noted that "most Iranians would rather forego bread than tobacco, and the first thing they would do at the breaking of the fast during the month of Ramadan was to light their pipes." Despite the popularity of tobacco, the religious ban was so successful that it was said that women in the shah's harem quit smoking and his servants refused to prepare his water pipe. By January 1892, when the shah saw that the British government "was waffling in its support for the Imperial Tobacco Company," he canceled the concession. The fatwa has been called a "stunning" demonstration of the power of the marja'-i taqlid, and the protest itself has been cited as one of the issues that led to the Constitutional Revolution a few years later. Aftermath Following the cancellation of the concession, there were still difficulties between the Qajar government and the Imperial Tobacco Corporation of Persia in terms of negotiating the amount of compensation that would be paid to the company. Eventually, it was decided that the sum was to be £500,000 (£61,000,000 inflation-corrected to 2018 value, corresponds to $77,600,000). While many Iranians were happy about preventing foreign commercial influence in the country, the tobacco movement had far greater implications than they would even realize. Historian Nikki Keddie notes that the movement was significant because "Iranians saw for the first time that it was possible to win out against the Shah and foreign interests… there is a direct line from the coalition which participated in the tobacco movement… culminating in the Constitutional Revolution" and arguably the Iranian Revolution as well. For Nasir Al-Din Shah, the protest left him both financially handicapped and publicly humiliated. Iran was forced to contract a loan from Russia and became a debtor state. At the end of his rule, Nasir Al-Din became much more hostile towards the West, preventing any form of European education or travel. See also Iran–United Kingdom relations Islamic views on tobacco Persian Constitutional Revolution Muhammad Kazim Khurasani Zainab Pasha References Further reading 1890 in economics 1890 in Iran 1891 in economics 1891 in Iran 1892 in Iran Civil disobedience Boycotts Economic history of Iran Iran–United Kingdom relations Politics of Qajar Iran Protests in Iran Tobacco in Iran