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| 1903 |
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| Anti-Baha'i riots in Isfahan and Yazd expressed Muslim anger at foreigners. | 1 |
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| 1905 |
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| Abd al-Husayn Mirza translated into Persian Montesquieu's On the Spirit of the Law and Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. | 2 |
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| 1905–11 |
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| THE CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION. Mounting opposition to the shah erupted in a wave of protest and six years of struggle to impose constitutional restraints on the ruler and his ministers. A coalition of merchants, artisans, and ulama led the agitation, prompted by increased taxes proposed by the shah's Belgian adviser, Joseph Naus, and a general hostility to the growing foreign intrusion in Iran. Ideas of constitutional reform, advocated by westernized intellectuals like Malkum Khan, circulated among the discontented and colored their demands. | 3 |
| The revolution was sparked by the physical punishment of merchants in Tehran for price violations (Dec. 12, 1905). This provoked protest gatherings supported by ulama, among them the prominent Sayyid Muhammad Tabataba'i. Initially the protesters made amorphous demands for just rule, but a second antigovernment demonstration in July 1906 articulated a clear call for a constituent assembly (Majlis). Although the constitutional movement was strikingly small and nonviolent, the government's weakness forced the shah to accept its demands (Aug. 5, 1906). | 4 |
| The assembly, which convened in Oct. 1906, consisted of artisans, merchants, ulama, and bureaucrats. It drew up a constitution (based on the Belgian constitution of 1831), which remained officially in force until 1979. The document subordinated the shah to parliamentary government while maintaining Islam as Iran's official religion. The shah endorsed it, but plotted to overturn it. | 5 |
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| 1907–9 |
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| MUHAMMAD ALI SHAH. A Russian puppet, he was kept on the throne by the royal guard of the Persian Cossack Brigade. He opposed the Majlis and was supported by conservative Shi’ite members of the ulama. His coup against the Majlis ultimately led to further civil unrest and, finally, his deposition. | 6 |
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| 1907, Aug. 31 |
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| Anglo-Russian Convention. It divided Iran, without its consent, into spheres of influence, the north for Russia and a stretch in the southeast for Britain, with the intervening area constituting a neutral zone. | 7 |
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| 1908, June |
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| The shah closed the Majlis and suspended the constitution, with the aid of the Persian Cossack Brigade. Leaders of the movement for reform were arrested and executed. But the shah failed to regain control in the provinces, especially in Tabriz, where the constitutionalists took hold of the government. | 8 |
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| 1909, April |
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| The Russian army occupied Tabriz, saving it from surrender to the shah's forces. | 9 |
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| July |
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| Victory for the constitutionalists, achieved after a force of Bakhtiyari tribesmen from Isfahan and peasants from Gilan occupied Tehran, deposed Muhammad Ali, and replaced him with his 9-year-old son, Ahmad, and a regency. | 10 |
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