amini, Don't call me "Sir" – Mosaddegh: Humanity and integrity in government, The Iranian, 9 May 2001.
• Dr Mohammad Mossadeqs Lebenswerk und Kampf
• (Persian) A video of Dr. Mosaddegh's house in Ahmadabad

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