Persia Under the Qajars • 181pushing into the Caucasus region and into such Central Asian lands as
Transoxiana, Khwarizm, and Khurasan. The czars' ultimate goal was to con¬
quer the Persian Gulf region. Britain, concerned with the defense of India,
vacillated between a policy of backing Persia's government and one of seiz¬
ing parts of its southern territory. The Qajars designated Tehran, hitherto an
obscure mountain town, their capital. Their rule rarely reached the country¬
side, which was controlled by absentee landlords and nomadic tribes. For
the most part, the shahs seemed intent on enriching themselves and enlarg¬
ing their families. One example is Fath Ali Shah (r. 1797-1834), who was
survived by 158 wives, 57 sons, 46 daughters, and almost 600 grandchildren.
Persians joked that "camels, lice, and princes are everywhere."
Persia had no Mehmet Ali, no Mahmud II, and precious little Tanzimat.
We could make a grudging exception for Nasiruddin Shah (r. 1848-1896).
He had got some on-the-job experience as crown prince ruling in Tabriz,
but because his father, the ruling shah, disliked him, young Nasiruddin re¬
ceived no funds with which to feed and clothe his soldiers and officials or
even to heat his palace. When he succeeded his father at the age of eighteen,
his progress from Tabriz to Tehran was impeded by tribal and village leaders
who importuned him for accession gifts he could not provide. Nasiruddin
never forgot his humiliation. He began his reign with a program of military,
economic, and educational reforms. Some factories were opened, and Teh¬
ran got its first bank and its first technical school. But the credit for these re¬
forms goes to his energetic prime minister, who antagonized Nasiruddin's
mother, a powerful figure in the Qajar court. He was suddenly executed in
- After that, Persia got embroiled in a war with Britain over control of
port cities in the Persian Gulf and mired in tribal and religious uprisings,
many of which were fueled by social and economic discontent against the
government. Even women joined in urban riots when bread and other
foodstuffs became scarce and expensive.
One religious movement that would have fateful consequences was the
revolt of a Shi'i Muslim who proclaimed himself the Bab, or precursor to
the hidden Twelfth Imam. Although the Bab was put to death in 1850, he
was succeeded by Baha'uUah who was exiled to Baghdad, then a part of
the Ottoman Empire. Later, he proclaimed himself a prophet and founded
the Baha'i faith, a universal religion of peace and unity that has won sup¬
port in the West but is now seen as a heresy in Iran, where since 1979 its
adherents have been persecuted by the Islamic republic.
Persia's state treasury never had enough money to pay for the things
Nasiruddin wanted to do, like building palaces and traveling to Europe. To
supplement revenues from taxes, which were hard to collect, the govern¬
ment set up monopolies over such economic activities as mining and