146-593: Abdolhossein Teymourtash ( Persian : عبدالحسین تیمورتاش ; 25 September 1883 – 3 October 1933) was an influential Iranian statesman who served as the first minister of court of the Pahlavi dynasty from 1925 to 1932, and is credited with playing a crucial role in laying the foundations of modern Iran in the 20th century. Given his significant role in the transition of power from the Qajar to Pahlavi dynasties, he
292-659: A Grand Vizier in all but name, a position that allowed its occupant to dominate the affairs of state within previous Persian dynasties. The dominant position of Teymourtash, and the attendant privileges enjoyed by him, were described as follows in a cable drafted by Clive, the British diplomat in Tehran, to Whitehall in 1928: "As Minister of the Court he has acquired the position of the Shah's most intimate political adviser. His influence
438-604: A Dari dialect. In the 19th century, under the Qajar dynasty , the dialect that is spoken in Tehran rose to prominence. There was still substantial Arabic vocabulary, but many of these words have been integrated into Persian phonology and grammar. In addition, under the Qajar rule, numerous Russian , French , and English terms entered the Persian language, especially vocabulary related to technology. The first official attentions to
584-418: A dictionary called Words of Scientific Association ( لغت انجمن علمی ), which was completed in the future and renamed Katouzian Dictionary ( فرهنگ کاتوزیان ). The first academy for the Persian language was founded on 20 May 1935, under the name Academy of Iran . It was established by the initiative of Reza Shah Pahlavi , and mainly by Hekmat e Shirazi and Mohammad Ali Foroughi , all prominent names in
730-423: A formal education, the new Reza Shah maintained his firm grip over all matters pertaining to the army and internal security, while Teymourtash was left a free hand to devise blueprints for modernizing the country, orchestrating the political implementation of much needed bureaucratic reforms, and acting as the principal steward of its foreign relations. Such a division of responsibilities would bode well for Iran given
876-505: A language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Farsi , which is the Persian word for the Persian language, has also been used widely in English in recent decades, more often to refer to Iran's standard Persian. However, the name Persian is still more widely used. The Academy of Persian Language and Literature has maintained that the endonym Farsi is to be avoided in foreign languages, and that Persian
1022-417: A literary language considerably different from the spoken Persian of the time. This became the basis of what is now known as "Contemporary Standard Persian". There are three standard varieties of modern Persian: All these three varieties are based on the classic Persian literature and its literary tradition. There are also several local dialects from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan which slightly differ from
1168-715: A man of such military training as he had received in Saint Petersburg, he decided to dedicate himself to politics". Just as the last year of Teymourtash's stay in St. Petersburg coincided with the uprisings and revolts that would culminate in the Russian Revolution of 1905 , Iran was soon to find itself in the convulsive throes of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution . Despite his father's staunch royalist tendencies and his ties to
1314-428: A member of Parliament to the 2nd (1909–1911); 3rd (1914–1915); 4th (1921–1923); 5th (1924–1926); and 6th (1926–1928) Majles of Iran , Teymourtash served in the following capacities: governor of Gilan (1919–1920); minister of justice (1922); governor of Kerman (1923–1924); and minister of public works (1924–1925). As Miron Rezun noted, "possessing a pronounced western outlook on life, he is said to have been by far one of
1460-465: A more intimate or lengthy acquaintance. However, it can be assumed that Reza Shah was favourably impressed by Teymourtash's legislative maneuvers during meetings of the constituent assembly that voted overwhelmingly in favour of the deposition of the Qajar dynasty. It was, after all, primarily the collaboration between Ali Akbar Davar and Teymourtash that had led to the drafting of the Inqiraz bill which
1606-471: A newly constituted delegation mandated to visit several European capitals to herald the inauguration of a new Qajar King to the throne, Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar . As Essad Bey , an early chronicler of Teymourtash's life was to note in the 1930s, "unlike other Iranians of aristocratic houses, young Teymourtash brought back from Europe more than just an affection for occidental garb and an inclination for Persian nightclubs. Because old Persia offered no future for
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#17327720428481752-483: A number of individuals were appointed as Iran's Foreign Ministers, their capacity to act as the architects of the country's foreign affairs was nominal. It was the energetic Teymourtash who became the principal steward and strategist who managed Iran's foreign relations during the first seven years of the Pahlavi dynasty, a task for which he was eminently suited. Teymourtash assumed the lead role in negotiating broadly on
1898-415: A particular issue, rather than individual members beholden to party discipline or a particular cohesive platform. To overcome factions that undermined efforts to advance reforms required by the country, Teymourtash established a fascist political party named Iran-e Now ("The New Iran") in an attempt to introduce discipline to Iran's chaotic Parliament. Such an effort received the approval of Reza Shah and
2044-536: A period of several centuries, Ottoman Turkish (which was highly Persianised itself) had developed toward a fully accepted language of literature, and which was even able to lexically satisfy the demands of a scientific presentation. However, the number of Persian and Arabic loanwords contained in those works increased at times up to 88%. In the Ottoman Empire, Persian was used at the royal court, for diplomacy, poetry, historiographical works, literary works, and
2190-682: A school of dentistry at Mashhad University in Khorasan . The list of domestic institutes of secondary and higher education also increased substantially during this period, although such institutions were associated and funded by various ministries. In 1927 the Faculty of Political Science from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the School of law of the Ministry of Justice were merged to form an independent School of Law and Political Science. Moreover,
2336-599: A speaker of Persian. Persian is a member of the Western Iranian group of the Iranian languages , which make up a branch of the Indo-European languages in their Indo-Iranian subdivision . The Western Iranian languages themselves are divided into two subgroups: Southwestern Iranian languages, of which Persian is the most widely spoken, and Northwestern Iranian languages, of which Kurdish and Balochi are
2482-555: A tax on tea and sugar to finance the construction of a Trans-Iranian Railway , a project which was ultimately completed twelve years later in 1937. The economic merits of such a financing scheme would allow Iran to complete the construction of the Trans-Iranian Railway in 1937 by relying entirely on local capital. Another significant initiative introduced by Teymourtash during his tenure as the Minister of Public Works
2628-615: Is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages . Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran , Afghanistan , and Tajikistan in three mutually intelligible standard varieties , respectively Iranian Persian (officially known as Persian ), Dari Persian (officially known as Dari since 1964), and Tajiki Persian (officially known as Tajik since 1999). It
2774-664: Is a continuation of Middle Persian , an official language of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), itself a continuation of Old Persian , which was used in the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE). It originated in the region of Fars ( Persia ) in southwestern Iran. Its grammar is similar to that of many European languages. Throughout history, Persian was considered prestigious by various empires centered in West Asia , Central Asia , and South Asia . Old Persian
