Chronology of Iranian History Part 2

1834 Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah dies and is succeeded by Moḥammad Shah, son of ʿAbbās Mirzā.

1835 Murder of Abu’l-Qāsem Qāʾemmaqām by order of the shah and the appointment of Hājj Mirzā Āḡāsi as grand vizier.

1836 Rebellion of Āqā Khan against the central Qajar government.

1837 The siege of Herat over British objections (it ends in failure in 1838).

1838 Russian expansionist policies lead to their first expedition to Ḵiva.

1838 Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy (b. 1758), French Orientalist and linguist, co-founder of the Société Asiatique, professor at the École nationale des langues orientales vivantes, author of Mémoires sur diverses antiquités de la Perse . . . (1793), and “Sur une formule employée dans les légendes des diverses monnaies persanes,” in Journal Asiatique (1831), dies.

1840 Āqā Khan flees to Sind, India.

1842 Sir William Ouseley (b. 1767), British officer and Orientalist, author of Travels in Various Countries of the East: More Particularly Persia (3 vols., 1819-23), dies.

1842 Sir Robert Ker Porter (b. 1777), British painter, writer, diplomat, and author of Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, ancient Babyloŋduring the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820 (2 vols., 1821-22), dies.

1844 Sayyed Moḥammad-ʿAli Širāzi proclaims himself the Bāb, founding the Bābi movement, precursor to the Bahaʾi faith.

1847 Sir Harford Jones Brydges (b. 1764), British diplomat and author, ambassador to the court of Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah, and the translator of ʿAbd-al-Razzāq Beg Donboli’s Maʾāṯer-e solṭāniya as The Dynasty of the Kajars (1833), dies.

1848 Moḥammad Shah dies. Accession of Nāṣer-al-Din Shah.

1848 Mirzā Taqi Khan, who had begun his career under Qāemmaqām Farāhani, is appointed grand vizier by Nāṣer-al-Din Shah; he begins a series of administrative, financial, and cultural reforms.

1849 Russian forces continue their advance in Central Asia, weakening Persian political and cultural influence.

1849 James Justinian Morier (b. 1780), British traveler and author of A Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor to Constantinople in 1808 (1812), A Second Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor to Constantinople, 1810-16 (1818), and the famous satirical novel of Persian mores The Adventures of Haji Baba of Isfahan (3 vols., 1824-28), dies.

1850 Execution of the Bāb in Tabriz by order of Amir Kabir.

1850 Amir Kabir is exiled to Kashan, a victim of court intrigues and the oppostion of those antagonized by his judicious reforms.

1851 Inauguration of the Dār-al-Fonun College in Tehran, the establishment of which was originally enacted by Amir Kabir. It was built on European models for teaching medicine, military science, and other disciplines, with many of its classes taught by European instructors; it had far-reaching effects on the modernization of Persia.

1852 Mirzā Taqi Khan Amir Kabir (b. 1807), reformist and capable prime minister, is executed by order of Nāṣer-al-Din Shah.

1852 Massacre of the Bābis, following the failed attempt by three Bābis on the life of Nāṣer-al-Din Shah.

1856 James Baillie Fraser (b. 1783), traveler, writer, author of Narrative of a Journey into Khorasan in the Years 1821 and 1822 (1825), and An Historical and Descriptive Account of Persia from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time (1834), dies.

1856 Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall (b. 1774), prolific Austrian Orientalist among whose many works is the first complete translation of the Divān of Ḥāfeẓ into a Western language entitled Der Diwan des Mohammad Schemsed-Din Hafis (1812-13), dies.

1856–57 Anglo-Persian war over Herat.

1857 The Treaty of Paris; the Shah recognizes the independence of Herat and Afghanistan.

1857 Etienne Marc Quatremere (b. 1782), French Orientalist, professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at the Collège de France, translator of sections of Rašid-al-Din’s Jāmeʿ al-tawāriḵ as Histoire des Mongols de la Perse, and author of “Memoires historiques sur la vie du Sultan Shah Rokh,” in Journal Asiatique (1839), dies.

c. 1860 Freemasonry is introduced in Persia.

1864 Inauguration of the first telegraph line connecting Tehran with Baghdad and Karachi.

1865 First girls’ school founded in Persia.

1866 Friedrich Rückert (b. 1788), German Orientalist, professor of Oriental languages at the University of Erlangen and later at the University of Berlin, able translator of Persian poetry, and author of Saadis Politische gedichte übers (1894), dies.

1868 Russian forces defeat the Emir of Bukhara.

1869 Suez canal opens.

1870 Telegraph line from Europe linking Odessa-Tiflis-Tehran established.

1870 Gustav Leberecht Flügel (b. 1802), German Orientalist, editor of the most reliable Western edition of the Qorʾan, author of Die arabischen, persischen und türkischen Handschriften der Kaiserlich-Königlichen Hofbibliothek zu Wien (3 vols., 1865-67), and “Perser: Persische Literatur,” in J. S. Ersch and J. G. Gruber, eds., Allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Wissentschaften und Künste (1842), dies.

1871 Charles Texier (b. 1802), French explorer, archeologist, scholar of Byzantine art, and author of Description de l’Armenie, la Perse et la Mesopota-mie . . . (2 vols., 1839 and 1842-52), dies.

1872 Boundary between Persia and Afghanistan defined.

1872 Nāṣer-al-Din Shah grants a number of generous concessions to Baron Reuter, a British national, including the right to establish a State bank.

1873 Alborz College, an American Presbyterian missionary institution, is established as a grade school; it grows into a junior college in 1924 and an accredited liberal arts college by 1928; Dr. Samuel Jordan serves as its principal from 1899 to 1940, when it is closed by order of Reżā Shah, but it continues as an elite high school called Dabirestān-e Alborz, with Dr. Moḥammad-ʿAli Mojtahedi as its principal (1944-79).

1873 Ḵiva is conquered by Russian forces.

1876 Jules Mohl (b. 1800), French Orientalist, professor of Persian at the Collège de France, editor and translator of Ferdowsi’s Šāh-nāma in a splendid publication entitled Le Livre des rois (7 tomes, 1876-78), dies.

1876 Martin Haug (b. 1827), German Orientalist and one of the founders of Iranian studies, author of Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the Parsis (1862), and An Old Zend-Pahlavi Glossary (1870), dies.

1878 Establishment of the Cossack Brigade, a military force trained by Russian officers and an important source of the rapid spread of Russian influence in ensuing years.

1878 Heinrich Ferdinand Blochmann (b. 1838), German Orientalist, scholar of Persian language and literature, and author of The Prosody of the Persians (1872), dies.

