Aliqoli Mirza Qajar (; 7 December 1822 – 14 December 1880) was an Iranian prince of the Qajar dynasty and scholar who served as the first Minister of Science in Qajar Iran. He was the forty-seventh son of Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (). Aliqoli Mirza was fascinated by the European Enlightenment and tried to spread its ideals in Iran. During the heyday of the Dar al-Fonun college, he was the headmaster of the school and played a key role in its survival.
In 1860, Shah Naser al-Din Shah established the Ministry of Science and appointed Aliqoli Mirza as its first Minister of Science. He served for 22 years and held various other positions, such as Minister of Mines and supervisor of education and crafts. He was responsible for building Iran's first telegraph line, he ran the government printing house, and he held the governorates of Malayer and Tuyserkan. He also supervised several newspapers, such as the Ruznameh-ye Mellati and Ruznameh-ye elmiya-ye dawlat aliya-ye Iran, the first Persian scholarly journal.
While Aliqoli Mirza wrote a variety of books on topics ranging from history to astronomy, his most important scientific work was a Persian-language interpretation of Newton's theories. Other notable works that he produced or participated in the composition of include: Nameh-ye Daneshvaran, a collection of biographies of Iranian and Muslim scholars; Al-Mutanabin, the history of religions; History of events and accidents in Afghanistan, the first Persian source that recorded the Anglo-Persian War; Exir al-Tavarikh; Fitna of Báb; and his own diwan . Aliqoli Mirza died in 1880 and was buried in Ray. Although his conservative proclivities slowed his initiatives, his work nevertheless proved influential during the Iranian Enlightenment.
Early life Aliqoli Mirza was born on 7 December 1822, the forty-seventh son of Fath-Ali Shah with his Armenian kanīz from Tbilisi, Gol-Pirhan Khanum. He received the traditional princely education and possibly learned the basics of modern sciences while serving as an attendant in his father's court. Aliqoli Mirza was closest to his younger brother, Jalal al-Din Mirza, who also became a scholar. His part-time tutor, Mirza Asghar Khan Afshar, had been the ambassador of Iran to France, and taught his knowledge of the Western world to the young prince, introducing him to writers of the Age of Enlightenment such as Rousseau and Voltaire. He was also taught archery, horse riding, and, of his own free will, French. In his early puberty, Aliqoli Mirza's conservative nature began to form, as he was put under the teachings of Mirza Nazar Ali Hakim bashi Qazvini, an influential Sufi who was also his brother-in-law.
The young prince also had an interest in Iranian poetry, especially Omar Khayyam. Khayyam had an influential role in Aliqoli Mirza's life, as, according to him, he never went to sleep without reading at least one of Khayyam's poems. Aliqoli Mirza witnessed the rise of Bábism and befriended many Bábists in his youth. One of them was Abdol-Rahim Heravi, who helped him gather a library.
Aliqoli Mirza wrote his first book of historiography, Exir al-Tavarikh, in 1837. He later criticised the work as "excessively influenced by Abd al-Razzak Bey's Ma'ater-e soltaniya".
Career
Dispute with Amir Kabir Aliqoli Mirza entered the politics of Qajar Iran in the early 1840s when his nephew, Mohammad Shah, appointed him regent and later minister to Malek Jahan Khanom. He administered her affairs, including the governorate of Khalkhal in Azerbaijan, whose income was delivered to Malek Jahan and was used in her household. In 1848, Mohammad Shah died, and a council of statesmen, called the People's Council — presided by Malek Jahan Khanom — was formed. Aliqoli Mirza was a member and also a candidate for premiership, along with Mirza Nazar Ali Khan. However, when the new Shah, Naser al-Din, arrived at Tehran with Mirza Taqi Khan Amir Kabir as his chosen prime minister, the council was abolished. Mirza Nazar Ali was sent into exile and Malek Jahan's official role was severely reduced, but Aliqoli Mirza retained his position as her minister. However, his initial presence on the council made Amir Kabir mistrust him, which persisted until the prime minister's death.
In February 1850, Amir Kabir's agents exposed an alleged Bábi plot to assassinate both the prime minister and the Imam of Friday of Tehran; Aliqoli Mirza was under strong suspicion when the royal guards found Abdol-Rahim Heravi hiding in his house. To discharge himself, he was pressured not only to surrender Abdol-Rahim, but to organise a raid by his servants on a Bábi meeting place in Tehran. However, Aliqoli Mirza mediated for Abdol-Rahim to only be imprisoned; he later took refuge in Ottoman Iraq. Later, to defend himself against the accusations, Aliqoli Mirza wrote Fitna of Báb. Although Aliqoli Mirza may have collaborated with Amir Kabir's opponents, there is no evidence to support the idea that he was among those who plotted Amir Kabir's dismissal and execution. He even stated that with Amir Kabir's death, "Persia, too, died."
Headmaster of Dar ul-Funun
Aliqoli Mirza's first activity at Dar al-Fonun was in 1852 or 1853, when he was appointed as a chief examiner and inspector to Amir Kabir's new government college. Although he was no longer in the service of Malek Jahan, he maintained good relations with her to avoid losing his powerful ally. He even married Mah Soltan Khanum, a dancer of the Shah's court, with her blessing. He also received the governorate of Tarom, previously Malek Jahan's estate, along with Malayer and Tuyserkan. In 1857, he was bestowed the title Etezad os-Saltaneh (), mainly because his book, History of Events and Accidents in Afghanistan, called the Battle of Khushab, which he witnessed, an honourable failure.
