al-Din Shah Research Articles

Gulistan in Black and White

Abstract This paper takes the late Qajar court and harem as a historically specific site through which we can examine the complex and diverse histories of slavery within the region in the nineteenth century, as well as the ways in which hierarchies of race, gender, and sex functioned as constitutive elements of this institution. I examine a particular albeit very elite site, Nasir al-Din Shah’s harem, occupied by a variety of enslaved and formerly enslaved constituents who were a product of the evolving slave trade. The essay ends by zooming in on the lives (and afterlives) of two eunuchs, Aziz Khan and Agha Bahram, who were part of the servant class of Gulistan Palace during Nasir al-Din Shah’s reign, and whose life trajectories offer us some insight into the racial and gendered legacies of late nineteenth-century slavery in Iran.

Explanation and Analysis of the Function of Religious Rites and Rituals in the Lives of Shia Iranians During the Qajar Period

This study aims to explain and analyze the function of religious rites and rituals in the lives of Shia Iranians during the Qajar period. The research is considered a historical study and has been written using a descriptive-analytical method based on library resources. The information related to the study was collected through note-taking. In this research, the religious customs and rituals of the people during the Qajar period are discussed in various aspects, including birth, marriage, divorce, death, clothing, and the religious holidays of Nowruz, Ghadir, Qorban, Ramadan, and Muharram. The results of the study indicate that, similar to the Safavid era, religious rites and rituals were practiced during the Qajar period, and Qajar kings were also committed to performing customs at both the popular and aristocratic levels. During this period, with the beginning of Iran's contact with the West and Naser al-Din Shah Qajar’s first trip to Europe, Western culture and modernity entered the country significantly, and the methods of celebrating religious ceremonies and mourning during the months of Muharram and Ramadan underwent changes. Some religious customs, such as Chavosh Khani and Taziyeh, reached their peak during this period, while others, such as Bast Neshini, were temporarily discontinued and then limited to specific locations after the death of Amir Kabir.

Visualizing Kingship in a Time of Change

Despite artistic engagement with photography in Iran almost immediately after the invention of the daguerreotype in 1839, the field of Islamic art history has had difficulty accepting the modern period and the medium of photography as part of its discipline. Studies on painted Iranian portraiture have often stopped before the introduction of photography, and only in more recent years has photographic portraiture and its influence on painting been examined. Due to this nascent state of the field, large gaps exist even on more traditional topics, such as the question of royal portraiture. This article presents the first examination of photographic royal portraiture and the visualization of kingship during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911). This topic, in comparison with earlier Iranian painted royal portraiture, has received considerably less attention. Photographic portraiture, together with printed and painted examples, from the reigns of the Qajar rulers Nasir al-Din Shah (r. 1848-1896), Muzaffar al-Din Shah (r. 1896-1907), Muhammad ʿAli Shah (r. 1907-1909), and Ahmad Shah (r. 1909-1925), will be analysed in connection with social and political developments in order to better understand the development of royal image making during a time of political turmoil.

Reflection of Identity in the Mirror of Narrative Images

The concept of “Just Rule” historically served to shape a king’s image and bolster the monarchy’s structure, often emulated by courtiers seeking to be part of the inner circle and perpetuating the idea of a Just Ruler. Influenced by the king’s interests, figures like Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar (r. 1848-1896) fostered monarchic strength through praises and art, particularly in the Nasiri era. These illustrations, blending literature and visual art, became sought-after for adorning manuscripts and enhancing printed books during this period. This study examines Nasir al-Din Shah's portrayal in the One Thousand and One Nights manuscript (1852-1859), overseen by Abul-Hassan Ghaffari, Saniʿ al-Mulk (d. 1865). Characters resembling Nasir al-Din Shah appear throughout the manuscript. The study aims to analyze these images in relation to the manuscript’s content and their role in the discourse on portrait illustrations. Additionally, it explores how the idea of Just Rule was perpetuated by the patrons and artists involved in creating this manuscript.

