Qajar Iran
Sublime State of Iran | |||||||||||||
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1789–1925 | |||||||||||||
Anthem: (1873–1909) Salâm-e Shâh (Royal salute) (1909–1925) Salamati-ye Dowlat-e 'Aliyye-ye Iran (Salute of the Sublime State of Iran) | |||||||||||||
Capital | Tehran | ||||||||||||
Common languages | |||||||||||||
Religion | |||||||||||||
Government |
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Shah | |||||||||||||
• 1789–1797 (first) | Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar | ||||||||||||
• 1909–1925 (last) | Ahmad Shah Qajar | ||||||||||||
• 1795-1801 (first) | Hajji Ebrahim Shirazi | ||||||||||||
• 1923–1925 (last) | Reza Pahlavi | ||||||||||||
Legislature | None (until 1906; 1907–1909) National Consultative Assembly (1906–1907; from 1909) | ||||||||||||
History | |||||||||||||
• Establishment | 1789 | ||||||||||||
24 October 1813 | |||||||||||||
10 February 1828 | |||||||||||||
4 March 1857 | |||||||||||||
21 September 1881 | |||||||||||||
5 August 1906 | |||||||||||||
• Deposed by Constituent Assembly | 31 October 1925 | ||||||||||||
Currency | toman (1789–1825) qiran (1825–1925)[6] | ||||||||||||
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Qajar Iran (
In the Caucasus, the Qajar dynasty permanently lost much territory[17] to the Russian Empire over the course of the 19th century, comprising modern-day eastern Georgia, Dagestan, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.[18] Despite its territorial losses, Qajar Iran reinvented the Iranian notion of kingship[19] and maintained relative political independence, but faced major challenges to its sovereignty, predominantly from the Russian and British empires. Foreign advisers became powerbrokers in the court and military. They eventually partitioned Qajar Iran in the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention, carving out Russian and British influence zones and a neutral zone.[20][21][22]
In the early 20th century, the Persian Constitutional Revolution created an elected parliament or Majles, and sought the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, deposing Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar for Ahmad Shah Qajar, but many of the constitutional reforms were reversed by an intervention led by the Russian Empire.[20][23] Qajar Iran's territorial integrity was further weakened during the Persian campaign of World War I and the invasion by the Ottoman Empire. Four years after the 1921 Persian coup d'état, the military officer Reza Shah took power in 1925, thus establishing the Pahlavi dynasty, the last Iranian royal dynasty.
History
Origins
The
Qajars filled a number of diplomatic missions and governorships in the 16–17th centuries for the Safavids. The Qajars were resettled by
Within 126 years between the demise of the Safavid state and the rise of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, the Qajars had evolved from a shepherd-warrior tribe with strongholds in northern Persia into a Persian dynasty with all the trappings of a Perso-Islamic monarchy.[9]
Rise to power
"Like virtually every dynasty that ruled Persia since the 11th century, the Qajars came to power with the backing of
The Qajar armies at that time were mostly composed of Turkoman warriors and Georgian slaves.[30] By 1794, Agha Mohammad Khan had eliminated all his rivals, including Lotf Ali Khan, the last of the Zand dynasty. He reestablished Iranian control over the territories in the entire Caucasus. Agha Mohammad established his capital at Tehran, a town near the ruins of the ancient city of Rayy. In 1796, he was formally crowned as shah. In 1797, Agha Mohammad Khan was assassinated in Shusha, the capital of Karabakh Khanate, and was succeeded by his nephew, Fath-Ali Shah Qajar.
