Literary History of Persia
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Having sown this seed of suspicion and completely ingratiated himself with the Persian Court, Mír Ways sought and obtained permission to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca. While there he took another important step for the furtherance of his designs. He sought from the leading ecclesiastical authorities a fatwá, or legal opinion, as to whether the orthodox Sunní subjects of a heretical (i.e. Shí‘a) Muslim ruler were bound to obey him, or were justified, if occasion
Several half-hearted attempts to subdue the rebellious city having failed, the Persian Government despatched Khusraw Khán, nephew of the late Gurgín Khán, with an army of 30,000 men to effect its subjugation, but in spite of an initial success, which led the Afgháns to offer to surrender on terms, his uncompromising attitude impelled them to make a fresh desperate effort, resulting in the complete defeat of the Persian army (of whom only some 700 escaped) and the death of their general. Two years later, in A.D. 1713, another Persian army commanded by Rustam Khán was also defeated by the rebels, who thus secured possession of the whole province of Qandahár. Mír Ways, having thus in five or six years laid the foundations of the Afghán power, died in A.D. 1715, and was
In A.D. 1720 Mír Maḥmúd assumed the aggressive, crossed the deserts of Sístán, and attacked and occupied Kirmán, whence, however, he was expelled four months later by the Persian General Luṭf-‘Alí Khán, who, after this victory, proceeded to Shíráz and began to organize “the best-appointed army that had been seen in Persia for many years” with a view to crushing the Afgháns and retaking Qandahár. Unfortunately before he had accomplished this his position was undermined by one of those Court intrigues which were so rapidly destroying the Persian Empire, and he was deprived of his command and brought as a prisoner to Iṣfahán, while the army which he had collected and disciplined with such care rapidly melted away, and the spirits of the Afgháns were proportionately revived. The capture and sack of Shamákhí by the Lazgís and the appearance of strange portents in the sky combined still further to discourage the Persians, while the ordering of public mourning and repentance by Sháh Ḥusayn tended only to accentuate the general depression. The fatal year 1722 began with the second siege and
From Kirmán Mír Maḥmúd marched by way of Yazd, which he attempted but failed to take by storm, to Iṣfahán, having scornfully refused an offer of 15,000 túmáns260, to induce him to turn back, and finally pitched his camp at Gulnábád, distant some three leagues from the Ṣafawí capital. After much dispute and diversity of opinions, the Persian army marched out of Iṣfahán to engage the Afgháns on March 7th and on the following day, largely through the treachery of the Wálí of ‘Arabistán, suffered a disastrous defeat. The battle of Gulnábád, fought between the Persians and the Afgháns on Sunday, March 8, 1722, decided the fate of the Ṣafawí dynasty as surely as did the battle of Qádisiyya in A.D. 635 that of the Sásánians, or the conflict between the Caliph’s troops and
“On the other side there was a much smaller body of soldiers, disfigured with fatigue and the scorching heat of the sun. Their clothes were so ragged and torn in so long a march that they were scarce sufficient to cover them from the weather, and, their horses being adorned with only leather and brass, there was nothing glittering about them but their spears and sabres.” These three great and decisive battles resembled one another in several respects. In each case a great historic dynasty, the extent of whose inward decay was masked by its external splendour, and apparent, because hitherto unchallenged, strength and supremacy, collapsed before the fierce onslaught of a hardy and warlike folk, hitherto hardly known, or accounted as little better than barbarians; and in each case the more or less prolonged process of degene- [page 128] ration which rendered the final catastrophe not only possible but inevitable is fairly obvious to subsequent historians, even if its extent and significance were not realized until the fatal touchstone was applied. The results, however, differed widely according to the character and abilities of the assailants. The Arab invaders of the seventh century established an Empire which endured for six centuries and effected a profound and permanent change in the lands and peoples whom they brought under their sway. The Mongol conquests were even more extensive, reaching as they did from China and Thibet to Germany and Russia, but the cohesion and duration of the vast Empire which they created were far inferior. The Afghán conquest, with which we are now concerned, was little more than an extensive and destructive raid, resulting in some seventy-five years of anarchy (A.D. 1722-1795), illuminated by the meteoric career of that Napoleon of Persia, Nádir Sháh, and ending in the establishment of the actually reigning dynasty of the Qájárs. The actual domination of the Afgháns over Persia only endured for eight or nine years263. Seven months elapsed after the battle of Gulnábád before the final pitiful surrender, with every circumstance of humiliation, of the unhappy Sháh Ḥusayn. In that battle the Persians are said to have lost all their artillery, baggage and treasure, as well as some 15,000 out of a total of 50,000 men. On March 19 Mír Maḥmúd occupied the Sháh’s beloved palace and pleasure-grounds of Faraḥábád, situated only three miles from Iṣfahán, which henceforth served as his headquarters. Two days later the Afgháns, having occupied the Armenian suburb of Julfá, where they levied a tribute of money and young girls, attempted to take Iṣfahán by
