Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T05:58:02.240Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Origins of Dabestān: Mīrzā Ḥasan Rushdīyeh and the Quest for New Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Navid Zarrinnal
Navid Zarrinnal*
Affiliation:
Department of Middle Eastern, South Asia, and African Studies at Columbia University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Mīrzā Ḥasan Rushdīyeh (1860(?)–1944) was a lower-ranking Azeri-Iranian cleric, constitutionalist, and educational reformer who was a major pioneer of new (jadīd) primary schools in Iran. This article shows that in 1889 Rushdīyeh, through training he had received in Beirut, introduced new schools into Iran based on changed pedagogy and modern disciplines. It argues that although the schools drew fierce opposition from maktab custodians and certain Qajar courtiers, they gradually increased in authority until the Reza Shah state appropriated them, with some modifications, as normative schooling called the dabestān. In English and Persian scholarship, we lack a substantial history of Rushdīyeh’s new schools. Drawing on previously unexamined sources, including his Iran and Ottoman diaries, this article examines Rushdīyeh’s educational work in the broader intellectual and political history of the period.

Keywords

Mīrzā Ḥasan RushdīyehIranian Intellectual HistoryHistory of EducationNew SchoolsmaktabdabestānFunctional LiteracyModern Disciplines
Type
Change and Continuity: Late Qajar Period
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 1-2 , March 2021 , pp. 247 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The author would like to thank his dissertation committee members Hamid Dabashi, Ervand Abrahamian, Wael Hallaq, and Sudipta Kaviraj for fruitful conversations on this project. Gratitude is also due to Aria Fani and Saeed Honarmand for their feedback. Further thanks to Tehran-based scholar and archivist Muhammad Baghāyī Shīreh’Jīnī for generous direction, and Behdokht Roshdieh for providing her archival material. Unless otherwise stated, all translations are by the author.