Reconquest of Georgia and the rest of the Caucasus
In 1744, Nader Shah had granted the kingship of the Kartli and Kakheti to Teimuraz II and his son Erekle II (Heraclius II) respectively, as a reward for their loyalty.[31] When Nader Shah died in 1747, they capitalized on the chaos that had erupted in mainland Iran, and declared de facto independence. After Teimuraz II died in 1762, Erekle II assumed control over Kartli, and united the two kingdoms in a personal union as the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, becoming the first Georgian ruler to preside over a politically unified eastern Georgia in three centuries.[32] At about the same time, Karim Khan Zand had ascended the Iranian throne; Erekle II quickly tendered his de jure submission to the new Iranian ruler, however, de facto, he remained autonomous.[33][34] In 1783, Erekle II placed his kingdom under the protection of the Russian Empire in the Treaty of Georgievsk. In the last few decades of the 18th century, Georgia had become a more important element in Russo-Iranian relations than some provinces in northern mainland Iran, such as Mazandaran or even Gilan.[35] Unlike Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, the then-ruling monarch of Russia, viewed Georgia as a pivot for her Caucasian policy, as Russia's new aspirations were to use it as a base of operations against both Iran and the Ottoman Empire,[36] both immediate bordering geopolitical rivals of Russia. On top of that, having another port on the Georgian coast of the Black Sea would be ideal.[35] A limited Russian contingent of two infantry battalions with four artillery pieces arrived in Tbilisi in 1784,[33] but was withdrawn in 1787, despite the frantic protests of the Georgians, as a new war against Ottoman Turkey had started on a different front.[33]
The consequences of these events came a few years later when a strong new Iranian dynasty under the Qajars emerged victorious in the protracted power struggle in Iran. Their head,
Finding an interval of peace amid their own quarrels and with northern, western, and central Iran secure, the Iranians demanded Erekle II to renounce the treaty with Russia and to reaccept Iranian suzerainty,[37] in return for peace and the security of his kingdom. The Ottomans, Iran's neighboring rival, recognized the latter's rights over Kartli and Kakheti for the first time in four centuries.[38] Erekle appealed then to his theoretical protector, Empress Catherine II of Russia, asking for at least 3,000 Russian troops,[38] but he was ignored, leaving Georgia to fend off the Iranian threat alone.[39] Nevertheless, Erekle II still rejected Agha Mohammad Khan's ultimatum.[40]
In August 1795, Agha Mohammad Khan crossed the
With half of the troop's Agha Mohammad Khan crossed the Aras river with, he now marched directly upon Tbilisi, where it commenced into a huge battle between the Iranian and Georgian armies. Erekle had managed to mobilize some 5,000 troops, including some 2,000 from neighboring Imereti under its King Solomon II. The Georgians, hopelessly outnumbered, were eventually defeated despite stiff resistance. In a few hours, the Iranian king Agha Mohammad Khan was in full control of the Georgian capital. The Iranian army marched back laden with spoil and carrying off many thousands of captives.[39][41][42]
By this, after the conquest of Tbilisi and being in effective control of eastern
Agha Mohammad Shah was later assassinated while preparing a second expedition against Georgia in 1797 in
Wars with Russia and irrevocable loss of territories
On 12 September 1801, four years after Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar's death, the
About a decade later, in violation of the Gulistan Treaty, the Russians invaded Iran's
As a further direct result and consequence of the Gulistan and Turkmenchay treaties of 1813 and 1828 respectively, the formerly Iranian territories became part of Russia for around the next 180 years, except Dagestan, which has remained a Russian possession ever since. Out of the greater part of the territory, six separate nations would be formed through the
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State Hermitage Museum.
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Storming of Lankaran, 13 January 1813. Franz Roubaud.
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Battle of Ganja, 1826. Franz Roubaud. Part of the collection of the Museum for History, Baku.