2920-628: Is a direct descendant of Middle and Old Persian. Gernot Windfuhr considers new Persian as an evolution of the Old Persian language and the Middle Persian language but also states that none of the known Middle Persian dialects is the direct predecessor of Modern Persian. Ludwig Paul states: "The language of the Shahnameh should be seen as one instance of continuous historical development from Middle to New Persian." The known history of
3066-850: Is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan , as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran . It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet , a derivative of the Arabic script , and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet , a derivative of the Cyrillic script . Modern Persian
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#17327720428483212-675: Is attested in Old Persian cuneiform on inscriptions from between the 6th and 4th century BC. Middle Persian is attested in Aramaic -derived scripts ( Pahlavi and Manichaean ) on inscriptions and in Zoroastrian and Manichaean scriptures from between the third to the tenth centuries (see Middle Persian literature ). New Persian literature was first recorded in the ninth century, after the Muslim conquest of Persia , since then adopting
3358-425: Is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian remains largely intelligible to speakers of Contemporary Persian, as the morphology and, to a lesser extent, the lexicon of the language have remained relatively stable. New Persian texts written in the Arabic script first appear in the 9th-century. The language is a direct descendant of Middle Persian, the official, religious, and literary language of
3504-495: Is identified closely with the Pahlavi for which he served as the first minister of court from 1925 to 1933. Nonetheless, Teymourtash's rise to prominence on the Iranian political scene predated the rise of Reza Shah to the throne in 1925, and his elevation to the second most powerful political position in the early Pahlavi era was preceded by a number of significant political appointments. Apart from having been elected to serve as
3650-460: Is not actually attested until 600 years later when it appears in the Sassanid era (224–651 AD) inscriptions, so any form of the language before this date cannot be described with any degree of certainty. Moreover, as a literary language, Middle Persian is not attested until much later, in the 6th or 7th century. From the 8th century onward, Middle Persian gradually began yielding to New Persian, with
3796-517: Is offered to his Imperial Majesty by His Excellency Mr. Teymourtash, the Minister of the Sublime Court" Even more significant was the prescient role Teymourtash assumed by establishing the Society for National Heritage in the early 1920s. In due course, this society was joined by some of Iran's leading personalities and assumed a critical role advocating in favour of archeological discoveries,
3942-475: Is one of Afghanistan's two official languages, together with Pashto . The term Dari , meaning "of the court", originally referred to the variety of Persian used in the court of the Sasanian Empire in capital Ctesiphon , which was spread to the northeast of the empire and gradually replaced the former Iranian dialects of Parthia ( Parthian ). Tajik Persian ( форси́и тоҷикӣ́ , forsi-i tojikī ),
4088-585: Is one of the earliest attested Indo-European languages. According to certain historical assumptions about the early history and origin of ancient Persians in Southwestern Iran (where Achaemenids hailed from), Old Persian was originally spoken by a tribe called Parsuwash , who arrived in the Iranian Plateau early in the 1st millennium BCE and finally migrated down into the area of present-day Fārs province. Their language, Old Persian, became
4234-495: Is the appropriate designation of the language in English, as it has the longer tradition in western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity. Iranian historian and linguist Ehsan Yarshater , founder of the Encyclopædia Iranica and Columbia University 's Center for Iranian Studies, mentions the same concern in an academic journal on Iranology , rejecting
4380-792: Is ubiquitous, and his power exceeds that of the Prime Minister. He attends all meetings of the Council of Ministers, and one might compare his position with that of Reich Chancellor, except that he has no direct responsibility." Although the appointment of Teymourtash as Reza Shah 's first Minister of Court proved an inspired selection, it came as a surprise to members of the political establishment in Tehran . The capital's chattering classes were surprised that Reza Shah had not opted for one of his Persian Cossack Brigade colleagues who had accompanied him on his many military campaigns or that he did not appoint another individual with whom he had shared
4526-436: The Encyclopædia Iranica notes that the Iranian, Afghan, and Tajiki varieties comprise distinct branches of the Persian language, and within each branch a wide variety of local dialects exist. The following are some languages closely related to Persian, or in some cases are considered dialects: More distantly related branches of the Iranian language family include Kurdish and Balochi . The Glottolog database proposes
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4672-506: The Kalila wa Dimna . The language spread geographically from the 11th century on and was the medium through which, among others, Central Asian Turks became familiar with Islam and urban culture. New Persian was widely used as a trans-regional lingua franca , a task aided due to its relatively simple morphology, and this situation persisted until at least the 19th century. In the late Middle Ages, new Islamic literary languages were created on
4818-668: The British colonization , Persian was widely used as a second language in the Indian subcontinent . It took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts on the subcontinent and became the sole "official language" under the Mughal emperors . The Bengal Sultanate witnessed an influx of Persian scholars, lawyers, teachers, and clerics. Thousands of Persian books and manuscripts were published in Bengal. The period of
4964-410: The Qajar dynasty 's inability to provide a strong administrative and military apparatus had led the country to come apart at the seams with the growth of secessionist provincial movements in several provinces during the first two decades of the 20th century. The creation of a modernized central government, on the other hand, would establish the means to collect revenues and to introduce drastic reforms in
5110-622: The Sultanate of Rum , Turkmen beyliks of Anatolia , Delhi Sultanate , the Shirvanshahs , Safavids , Afsharids , Zands , Qajars , Khanate of Bukhara , Khanate of Kokand , Emirate of Bukhara , Khanate of Khiva , Ottomans , and also many Mughal successors such as the Nizam of Hyderabad . Persian was the only non-European language known and used by Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan and in his journeys through China. A branch of
5256-713: The Turkic , Armenian , Georgian , & Indo-Aryan languages . It also exerted some influence on Arabic, while borrowing a lot of vocabulary from it in the Middle Ages. Some of the world's most famous pieces of literature from the Middle Ages, such as the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi , the works of Rumi , the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám , the Panj Ganj of Nizami Ganjavi , The Divān of Hafez , The Conference of
5402-491: The ezāfe construction, expressed through ī (modern e/ye ), to indicate some of the relations between words that have been lost with the simplification of the earlier grammatical system. Although the "middle period" of the Iranian languages formally begins with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the transition from Old to Middle Persian had probably already begun before the 4th century BC. However, Middle Persian