Soon after this, famine began to press heavily on the people, who clamoured to be led against the besiegers, but their desperate sortie failed owing to the renewed treachery of Wálí of ‘Arabistán, who was throughout these dark days the evil genius of the unhappy king. The Persian court, indeed, seemed to have been stricken with a kind of folly which was equally ready to repose confidence in traitors and to mistrust and degrade or dismiss brave and patriotic officers like Luṭf-‘Alí Khán. For three or four months before the end the sufferings of the people from famine were terrible: they were finally reduced to eating dogs, cats, and even the corpses of their dead, and perished in great numbers. The pitiful details may be found in the pages of Krusinski, Hanway, and the contemporary accounts written by certain agents of the Dutch East India Company then resident at Iṣfahán, of which the original texts have been included by H. Dunlop in his fine work on Persia (Perzie, Haarlem, 1912, pp. 242-257). At the end of September, 1722, Sháh Ḥusayn offered to surrender himself and his capital to the Afghán invader, but Mír Maḥmúd, in order still further to reduce by famine the numbers and spirit of the besieged, dragged out the negotiations for another three or four weeks, so that it was not until October 21 that Sháh Ḥusayn repaired on foot to Faraḥábád, once his favourite residence, now the headquarters of his ruthless foe, to surrender the crown which Mír Maḥmúd assumed six days later. When news of his father’s abdication reached
Ṭahmásp was now reduced to the miserable expedient of invoking the help of Russia and Turkey, who had already fixed covetous eyes on the apparently moribund Persian kingdom and had occupied Gílán and Tiflís respectively. On September 23, 1723, a treaty was signed whereby, in return for the expulsion of the Afgháns and the restoration of his authority, Ṭahmásp undertook to cede to Russia the Caspian provinces of Gílán, Mázandarán and Gurgán, and the towns of Bákú, Darband and their dependencies. Soon afterwards the Turks took Erivan, Nakhjuwán, Khúy and Hamadán, but were repulsed From Tabríz. On July 8, 1724, an agreement for the partition of Persia was signed between Russia and Turkey at Constantinople264. Meanwhile Mír Maḥmúd was continuing his cruelties at Iṣfahán. In A.D. 1723 he put to death in cold blood some three hundred of the nobles and chief citizens, and followed up this bloody deed with the murder of about two hundred children of their families. He also killed some three thousand of the deposed Sháh’s body-guard, together with many other persons whose sentiments he mistrusted or whose influence he feared. In the following year (A.D. 1724) the Afghán general Zabardast Khán succeeded, where his predecessor Naṣru’lláh265 had failed and fallen, in taking Shíráz; and towards the end of the year Mír Maḥmúd prepared to attack Yazd, which had hitherto remained unsubdued. The Muslim inhabitants of that town, fearing that the numerous Zoroastrians dwelling
About this time Mír Maḥmúd, alarmed at the increasing insubordination of his cousin Ashraf, and, we may hope, tormented by an uneasy conscience on account of his cruelties, betook himself to a severe course of self-discipline and mortification, which did but increase his melancholy and distemper, so that on February 7, 1725, he murdered all the surviving members of the royal family with the exception of the deposed Sháh Ḥusayn and two of his younger children. Thereafter his disorder rapidly increased, until he himself was murdered on April 22 by his cousin Ashraf, who was thereupon proclaimed king. Mír Maḥmúd was at the time of his death only twenty-seven years of age, and is described as “middle-sized and clumsy; his neck was so short that his head seemed to grow to his shoulders; he had a broad face and flat nose, and his beard was thin and of a red colour; his looks were wild and his countenance austere and disagreeable; his eyes, which were blue and a little squinting, were generally downcast, like a man absorbed in deep thought.” The death of Peter the Great about this period made Russia slightly less dangerous as a neighbour, but the Turks continued to press forwards and on August 3, 1725, succeeded at last in capturing Tabríz. They even advanced to within three days’ march of Iṣfahán, but turned back before reaching it. They subsequently (A.D. 1726) took Qazwín and Marágha, but were defeated by Ashraf near Kirmánsháh. Negotiations for peace were meanwhile in progress at Constantinople, whither Ashraf had sent an ambassador named ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz Khán, whose arrogant proposal that his master should be Caliph of the East and the Ottoman
This danger had hardly been averted when a far greater one, destined in a short time to prove fatal to the Afgháns, presented itself in the person of Nádir-qulí, subsequently known to fame as Nádir Sháh, one of the most remarkable and ruthless military geniuses ever produced by Persia. Hitherto, though he was now about forty years of age, little had been heard of him; but this year, issuing forth from his stronghold, that wonderful natural fastness named after him Kalát-i-Nádirí267, he defeated an Afghán force and took possession of Níshápúr in the name of Sháh Ṭahmásp II, at that time precariously established at Faraḥábád in Mázandarán, and supported with a certain condescending arrogance by the Qájár chief Fatḥ-‘Alí Khán. After this success Nádir paid a visit to the fugitive Sháh, and, after insinuating himself into his favour, contrived the assassination of the Qájár, against whom he had succeeded in arousing the Sháh’s suspicions. On May 15 of the following year (1728) the Shih, accompanied by Nadir (or Ṭahmásp-qulí, “the slave of Ṭahmásp,” to give him the name which [page 133] he temporarily assumed about this time), made a solemn entry into Níshápúr, amidst the rejoicings of the inhabitants, and shortly afterwards occupied Mashhad and Herát. He also despatched an ambassador to Constantinople, whence in return a certain Sulaymán Efendi was sent as envoy to