1878 Fatḥ-ʿAli Āḵundzāda (b. 1812), Azeri playwright, outspoken anti-Islamic advocate of radical social reforms, author of several satirical plays depicting the backwardness and corruption of Muslim societies and the Persian court, translated into Persian by Mirzā Jaʿfar Qaračedāḡi as a collection entitled Tamṯilāt (1874), and author of The Alchemist: A Persian Play (English tr. by G. Le Strange, 1886), dies.

1878 Nikolai Vladimirovich Khanykov (b. 1819), Russian Orientalist, geographer, ethnographer, and author of Mémoire sur l’ethnographie de la Perse (1866), dies.

1879 Pascal-Xavier Coste (b. 1787), French architect, traveler, surveyor, and co-author with Eugène Flandin of the renowned illustrated account of their travels in Persia, published in a very large format and adorned by Coste’s excellent lithographs of Persian historical monuments as Voyage en Perse (8 vols.,1843-54), dies.

1880 Johann August Vullers (b. 1803), German Orientalist, professor at the University of Giessen, author of Lexicon Persico-latinum (2 vols. with a supplement, 1855-67), dies.

1881 Johannes Albrecht Bernhard Dorn (b. 1805), one of the pioneers of Iranian studies in Russia, professor at the University of St. Petersburg, academician, numismatist, editor, and translator of Persian works, author of Catalogue des manuscrits et xylographes orientaux de la Bibliothèque Impériale publique de St. Pétersbourg (1852), dies.

1881 Johann Louis Schlimmer (b. 1819), Dutch physician, professor of modern medicine at the Polytechnic school (Dār-al-Fonun) in Tehran, and author of the very useful Terminologie medico-pharmaceutique et anthropologique francaise-persane . . . (1874), dies.

1882 Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (b. 1816), French man of letters, artist, polemicist, Orientalist, and diplomat whose influential socio-historical and racial theories were expounded in his Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines (1853-55), and whose works on Persia include Trois ans en Asie, de 1855 à 1858 (2 vols., 1859 and 1922), Les religions et les philosophies dans l’Asie centrale (1865), and Histoire des Perses (1869), dies.

1883 Edward Fitzgerald (b. 1809), British translator best known for his famous free translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859), dies.

1886 Joseph Philippe Ferrier (b. 1811), French soldier in the Persian service and prolific writer, author of Caravan Journeys and Wanderings in Persia, Afghanistan, Turkistan, and Beloochistan (1857) and History of the Afghans (1858), dies.

1887 Hermann Alfred Freiherr von Gutschmid (b. 1831), German classical scholar and historian of the ancient world whose important contribution to Iranian studies is Geschichte Irans und seiner Nachbarländer von Alexander dem Grossen bis zum Untergang der Arsaciden (1888), dies.

1889 Establishment of the Imperial Bank of Persia; it becomes a focal point of British interests with the right to issue currency and exploit the mineral deposits (excluding gold or silver) of Persia.

1889 Eugène Napoléon Jean-Baptiste Flandin (b. 1809), French Orientalist, painter, archeologist, politician, and co-author with Pascal-Xavier Coste of the renowned illustrated account of their travels in Persia, published in very large format as Voyage en Perse (8 vols.,1843-54), dies.

1889 William Nassau Lees (b. 1825), British Orientalist, Major General in the Bengal Native Infantry, Principal and professor at Mohammedan College in Calcutta, and part proprietor of the Times of India who published Classic selection from some of the most esteemed Persian writers (2 vols, 1828), dies.

1890 The granting of a tobacco concession by Nāṣer al-Din Shah to a British citizen, Major Gerald F. Talbot, to buy, sell, and manufacture tobacco throughout Persia for 50 years; formation of the Imperial Tobacco Corporation of Persia.

1890-1906 Rising inflation leads to a sharp decline in the value of land tax, causing the government to be faced with severe financial difficulties, and rapid fall of silver prices in the international markets result in the depreciation of the silver qerān against the British Pound Sterling. To extract more revenues, the government reforms the customs administration, creating discontent among the merchants who mobilize a merchant-ulema alliance against the regime in the 1906 Constitutional Revolution.

1891 Āqā Najafi, a leading cleric of Isfahan, declares tobacco prohibited (ḥarām) and orders his followers to go through the bazaars and smash all water pipes as a protest against the tobacco concession to Major Talbot.

1891 Mobilization of a popular uprising by tobacco merchants leads to a nationwide tobacco boycott. The uprising culminated in a religious decree attributed to Mirzā Ḥasan Širāzi, the leading source of emulation, which declared: “Today the use of tobacco in whatever way is tantamount to war against the Lord of the Age.”

1891 Aleksander Borejko Chodźko (b. 1804), Polish poet, diplomat, one of the the first European scholars to work on Persian folklore, and author of La théâtre Persaŋ(1878), treating of taʿzia, dies.

1891 Jakob Eduard Polak (b. 1818), Austrian physician, teacher at the military school in Tehran (1851-61), and author of Persien, das Land und seine Bewohner, Ethnographische Schilderungen (2 vols., 1865), dies.

1892 Following bloody demonstrations in front of the royal palace, the Shah is forced to cancel the tobacco concession and Iran pays the sum of L500,000 by way of compensation, adding to its financial crisis; the victory of the tobacco rebellion is viewed by scholars in the field as a prelude to the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11.

1892 Mirzā Ḥosayn-ʿAli Bahāʾ-Allāh (b. 1817), founder of the Bahāʾi faith, dies in Acre, Ottoman Palestine, where he had been exiled since 1868; he is succeeded by his son ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ as leader of the Bahāʾi faith and community.

1894 James Darmesteter (b. 1849), outstanding French Iranist, philologist, author of Ormazd et Ahriman, leurs origines et leur histoire (1877), translator of the Avesta (except the Gāthās) in “Sacred Books of the East” (vols. 4 and 23, 1880, 1883), and author of Chants populaires des Afghans . . . (1888-90), dies.

1894 Sir Austen Henry Layard (b. 1817), French born British archeologist, diplomat, and man of letters, author of Nineveh and its Remains (1849), and Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia (1887), dies.

1895 Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (b. 1810), British soldier, diplomat, and Orientalist who was able to render a complete and fairly correct translation of Darius’ Bisotun inscriptions for the first time, author of “The Persian cuneiform inscription at Behistun, decyphered and translated,” in JRAS (1846), dies.