Translator as Historical Re-Narrator: The Case of the Persian Translation of Clements Markham's History of Persia

Abstract This paper examines Mirza Rahim Khan's Persian translation (1885) of Clement Markham's A General Sketch of the History of Persia (1874) as a historical event. To this end, this article looks at two copies of the translation manuscripts: one written by the translator, which also includes revisions of his first draft, and the other an illuminated copy presented to Naser al-Din Shah, the fourth Qajar shah. A close comparative examination of the texts shows the translation reverberates three distinct voices: the writer, the translator, and his patron, the shah. The translator's shifts of meaning show that the changes, far from being slight and local, affect the whole text, resulting in a different narrative, mostly conforming to the ruling system. However, there are cases where Mirza Rahim expresses his dissident voice in the translation. Furthermore, this examination also reveals the socio-political condition under which the translation took place, shedding light on aspects of Qajar rule only revealed by analyzing translations of the time.

Two Faces of Urbanization in the Muslim East: Tehran in the Second Half of the 19th Сentury — 1930s.

In this study the authors examine the main stages of evolution and social characteristics of the capital cities in the Muslim East on the example of Tehran, which over the course of a century has made its way from the medieval Shah's residence to the capital of a modern country. This period in the history of Iran was marked by a gradual modernization of state and society, associated with the personalities of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar and the new ruler Reza Shah Pahlavi, who managed to offer a radical way to transform the country basing on a new ideological doctrine, the symbolic expression of which was his renovated capital. The image of Tehran is reconstructed on the basis of urban planning outlines of the 1920s — 1930s, a wide range of narrative sources, mainly diaries of the Iranian rulers themselves and European diplomats and travelers, and information from Persian literary works.

From Vision to Reality: Tehran’s Urban Expansion Under Naser al-Din Shah (1848–96)

In 1868, the city of Tehran underwent a new phase of physical transformation and development under the order of the third Qajar king, Naser al-Din Shah (r.1848–96). This article addresses the process of the city’s transformations from the perspective of the local elites in Naseri Tehran, examining how Qajar officials introduced the city’s expansion to the public and the extent to which these efforts measured up to the urban development project as it actually unfolded on the ground. Rooted in primary visual and textual sources, my research provides a historical context for this expansion process and its mechanisms. I demonstrate that the Naseri court projected a vision for Tehran modelled on the rhetoric of European examples. The discourse of turning Tehran into a European-style city was articulated through court chronicles and newspaper articles, especially those written by Mohammad Hasan Khan E’temad al-Saltaneh, a prominent politician and commentator during the Naseri period. By analysing this archival record, maps, and the spatial practices of the city’s residents, I argue that, despite its ultimate formal resemblance to European walled cities, the process of Tehran’s expansion and beautification took a different direction than what Naser al-Din Shah and his court originally envisioned.

How Qajar Iranian Princess Taj al-Saltana Saw a 19th Century Global Pandemic

Persianate cultures have been greatly influenced by the “mirror for princes” genre, which offers monarchs advice on how to treat their subjects justly and methods of being an ideal ruler. While scholars have chosen to study this genre from a male-centered perspective, how royal women shaped this genre has remained under-examined by current scholarship. This presentation argues that Crowning Anguish: Memoirs of a Persian Princess from the Harem to Modernity (1884-1936) by Iranian Qajar Princess Taj al-Saltana, offers new ways of seeing how women used memoir writing to challenge the dominance of their male counterparts during times of pandemics. As the daughter of Naser al-Din Shah, Princess Taj al-Saltana, was able to carefully document one of the many cholera epidemics that ravaged late 19th century Iran from her unique perspective as a recognized intellectual and activist who advocated constitutionalism, freedom, and women’s rights in Iran. In addition to chronicling a cholera epidemic in Iran over one hundred years ago, Taj al-Saltana’s memoir holds interest for modern scholars interested in her handling of genre conventions, specifically how she indicts the ruling patriarchy of the Qajar government of Iran and its corruption which led to the failure to control cholera in the country, while simultaneously instructing female readers about the conduct of an ideal female ruler to build a healthier Iran. This presentation aims to show the way Crowning Anguish functions as a “mirror for princesses” and how we can come up with better strategies of resistance especially in the age of COVID-19 with the failures of patriarchal governments to stop pandemics.

