Iranians Stop Smoking to Defeat a British Tobacco Monopoly

On March 20, 1890, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar granted a fifty-year commercial monopoly over Iran's tobacco crop to an Englishman, Major G. F. Talbot. In exchange for control over the growth, domestic sale, and export of Persian tobacco, Talbot agreed to pay the monarch an annual fee of 15,000 pounds along with a quarter of the net profits after meeting expenses and an initial dividend. Talbot later transferred these rights to the Imperial Tobacco Corporation of Persia. The concession, formally organized as the Tobacco Regie, compelled domestic growers and merchants to sell exclusively to company agents, directly unsettling growers, merchants and shopkeepers across the country.

Popular indignation mounted rapidly once the terms became widely known in early 1891. Iranian bazaaris viewed the monopoly as a devastating threat to their commerce, as they could no longer freely set prices or trade with traditional partners. Russia, which was competing with Britain for influence in Iran, also worked against the concession, and contemporary observers suspected Russian involvement in the campaign, though the evidence is inconclusive. In urban centers across Iran, merchants coordinated strikes and appealed directly to the Shi'ite clerical leadership for assistance. The religious scholars, or ulama, had strong commercial and familial ties to the merchant class and objected to granting non-Muslim foreigners authority over essential domestic goods.