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Early Qajar Administration: An Analysis of its Development and Functions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Colin Meredith
Colin Meredith*
Affiliation:
Department of History at Princeton University
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Extract

Any discussion of the degree and extent of governmental authority in early Qajar Iran involves an examination of the basic administrative structure as well as the more important restraints imposed by the nature of traditional society on the exercise of such authority. This study will focus, therefore, on the development and functioning of administration at the central and provincial levels, including the methods and machinery employed by the early Qajar state in the collection and distribution of taxable revenues. In addition, the problem faced by the first two Qajar monarchs in obtaining popular concensus with regard to the legitimacy of their rule and acceptance of their edicts will be examined.

Type
Administrative Developments in Qajar Iran
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 4 , Issue 2-3: Administrative Developments in Qajar Iran , Spring Summer 1971 , pp. 59 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1971

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Footnotes

An earlier version of this article was presented at a panel on “Administrative Developments in Qajar Iran,” cosponsored by The Society for Iranian Studies and the Middle East Studies Association, held in Denver, Colorado, November, 1971.

References

Notes

1. For an elaboration of this view see, Ṭusī, Naṣir al—Dīn Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī (Tehran, 1329), pp. 180-181.Google Scholar Also, Boyle, J. A. ed., Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 5 (London, 1968), p. 210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Through Musā al-Kāẓim.

3. Chardin, Chevalier Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, Vol. 9, ed. by Langles, L. (Paris, 1805), pp. 488-9Google Scholar. For a theoretical exposition of the Shi'ite conception of divine right, see, “Shī˓ah va Pīrāyah—yi Shābani Purmagā,” in Muṣannifāt, ed. by Mīnuvī, M. (Tehran, 1331), pp. 44 ff.Google Scholar

4. This title was applied to Fatḥ ˓Alī Shāh in a ragam which confirmed Mīrzā Rafī˓ as vakīl of Āẕarbāyjān, 1214/1799. reproduced in Mīrzā, Nādir Tārīkh va Jughrāfī-yi dār al-Salṭanah-i Tabrīz (Tehran, 1323/1905), p. 274.Google Scholar

5. Sir Malcolm, John History of Persia, Vol. 2 (London, 1829), P. 303.Google Scholar

6. Sir Malcolm, John Sketches of Persia, Vol. 2 (London, 1929), P. 129.Google Scholar

7. Malcolm, History, Vol. 2, pp. 407-8.Google Scholar

8. Aḥman, Mīrzā ˓Azud al-Dawlah, Tārīkh-i ˓Azudī (Tehran, 1327), p. 10.Google Scholar Hereafter referred to as T.A.

9. Curzon, Lord G. Persia and the Persian Question, Vol. 1 (London, 1892), p. 391.Google Scholar

10. Failure by any Shah to punish transgressors immediately called forth popular doubts as to his ability to rule. This was pointed out to Shah Ṭahmāsb by Muẓaffar al-Ḥusaynī al-Ṭabīb al-Kāshānī, Akhlāq-i Shifā'ī, British Museum, OR3546, Folio 19a.

11. Huntington, Samuel P. Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, 1968), p. 24.Google Scholar

12. Lambton, Ann K. S. “Persian Society under the Qajars,” Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, Vol. 48 (1961), p. 123.Google Scholar

13. Cf. view of ˓Abdullāh Mustawfī, Tārīkh-i Idārī va Ijtimā˓ī-yi Qājārīyah ya Sharḥ-i Zindigānī-yi Man, Vol. 1 (Tehran, 1321), p. 26,Google Scholar with that of Hambly, Gavin “An Introduction to the Economic Organisation of Early Qajar Iran,” Iran, Vol. I (1964), p. 71.Google Scholar

14. Mustawfī, p. 12.

15. Ibid.

16. Among those conveyed by Āqā Muḥammad to Tehran was Muḥammad Ḥusayn Farāhānī, vizier to the last Zand monarch. He courageously refused service with the new ruler but persuaded Āqā Muḥammad to retain the services of his nephew and son-in-law (dāmād), Mīrzā ˓Īsā (Mīrzā Buzurg). Yikrangiān, Mīr Ḥusayn Zindigī-yi Sīāsī va Adabī-yi Qā'im Maqām (Tehran, 1224), PP. 1-2.Google Scholar

17. See, Mustawfī, p. 26.

18. A number of lashkarnivises were appointed to serve under him.

19. His department drew up farmāns (royal decrees).

20. This officer was described by Mustawfī as “pusht-i farmānhā va barāthā-yi ḥavalah-hā-yi vujūhī-yi dawlatī,” i.e., franker of farmāns and barāts for sums drawn on the state. Another of his duties was to check the omissions in farmāns.