Investigating the possible structural damage scenarios of Niavaran Complex in Tehran-Iran

The Niavaran Complex features a mix of architectural styles with elements from modernism and traditional Iranian architecture and is situated in the northern part of Tehran. The Sahebqaraniyeh Heritage Palace from the time of Naser al-Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty is located in this complex (1846–1896). Based on the initial investigation done by Iran’s Cultural Heritage Handicrafts and Tourism Organization, significant damages and cracking were observed in structural elements of the palace (walls and roofs). Since early 2014, the monument has been closed to the public, and in-depth assessment has been carried out. The study includes the seismicity of the Niavaran fault, soil liquefaction, landslides, land subsidence and historical aspects, such as the removal of stabilising walls about half a century ago and the reduction in underground water level. Detailed field investigation and experimental testing were performed by the Building and Housing Research Center of Iran. One of the main investigations was on the influence of deep excavations downstream in the south part of the palace. The outcomes of structural, geotechnical, geophysical and other related investigations indicated that the Niavaran Cultural/Historic Complex has been damaged significantly in the past decades and is in urgent need of retrofitting/strengthening.

An Ottoman mission to Tehran: Mehmed Tahir Münif Paşa’s second ambassadorship to Tehran and the re-making of Perso-Ottoman relations (1876-1897)

ABSTRACT This article focuses on Mehmet Tahir Münif Paşa’s second ambassadorship to Iran (1896–1897) in the aftermath of Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar’s assassination in May 1896. It argues that the Shah’s death brought about a turning point in Perso-Ottoman diplomatic relations and that Sultan Abdülhamid’s decision to assign Münif as his representative in Tehran was an affirmation of a new age in Ottoman foreign policy. In what follows, the article will consider Münif’s second mission to Tehran in an attempt to bring greater specificity to Perso-Ottoman relations in the first half of the Hamidian era (1875–1896). It also seeks to explore how the rapprochement between the two states in the mid-1890s had unexpected consequences for Iranian émigrés in the Ottoman Empire, thereby considering how Perso-Ottoman diplomatic history is entangled with the construction and negotiation of the the life trajectories and circumstances of these trans-national actors in the Ottoman Empire.

Education System Health Condition in the Time of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar(1848-1896)

This research paper is to portray education system and health condition during Qajar dynasty specifically in the time of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar who ruled from 1848-1896. Regarding to health condition the situation was bad; shortage of medical services, disobeying health instructions, and spread of plague and cholera caused a large number of people to catch serious diseases who eventually died. It is worth to say that if there hadn’t been Western health staff and foreign medical aids, the public health of Qajar society would have been even worse. Referring to education and teaching field during the era of Qajar dynasty was that Iranian society depended on family disciplines to raise and educate their children. Having strong religious beliefs among people was the reason to force their children to enroll at schools of the mosques so that they could receive religious education.
 
 It can be said that with the help of some foreign agents and sincere local educators the condition of education system improved after they had introduced Western education methods and provided learning means.

Performances of a portable Fourier transform hyperspectral imaging camera for rapid investigation of paintings

Scientific investigation in the cultural heritage field is generally aimed at the characterization of the constituent materials and the conservation status of artworks. Since the 1990s, reflectance spectral imaging proved able to map pigments, reveal hidden details and evaluate the presence of restorations in paintings. Over the past two decades, hyperspectral imaging has further improved our understanding of paints and of its changes in time. In this work, we present an innovative hyperspectral camera, based on the Fourier transform approach, utilising an ultra-stable interferometer and we describe its advantages and drawbacks with respect to the commonly used line- and spectral-scanning methods. To mitigate the weaknesses of the Fourier transform hyperspectral imaging, we propose a strategy based on the virtual extension of the dynamic range of the camera and on the design of an illumination system with a balanced emission throughout the spectral range of interest. The hyperspectral camera was employed for the analysis of a painting from the “Album of Nasir al-din Shah”. By applying analysis routines based on supervised spectral unmixing, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our camera for pigment mapping. This work shows how the proposed hyperspectral imaging camera based on the Fourier transform is a promising technique for robust and compact in situ investigation of artistic objects in conditions compatible with museum and archaeological sites.Graphic abstract

