From Yazd to Bombay—Ardeshir Mehrabān ‘Irani’ and the rise of Persia's nineteenth-century Zoroastrian merchants

Abstract

This article begins by surveying the commercial structure of nineteenth-century Yazd, centring on the economic activities of its Zoroastrian inhabitants. Next, we examine the house of Mehrabān, arguing that they were intermediate figures in Persia's transition from a pre-capitalist to an inchoate capitalist mode of production. Throughout the mid- to late nineteenth century, the Mehrabāns were significant socio-economic players and precursors for later generations of prosperous, worldly Iranian Zoroastrians. Ardeshir in particular epitomised the gradual emergence of an Iranian bourgeoisie in the urban centres of Persia, specifically Yazd. Concurrently, the rise of prominent members of the Mehrabān family was intimately related to their education, ‘cultural capital’, socio-economic connections, and business ventures in Bombay as well as their constantly developing political clout in Persia and India.

In what follows, we will argue that—apart from their own agency, that is, entrepreneurship; hard work; accomplishment as British compradors, including their role as intermediaries in Indo-Persian trade, bankers, landowners, philanthropists, and leaders of the Zoroastrian community of Yazd—a combination of four interrelated factors helps to explain the rise of the house of Mehrabān: a) the long-term socio-economic florescence in Yazd; b) the extant Zoroastrian activities of that city throughout the first half of the nineteenth century; c) the pivotal patronage of the Persian Zoroastrian Amelioration Society from the mid-1850s and the partial improvement of the legal conditions of the Zoroastrian community of Yazd; as well as d) the increasing importance of international commerce at the interface of Persia's slow steps towards developing a capitalist mode of production.

Throughout the nineteenth century, Yazd was the lifeline of South Persia's trade and the epicentre of the Zoroastrian community of Iran (along with Kerman).¹ Since the early nineteenth century, many Europeans reported that Yazd was a major emporium of commerce in West Asia and it was celebrated for its security. During the course of the nineteenth century, it was also a leading manufacturing centre of Persia, producing goods and commodities such as textiles (silk, cotton, and wool), carpets, felts (namad), shawls, pottery, sugar, sweetmeats, wheat, bread, various fruits, and dyes.² More recently, the historian Willem Floor has confirmed that nineteenth-century Yazd was ‘the hub of Persian trade and industry, located at the junction of roads from Isfahan and Kashan via Naʾin; from Shiraz via Abarquh; from Kerman; and from Mashhad and Herat via Tabas’.³

We cannot say with certainty how many Zoroastrians existed in mid-nineteenth century Persia, but primary evidence suggests that in 1860 the number of those who were openly committed to Zoroastrianism had dwindled to fewer than 10,000 out of a population of about 6.5 million inhabitants.⁴ They were even fewer in number than Persia's Christian (at least 51,000) and Jewish (at least 18,000) minorities.⁵

In the early nineteenth century, Yazd exported to India a considerable quantity of madder (a plant, the root of which was used for dyeing). At that time, most Zoroastrians were cultivators. A number of them worked as gardeners, masons, and grooms, but they also toiled as silk and cotton spinners and produced a variety of cloth. Indeed, some Zoroastrians possessed 60–70 looms. Moreover, a small number were involved in commerce and the mechanical arts, despite heavy taxes and other extortions. It was further reported that Zoroastrians in Yazd made excellent candied sugar.⁶ By the late 1810s, a few local Zoroastrian merchants also seemed to have established favourable relations with the British. During Sir Gore Ouseley's embassy in Persia, various sums of money, amounting to 170,000 pounds, were entrusted to a Zoroastrian called Fereydun.⁷ The Scottish traveller and artist James Baillie Fraser (1783–1856), who visited Persia in the early 1820s, reported that the chief Zoroastrian at Yazd ‘was Moollah Mazbanee, a man whose credit was so high, not only with his own sect, but with the whole city, that he had influence enough on one occasion, even to effect a change of governors’.⁸ By the mid-1820s, several Zoroastrians had been hired as messengers for the postal system by British envoys.⁹

In the mid-1840s, Yazd suffered a huge setback due to a raging cholera pandemic. It had spread from India to West Asia (about 15,000 people died in and around Mecca), East Asia (in Vietnam approximately 800,000 people perished in the late 1840s), Russia (where there were about one million victims between 1847 and 1851), across the Atlantic, and it also struck Iran.¹⁰ In 1846, the British diplomat Robert Grant Watson, who lived in Persia for some time, reported that ‘the cholera [in Yazd] was fatal to between seven and eight thousand of their inhabitants…The number of the Guebres [Zoroastrians] in and around Yezd is reduced to about eight hundred families.’¹¹

In 1849–1850, the British Consul, Keith Edward Abbott (1814–1873), reported that the Zoroastrians were the principal cultivators of the poppy, which was raised in about 21 villages around Yazd.¹² By the mid-nineteenth century, Yazd seems to have recovered from the pandemic and 20 to 25 Zoroastrian merchants were living there again. While most Zoroastrians worked in agriculture, many also laboured as artisans, bricklayers, carpenters, weavers, or in mechanical occupations.¹³ In the early 1860s, the grinding, trade, and export of dyestuff (rubia tinet) in Yazd was guided by Zoroastrians. A few years later, the Austrian physician and writer Jakob Eduard Polak (1818–1891), who played a pivotal role in fostering Western medicine in Persia, noted that Zoroastrian merchants mediated the trade between India and Persia, and possessed caravanserais in Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz.¹⁴ However, this information needs to be cross checked. If Polak's claim is true, it needs to be clarified when exactly this process started. When, and under what circumstances, were Persian Zoroastrians granted permission to build caravanserais in such major Persian cities? Regardless of the accuracy of that claim, it is worth noting that in 1865, Major R. M. Smith, Acting Director of the Persian Telegraph, referred to Yazd's commercial connections as spanning from the western Indian Ocean to East Asia: ‘The external trade appears to be very considerable, and the merchants of Yezd are reputed to be amongst the most enterprising and respectable of their class in Persia. Some of their agents have lately gone, not only to Bombay, but to the Mauritius, Java, and China.’¹⁵

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as a result of the rise of the Parsis, who had become the leading industrialists and modernisers of India between the mid-1830s and the 1850s, a profound Parsi interest in improving the living conditions of their Persian co-religionists could and did emerge. In 1853, the Persian Zoroastrian Amelioration Society of Bombay was founded by the wealthy Parsi philanthropists Seth Merwanji Faramji Panday, Sir Dinshaw Maneckji Petit (1823–1901), and others. One year later, its first representative, Maneckji Limji Hataria (1813–1890), an affluent Parsi Gujarati merchant and agent of the British, was despatched to Persia.¹⁶ In an undated letter to a state official by the name of Sheikh ul-Mashāyekh, penned during his earlier years in Persia, Hataria claimed that Zoroastrians were only permitted to work as construction labourers, carpenters, tailors, and muleteers, and they were not allowed to sell their homegrown fruits and vegetables in the markets.¹⁷ At that juncture, trade and commerce in Yazd began to grow steadily and was further enhanced when the Indo-European telegraph line was installed in Yazd from the mid-1860s.¹⁸ The endeavours of the Persian Zoroastrians and their Parsi co-religionists bore some fruit when in 1860 the ban on Zoroastrians trading officially was lifted and in 1870 they were formally granted the right to open schools for their children.¹⁹ At that point, the house of Mehrabān had become a central commercial hub in Yazd.²⁰