1896 Assassination of Nāṣer-al-Din Shah by Mirzā Reżā Kermāni, follower of Jamāl-al-Din Afḡāni, a leading Iranian cleric and one of the influential leaders of the late 19th century pan-Islamic movement.

1896 Accession of Moẓaffar-al-Din Shah.

1896 The first modern Olympic games, revived by Baron Pierre de Coubertin (b. 1863 in Paris), are held in Athens.

1896 Mirzā Āqā Khan Kermāni (b. 1853), revolutionary political thinker and devotee of Constitutionalism, is executed in Tabriz by order of Crown Prince Moḥammad-ʿAli Mirzā, together with Shaikh Aḥmad Ruḥi and Mirzā Ḥasan Ḵabir-al-Molk.

1896 Ilya Nikolaevich Berezin (b. 1818), Russian Orientalist, traveler, expert in modern Iranian dialects, and author of Recherches sur les dialectes persans (3 fasc., 1853), dies.

1897 Jamāl-al-Din Afḡāni (b. 1838), pan-Islamist writer, orator, journalist, and political activist who tried to unite Islamic countries, particularly Turkey and Persia, against Western penetration, dies.

1897 Publication of Tarbiat, the influential literary and historical journal in Tehran, by Moḥammad Ḥosayn Khan Foruḡi Ḏakāʾ-al-Molk.

1897 The reformist Mirzā ʿAli Khan Amin-al-Dawla assumes the position of grand vizier.

1898 Telegraph lines set up by English and German firms link Iran with India and Europe.

1898 Mirzā ʿAli-Aṣḡar Khan Amin al-Solṭān is appointed grand vizier.

1898 Joseph Naus, the Belgian financial advisor, and his team arrive in Tehran to modernize customs administration and increase its revenues.

1898 Charles Henri Auguste Schefer (b. 1820), French Orientalist, and author of Chretomathie persane (1883), an important anthology of Persian works for its time, dies.

1899 Ṣafi-ʿAlišāh, the influential head of the Neʿmat-Allāhi order, dies in Tehran.

1899 Charles de Harlez (b. 1832), Belgian philologist, professor at the University of Louvain, author of Avesta, livre sacré des sectateurs de Zoroastre (2nd ed., 1881), and Manuel de la langue de l’Avesta (1882), dies.

1901 The granting of an oil concession to William Knox D’Arcy, a British citizen, for a period of 60 years.

1902 George Rawlinson (b. 1812), British scholar and historian, Canon of Canterbury, author of The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World . . . (4 vols., 1862-67), The Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy (1873), covering the Parthian dynasty, and The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy (1876), covering the Sasanian dynasty, dies.

1904 Tea plant seed is imported from India and its cultivation begins in Gilan by Kāšef-al-Salṭana.

1905 Russo-Japanese War and the defeat of Russia inspires anti-Russian nationalist movements in Asia and influences the Persian Constitutional Movement.

1905 Start of the establishment of numerous clandestine Constitutionalist associations in Tehran. Two of Tehran’s leading mojtaheds, Sayyed ʿAbd-Allāh Behbahāni and Sayyed Moḥammad Ṭabāṭabāʾi, form an alliance to mobilize support for reform.

1905 Open resistance is mobilized in December when the governor of Tehran orders two respected merchants bastinadoed for having raised the price of sugar.

1905 Friedrich Spiegel (b. 1820), outstanding German Iranist, professor at the University of Erlangen, author of the comprehensive cultural and political history of Iran in pre-Islamic times, Eranische Altertumskunde (3 vols, 1871-78), dies.

1905 Edward William West (b. 1824), British Orientalist, prominent scholar of Middle Persian, translator of major Pahlavi texts published in “Sacred Books of the East” (vols. 5, 18, 24, 37, 47), and author of the chapter on Middle Persian in Grundriss der iranischen Philologie (2 vols., 1895-1904), dies.

1905 Jules Oppert (b. 1825), French Orientalist, professor of Assyrian philology and archeology at the Collège de France, and author of Le peuple et la langue des Medes (1845), dies.

1906 Moẓaffar-al-Din Shah agrees to the formation of a national assembly, the Majles.

1906 Resignation of grand vizier ʿAyn-al-Dawla, under pressure from the ulema, the merchants, and reform-minded people.

1906 Naṣr-Allāh Khan Mošir-al-Dawla assumes the premiership.

1906 The first Majles opens on October 7 and ratifies the Constitutional Charter on October 17.

1906 Sayyed Ḥasan Taqizādeh is elected to the first Majles, soon becoming a leader of the Majles and growing famous on account of his reformist radical and passionate speeches.

1906 The first regularly affiliated Freemasonry Lodge, Rèveil de l’Iran (Lož-e bidāri-e Irāniān), is formed in Tehran, with a large number of Constitutionalists among its membership.

1907 Death of Moẓaffar-al-Din Shah on January 8 and the accession of Moḥammad-ʿAli Shah, a despotic, reactionary ruler.

1907 Amin-al-Solṭān, now titled Atābak-e Aʿẓam, who had been prime minister for only a few months and was trying to effect a conciliation between the Shah and the Constitutionalists, is fatally shot as he is leaving the Majles.

1907 Sayyed Ašraf-al-Din Ḥosayni Qazvini begins publication of the satirico-political journal, Nasim-e šemāl.

1907 Mirzā Abuʾl-Qāsem Nāṣer-al-Molk assumes the premiership.

1907 Mirzā Moḥammad Ḥosayn Khan Ḏakāʾ-al-Molk Foruḡi (b. 1839, father of Moḥammad-ʿAli Foruḡi), litterateur, poet, historian, Dean of the School of Political Science (Madrasa-ye ʿolum-e siāsi) and founder and editor of the journal, Tarbiat, dies.

1907 Ḥosaynqoli Khan Neẓām-al-Salṭana assumes the premiership.

1907 The Constitutionalist journal, Ṣur-e Esrāfil, is published in Tehran by Jahāngir Khan Širāzi (Ṣur-e Esrāfil), with the cooperation of Mirzā Qāsem Khan Tabrizi and ʿAli-Akbar Khan Qazvini (Dehḵodā).

1907 The Anglo-Russian Agreement, detested by nationalists, designates the north and south of Persia as spheres of influence of the Russians and British, respectively, leaving only central Persia independent.

1907 Moḥammad-ʿAli Shah reconciles himself to the Constitutionalists, goes to the Majles and publicly swears by, and signs, the holy Qorʾān as a witness to his oath of support for the Constitution. An unsuccessful attempt on his life, however, sets him against the Constitutionalists.