Persia. Meanwhile Ashraf, having taken Yazd and Kirmán, marched into Khurásán with an army of thirty thousand men to give battle to Ṭahmásp, but he was completely defeated by Nádir on October 2 at Dámghán. Another decisive battle was fought in the following year at Múrchakhúr near Iṣfahán. The Afgháns were again defeated and evacuated Iṣfahán to the number of twelve thousand men, but, before quitting the city he had ruined, Ashraf murdered the unfortunate ex-Sháh Ḥusayn, and carried off most of the ladies of the royal family and the King’s treasure. When Ṭahmásp II entered Iṣfahán on December 9 he found only his old mother, who had escaped deportation by disguising herself as a servant, and was moved to tears at the desolation and desecration which met his eyes at every turn. Nádir, having finally induced Ṭahmásp to empower him to levy taxes on his own authority, marched southwards in pursuit of the retiring Afgháns, whom he overtook and again defeated near Persepolis. Ashraf fled from Shíráz towards his own country, but cold, hunger and the unrelenting hostility of the inhabitants of the regions which he had to traverse dissipated his forces and compelled him to abandon his captives and his treasure, and he was finally killed by a party of Balúch tribesmen. Thus ended the disastrous period of Afghán dominion in Persia in A.D. 1730, having lasted eight years. [page 134] The Career of Nádir until his assassination in a.d. 1747. Although it was not until A.D. 1736 that Nádir deemed it expedient to take the title of King, he became from A.D. 1730 onwards the de facto ruler of Persia. Of his humble origin and early struggles it is unnecessary to speak here; they will be found narrated as fully as the circumstances permit in the pages of Hanway, Malcolm and other historians of Persia. Sháh Ṭahmásp was from the first but a roi fainéant, and his only serious attempt to achieve anything by himself, when he took the field against the Turks in A.D. 1731, resulted in a disastrous failure, for he lost both Tabríz and Hamadán, and in January, 1732, concluded a most unfavourable peace, whereby he ceded Georgia and Armenia to Turkey on condition that she should aid him to expel the Russians from Gílán, Shírwán and Darband. Nádir, greatly incensed, came to Iṣfahán in August, 1732, and, having by a stratagem seized and imprisoned Ṭahmásp, proclaimed his infant son (then only six months old) as king under the title of Sháh ‘Abbás III, and at once sent a threatening letter to Aḥmad Páshá of Baghdád, which he followed up by a declaration of war in October. In April of the following year (1733) Nádir appeared before Baghdád, having already retaken Kirmánsháh, with an army of 80,000 men, but suffered a defeat on July 18, and retired to Hamadán to recruit and recuperate his troops. Returning to the attack in the autumn he defeated the Turks on October 26 in a great battle wherein the gallant and noble-minded Ṭopál ‘Osmán (‘Uthmán) was slain. Having crushed a revolt in favour of the deposed Sháh Ṭahmásp in Fárs, he invaded Georgia in 1734, took Tiflís, Ganja and Shamákhí, [page 135] and obtained from Russia the retrocession of Gílán, Shírwán, Darband, Bákú and Rasht. In the following year (1735) he again defeated the Turks near Erivan, and captured that city and Erzeroum. On the following Nawrúz, or Persian New Year’s day (March 21, 1736), Nádir announced to the assembled army and deputies of the nation the death of the infant Sháh ‘Abbás III and invited them to decide within three days whether they would restore his father, the deposed Sháh Ṭahmásp, or elect a new king. His own desire, which coincided with that of most of his officers and soldiers, was evident, and, the unwilling minority being overawed, the crown of Persia was unanimously offered to him. He agreed to accept it on three conditions, namely: (1) that it should be made hereditary in his family; (2) that there should be no talk of a restoration of the Ṣafawís, and that no one should aid, comfort, or harbour any member of that family who might aspire to the throne; and (3) that the cursing of the first three Caliphs, the mourning for the death of the Imám Ḥusayn, and other distinctive practices of the Shí‘a should be abandoned. This last condition was the most distasteful to the Persians, and the chief ecclesiastical authority, being asked his opinion, had the courage to denounce it as “derogatory to the welfare of the true believers” — a courage which cost him his life, for he was immediately strangled by Nádir’s orders. Not content with this, Nádir, on his arrival at Qazwín, confiscated the religious endowments (awqáf) for the expenses of his army, to whom, he said, Persia owed more than to her hierarchy. Towards the end of the year he concluded a favourable treaty with Turkey, by which Persia recovered all her lost provinces; and in December he set out at the head of 100,000 men against Afghánistán and India, leaving his son Riḍá-qulí as regent. The next two years (A.D. 1737-9) witnessed Nádir Sháh’s
During the absence of Nádir Sháh his son Riḍá-qulí had put to death the unfortunate Ṭahmásp and most of his family at Sabzawár, and began to show signs of desiring to retain the powers with which he had been temporarily invested by his father. Being suspected of instigating an unsuccessful attempt on Nádir’s life, he was deprived of his eyesight, but with this cruel act the wonderful good fortune which had hitherto accompanied Nádir began to desert him. His increasing cruelty, tyranny, avarice and extortion, but most of all, perhaps, his attempt to impose on [page 137] his Persian subjects the Sunní doctrine, made him daily more detested. His innovations included the production of Persian translations of the Qur’án and the Gospels. The latter, on which several Christians were employed, he caused to be read aloud to him at Ṭihrán, while he commented on it with derision, and hinted that when he found leisure he might (perhaps after