Zeinab Pasha: From the Bread Riots to the Tobacco Movement
The Tobacco Concession and the Tobacco Movement
One of the central events in Zeinab Pasha’s story was the Tobacco Movement, also known as the Tobacco Protest or Tobacco Rebellion.
The crisis developed after Naser al-Din Shah Qajar granted a major tobacco concession to the British-owned Regie Company.
The concession gave the company extensive control over the purchase and sale of tobacco in Iran.
Tobacco was economically important.
Mirza Hasan Shirazi and the Tobacco Boycott
The Tobacco Movement gained enormous momentum after the famous religious ruling associated with Mirza Hasan Shirazi.
The ruling called on Iranians to boycott tobacco.
The impact was extraordinary.
Tobacco users stopped smoking.
Some reportedly broke their water pipes.
Many Iranians saw the concession as another example of foreign economic influence over Iran.
The Tobacco Protest therefore became much more than a dispute over smoking.
It became a broader expression of opposition to foreign intervention, economic concessions and the Qajar government’s policies.