During a 23-year period, from the late 1850s to the abolition of the jazieh (head tax) in 1882, the Parsi managers of the Persian Zoroastrian Amelioration Society spent about Rs 109,564 to pay the head tax of their co-religionists in Persia.²¹ The farmān (royal edict) issued by Nasser ed-Din Shah Qajar in 1882 and the abolition of the jazieh  for Zoroastrians were a turning point and significant stepping stone in the transformation of Zoroastrian subjects into Iranian citizens during the later Constitutional Revolution (1905–1909). By 1882, there were 12 Zoroastrian schools in Tehran, Kerman, and Yazd and its villages, mostly as a result of the Persian Zoroastrian Amelioration Society and its emissary's (Hataria's) advocacy. Two of the first teachers in Tehran's Zoroastrian school were Parsis who had been persuaded by Hataria to move to Persia. The latter also brought 12 Kermani and 20 Yazdi students to Tehran. With the financial assistance of the Parsis, these students then continued their studies in Bombay.²²

In the early 1880s, it was reported that Zoroastrians were exporting a dye-root called ‘rhonas’ (that is, madder, grown around Yazd) to Bombay.²³ In small workshops, Zoroastrians in Yazd ‘made a special kind of head-dress for export to Arabia via Charbar and Maskat’ and they were also said to control the weaving of silk stuffs.²⁴ At that time, Edward Stack confirmed that the Zoroastrians were important poppy cultivators and that Zoroastrians from Yazd ‘seem to deal chiefly in opium’.²⁵ Lieutenant Henry Bathurst Vaughan, who spent about two years in Persia, observed that Yazdi Zoroastrians ‘drink, but do not smoke, and produce excellent wine’.²⁶ He noticed that about 15 Zoroastrians were naturalised British subjects, while ‘the greater part of trade is in their hands’.²⁷ At that point, Yazd's exports mainly consisted of opium, cotton, wool, madder-roots, cumin seeds, almonds, walnuts, and pistachio nuts.²⁸ However, Vaughan believed that ‘[o]wing to their unprotected state’ Zoroastrians ‘dare not invest more than one quarter of their fortunes in trade’.²⁹ Significantly, as late as the 1880s and early 1890s, Zoroastrians had to pay a tribute of 20 per cent to the ruhāniat (clergy) on inheritances, bargains, and sales transactions.³⁰

Yet, from the 1860s through to the early 1900s, Zoroastrians increasingly controlled a large share of the import and export trade of Yazd.³¹ Interestingly, the British statesman, traveller, and writer George Nathaniel Curzon (1859–1925), who had studied the country for three years, argued that the Zoroastrians of Yazd ‘occupy a position here not unlike that of the Chinese compradors and agents in the Treaty Ports of Japan, the bulk of the foreign trade passing through their hands, and a good deal of the home industry being likewise under their direction’.³² In 1893, British Consul J. R. Preece claimed that Yazd harboured 250 merchants with a capital of 2 million toman (£500,000), that is, merely £2,000 per merchant. Yazd was the supply centre of tea and Manchester piece goods for Bukhara and Central Asia due to the closing of the Afghan route. In Yazd, henna from Bam and sugar from Russia, and later Mauritius, were processed and distributed throughout the country. Interestingly, Yazd was also home to 15 sugar refineries.³³

In 1896, reports commissioned by the English Foreign Office and German Ministry of the Interior indicated that in 1894/95, about half of the merchandise imported into Persia was introduced by British subjects who paid a toll of 5 per cent. Local merchants paid a tariff of 2 per cent. The population of the entire province numbered 80,000 but it had not increased in the previous two years as lawlessness and extortion occurred on a daily basis in the wake of weak governance, insecurity, and the impotence of the administration. The main obstacle to trade was ascribed to the deficient and unregulated transport facilities. Merchants were dependent on the camel drivers who came and went as they pleased. In recent years, an increasing number of petty merchants had embezzled money through buying commodities on credit and subsequently suspending payment. It had therefore become difficult even for honest merchants to get credit from the Europeans. The lack of legislation regarding bankruptcy was to the utmost disadvantage of businesses. However, by mid-1895, conditions had improved once again.³⁴

At the turn of the century, Major Percy Molesworth Sykes (1847–1945) observed that ‘Yezd still keeps seven hundred looms busy weaving all sorts of silk…Apart from its silk looms Yezd possesses almost a monopoly of the henna trade…There is also a considerable export of cotton, almonds, and pistachio nuts.’³⁵ In the first years of the twentieth century, the portfolio of exports and imports increased further. As the English painter, explorer, writer, and anthropologist, Arnold Henry Savage Landor (1865–1924), who travelled through Persia on horseback, declared: ‘If Yezd is, for its size, now the most enterprising trading centre of Persia, it is mostly due to the Guebres living there…The Bombay Society has done much to raise the Zoroastrians of Persia to their present comparatively advanced state, but trade and commerce also have to a great extent contributed to their present eminence.’³⁶

The socio-economic and legal improvement of the conditions of Zoroastrians also seem to have somewhat stimulated its population growth. By the mid-nineteenth century, Yazd and the surrounding villages had about 1,000 Zoroastrian houses or families, amounting to a population of circa 6,658 souls.³⁷ By the late 1880s, Lieutenant Vaughan claimed that Yazd had between 65,000 and 100,000 inhabitants (including Taft and the suburbs). He estimated the Zoroastrian population at 6,737. Still, the vast majority of Zoroastrians, that is, 5,784, were agriculturalists. Only the tradesmen (704) and priests (249) lived in Mahalla. Furthermore, he counted 28 Zoroastrians who were born in Bombay but resided in Yazd and 914 Zoroastrian residents in Bombay. Vaughan also mentioned that Yazd had 900 Jews—probably an underestimation—as other accounts estimated as many as 2,000.³⁸ In 1891, there were about 6,908 Zoroastrians in Yazd.³⁹ By the early twentieth century, there had been a moderate increase in their numbers to 7,500 souls.⁴⁰ Thus, this development accounted for a modest surge of almost 850 people within a period of 50 years.⁴¹

In the following, we touch upon a few details that are known about the Persian Zoroastrian Mollā Arbāb Mehrabān Rostam. Then, we trace the lives of his sons, the wealthy merchants and bankers Ardeshir Mehrabān Irani and his elder brother Keikhosrow; examine the catastrophic Great Famine (1870–72); and discuss the role that the house of Mehrabān played in supporting their Persian co-religionists. Next, we scrutinise the murder of Rashid Mehrabān in 1874, and inspect Ardeshir's encounter with Edward Browne in the late 1880s. Lastly, we study his activities as an agent of the New Oriental Bank. We intend to demonstrate that prominent members of the Mehrabān family were quintessential intermediaries throughout the interim period of Persia's transition from a pre-capitalist to a budding capitalist mode of production. In the course of this interlude, bridging the mid- to late nineteenth century, the house of Mehrabān turned into an influential hub, becoming a forerunner for later generations of affluent Iranian Zoroastrian entrepreneurs and leaders. Ardeshir incarnated the gradual advance of an Iranian bourgeoisie in the urban centres of Persia, especially Yazd. As we will explore in some detail, the commercial and financial success of the Mehrabāns between the 1860s and 1890s needs to be viewed in light of the family's relations with the Parsis of India, some of its members’ education, socio-economic connections, business enterprises and property in Bombay, their charitable endeavours, the family's political leverage in both Persia and India, its banking activities, and the Mehrabāns’ role as British compradors and agents of Indo-Persian trade.

