The origins of the modern intellectual in Iran can be traced back to the Constitutional Revolution and its legislative reforms aiming at secularizing social institutions that were until then under the olama's jurisdiction. The dismissal of theological restraints and taboos which the jurists had for centuries imposed upon Iranian thought broke down the fences that artificially contained together different groups of intellectuals and professionals within the loosely defined class of the "turbaned" educated elite. The modern intelligentsia came into being with separate interests and
group allegiances, while the olama emerged as one distinct class of religious leaders, specialists in Islamic jurisprudence, loosing drastic ground as the former group assumed social and political leadership in national affairs. Nevertheless, doctrinal conflicts with aspects of modernity and the new socio-political systems that were adopted in the post-revolution period were left unresolved. Similarly, clause two of the 1906-1907 constitution paradoxically granted the ayatollahs potential political power mainstream Twelver Shia Islam had persistently frowned upon.