Mohammad Vali Khan Khalatbari Tonekaboni
Sepahsalar-e Khalatbari Tonekaboni | |
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| سپهسالار تنکابنی | |
Vosough od-Dowleh | |
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| Born | 1846 Imamzadeh Saleh |
| Political party | Moderate Socialists Party |
Mohammad-Vali Khan, Khalatbari Tonekāboni (
Biography
He served as colonel for ten years and became Minister of Post and Telegraph as well as Minister of Customs where he was in charge of all imports into and exports out of Iran. Later he became Minister of Treasury where he was singlehandedly in charge of the entire country's coin issue. He also held the title of Minister of Defence and was Prime Minister for four terms. His highest military title was Commander in Chief.[2] He was of the noble Khalatbari family.[3]
As an ethnic Persian, Sepahsalar Khalatbari was the only leader who was able to restore Iran's security by controlling the country's Turkmen population.[1] He was called upon many times by not only the various sectors of the Iranian government, but also by the Russians to suppress the Turkmen. His enormous wealth with income estimated at US$2 million/year in the early 1900s[1] (the equivalent of $530 million/year in 2000[4]), allowed him to be the chief financier of Iran, where he would use his property as collateral for loans the kingdom obtained from Russia and Britain.[5]
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In 1909 he was given the title Sepahdar Azam and was sent by the then-king, Mohammad Ali Shah, to crush the Azerbaijani constitutionalist uprising in the northwest headed by
During his march to Tehran the
Sepahdar Azam (Khalatbari Tonekaboni) wrote back "The Russian government believes I have done all this for my own personal gain. For Iran's freedom and independence and as a Shia Muslim I have to obey Najaf Religious leaders decree to help and support constitutionalist forces."
Rejecting the
Sepahsalar Khalatbari Tonekaboni continued to fight the religious clerics' attempts to create a theocracy as well as the ruling establishments attempts to continue a monarchy. He took frequent trips to France to learn the French system of representative democracy.
With the advent of the Pahlavi dynasty and the Reza Khans, imposed by the British in the 1920s, Sepahsalar Khalatbari Tonekaboni was placed under increased political pressure.[7] Much of his property was seized by the new government in an attempt to control his wealth and his power. His favorite son, Colonel Ali Asghar Khan, killed suspiciously in Lashkarak Hunting-ground.
On July 16, 1926, Sepahsalar Khalatbari Tonekaboni committed suicide. His last note, written to his eldest son Amir Asad, read: "Amir Asad, right away take my body to the shrine for cleansing and burial next to my son Saad al Dowleh. Do it now. For after living eighty years no mourning or tears are needed for me."
See also
- Sardar As'ad Bakhtiari
- Bagh-e Ferdows
References
- ^ a b c Majd, Mohammad Gholi (2000), "Resistance to the Shah: Landowners and Ulama in Iran", University Press of Florida, pp. 45–46
- ^ "Constitutionalist Movement of Iran" (PDF). amu.ac.in. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
- ^ KAMALY, HOSSEIN. God and Man in Tehran: Contending Visions of the Divine from the Qajars to the Islamic Republic. Columbia University Press, 2018. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/kama17682. Accessed 16 June 2023.
- ^ Purchasing Power of Money in the United States from 1774 to 2000
- ^ "History of Iran. Constitutional Revolution". iranchamber.com. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
- doi:10.7936/K7XP730D.
- ^ Shuster, Morgan (1912) The Strangling of Persia, Unwin Publications
Sources
- Cyrus Ghani: Iran and the rise of Reza Shah. From Qajar collapse to Pahlavi rule. I. B. Tauris, London u. a. 1998, ISBN 1-86064-258-6, S. 78.
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