Migration of Caucasian Muslims
Following the official losing of the aforementioned vast territories in the Caucasus, major demographic shifts were bound to take place. Solidly Persian-speaking territories of Iran were lost, with all its inhabitants in it. Following the 1804–1814 War, but also per the 1826–1828 war which ceded the last territories, large migrations, so-called
Through the
In 1864 until the early 20th century,
Many of these migrants would prove to play a pivotal role in further Iranian history, as they formed most of the ranks of the Persian Cossack Brigade, which was also to be established in the late 19th century.[65] The initial ranks of the brigade would be entirely composed of Circassians and other Caucasian Muhajirs.[65] This brigade would prove decisive in the following decades to come in Qajar history.Furthermore, the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay included the official rights for the Russian Empire to encourage settling of Armenians from Iran in the newly conquered Russian territories.[66][67] Until the mid-fourteenth century, Armenians had constituted a majority in Eastern Armenia.[68] At the close of the fourteenth century, after
At the time of the Russian invasion of Iran, some 80% of the population of
Development and decline
Fath Ali Shah's reign saw increased diplomatic contacts with the West and the beginning of intense European diplomatic rivalries over Iran. His grandson Mohammad Shah, who fell under the Russian influence and made two unsuccessful attempts to capture Herat, succeeded him in 1834. When Mohammad Shah died in 1848 the succession passed to his son Naser al-Din, who proved to be the ablest and most successful of the Qajar sovereigns. He founded the first modern hospital in Iran.[74]
During Naser al-Din Shah's reign, Western science, technology, and educational methods were introduced into Iran and the country's modernization was begun. Naser al-Din Shah tried to exploit the mutual distrust between Great Britain and Russia to preserve Iran's independence, but foreign interference and territorial encroachment increased under his rule. He was not able to prevent Britain and Russia from encroaching into regions of traditional Iranian influence.
In 1856, during the
At that time, Iran was nearly bankrupt. During the next two and a half years Amir Kabir initiated important reforms in virtually all sectors of society. Government expenditure was slashed, and a distinction was made between the private and public purses. The instruments of central administration were overhauled, and Amir Kabir assumed responsibility for all areas of the bureaucracy. There were Bahai revolts and a revolt in Khorasan at the time but were crushed under Amir Kabir.[76] Foreign interference in Iran's domestic affairs was curtailed, and foreign trade was encouraged. Public works such as the bazaar in Tehran were undertaken. Amir Kabir issued an edict banning ornate and excessively formal writing in government documents; the beginning of a modern Persian prose style dates from this time.
One of the greatest achievements of Amir Kabir was the building of Dar ol Fonoon in 1851, the first modern university in Iran and the Middle East. Dar-ol-Fonoon was established for training a new cadre of administrators and acquainting them with Western techniques. It marked the beginning of modern education in Iran.[77] Amir Kabir ordered the school to be built on the edge of the city so it could be expanded as needed. He hired French and Russian instructors as well as Iranians to teach subjects as different as Language, Medicine, Law, Geography, History, Economics, and Engineering, amongst numerous others.[77] Unfortunately, Amir Kabir did not live long enough to see his greatest monument completed, but it still stands in Tehran as a sign of a great man's ideas for the future of his country.
These reforms antagonized various notables who had been excluded from the government. They regarded the Amir Kabir as a social upstart and a threat to their interests, and they formed a coalition against him, in which the queen mother was active. She convinced the young shah that Amir Kabir wanted to usurp the throne. In October 1851, the shah dismissed him and exiled him to Kashan, where he was murdered on the shah's orders. Through his marriage to Ezzat od-Doleh, Amir Kabir had been the brother-in-law of the shah.
Qajar Iran would become a victim of the Great Game between Russia and Britain for influence over central Asia. As the Qajar state's sovereignty was challenged this took the form of military conquests, diplomatic intrigues, and the competition of trade goods between two foreign empires.[21]: 20, 74 Ever since the 1828 Treaty of Turkmanchay, Russia had received territorial domination in Iran. With the Romanovs shifting to a policy of 'informal support' for the weakened Qajar dynasty — continuing to place pressure with advances in the largely nomadic Turkestan, a crucial frontier territory of the Qajars — this Russian domination of Iran continued for nearly a century.[20][78] The Iranian monarchy became more of a symbolic concept in which Russian diplomats were themselves powerbrokers in Iran and the monarchy was dependent on British and Russian loans for funds.[20]
In 1879, the establishment of the Cossack Brigade by Russian officers gave the Russian Empire influence over the modernization of the Qajar army. This influence was especially pronounced because the Iranian monarchy's legitimacy was predicated on an image of military prowess, first Turkic and then European-influenced.[20][79] By the 1890s, Russian tutors, doctors and officers were prominent at the Shah's court, influencing policy personally.[20][80] Russia and Britain had competing investments in the industrialisation of Iran including roads and telegraph lines,[81] as a way to profit and extend their influence. However, until 1907 the Great Game rivalry was so pronounced that mutual British and Russian demands to the Shah to exclude the other, blocked all railroad construction in Iran at the end of the 19th century.[82]: 20 In 1907 the British and Russian Empires partitioned Iran into spheres of influence with the Anglo-Russian Convention.