5548-597: The " Persianized " Turko-Mongol dynasties during the 12th to 15th centuries, and under restored Persian rule during the 16th to 19th centuries. Persian during this time served as lingua franca of Greater Persia and of much of the Indian subcontinent . It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, including the Samanids, Buyids , Tahirids , Ziyarids , the Mughal Empire , Timurids , Ghaznavids , Karakhanids , Seljuqs , Khwarazmians ,
5694-517: The "services of Firdawsi toward preserving Iranian nationality and creating national unity must be compared to the services of Cyrus the Great". As such during a visit to Paris in 1931, Teymourtash took time out of his busy schedule to visit Exposition coloniale , while in Moscow he arranged to view Lenin's Mausoleum . The Ernst Herzfeld Archives in fact reveal that Teymourtash made some final changes to
5840-489: The American Girls high school in Tehran founded an association of women with the intended goal of establishing a boarding school for destitute women. Also, during the same period Teymourtash's younger sister Badri Teymourtash was sent to Belgium and enrolled in dental studies, and upon her return was to be the first female dentist in the country. In fact by the 1960s, Dr. Badri Teymourtash , would assist in founding
5986-681: The Birds by Attar of Nishapur , and the miscellanea of Gulistan and Bustan by Saadi Shirazi , are written in Persian. Some of the prominent modern Persian poets were Nima Yooshij , Ahmad Shamlou , Simin Behbahani , Sohrab Sepehri , Rahi Mo'ayyeri , Mehdi Akhavan-Sales , and Forugh Farrokhzad . There are approximately 130 million Persian speakers worldwide, including Persians , Lurs , Tajiks , Hazaras , Iranian Azeris , Iranian Kurds , Balochs , Tats , Afghan Pashtuns , and Aimaqs . The term Persophone might also be used to refer to
Abdolhossein Teymourtash - Misplaced Pages Continue
6132-520: The British Government to eventually abandon the scheme altogether. Teymourtash served as the governor of Gilan from 1919 to 1920. His governorship of Gilan was to prove particularly noteworthy given the reality that his primary mandate was to counter secessionist forces in that province led by Mirza Kuchak Khan who received assistance from the new Bolshevik Government in the neighbouring Soviet Union. Teymourtash's term as Governor of Gilan
6278-503: The British Imperial Bank. Legal reforms to strengthen property rights and to create an atmosphere conducive to commercial investment were also gradually devised, and shortly thereafter a Bar Association ("Kanoon-e Vokala") was created in 1930. Establishing a modern educational system, as an indispensable instrument of social change, was therefore a primary objective of secular nationalist during this period. As such, one of
6424-543: The British legation in Tehran seemed favourably impressed with the plan, officials in the British foreign office at Whitehall refused to approve the proposal due to financial considerations. On February 21, 1921, a group of Anglophile political activists led by Seyyed Zia'eddin Tabatabaee , the rising young journalist, succeeded in plotting a coup that toppled the Iranian Government, while vowing to preserve
6570-470: The Iran-e Now in 1928 demonstrating that he preferred the tried-and-true and time honoured technique of relying on individuals who could be cajoled to support his whims, and demonstrating his deep suspicion even of institutions and collective bodies he himself had approved. Ironically, the failure to devise an organized political party, or to create durable institutions are generally considered to have been
6716-512: The Iranian judicial system. Nonetheless, during his brief term as Minister of Justice, he succeeded in securing parliamentary approval to suspend the operation of certain courts and administrative bodies, and dismissed judges and magistrates deemed grossly incompetent. Moreover, given the necessity of expanding the purview of the secular judiciary, state courts were granted partial appellate jurisdiction over religious courts during Teymourtash's term as Minister of Justice. He resigned from Parliament for
6862-479: The Majles (Persian parliament) with the military and political support of Russia and Britain . In July 1909, pro-Constitution forces marched from Persia's provinces to Tehran led by Sardar As'ad , Sepehdar A'zam , Sattar Khan , Bagher Khan and Yeprem Khan , deposed the Shah, and re-established the constitution. On 16 July 1909, the parliament voted to place Mohammad Ali Shah's 11-year-old son, Ahmad Shah on
7008-680: The Medjliss his bill which proposes the abrogation of all Imperial firmans and concessions obtained thereby, which will of course include that held by the French". Although the bill was originally conceived and drafted while Teymourtash served as Minister of Public Works, it finally secured passage through the Majles in 1927. During the 1920s, alongside his varied political engagements, Teymourtash also devoted considerable time to literary and cultural pursuits. Given his longstanding acquaintance with many of Iran's leading intellectuals and writers, he joined
7154-565: The Middle Ages, and is because of the lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The standard Persian of Iran has been called, apart from Persian and Farsi , by names such as Iranian Persian and Western Persian , exclusively. Officially, the official language of Iran is designated simply as Persian ( فارسی , fārsi ). The standard Persian of Afghanistan has been officially named Dari ( دری , dari ) since 1958. Also referred to as Afghan Persian in English, it
7300-420: The Ministry of Education began publishing academic textbooks free of charge for all needy students and at cost for others. A concerted effort was also made to substantially increase the enrolment of females in schools. While a mere 120 girls had graduated from schools in 1926, by 1932 the number had increased substantially to 3713. Indeed, by 1930, Teymourtash's eldest daughter Iran who had recently graduated from
7446-543: The Ottoman Empire all spoke Persian, such as Sultan Selim I , despite being Safavid Iran's archrival and a staunch opposer of Shia Islam . It was a major literary language in the empire. Some of the noted earlier Persian works during the Ottoman rule are Idris Bidlisi 's Hasht Bihisht , which began in 1502 and covered the reign of the first eight Ottoman rulers, and the Salim-Namah , a glorification of Selim I. After
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#17327720428487592-530: The Persian language can be divided into the following three distinct periods: As a written language , Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscription , dating to the time of King Darius I (reigned 522–486 BC). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran , Romania ( Gherla ), Armenia , Bahrain , Iraq , Turkey, and Egypt . Old Persian
7738-425: The Persian language, a language historically called Dari, emerged in present-day Afghanistan. The first significant Persian poet was Rudaki . He flourished in the 10th century, when the Samanids were at the height of their power. His reputation as a court poet and as an accomplished musician and singer has survived, although little of his poetry has been preserved. Among his lost works are versified fables collected in
7884-401: The Persian model: Ottoman Turkish , Chagatai Turkic , Dobhashi Bengali , and Urdu, which are regarded as "structural daughter languages" of Persian. "Classical Persian" loosely refers to the standardized language of medieval Persia used in literature and poetry . This is the language of the 10th to 12th centuries, which continued to be used as literary language and lingua franca under
8030-886: The Perso-Arabic script. Persian was the first language to break through the monopoly of Arabic on writing in the Muslim world , with Persian poetry becoming a tradition in many eastern courts. It was used officially as a language of bureaucracy even by non-native speakers, such as the Ottomans in Anatolia , the Mughals in South Asia, and the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. It influenced languages spoken in neighboring regions and beyond, including other Iranian languages,