Mollā Arbāb Mehrabān Rostam

Prior to the ascendancy of the Zoroastrian merchant magnates of the Jahāniān family and Arbāb Jamshid Jamshidiān, the house of Mehrabān appears to have been the wealthiest Zoroastrian merchant family of mid-nineteenth century Persia. Not much is known about the house of Mehrabān. The life of Mollā Arbāb Mehrabān Rostam or Rostam ‘Mehr’ is almost veiled in obscurity and little information is available on the female side of the family. We know, however, that he was a member of the Zoroastrian anjuman (society) of Yazd and a well-respected member of that community.⁴² According to the historian Fereydun Ādamiat, since the Zoroastrians were not treated well in Yazd, Mollā Rostam complained to Prime Minister Amir Kabir (1807–1852) about the injustices imposed upon the Zoroastrians by the governor of that city. As a result, Amir Kabir sent a letter to the governor, demanding that the belongings that had been seized from the Zoroastrian community be given back to them and that, instead of being mistreated, Zoroastrians should be able to live a peaceful life and continue to pursue their businesses.⁴³

Rostam may have had up to seven sons. Some of them, namely Khosrow, Godarz, Rashid, Keikhosrow, and Ardeshir, became wealthy merchants and bankers.⁴⁴ It is also worth mentioning that at the age of 11, the prominent entrepreneur and future eminent statesman Arbāb Jamshid was reportedly sent to Borujerd, along with one of his father's friends, to work and take up his apprenticeship at the local trade centre owned by Arbāb Rostam.⁴⁵ As a matter of fact, Rostam's sons were among the first Persian Zoroastrians of the nineteenth century to have profited from the philanthropic activities of their Parsi co-religionists. When Hataria landed in Yazd in 1854, Mollā Rostam was his neighbour. In the same year, Hataria founded the panchayat (anjuman) of Yazd. Around that time, Rostam was said to have been arrested due to some unspecified financial issues. Hataria paid a ransom to have him set free and also seems to have helped him to secure the funds that Rostam kept in Boroujerd and Soltanabad. In a letter that Hataria wrote to the Zoroastrian anjuman of Yazd—in which he complained about the lack of concern which Persian Zoroastrians supposedly exhibited towards their children's education—he stated that he had asked Rostam to send his children to Bombay so that they could conduct trade and study the sciences. But Rostam did not heed his advice. It was only after his father's death that Keikhosrow went to Tehran, where Hataria encouraged him to travel to Bombay and provided him with some letters of recommendation to influential Indians. In due course, he followed Hataria's advice and, together with his brothers—it is not clear which brother(s) apart from Ardeshir—went to study in Bombay. As a result, they became ‘successful and famous’ (ba esm-o rasm).⁴⁶

A sketch of the lives of Ardeshir Mehrabān Irani and his brother Keikhosrow

Ardeshir's elder brother Keikhosrow was born in Yazd sometime between the late 1830s and mid-1840s, probably around 1845. According to Rashid Shahmardān, he lost his father when he was 12 years old. He left for Bombay at the age of 15 with his uncle. The trip took about three months. Upon arrival, he went to school and after a few years of study and learning Persian and Gujarati, he started a trading business. Over the course of a three-year period, he became one of the best-known Persian merchants of his time.⁴⁷ Around 1857–1858, he married a woman called Gohar from the Izadyār family. Shortly after their marriage, however, she died giving birth to their son Esfandiār. His wife's sudden death had such a devastating effect on him that Kheikhosrow reportedly handed over the business to his younger brother Ardeshir, left for the Himalaya mountains, and became a hermit. Around the same time, another brother by the name of Khosrow, who was a trader in Bandar Abbas, passed away at a young age, leaving behind a widow by the name of Firuzeh. His elder brother Arbāb Rostam travelled to the Himalayas and convinced Keikhosrow to return with him to Persia and marry Firuzeh. After marrying, Keikhosrow returned to Bombay and resumed his commercial activities.⁴⁸ Apart from charities, which constituted the house of Mehrabān's entrance into philanthropic activities, Keikhosrow is said to have given more than Rs 35,000 to the Persian Zoroastrian Amelioration Fund to build schools and to educate the Zoroastrians in Persia.⁴⁹

We lack data about the early life of Ardeshir Mehrabān. The only information at our disposal is that he was born around 1848 and, like his brother, came from the Zoroastrian stronghold of Yazd. As he testified in 1891, ‘I had resided at Yezd by about twelve consecutive years and know the place, the people, their beliefs, its commerce, their sentiments, customs and rites.’ Ardeshir emigrated to Bombay when he was 12 years old where he was educated and passed the matriculation examination of Bombay university in 1866, only five years after its first matriculation examination had been conducted. He then studied at Elphinstone College—about a decade after this Western-oriented institution of higher learning had been officially inaugurated. He stayed there for about a year and left ‘owing to ill health’, as he recounted in 1891 when he was 43. After Persian, his second language was Gujarati. Altogether, he resided in India for about 20 years. He had ‘a large stake in the country’ and the ‘greater part’ of his business was conducted in Bombay where he became a wealthy landowner. Both Ardeshir and Keikhosrow were naturalised by the Government of Bombay.⁵⁰ Indeed, on 27 January 1869, Keikhosrow Mehrabān ‘Irani’ and Ardeshir Mehrabān ‘Irani’, ‘Native[s] of Persia and Inhabitant[s] of Bombay’ had requested certificates of naturalisation to obtain the privileges of British subjects. It was stated that both brothers were merchants who carried out trade with Persia and other countries, and had resided in Bombay since 1861, adding that they intended to reside there permanently. On 1 February 1869, formal certification that ‘all the rights, privileges and capacities of Naturalization’ under the Act XXX of 1852 were granted to the two brothers.⁵¹ Soon after this event, the Great Famine of 1870–1872 shook Iran and, together with Godarz, the brothers established the Persian Famine Relief Fund. At some point in the 1870s or 1880s, Ardeshir relocated to Yazd. There, he stayed till March 1890, when he returned to Bombay again. By the late 1890s or early 1900s, however, he seems to have resettled in his birthplace of Yazd once and for all.⁵²

Significantly, the Mehrabān family was widely engaged in charities, rebuilding fire temples, and constructing schools. Ardeshir, for example, ‘a philanthropic Zoroastrian’, as he was styled by his contemporary Abraham Jackson, built a dakhmeh (tower of silence) in Allahabad (10 miles from Yazd) ‘in memory of a rich childless merchant, Khosru-i Mihrban-i Rustam’.⁵³ It has also been pointed out that, in Yazd, Jamshid and Rashid Mehrabān,

…built a new fire temple in the priests’ quarter, and Kay Ḵosrow founded a school beside it…Godarz built a water tank (āb-anbār) on the way from Yazd to the Zoroastrian mountain shrine of Pīr-e Sabz, and a pavilion at the shrine itself to shelter pilgrims. The family owned land in the village of Allāhābād (Ēlābād) and there Rostam built the fire temple, Kay Ḵosrow the daḵma, and Godarz the school and water tank, the latter with access for Muslim as well as Zoroastrian villagers…Godarz also gave the ground in Yazd for Christian missionaries to build a hospital. This range of benefactions broadly represents those made by other Zoroastrians of means from then on. They were mostly originally for the benefit of their own community but often came (as in the case of schools, hospitals, etc.) to serve others outside it also, and in traditional fashion charity was also at times extended to the poor and distressed without distinction.⁵⁴

The Great Famine of 1870–1872

As will be shown below, Godarz, Keikhosrow, and Ardeshir Mehrabān, along with their Parsi co-religionists, eminent Jews, and others, played a crucial role in providing relief and helping poor Persians, especially Zoroastrians and Jews, to move to Bombay during the Great Famine of 1870–1872. But before delving into their activities, it would be expedient to give a summary of the devastating events in Yazd.