References

Ābādiyān, Ḥusayn. Mabānī-ye naẓarī-ye ḥukūmat-e mashrūṭeh va mashrūʻeh [The theoretical principles of constitutionalist and Shariatist government]. Tehran: Nashr-e Nay, 1995-96.Google Scholar
Abrahamian, Ervand. A History of Modern Iran. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ākhundʹzādah, Fatḥ ʻAlī. Alifbā-ye jadīd va maktūbāt [New alphabet and writings]. Tabrīz: Nashr-e Iḥyāʾ, 1978.Google Scholar
ʻAlavī, Abū al-Ḥasan. Rijāl-e ʻaṣr-e mashrūṭīyat [Notables of the constitutional period]. Tehran: Intishārāt-e Asāṭīr, 1984-85.Google Scholar
Algar, Hamid. Religion and State in Iran, 1785–1906: The Role of the Ulama in the Qajar Period. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amīn al-Dawleh, Mīrzā ʿAlī Khān. Khātirāt-e sīyāsī-ye Mīrzā ʿAlī Khān Amīn al-Dawleh [Mīrzā ʿAlī Khān Amīn al-Dawleh’s political memoirs]. Ed. Farmān-farmāʾīyān, Hāfeẓ. Tehran: Kitābhā-ye Īrān, 1962-63.Google Scholar
Arasteh, A. Reza. Education and Social Awakening in Iran. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1962.Google Scholar
Arjomand, Said Amir. The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change in Shi’ite Iran from the Beginning to 1890. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baqāyī Shīrehʹjīnī, Muḥammad. Zindagīnāmeh, ārāʾ, naẓarāt va khāṭirāt-e Mīrzā Ḥasan Rushdīyeh [Biography, ideas and memoirs of Mirza Hassan Roshdieh]. Tehran: Sāzmān-e Asnād va Kitābkhāneh-ye Millī-ye Jumhūrī-ye Islāmī-ye Īrān, 2015-2016.Google Scholar
Dawlatābādī, Yaḥyā. Ḥayāt-e Yaḥyā [Life of Yaḥyā]. Ed. Farahānī, Mujtabā. 5 vols. Vol. 1. Tehran: Firdawsi, 2008-2009.Google Scholar
Education, Endowments, and the Arts Ministry (vizārat-e maʿārif, awqaf va ṣanāyeʿ-e mustaẓrafeh). Statistical Annual Report of the Education Ministry. Tehran, Iran, 1932–33 (1311–12).Google Scholar
al-Salṭaneh, Eḥteshām. Khāṭirāt-e Eḥteshām al-Salṭaneh [Eḥteshām al-Salṭaneh’s memoirs]. Edited by Muḥammad Mahdī Mūsavī. Tehran: Enteshārāt-e Zavvār, 2013-2014.Google Scholar
Evered, Emine Önhan. Empire and Education under the Ottomans: Politics, Reform and Resistance from the Tanzimat to the Young Turks. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012.Google Scholar
Gheissari, Ali. “Maktūbī az Mīrzā Ḥasan Rushdīyeh” [A transcript by Mīrzā Ḥasan Rushdīyeh], ed. with an introductory note and additions. Ketāb-e Māh Tārikh va Joghrāfiyā [History and geography], 17, no. 11 (185) (Mehr 2013): 82–9; revised edition, Bukhārā (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Jamālzādeh, Muḥammad. ʿAlī. Sar va tah-e yak karbās, yā, Isfahānnāmeh [Book of Iṣfahān]. Tehran: Maʿrefat, 1956.Google Scholar
Kasravī, Aḥmad. Tārīkh-e mashrūṭeh-ye Īrān [History of Iranian constitutional revolution]. Tehran: Mussaseh-ye Intishārāt-e Amīr Kabīr, 1984-85.Google Scholar
Kasravī, Aḥmad Zindagānī-i Man: Az Kūdakī Tā Sī Sālagī [My life: From childhood to thirty]. Bethesda, MD: Ibex Publishers, 2009.Google Scholar
Matthee, Rudi. “Transforming Dangerous Nomads into Useful Artisans, Technicians, Agriculturists: Education in the Reza Shah Period.” Iranian Studies 26, no. 3/4 (1993): 313–336. doi: 10.1080/00210869308701804CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menashri, David. Education and the Making of Modern Iran. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
al-Dīn Shāh, Nāṣir. Rūznāmeh-ye khāṭirāt-e Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh dar safar-e sivvum-e farangestān [Daily diary of Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh in his third trip to Europe]. Ed. Ismāʻīl Rizvānī, Muḥammad. Tehran: Rasā, 1990-91.Google Scholar
Nāṭiq, Humā. Kārnāmah-i farhangī-i farangī dar Īrān [The cultural history of the West in Iran]. Pārīs: Khāvarān, 1996-97.Google Scholar
Qāsimīʹpūyā, Iqbāl. Madāris-e jadīd dar dawreh-ye Qājārīyeh: bānīyān va pīshrawān [New schools under the Qajars: founders and pioneers]. Tehran: Markaz-e Nashr-e Dānishgāhī, 1998.Google Scholar
Ringer, Monica M. Education, Religion, and the Discourse of Cultural Reform in Qajar Iran. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2001.Google Scholar
Rushdīyeh, Fakhr al-Dīn. Zindigīnāmeh-ye pīr-e maʻārif Rushdīyeh: bunyānguz_ār-e farhang-e nuvīn-e Īrān [The biography of education veteran, Rushdīyah: pioneer of Iran’s new culture]. Tehran: Hīrmand, 1991-92.Google Scholar
Rushdīyeh, Shams al-Dīn. Savāneḥ-e ʿumr [Life events]. Tehran: Nashr-e Tārīkh-e Īrān, 1983-84.Google Scholar
Ṣadīq, ʻĪsá. Tārīkh-i farhang-i Īrān [The cultural history of Iran]. Tihrān: Intishārāt-i Dānishgāh-i Tihrān, 1336/1957.Google Scholar
Ṣafā, Z_abīḥ Allāh. Tārīkh-e adabīyāt dar Īrān [Literary history in Iran]. Tehran: Intishārāt-e Firdaws, 1988-89.Google Scholar
Sarafian, Kevork Avedis. History of Education in Armenia. La Verne, CA: Press of the La Verne Leader, 1930.Google Scholar
Shīrāzī, Mīrzā Sāleh. Safarnāmahʹhā [Travelogues] . Tehran: Nashr-e Nigāh-e Muʻāṣer, 1387/2008–09.Google Scholar
Somel, Selçuk Akşin. The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 1839–1908: Islamization, Autocracy, and Discipline. Boston, MA: Brill, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vincent, David. The Rise of Mass Literacy: Reading and Writing in Modern Europe. Malden, MA: Polity, 2000.Google Scholar
Yousef, Hoda A. Composing Egypt: Reading, Writing, and the Emergence of a Modern Nation, 1870–1930. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016.Google Scholar
Z_ū al-Faqārī, Ḥasan, and Ḥaydarī, Maḥbūbah. Adabiyāt-e maktabʹkhāneh-ye dar Īrān [Maktab literature in Iran]. Tehran: Rushdʹāvarān, 2012-2013.Google Scholar