1907 Ferdinand Justi (b. 1837), German Iranist, comparative philologist, and author of the very useful collection on Iranian proper names, Iranisches Namenbuch (1895), dies.

1908 Excavation of oil at Masjed-e Solaymān.

1908 Malkom Khan, Perso-Armenian reformist thinker, journalist, author, and diplomat whose writings in defense of law and the constitution, including the journal Qānun (published in Istanbul), were highly influential, dies.

1908 Moḥammad-ʿAli Shah orders Colonel Liakhov, Russian commander of the Cossack Brigade, to shell the Majles, overthrowing the Constitutional government. A number of Constitutionalists, including Jahāngir Khan Ṣur-e Esrāfil and Malek-al-Motekallemin, the famous liberal orator, are executed. Some 70 constitutionalists and Majles deputies, including Sayyed Ḥasan Taqizādeh, take refuge in the British Legation and are saved. The shelling of the Majles leads to the re-establishment of arbitrary rule by Moḥammad-ʿAli Shah.

1908 Sattār Khan and Bāqer Khan lead the Constitutionalist forces in Tabriz, the most ardent center for the supporters of the Constitution.

1908 Heinrich Hübschmann (b. 1848), eminent German scholar of Armenian and Iranian studies, author of Persische Studien (1895) and Armenische Grammatik (1897), dies.

1908 Charles Adrien Casimir Barbier de Meynard (b. 1826), French philologist, professor at the École nationale des langues orientales vivantes, and author of La poésie en Perse: leçon d’ouverture faite au collége en France, le 4 décembre 1876 (1877), dies.

1908 Paul Horn (b. 1863), German philologist, specialist in Iranian and Turkic languages, and author of Grundriss der neupersischen Etymologie (1893), dies.

1909 Isfahan is occupied by Najafqoli Khan Baḵtiāri’s forces in support of the Constitution; Sardār Asʿad leads the Baḵtiāri forces’ advance on Tehran.

1909 In Rasht, supporters of the Constitution led by the Armenian Yephram Khan, Moʿezz-al-Solṭān, and ʿAli-Moḥammad Khan Tarbiat, call on Sepahdār-e Tonokāboni to assume their leadership in their move on Tehran.

1909 Saʿd-al-Dawla forms a Cabinet on behalf of Nāṣer-al-Molk, who is in Europe.

1909 Constitutionalist forces from Tabriz, Rasht, and Isfahan lay siege to Tehran, resulting in the abdication of Moḥammed-ʿAli Shah. The Constitutionalists name the eleven-year old Crown Prince Aḥmad Mirzā to the throne, with ʿAli-Reżā Khan Ażod-al-Molk, chief of the Qajar tribe, as viceregent. The government is formed under thesupervision of Sepahdār-e Aʿẓam (= Sepahdār-e Tonokāboni) and Sardār Asʿad Baḵtiāri.

1909 Sepahdār-e Aʿẓam assumes the premiership.

1909 Execution of Shaikh Fażl-Allāh Nuri (b. 1843), a leading theologian and political activist who initiated the Islamic fundamentalist movement in Iran, by the conquerers of Tehran.

1909 Formation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.

1909 Fatal shooting of Sayyed ʿAbd-Allāh Behbahāni, perhaps the strongest pillar of the Constitutionalist Movement.

1909 Sayyed Ḥasan Taqizādeh, having been falsely accused of instigating the shooting of Sayyed ʿAbd-Allāh Behbahāni, is forced by religious groups to leave for Istanbul, and later Paris and London; he continues his activities in England together with Moʿāżed-al-Salṭana, with the help of Edward G. Browne and a number of British liberal MPs.

1909 Second Majles comes into session on November 15.

1909 Major-General Sir Frederick John Goldsmid (b. 1818), British scholar, negotiator, arbitrator of the Perso-Afghan boundary dispute, and editor of Eastern Persia, an account of the journeys of the Persian Boundary Commission, 1870-1-2 (2 vols., 1876), dies.

1909 Michail Jan de Goeje (b. 1836), prominent Dutch Orientalist, chief editor of the Leiden edition of Ṭabari’s Tāʾriḵ al-rosul waʾl-moluk (15 vols., 1879-1901), and editor of Bibliotheca geogrphorum Arabicorum (8 vols., 1870-94), dies.

1910 Mirzā Ḥasan Mostawfi-al-Mamālek assumes the premiership.

1910 Ażod-al-Molk dies; Nāṣer-al-Molk assumes the viceregency and calls for the formation of political factions with specific platforms in the Majles. It serves as the basis for the establishment of political parties and, more specifically, the two influential parties of Social Democrats (Ferqa-ye demokrāt-e Irān or Ejtemāʿiyun-e ʿāmmiyun) and Moderate Socialists (Ejtemāʿiyun-e eʿtedāliyun).

1911 Majles approves the employment of Swedish officers to establish a gendarmerie force to protect Persia’s roads.

1911 Sepahdār-e Aʿẓam assumes the premiership.

1911 Morgan Schuster, an American financial advisor, arrives with his sixteen-member team to oversee financial reforms and assumes the position of Treasurer General; he enjoys the support of the Social Democrats but is opposed by the Russians who view him as pro-British.

1911 Moḥammed -ʿAli Mirzā, the abdicated shah, arrives at Mazandaran port and begins his move on Tehran. After a number of defeats, however, he leaves the country in March, going to Russia and from there to Vienna and Paris, where he dies in 1925 at the age of 54.

1911 30 students are dispatched to European countries to continue their higher education.

1911 Russia sets an ultimatum for the expulsion of Schuster and his team. Majles rejects the ultimatum under pressure from the Social Democrats. Russian forces invade Persia from Azerbaijan and Gilan and march toward Qazvin. There are large popular demonstrations against the Russians and in support of Schuster, with the leading ulema of Najaf siding with popular demand.

1911 Russian forces invade Khorasan and bombard the shrine of Imam Reżā in Mashad.

1911 Majles accepts the Russian ultimatum on December 19; Majles is dissolved on December 24 due to Russian pressure.

1911 The execution of Ṯeqat¨-al-Eslām, a noted Constitutionalist religious leader, and scores of other Constitutionalists by Russian forces in Tabriz and Rasht.

1912 Yephram Khan, one of the most able leaders of the Constitutional Revolution, is killed in clashes with the forces of Sālār-al-Dawla.

1913 Colonel Westdahel, the Swedish head of the police force, announces the establishment of a new police administration; he serves as its chief until 1923 when Reżā Khan Sardār Sepah terminates his service.