21. The office of ṣadr-i a˓ẓam had been established by the Safavids to control their religious institution. Among the ṣadr's functions were the collection of royal awqāf revenues and the distribution of such funds. See, Munshī, Iskandar Tārīkh-i ˓Alām Ārā-yi ˓Abbāsī (Tehran, 1314), p. 107Google Scholar; Rumlū, Ḥasan Aḥsan al-Tavārīkh, ed. by Sneddon, C. N. (Baroda, 1931-4), Persian text, pp. 190-1.Google Scholar Under Nādir Shāh, the existing ṣadr was pensioned off following the expropriation of all awqāf by the state. His position as official head of the religion was taken over by Mullā Bāshī. Hanway, Jonas An Historical Account of British Trade over the Caspian. Vol. 2 (London, 1754), p. 343.Google Scholar Fatḥ ˓Alī Shāh revived the title and gave it new functions which made the ṣadr equivalent to a head of the bureaucracy but with powers less than that of an Ottoman grand vizier. With the office originally went the title of I˓timād al-Dawlah. Mustawfī, p. 27.

22. In the words of Hājī Ibrāhīm's detractors, he “wore the kingdom of Iran like a ring on his finger.” Sipihr Lisān al-Mulk, Muḥammad Taqī Nāsikh al-Tavārīkh, Vol. 1, new edition (Tehran, 1967), p. 112.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as N.T.

23. “Feth-Aly-Chah dirige tout par lui-même. Ses, ministres ne sont chargés que du detail des affaires.” Jaubert, P. A. Voyage en Armenie et en Perse, Vol. 2 (Paris, ?), p. 309.Google Scholar

24. Malcolm, History, Vol. 2, p. 309.Google Scholar

25. The attitude of personal proprietorship of office was encouraged by the absence of formal bureaucratic surroundings. “The bureau is set up at whatever spot the minister happens to be, whether in his house, an ante-room or a court of the Royal Palace, perchance in the street or in a coffee house…in the pockets of such a mīrzā are often to be found the documents of a series of years past consisting of little scraps of paper which he has come to regard as private, and in no sense, official property. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, Vol. 1, p. 450.Google Scholar

26. Oliver to Lubert du Bayet, 9, Sivose, l'an 5, France Correspondence Politique: Perse, Vol. 8.Google Scholar

27. Pigulevskaya, N. V. et al., Tārīkh-i Īrān az Dawrah-yi Bāstān tā Pāyān-i Sadah-yi Hijdahum (Tehran, 1346), pp. 544-6.Google Scholar

28. One source lists twenty major governorships held by Princes in 1822; Fraser, J. B. Narrative of a Journey into Khorassan (London, 1825), p. 203Google Scholar fn. However, even small districts possessed their quota: “The extraordinary number of his progeny has admitted his [Fatḥ ˓Alī Shāh's] carrying this system to a most harmful extent. They have been appointed to govern not only the ancient divisions of the Empire but even small districts and petty towns,” Henry Willock to Canning, Dec. 19, 1825, India Office, Factory Records, Persia and the Persian Gulf, Vol. 51.Google Scholar

29. Jaubert, p. 213.

30. The precise number of Fatḥ ˓Alī Shāh's offsprings may never be known. The author of Tārīkh-i Azudī lists 57 sons by name, pp. 26—8. Another Iranian source also mentions that 47 sons survived their royal father. This source lists 260 children and over 1000 wives; N.T., Vol. 3, p. 210.Google Scholar A modern biographer of Fatḥ ˓Alī Shāh states that he took to wife an average of six ladies annually from age 18 until his death 34 years later. Bāmdād, Mahdī Sharḥ-i Ḥāl-i Rijāl-i Īrān, Vol. 3 (Tehran, 1969), p. 43.Google Scholar

31. Drouville, Gaspard Voyage en Perse fait en 1812, Vol. 2 (Paris, 1825), p. 2.Google Scholar

32. Malcolm, History, Vol. 2, p. 306.Google Scholar

33. The Safavid rulers appointed three officials to each province; i.e., the jānishīn, vazīr, and vāqi˓ahnivīs. Chardin, Vol. 5, pp. 257-8.Google Scholar