8176-412: The Prime Minister, consisted of cautious and traditional administrators impervious to the need for rapid modernization or reform. The exceptions to this general rule were some of the younger, better educated and more competent members of Cabinet who displayed a more spirited inculcation, such as Firouz Mirza Nosrat-ed-Dowleh Farman Farmaian III , who became the Minister of Finance, and Ali Akbar Davar who
8322-534: The Qajar monarchy. The military strongman commanding the Persian Cossack Brigade that descended on Tehran was to be Reza Khan. Reza Khan had successfully consolidated his hold over this cavalry unit when its Tsarist commanding officers departed Iran due to the revolutionary upheaval and the ensuing Civil War that engulfed their country. While the Coup lasted approximately 100 days, it proved to be
8468-484: The Sasanian Empire (224–651). However, it is not descended from the literary form of Middle Persian (known as pārsīk , commonly called Pahlavi), which was spoken by the people of Fars and used in Zoroastrian religious writings. Instead, it is descended from the dialect spoken by the court of the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon and the northeastern Iranian region of Khorasan , known as Dari. The region, which comprised
8614-427: The Sassanids (who were Persians, i.e. from the southwest) from the preceding Arsacids (who were Parthians, i.e. from the northeast). While Ibn al-Muqaffa' (eighth century) still distinguished between Pahlavi (i.e. Parthian) and Persian (in Arabic text: al-Farisiyah) (i.e. Middle Persian), this distinction is not evident in Arab commentaries written after that date. "New Persian" (also referred to as Modern Persian)
8760-407: The Seljuks, the Sultanate of Rum , took Persian language, art, and letters to Anatolia. They adopted the Persian language as the official language of the empire. The Ottomans , who can roughly be seen as their eventual successors, inherited this tradition. Persian was the official court language of the empire, and for some time, the official language of the empire. The educated and noble class of
8906-417: The Zidd-i Ajnabiha group mobilized support by attacking the legal reforms being initiated by Ali Akbar Davar , and challenged the newly initiated conscription law. Rather than clamp down on such a challenge and the ensuing partisan bickering, Reza Shah is said to have surreptitiously supported and engaged in double dealing to support both of the competing groups. In a Machiavellian twist, Reza Shah dissolved
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#17327720428489052-440: The advent of the Pahlavi era, the range of studies for government sponsored students sent abroad was extended in 1926 to encompass broader disciplines, most notably engineering. Furthermore, to adopt a more systematic approach, a bill was passed in 1928 establishing a fully state-funded program to finance the sending of 100 students a year to Europe . Other significant initiatives of the early Pahlavi era were attempts to secularize
9198-441: The area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III . The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain, but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian pārsa itself coming directly from the older word * pārćwa . Also, as Old Persian contains many words from another extinct Iranian language, Median , according to P. O. Skjærvø it is probable that Old Persian had already been spoken before
9344-420: The backbone of a burgeoning bureaucracy. It proved an ideal gathering ground for networking opportunities for individuals vying to cultivate and emulate the latest western norms of proper etiquette and social behaviour. Given its avant garde pretensions, it is not surprising that it paved the way for gaining social acceptance for the official policy of unveiling, since ministers and members of parliament appeared at
9490-412: The balance of its term and served as Governor of Kerman for the following year and a half. With the advent of a new government, Teymourtash was once again summoned to join Cabinet as the Minister of Public Works. Among his most notable accomplishments in his capacity as Minister of Public works in 1924 made the far reaching decision to draft a detailed proposal to the Iranian Parliament in 1924 introducing
9636-438: The bureaucracy, and his unrivalled command over its parts made him the most powerful man in Iranian society. He thus skilfully dictated most of the policies and supervised their progress. A report prepared by the American representative in Tehran, Murray Hart, illustrates the breadth of Teymourtash's knowledge of the various aspects of the bureaucracy: "After my first few meetings with him I began to suspect that his brilliancy had
9782-444: The cabinet to assume a mostly decorative function. A review of the diplomatic correspondence emanating from Iran amply highlights the extent to which Teymourtash played a critical role in ensuring that the machinery of government ran smoothly. In 1926 Clive, the British diplomat, wrote to London about mental malaise evident in Reza Shah by stating "his energy appears for the moment to have deserted him; his faculties have been clouded by
9928-402: The club once a week with their unveiled wives in mixed gatherings several years before such a practise was displayed on a more popular and widespread basis in other settings. The primary foreign policy objective pursued by Iran during the early Pahlavi era was to loosen the economic grasp of foreign powers on Iran, and in particular to mitigate the influence of Britain and the Soviet Union. While
10074-457: The code fas for the dialects spoken across Iran and Afghanistan. This consists of the individual languages Dari ( prs ) and Iranian Persian ( pes ). It uses tgk for Tajik, separately. In general, the Iranian languages are known from three periods: namely Old, Middle, and New (Modern). These correspond to three historical eras of Iranian history ; Old era being sometime around the Achaemenid Empire (i.e., 400–300 BC), Middle era being
10220-512: The collapse of the Sassanid state, Parsik came to be applied exclusively to (either Middle or New) Persian that was written in the Arabic script . From about the 9th century onward, as Middle Persian was on the threshold of becoming New Persian, the older form of the language came to be erroneously called Pahlavi , which was actually but one of the writing systems used to render both Middle Persian as well as various other Middle Iranian languages. That writing system had previously been adopted by
10366-479: The constitutional ideals and thrust of this gathering and assumed a leading role in the group. Teymourtash's active involvement in constitutional gatherings led, in due course, to his appointment as chief of staff of the populist constitutionalist forces resisting the reigning monarch's decision to storm the buildings of Parliament. The constitutionalists forces eventually took sanctuary in Parliament to demand constitutionally entrenched rights and safeguards. Throughout
10512-443: The construction of mausoleums to honour Iran's past poets, and the establishment of museums and libraries in the decades that followed. The society spurred considerable interest by western orientalists to undertake archaeological excavations in Iran, and lay the foundation for the construction of a mausoleum to honour Ferdowsi in 1934 and of Hafez in 1938, to name a few of its more notable early achievements. Teymourtash believed that
10658-590: The country's economic rehabilitation, made treaties, supervised the complicated questions regarding what to do with the tribes and told the War Minister much he did not know about organizing a system of national defence. The Soviet commercial treaty and the trade monopoly laws are unmistakable monuments to his versatility." Teymourtash was conferred the royal title of Jenab-i-Ashraf (His Highness) in September 1928. During Teymourtash's term as Minister of Court,
