Land Reform and Social Change in Iran
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Afsaneh Najmabadi, Land Reform and Social Change in Iran, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987, bahai-library.com.
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Land Reform and Social
Change in Iran

Afsaneh Najmabadi

University of Utah Press
Salt Lake City
1987

Copyright © 1987 by the University of Utah Press                                  Contents
Pn.nted in the United States of Amen.ca
All Rights Reserved

List of Tables . . .                                                  . Vl
List of Figures . .                                                   . 1x
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data   Acknowledgments                                                       . x
Najmabadi, Afsaneh, 1946-                             1. Introduction: Why Land Reform?                                    . 3
Land reform and social change in Iran.              2. The Postwar Outlook on Development .                              . 15
Bibliography: p.                                  3. Land Reform and Primitive Accumulation.                           . 33
Includes index.                                   4. Pre-Land Reform Agrarian Relations. . . .                         . 43
1. Land reform-Iran. 2. Peasantry-Iran.
5. The 1962 Land Reform: History and Legislation                     . 59
3. Iran-Rural conditions. 4. Agriculture-Economic
aspects-Iran. I. Title.                              6. Results of the Land Reform . . . . . . . . . . . .                . 99
HD1333.l7N34 1987          333.3'1'55    87-31630    7. Cooperatives and Corporations . . . . . . . . . .                 169
ISBN 0-87480-285-7                                   8. The Changing Sociology and Politics of the Peasantry .            19 3
Appendix A: Contribution of Land Payments to
()   )   , ,   -   '   j           Capital Formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Appendix B: The Position of the Clergy in the
1962 Land Reform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Appendix C: Consumption Expenditure of Rural
Households.                                                   . 209
Notes . . .                                                        . 211
References.                                                        . 225
Index . . .                                                        . 235

v
206    I   Land Reform and Social Change in Iran                                                                                          Appendixes    I   207

At a much earlier time, when the original land reform bill was being                   up there .... Go and investigate if a penny from a big or feudal land-
lord has reached Qum. (Davani n.d. :vol. 4, p. 139)
discussed by the parliament in February 1960, Ayatollah Borujerdi
had written a letter to Ja'far Behbehani, his nephew and a member                       There was no ambiguity, however, about the clerical opposition
of parliament, complaining that the bill was ill-advised and contrary              to the local election bill, which they opposed on three grounds: first,
to the shaná'a (religious law) (Akhavi 1980:91). Several ulama (mem-               it removed being a Muslim as a requirement for electors and candi-
bers of the clergy) agitated against the 1962 land reform on the                   dates in these elections; second, in the swearing-in ceremony the
grounds that the government should have solicited their opinion on                 Qur'an was replaced by any "holy book"; third, it allowed women
such an important matter. Once the Additional Articles of January                  both to vote and stand as candidates in these elections. 2 The first two
17, 196 3, were announced, requiring charitable waqf lands to be                   of these changes would allow the followers of minority religions to
leased on ninety-nine-year terms to the peasants cultivating them,                 hold elected offices. In some of the clergy's earlier statements, the
certain members of the clergy posed strong opposition (Lambton                     issue of the women's vote was considered to be less important. The
1969: 105-108). Nonetheless, the majority of the clergy, and partic-               first protest telegrams sent to 'Alam by Ayatollahs Zanjani, Damad,
ularly the more political and activist circles around Khomeini, did                Amoli, Ha'iri, and Khomeini did not even mention the women's
not oppose land reform as such.                                                    vote (Davani n.d.:vol. 3, pp. 31-32, 40, 96). Davani, himself a cler-
Indeed, just these elements of the clergy were wary of the possi-              ical participant, recalls the clerical perception of the issue in this
ble success of the government's contention that the opposition was                 way:
instigated by the landlords, and so they went out of their way to
deny any such connections. In a statement issued a day after                           The issue of women's vote was but an excuse. The main aim [of the
government) was to eliminate the condition of Islam from the require-
Khomeini's arrest on June 5, 1963, Shari'atmadari reiterated this
ments of the electors and the candidates so that the road would be
theme:                                                                                 opened up for other sects, for Jews, Christians, Zoroasterians, and espe-
The shi'i ulama have no connections with big landlords and they do               cially for the astray sect of the Baha'is, those dangerous agents of for-
not oppose peasants' ownership of land. Contrary to deceitful govern-            eigners in Iran. To facilitate this, they removed the Quran from the
ment propaganda, the interests of the ulama will not be threaten~d by            swearing-in ceremony and replaced it with "holy book," so that such
such ownership; they will be better served. The ulama are more lmked             sects and even members of the Baha'i political party, who call their
to the peasants than to landlords. Our protest against the governme?t            forged creed a "religion" and consider their book of superstitions a
concerns the application and implementation of the [reform] law rn               "holy book," could be elected to the provincial councils of the Islamic
which, we say, legal and religious conditions must be observed. In any           country of Irari, and could take the fate of Muslims into their hands,
case, our struggles do not principally relate to this [land reform] issue.       by intervening in all public affairs and thus gaining vast prerogatives
(Davani n.d. :vol. 4, p. 105)                                                    over the affairs of Iranian people. (Davani n.d. :vol. 3, p. 29)

