نشریه اسناد بهارستان
شماره 3 (پیاپی -3، پاییز 1390)

Preface: The following is a copy of a bill of sale entered into by and between Jules Richard’s daughter, Zeinab Khanom, and Muhammad Mosaddeq for the sale of 12480 square meters of lands in Darvazeh Dowlat in 1900. Zeinab Khanom was Mirza Hussein Khan Sediq al-Mamalek’s wife and Mirza Yousef Rishar Mo’adab al-Molk’s sister. His father, Jules Richard, was a Frenchman who came to Iran during Muhammad Shah’s rule and converted to Islam. In late 1879, he was granted the title of Khan by Nasir al-Din Shah and became known as Rishar Khan. He was one of the first professors of the Dar al- Fonoun and also worked as the translator of French and English languages for the Ministry of Publications and Translation. Rishar Khan’s posts were later transferred to his son, Mirza Yousef Rishar Mo’adab al-Molk. However, little is known about his daughter. Muhammad Mosaddeq bought the said property which was part of old Tehran lands before leaving Tehran for Europe to continue his studies abroad. Regarding the discovery of this documents and its present-day owner, it is worth reminding that Mosaddeq’s house was plundered and his documents were scattered on the streets during the CIA-orchestrated coup of 1953. A citizen of Khur and Biabanak named Haj Ismail Moqimi who resided in Tehran found the document on the Kakh Street (Modern Felestin Street) that evening and kept it for years. The researcher met one of his friends and a relative of Haj Moqimi, Ismail Amin, on a recent trip to Khur and Biabanak and received the document in order to publish it in one of his articles….

Preface: Late Sayyid Reza Al-e Muhammad, son of Sayyid Aqa, was amongst the researchers and scholars who lived in anonymity and studied the history and culture of Arasbaran without letting anyone knowing about it. He was born into an old, established, and devout family in Ahar on 16 February 1934. He studied numerous books, including Sarf-e Mir, Nisab al-Sibyan, Gulistan, Ahsan al-Murselat, Abwab al-Jinan, and Kalila and Dimna and learned to read the Holy Quran under his father’s tution. Later, he expanded his knowledge of literature and sciences under Shaikh Ja’far Ijtihadi, Shaikh Hassan Barqi, and Sayyid Ja’far Bani Hashim and left for Tabriz in 1951 to join its seminary. There, he settled in Hassan Padeshah School and received tuition from Mirza Imran Alizadeh, Mirza Ali Asghar Baqmishe’i, Sayyid Mustafa Mowlana, Sayyid Ibrahim Darwaze’i, Mirza Ali Akbar Ahari – called Nahvi - and Mirza Abolfazl Sediq Sarabi….

The archive of Iranian Parliament Documents Center holds a document on Majd al-Islam Kermani penned after his death by his children. Different sources contain scattered and contradictory information on his life and activities which are sometimes unfair and unreal due to political orientations of his time. Therefore, this document has considerable significance as it demystifies an important part of Majd al-Islam’s life. It is, in fact, a letter written by his children complaining against their paternal uncle. They seem to have sent the letter to different newspapers and asked them to publish it. This paper contains the copy of the letter which appeared in the Homay Newspaper.

Little has been done to study the available documents on Iran’s oil history in the past century, and a dire need for an academic research using Persian and English documents and a new analytical method to investigate the history of Iran’s oil at the turn of the 2 th century is felt. While the English documents are rather one-sided, they contain unprecedented new information about Iran’s oil history in the 1900s and 1910s. Therefore, a critical look at these documents enables the researchers to use their content to demystify the history of Iran’s oil at the turn of the 20th century. Using Persian and English documents, this paper seeks to highlight the British role in concluding the D’Arcy Oil Concession, determine the degree of their interference in Iranian oil industry, and show the diplomacy they adopted and the measures they took to enter Iran’s oilfields. The Persian Translations of some English documents on Iran’s oil at the turn of the 20th century are given in the end of the paper.

Preface: The following document is a report which was prepared by the head of the 1st Political Bureau of Iranian Foreign Ministry and member of Russo-Persian Boundary Commission in Khorasan, Mo’azzam al-Molk, and sent to Iranian legation in Kabul in 1923. Having studied Iran-Afghanistan borderline and the Helmand waters sharing bill, he unveils its ambiguities and shortcomings in this report. On the one hand, this document reveals Iran Afghanistan relations prospects, Iran’s rightful claims to the river, Iranian politicians’ dissatisfaction with the decision, and London’s interference in other countries’ internal affairs. On the other hand, it refers to other disputes over Mirjaveh, Baluchistan boundaries, and Turkman Sahra region. The said report was part of the researcher’s personal collection of documents which was donated to the Iranian Parliament Library in 2010.