Two Photo Albums of Qajar Iran in the Hermitage Collection: On the Role of the Artist and the Commissioner

Stored in the Hermitage collection are two Qajar Iran photo albums, datable to 1890s. One of them, recently acquired for the Oriental Department, includes works created in the studio of Antoin Sevruguin (1851–1933), one of the most famous photo artists of Qajar Iran and court photographer of Nasir al-Din Shah. The first owner of the photo prints, who remained unknown, made this commission not earlier than in May 1896. The second album is stored in the collection of the Library of the Oriental Department — one of the branches of the Hermitage Academic Library. Most likely, it was assembled by a Russian military man and amateur photographer Nikolay Remizov (Remizoff) around 1894. The richly decorated binding and the ex-libris of Nicholas II pasted on the doublure of the upper cover, suggests that this artwork could have been gifted to the Russian emperor by its author soon after his return from Iran. The Remizov album is of special interest as an illustrative source, for it consists of photos obviously not intended for multiple copying, unlike the extremely popular prints produced in Sevruguin’s studio. Both albums, created in the same period and similar in terms of their genre scope and thematic contents, show two different approaches to collecting art prints by foreigners visiting Qajar Iran in late 19th — early 20th century. The commissioner of the first album arranged the illustrations according to his own taste, becoming its full-fledged compiler. He selected ready-made works, shot in different years in the studio of the artist of non-Iranian origin, who, nevertheless, had settled in Iran a long time ago and was able to depict places and events hidden from the eyes of an outside observer. In the second case the same person, being an outside observer, acted as both the author and the compiler of the album. Though his view on contemporary Iran was apparently to a greater extent related to his direct observations and personal impressions, his status of the foreigner and the nature of his service must have imposed certain restrictions on the choice of locations and themes of his work.

Modernization initiatives and architectural instrumentalization after Nasser al-Din Shah’s travels to the West (1873-1896)

Modernization initiatives and architectural instrumentalization after Nasser al-Din Shah’s travels to the West (1873-1896)

A Study of Two Salam-e Nowruzi Paintings of Fath-Ali Shah and Naser al-Din Shah in Qajar Era from the Perspective of Leveling and Sharpening Principles of Gestalt

A Study of Two Salam-e Nowruzi Paintings of Fath-Ali Shah and Naser al-Din Shah in Qajar Era from the Perspective of Leveling and Sharpening Principles of Gestalt

Staging Power: Visual Strategies of Kingship in the Windsor Castle ‘Ishqnama Illustrated Manuscript

ABSTRACT The paper examines the Windsor Castle ‘Ishqnama, an autobiographical account of the amorous entanglements by the last king of Awadh, Wajid ‘Ali Shah (r. 1847–56), as one of the strategies for projecting an image of an ideal masculine ruler through the control over the bodies of “his” women—the paris (fairies) in his Parikhana, an establishment of women singers and dancers, many of whom were his mut‘a wives, and the women of his zenana. The ‘Ishqnama revealed the royal harem both visually and textually. The paper contextualises this strategic revealment by a tangential viewing of the harem of the contemporary Persian ruler, Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar, who similarly revealed the women of his harem by photographing them at a critical period when his image as an ideal ruler was being eroded. Discourse surrounding Wajid Ali Shah’s association with the “fairies” was diverse, with reactions ranging from adulatory accounts, to severe criticism. The paper highlights these polemic narratives by the British on the one hand and a Persian traveller, Waqar al-Mulk Tabrizi who visited Lucknow in the 1870s on the other, to examine culturally diverse perceptions about what constituted the “right” exhibition of sexuality by a ruler and how this exhibition underlined his ability to rule.