In 1870, a London Daily News correspondent from Shiraz asserted that when the famine began, the governors of Yezd ‘each distributed large sums of money among the poor of his district’.⁵⁵ On 30 April 1871, a correspondent from Tabriz writing to a Turkish journal recounted that in Shiraz, Kerman, and Yazd, all those in the most desperate need were forced to eat grass and roots, while ‘pestilence follows hard on the footsteps of famine’ and ‘half of the population of Persia is becoming rapidly depopulated’.⁵⁶ The Church Missionary Intelligencer reported that between February and May of 1871, the ‘streets of Ispahan, Yazd and most of the towns of the east and south of Persia, were lined with the dying and the dead’.⁵⁷ Moreover, the ‘king's son-in-law, who was the Governor of Yezd … told the writer that in Yezd (a city of less than 50.000 inhabitants), 20.000 had died of starvation’.⁵⁸ The Bombay Gazette reported that on 24 May 1871 Nasser ed-Din Shah removed the governor of Yazd as the latter ‘had entered into a combination with the grain dealers so as to be able to sell every article of provision at an exorbitant price’. The new governor ‘ordered numerous grain shops to be opened, and the result was that the sufferings of the poor Persians and others have been greatly relieved’. The price of grain, which previously amounted to 9 qirān (a qirān was equal to a shilling), was reduced to 3 qirān.⁵⁹

In this context, it added that a sum of Rs 800 was sent from Bombay by ‘Messrs. Mehrban and Co.’ and received by their brother Keikhosrow at Yezd. The latter ‘at once purchased about 800 maunds of wheat, and distributed the same among his suffering countrymen’.⁶⁰ In fact, Parsi communities in Surat, Ahmedabad, Pune, and Kannur transmitted considerable sums to their Persian co-religionists through the Mehrabān family's Famine Relief Fund.⁶¹ Interestingly enough, around the same time, in one of his letters, the first representative of the Persian Zoroastrian Amelioration Society, the Parsi Maneckji Limji Hataria, singled out the philanthropy of the Parsi entrepreneur Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, co-founder of the Persian Zoroastrian Amelioration Society (1854), suggesting that:

In Yezd twelve Zoroastrians were dying daily for want of food, yet only one benevolent Parsee gentleman, Mr. Nusservanjee Maneckjee Petit, had…sent 300 rupees in 1866, and 1.700 rupees on the 10th of January, 1870, through the managing committee, and again 200 rupees by telegraph on the 14th of March, 1871. No other contribution…had been received and corn distributed among the Zoroastrians at Yezd had been taken from them by the Mohammedans.⁶²

As Simin Patel has recently pointed out, however, by July 1871, the trading house of ‘Messrs Godrez Mehrban & Co.’ acted as the secretaries and main coordinators of the Persian Famine Relief Fund in Bombay. They had received over Rs 10,000 in subscriptions from various Parsi settlements. By dint of British political agents, military personnel in Muscat and Bushehr, and well-known Parsis and Zoroastrians in Persia, ‘the funds and food provisions were distributed among famine-affected Zoroastrians in thirty-three villages and the major centers of Yazd, Kerman and Tehran’. Moreover, they organised the passage of Persian Zoroastrian famine refugees from Bandar Abbas via Karachi to Bombay. The first group of 29 refugees arrived in Bombay on 6 June 1871.⁶³ Hence, it was not merely Parsi funds, but also Persian Zoroastrian contributions and their logistical efforts that were crucial in bringing about famine relief. In effect, the mercantile firm of the Mehrabān family and its Famine Relief Fund was operated by Godarz and his brother Ardeshir, while two other siblings, Keikhosrow and Khosrow Mehrabān, were located at Yazd and Bandar Abbas respectively. They made possible the passage of the famine refugees to Bombay. As Patel brings out, the Mehrabāns

…had a five-month headway in the collection of subscriptions. Operating as a team, the two brothers executed their responsibilities briskly and coherently. They kept the Bombay Gazette and the Times of India updated with the figures of their latest collections as well as let the newspapers serve as the first port to which readers could send donations, which were then forwarded to their custody.⁶⁴

She adds that the Mehrabāns’ programme had ‘a scope and substance that was lacking in the operations of the other relief funds’.⁶⁵ It is worth mentioning that a refugee in Bombay by the name of Sheriar Behram told a reporter: ‘I cannot sufficiently extol the labours of Messrs Godrez Mehrban & Co., and Mr. Khosroo Eranee, for I am convinced that but for them we all would have been lost.’⁶⁶ According to David Yeroushalmi, the Persian Famine Relief Fund and various Jewish congregations and communal organisations in Europe and beyond jointly collected and distributed about £19,000. He continues: ‘Considering that during the years 1871–2 the exchange rate for 1 pound sterling stood at 2 to 2.4 tumans (i.e. 20 to 24 krans), the total amount of the donations amounted to approximately 42.000 tumans (420.000 krans).’ This sum accounted for £1 (or 20–24 qirān) per capita. He further argues that:

Given the fact that in the hard-hit communities of Shiraz, Yazd, Isfahan and Kashan during the winter of 1871–spring of 1872, an average family of 5–6 members needed 3 krans per day (i.e., 90 krans per month) in order to live on dry barley bread only, the amount of 20–24 krans per person (or 110–132 krans per average family), provided by the Famine Relief Fund, appear to have sufficed for a little more than one month of bread supplies for an average starving family.⁶⁷

At that time, a number of cases of cannibalism were also reported by some newspapers. In mid-April 1871, it was reported that a ‘Mogul weaver’ residing in Yazd had killed a 14-year-old boy and ‘cut up the body for food’. When the boy's legs were found in the house of the ‘Mogul’, he was arrested and executed.⁶⁸ Less than two months later, it was reported that about 50 children had been killed and eaten by the ‘starving Mohammedans of Yazd’.⁶⁹ Another account attested that: ‘I have had occasion to see a letter written by a well-known and trustworthy person at Yezd to his relative, a sheikh al Islam (a chief judge), in which more than seventy cases of cannibalism were vouched for! This statement has been corroborated by different people who had left Yezd on account of the famine, and whom I asked for information.’⁷⁰ However, the Illustrated London News also clarified that rumours about parents eating their own children were a myth.⁷¹

In the meantime, the Times of India reported that in early December 1871, it was not food that Yazd lacked, but water. Moreover, the ‘agriculturalists are powerless, traders have no occupation, and money is scarce’. The situation was exacerbated by severe weather. Letters from Bandar Abbas, written in early January 1872, contained ‘distressing accounts of the state of Zoroastrians (about 500) who have been residing there for the last two months. Fifty have died from exhaustion and disease; the rest will be forwarded to Bombay as soon as the requisite permission from the Persian Governor is obtained.’⁷² In the same month, the Journal officiel de la République reported that in Yazd, 4,000 people died and 10,000 had emigrated.⁷³ According to one contemporary observer, Yazd, which depended on grain imports, ‘suffered perhaps more terribly than any other part of the country’ during the winter of 1872.⁷⁴ Although