Abstract Readers of this paper are provided with 125 religious deeds and documents of Kurdistan Province of Iran. Dating back to 1742-1931, nearly all of them were neatly drafted and approved by senior Shafi’i jurists of Kurdistan. Part of a larger collection, the Moshir Diwan Collection was taken over by the Endowment and Charity Affairs Organization in 2005. It contains some lease contracts, confession letters, transfer letters, distribution letters, affidavits, deeds of conveyance, letters of exchange, deeds of revocable sale, deeds of irrevocable sale, farm lease contracts, letters of religious offering, correspondences, petitions, and religious decrees. It is worth mentioning that deeds of irrevocable sale outnumber other deeds and contracts. The fact that tens of villages and farms are mentioned in these deeds contributes to a better knowledge of local history and geography of Kurdistan and Hamadan. Moreover, researchers would resort to these deeds in order to conduct new studies on dignitaries and ownership conditions of the two provinces. Moshir Diwan Collection sheds some light on the active role played by Shaikh al-Islam Qazi, Mullabashi, and Sanandaj leader of Friday prayer in approving these deeds and documents.

After the 1953 Coup of Iran, the politics of the nationalist religious forces once known as the religious triangle of the nationalization of Iranian oil industry; i.e. Grand Ayatollah Boroujerdi who sought seclusion, pro-Ayatollah Kashani political forces who took up the gauntlet, and the Fada’iyan-e Islam group who set their sights on establishing an Islamic state, became divergent due to the relative neutrality of the first group and the pains suffered by the remaining two groups. After coming to power by the British and US-led coup against the nationalist government of Muhammad Mosaddeq, the ruling elite, thus, took the tough line against the nationalist forces, the Tudeh Party of Iran, and particularly those nationalist forces with religious inclinations. However, the said forces resumed their political activities the next day the coup ended and cooperated with other nationalist elements or participated independently in activities such as establishing the National Resistance Movement of Iran, convening meetings of the Wednesday Followers group, opposing the oil consortium, feeding the students with information in Islamic students societies, and holding a seminar on the role and the position of the Maraji (Muslim spiritual guides) whose proceedings appeared in A Discussion on Maraji and Clerics. The present article contains parts of these activities, including the famous statement of some senior clerics, statesmen and university professors to both the lower and the upper houses of the Majlis in opposition to the oil consortium and its consequences in 15 documents.

The present article studies a letter in German by the renowned orientalist, Theodor Nöldeke, who penned it in 1930 shortly before his death. In this letter, Nöldeke recites memories of his trips and researches on Turkic languages. He also refers to the Austrian great orientalist, Hammer-Purgstall, and then to the ninety fifth year of his life in the concluding sentences of the letter.

Nasir al-Din Shah’s Mostowfi and Prime Minister, Mirza Yousef Mostowfi al-Mamalek Ashtiani, was one of the landowners of Ashtian, Farahan, and Khalajestan. The village of Kondroud in Khalajestan County of Qom Province is located 50 kilometers northeast of Ashtian. Mirza Yousef paid this beautiful farming village as blood money to the heirs of Mulla Abd al-Azim Ashtiani – a member of E’tesam al-Molk family - who was executed instead of Mirza Ja’far Ashtiani by mistake. In 1906, Mirza Yousef’s only son, Mirza Hassan Khan Mostowfi al-Mamalek, transferred the rest of the said properties to the victim’s descendants and appointed two of Aqa Mirza Hassan Mujtahid Ashtiani’s sons, Mirza Hashim and Aqa Shaikh Murtaza, as legal guardians of Mulla Abd al-Azim’s young grandson in order to prevent its misuse. These documents provide the readers with an account of Kondroud’s transfer, list of its income and expenditure, the E’tesam al- Molk family tree, Mirza Hashim’s letter to the deputy governor of Ashtian, and the payment of Mo’tasem al-Molk’s funds to Molouk Khanom.