Modernity, Borders and Maps: Iran’s Ability to Advocate for its Borders During the Reign of Naser al-Din Shah

ABSTRACT Iran’s encounters with Britain and Russia after the turn of the nineteenth century necessitated coming to terms with British and Russian imperialism, modern ideas of border implementation and the modern skills of surveying and mapping, all of which were to perform roles in modifying Iran’s pre-modern frontiers. Iran’s engagement with this imperial modernity proved to be an even greater challenge during Naser al-Din Shah’s reign in the second half of the nineteenth century. Iran’s ability, under the reign of Naser al-Din Shah, to counter and ameliorate the power and wishes of the British and Russians was facilitated by incorporating these modern methods. This paper will explore, set against a background of Iran’s own “enlightenment” in cartography and negotiating skills, how the Iranians were able to mitigate against the worst possible outcomes as their borders were re-drawn. Using Persian language sources and Iranian maps together with British archives, and concentrating on the Dargaz-Kalat region between 1881 and 1884, this paper will show that the Iranians did have agency and were not always the victims in this process.

Reimagining Royal Domesticity

Abstract This article explores the social composition of the women’s quarter of Nasir al-Din Shah’s court, variously referred to as his harem or andarun, during his reign (1848–96). The article offers a brief sketch of the complex structure of this institution and some of the key figures who made up its residents, at various points estimated to be between seven hundred and two thousand wives and female relatives, as well as different classes of employees. While this institution was at once highly elite and hierarchically organized, the kinds of social, affective, and political power that circulated in it, and the multiplicity of bodies that came into contact inside its physical boundaries, mark it as a historically specific and unique social place—one that stood in a liminal temporal and physical space—at the crux of Iran’s engagements with modernization and in the very city center of Tehran.

Naser al-Din Shah’s 1873 Visit to the World’s Fair in Vienna

ABSTRACT Naser al-Din Shah's 1873 visit to the World's Fair in Vienna was devised by his advisors to encourage the Shah to adopt European-inspired policies for modernisation, and to put Persia on the map. The latter priority entailed several related goals: first, to pursue diplomacy with Persia's main adversaries in order to balance their influence; second, to forge alliances with other European nations; and third, to communicate Persian sovereignty in order to deter aggression. The Shah's visit to Vienna constituted a mixed success. The Austrian press alternately lampooned and fawned over the Persian ruler, using numerous orientalist tropes. However, the Shah managed to persuade Austria to help Iran's efforts at administrative reform and forged good enough relations to secure Austria's military aid several years later. At the same time, he did little to conscript Austrian know-how for Persia's industrialisation and preferred to spend his time with old acquaintances and interesting personages. Persia's exhibition at the World's Fair also met with both successes and failures. While it effectively communicated Persia's wealth and culture to the Europeans, it could not shake off the impression of Persia's backwardness, and did little to break Persia from the mould of a Euro-centric colonialist narrative.

The manifestation of patriotism and social and political themes in Oriental poems Kashani's

Khavari Kashani, nicknamed Fakhr al-Waizin and the language of Islam, which is one of the titles bestowed on him by Muzaffar al-Din Shah, is one of the poets of the constitutional period whose research on his poems has not been observed. In addition to being a poet, he is a journalist and with his poetry and prose tools, he has patriotic and political poems that show the poet's social commitment. He criticizes the Shah, the courtiers, and the foreign colonizers (Russia and Britain) in a strange way, and his poems on the homeland are among the best poems of the constitutional era. The reflection of many political and social events of this period can be seen in Oriental poetry. Patriotism, xenophobia, critique of moral, cultural and social vices, and freedom-seeking are among the themes found in his poems, which we will address in this article. In most of these cases, he has presented his message and critique by using allegory.