"Sword of Freedom": Abdulrahman Saif Azad and Interwar Iranian Nationalism

This paper will analyze the journalistic and political activities of Abdulrahman Saif Azad (1891-1970) during the 1920s and 1930s. Saif Azad (Arabic for “sword of freedom”) is most commonly known for his editorship of the Tehran-based newspaper Iran-e Bastan (published between 1933-1935), a newspaper noted for its pro-Nazi sympathies and its glorification of Reza Shah and a pre-Islamic based Iranian nationalism. What is less often noted is Saif Azad’s connection to political, cultural, and intellectual currents in British-ruled India between WWI and WWII. Using an array of primary sources— including his own published writings, memoirs written by his associates, and recently declassified British intelligence files—this paper will document Saif Azad’s activities in the subcontinent: from his participation in the German-Turkish Niedermayer campaign to enlist the Afghans for war against the Raj, to his publication of Indian independence newspapers such as Azadi-ye Sharq and Salar-e Hend, to his collaboration with the Bombay Parsis to help promote the nation-building project of Reza Shah, to his association with pro-German Indian nationalist politicians such as Subhas Chandra Bose, and finally to his arrest in India and his internment by the British between 1939-1944. Placing Saif Azad’s life and activities within this broader Indo-Iranian social, cultural, and political context will help to highlight the transnational dimensions of Iranian nationalism during the interwar period. Rather than a history of state-building and cultural reform, the life and work of Saif Azad suggests that the evolution of Iranian nationalism in the interwar period was very much tied to broader social, cultural, and political currents related to an emerging global struggle against empire.