the model of Akbar) produce a new religion of his own which should supplant alike Judaism, Christianity and Islám269. His military projects, moreover, began to miscarry; his campaign against the Lazgís in A.D. 1741-2 did not prosper, and in the war with Turkey in which he became involved in 1743 he was unsuccessful in his attempt to take Mosul (Mawṣil). Revolts which broke out in Fárs and Shírwán were only suppressed with difficulty after much bloodshed. However he put down a rebellion of the Qájárs at Astarábád in A.D. 1744, defeated the Turks in a great battle near Erivan in August, 1745, and concluded a satisfactory peace with them in 1746. In the following year Nádir Sháh visited Kirmán, which suffered much from his cruelties and exactions, and thence proceeded to Mashhad, where he arrived at the end of May, 1747. Here he conceived the abominable plan of killing all his Persian officers and soldiers (the bulk of his army being Turkmáns and Uzbeks and consequently Sunnís), but this project was made known by a Georgian slave to some of the Persian officers, who thereupon decided, in the picturesque Persian phrase, “to breakfast off him ere he should sup off them.” A certain Ṣáliḥ Beg, aided by four trusty men, undertook the task270, and, entering his tent [page 138] by night, rid their country of one who, though he first appeared as its deliverer from the Afghán yoke, now bade fair to crush it beneath a yoke yet more intolerable. At the time of his death Nádir Sháh was sixty-one years of age and had reigned eleven years and three months (A.D. 1736-47). He was succeeded by his nephew ‘Alí-qulí Khán, who assumed the crown under the title of ‘Ádil Sháh, but was defeated and slain by his brother Ibráhím in the following year. He in turn was killed a year later (A.D. 1749) by the partisans of Nádir’s grandson Sháhrukh, the son of the unfortunate Riḍá-qulí and a Ṣafawí princess, the daughter of Sháh Ḥusayn, who now succeeded to the throne. Youth, beauty and a character at once amiable and humane271 did not, however, secure him against misfortune, and he was shortly after his accession deposed and blinded by a certain Sayyid Muḥammad, a grandson on the mother’s side of the Ṣafawí Sháh Sulaymán II. He in turn soon fell a victim to the universal violence and lawlessness which now prevailed in Persia, and Sháhrukh was restored to the throne, but again deposed and again restored to exercise a nominal rule at Mashhad over the province of Khurásán, which Aḥmad Khán Abdálí (afterwards famous as Aḥmad Sháh Durrání, the founder of the modern kingdom of Afghánistán) desired, before leaving Persia, to erect into a buffer state between that country and his own. The remainder of the blind Sháhrukh’s long reign was uneventful, and he survived until A.D. 1796, having reigned nearly fifty years. [page 139] The Zand Dynasty (a.d. 1750-1794) “The history of Persia,” says Sir John Malcolm272, “from the death of Nádir Sháh till the elevation of Áqá Muḥammad Khán, the founder of the reigning family, presents to our attention no one striking feature except the life of Karím Khán-i-Zand. The happy reign of this excellent prince, as contrasted with those who preceded and followed him, affords to the historian of Persia that description of mixed pleasure and repose which a traveller enjoys who arrives at a beautiful and fertile valley in the midst of an arduous journey over barren and rugged wastes. It is pleasing to recount the actions of a chief who, though born in an inferior rank, obtained power without crime, and who exercised it with a moderation that was, in the times in which he lived, as singular as his humanity and justice.” Karím Khán, however, who fixed his capital at Shíráz, which he did so much to beautify and where he is still gratefully remembered, never ruled over the whole of Persia and never assumed the title of Sháh, but remained content with that of Wakíl, or Regent. Originally he and a Bakhtiyárí chief named ‘Alí Mardán Khán were the joint regents of “a real or pretended grandson of Sháh Ḥusayn273” in whose name they seized Iṣfahán, where they placed him on the throne. Before long they fell out; ‘Alí Mardán Khán was killed; and Karím Khán became the de facto ruler of Southern Persia. His rivals were the Afghán chief Ázád in Ádharbáyján and the North-west, and in the Caspian provinces Muḥammad Ḥasan the Qájár, son of that Fatḥ-‘Alí Khán who was murdered by Nádir at the outset of his career, and father, [page 140] of Áqá Muḥammad Khán, the actual founder of the Qájár dynasty. Ázád was the first to be eliminated from this triangular contest. He defeated Karím Khán and compelled him to evacuate not only Iṣfahán but Shíráz, but, rashly pursuing him through the narrow defile of Kamárij, fell into an ambush, lost most of his followers, and finally, having sought refuge first with the Páshá of Baghdád and then with Heraclius, Prince of Georgia, threw himself upon the generosity of Karím Khán, who received him with kindness, promoted him to the first rank among his nobles, and treated him with so generous a confidence that he soon converted this dangerous rival into an attached friend274.” In A.D. 1757, about four years after the battle of Kamárij, Karím Khán had to face a fierce onslaught by his other rival, Muḥammad Ḥasan Khán the Qájár, who, after a striking initial success, was finally driven back into Mázandarán, where he was eventually defeated and killed in A.D. 1760 by Karím Khán’s general Shaykh ‘Alí Khán. From this time until his death in the spring of 1779 Karím Khán practically ruled over the whole of Persia except Khurásán, where the blind and harmless Sháhrukh exercised a nominal sovereignty. The chief military exploit of his reign was the capture of Baṣra from the Turks in 1776, effected by his brother Ṣádiq, who continued to administer it until Karím’s death, when he relinquished it to the Turks in order to take part in the fratricidal struggle for the Persian crown275.