…peasants generally had enough, the artizans and day labourers, who form a larger part of the population here than elsewhere, suffered terribly…the great land-owners, who are also the great corn-dealers, instigated by love of filthy lucre, or perhaps, as they declared themselves, by fear of a third year of famine, held for a rise, utterly indifferent to the sufferings around them.⁷⁵

Thus, the population of Isfahan, Yazd, and Mashhad ‘was diminished by a third at least, though not all these died, numbers having emigrated west and south’.⁷⁶ Meanwhile, by February 1872, the Jewish community of Yazd diminished from an estimated population of 1,000 inhabitants (reported in 1868) to about 600.⁷⁷ In 1874, Haji Ismail, the son of a Shirazi merchant who had been living in Yazd since 1855, recounted that when Yazd was confronted with scarcity in the autumn of 1869, one-third of the population fled the city. Of those who remained, half were in dire straits. From October 1870, five people were dying of hunger every day, and by the spring of 1871, the death rate had escalated to 130 souls per day and even this situation was about to deteriorate.⁷⁸

As to the reasons for the severity of the Great Famine in Yazd, it has been argued that: ‘A few years ago, the profits of the opium trade having attracted the attention of the Persians, almost all available or suitable ground in Yezd, Isphahan, and elsewhere was utilized for the cultivation of opium, to the exclusion of all cereals and other produce.’ In addition, the ‘attempts of the natives to enrich themselves by cultivation and growth of a profitable article of trade and their neglect to provide for the necessaries of life, combined with drought and other circumstances, resulted in the famine of 1871–72’. Consequently, the ‘costly experience then gained has made the Persians more careful and provident, and they are now using a limited space for the cultivation of opium’.⁷⁹

In 1880, Edward Stack spent a number of months in Persia and claimed that in the 1866 census, the large village of Taft (south-west of Yazd) had a population 11,745 inhabitants. In a second census taken in 1874 (that is, about two years after the famine), however, Taft's population had decreased to 3,353.⁸⁰ When the British explorer, geographer, and colonel of the British Indian Army Charles Metcalfe MacGregor (1840–1887) visited Taft in 1875, he noted that it was ‘said once to have had over 1.500 houses, but since the famine there are not more than 1.000 residences occupied. Of these, 200 belong to Guebres.’⁸¹ By 1880, the population of Taft reportedly amounted to just 5,000 people.⁸²

The murder of Rashid Mehrabān in 1874

In 1874, a year after the dismissal of the reformist Qajar Prime Minster Mirzā Hossein Khān Sepahsālār—who had befriended Maneckji Limji Hataria when he was on a mission to India and was widely popular among the Zoroastrian communities of Iran—Rashid Mehrabān was murdered in the bazaar of his hometown of Yazd.⁸³ This event caused some stir and caught the attention of a number of Britons and Parsis in the service of the British Empire. Indeed, the murder was extensively commented and speculated upon for over three decades. After Hataria heard about this incident, he sent letters to government officials in Persia, urging them to take some action.⁸⁴ In 1875, MacGregor wrote that:

The chief man who appeared, or rather the principal man who could speak Hindustani, bore the historic name of Kai Kaoos. He, was the brother of one Rasheed, who not long before was shot down in the streets of Yuzd in cold blood, it is said at the instigation of the Mooshtaheeds [mojtahed, a specialist in Islamic shari'a]. He had just come from Bombay, in search of what would seem, in Persia, an eminently unattainable thing, justice; but…he seems pretty determined, and is protected from open assault by his certificate.⁸⁵

In the most detailed existing account to date, the nineteenth-century Parsi magistrate and historian, Dossabhoy Framjee Karaka, reported on the murder and shed further light on the insecurities that sometimes haunted Zoroastrian merchants. He also alluded to the fact that high-ranking personalities of Muslim origin could oftentimes escape punishment. He recounted the episode as follows:

Even so recently as 1874 an act of the most flagrant injustice occurred. A respectable and wealthy Zoroastrian merchant, named Rashid Meherban, was shot and killed in the public bazaar of Yezd by one Rujub Ali, a Mahomedan. After committing the brutal deed the murderer escaped through the assistance afforded him by the sympathising crowd. The authorities made no effort whatever to trace the culprit and bring him to justice. Owing, however, to the exertions of the murdered man's relatives who were resident in Bombay, and who spared neither pains nor money to trace the murderer, the criminal was at last discovered in Bushire. The authorities at Shiraz were applied to for the purpose of executing justice, and the governor of that city ordered the accused to be sent for trial to Yezd. There, however, nothing was done to bring the offender before a tribunal. Meanwhile Rashid Meherban's relatives sent from Bombay several telegrams and memorials to the ministers of the Shah, as well as to the Shah himself, pressing for justice. These sustained efforts led to the authorities at Teheran giving orders to the Governor of Shiraz to send the criminal to the capital. These orders were of course obeyed, and the accused was given in charge of the mounted police to be taken to that city. The culprit again made his escape through the connivance of the guard while at Goam [Qom], and took refuge in a holy place called Imamzada Hazrati Masuma. According to the law of Islam, no person, however great his offence, can be arrested in a sanctuary, and the murderer remained there for a long period. It is stated that he has since been pardoned on the recommendation of the ‘Mousted,’ [mojtahed] the highest religious lawgiver, who declared that, as the Zoroastrian acted in violation of the law of Islam, a true believer committed no offence in slaying him! Thus the villain, who ought long ago to have forfeited his life, is still at large…⁸⁶

From this we may conclude, with a degree of certainty, that even the persistent engagement of Rashid's family to attain justice and their appeal to the Shah were in vain after the murderer eventually took sanctuary. Notably, Lieutenant Henry Bathurst Vaughan argued that about ‘14 years ago the Ulemas of Islam together with a band of Muhammadan merchants instigated a wretch to murder the late Rashid Mehrban, a wealthy and influential Parsi. This crime was perpetrated in the light of day and in the public bazar.’ However, while Karaka blamed a single person (Rujub Ali) for the murder and mentioned the assistance he received from a ‘sympathizing crowd’ as well as the help he was offered by the authorities and ulama, and MacGregor laid the blame on the ‘mojtaheds’, Vaughan principally accused the ulama who supposedly committed the murder in conjunction with ‘a band of Muhammedan merchants’. Concurrently, Vaughan corroborated that the murderer flew to the sanctuary (bast) of Qom ‘where he now lives’.⁸⁷ Significantly, in 1875, Keikhosrow and Ardeshir themselves explained how they perceived the slaughter of their brother and gave a different account of the potential perpetrators. They made it clear that they believed in a conspiracy led by a key anti-Zoroastrian cleric who capitalised on the envy that Rashid had apparently evoked among certain Muslims and, thus, instigated two accomplices to carry out the murder:

The deceased owing to his high position amongst his coreligionists and the extensive trade which he carried on had become an object of envy and hatred on the part of certain Mahomedans…he was deprived of life in the prime of youth in cold blood in broad day light without cause or provocation in the Bazaar of Yezd by two Mahomedan Ruffians said to be of the name of Bager Subialli and Rajab Kalla Kona through the instigation of one Mahomedan high priest named Mirza Mahomed Juckee Mooshtahed [mojtahed] who has throughout the last many years exhibited the greatest hostility towards the followers of the ancient faith of Zoroaster. The murderers have escaped and they are still at large and it further appears that the Governor of Yezd through fear of the said priest has been wanting in courage to bring the criminals to justice. The loss of this dear brother is bemoaned besides by us by his widowed wife, fatherless children and aged mother, and the additional inflictions which this sad event has brought on us is the complication of his extensive business and the consequent loss to our trade which both had intimate connection.⁸⁸