1913 Armed clashes between gendarmes and the Baḵtiāri contingent in Tehran lead to the disarming of the Baḵtiāris.

1913 Arminius Vambery (b. 1832), Hungarian Orientalist and traveler, author of Travels in Central Asia: being the account of a journey from Teheran across the Turkoman desert . . . (English tr., 1864), Wanderings and Adventures in Persia (English tr., 1867), and Voyage d’un faux derviche dans l’Asie central de Téhran à Khiva (1879), dies.

1914 Aḥmad Mirzā, son of Moḥammad-ʿAli Shah, comes of age and is crowned Shah.

1914 Mirzā Ḥasan Mostawfi-al-Mamālek assumes the premiership and begins to appoint young, educated, civil servants as governors of provinces.

1914 Outbreak of World War I.

1914 Persia declares neutrality in the War, but is too weak to enforce it. Russian forces are in control of the north and the British establish control along the Persian Gulf coast.

1914 Ottoman Empire enters the war, a decision that would eventually lead to its destruction.

1914 Sayyed Ḥasan Taqizādeh leaves the United States at the invitation of the Germans, who intend to take advantage of his popularity to convince Persian patriots to engage in pro-German political activity against the British and Russians.

1914 Samuel Greene Wheeler Benjamin (b. 1837), the first American ambassador to Iran, and author of Persia and the Persians (1887), dies.

1914 Samuel Barrett Miles (b. 1838), British Colonel in the Indian Army, traveler, author of the informative The Countries and Tribes of the Persian Gulf (2 vols., 1919), dies.

1914-15 Term of the third Majles.

1915 The Ottomans attack Tabriz and Urumia, but are quickly defeated by Russian forces.

1915 Massacre of thousands of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks, a crime that Armenians consider to be an act of genocide.

1915 Mirzā Kučak Khan assumes the leadership of a religio-nationalist movement in Gilan.

1915 Mirzā Ḥasan Khan Mošir-al-Dawla assumes the premiership.

1915 ʿAyn-al-Dawla assumes the premiership.

1915 British forces enter Bushehr and disarm the pro-German Persian gendarmes.

1915 Mirzā Ḥasan Mostawfi-al-Mamālek assumes the premiership.

1915 A National Defense Committee (Komita-ye defāʿ-e Melli) is formed in Kermanshah, electing a Cabinet in exile with Neẓām-al-Salṭana Māfi as prime minister.

1915 Dissolution of the third Majles on December 14 after more than half of the Majles deputies join the National Resistance Committee in Kermanshah.

1915 ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Mirzā Farmānfarmā, a pro-Entente politician, assumes the premiership.

1916 Russian forces occupy Qom and Kashan.

1916 The British General Sir Percy Sykes arrives in Bandar ʿAbbās and sets up the South Persia Rifles, an organization aimed at curbing German influence and protecting Persia from Turkish invasion.

1916 Sayyed Ḥasan Taqizādeh launches the influential journal Kāveh, in Berlin, Germany.

1916 Sepahdār-e Aʿẓam, with the new title Sepahsālār, assumes the premiership.

1916 Ottoman forces occupy Kermanshah and Hamadan and threaten to advance on the capital.

1916 The formation of the Punishment Committee (Komita-ye mojāzāt), with the aim of assassinating certain notables and journalists accused of being foreign agents.

1916 Persia continues to be torn between the forces of the British, Russians, and Ottomans, with occasionally successful resistance; one ineffective Cabinet follows another for the duration of World War I.

1916 Jane Henriette Magre Dieulafoy (b. 1851), French archeologist, explorer, folklorist, novelist, and author of the travel and excavation account A Suse; journal des fouilles 1884-86, par Mme Jane Dieulafoy (1888; tr. by F. White as At Susa, the ancient capital of the Kings of Persia, 1890), dies.

1916 Sir Albert Hotum-Schindler (b. 1846), naturalized English scholar of Persian studies, one of the first scholars to introduce Persian literature to Europe, an employee of, and advisor to the Persian government for over 30 years, author of Eastern Persian Irak (1896) and “Safar-nāma-ye Ḵorāsān,” in Seh Safar-nāma (1968), dies.

1916 Carl Hermann Salemann (b. 1849), German Iranist specializing in Middle and Early Persian, professor at the University of St. Petersburg, author of Persische Grammatik mit Literatur, Chrestomathie und Glossar (with Valentin Zhukovski, 1889), and Manichäische Studien I. Die mittelpersischen Texte in revidierter transcription, mit glossar und grammatischen bemerkungen (1908), dies.

1917 Communist Revolution succeeds in Russia, which consequently abandons the war.

1917 Lenin declares the abolition of all Tsarist Russian concessions and privileges in Iran.

1917 ʿAlāʾ-al-Salṭana assumes the premiership.

1917 ʿAyn-al-Dawla assumes the premiership.

1917 Adib-al-Mamālek Farāhāni (b. 1860), Persian poet and journalist, dies.

1917 Carl Hermann Ethé (b. 1844), German Orientalist, author of “Neupersische Litteratur,” in Grundriss der iranischen Philologie (1896-1904), best known for his catalogues of Islamic manuscripts, the most important of which are Catalogue of Persian, Turkish, Hindustani, and Pashtu Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (2 vols., 1889-1930), and Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office (2 vols., 1903-37), dies.

1917 William Knox D’Arcy (b. 1849), British petroleum entrepreneur and founder of the oil industry in Persia, dies.

1917 Oskar Mann (b. 1867), German Orientalist, researcher of modern Iranian dialects, Librarian at the Königlichen Bibliothak in Berlin (1890-1917), and author of Kurdische-Persische Forschungen (4 vols, 1906-32), dies.

1917 James Hope Moulton (b. 1863), British Orientalist, Wesleyan minister, scholar of Zoroastrianism, professor at the University of Manchester, author of Early Zoroastrianism (1913), and The Treasure of the Magi: a study of modern Zoroastrianism (1917), dies.

1918 Mostawfi-al-Mamālek assumes the premiership.

1918 Ṣamṣām-al-Salṭana assumes the premiership.

1918 Formation of the pro-British cabinet of Ḥasan Woṯuq-al-Dawla.

1918 Lawrence Heyworth Mills (b. 1837), British scholar, professor of Persian language at Oxford University, and author of Zarathustra, Philo, the Achaemenids and Israel (1906), dies.

1918 Valentin Alekseevich Zhukovskiĭ (b. 1858), prominent Russian Orientalist and Iranologist, author of Materialy dlya izucheniya persidskikh narechiĭ (Materials for the study of Persian dialects, 3 vols., 1888-1922) and Obraztsy persidskikh narodnago tvorchestva (Specimens of Persian popular literature, 1902), dies.