It is unnecessary to describe here the fratricidal wars [page 142] which during the next ten years (A.D. 1779-89) sapped the power of the Zand dynasty while Áqá Muḥammad Khán, with incredible self-control and political sagacity, was uniting and consolidating the Qájár power. Within the year which witnessed Karím Khán’s death four of his house had successively mounted his throne, to wit, his son Abu’l-Fatḥ, his nephew ‘Alí Murád, his son Muḥammad ‘Alí, and his brother Ṣádiq. The last-named, together with all his sons except Ja‘far, was put to death in March, 1782, by ‘Alí Murád, who thus regained the throne, but died at Múrchakhúr near Iṣfahán in January, 1785, and was succeeded by Ja‘far, the date of whose accession is commemorated in the following ingenious chronogram by Ḥájji Sulaymán of Káshán called Ṣabáḥí280: 
“To record the year of the blessed and auspicious accession Which is the initial date of the mirth of the age, The pen of Ṣabáḥí wrote: ‘From the Royal Palace ‘Alí Murád went forth, and Ja‘far Khán sat’ [in his place].” The letters composing the words Qaṣr-i-Sulṭání yield the number 550; from this we subtract (355) equivalent to ‘Alí Murád, which gives us 195; to this we add the number equivalent to Ja‘far Khán (1004), which finally gives us the correct date A.H. 1199 (A.D. 178 5). Ja‘far Khán was murdered on 25 Rabí‘ ii, 1203 (January 23, 1789), and was succeeded by his son, the gallant and unfortunate Luṭf-‘Alí Khán, of whose personality Sir Harford Jones Brydges has given so attractive an account. “The reader, I hope,” he [page 143] says281, “will pardon me if I treat the reign and misfortunes of the noble Luṭf-‘Alí more in detail than usual. I received great kindness and attention from him when he filled the throne; and under a miserable tent I had the honour of sitting on the same horse-cloth with him when a fugitive! His virtues endeared him to his subjects; and the bravery, constancy, courage and ability which he manifested under his misfortunes are the theme of poems and ballads which it is not improbable will last as long as the Persian language itself. He was manly, amiable, affable under prosperity and, under calamities as great and as severe as human nature can suffer, he was dignified and cool and determined. That so noble a being, that a prince the hope and pride of his country, should have been betrayed by a wretch282 in whom he placed, or rather misplaced, his confidence — that his end should have been marked by indignities exercised on his person at which human nature shudders — that his ~ little son should have suffered loss of virility — that his daughters should have been forced into marriage with the scum of the earth — that the princess his wife should have been dishonoured — are dispensations of Providence, which, though we must not arraign, we may permit ourselves to wonder at.” It is fortunate that we possess such disinterested appreciations of poor Luṭf-‘Alí Khán, the last chivalrous figure amongst the kings of Persia, for such of his compatriots as described his career necessarily wrote after the triumph of his implacable rival and deadly foe Áqá Muḥammad Khán, and therefore, whatever their true sentiments may have been, [page 144] dared not venture to praise the fallen prince, lest they should incur the displeasure of the cruel Qájár. Short-lived as the Zand dynasty was, it began and ended nobly, for its first representative was one of the best and its last one of the bravest of all the long line of Persian monarchs. The Reigning Qájár Dynasty (a.d. 1796 Onwards). The full and detailed accounts of the reigning Qájár dynasty already available to the English reader render any attempt to summarize their history in this place quite unnecessary283. Áqá Muḥammad Khan was not actually crowned until A.D. 1796, and was assassinated in the following year, so that he wore the crown of Persia for not more than fifteen months284, but his reign practically began on the death of Karím Khán in A.D. 1779, though “he used to observe that he had no title even to the name of king till he was obeyed through the whole of the ancient limits of the Empire of Persia285,” so that it was only after he had finally subdued Georgia that he consented to assume the title of Sháh. His appearance and character are admirably summarized by Sir John Malcolm in the following words286: [page 145] “Áqá Muḥammad Khán was murdered in the sixty-third year of his age. He had been ruler of a great part of Persia for upwards of twenty years, but had only for a short period enjoyed the undisputed sovereignty of that country. The person of that monarch was so slender that at a distance he appeared like a youth of fourteen or fifteen. His beardless and shrivelled face resembled that of an aged and wrinkled woman; and the expression of his countenance, at no times pleasant, was horrible when clouded, as it very often was, with indignation. He was sensible of this, and could not bear that anyone should look at him. This prince had suffered, in the early part of his life, the most cruel adversity; and his future conduct seems to have taken its strongest bias from the keen recollection of his misery and his wrongs. The first passion of his mind was the love of power; the second, avarice; and the third, revenge. In all these he indulged to excess, and they administered to each other: but the two latter, strong as they were, gave way to the first whenever they came in collision. His knowledge of the character and feelings of others was wonderful; and it is to this knowledge, and his talent of concealing from all the secret purposes of his soul, that we must refer his extraordinary success in subduing his enemies. Against these he never employed force till art had failed; and, even in war, his policy effected more than his sword. His ablest and most confidential minister287, when asked if Áqá Muḥammad Khán was personally brave, replied, ‘No doubt; but still I can hardly recollect an occasion when he had an opportunity of displaying courage. The monarch’s head,’ he emphatically added, ‘never left work for his hand.’” Áqá Muḥammad Khán was succeeded by his nephew the uxorious and philoprogenitive288 Fatḥ-‘Alí Sháh. He was [page 146] avaricious and vain, being inordinately proud of his handsome face and long beard, but not by nature cruel (at any rate compared to his late uncle), and it is related that, though obliged by