Reasons for the Prospering Continuity of Tammami Family in Shiraz during the Qajar Period

Historians of Qajar Iran have tended to see the term shaykh al-islam referred to in the sources as a reference to the state appointed office of shaykh al-islām that existed in the Persianate world since Timurid times. More recently some scholars have suggested that in the Qajar era the designation no longer referred to an official post and was only a title which certain families that once held this position had inherited. This study will make use newly discovered archival sources to trace the usage of the term shaykh al-islam applied to several members of the Tammāmī family, an Arab émigré family that migrated to Iran during the Safavid period.The rise of the Tammāmī family can be traced to the Afshar period when members were first appointed to the post of shaykh al-islām of Shiraz. In the Qajar period, in particular between 1220-1323/1806-1906, leading members of the family were actively involved in the religious economy of the town. They were responsible for preparing and registering legal contracts and became administrators (mutawallīs) and supervisors (nāzirs) of a number of important religious endowments (waqfs) in Shiraz and Marvdasht. The increase in the social prestige of the leading members of the family during this period is also confirmed by marriage alliances with older more well established families of Shiraz. The advent of the Constitutional Revolution and subsequent reforms to the judicial system in Iran, however, weakened the position of the family and ultimately led to a decline in its prosperity.