1919 The Persian government sends a delegation to the Paris Peace Conference demanding the repeal of the 1907 Agreement between Britain and Russia that led to Persia’s division into spheres of influence. The British successfully prevent the recognition of the Persian delegation at the Conference.

1919 Ḥasan Woṯuq-al-Dawla signs an agreement with Lord Curzon, known as the Anglo-Persian Agreement, which provides for the reorganization of the Persian army and finances under the British; it is widely opposed in Persia by the nationalists, with the Majles refusing to convene to ratify it. Three members of the Cabinet, Ḥasan Woṯuq-al-Dawla, Firuz-Mirzā Noṣrat-al-Dawla, and Akbar-Mirzā Ṣārem-al-Dawla allegedly receive a certain sum from the British before signing the agreement. It is seen by the public as a protectorate act signed between Great Britain and a small group of Persian statesmen who have committed treason and sold their country to foreigners, but Woṯuq-al-Dawla defends the Agreement as an effective measure against Soviet penetration.

1919 The School of Law is established at the Ministry of Justice; Adolf Preni serves as its first Dean, with five French instructors, six Persian instructors, and 30 students.

1919 Nāyeb Ḥosayn Kāši, a powerful warlord who terrorized the Kashan region for several years, is executed.

1920 Persia becomes one of the original members of the League of Nations and immdiately protests the Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1919; the League rules in favor of Persia.

1920 Shaikh Moḥammad Ḵiābāni (b. 1879), a rebellious political leader of the Democrat Party, forms a semi-independent government in Tabriz.

1920 Bolshevik forces bombard British contingents and occupy the port of Anzeli; Iran lodges a complaint with the League of Nations.

1920 Mirzā Kučak Khan and Eḥsān-Allāh Khan (a leftist leader) occupy Rasht with the help of the Red Army and form a revolutionary government.

1920 A Communist Party (ʿAdālat) is formed in Anzeli.

1920 Mirzā Ḥasan Khan Mošir-al-Dawla assumes the premiership.

1920 Communist forces headed by Eḥsān-Allāh Khan form the Soviet Republic of Iran in Rasht. Mirzā Kučak Khan protests this move, separates from Eḥsān-Allāh Khan, and retreats to the forest.

1920 Cossack forces liberate the city of Rasht from the Red Army.

1920 Moḵber-al-Salṭana assumes the general governorship of Azerbaijan.

1920 Moḥammad Ḵiābāni is killed by Cossack forces.

1920 Fatḥ-Allāh Khan Akbar assumes the premiership and is granted the title of Sepahdār-e Aʿẓam.

1920 Marcel-Auguste Dieulafoy (b. 1844), French archeologist, husband of the archeologist, traveler, and writer, Jane Dieulafoy, and author of L’art antique de la Perse (3 vols., 1884-85), dies.

1920 Ernst Kuhn (b. 1846), German philologist, expert in Sanskrit, Avestan, Old and Middle Persian, editor, with Wilhelm Geiger, of the major publication Grundriss der iranischen Philologie (2 vols., 1895-1904), dies.

1920 Italo Pizzi (b. 1849), Italian Orientalist, scholar of Persian literature, translator of selections of Ferdowsi’s Šāh-nāma into Italian as Antologia firdusiana (1891), author of Manuale di litteratura Persiana (1887), and Storia della poesia Persiana (2 vols., 1894), dies.

1921 The meeting of Major General Sir Edmund Ironside with the commander of the Cossack Brigade, Reżā Khan Mirpanj (later Reżā Shah), in Qazvin, where they discuss the desirability of staging a coup d’état.

1921 Sayyed Żiāʾ-al-Din Ṭabāṭabāʾi, publisher of the populist Raʿd newspaper, together with Reżā Khan Mirpanj, commander of the Cossack Brigade in Qazvin. organize a coup d’état and capture Tehran without bloodshed.

1921 Sayyed Żiāʾ-al-Din Ṭabāṭabāʾi is appointed prime minister by Aḥmad Shah, with Reżā Khan as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and the real power in the Cabinet, soon thereafter becoming minister of war.

1921 Aḥmad Qawām-al-Salṭana assumes the premiership.

1921 Colonel Moḥammad-Taqi Khan Pesiān, a popular commander of the gendarmerie of Khorasan with a reputation for honesty and patriotism, who had formed a semi-independent government there and who aspired to form the Republic of Khorasan, is killed in a battle with forces sent by Reżā Khan.

1921 Sayyed Moḥammad Ṭabāṭabāʾi, one of the two leading figures of the Constitutional Revolution, dies.

1921 Reżā Khan defeats Kučak Khan and the Communist forces in Gilan.

1921 Iran and the Soviet regime sign an Agreement according to which all concessions and privileges previously extended to Russia are dissolved. According to Article 21 of the Agreement, the Soviet Union reserves the right to dispatch its armed forces to Iran in the event of the occupation of Iran by another country.

1921 Founding of the Qom religious center (Ḥawza-ye ʿelmiya) by Ayatollah Shaikh ʿAbd-al-Karim Ḥāʾeri Yazdi.

1921 Ignac Goldziher (b. 1850), outstanding Hungarian Orientalist and Islamicist, author of Muhammedanische Studien (2 vols., 1889-90, English tr. by C. Barber and S. M. Stern as Muslim Studies, 1967) and “Islamisme et Parsisme” in Revue de l’histoire des religions (1901), dies.

1921-23 Term of the fourth Majles.

1921-25 Reżā Khan, reorganizing and consolidating the army as the backbone of his power, embarks on a program of pacification of the country as well as a number of administrative reforms.

1922 Mošir-al-Dawla assumes the premiership.

1922 Major Abu’l-Qāsem Lāhuti, revolutionary commander of the gendarmerie in the Tabriz region and a poet of note, rises against Reżā Khan, but the mutiny is crushed and Lahuti flees to the Soviet Union.

1922 Šafaq-e sorḵ, a liberal and reformist newspaper, is founded by ʿAli Dašti with the collaboration of a number of literati; the last issue is published in 1935.

1922 The High Council of Education is formed in Tehran to supervise the expansion of modern schools.

1922 Aḥmad Qawām-al-Salṭana assumes the premiership.

1922 Esmāʿil Āqā Semitqu, the rebellious Kurdish tribal chief who for a time dominated western Azerbaijan, is defeated and retreats to Turkish territory.

1922 Dr. Arthur C. Millspaugh, an American financial expert, is hired by Persia to organize its finances; he is given wide-ranging powers.