In short, the two brothers petitioned Ronald Ferguson Thomson, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Persia (1872–1879), ‘to afford redress for bringing the murderers and their accomplice to justice so that the few poor and helpless Zoroastrians…may hereafter remain secure in peace’.⁸⁹ However, the British administration responded that, on returning to Persia, the Mehrabān brothers would ‘cease to be entitled to British protection’. Furthermore, the document made it clear that Rashid did not appear to be a British subject and the fact that Keikhosrow and Ardeshir were naturalised, did not ‘make the murder a matter of any concern to the British Government’.⁹⁰ This assertion demonstrates that diplomatic apprehensions were much more important for the British colonial administration. Any intervention on their part would be interpreted as direct interference in the affairs of Iran by the Russians and Iranian Russophiles. The latter were vying for more concessions from the Qajar Court while Nasser ed-Din Shah did not wish to appear to be an Anglophile. It is important to note that at that moment, the Shah was under much pressure from the clergy who had succeeded in making him oust Prime Minster Mirzā Hossein Khān Sepahsālār and bring to a halt his reformist measures aimed at the modernisation of the country.

To summarise, it seems that before the rise of Ardeshir Mehrabān, the accumulated wealth of his family had already caught the attention of some segments of the Muslim majority within Iranian society. This led to hostilities and endangered their social position. Thus, notwithstanding the improvement of the conditions of Persia's Zoroastrians between the mid-1850s and 1880s, it hardly comes as a surprise that Keikhosrow and Ardeshir later moved their headquarters to Bombay as it was a more secure place given their status as British subjects and the relatively large community of Parsis compared to Persia's Zoroastrians.⁹¹ Furthermore, the Parsis of Gujarat and Maharashtra had moved from occupations such as major brokers, traders, and moneylenders during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—especially as a result of their close collaboration with Europeans, most notably the English East India Company—to become leading real estate owners of Bombay, foremost capitalists, industrialists, bureaucrats, and modernisers of India by the mid-nineteenth century.⁹²

Edward Browne's encounter with Ardeshir Mehrabān

Unfortunately, little information could be obtained on the life and deeds of the Mehrabān family from the late 1870s to late 1880s. Nonetheless, we know that Ardeshir seems to have been a generous and hospitable merchant, especially vis-à-vis Britons of high rank, wealth, and merit. To give a few examples, it was through Ardeshir's help that the surgeon of the Bombay Army, Professor of Materia Medica at Grant College, Bombay, and member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, William Dymock, ‘obtained the first box of specimens [of plants and drugs] collected in the neighborhood of Yezd’.⁹³ Lieutenant Vaughan and A. H. S. Landor are other cases in point. The former lodged in Ardeshir's garden house twice (in 1888 and 1890/1891), while the latter obtained ‘much of the valuable information here given about the Yezd Parsees’ from Ardeshir.⁹⁴ Edward G. Browne (1862–1926), however, gives the most detailed account of the life, social relations, and views of Ardeshir, observed during his three-week sojourn in Yazd in 1887.

Browne came from a wealthy family. He followed the exigencies of his father and became a doctor. But at the age of 15, he became fascinated by West Asia and began learning Turkish, Persian, and Arabic. In 1887, he spent a year in Persia.⁹⁵ Accompanied by his ‘Zoroastrian friends’, he visited the garden of Ardeshir, situated at the ‘southern limit’ of the city. He found his host and ‘the old fire-priest’ (Dastur Tirandāz) awaiting him, and received from both of them a ‘most cordial welcome’.⁹⁶ In his seminal book A Year Amongst the Persians, Browne indicated that he accepted Ardeshir's offer to stay in his garden house. He described him as follows: ‘He was a tall, slender, handsome man, of about forty-five or fifty years of age, light-complexioned, black-bearded, and clad in the yellow garments of the Zoroastrians; and he spoke English…fluently and well.’⁹⁷ Browne was of the opinion that Ardeshir was ‘the leading Zoroastrian merchant at Yezd’.⁹⁸ Nonetheless, his office was situated on the ground floor.⁹⁹ Indeed, the missionary Napier Malcolm, who spent five consecutive years in Yazd between 1898 and 1903, noted that, ‘the houses of both the Parsis and the Jews, with the surrounding walls, had to be built so low that the top could be reached by a Mussulman with his hand extended; they might, however, dig down below the level of the road’. He added that upper rooms were also forbidden.¹⁰⁰

At the house of Ardeshir's brother, Godarz—the latter has been described as a wealthy Zoroastrian merchant by a number of contemporary European travellers in Persia—Browne met the chief priest of the Zoroastrians, Dastur Tirandāz, who seems to have been a close friend of Ardeshir and someone with whom he frequently socialised.¹⁰¹ Tirandāz appears to have enjoyed good relations with the governor of Yazd, Prince Imad ud-Dawla, ‘from whom he was continually bringing messages of goodwill to me’.¹⁰² This was most likely also to the benefit of Ardeshir in terms obtaining security, conducting business transactions, and safeguarding property rights. In contrast to Tirandāz, however, Ardeshir gave the impression of rejecting superstitious beliefs:

Ardashir, who had seen the world and imbibed latitudinarian ideas, affected to regard this performance with a good-natured contempt, which he extended to many of the Dastur's cherished convictions. One day, for instance, mention was made of ghuls [giants] and other supernatural beings. ‘Tush,’ said Ardashir, ‘there are no such things.’ ‘No such things!’ exclaimed the Dastur, ‘why, I have seen one myself.’ ‘No, no,’ rejoined Ardashir, ‘you saw a man or a mule or some other animal in the gloaming, and, deceived by the half-light, the solitude, or your own fears, supposed it to be a ghul.’¹⁰³

In this context, Browne informs us about Ardeshir's invitations to Muslim and Babi acquaintances, and provides details of his social relations as well drinking and eating habits:

I had ample opportunity of learning how to drink wine ‘according to the rite of Zoroaster,’ for almost every afternoon Ardashir, accompanied either by Dastur Tirandaz, or by his brother Gudarz, or by his manager Bahman, or by other Zoroastrians, used to come to the garden and sit by the little stream, which for a few hours only (for water is bought for a price in Yezd) refreshed the drooping flowers. Then, unless Muhammadan or Babi visitors chanced to be present, wine and ‘arak were brought forth by old Jamshid, the gardener, or his little son Khusraw; fresh young cucumbers, and other relishes, such as the Persian wine-drinker loves, were produced; and the brass drinking-cups were drained again and again to the memories of the dead and the healths of the living.¹⁰⁴

Indeed, Browne found his ‘Zoroastrian friends very tolerant and liberal in their views. Ardashir was never tired of repeating that in one of their prayers they invoked the help of “the good men of the seven regions” (khuban-i-haft kishvar), i.e. of the whole world; and that they did not regard faith in their religion as essential to salvation.’¹⁰⁵ Apart from that, Ardeshir seems to have drawn Browne's attention to the Dari language and taught him a number of Dari words.¹⁰⁶ Browne observed that:

