The style of Iran changed completely in 1979 with the Islamic revolution. Islamists might claim it was really a reversion to how it had been before Shah Pahlavi and his father were the change. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
The stamps that came shortly after the revolution introduced you to a lot of new people. The Shah had 37 different Prime Ministers but didn’t bother you with any of them on the stamps. being nothings playing musical chairs, The Islamists had many people to show you. The Shah’s Prime Ministers didn’t all look the same but were. The Islamic Mullahs, with their unchanging attire all look the same. The fellow today Hassan Modares was a cleric, a teacher, and a politician. He had died 56 years before. Yet the stamp makes him look completely up to date.
Todays stamp is issue A599, a 10 Rials stamp issued by the Islamic Republic of Iran on October 23rd, 1923. It was part of a 10 stamp issue in various denominations displaying religious and political figures. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.
Seyd Hassan Modaress was born around 1870. Nobody is positive where but he turned up at a Madrassa in Isfahan. Isfahan had started as a Jewish city, but Hassan was of course studying the Muslim religion. He transitioned into an instructor from which he obtained the Modaress last name. Among his students was the future Ayatollah Khomeini. Modaress transitioned further into an official in the Justice Department of the Qajar Dynasty of Persian Shahs. His job was to insure that bills passed by the Majlis Assembly conformed to Islamic law.
He was a fairly traditional figure and as such came into conflict with Reza Khan, first when he was Prime Minister under the old Dynasty. Reza Khan intended to end the Kingdom and replace it with a Republic on the road to modernization and westernization. The oil was bringing in many foreigners and religious figures believed the Persian people were becoming subservient to them. Instead Reza Khan himself became Shah and Modaress a political opponent. Modaress was jailed and later died in jail in 1937.
Modaress was a believer in Iran being a Monarchy and early on so was Khomeini. For Khomeini, this changed with the Shah’s white revolution in 1963. This gave females the right to vote, promoted western secular education, and allowed non Islamics to hold political office. Many of the people, not just the religious leaders, found this to be an attack on their piety and ability to live their traditional way of life. Remember the oil money saw a few living a high western style life that must have seemed alien and even corrupt. By the time Khomeini was allowed to return to Iran in 1979, he believed the country needed an Islamic cleric as head of state to ensure that the foreign influences were stamped out.
Well my drink is empty and so I will patiently wait when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.