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Iran
THE QAJARS, 1795-1925
At Karim Khan's death, another struggle for power among the Zands,
Qajars, and other tribal groups once again plunged the country
into disorder and disrupted economic life. This time Agha Mohammad
Qajar defeated the last Zand ruler outside Kerman in 1794 and
made himself master of the country, beginning the Qajar dynasty
that was to last until 1925. Under Fath Ali (1797-1834), Mohammad
Shah (1834-48), and Naser ad Din Shah (1848-96) a degree of order,
stability, and unity returned to the country. The Qajars revived
the concept of the shah as the shadow of God on earth and exercised
absolute powers over the servants of the state. They appointed
royal princes to provincial governorships and, in the course of
the nineteenth century, increased their power in relation to that
of the tribal chiefs, who provided contingents for the shah's
army. Under the Qajars, the merchants and the ulama, or religious
leaders, remained important members of the community. A large
bureaucracy assisted the chief officers of the state, and, in
the second half of the nineteenth century, new ministries and
offices were created. The Qajars were unsuccessful, however, in
their attempt to replace the army based on tribal levies with
a European-style standing army having regular training, organization,
and uniforms.
Early in the nineteenth century, the Qajars began to face pressure
from two great world powers, Russia and Britain. Britain's interest
in Iran arose out of the need to protect trade routes to India,
while Russia's came from a desire to expand into Iranian territory
from the north. In two disastrous wars with Russia, which ended
with the Treaty of Gulistan (1812) and the Treaty of Turkmanchay
(1828), Iran lost all its territories in the Caucasus north of
the Aras River. Then, in the second half of the century, Russia
forced the Qajars to give up all claims to territories in Central
Asia. Meanwhile, Britain twice landed troops in Iran to prevent
the Qajars from reasserting a claim to Herat, lost after the fall
of the Safavids. Under the Treaty of Paris in 1857, Iran surrendered
to Britain all claims to Herat and territories in present-day
Afghanistan.
The two great powers also came to dominate Iran's trade and interfered
in Iran's internal affairs. They enjoyed overwhelming military
and technological superiority and could take advantage of Iran's
internal problems. Iranian central authority was weak; revenues
were generally inadequate to maintain the court, bureaucracy,
and army; the ruling class was divided and corrupt; and the people
suffered exploitation by their rulers and governors.
When Naser ad Din acceded to the throne in 1848, his prime minister,
Mirza Taqi Khan Amir Kabir, attempted to strengthen the administration
by reforming the tax system, asserting central control over the
bureaucracy and the provincial governors, encouraging trade and
industry, and reducing the influence of the Islamic clergy (see
Glossary) and foreign powers. He established a new school, the
Dar ol Fonun, to educate members of the elite in the new sciences
and in foreign languages. The power he concentrated in his hands,
however, aroused jealousy within the bureaucracy and fear in the
king. He was dismissed and put to death in 1851, a fate shared
by earlier powerful prime ministers.
In 1858 officials like Malkam Khan began to suggest in essays
that the weakness of the government and its inability to prevent
foreign interference lay in failure to learn the arts of government,
industry, science, and administration from the advanced states
of Europe. In 1871, with the encouragement of his new prime minister,
Mirza Hosain Khan Moshir od Dowleh, the shah established a European-style
cabinet with administrative responsibilities and a consultative
council of senior princes and officials. He granted a concession
for railroad construction and other economic projects to a Briton,
Baron Julius de Reuter, and visited Russia and Britain himself.
Opposition from bureaucratic factions hostile to the prime minister
and from clerical leaders who feared foreign influence, however,
forced the shah to dismiss his prime minister and to cancel the
concession. Nevertheless, internal demand for reform was slowly
growing. Moreover, Britain, to which the shah turned for protection
against Russian encroachment, continued to urge the shah to undertake
reforms and open the country to foreign trade and enterprise as
a means of strengthening the country. In 1888 the shah, heeding
this advice, opened the Karun River in Khuzestan to foreign shipping
and gave Reuter permission to open the country's first bank. In
1890 he gave another British company a monopoly over the country's
tobacco trade. The tobacco concession was obtained through bribes
to leading officials and aroused considerable opposition among
the clerical classes, the merchants, and the people. When a leading
cleric, Mirza Hasan Shirazi, issued a fatva (religious
ruling) forbidding the use of tobacco, the ban was universally
observed, and the shah was once again forced to cancel the concession
at considerable cost to an already depleted treasury.
The last years of Naser ad Din Shah's reign were characterized
by growing royal and bureaucratic corruption, oppression of the
rural population, and indifference on the shah's part. The tax
machinery broke down, and disorder became endemic in the provinces.
New ideas and a demand for reform were also becoming more widespread.
In 1896, reputedly encouraged by Jamal ad Din al Afghani (called
Asadabadi because he came from Asadabad), the well-known Islamic
preacher and political activist, a young Iranian assassinated
the shah.
Data as of December 1987
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