Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Khan Šehāb-al-Salṭana, then Sardār(-e) Moḥtašam (1866?-1950), one of the few Baḵtīārī chiefs who played a national role after the Constitutional revolution (1324-27/1906-09). He was the sixth son of Emāmqoli Khan, known as Ḥājī Īlḵānī, founder of the younger branch of the Haft Lang, whose chiefs were titled ḵawānīn-e bozorg (great khans). After seven years in the service of Moḥammad Shah while still a prince, he was twice īlbegī and twice īlḵānī of the Baḵtīārī tribe between 1905 and 1921, and occupied a government position 1911-13, when the government was dominated by the Baḵtīārī chiefs. He was one of the few members of his family who was not arrested and executed in 1933. He died in Tehran in 1950 and is remembered as a pensive, courageous and extremely honest man.
Bibliography
J.-P. Digard, “Jeux de structures.
Segmentarité et pouvoir chez les nomades Baxtyâri d’Iran,” L’homme 102 (27/2), 1987, pp. 12-53.
G. R. Garthwaite, Khans and Shahs: A Documentary Analysis of the Bakhtiyari in Iran, Cambridge, 1983, passim.