Aliqoli Mirza officially became the headmaster of Dar al-Fonun in 1858, and remained until the end of his life. He appointed the young Reza-Qoli Khan Hedayat as the college's principal and manager of day-to-day affairs, and built a large library, filled with his books and books brought by foreign teachers. Encouraged by Mirza Malkam Khan and the European teachers, in 1858 Aliqoli Mirza proposed to the Shah to build the first government-operated telegraph line in Persia, between Tehran and Tabriz. The telegraph line was engineered by Ahmad Karzbar, one of the teachers of Dar ul-Funun. In July 1859, when the Shah camped in Soltaniyeh, the line was to be used between the capital and the camp in Zanjan, and it soon afterwards reached Tabriz. In the same year, a failed assassination attempt and accusations made towards Malkam Khan's Freemasonry-inspired Faramosh Khaneh, prompted Naser al-Din Shah to close down the Dar ul-Funun, but Aliqoli Mirza with his influence, prevented this.
Government roles
In 1860, Naser al-Din Shah created the Ministry of Sciences and, on the advice of his mother, appointed Aliqoli Mirza as Iran's first Minister of Sciences. His decision mainly was due to Aliqoli Mirza's mixed support for aspects of both modernity and tradition, since the Shah wanted to prevent a backlash from the clergy. Also, part of it was because Aliqoli Mirza belonged to the Government Consultative Council formed by Naser al-Din Shah in the early 1860s. As the minister, Aliqoli Mirza sent a group of forty-two students to France for further education in scientific, technical, and medical fields, and translated and published a few French articles in the Ruznameh-ye elmiya-ye dawlat aliya-ye Iran, Persia's first scholarly journal. This government-funded group, the only one organized during the reign of Naser al-Din Shah, was selected entirely on the basis of their scholarly worth rather than family status.
In 1860–1861, Aliqoli Mirza appointed Abu'l-Hasan Khan Ghaffari as the editor of Iran's official gazette, Ruznameh-ye Dowlat-e Aliyeh-ye Iran, known for its lithographic illustrations. Aliqoli Mirza also was the director of the Ruznameh-ye Mellati, previously known as Ruznameh-ye mellat-e saniya-ye Iran, a weekly newspaper founded in 1866, under the editorship of Hakim Semnani. In the beginning it was intended to reflect public opinion, but it soon turned into a literary journal, and published biographical articles on classical and contemporary Persian poets.
By the end of the decade, he became the supervisor of education and crafts; director of a European-model public hospital in Dar al-Fonun, and director of government newspapers and printing houses in Tehran and in the provinces. He built telegraph lines and modern factories, and he governed his estate, whose income he spent to expand Dar al-Fonun. In 1865–1866, Aliqoli Mirza had another telegraph line built between Bushehr and Jolfa that connected with British lines and Russian lines in the Caucasus. As the telegraph grew speedily in Iran, Naser al-Din Shah in 1876–1877 created the telegraph office, with Aliqoli Khan Mokber al-Dowleh as its minister. Responsibilities for trade, mines, and industries were also assigned to new ministries, although for a time in 1876–1877, Aliqoli Mirza regained control of the mines.
Aliqoli Mirza accompanied the Shah on his trip to Europe in 1873 and was one of the signers of the Reuter concession. He launched his most important scholarly contribution, the first modern Persian encyclopedia, Nameh-ye Daneshvaran, by royal decree in 1877.
In 1873, when the Shah organised the Council of Benevolent Reforms on the advice of the new prime minister, Mirza Hosein Khan Sepahsalar, he recruited Aliqoli Mirza as a member. Aliqoli Mirza at first had hopes of the council becoming a European-style parliament, but was disappointed to find out that he was acting as an "obsequious propaganda puppet", in his words, and resigned from his position. Afterwards, he joined the opposition of Sepahsalar, mostly because of his fear of losing his positions.
Downfall and death By the mid-1870s, Aliqoli Mirza noted the excessive presence of Mohammad Hasan Khan E'temad os-Saltaneh at the Shah's side, as he himself was becoming a less important figure for Naser al-Din Shah, especially after Malek Jahan Khanom's death in 1873. He formed a rivalry with Etemad al-Saltanah when the latter became "the chronicler of the court" by the Shah's orders. In 1877, most of the positions held by Aliqoli Mirza in the fields of culture, journalism, and press surveillance were transferred to Etemad al-Saltanah by order of the Shah; Aliqoli Mirza intended to recover the respect of Naser al-Din Shah with Nameh-ye Daneshvaran, and managed to finish the first and most extensive volume before his death in 1879. After his death, Etemad al-Saltanah became the director of the project and published six volumes before it was abandoned in 1906–1907. Etemad al-Saltanah gained these positions with his obedience to the Shah, as he tended to censor all news of the state for Naser al-Din Shah in a sycophantic way and show others in a negative light to him; whereas Aliqoli Mirza, partly because of the support of Malek Jahan, never hid his opinions.
Aliqoli Mirza died on 14 December 1880, and was buried in Shah Abdol-Azim Shrine. He married once, and had a son and a daughter. His daughter, Shirin al-Mamalek, founded some of the most prominent literary circles and had an important role in the Triumph of Tehran. His son, Mohammad Hassan Mirza, spent all his wealth after the death of his father, and thus had to become a royal servant. During Mozaffar ad-Din Shah's reign, he was bestowed the title Motazed Al-Saltanah and died after 1904.
Literary career
Nameh-ye Daneshvaran