Ayatollah Haj Mohammad Hassan Shirazi, known as the Great Mirza and the Re-Mirza, is a name that shined in the history of Iran and Shiite scholars in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. The blessed name of this authority of the Islamic world is associated with the historical and effective fatwa of the tobacco ban movement and after that the constitutional movement began.
He was born on the 15th day of Jumadi al-Awli in 1230 AH in Shiraz. Mohammad Hassan was named. As a child, he lost his father’s loving care and was tutored by his uncle Seyyed Hossein, known as Majd al-Ashraf, who was also a Shiite scholar.
At the age of 4, he started home school and after 2 years he went to the seminary. Mohammad Hassan’s strong memory and rich intelligence surprised the professors. In his teenage years, he taught the important book of jurisprudence, Sahreh Lameh. At the age of 18, at the request of his teacher Seyyed Mohammad Taghi, he went to Najaf seminary and settled in Madrasah Sadr. There, in the presence of professors such as Sheikh Mohammad Taghi Esfahani; The owner of the margin took advantage of the teachers. After the death of his teacher, he attended the lessons of Ayatollah Seyyed Hassan Bidabadi and Hajj Mohammad Ibrahim Kalbasi, and at the age of 20, he received permission for ijtihad from Ayatollah Bidabadi.
After staying for ten years and learning high seminary courses and obtaining the rank of ijtihad, Mirza left for Atbat and entered Karbala in 1259 AH and sat in the lessons of Ayatollah Seyyed Ibrahim. After that, he went to Najaf and participated in the courses of scholars and professors such as Sahib Jawahar, Sahib Anwar al-Fiqahah and Ustad Azam Sheikh Ansari. Mirza was considered one of the first class students of Sheikh Ansari (ra) as far as the master said many times; I tell the lesson for 3 people: Mirza Mohammad Hassan, Mirza Habibullah (Rashti) and Agha Hossein Tehrani.
With the extinguishing of the bright and blessed life of the great master Sheikh Mortaza Ansari (RA), all the students of the Sheikh agreed to accept the appeal. After many insistences from the Sheikh’s students and the people, finally Mirza Shirazi accepted this serious matter and became the religious authority of the people. After accepting authority, he swore while crying: I never thought that one day I would be the religious authority of the people and that I would be faced with this huge issue and bear the heavy burden of authority.
During his trip to Samarra in 1290 AD, Mirza Shirazi found the city to be suitable for living and settled there. After the presence of Mirza Shirazi, Samarra became an Islamic scientific center, and with the grace of God Almighty, Mirza Shirazi quickly became known as the first face of the Islamic world.
During the period of the scholarly leadership of the domains and public authority, the great Mirza was cheerful, like the temperament of Muqtada and his Prophet, and treated the people with dignity. When parting from Mirza, no one left him except with happiness and satisfaction. Mirza did not even say an ugly word to the deserving of insult. He would not reward the wrongdoer except with kindness, but he would talk to him in the nicest language and with a smile.
Shiites and lovers who intended to visit the two imams Hadi and Asgari (peace be upon them) in Samarra before Mirza Shirazi’s stay in that country, were very afraid when they entered and left, lest they get into trouble. But when the great Mirza migrated to Samarra, Samarra regained its importance and became an important center for the study of science and the gathering place of great scholars and brought security and comfort to Shiites and pilgrims. This was increasing every day until the end of Sharif Mirza’s life.
He carried out many construction measures in Samarra. He built a school for students, which is still known as Mirza School. He also built another school in the east of this school and next to it. Also, due to his efforts, decorations and improvements were made in the shrine of Askariyin (peace be upon him). A large bazaar was built by him, a Hosseinieh was built to hold the mourning ceremony of Imam Hossein (peace be upon him), and he built houses for many of the people of Samarra. He gave alms to the poor of many Sunnis and made their lives flow.
