#qajars

Above: Gertrude Bell, "Kasr-i-Shirin, Kerim Khan's castle [View of fortress and Kurds. Man on horseback with another horse in foreground]." March 1911.  Album Q, Gertrude Bell Archives.  Source.

“...it must be emphasized that chaotic and lawless behaviour was not exclusive to local and tribal leaders. It was found on the part of government representatives and commanders as well, just as had been the case during the rapid decline of central authority after Naser al-Din. Indeed, the new rulers' arbitrary behaviour was sometimes the cause of similar responses by the local people. Within a few years, when tribal and provincial people wanted to say there was looting and killing somewhere they said 'it was constitutionalised' (mashruteh shod). To give but one example, Abdolhossein Khan Mo'ez al-Soltar (further entitled Sardar Mohayy, after the fall of Mohammad Ali) was a young revolutionary hothead, if not hero, who had distinguished himself in the Battle of Tehran as a commander of the Gilan forces. A couple of years later he was made governor general of Kurdistan. According to a contemporary local historian, he behaved with great injustice towards local people. He says that once the Sardar tried to sell the semi-official position of Shaikholeslam for as much as 7000 tomans, although the incumbent was only offering 300. In the end, by selling various sub-offices they managed to raise the 7000. He sold the governorship of one town to two different people and received the money from both, but obviously the job could only go to one of them. 'Sardar Mohayy was extremely interested in two things: first, money, second, pretty boys. The historian goes on to pass the general comment:

'There was loss of faith in constitutionalism and constitutionalist alike. Indeed, among the people, the word constitutionalism (mashruteb) came to mean killing and looting, so that wheenver anyone killed anyone and anywhere was looted, they said it was constitutionalised.'

Soon it became habit in Tehran itself to describe anyone who got good posts or made good money under the new regime as having achieved his 'constitutionalism' ('beh mashruten-ash resid). For decades later, the expression was to persist as a metaphor for describing anyone who had succeeded in anything not altogether by fair means.”