10804-487: The country. Another key element for such nationalists was to drastically undermine the prerogatives enjoyed by the Shia religious establishment which detracted from attempts at modernisation. Devising diverse development projects required the creation of a large bureaucracy capable of initiating and fostering ambitious industrialization and urbanization processes capable of significantly transforming Iranian society. As such, in
10950-513: The court ministry became the nucleus of a modern centralized bureaucracy. By all accounts Teymourtash used his position at the pinnacle to full effect by working tirelessly to ensure that the machinery of government pursued an ambitious agenda. Among the principal functions of the new Minister of Court were to mediate the relations between Reza Shah and the cabinet and parliament, and to serve as an arbiter among government institutions with overlapping responsibilities. Most members of cabinet, including
11096-524: The decorative designs adorning the Ferdowsi mausoleum. While the Society remained active for many decades that followed, there was never any mention that the initial creation of the Society was largely made possible by the personal efforts of Teymourtash. Apart from convening early meetings of the Society at his residence in the early 1920s, he spared no effort to solicit and engage the interest of Iran's leading political and educational elites, such as two of
11242-465: The devastating impact of the war. However, the secrecy shrouding the negotiation of the 1919 Agreement, and the failure to summon Parliament to ratify it prompted nationalist politicians to seize the opportunity to galvanize public opposition to the agreement. Recognizing the brewing controversy, the Government of Iran on advice of the British Government refrained from reconvening Parliament which it
11388-406: The earliest recruits, Isa Sadiq and Arbab Keikhosrow Shahrokh . It was Teymourtash's appointment as Minister of Court in 1925 that proved invaluable in allowing him to demonstrate his prowess as a formidable administrator, and to establish his reputation as an indefatigable statesman intent on successfully laying the foundations of modern Iran . In this capacity, Teymourtash assumed the powers of
11534-500: The editorial board of Daneshkadeh, a periodical established by Mohammad Taghi Bahar ("Malekol Sho'ara"), one of Iran's leading intellectual luminaries. As revealed by Saeed Naficy (or Nafisi), one of the other distinguished members of the editorial board of Daneshkadeh, Teymourtash contributed extensively to this publication by drafting numerous articles, as well as translating various articles originating in European journals. However,
11680-482: The educational system by providing funding for state schools to gradually dominate the provision of elementary education at the expense of the traditional religious schools referred to as maktabs. This was achieved by a 1927 decree which provided free education for those unable to afford tuition fees. In the following year, inspired by the French Lycee model, a uniform curriculum was established for high schools, and
11826-420: The elements of madness. He impressed me as just too bright, this was because the man's gifts were so extraordinary as to appear unnatural. Whether it was foreign affairs, the construction of railways or highways, reforms in post and telegraphs, educational administration or finance, he, as a rule, could discuss those subjects more intelligently than the so-called competent ministers. Besides, he devised formulas for
11972-652: The extent of its influence on certain languages of the Indian subcontinent. Words borrowed from Persian are still quite commonly used in certain Indo-Aryan languages, especially Hindi - Urdu (also historically known as Hindustani ), Punjabi , Kashmiri , and Sindhi . There is also a small population of Zoroastrian Iranis in India, who migrated in the 19th century to escape religious execution in Qajar Iran and speak
12118-469: The first five years of the Reza Shah period, Iran developed a network of railroads that connected ports to inland cities, thereby encouraging trade between rural and urban centers. The functioning of such a burgeoning state apparatus would require the development of increased political support by promoting drastic and far-reaching economic reforms. As such, in 1926 a new School of Commerce was created, and
12264-571: The first half of the 20th century. Abdolhossein Khan Teymourtash (Sardar Moazam Khorasani) was born into a prominent family in 1883. His father, Karimdad Khan Nardini (Moa'zes al Molk), was a major landowner with extensive landholdings in Khorasan, Iran's northern province neighbouring the then Imperial Russia 's Central Asia (now Turkmenistan ). To provide his son with the best educational opportunities available to affluent Iranians of
12410-399: The first step in creating a bona fide university occurred in 1929 when Teymourtash officially commissioned Isa Sadiq to draft plans for the foundation of a university, which would lead to the establishment of Tehran University several years later. Teymourtash assumed the intellectual leadership of Iranian reformists during this period, acting both as the principal initiator and executor of
12556-399: The first tasks Teymourtash set for himself upon returning to his native Iran was to retire to the seclusion of his family estates with the task of improving his Persian. With the help of a tutor, he spent approximately the first six months upon his return to Iran to perfecting his native linguistic skills and devouring Persian poetry and literary masterpieces. His discipline and foresight during
12702-478: The following phylogenetic classification: Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar ( Persian : محمدعلی شاه قاجار ; 21 June 1872 – 5 April 1925) was the sixth shah of the Qajar dynasty and remained the Shah of Iran from 8 January 1907 until being deposed on 16 July 1909. He was furthermore the grandson of Iran’s early moderniser Amir Kabir , through maternal side . Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar
12848-577: The formation of many modern languages in West Asia, Europe, Central Asia , and South Asia . Following the Turko-Persian Ghaznavid conquest of South Asia , Persian was firstly introduced in the region by Turkic Central Asians. The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties. For five centuries prior to
12994-476: The formation of the Achaemenid Empire and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. Xenophon , a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BCE, which is when Old Persian was still spoken and extensively used. He relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like
13140-459: The fumes of opium, which have distorted his judgement and induced long spells of sullen and secretive lethargy punctuated by nightmare suspicions or by spasms of impulsive rage". However, when Teymourtash returned from his diplomatic trip of several months abroad, Clive was to report back to London that Teimurtash was instrumental in jolting Reza Shah out of his lethargy. In his capacity as Minister of Court, Teymourtash took an active hand in devising
13286-524: The government assumed the lead in establishing a Chamber of Commerce. The government also proceeded to encourage the development of private industry by offering financial incentives such as government-sanctioned monopolies and low interest loans to prospective local factory owners. In 1928 another significant step towards establishing fiscal order was taken with the establishment of the National bank ("Bank-e Melli") which assumed functions previously reserved to
13432-443: The greatest shortcomings of the Reza Shah period which would in turn lead to the demise of his rule in 1941. Another initiative of Teymourtash's that proved significant was his founding of the Iran social club, which was to have significant social implications. This social club, the first of its kind in Tehran, proved a popular convening point for the social elite and the young and upwardly mobile educated members of society that formed
13578-407: The increased vigour which would characterise its diplomacy on a host of issues in the coming years. As an American diplomat familiar with the personalities of Reza Shah and Teymourtash was to note in 1933, after the latter was relieved of his duties by the former, "In contrast to his former right hand man, the Shah is untutored, irascible, ruthless, and totally lacking in cosmopolitanism or knowledge of