1922 The civil administration law is ratified by the Majles to reform public agencies.

1922-25 Reżā Khan suppresses tribal unrest in Azerbaijan, Luristan, Kurdistan, and Fars, with determined resolution and mostly with the help of trusted officers from his Cossack days.

1923 Inauguration of the Pasteur Institute in Tehran.

1923 Mostawfi-al-Mamālek assumes the premiership.

1923 Mošir-al-Dawla assumes the premiership.

1923 Reżā Khan Sardār-Sepah assumes the premiership.

1923 Aḥmad Shah leaves for Europe, never to return to Persia.

1923 The Ottoman Empire is deprived of its possessions except Turkey and Kemal Ataturk assumes the presidency of the new Turkish Republic, supported by the Young Turks. Former Arab possessions of the Ottoman Empire are divided by the British and French dominated League of Nations into several independent countries such as Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, with each country placed under the mandate of either France or Britain.

1923 Pierre Loti (b. 1850), French novelist, traveler, and author of Vers Ispahan (1904), dies.

1924 Inspired by regime change in Turkey, a movement is set in motion for the abolition of the monarchy and formation of a Republic with Reżā Khan as its president. However, the ulema’s fear of anti-religious sentiments in the Republican regime of Turkey leads to widespread demonstrations against such regime change, but the clerics support the idea of Reżā Khan’s election as shah.

1924 ʿAli-Akbar Khan Nāẓem-al-Aṭṭebāʿ, Persian physician, father of Saʾid Nafisi, and author of Farhang-e Nafisy, dies.

1924 Ẓahir-al-Dawla, governor, minister of court, liberal constitutionalist, Sufi, and founder and spiritual leader of Anjoman-e Oḵowwat (The Brotherhood Society), dies.

1924 Sayyed Moḥammed Reżā Mirzādeh Ešqi, poet, journalist, political activist and satirist, publisher of the journal Qarn-e bistom, and author of the play in verse Ideāl-e dehqān in three “tableaus,” is fatally shot by an assassin allegedly hired by the government.

1924 The murder of Major Robert Imbrie, Consul-General of the American embassy; the government uses the event as a pretext to impose martial law and arrest leaders of the opposition.

1924 Reżā Khan divests Shaikh Ḵazʿal, de facto ruler of Khuzestan, of all power, reclaiming the region and discarding a major hurdle of Iranian territorial integrity.

1924 Jacques de Morgan (1857), French archeologist, geologist, civil engineer, author of Mission scientifique au Caucase (2 vols., 1889), Mission scientifique en Perse (5 tomes, 1894-1904), Histoire et travaux de la délégation en Perse, 1897-1905 (1905), and Manuel de numismatique Orientale de l’antiquité et du moyen-âge (1923-36), dies.

1924-26 Term of the fifth Majles.

1925 Abolition of high-ranking military titles and all traditional civilian titles (Khan, Bey, Mirzā, Amir, etc.) and the compulsory adoption of family names.

1925 Majles ratifies a law to change the names of calendar months from Arabic and lunar, to Persian and solar.

1925 Sugar trade monopoly to support the construction of Trans-Iranian railroad system begins.

1925 Majles ratifies the compulsory conscription law, widely opposed by the ulema who view it as a sign of the increased influence of a secular society.

1925 Majles approves the deposing of Aḥmad Shah. Those who oppose this move as unconstitutional include Sayyed Ḥasan Taqizādeh, Moḥammad Moṣaddeq, Ḥosayn ʿAlā, and Sayyed Ḥasan Modarres.

1925 Reżā Khan is elected Shah by the Constitutional Assembly and chooses the dynastic name of Pahlavi.

1925 Ḥājj Sayyāḥ (born Mirzā Moḥammad ʿAli Maḥallāti, ca. 1836), the first Iranian-American, a world traveler, Constitutionalist, human rights activist, who at the age of 23 embarked on a journey across the world that lasted 18 years, and author of Safar-nāma-ye Ḥājj Sayyāḥ be farang (1984), dies.

1925 Moḥammad-ʿAli Foruḡi assumes the premiership.

1925 The journal Āyanda begins publication in July under the editorship of its nationalist founder, Dr. Maḥmud Afšār.

1925 Lord George Nathaniel Curzon (b. 1859), British statesman, imperialist, scholar, traveler, and author of the very informative Persia and the Persian Question (2 vols.,1892), dies.

1925 Louis Charles Casartelli (b. 1852), British scholar of ancient Iranian languages and religions, professor of Iranian languages at the University of Manchester, and author of La philosophie religieuse du Mazdéisme sous les Sassanides (1884), dies.

1925 Christian Bartholomae (b. 1855), eminent German scholar of Iranian and Indo-European studies, professor of comparative philology and Sanskrit at the University of Heidelberg, author of the most important and influential dictionary of ancient Iranian languages, Altiranischen Wörterbuch (1904), author of “Vorgeschichte der iranischen Sprachen” (1895) and “Awestasprache und Altpersische” (1896), both in Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, and author of Die Frau im sasanidischen Recht (1924), dies.

1925-29 The Persian army campaigns against Qašqāʾi tribes in order to bring them under control.

1926 The important and durable Eṭṭelāʿāt daily newspaper begins publication on July 10, founded by ʿAbbās Masʿudi and appropriated by the Islamic regime in 1979.

1926 The Chamber of Commerce is formed by the government, with Ḥājj Ḥosayn Āqā Mahdawi Amin-al-Żarb as its president.

1926 Conscription begins, with each soldier required to serve two full years.

1926 Inauguration of the central telephone system of Tehran.

1926 Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Darwiš Khan (b. 1872), master of Persian classical music, composer, and renowned teacher, dies.

1926 Edward Granville Browne (b. 1862), eminent British scholar of Persian literature, history, and culture, a distinguished historian of the Bābi movement, an ardent supporter of Persian constitutionalism and freedom, author of A Year Amongst the Persians (1893), A Literary History of Persia (4 vols., 1902-24) and The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909 (1910), editor of a number of Bābi texts and translator of ʿAbd-al-Bahā’s Maqāla-ye šaḵṣi sayyāḥ (translated as A Traveller’s Narrative, 1891), dies.

1926 Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell (b. 1868), British traveler, archeologist, writer, poet, author of the travelogue Safar Nameh. Persian Pictures. A Book of Travel (1894) and a verse translation of Ḥāfeẓ entitled Poems from the Divan of Hafiz (1897), dies.

1926 Jean-Baptiste Feuvrier (b. 1842), French military physician, Nāṣer-al-Din Shah’s personal physician (1889-92), and author of Trois ans à la cour de Perse (1900), dies.

