Mohammad Shah Qajar
Mohammad Shah Qajar was the third Qajar shah of Iran from 1834 to 1848, inheriting the throne from his grandfather, Fath-Ali Shah. From a young age, Mohammad Mirza was under the tutelage of Haji Mirza Aqasi, a local dervish from Tabriz whose teachings influenced the young prince to become a Sufi-king later in his life. After his father Abbas Mirza died in 1833, Mohammad Mirza became the crown prince of Iran and was assigned with the governorship of Azarbaijan. After the death of Fath-Ali Shah in 1834, some of his sons including Hossein Ali Mirza and Ali Mirza Zel as-Soltan rose up as claimants to the throne. Mohammad Shah soon suppressed the rebellious princes and asserted his authority.
Mohammad Shah dismissed and executed his tactful premier, Abol-Qasem Qa'em-Maqam, and appointed his favourite, Haji Mirza Aqasi, as the grand vizier. The new shah's main goal was to reestablish the rule of the Iranian government in the rebellious city of Herat. In 1837 he marched to Herat and laid a futile siege on the city, which was eventually withdrawn when the British government threatened to invade Iran. On his return, Mohammad suppressed a revolt in Isfahan led by the major clergy figure Mohammad Bagher Shafti. Through British-Russian mediation, he concluded the Second Treaty of Erzurum with the Ottoman Empire, after initially wanting retaliation for the sack of Khorramshahr by the Ottoman governor of Baghdad in Ottoman Iraq.
Due to British pressure, Mohammad Shah reluctantly prohibited the slave trade through the Persian Gulf, but still allowed the possession and trade of slaves in the country. During the rise of the Bábism faith and its prophet Báb, Mohammad refused to persecute them despite the fatwa imposed by Shiite clerics. Diplomatic relations between France and Iran recommenced during his reign. Mohammad suffered from gout, which overshadowed his reign. In the final years of his life, his physical health deteriorated, leading to his death from a combination of gout and erysipelas on 4 September 1848 at the age of 40 after fourteen years of reign. He was buried at the Fatima Masumeh Shrine in Qom and was succeeded by his son, Naser al-Din Shah.
As a ruler, Mohammad Shah did not receive praise. He was labeled as a figurehead king for Aqasi, whom he was highly dependent on. Mohammad was devoted to both Aqasi and his teachings on Sufism; he became a willing sustainer of Sufis, and sought spiritual guidance in mystical rituals instead of the marji'i taqlīd. The ulama grew as his firmest rivals, who challenged his legitimacy and authority throughout his reign. Mohammad enlarged the Qajar bureaucracy, and filled governmental positions with Aqasi's Sufi friends and companions, thus establishing a corrupt administration that saw its peak during his son's reign. Mohammad Shah was the last Qajar king who attended the battlefield in a foreign war, and was also the last to use the title Ghazi for his activity in the Iran-Russia war and for suppressing the rebellion in Isfahan.
Background
The Russian Empire invaded the Caucasus in 1795, when Agha Mohammad Khan, the founder of the Qajar dynasty, was reconquering the eastern provinces of Iran. Thus, Agha Mohammad was forced to withdraw his army and march towards the Caucasus without consolidating his rule in the east, including in Herat. The Russian army retreated before he could reach the Caucasus, and Agha Mohammad was assassinated in 1797 in Shusha. His realm never reached the far east of Greater Khorasan. Agha Mohammad Khan was succeeded by his nephew, Fath-Ali Shah. During the reign of Fath-Ali Shah, tensions in Iranian-Russian relations escalated and turned into two full scale wars which saw the defeat of Iran in several stages. According to the treaties of Gulistan and Turkmenchay, large parts of the realm were ceded and Iran was forced to make many concessions to Russia. The war also tarnished Iran's global image as being a weak state with unstable borders.In Europe, the British Empire had emerged, gained sovereignty over India and viewed Iran as a strong barrier to prevent Russia from gaining access to the region. On the other hand, it was well known that the Russian Empire, in its quest to reach the open waters in southern Iran, intended to expand its sovereignty over Iranian territory. Thus, during the reign of Fath-Ali Shah, the Iranian political stage was a competition between the Russian and British governments to receive numerous concessions and expand political influence.
In the years between the two wars with Russia, a conflict broke out between Iran and the Ottoman Empire in 1821, which ended with the military victory of Iran and the conclusion of the First Treaty of Erzurum in 1823. The treaty did not resolve fundamental differences, the most important of which was the unclear borders of the two nations. There were also disputes such as the persecution of Iranian pilgrims to Shiite holy sites by the Ottomans and the citizenship of border tribes. Another contentious issue was the trade rivalry between Khorramshahr and Basra.
From the beginning of his reign, Fath-Ali Shah tried to present himself as a pious king in the eyes of the Shiite clerics and went so far as to declare his monarchy a subrogation for the ulama. During his reign, Isfahan once again took on the image of the religious capital of Iran, and the government left Shiite clerics free to persecute religious minorities. Sufis suffered the most. Fath-Ali Shah took it upon himself to lead their persecution, for example, ordering the "suffocation" of the Sufi leaders of Tabriz.