custom to witness the execution of malefactors, he would always avert his face so as not to behold the unhappy wretch’s death-agony. He was something of a poet, and composed numerous odes under the pen-name of Kháqán. Politically the chief features of his reign were the Anglo-French rivalry typified by the missions of Malcolm and Harford Jones Brydges on the one hand, and Jaubert and General Gardanne on the other (A.D. 1800-1808); the growing menace of Russia, resulting in the successive disastrous treaties of Gulistán (A.D. 1813) and Turkmán-cháy (A.D. 1826); and the war with Turkey in A.D. 1821, concluded in 1823 by the Treaty of Erzeroum. Other notable events of this reign were the disgrace and death of the traitor Ḥájji Ibráhím and the almost complete extirpation of his family about A.D. 1800289; the massacre of Grebaiodoff and the Russian Mission at Ṭihrán on February 11, 1829290; and the premature death, at the age of forty-six, of the Sháh’s favourite son ‘Abbás Mírzá, the Crown Prince, “the noblest of the Kajar race,” as Watson calls him291, in A.D. 1833. His heart-broken father only survived him about a year, and died at the age of sixty-eight on October 23, 1834, leaving fifty-seven sons and forty-six daughters to mourn his loss. Fatḥ-‘Alí Sháh was succeeded by his grandson Muḥammad, the son of ‘Abbás Mírzá, who, ere he was crowned on January 31, 1835, was confronted with two rival claimants to the throne, his uncle the Ẓillu’s-Sulṭán and his brother the Farmán-farmá. These,
Of the origin and doctrines of the Isma‘ílí heresy or “Sect of the Seven” (Sab’iyya), some account will be found in the [page 148] first volume294 of this work, while their destruction by Húlágú Khán the Mongol in the middle of the thirteenth century of our era is briefly described in the second295. But, though their power in Persia was shattered, they still continued to exist, and, from time to time, to reappear on the pages of Persian history. In the volume of the Násikhu’t-Tawáríkh dealing with the reigning Qájár dynasty several references to them occur. The first, under the year 1232/1817, refers to the death of the then head of the sect Sháh Khalílu’lláh, the son of Sayyid Abu’l-Ḥasan Khán, at Yazd. Under the Zand dynasty Abu’l-Ḥasan had been governor of Kirmán, whence on his dismissal he retired to the Maḥallát of Qum. There he received tribute from his numerous followers in India and Central Asia, who, it is recorded, if unable to bring their offerings in person, used to throw them into the sea, believing that they would thus be conveyed into the hands of their Imám; but, when possible, used to visit him in his abode and deem it an honour to render him personal service, even of the most menial kind. His son, Sháh Khalílu’lláh, transferred his abode to Yazd, but after residing there two years he was killed in the course of a quarrel which had arisen between some of his followers and the Muslim citizens of Yazd, instigated by a certain Mullá Ḥusayn. The Sháh punished the perpetrators of this outrage, gave one of his daughters in marriage to Áqá Khán, the son and successor of the late Imám of the Isma‘ílís, and made him governor of Qum and the surrounding districts (Maḥallát). We next hear of this Áqá Khán in 1255/1839 or 1256/1840296, when, apparently in consequence of the arrogant [page 149] behaviour of Ḥájji ‘Abdu’l-Muḥammad-i-Maḥallátí, instigated by the minister Ḥájji Mírzá Áqásí, he rebelled against Muḥammad Sháh and occupied the citadel of Bam, but was obliged to surrender to Fírúz Mírzá, then governor of Kirmán, who pardoned him and sent him to Ṭihrán. Here he was well received by Ḥájji Mírzá Áqásí and was presently allowed to return to his former government in the district of Qum. Having sent his family and possessions to Karbalá by way of Baghdád, so as to leave himself free and unencumbered, he began to buy swift and strong horses and to recruit brave and devoted soldiers, and when his preparations were completed he set out across the deserts and open country towards Kirmán, pretending that he was proceeding to Mecca by way of Bandar-i-‘Abbás, and that the government of Kirmán had been conferred upon him. Prince Bahman Mírzá Baha’u’d-Dawla, being apprised of his intentions, pursued and overtook him as he was making for Shahr-i-Bábak and Sírján, and a skirmish took place between the two parties in which eight of the Prince’s soldiers and sixteen of the Áqá Khán’s men were killed. After a second and fiercer battle the Áqá Khán was defeated and fled to Lár, whence he ultimately escaped to India, where his descendant, the present Áqá Khán297, lives a wealthy and spacious life at Bombay when not engaged in his frequent and extensive travels. The rise of the Bábí sect or religion, which began in the later years of Muḥammad Sháh’s reign, was an event of the most far-reaching significance and importance, and forms [page 150] the subject of an extensive literature298, not only in Persian and Arabic, but in English, French, German, Russian and other European languages. Since it would be impossible to give an adequate account of its eventful history and extensive developments in this volume, and since ample materials for its study are already available even in English (indeed, thanks to the success attained by its missionaries in America, especially in English), no attempt at recapitulation will be made here. Sayyid ‘Alí Muḥammad the Báb has himself (in the Persian Bayán) fixed the date of his “Manifestation” (Ẓuhúr) as May 23, 1844 (5 Jumáda i, 1260), just a thousand years after the disappearance or “Occultation” (Ghaybat) of the Twelfth Imám, or Imám Mahdí, to whom he claimed to be the “Gate” (Báb). Neither the idea nor the expression was new: the Imám Mahdí had four successive “Gates” (Abwáb) by means of whom, during the “Lesser Occultation” (Ghaybat-i-Ṣughra), he maintained communication with his followers; and the “Perfect Shí‘a “(Shí‘a-i-Kámil) of the Shaykhí School, in which the Báb pursued his theological studies, connoted much the same idea of an Intermediary (Wásiṭa), or Channel of Grace, between the Concealed Imám and his faithful people. Later the Báb “went higher” (bálátar raft), to use the expression of his followers, and claimed to be first the “Supreme Point” (Nuqṭa-i-A’lá), or “Point of Explanation” (Nuqṭa-i-Bayán), then the Qá’im (“He who is to arise” of the House of the Prophet), then the Inaugurator of a new Dispensation, and lastly an actual Divine Manifestation or Incarnation. Some of his followers went even further, calling themselves Gods and him a [page 151] “Creator of Gods” (Khudá-áfarín) while one of them went so far as to write of Bahá’u’lláh299: 
