The Qajar Iran's Acquaintance with the Nizam of Hyderabad; A Study on the Manuscript of " The Quality of the Islamic Monarchy of Deccan"

Several volumes of the Indian-Persian translations corpus of the Qajar imperial translation office by Seyyed-Hosein Shirazi, Motarjem-e Hendi (=Hindi translator) are allocated to the Indian newspapers printed in the last decades of the 19th century. These manuscripts have been prepared, translated, written in calligraphy, finely designed, and pictured for the Persian King (Naser al-Din Shah Qajar), his son (Zel al-Soltan), and also his prime minister (Mirza Ali Asghar Khan Atabak, Amin al- Soltan) to study in private. This study concentrates on the manuscript of "The quality of the Islamic monarchy of Deccan", a brief history of the Asefjahi dynasty till the coronation of the 9th Nizam of Hyderabad, AsafJah VI, Mir Mahbub Ali Khan Siddiq, portraying Iran- India diplomatic relations and Qajar's acquaintance with the Nizam of Hyderabad before the Indian independence movement. Moreover, the manuscript indicates Persian translator's tenor and thoughts in article selection and its influence on the governors. It includes a rare original niello portrait of AsafJah VI by Iranian painter Abutorab Khan Ghaffari, introduced in this paper for the first time. Since all his masterpieces are printed in lithographic format in official newspapers, this painting can be considered a unique artwork in the Iranian contemporary art history and pictorial journalism.