Mossadegh
"...unfairly poor reputation from landing between two modernizing, enterprising Shahs who transformed Persia (later Iran) both politically as well as socially and economically. Nonetheless, Nosrat al-Din's brief reign deserves its own note for its events. Contrary to expectations of a considerable rollback of the constitutional rights afforded Persians in the Revolution of 1907, Nosrat al-Din consolidated the role of the Majlis, even as the cabinets he appointed were typically dominated by the nobility and gentry (in particular his family members). Due to the important position of Persia between Russia and India and the emphasis the British placed upon their port (and, increasingly, oil plays in Bandar Abbas), the number of railroad kilometers built in Persia between 1910 and 1919 more than doubled, all while military academies, medical clinics, and clean modern prisons were established with the best knowledge of the West adapted to conservative Shiite Persia's traditional culture.
This was the aspect of Nosrat al-Din's rule that was perhaps regretted more than anything by Mossadegh, in that while he did not arrest the reformism of the day, he also seemed content to leave it fully to its own devices when facing down the opposition of the conservative ulema, which often ended new ideas before they were even presented. A campaign to end the veiling of women was stillborn in the Majlis, blocked not only by aristocrats but directly-elected parliamentarians from devout, rural parts of the country. Proposals to introduce Western schooling and literacy programs went nowhere, out of fear that it would interfere with traditional Persian values. That said, it would also be unfair to purely lay the failures of many reformist strands in the 1910s on the clergy - it was not (or not only) the ulema who were the reason why efforts to combat nomadism (and the frequent violent instability that sedentary Iranic peoples, particularly across the west and south of Persia, caused) did not succeed, and regional tribal leaders were fully and openly hostile to any attempts by Tehran to centralize its rule, supported occasionally by sympathetic local British businessmen or envoys who enjoyed having their own fiefdoms free of the view of the Persian government as well as their own Colonial Office. In that sense, that was the largest missed opportunity of Nosrat al-Din, that of ending the fragmented governance of Persia that only served to empower not only enemies of the monarchy but also the British, who while not opposed to him nonetheless were ambivalent about him as a Shah compared to his long-serving father..."
- Mossadegh
This was the aspect of Nosrat al-Din's rule that was perhaps regretted more than anything by Mossadegh, in that while he did not arrest the reformism of the day, he also seemed content to leave it fully to its own devices when facing down the opposition of the conservative ulema, which often ended new ideas before they were even presented. A campaign to end the veiling of women was stillborn in the Majlis, blocked not only by aristocrats but directly-elected parliamentarians from devout, rural parts of the country. Proposals to introduce Western schooling and literacy programs went nowhere, out of fear that it would interfere with traditional Persian values. That said, it would also be unfair to purely lay the failures of many reformist strands in the 1910s on the clergy - it was not (or not only) the ulema who were the reason why efforts to combat nomadism (and the frequent violent instability that sedentary Iranic peoples, particularly across the west and south of Persia, caused) did not succeed, and regional tribal leaders were fully and openly hostile to any attempts by Tehran to centralize its rule, supported occasionally by sympathetic local British businessmen or envoys who enjoyed having their own fiefdoms free of the view of the Persian government as well as their own Colonial Office. In that sense, that was the largest missed opportunity of Nosrat al-Din, that of ending the fragmented governance of Persia that only served to empower not only enemies of the monarchy but also the British, who while not opposed to him nonetheless were ambivalent about him as a Shah compared to his long-serving father..."
- Mossadegh
