Current histories of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905-1909) frequently begin with the bastinado of three Tehrani merchants, on 11 December 1905, upon the orders of Tehran's governor.... Show moreCurrent histories of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905-1909) frequently begin with the bastinado of three Tehrani merchants, on 11 December 1905, upon the orders of Tehran's governor. This incident, we are told, led the two leading Tehran clerics to stage a sit-in protest, demanding dismissal of the governor and the premier, as well as calling for the institution of a House of Justice. Some months later, two men of religion were killed when government soldiers attempted to break up a protesting crowd in Tehran's Friday Mosque. This set off a chain of events that culminated in the issuance of the Constitutional decree by Muzaffar al-Din Shah on 5 August 1906. By telling a different story of these same revolutionary years, I question how these particular events have come to form Iranian collective memory of that revolution, while others have been merely forgotten. Show less