Early life
Childhood
Mohammad Mirza was born on 5 January 1808 in Tabriz. He was the eldest son of crown prince Abbas Mirza and Galin Khanum, daughter of Mirza Mohammad Khan Qajar Davallu. During his childhood and youth, Mohammad Mirza was a "quiet" and "shy" boy with no apparent political ambitions. He completed his traditional princely education in Tabriz and became a skilled calligrapher and painter, he learned the latter from the Scottish artist Robert Ker Porter. His level of knowledge, however, was limited compared to that of his brothers, especially Djahangir Mirza and Farhad Mirza, who excelled in writing and other "branches of science". A turning point in his life was the arrival of the local dervish, Haji Mirza Aqasi, in his father's household. By the orders of Abbas Mirza's majordomo, Mirza Bozorg Qa'em-Maqam, Aqasi was appointed the chief tutor to Mohammad, who quickly became a devotee of his Sufi teachings. Abol-Qasem Qa'em-Maqam, another of Mohammad's tutors, tried to dissuade Mohammad from studying under Aqasi, but Aqasi's influence on Mohammad increased.When Mohammad Mirza was 12 years old, Fath-Ali Shah summoned him to Tehran to marry Malek Jahan Khanom, the daughter of Mohammad Qasim Khan Zahir al-Dawla, to establish solidarity between the royal family and the Davallu cadet branch of the Qajar dynasty. The marriage, which took place in September 1819, was loveless. As a result of the recurring deaths of their infants, Mohammad Mirza developed resentment towards Malek Jahan. Of their children, only Naser al-Din Mirza, who later became the crown prince and then king of Iran; and Ezzat ed-Dowleh, who married Amir Kabir, later the chief minister of Naser al-Din Shah; survived into adulthood.
Early military career
The Second Russo-Iranian War began with the declaration of jihad by the Shiite clerics. During the war, Abbas Mirza sent Mohammad Mirza with an army consisting of the tribes of Khajevandi and Abdul Maliki to protect the fortress of Ganja. There, under the command of Amir Khan Sardar, Abbas Mirza's maternal uncle, Mohammad launched an attack on the Russian army. In the resulting battle, Amir Khan was killed and Mohammad was severely defeated and forced to retreat; he, however, was praised for his efforts during the war and was nicknamed a Gazi. After the war, Fath Ali Shah appointed Abbas Mirza to rule Khorasan and regulate the security of that area, which suffered constant raids by Prince Kamran, whom the Iranian government had previously appointed as the governor of Herat and who now styled himself "Shah". Mohammad Mirza also accompanied his father on this trip. In one of his missions, Mohammad released nearly 20,000 Iranians held captive by Central Asian Sunni tribes; in honor of this victory, he named his newborn child "Naser al-Din".Abbas Mirza spent two years in Khorasan suppressing rebel khans; Khiva and Herat supported these revolts and promised aid but Mohammad's victories discouraged them. In 1832, Abbas Mirza summoned Kamran Shah, the ruler of Herat, to pay tribute, but Kamran instead sent his vizier Yar Mohammad Khan. Feeling insulted, Abbas Mirza sent Mohammad Mirza with an army to Herat. Mohammad Mirza advanced directly to Herat and prepared for a siege. Meanwhile, Abbas Mirza was on his way with reinforcements when he suddenly died in Mashhad. Upon hearing the news, Mohammad Mirza and Abol-Qasem Qa'em-Maqam, who was also a leading figure in the siege, were forced to negotiate with Kamran. It was agreed that Kamran would accept the sovereignty of Iran, pay 15,000 tomans in gold and fifty Kashmir shawls, and release the Iranian prisoners who had been captured during the war. Mohammad appointed his brother Ghahreman Mirza as the governor of Khorasan and, with Qa'em-Maqam, went to Tehran to claim the title of crown prince.
Accession
At Nowruz of 1834, Mohammad Mirza was appointed the crown prince and took the governorship of Azarbaijan—the office of his father—and left Tehran for Tabriz. As crown prince, Mohammad Mirza was under the complete influence of Qa'em-Maqam, on whose orders, he imprisoned four of his brothers, including Djahangir Mirza and Khosrow Mirza, in Hamadan and later blinded them to invalidate their claims to the throne. The appointment of Mohammad as the crown prince angered Fath-ali Shah's fifth son Hossein Ali Mirza, the Prince-Governor of Fars, who thought the appointment would deprive him of his rights and was a sign of submission to Russian demands.In October 1834, Fath-Ali Shah, with the intention of collecting 200,000 tomans of tax arrears from Hossein Ali Mirza, went to Fars but died en route at Isfahan. Couriers were quickly sent to Tabriz but otherwise, the shah's death remained secret. His body was then taken to the Fatima Masumeh Shrine for burial; only then was the death publicly announced. As expected, his death sparked revolts across the country, and a number of princes, including Hossein Ali Mirza in Shiraz and Ali Mirza Zel as-Soltan in Tehran, proclaimed themselves kings.
In early November, John Campbell and Comte Ivan Simonich, the British and Russian envoys, arrived in Tabriz to proclaim their support for Mohammad Mirza. They provided him an army led by Col. Henry Lindsay Bethune that set off for Tehran, where Ali Mirza had proclaimed himself king. Mohammad's army met 15,000 of Ali Mirza's men, who were led by Ali's brother Emamverdi Mirza, at Takestan, west of Qazvin. After a brief confrontation, Emamverdi Mirza sought to surrender and pledge fealty to Mohammad. The new king agreed to waive his uncles' punishment. In early 1835, Mohammad entered the capital with Qa'em-Maqam, his courtiers and Russian and British ambassadors, and was crowned king on 14 January.
In February 1835, Mohammad sent an army under the command of Manuchehr Khan Gorji to liberate Isfahan from Hossein Ali Mirza's forces, who were under the command of his brother Shoja al-Saltanah. After reconquering Isfahan, Manuchehr Khan Gorji marched to Shiraz, where he captured Hossein Ali Mirza and ended his rebellion. Hossein Ali was imprisoned in Ardabil and soon died of cholera; with his defeat, the other rebel princes surrendered their claims and recognized Mohammad as the king of Iran.