13724-466: The language of the Persians. Related to Old Persian, but from a different branch of the Iranian language family, was Avestan , the language of the Zoroastrian liturgical texts. The complex grammatical conjugation and declension of Old Persian yielded to the structure of Middle Persian in which the dual number disappeared, leaving only singular and plural, as did gender. Middle Persian developed
13870-529: The late 19th century, Teymourtash's father dispatched him at the age of 11 to Tsarist Russia to receive a formal education. After enrolling for a year of preparatory school in Ashgabat , Teymourtash was sent to Saint Petersburg to pursue further studies. He was enrolled as a cavalry cadet at the venerated Imperial Nicholas Military Academy , a preserve of the sons of the Russian aristocracy. The curriculum of
14016-440: The latter would be spared harm should he return to Iran from Germany after he had authored articles critical of the Shah while residing abroad. Upon returning to Iran in 1932, Mirza Mohammad Farrokhi Yazdi remained immune from government harassment for several years, although he was subsequently indicted in 1935 several years after Teymourtash's fall from grace. Teymourtash's voracious intellectual appetite led him to assemble one of
14162-412: The long intervening stretches between the dissolution of each session of Parliament and the reconvening of the next. Although Iran remained a non-belligerent during World War I, it suffered more economic devastation than any other neutral country during the period. Nonetheless, in 1918, the new Soviet Government renounced all previous concessions granted by Iran to Tsarist Russia. Intent on capitalizing on
14308-509: The many initiatives that followed. Among the shortcomings of the Iranian Parliament was that meaningful reform had been held hostage to the reality that the Majles lacked genuine political parties and the political dynamics within parliament centered around the agency of powerful men. Therefore, the Majles was composed of factions represented by ever shifting alignments and the temporary coalition of individuals created with respect to
14454-432: The middle-period form only continuing in the texts of Zoroastrianism . Middle Persian is considered to be a later form of the same dialect as Old Persian. The native name of Middle Persian was Parsig or Parsik , after the name of the ethnic group of the southwest, that is, "of Pars ", Old Persian Parsa , New Persian Fars . This is the origin of the name Farsi as it is today used to signify New Persian. Following
14600-650: The military withdrawal of Soviet troops from Iran, and the attendant decision by the Soviet authorities to diminish their political interference in its domestic affairs, the United Kingdom decided that the time was ripe to consolidate its de facto control of Iran. To accomplish such an objective, the British set out to prevail upon the Iranian Government that it should cede financial, military and diplomatic authority in return for much needed financial and military assistance. The British succeeded in their design by offering
14746-403: The most cultivated and educated Persians of his day". As such, apart from his significant accomplishments as one of the masterminds of the early Pahlavi era where he devised a number of fundamental bureaucratic reforms and navigated his country's foreign relations, Teymourtash has been credited with playing a significant role in shaping the intellectual and cultural currents that transformed Iran in
14892-520: The most extensive private library collections in Iran. No effort was spared in this endeavour, and Teymourtash was recognized as one of the country's most generous patrons of literary works and Persian calligraphy. Among the many works he commissioned, a notable example was the Testament of Ardashir into Persian. Indeed, the title page of the first edition published in Tehran in 1932 would read as follows: "This unique and most important historical document
15038-536: The most widely spoken. The term Persian is an English derivation of Latin Persiānus , the adjectival form of Persia , itself deriving from Greek Persís ( Περσίς ), a Hellenized form of Old Persian Pārsa ( 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 ), which means " Persia " (a region in southwestern Iran, corresponding to modern-day Fars ). According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the term Persian as
15184-411: The nationalist movement of the time. The academy was a key institution in the struggle to re-build Iran as a nation-state after the collapse of the Qajar dynasty. During the 1930s and 1940s, the academy led massive campaigns to replace the many Arabic , Russian , French , and Greek loanwords whose widespread use in Persian during the centuries preceding the foundation of the Pahlavi dynasty had created
15330-448: The necessity of protecting the Persian language against foreign words, and to the standardization of Persian orthography , were under the reign of Naser ed Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty in 1871. After Naser ed Din Shah, Mozaffar ed Din Shah ordered the establishment of the first Persian association in 1903. This association officially declared that it used Persian and Arabic as acceptable sources for coining words. The ultimate goal
15476-414: The next period most officially around the Sasanian Empire , and New era being the period afterward down to present day. According to available documents, the Persian language is "the only Iranian language" for which close philological relationships between all of its three stages are established and so that Old, Middle, and New Persian represent one and the same language of Persian; that is, New Persian
15622-732: The northern part of Greece). Vardar Yenicesi differed from other localities in the Balkans insofar as that it was a town where Persian was also widely spoken. However, the Persian of Vardar Yenicesi and throughout the rest of the Ottoman-held Balkans was different from formal Persian both in accent and vocabulary. The difference was apparent to such a degree that the Ottomans referred to it as "Rumelian Persian" ( Rumili Farsisi ). As learned people such as students, scholars and literati often frequented Vardar Yenicesi, it soon became
15768-542: The official language of the Achaemenid kings. Assyrian records, which in fact appear to provide the earliest evidence for ancient Iranian (Persian and Median) presence on the Iranian Plateau, give a good chronology but only an approximate geographical indication of what seem to be ancient Persians. In these records of the 9th century BCE, Parsuwash (along with Matai , presumably Medians) are first mentioned in
15914-413: The parliamentary and legislative process, it is likely that the decision to appoint him as his first Minister of Court was animated by Reza Shah 's keen interest in selecting an urbane individual familiar with diplomatic protocol who could impress foreign capitals, as well as an energetic and workaholic reformer capable of introducing discipline to the administration of government. Lacking any semblance of
16060-413: The period would serve him well, leading him, in due course, to be described as Iran's most gifted orator in its modern parliamentary experience. Another fortuitous development during the early years of his return to Iran, was his marriage to Sorour ol Saltaneh, the niece of the regent, Azod al Molk , and a relative of the governor of Khorasan, Nayer al Dowleh. To congratulate the new couple on their wedding,
16206-502: The period, Teymourtash remained directly involved by training members of the constitutionalist volunteer militia, and demonstrated much bravery when clashes took place with the better trained and more numerous royalist forces. Despite the staunch efforts of the constitutionalists, the royalist forces prevailed by storming Parliament and dissolving the National Assembly. The following year when nationwide elections were held for