In 1311 A.H., a sedition broke out between the people of Samarra and the neighboring people, which led to the threat of the neighboring people from the people, the fire of sedition was started by some spies and conspiracists who wanted war between Muslims and creating chaos and division between the Shia and Sunni brothers. became. Mirza extinguished the fire of sedition with his ability and resourcefulness and people’s affairs returned to their natural course. He did not allow anyone to interfere in the implementation of this task, not even the English consul and the Ottoman governor of Baghdad, and he sent them a message: The problem will be corrected soon and this incident is too small to require the intervention of government officials.
Among the milestones in the history of Iran’s struggles and the solidarity between the clergy and the people, there is the tobacco embargo and the historic fatwa of Mirza Shirazi, which broke the hegemony of arrogance and disturbed the happy sleep of the British raiders. Imam Khomeini (RA) said about this:
“The deceased (Mirzai Bozor, may God have mercy on him) who banned tobacco in Samaria, because they had almost captured Iran, put tobacco as an intermediary, and he wrote a line that tobacco is forbidden, and even his own relatives are forbidden. (Naser al-Din Shah) and the Haremsara of that Jaer arranged to effect that fatwa, and broke the hookahs, and in some places brought tobacco, the price of which was high, in the square and set fire to it and broke that contract, and the contract was canceled, and One such thing and they saw that an old priest, in a corner of the countryside of Iraq, writes one word and a nation rises up, and the agreement that was between Shah Jair and the British is disturbed, and a power like this ». (Statements of Imam Khomeini (RA), 8/28/1359.
During its lifetime, the Qajar dynasty was faced with many problems, among which the problem of tyranny and economic decline was the most significant. The traditional competition between England and Russia to obtain various concessions in Iran, especially during the era of Naser al-Din Shah, had reached its peak. The Shah’s trips abroad, which often took place due to his familiarity with modernity and new governance methods, were usually accompanied by the granting of great privileges to Russia and England due to the provision of travel expenses.
In one of these contracts, the government of Iran assigned the right to grow, harvest and sell tobacco for 50 years to a citizen of the British government named Talbot. With the conclusion of this contract, domestic producers and sellers lost their independence and received wages from the foreign company as workers. The jeopardy of the interests of many people with the monopolization of tobacco cultivation and sales in favor of a particular company and economic factors on the one hand and cultural factors on the other hand created the basis for the beginning of the tobacco movement. The presence of colonial culture and corruption as a result of the presence of British nationals in Iran was an invasion that was in the secret layers of receiving tobacco concessions.
For this reason, the traders and sellers of tobacco first protested against this contract, and then due to the shaky independence of the country and the contradiction of the above concessions with the divine commands and verses of the Qur’an (the rule of negation of mustaches), the scholars and authorities ruled to ban tobacco. In fact, the main reason for the scholars’ opposition to this privilege, in addition to its commercial aspect and the disruption in the country’s commercial system, was the concern of the gradual influence and complete domination of foreigners over Iran, which comes from the experience of the East India Company. The Muslim people of Iran also widely opposed the idea that the British are planning to turn the Raj Company into the East India Company and Iran into their colony like India.
The first flame of protests was led by Seyyed Ali Akbar Fali, prominent scholars and son-in-law of Mirza Shirazi, in Shiraz. The coincidence of these protests with the arrival of British agents in Shiraz led to the closure of the market and the gathering of people in mosques. To deal with the escalation of protests, the regime arrested and exiled Seyyed Ali Akbar Fali and started shelling protestors in Shiraz. Despite all the violence, popular resistance continued and soon the scope of the uprising spread to other Iranian cities, including Tabriz, Isfahan, Mashhad, etc. After the widespread protest of the clergy and people, a wave of dissatisfaction reached Tehran. Seyyed Jamaluddin Asadabadi, who was in Tehran at the invitation of Naseruddin Shah, publicly opposed the privilege and after issuing a notice in mosques, caravanserais and embassies with the content that “what is the right to buy and sell tobacco whose buyer and consumer It is Iranian, it has been handed over to a foreigner”, he was expelled from Iran.