Even on the issue of waqf land, the clerics rejected the govern-                     It is indicative of the outlook of many of the clergy that the
ment accusations:                                                                  election bill, more than the land reform, should have been the cat-
alyst for the emergence of their organized opposition to the shah.
The present ruling elite ... says that the clergy is against land distri-
bution, because of their hold on awqaf [endowment land]. This is             From the clerical viewpoint, the changes that the shah had embarked
ridiculous. All the awqaf is held by the government .... The awqaf of        on constituted the final stage in the undermining of the traditional
Qa'inat, with its enormous revenues, is held by Mr. 'Alam [then the          Islamic society first initiated in the mid-nineteenth century by reform-
prime minister]. The big awqaf dedicated to Imam Reza's shrine [in           ist ministers such as Amir Kabir, continued by the constitutionalist
Khorasan province) is all in the hands of the government. Go and con-        movement, and greatly accelerated by the explicitly anticlerical pol-
tact any of the theological students in Qum and inspect all the books
of revenues for the seminaries and see if a penny from the awqaf shows       icies of Reza Shah. The links between the controversy over the elec-
208     I   Land Reform and Social Change in Iran                                                                                         Appendixes     I   209
tion law, the defense of Islam per se, and the overall historical pro-                   the same danger to Islam, the Qur'an, and the country when the gov-
cess of social change were explained by the oppositionists at Qum.                       ernment took measures to change the local elections. Now it seems that
For example, in one of his telegrams to the prime minister, Khomeini                     ~he enemies oflsla.m are trying to achieve the same thing through fool-
vividly sketched out what were to become his familiar motifs of for-                     mg a bunch of naive people. (Davani n.d. :vol. 3, pp. 205-206)
eign conspiracy and internal decadence:                                                    The postrevolutionary practice of the clergy in power, since Feb-
It is incumbent upon me, according to my religious duties, to warn the          ruary of 1979, vindicates this evaluation: the clergy has done much
Iranian people and the Muslims of the world that Islam and the Qur'an           to Islamicize both Iranian society and the state, including the place
are in danger; that the independence of the country and its economy            of women in society and politics. The clergy has not reversed the
are about to be taken over by Zionists, who in Iran appear as the party        land reform. On the contrary, the politically dominant faction within
of Baha'is, and if this deadly silence of Muslims continues, these ele-
the ruling bloc has been trying to pass a land reform legislation
ments will soon take over the entire economy of the country and drive
it to complete bankruptcy. Iranian television is a Jewish spy base, the        t?rough the Majlis that would sanction land takeovers by peasants
government sees this and approves of it (Ruhani 1977:177-178) 3                smce 1979 and would deal with lands exempted from the shah's ear-
lier reform measures. Only on the issue of the waqf lands, for obvi-
When the shah put his six-point program to a vote on January                     ous religious reasons and not because of financial considerations, has
26, 1963, it included land reform, the women's vote, nationalization                 there been discussion of declaring any previous land reform transac-
of forests and pastures, and a workers' profit-sharing scheme. The                   tions void.
clergy interpreted this program as a rejection of their demand for
greater influence in the government and as a further attempt to curb                                   APPENDIXC
the clergy's social influence and political role. They called for a boy-               CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE OF RURAL HOUSEHOLDS
cott of the referendum. It must be emphasized, however, that no                       ~able C-1 has been constructed on the basis of annual surveys pub-
single plank in the program was the sole cause of the clerical boy-                  lished by the Plan Organization on consumptive expenditure of rural
cott. Rather, the clergy voiced their fears of the project as a whole.               households. The data for all selected years have been reduced to six
In their eyes, the shah's program was a final assault on Islam. The                  expenditure categories, because for the period 1966-1970 the six cat-
clergy saw it as the rejection of the clerical demand to reverse the                 egories comprised the extent of the published data. Other years
course of the previous decades and to move in an Islamic direction.                  included a wider classification, ranging from nine to twelve groups.
The existential tone of the declarations of the time make this evi-                  The .expenditure groups are defined differently from year to year,
dent, as this statement by Khomeini demonstrates:                                    and m the absence of accurate information on rural consumer price
People who are responsible to the law and to the nation have fooled
indexes, it is not possible to make accurate comparisons. The reduc-
His Majesty into doing this job for them. If they want to do something         tio~ of other years to six expenditure groups is, therefore, partly
for the good of the people, why do they not turn to the program of             arbitrary, although a general measure of changing expenditure pat-
Islam and Islamic experts, so that all classes will enjoy a comfortable        terns has been taken into account.
life, and so that all will be happy in this and the other world? Why are
they instituting cooperative funds that, are robbing the fruits of the
peasants' labor? With the establishment of these cooperatives, the Ira-
nian home market will be lost, and both merchants and farmers ruined,
while other classes will suffer a similar fate .... The clergy registers the
danger for the Qur'an and our religion. It seems that this compulsory
referendum aims to lay the basis for the removal of the clauses [in the
constitution] linked to religion. The Islamic ulama had previously felt
-- Land Reform and Social Change in Iran (Used by permission of the curator)