“Men say Thou art God, and I am moved to anger: Raise the veil, and submit no longer to the shame of Godhead!” Although the Bábí movement led to much bloodshed, this took place almost entirely after the death of Muḥammad Sháh, which happened on September 5, 1848, though already the Báb was a prisoner in the fortress of Mákú in the extreme N.W. of Persia, while in Khurásán, Mázandarán and elsewhere armed bands of his followers roamed the country proclaiming the Advent of the expected Mahdí and the inauguration of the Reign of the Saints, and threatening those sanguinary encounters between themselves and their opponents which were at once precipitated by the King’s death and the ensuing dislocation and confusion. Dark indeed were the horizons at the beginning of the new reign. The Walí-‘ahd, or Crown Prince, Náṣiru’d-Dín, was absent at Tabríz, the seat of his government, at the time of his father’s, death, and until he could reach Ṭihrán his mother, the Mahd-i-‘Ulyá, assumed control of affairs. Ḥájji Mírzá Áqásí, whose unpopularity was extreme, not only ceased to act as Prime Minister, but had to flee for his life, and took refuge in the Shrine of Sháh ‘Abdu’l-‘Aẓím300. Disturbances broke out in the capital itself, and more serious revolts in Burújird, Kirmánsháh, Kurdistán, Shíráz, Kirmán, Yazd and Khurásán. The young Sháh, then only seventeen years of age301, finally [page 152] reached the capital on October 20, 1848, was crowned the same night, and immediately appointed as his Prime Minister Mírzá Taqí Khán, better known as the Amir-i-Niẓám, who, notwithstanding his lowly origin (his father was originally cook to the Qá’im-maqám)302, was one of the greatest men and most honest, capable and intelligent ministers produced by Persia in modern times. “The race of modern Persians,” exclaims Watson303 enthusiastically, “cannot be said to be altogether effete, since so recently it has been able to produce a man such as was the Amír-i-Niẓám”; and the Hon. Robert Curzon, in his Armenia and Erzeroum, has described him as “beyond all comparison the most interesting personage amongst the commissioners of Turkey, Persia, Russia and Great Britain who were then assembled at Erzeroum.” In the brief period of three years during which he held the high office of Prime Minister he did much for Persia, but the bright promise of his career was too soon darkened by the envy and malice of his rivals. The tragic circumstances of his violent and cruel death in his exile at the beautiful palace of Fín near Káshán are too well known to need repetition304, but the admirable fidelity of his wife, the Sháh’s only sister, can-not be passed over in silence. “No princess educated in a Christian court, says Watson305, “and accustomed to the contemplation of the brightest example of conjugal virtues that the history of the world has recorded could have shown more tenderness and devotion than did the sister of the Sháh of Persia towards her unfortunate husband.” Her untiring vigilance was, however, finally tricked and out- [page 153] witted by the infamous Ḥájji ‘Alí Khán Ḥájibu’d-Dawla, who owed so much to the minister whose life he succeeded in bringing to an end on January 9, 1852. The Bábís, however, had no cause to love Mírzá Taqí Khán, whose death they had already striven to compass, and whose ultimate fate was regarded by them as a signal instance of Divine retribution, since, apart from other measures which he had taken against them, he was responsible for the execution of the Báb himself at Tabríz on July 9, 1850. The Báb indeed, helpless prisoner that he was, had kindled a flame which proved inextinguishable, and which especially illumines with a lurid glow the first four years of Náṣiru’d-Dín Sháh’s reign. The story of the almost incredible martial achievements of the Bábís at Shaykh Ṭabarsí in Mázandarán, at Zanján, Yazd, Nayríz and elsewhere during the years 1849-1850 will never be more graphically told than by the Comte de Gobineau, who in his incomparable book Les Religions et les Philosophies dans l’Asie Centrale combines wit, sympathy and insight in an extraordinary degree. I personally owe more to this book than to any other book about Persia, since to it, not less than to an equally fortunate and fortuitous meeting in Iṣfahán, I am indebted for that unravelling of Bábí doctrine and history which first won for me a reputation in Oriental scholarship. Gobineau was for some time a “prophet without honour in his own country,” but, while France long neglected him, Germany produced a “Gobineau-Vereiningung306” and several important works307 on his life and writings. The militant [page 154] phase of Bábíism. culminated in the attempted assassination of Náṣiru’d-Dín Sháh by three members of the sect on August 15, 1852, and the frightful persecution which followed, wherein twenty-eight more or less prominent Bábís, including the beautiful and talented poetess Qurratu’l-‘Ayn, suffered death with horrible tortures308. Most of the leading Bábís who survived emigrated or were exiled to Baghdád, and thenceforth, though the sect continued to increase in Persia, the centre of its activity, whether at Baghdád, Adrianople, Cyprus or Acre, lay beyond the frontiers of Persia. It is unnecessary here to discuss the causes and course of the short Anglo-Persian War of 1856-7, brought about by the seizure of Herát by the Persians. It began with the occupation by the British of the island of Khárak in the Persian Gulf on December 4, 1856, and was officially terminated by the Treaty of Peace signed at Paris on March 4, 1857, by Lord Cowley and Farrukh Khán, though, owing to the slowness of communications at that time, hostilities actually continued for another month. They did not end a moment too soon for Great Britain, for almost before the ratifications were exchanged the Indian Mutiny broke out. The need then experienced for better communications between England and India led in 1864 to the introduction into Persia of the telegraph, to which further extension was given in 1870 and 1872, and this, as pointed out by Sir Percy Molesworth Sykes (whose History of Persia309 is almost the only