This Dari dialect is only used by the guebres amongst themselves, and all of them, so far as I know, speak Persian as well. When they speak their own dialect, even a Yezdi Musulman cannot understand what they are saying, or can only understand it very imperfectly. It is for this reason that the Zoroastrians cherish their Dari, and are somewhat unwilling to teach it to a stranger. I once remarked to Ardashir what a pity it was that they did not commit it to writing. He replied that there had at one time been some talk of translating the Gulistan into Dari, but that they had decided that it was inexpedient to facilitate the acquisition of their idiom to non-Zoroastrians.¹⁰⁷

Interestingly, Browne also refers to Ardeshir and Dastur Tirandāz's shared predilection for the Dasātir, attributed to Āzar Kayvān, and gives an account of Ardeshir's religious beliefs:

The old priest, Dastur Tir-andaz, who at first seemed to regard me with some suspicion, was quite won over by finding that I was acquainted with the spurious ‘heavenly books’ known as the Dashatir, about the genuineness of which neither he nor Ardashir appeared to entertain the slightest doubt…I managed to get Ardashir to talk of his religion and its ordinances, and especially of the kusti or sacred cord which the Zoroastrians wear…Ardashir also spoke of the duty incumbent on them of keeping pure the four elements, adding that they did not smoke tobacco out of respect for fire…the three weeks that I spent at Yezd.¹⁰⁸

Browne's vivid portrayal suggests that Ardeshir embraced both traditional and modern characteristics and qualities. He was not only an ingrained offspring of mid-nineteenth century Yazd, but simultaneously constituted a principal exponent of the nascent Iranian bourgeoisie. To this effect, he was a prototypical in-between figure in two respects: on the one hand, he exemplified Persia's delicate pathway towards an emergent capitalist mode of production; on the other, his views and trajectory were closely affected by his early formative years, social relations, experiences, and roughly 20 years’ residence in the city of Bombay.

Back in Bombay

Some years after Edward G. Browne's visit to Yazd and his acquaintance with the Mehrabān family, a Bombay guidebook printed in 1889 indicated that Ardeshir was a merchant and commission agent living at 22 Church Gate, Fort.¹⁰⁹ In the meanwhile, his brother seems to have annoyed a number of Parsis with his plans to construct a stable in their neighbourhood. In two letters, dated 1 March and 23 December 1889, Mr Dinshaw Cowasjee Pochkhanawalla, Nanabhoy Maneckjee Gazder, and 53 others complained about the erection of a stable by Keikhosrow in the vicinity of their properties situated in Karelwady, Thakurdwar Lane (Merwanjee Framjee Panday Street, 1b). They asked for the street in question to be taken over by the municipality as Keikhosrow, in their opinion, was encroaching on land that did not belong to him. Their main concern was that the ‘building coming in such close proximity to the houses on the other, that is northern side of the lane (such lane being 15 feet wide only), as to be objectionable to those houses on sanitary grounds’. Furthermore, they were concerned that the stable could catch fire as hay would be stored there, the chances of which would be heightened by ‘the unfortunate habit of the people to throw about lighted beedies [Indian type of cigarette]’.¹¹⁰

In the same year, the British Colonel Edward Ross wrote that he ‘met Mr. Ardeshir some years ago, and I believe that he is a respectable man of fairly good family and some education’.¹¹¹ Lieutenant Vaughan corroborated that:

Ardeshir is a man of unusual ability: he has taken a degree at an Indian College, and having resided many years in India, is a naturalized British subject (…) and speaks English fluently. He has great influence among his own community and has friends among the leading Mahomedan merchants, who are tolerant as regards other creeds.¹¹²

Vaughan continued that not only ‘[n]early all the foreign traffic of Yezd’ but also of

…Bombay and other important places is in the hands of a few well-known Parsis of Yezd, such as Ardeshir Mehrban, his brothers and a number of others. So much so indeed that the Muhammadan traders are in a great measure obliged to entrust the management of their business to the Parsis, both in buying and selling, as well as in exporting and importing. They also purchase bills of exchange on places to and from Yezd, and also on foreign countries from the Parsis.¹¹³

In January 1890, a British source depicted Ardeshir Mehrabān as ‘the leading Parsi merchant’ of his time.¹¹⁴ Similarly, in 1892, Lord Curzon described him as the ‘leading merchant’ of the Zoroastrian community of Yazd and ‘a man of high repute’.¹¹⁵ In effect, the bulk of the foreign trade of Yazd and a considerable portion of the trade of Bombay, Kerman, Shiraz, and other cities was under the control of Zoroastrian merchants such as Ardeshir Mehrabān, his brothers, and others. As already indicated, these merchants even entered into trade relations with Yazdi Muslims who felt compelled to consign a considerable amount of the management of their business into the hands of their Zoroastrian counterparts. In any event, the Mehrabān family continued its commercial activities and also purchased bills of exchange which suggests that they were active in the business of moneylending.¹¹⁶ Browne, for example, drew 30 toman (nearly £10) in cash for his travelling expenses and obtained a check on Ardeshir for the balance still remaining to his credit (147.5 toman or about £45).¹¹⁷ In a revealing letter written by Ardeshir Mehrabān himself, we learn about his financial activities and his considerable property holdings in both Persia and India. Most notably, he attested that he was a landowner in Bombay and Poona, owning landed property to the value of about Rs 75,000. At Yezd, his birthplace, he managed ‘the business of Agency for the present’. There, he possessed landed property to the value of about Rs 60,000.¹¹⁸

Ardeshir Mehrabān acting as agent of the New Oriental Bank

The specific role and significance of Ardeshir's position in the New Oriental Bank as well as his function as an interlocutor for Indian (not just Parsi) merchants is still shrouded in obscurity. However, as Lieutenant Vaughan pointed out:

Formerly a small company of Hindu or Multani¹¹⁹ traders used to reside in Yezd. They had no protection, and the Moslems used every means and pretext to ruin them, and in this they succeeded…The merchants of Peshawar who are British subjects, want to export indigo and China green tea to Meshed and Bokhara, but are afraid to do so as freely as they would, and are obliged to betake themselves to the Parsis. Ardeshir Mehrban of Yezd, who is commission agent for a company of these merchants, says that if a British Agent were stationed here, the Peshawar merchants would venture to do business on a much more extensive scale, either by themselves or through the Parsis; and as a result…their business would spread to almost all the important places of Persia…The need of banking corporations was formerly strongly felt. That necessity is now in some degree lessened owing to the establishment of the new Oriental Bank Corporation, Limited, at Teheran, who possess an agent at Yezd, Ardeshir Mehrban.¹²⁰

As the aforementioned quote suggests, Ardeshir was an agent of the New Oriental Bank. Lord Curzon gave the following account of this bank:

…in 1888, the New Oriental Bank Corporation decided to include Persia within the sphere of its Asiatic operations, and opened Oriental branches or established agencies in Teheran, Meshed, Tabriz, Resht, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Bushire. As a trading company, dealing in a branch of commerce open to all, it required no special concession from the Persian Government. Renting a palatial building occupying one entire side of the Meidan-i-Tupkhaneh in the capital, after only a year's existence it already, at the time of my visit, did a considerable business both there and in the provinces. The Persians were beginning to understand the meaning of a deposit account and the value of a fixed and certain interest upon their savings. The bank paid two and a half per cent, on current accounts, four per cent, on those running for six months, and six per cent, on yearly deposits. It had already lowered the rate of interest on loans to twelve per cent., and was reported to have lent money to the Shah at from six to eight per cent. The Oriental Bank had also introduced and familiarised the natives with a form of paper money, in the shape of cashier's orders, for sums from five krans upward, payable to the hearer, which enjoyed a considerable circulation in the capital. After an existence of two years, the Persian branch of the Corporation was bought out for a substantial sum by the new Imperial Bank of Persia, which, entering upon the scene under the most favourable auspices, and with a wider ambition, rendered competition even less desirable to others than to itself. The Imperial Bank now reigns supreme.¹²¹