1926 Clément Huart (b. 1854), French Orientalist, editor and translator of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish sources whose contributions to Iranian studies include La religion de Bab (1889), and Grammaire élémentaire de la langue persane (1899), dies.

1926-28 Term of the sixth Majles.

1927 ʿAli-Akbar Dāvar, minister of justice and one of the main architects of the Pahlavi state, overhauls and reforms the Ministry, and prepares the enactment of new Civil and Commercial Codes that effectively secularize the legal system, divesting the clergy of their judicial authority.

1927 Treaty of Guarantee and Neutrality is concluded with the Soviet Union; under the terms of the Treaty, each party is to abstain from attacking the other and to remain neutral in the event that the other is attacked without provocation by a third party.

1927 The capitulatory privileges of all foreigners living in Iran are abolished and foreign nationals become subject to Persian jurisdiction, ending a humiliating legacy from the Qajar era.

1927 Mehdiqoli Hedāyat Moḵber-al-Salṭana assumes the premiership.

1927 Physical education is introduced into the school system.

1927 The Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Political Science are combined to form the new Faculty of Law and Political Science, with ʿAli Akbar Dehḵodā serving as its mostly nominal dean.

1927 Iraj Mirzā (b. 1874), poet, satirist, humorist, one of the most popular poets of Persia who was noted for the ease and fluency of his poems and their linguistic innovations, dies.

1927-32 The German Junkers Company establishes regular air service to Tehran, Isfahan, and Bushehr.

1928 Majles ratifies a law to send 100 government-sponsored students annually to Europe to continue their education.

1928 Majles approves the law of opium trade monopoly, marking the beginning of the formation of a state-controlled economy.

1928 Formation of Bānk-e Melli (National Bank) to serve as the commercial as well as central bank.

1928 Bandar-e Anzali is renamed Bandar-e Pahlavi.

1928 The School of Agriculture opens in Karaj.

1928 First list of geographical names in Persia (Southern) published for the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names by the Royal Geographic Society, London.

1928 The uniform dress law is passed by the Majles requiring citizens to wear Western attire and the Pahlavi hat.

1928-30 Term of the seventh Majles.

1929 Majles approves a law prohibiting the slave trade.

1929 Amān-Allāh Khan, the modernizing king of Afghanistan, visits Persia.

1929 Karl Friedrich Geldner (b. 1852), German scholar of Iranian and Indian ancient languages, professor at the University of Berlin, author of Über die Metrik des jüngeren Avesta (1877), and editor of the authoritative edition of the Avesta, Avesta: The Sacred Books of the Parsis (3 vols., 1886-96), dies.

1929 Second list of geographical names in Persia (Northern) published for the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names by the Royal Geographic Society, London.

1930 Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) refuses to cancel or change the oil concession despite government protests and popular demand.

1930 Adib Pišāvori (b. 1844), poet, litterateur, and scholar, dies.

1930 Political relations established with Japan.

1930 The Bar Association (Kānun-e wokalā) is established.

1930 Majles approves a law for the protection and preservation of the country’s historical monuments. The law of antiquities also terminates the French monopoly of archeological excavations and encourages the participation of other nationals in archeological sites.

1930 Sayyed Jalāl-al-Din Moʾayyed-al-Eslām Kāšāni, publisher and editor of the influential newspaper Ḥabl-al-Matin, dies.

1930 Eduard Sachau (b. 1845), German Orientalist, professor at the University of Berlin, editor and translator into German of Biruni’s al-Āṯār al-bāqia as Chronologie orientalischer Volker (2 vols., 1876-78), dies.

1930 Vasiliĭ Vladimirovich Barthold (b. 1869), eminent Russian Orientalist and historian, author of Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (revised English ed., 1923), other works on Central Asia and its history, and 247 articles in the first edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, dies.

1930 Josef Marquart/Markwart (b. 1864), eminent scholar of Iranian studies, historian, philologist, author of Erānšahr nach der Geographie des Ps. Moses Xorenac’i (1901), and Wehrot und Arang (1938), dies.

1930 Sir Thomas Walker Arnold (b. 1864), British Orientalist, art historian, professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of London, and author of Painting in Islam (1928), dies.

1930 Friedrich Carl Andreas (b. 1846), influential German Iranologist, professor at University of Göttingen whose students included W. B. Henning, Georg Morgenstierne, Kaj Barr, and Wolfgang Lentz, the first scholar to identify the Sogdian language among the documents excavated at Turfan, and author of Mitteliranische Manichaica aus Chinesisch-Turkestan, which was posthumously edited and published by W. B. Henning (3 vols., 1932-34), dies.

1930 Theodor Nöldeke (b. 1836), eminent Semitist and Iranist, translator and annotator of the Sasanian section of Ṭabari’s History as Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden (1879), author of Orientalische Skizzen (1892), and the authoritative Das Iranisches Nationalepos (The Iranian National Epic, 2nd revised ed., 1920), dies.

1930-32 Term of the eighth Majles.

1931 Renewal of trade agreements with the Soviet Union that give very favorable privileges to Russian trade delegations.

1931 The foreign trade monopoly law is approved by the Majles.

1931 The implementation of new criminal laws.

1931 Stanley Lane-Poole (b. 1854), British Orientalist, professor of Arabic at Trinity College, Dublin, and author of The Mohammadan Dynasties (1894), dies.

1932 Monopoly of issuing currency is transferred from the Imperial Bank of Persia (an English enterprise) to the National Bank of Iran and the base of Persian currency is changed from qerān to riāl.

1932 Malek Faisal, the king of Iraq, and his prime minister, Nuri al-Saʿid Pasha, visit Iran, marking an important step towards better relations between the two countries.

1932 Ḥājj Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Kāzaruni, founder of the textile industries in Isfahan, dies at the age of 80. The government encourages families to use their fabrics for their children at school as a measure to promote national industry.

1932 Mirzā Ḥasan Khan Mostawfi-al-Mamālek (b. 1875), popular nationalist statesman and former prime minister, dies.

1932 Majles approves the law of measurement, adopting the metric system.

1932 Treaty signed between Persia and Turkey defining their shared borders.

1932 Wilhelm Litten (b. 1880), German Consul and author of Das Drama in Persien (1929), treating of taʿzia, dies.

1932 Majles abolishes the D’Arcy oil concession. The British government brings the issue before the Council of the League of Nations, which recommends direct negotiations. Dispute over the matter continues between Reżā Shah’s Cabinet and representatives of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.

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