book which gives a continuous [page 155] and coherent narrative of events from 1857 to 1921), had far-reaching reactions310, and was one of the factors in the modernization of Persia. Others were the extension of the Press (first introduced into Tabríz by ‘Abbás Mírzá about A.D. 1816) and consequent wider diffusion of literature; the slow growth of journalism since 1851311 down to its enormous expansion during the Revolution of 1906-1911 and again after the Russian collapse; the foundation of the Dáru’l-Funún, or Polytechnic College, at Ṭihrán in 1851, and the introduction of European science and instruction; and, in a lesser degree, the Sháh’s three journeys to Europe in 1873, 1878 and 1889, though it is doubtful whether he or his attendants derived more advantage from what they saw in the course of their peregrinations than Persian literature did from his accounts of his experiences. Náṣiru’d-Dín Sháh was only a little over seventeen years of age when he was crowned on the 24th of Dhu’l-Qa‘da, 1264 (20 October, 1848), and would have entered upon the fiftieth year of his reign on the same date of the Muhammadan year A.H. 1313, corresponding to May 5, 1896. Four days earlier, however, when all the preparations for the celebration of his jubilee were completed, he was shot dead by Mírzá Riḍá of Kirmán, a disciple of that turbulent spirit Sayyid Jamálu’d-Dín al-Afghán, in the Shrine of Sháh ‘Abdu’l-‘Aẓím a few miles south of Ṭihrán. Of the events which led up to this catastrophe and their significance I have treated fully in my History of the Persian Revolution of 1905-1909, and will not attempt to epitomize here matters which are fully discussed there, and which it would be a waste of space to [page 156] recapitulate. The seeds of the Revolution were sown, and even began to germinate, about the time of the Sháh’s third and last visit to Europe, fruitful in ill-advised concessions, which (especially the Tobacco concession of 1890) were a potent factor in stimulating the political discontents which found their first open expression in the Tobacco-riots of 1891 and culminated in the Revolution of 1905. If we ignore the external relations of Persia with foreign Powers, especially England and Russia, which form the principal topic of such political histories as that of Sir Percy Molesworth Sykes, we may say, broadly speaking, that of the long reign of Náṣiru’d-Dín Sháh the first four years (A.D. 1848-52) were notable for the religious fermentation caused by the Bábís, and the last six years Sháh’s reign. (A.D. 1890-6) for the political fermentation which brought about the Revolution in the following reign; while the intervening period was, outwardly at any rate, one of comparative peace and tranquillity. It was my good fortune to visit Persia in 1887-8 towards the end of this period, and, while enjoying the remarkable security which then prevailed in the country, to see almost the last of what may fairly be called mediaeval Persia. To this security I hardly did justice in the narrative of my travels312 which I wrote soon after my return, for I hardly realized then how few and short were the periods, either before or after my visit, when a young foreigner, without any official position or protection, could traverse the country from North-West to South-East and from North to South, attended only by his Persian servant and his muleteers, not only without danger, but practically without the occurrence of a single disagreeable incident. And if this [page 157] remarkable security, which compared favourably with that of many European countries, had originally been brought about by frightful exemplary punishments of robbers and ill-doers, these were no longer in evidence, and during the whole of my time in Persia I not only never witnessed an execution or a bastinado, but never heard of a specific case of either in any place where I stayed, though the ghastly pillars of mortar with protruding human bones outside the gates of Shíráz still bore witness to the stern rule of the Sháh’s uncle Farhád Mírzá, Mu‘tamadu’d-Dawla, whom I met only in the capacity of a courtly and learned bibliophile. Yet withal the atmosphere was, as I have said, mediaeval: politics and progress were hardly mentioned, and the talk turned mostly on mysticism, metaphysics and religion; the most burning political questions were those connected with the successors of the Prophet Muḥammad in the seventh century of our era; only a languid interest in external affairs was aroused by the occasional appearance of the official journals Írán and Iṭṭilá‘, or the more exciting Akhtar published in Constantinople; while at Kirmán one post a week maintained communication with the outer world. How remote does all this seem from the turmoil of 1891, the raging storms of 1905-11, the deadly paralysis of the Russian terror which began on Christmas Day in the year last mentioned, and then the Great War, when Persia became the cockpit of three foreign armies and the field of endless intrigues. The downfall of Russian Imperialism freed her from the nightmare of a century, and seemed to her to avenge the desecration of the holy shrine of Mashhad in April, 1912, while the collapse of the Anglo-Persian Agreement and consequent withdrawal of British troops and advisers has left her for the time being to her own devices, to make or mar her future as she can and will. [page 158] Since Náṣiru’d-Dín fell a victim to the assassin’s pistol the throne of Persia has been occupied by his son Muẓaffaru’d-Dín (1896-1907), who granted the Constitution; his grandson Muḥammad ‘Alí, who endeavoured to destroy it, who was deposed by the victorious Nationalists on July 16, 1909, and who is still living in retirement in the neighbourhood of Constantinople; and his great-grandson Sulṭán Aḥmad Sháh the reigning monarch. It would be premature to discuss the reign and character of the last, while the very dissimilar characters of his father and grandfather I have endeavoured to depict in my History of the Persian Revolution. But since the death of Náṣiru’d-Dín-Din Sháh twenty-seven years ago it may truly be said that the centre of interest has shifted from the king to the people of Persia, nor, so far as we can foresee the future, is it likely that we shall see another Isma‘íl, another Nádir, or (which God forbid!) another Áqá Muḥammad Khán. 
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