Constitutional Revolution
When
The shah's failure to respond to protests by the religious establishment, the merchants, and other classes led the merchants and clerical leaders in January 1906 to take sanctuary from probable arrest in mosques in Tehran and outside the capital. When the shah reneged on a promise to permit the establishment of a "house of justice", or consultative assembly, 10,000 people, led by the merchants, took sanctuary in June in the compound of the British legation in Tehran. In August, the shah, through the issue of a decree promised a constitution. In October, an elected assembly convened and drew up a constitution that provided for strict limitations on royal power, an elected parliament, or
Mozaffar al-Din Shah's son
On 16 July 1909, the Majles voted to place Mohammad Ali Shah's 11-year-old son,
British and Russian officials coordinated as the Russian army, still present in Iran, invaded the capital again and suspended the parliament. The Tsar ordered the troops in Tabriz "to act harshly and quickly", while purges were ordered, leading to many executions of prominent revolutionaries. The British Ambassador, George Head Barclay reported disapproval of this "reign of terror", though would soon pressure Persian ministers to officialize the Anglo-Russian partition of Iran. By June 1914, Russia established near-total control over its northern zone, while Britain had established influence over Baluch and Bakhtiari autonomous tribal leaders in the southeastern zone.[87] Qajar Iran would become a battleground between Russian, Ottoman, and British forces in the Persian campaign of World War I.[88][87]
Though Qajar Iran had announced strict neutrality on the first day of November 1914 (which was reiterated by each successive government thereafter),[89] the neighboring Ottoman Empire invaded it relatively shortly after, in the same year. At that time, large parts of Iran were under tight Russian influence and control, and since 1910 Russian forces were present inside the country, while many of its cities possessed Russian garrisons.[89] Due to the latter reason, as Prof. Dr. Touraj Atabaki states, declaring neutrality was useless, especially as Iran had no force to implement this policy.[89]
At the beginning of the war, the Ottomans invaded
The front in Iran would last up to the Armistice of Mudros in 1918.
Fall of the dynasty
Ahmad Shah Qajar was born 21 January 1898 in Tabriz, and succeeded to the throne at age 11. However, the occupation of Persia during World War I by Russian, British, and Ottoman troops was a blow from which Ahmad Shah never effectively recovered.
In February 1921,
Ahmad Shah died on February 21, 1930, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.[95]
Government and administration
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Iran was divided into five large provinces and a large number of smaller ones at the beginning of Fath Ali Shah's reign, about 20 provinces in 1847, 39 in 1886, but 18 in 1906.[96] In 1868, most province governors were Qajar princes.[97]
Military
History of Iran | |
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3200–2700 | |
Jiroft culture | c. 3100–2200 |
Lullubi Kingdom/Zamua | c. 3100-675 |
Elam | 2700–539 |
Marhaši | c. 2550-2020 |
Oxus Civilization | c. 2400–1700 |
Akkadian Empire | 2400–2150 |
Kassites | c. 1500–1155 |
Avestan period | c. 1500–500 |
Neo-Assyrian Empire | 911–609 |
Urartu | 860–590 |
Mannaea | 850–616 |
Zikirti | 750-521 |
Saparda | 720-670 |