Sayyid Ali Tajer Bayrami was a member of Shirazi Sayyids family who were all tradesmen serving as Vakil al-Ro’aya (Representative of the People) from generation to generation in southern Iran. He possessed a lucrative business company in Qajar-era Shiraz and purportedly maintained extensive political and commercial relations in southern Iran. Sayyid Ali once represented the Fars Trade Association. Correspondences relating to his domestic and overseas business are available in which he has been greeted as “Khair al- Haj Haji Sayyid Ali Tajer Bayrami.” Qajar and Indian coins and documents such as provincial orders, tax orders, contracts, bills, pay rolls, and drafts are amongst the documents left behind by his family. The publication of the said documents expands the knowledge on the economic life and trade relations in Qajar-era Iran. Wrong tax policies, unsafe roads, and general recession, particularly in southern Iran made the merchants gather in the Fars Trade Association in order to meet Sayyid Ali. A petition signed by 50 merchants in 1904 is a testimony to unsafe roads and the dangers the merchants faced in Qajar era. This petition files their bitter complaint to Sayyid Ali about the chaos and lack of economic security and their negative impacts on the market and social life. The author of this paper publishes unpublished trade documents in order to study an important period of southern Iran’s economic life in one of the most sensitive eras of Iranian history.

In the last three decades of Qajar Iran, some journalists were called by their newspapers’ titles and later took them as their family names. The author of this paper has compiled a list of such journalists, including Muhammad Hussein Istakhr, Lotfollah Taraqqi, Hussein Tawfiq, Muhammsd Hussein Hayat Shirazi, Sadiq Rezazadeh Shafaq, Reza Rahnama, Qasem Sur-e Esrafil, Mahmoud Tolou’ (Reza), Baqer Talie’, Muhammsd Hussein Idalat, Ahmad Erfan, Mirza Aqa Asr-e Inqilab, Morteza Farhang, Hussein Kamal, Muhammad Taqi Gulistan, Ali Akbar Gulshan-e Azadi, Muhammad Reza Mowasat, Ibrahim Nahid, and Muhammad Nejat Khorasani. A closer look reveals that there are two journalists called Azad in the list. One of them is Abolqasem Azad Maraghe’i, concessionaire of the Azad (published in Tabriz), Asayesh, and Parsi newspapers. The other one is Abd al- Qadir Azad Sabzevari who held the concession of the Azad Newspaper published in Mashhad and Tehran. This research was prompted by newly-found documents on Azad’s life and is composed of three parts: his biography based on the Dictionary of Iranian Great men of Press (Qasemi, forthcoming); newly-found documents on his life; and an appendix to complete the first two parts.

The present paper contains Nasir al-Din Shah’s memories of his trip to Doshan- Tappeh during 1301-2 Hegira. In the year 1999, a book was written by Parviz Badi’i and published by the former National Documents Organization of Iran under the title “The Diaries and Daily Notes of Nasir al-Din Shah”. While I was going through the said diaries, I noticed that a number of memories during 1301 and 1302 Hegira had been missing. Later, when I went through other documents, I realized that Nasir al-Din Shah had collected his memories of Doshan-Tappeh in a separate collection. Here the mentioned memories are presented.

The present article is allocated to an investigation into the events in Bushehr in the course of Iran-Britain relations in December 1903 when Lord Curzon, the then Lord of India made a trip to Persian Gulf. What was called as conflict in welcoming Curzon to Bushehr made him avoid getting off the board of the ship. The event tarnished the ties between the two countries, which took some time for the authorities to resolve the issues that arose. This article is prepared on the basis of detailed reports extracted from the newspapers and other publications and governmental documents of the said period available in the governmental documents archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Preface: Some notes by Khan-Malek Sasani were given to me by a friend for the purpose of publication. The notes are a compilation, 14 by 21 cm in size and in Khan- Malek’s own handwriting. Of the total 46 pages, pages 4 to 17 of the notes are unfortunately missing. What stated in the writings is of great value and contains the following information: 1- There is a short note touching Seif al-Molk, the Ambassador Extraordinary of Iran to Saint Petersburg during the chancellorship of Mirza Aqakhan Nouri. I had prepared some materials as the introduction to his travel account to Russia, whose publication was not authorized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as the publisher of the said travel account.2- Issues on crimes of the Russian army in Iran;3- Nosrat al-Saltaneh’s comments on Nasir al-Din Shah;4- Nasir al-Din Shah’s falling in love with Countess Mita, daughter of Minister Plenipotentiary of Austria;5- Comments by European ambassadors concerning excavations in certain parts of Iran and Khan Malek Sasani’s perspective in this respect;6- Issues on Iran;7- Journalism and unity and Khan Malek Sasani’s comments, which is among his best writings;8- The eclipse of Islam and Khan Malek’s viewpoint and his support of Islam;9- Apology and humiliation? How far? The above notes have been written by Khan Malek in Lausanne, Switzerland, from the month of Shahrivar to Aban of 5129.