16352-638: The present territories of northwestern Afghanistan as well as parts of Central Asia, played a leading role in the rise of New Persian. Khorasan, which was the homeland of the Parthians, was Persianized under the Sasanians. Dari Persian thus supplanted Parthian language , which by the end of the Sasanian era had fallen out of use. New Persian has incorporated many foreign words, including from eastern northern and northern Iranian languages such as Sogdian and especially Parthian. The transition to New Persian
16498-725: The principal architect of the various reforms instituted during the first seven years of Reza Shah's reign. The persistent foreign interventions of the previous decades that had brought Iran to the brink of social and economic chaos had led to the emergence of secular nationalists intent on securing the country's independence by steering clear of the previous pattern of endless compromise with foreign powers for short-term political gain. Given their aversion to Iran's centrifugal tendencies and their inclination to centralize governmental powers by creating an expanded bureaucracy, such nationalists were in favour of creating national institutions that would withstand provincial autonomous tendencies. After all,
16644-884: The reality that these articles were penned under the pseudonym "S.M. Khorasani", would unfortunately lead Teymourtash's literary talents to escape the attention of future Iranian academics. Teymourtash's abiding interest in literature would in fact lead him to advocate in favour of securing government funds to allow Allameh Ghazvini to undertake an elaborate project to copy old Persian manuscripts available in European library collections. The funding permitted Allameh Ghazvini to spend many years visiting libraries in London, Paris, Leningrad, Berlin, and Cairo where he secured copies of rare manuscripts which he subsequently forwarded to Tehran to be utilized by Iranian scholars. In other instances, Teymourtash used his political influence to assist intellectuals and writers such as his interventions to ensure that
16790-399: The realms in which Teymourtash assumed a direct and principal role was in revamping Iran's educational system, and from 1925 to 1932 Education Ministers would share their authority with the powerful and influential Court Minister. By 1921, recognizing the need for creating a cadre of foreign educated professionals, the Iranian Government had sent sixty students to French military academies. With
16936-588: The region during the following centuries. Persian continued to act as a courtly language for various empires in Punjab through the early 19th century serving finally as the official state language of the Sikh Empire , preceding British conquest and the decline of Persian in South Asia. Beginning in 1843, though, English and Hindustani gradually replaced Persian in importance on the subcontinent. Evidence of Persian's historical influence there can be seen in
17082-602: The reign of Sultan Ghiyathuddin Azam Shah is described as the "golden age of Persian literature in Bengal". Its stature was illustrated by the Sultan's own correspondence and collaboration with the Persian poet Hafez ; a poem which can be found in the Divan of Hafez today. A Bengali dialect emerged among the common Bengali Muslim folk, based on a Persian model and known as Dobhashi ; meaning mixed language . Dobhashi Bengali
17228-407: The reigning Qajar Shah of the period bestowed the title Sardar Moazzam Khorasani on the young groom. Teymourtash's first employment upon returning to Iran was with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he served as a minor bureaucrat while acting as a Russian translator. Shortly thereafter, Teymourtash's father's connections to the court proved decisive and the 24‑year‑old was appointed a member of
17374-418: The renowned historian Ahmad Kasravi would be spared harassment by the government apparatus while undertaking research, and his success in securing a seat for noted poet Mohammad Taghi Bahar to the 5th Majles from Bojnourd district which he had himself previously represented. Furthermore, he is known to have successfully interceded with Reza Shah on behalf of journalist Mirza Mohammad Farrokhi Yazdi to ensure
17520-401: The royal court, young Teymourtash became an active member of the constitutional society headed by Malik al-Mutakallimin in Khorasan. While the rank and file of this particular society consisted mainly of lesser tradesman and poorer people, and included amongst its active membership very few educated notables, Teymourtash demonstrated his progressive tendencies by developing a strong affinity for
17666-534: The same time a Cossack officer, Starosselsky, had been appointed military governor with unfettered powers to quell the jangali successionist movement. In fact, Mirza Kuchak Khan's followers put on trial during Teymourtash's term were court martialed by a five-member tribunal consisting entirely of Cossack officers. A Soviet Republic of Gilan was declared in June 1920, after Teymourtash's return to Tehran, lasting until October 1921. Given Teymourtash's concern with protecting
17812-571: The school was predominated mainly by military and administrative studies, but also allowed Teymourtash to adopt a fluent command of Russian, French and German, as well as familiarity with English. Teymourtash's eleven-year stay in Russia also led him to develop a lifelong passion for Russian and French literature, leading him to be the first Iranian to translate into Persian the masterful Russian literary works of Lermontov and Turgenev upon his return to Iran. Given his extensive absence from Iran, one of
17958-436: The second Majlis of Iran , Teymourtash was elected the youngest Member of Parliament at the age of 26 from Neishabour, in his native Province of Khorasan. In subsequent elections he was re-elected as a deputy to the 3rd (1914–1915), 4th (1921–1923), 5th (1924–1926) and 6th (1926–1928) National Assemblies. However, given the sporadic convening of the Iranian Parliament, Teymourtash accepted a number of political appointments during
18104-613: The site of a flourishing Persianate linguistic and literary culture. The 16th-century Ottoman Aşık Çelebi (died 1572), who hailed from Prizren in modern-day Kosovo , was galvanized by the abundant Persian-speaking and Persian-writing communities of Vardar Yenicesi, and he referred to the city as a "hotbed of Persian". Many Ottoman Persianists who established a career in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ) pursued early Persian training in Saraybosna, amongst them Ahmed Sudi . The Persian language influenced
18250-573: The standard Persian of Tajikistan, has been officially designated as Tajik ( тоҷикӣ , tojikī ) since the time of the Soviet Union . It is the name given to the varieties of Persian spoken in Central Asia in general. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa for the Persian language, as its coding system is mostly based on the native-language designations. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses
18396-717: The standard Persian. The Hazaragi dialect (in Central Afghanistan and Pakistan), Herati (in Western Afghanistan), Darwazi (in Afghanistan and Tajikistan), Basseri (in Southern Iran), and the Tehrani accent (in Iran, the basis of standard Iranian Persian) are examples of these dialects. Persian-speaking peoples of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan can understand one another with a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility . Nevertheless,
18542-439: The stepping stone allowing Reza Khan to consolidate his power and, in due course, to ascend to the throne several years later. Although, according to the British archives, Seyyed Zia'eddin Tabatabaee offered Teymourtash a cabinet portfolio, Teymourtash refused to join the former's government. In the aftermath of the coup a number of Iranian political notables, including Teymourtash, were imprisoned to forestall opposition. Teymourtash