34. One opinion maintained that the princely viziers “…ne sont à bien dire que les espions des ministres du roi, dont ils tiennent leur emploi, ils instruisent en consequence de toutes les actions de leurs maîtres, et surtout de leur dispositions a l'égard de l'autorité royale.” Drouville, Vol. 2, pp. 3-4.Google Scholar

35. It was very dangerous for a vizier to leave the provincial court for any length of time, even on official business for as the Second Qā'im Maqām remarked, when he was forced to leave his master alone with his other ministers, “they [his rivals] spoke of me like the people of Israel about Moses when he was absent on the Mount.” Quoted in Qā'im Maqāmī, p. 20.

36. Tension between the ambitious Ḥusayn ˓Alī Mīrzā, governor of Fārs and his successive mustawfīs resulted in disgrace for many of the latter. See particularly, Jahāngīr Qa'im Maqām, “Tawṭi˓ah-yi Ḥusayn ˓Alī Mīrzā Farmānfarmā dar Fārs,” Yaghmā, 5th year, pp. 34-5.

37. Fatḥ ˓Alī Shāh is credited with this versified homily: When with little ones you converse, Please resort to child-like verse. T.A., p. 44.

38. Ibid.

39. Drouville, Vol. 2, p. 4.

40. Legally, private property in land could result only from inheritance, purchase, crown gift or reclaimed waste land.

41. Holders of tuyūl exacted from the cultivators two tenths of the produce, which would ordinarily have been paid as government taxes, plus an additional one tenth due to them as rent. Fraser, p. 211.

42. For the variety of methods adopted for fixing these dues, see Lambton, A. K. S. Landlord and Peasant in Persia (Oxford, 1953), PP. 31 ff.Google Scholar

43. Fraser, pp. 211-12.

44. Ibid., p. 127; also Waring, E. S. A Tour to Sheeraz, by the Route of Kazroon and Feerozabad (London, 1807), p. 148.Google Scholar

45. Fraser, p. 211.

46. Ibid., p. 212; Jaubert, p. 270.

47. Fraser, p. 213.

48. Tancoigne, J. M. A Narrative of a Journey into Persia (London, 1820), p. 23.Google Scholar

49. Malcolm, History, Vol. 2, p. 342.Google Scholar

50. Fraser, p. 211.

51. Ibid.

52. Fatḥ ˓Alī Shāh's attitude toward the revenues drew forth the remark that “…he [the Shah] treats the whole country… like a conquered nation; and his only concern is how to extort from them the greatest possible amount of money.” Fraser, p. 199.

53. Morier, Journal, Vol. 2, pp. 20-1.Google Scholar

54. Sir Jones-Brydges, Harford Dynasty of the Kajara (London, 1833), p. civiiiGoogle Scholar, hereafter referred to as Dynasty of Kajara.

55. Fraser, p. 121.

56. Malcolm, History, Vol. 2, p. 378.Google Scholar

57. Morier, Journal, Vol. 2, pp. 31-3.Google Scholar

58. Quoted in Rozhkova, M. K. “Iz Istorii Ekonomicheskoy Politiki Rossiyskogo Tsarizma V Zakavkazye Pervaya Polovina XIX Veka,” (From a History of the Economic Policy of Russian Tsarism in Transcaucasia During the First Half of the Nineteenth Century), Istoricheski Zapiski, Vol. 18, 1946, p. 2.Google Scholar

59. ˓Alī Akbar Sīāsī, “L'Iran au XIXe. siecle,” Journal of World History, Vol. 2 (1954-5), pp. 646-7Google Scholar; also, Morier, Journey, p. 110.

60. Presented on 6th day of nawruz, Tancoigne, p. 223.

61. ˓Abd al-Razzāq Dunbulī, Ma'āir-i Sulṭāniyah (Tabrīz, 1242/1826), pp. 91-2Google Scholar; Dynasty of the Kajars, p. 165.

62. Fraser, pp. 217-18.

63. Ibid., p. 214.

64. Ibid., pp. 214-17.

65. Mustawfī, p. 26; Jaubert, pp. 269-70.

66. N.T., Vol. 1, p. 48.Google Scholar

67. Mustawfī, p. 26.

68. T.A., pp. 12-13.

69. Mustawfī, p. 26.

70. T.A., pp. 52-53.

71. Fraser, p. 220.