We may speculate that Ardeshir realised the increasing significance that banking would have in the future. In fact, this was one of the earliest instances where Zoroastrians and Persian subjects in general entered the modern banking system, even before the Zoroastrian trading house of Jahāniān—founded in Yazd in 1890—started carrying out modern banking operations.¹²² In any case, Vaughan further reported that after the governor of Yazd was recalled in 1889, and the city was without a ruler, Ardeshir was afraid of the ensuing chaos, and worried that money might be looted or extorted. Thus, Vaughan ‘stayed with him, as he said that, while an Englishman was his guest he would be safe. He did not actually state this, but I gathered it from his clerks.’¹²³ We do not know exactly what he was afraid of, as there is no concrete indication in the document in question. But generally speaking, whenever a governor passed away or was recalled to Tehran by the Shah, a period of uncertainty and disarray would upset the old order of things and threaten the status quo. Under these circumstances, it was particularly important for indigenous dignitaries to boast about enjoying the support of a foreign government and having protectorates. It is telling that, according to the then Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and foreign affairs specialist, the Marquess of Salisbury, in 1889, Ardeshir

…made indirect overtures to this Legation in order to obtain for himself the appointment of British Agent. From enquiries which I made here, he appears to be a very respectable merchant, who knows English very well, and holds a good financial position in the Eyes of the Branch of the new Oriental Bank Corporation lately established at Tehran.¹²⁴

As a matter of fact, Ardeshir was very eager to be appointed British Agent in Yazd, even without obtaining remuneration. There were several reasons for this. In his account, Edward Browne pointed out that, of ‘the English, towards whom they look as their natural protectors, the Persian Zoroastrians have a very high opinion (…) they believed that the British flag would protect their community even in times of the gravest danger’.¹²⁵ Ardeshir was not dependent on a British salary; however, being a British agent would not only have increased the security of both minorities and people of means, but also would have facilitated and provided new commercial opportunities. Nevertheless, as the British were not willing to spend money on the position they offered and expected Ardeshir to work without remuneration, he initially declined the offer.¹²⁶ In a letter that Ardeshir wrote on 22 September 1891, however, we learn that he had been working as a British agent for 15 months without any compensation and that he was even ‘willing to render my services free to the British Government’.¹²⁷ Thus, it seems that ultimately he agreed to work without payment. Ardeshir emphasised that his personal interests as well as those of his Zoroastrian community ‘accord with the interest of the British Government, to whose enlightened and beneficial rule we owe so much, as a flourishing community in the present day that it would be impossible for me to otherwise then render every loyal assistance that may be within my power’.¹²⁸ In mid-1892, authorisation was finally given to offer Ardeshir the appointment of unpaid Consular Agent.¹²⁹ But eventually, his nomination was revoked since some authorities were afraid that his selection would enrage and alienate the Muslim majority of the city. As General Gordon, one of those prudent authorities, pointed out, Zoroastrians were compelled

…to seek protection by payment. The well to do Gabers [Zoroastrians] as humble supplicants are a source of permanent profit for the Governor, the priest and their people and these would fight hard to retain this easy source of income…Considering the existing status of the Parsees at Yezd I think that it would be inexpedient & impolite to appoint a Parsee as British Agent there.¹³⁰

In other words, a Muslim proxy was eventually recommended to act as unpaid British agent at the expense of Ardeshir Mehrabān:

General Gordon has shown that the appointment of a Parsee gentleman as British Agent at Yezd would be politically inexpedient and commercially disadvantageous, His Lordship [Earl of Kimberley] accepts his suggestion that Mahomedan gentlemen should be selected for nomination as unpaid British Agents at Yezd and Kirman.¹³¹

More data are needed to determine what this episode reveals about British relations with Ardeshir and the wider Persian Zoroastrian community. But apparently, at this juncture, the British were of the opinion that it would be more prudent, convenient, and beneficial in fostering delicate British interests in Persia to appoint a Muslim agent and abstain from increased Zoroastrian involvement.

Conclusion

Regarding the late nineteenth and early twentieth century careers of the members of the Mehrabān family, little information could be obtained. We know that Godarz passed away sometime between 1898 and 1903.¹³² It also remains unclear when and where Ardeshir's life came to an end. Nonetheless, we know that he did not die before 1902. A. H. S. Landor provides evidence of this. Landor not only claimed that the ‘most prominent members of the Yezd community, especially the sons of Meh[r]eban Rustam, have been the pioneers of trade between Yezd and India’,¹³³ he also mentioned that the Zoroastrians of Yazd had a ‘national assembly’ called the Anjuman-e-Nasseri and that Ardeshir was its president. He continued that:

The Association has an elected body of twenty-eight members, all honorary, the most venerable and intelligent of the community, and its aims are to advocate the social rights of the Zoroastrians as a race, to settle disputes arising between the individuals of the community, to defend helpless Parsees against Moslem wantonness, and to improve their condition generally.¹³⁴

According to Shahmardān, Ardershir's brother Keikhosrow was killed in a tramway accident in Bombay in 1905–1906 (1275 yazdgerdi).¹³⁵

In a nutshell, the leading Zoroastrian merchants of Yazd stood at the crossroads of incisive socio-economic transformations. The house of Mehrabān, that is, Rostam's sons and especially Ardeshir, were transitional figures par excellence. Their Parsi benefactors had already embarked upon a similar, but much more spectacular, climb over 100 years earlier. Not unlike some of his affluent Parsi co-religionists, Ardeshir personified the gradual emergence of an Iranian bourgeoisie straddling the urban centres of nineteenth-century Persia and India, notably Yazd and Bombay. In the wake of their role as British compradors, intermediaries of Indo-Persian trade, bankers, wealthy property owners, philanthropists, and leaders of the Zoroastrian community of Yazd, the Mehrabāns became precursors for later Zoroastrian magnates and statesmen such as the house of Jahāniān, Arbāb Jamshid, and Arbāb Keikhosrow Shāhrokh. On that score, the activities of the Mehrabān family marked a milestone in Iranian Zoroastrian-Indian Parsi as well as Iranian Zoroastrian-British Indian relations. Indeed, an amalgam of five interlocked factors help to understand the ascent of the house of Mehrabān: 1) the longue durée socio-economic prosperity in Yazd; 2) the existing Zoroastrian activities of that city in the first half of the nineteenth century; 3) the house of Mehrabān's role as successful entrepreneurs and British collaborators, including their function as agents of Indo-Persian trade, bankers, landowners, charity donors, and leaders of the Zoroastrian community of Yazd; 4) the vital support of the Persian Zoroastrian Amelioration Society from the mid-1850s and the ever-increasing support of the Persian state from the late 1840s through to the early 1890s, resulting in the limited improvement of the legal conditions of the Zoroastrian community of Yazd; as well as 5) the rising significance of global trade at the crossroads of Persia's protracted development towards an evolving capitalist mode of production. Nonetheless, the expansion of the house of Mehrabān was bounded by recurrent political instability, socio-economic impediments, and intermittent British support. This development was mirrored in Iran's passage, by the mid-nineteenth century, from slowly dissolving pre-capitalist socio-economic structures into an incipient capitalist—though admittedly fragile and susceptible—mode of production until the late nineteenth century.