Preface: Since early times in their traditions, Iranians who were generally engaged in doing good deeds and endangering prosperity in their regions and helping the poor and the wretched, were of a plethora of endowments dedicated for preservation of their fire temples. A number of such endowments are found in some Iranian cities such as Yazd and Kerman still in place with the Zoroastrians living in these areas. Evidence shows that the famous fire temple of Azargoshasb in Balkh has been full of endowments, yet how they were offered as endowment in the pre-Islamic period, and the definition, specifications and legal provisions for such endowments are unknown. Since the emergence of Islam and the comprehensive science of Fiqh and the strong Islamic law, history of endowment and its definition and related provisions are clearly known and codified in different jurisprudential books, literature and narrations. Endowment means freezing the object of property by the owner in such a manner that its profit may revert or be applied for the cause of God and for the benefit of mankind as specified by the endower. As it was recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari, the Holy Prophet (pbuh) endowed a piece of land and dedicated its profits as charity to way farers, a dedication which serves as the first instance of endowment in Islam. Kamran-Mirza, known as Nayeb Saltaneh, was the third son of Nasir al-Din Shah, the Super Commander, Minister of War and Commander of the Army, under whose supervision was the rule of Tehran and a number of other regions in Iran for several years. He was the Minister of war for sixteen years from 1297 to 1313 Hegira (1880–1895 CE). In 1290 Hegira (1873 CE) before Nasir al-Din Shah went on a journey to Europe, he appointed Kamran-Mirza, his 18-year old son, as his viceroy and Farhad-Mirza Mo’tamed al-Dowlah, as his keeper, and later appointed him as the governor of Tehran in 1292 Hegira (1875 CE). In 1293 Kamran-Mirza was also appointed as governor of Qom, Saveh, Zarand and Kashan and in 1295 (1878 CE) and 1306 (1888 CE) when Nasir al-Din Shah went to Europe again, he appointed Kamran-Mirza as the viceroy. During the reign of Mozaffar al-Din Shah, too, Kamran-Mirza was appointed minister of war for a while, and in time of Ahmad Shah he was governor of Khorasan until he died in 1307 Hegira in solar calendar (1928 CE). Among the documents available to the author of the present article is a draft document of endowment which shows Kamran Mirza had dedicated some property and objects to the Holy Shrines of Imam Hussein, Abu al-fadhl Abbas, Qasim, Ali al-Akbar and Ali al-Asghar (Peace be upon them all).

The Russian advance into Central Asia was concomitant with Qajar government’s conflicts with its Turkmen subjects in north-eastern borders which finally came to an end with Iran’s suffering defeat at the Battle of Merv (1859) and its elimination form the regional competition for power. By the end of 1876, the entire region of Turkistan, except for eastern Caspian region (the Turkmen-dominated region of Iran), had fallen to Russian forces. These accomplishments encouraged the Russians to complete their mission by capturing the Turkmen-dominated lands of north-eastern Iran. London’s double standards and political passivity of Qajar government towards the Russian’s advance in Iran’s Turkmen-dominated regions which stemmed from Russian’s threats and Nasir al-Din Shah’s enmity with Turkmen set the stage for Russian’s victory. As a consequence, Treaty of Akhal was signed between Iran and Russia on 21 September 1881 under which parts of north-eastern Iran were surrendered to Russia. However, the Russians continued their advance and managed to annex Merv and Old Sarakhs under the new name Transoxiana to their territories in 188. This paper is an attempt to uncover the main reasons behind Qajar government’s passivity towards the Russian’s unopposed advance into north-eastern Iran and the subsequent loss of large parts of Iranian territory.

Seals are amongst the most important historical artifacts which play a significant role in introducing the cultures and civilizations of the past. A study of their carvings broadens our knowledge about the artistic and cultural lives of past generations and the social, political, economic, and cultural conditions in which they used to live. The author of the present article depicts and studies some Islamic-era seals, particularly those of the Safavid Iran in order to illuminate some chapters of the uncharted history of Iran. Being addressed for the first time, the seals were selected from Safavid-era collection of seals housed by the Ancient Persia Museum to gain access to parts of Safavid-Iran history and art.