18688-529: The territorial integrity of Iran from the secessionist troops led by Mirza Kuchak Khan , upon his recall to Tehran, along with Seyyed Zia'eddin Tabatabaee , he approached the British legation in the capital to solicit their support to resist the insurgents in the North. In return for British financial assistance, Teymourtash proposed an arrangement whereby he would assume personal command of troops to repel advances made by Mirza Kuchak Khan and his supporters. Although
18834-469: The then Iranian Prime Minister, and its Ministers of Finance and Foreign Affairs, sizeable bribes to ensure that they would acquiesce to the British demand to devise a virtual protectorate over Iran. It was agreed that neither the bribes nor the terms of the Agreement would be made public, and that the scheme would be portrayed as a necessity to forestall the chaos that had enveloped Iran in the aftermath of
18980-484: The throne. Mohammad Ali Shah abdicated following the new Constitutional Revolution and he has since been remembered as a symbol of dictatorship. Having fled to Odesa , Russia (currently Ukraine ), Mohammad Ali plotted his return to power. In 1911 he landed at Astarabad , Persia, but his forces were defeated. Mohammad Ali Shah returned to Russia, then in 1920 to Constantinople (present day Istanbul ) and later to San Remo , Italy , where he died on 5 April 1925. He
19126-485: The use of Farsi in foreign languages. Etymologically, the Persian term Farsi derives from its earlier form Pārsi ( Pārsik in Middle Persian ), which in turn comes from the same root as the English term Persian . In the same process, the Middle Persian toponym Pārs ("Persia") evolved into the modern name Fars. The phonemic shift from /p/ to /f/ is due to the influence of Arabic in
19272-588: The widest range of treaties and commercial agreements, while Ministers ostensibly in charge of Iran's Foreign Ministry such as Mohammad Ali Foroughi and Mohammad Farzin were relegated mainly to administering official correspondence with foreign governments and assuming roles akin to the Court Minister's clerk. Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ),
19418-452: The world." As many contemporaries have corroborated, in 1926 Reza Shah informed members of his Cabinet that "Teymourtash's word is my word", and for the first seven years of his reign, Teymourtash "became virtually the Shah's alter ego". While Teymourtash, in his capacity as Minister of Court was not officially a member of the Council of Ministers, his secure position at the pinnacle in effect led Prime Ministers to act as mere figureheads and
19564-624: Was adopted by the Majlis by a vote of 80–5 on 31 October 1925 that paved the way for Reza Shah to assume the throne. Moreover, in the period following the Coup of 1921 , Teymourtash had been instrumental in successfully navigating legislation through the Iranian parliament whereby it became possible for Reza Khan to assume full jurisdiction over Iran's defence apparatus in his capacity as Commander in Chief. Apart from appreciating Teymourtash's strong grasp of
19710-597: Was already complete by the era of the three princely dynasties of Iranian origin, the Tahirid dynasty (820–872), Saffarid dynasty (860–903), and Samanid Empire (874–999). Abbas of Merv is mentioned as being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the New Persian tongue and after him the poems of Hanzala Badghisi were among the most famous between the Persian-speakers of the time. The first poems of
19856-402: Was appointed the Minister of Justice in the early Pahlavi period. Consequently, the three formed what was to be commonly referred to as the "governing triumvirate", which began to constitute itself in the immediate aftermath of Reza Shah's coronation. While the three provided much of the intellectual and ideological inspiration for reform, it was Teymourtash who played the leading role and acted as
20002-415: Was assumed would refuse to ratify the Agreement. At this juncture, Teymourtash emerged as one of the main politicians to voice early opposition to the agreement by co-authoring a general proclamation signed by 41 members of parliament referred to as the "Statement of Truth" which denounced the Agreement of 1919. The proclamation proved effective in consolidating popular opposition against the Agreement, leading
20148-438: Was held until the coup collapsed several months later. Soon after being released, Teymourtash returned to Tehran and was appointed Minister of Justice in the cabinet of Hassan Pirnia ("Moshir al Dowleh"), with a mandate to initiate the process of modernizing the court system in Iran based on the French judicial model. However, the collapse of the Government shortly thereafter prevented Teymourtash from fundamentally restructuring
20294-410: Was not initially singled out as one of the members of Parliament to be incarcerated. The decision to have him arrested followed an exchange he had with one of the British diplomats in Tehran at an official function whereby he publicly accused the British Government of having masterminded the putsch led by Sayyad Zia and Reza Khan. After being briefly held in prison, Teymourtash was exiled to Qom where he
20440-695: Was opposed to the Persian Constitution of 1906 , which had been ratified during the reign of his father, Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar . Therefore, he was frequently criticized by the publications of the period, including a weekly newspaper Musavat . In 1907, Mohammad Ali dissolved the National Consultative Assembly and declared the Constitution abolished because it was contrary to Islamic law . He bombarded
20586-597: Was patronised and given official status under the Sultans of Bengal , and was a popular literary form used by Bengalis during the pre-colonial period, irrespective of their religion. Following the defeat of the Hindu Shahi dynasty, classical Persian was established as a courtly language in the region during the late 10th century under Ghaznavid rule over the northwestern frontier of the subcontinent . Employed by Punjabis in literature, Persian achieved prominence in
20732-613: Was taught in state schools, and was also offered as an elective course or recommended for study in some madrasas . Persian learning was also widespread in the Ottoman-held Balkans ( Rumelia ), with a range of cities being famed for their long-standing traditions in the study of Persian and its classics, amongst them Saraybosna (modern Sarajevo , Bosnia and Herzegovina), Mostar (also in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Vardar Yenicesi (or Yenice-i Vardar, now Giannitsa , in
20878-482: Was the introduction of legislation annulling the French monopoly concession for excavating antiquities in Iran in a bid to usher in an open door policy whereby excavators from other countries could assist in unearthing Iranian national treasures and antiquities. As Murray, the American Minister to Tehran noted at the time, "Meanwhile the indefatigable Sardar Moazzam, Minister of Public Works, has introduced to
21024-492: Was to prevent books from being printed with wrong use of words. According to the executive guarantee of this association, the government was responsible for wrongfully printed books. Words coined by this association, such as rāh-āhan ( راهآهن ) for "railway", were printed in Soltani Newspaper ; but the association was eventually closed due to inattention. A scientific association was founded in 1911, resulting in
21170-543: Was to prove short-lived, lasting less than a year, after which he was recalled to the capital without the balance of power between central government forces and those of the Soviet-backed insurgents having shifted in any particular direction. Some Iranian historians have accused Teymourtash of having used undue force in resisting the secessionists, but records that could corroborate such an account have not been presented. He may have been appointed civilian governor, but at
21316-538: Was welcomed by deputies who recognized the need for a more systematic approach to the legislative process. However, soon after being established in 1927 the Iran-Now party encountered resistance from rival politicians who cultivated the support of mullahs and other reactionary elements to form a competing Zidd-i Ajnabiha ("Anti-foreign") party. Apart from directly attacking the Iran-Now Party's secular tendencies,
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