Naser al-Din Shah and Amin al-Sultan not only did not give a positive answer to the protest of the scholars and the people, but also considered them ignorant and ignorant and considered the signing of the tobacco contract necessary for the interests of Iran. Therefore, scholars sent numerous messages to Mirza Shirazi in Samarra and appealed to him. Mirza Shirazi was aware of the matter from the very beginning of granting tobacco concession to colonialism, through the letters and news he received from Iran and from his scholars and son-in-law Seyyed Ali Akbar Fali. Syed Jamaluddin Asadabadi also sent a letter to Mirza Shirazi, reminding him of the Shah’s atrocities and trampling on the rights of the people, and demanded that the scholars defend the people’s rights.
At the same time as the unrest started in Tabriz on the first of Dhu Hijjah 1308 A.H., Mirza Shirazi sent a detailed telegram to the Shah, while pointing out the harms and corruptions of allowing foreigners to interfere in Iran’s affairs, and pointed out that the concession of tobacco was in clear opposition to the Qur’an, divine orders and Read the independence of Iran.
To justify the actions of the government and mention the reasons for granting concessions and the problems caused by its cancellation, the Shah sent Mirza Mahmoud Khan Moshir, the Minister of Commerce of Iran in Baghdad, to Mirza Shirazi in Samarra. Mushir al-Mozare spoke openly about the government’s inability to cancel the privilege and the huge losses of this action.
In response, Mirza Shirazi emphasized that only the Muslim nation should be relied upon and that “if the government cannot come up with an answer, the nation is not incapable of answering” and “If the government is not able to come up with an answer, I will, God willing, I’m messing up”.
Finally, Mirza Shirazi issued his historical fatwa after observing the Shah’s government’s inability to cancel the contract. This verdict was the end of the arbitrariness and patriotism of Naser al-Din Shah and his courtiers and a strong punch to the mouth of arrogance and foreign colonialists and their domestic minions. “In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Merciful, the day of using tobacco and tobacco is in accordance with the ruling of Muharibeh with the Imam of the Time, peace be upon him. Harare at least Mohammad Hasan al-Husseini”.
Immediately after issuing the fatwa, the government officials were tasked to prevent the publication of this ruling and the public’s awareness of it, however, in the first half of the day when the ruling reached Mirza Ashtiani, around one hundred thousand copies of the ruling were written and It was spread all over the country.
With the issuance of this fatwa, people from all walks of life considered the political struggle against the colonial contract of tobacco privilege to be a religious duty and a divine obligation, and they broke the hookahs and burned the tobacco. In the meantime, even the insiders of the royal palace also refrained from smoking. In such a way that Anis al-Dawlah, Sugli Naser al-Din Shah, ordered the collection of hookahs. In this way, the king, who witnessed the breaking of hookahs and the prohibition of tobacco even in his interior, did not order any of his servants to bring hookahs, so that no one would disobey his order and harm his respect.
Finally, after many conflicts between the clergy and the people with the king and the courtiers, after a few weeks, the king ordered the complete cancellation of the tobacco privilege. The historical fatwa of Mirza Shirazi and the cancellation of the tobacco privilege was the first public resistance against foreigners and imperial tyranny. This fatwa, while preventing Iran from being auctioned by patriots, brought independence to Iran and showed the fruit of people’s unity and their solidarity with authority and clergy. The movement that was formed due to the leadership of the clergy and the support of the people was influential in the subsequent developments of Iran. A movement that many years later led to the Iranian Islamic Revolution and the end of the imperial rule in Iran.
The light of Omar Mirza Shirazi was bright for 82 years to overcome the darkness. The night of the twenty-fourth of Sha’ban 1312 A.H., the night of silence, was another star in the sky of jurisprudence to grieve the hearts of lovers and make floods of tears flow throughout the Shiite world. The great Mirza said goodbye to death due to tuberculosis and surrendered life to life. His pure body was buried on the hands of a flood of Muslim lovers from Shia and Sunni and even non-Muslims in Samarra and after passing through Baghdad, it was circumambulated in Karbala. Fatiha and mourning gatherings were held in all cities and all markets were closed during Fatiha days, these mourning ceremonies continued for nearly a year in all Islamic cities.
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