Abdol-Hossein Mirza Farmanfarma - Biography

Biography

Prince Abdol Hossein was born to Prince Nosrat Dowleh Firouz Mirza in approximately 1859 through his wife Hajieh Homa Khanoum. His youth was spent perfecting the arts of swordmanship, poetry, hunting, riding, calligraphy, ceremonial etiquette, and other subjects required of a Persian nobleman. He continued his education at the Austrian Military Academy in Tehran where he distinguished himself as a soldier and strategist. He also showed himself to be an enthusiastic builder of bridges and roads, with a very keen interest in new Western sciences and social improvements. By 1882, following his time in the academy, he reached the rank of colonel and took command of the military units in the province of Kerman. Two years later in 1884, he was re-assigned to Iranian Azarbaijan where he became the Commander of the Qarasuran Corps (Gendarmerie and Security Administration). In 1886, Abdol Hossein Mirza's father died. In recognition of his distinguished military service, he is awarded the title of "Amir Tooman" in 1887. Shortly afterwards he married Princess Ezzat-Dowleh, daughter of the king and his first of four wives, in 1888. At the time he was approximately thirty years old. Following the marriage, and out of respect for Ezzat-Dowleh and also due to her high social rank, he took no other wives for the next twenty years. During part of this time he served as Commander in Chief of the Army in Azarbaijan, Governor of Kerman (twice), Governor of Kurdistan, Governor of Fars, Governor of Kermanshah, and Governor of Azarbaijan. In his capacity as governor he founded one of Iran's first secular schools for girls.

In 1899, due to the intrigues of the Mozzafar-al-Din Shah's entourage he was exiled to Baghdad in Ottoman Mesopotamia. His wife Princess Ezzat-Dowleh (Mozafar din Shah's daughter), voluntarily fled with him into exile and stayed with him for five years. She was then able to convince the Shah to let Abdol Hossein Mirza Farmanfarma return. Upon his return Abol Hossein sent his sons to schools in Europe, leaving his wife very much alone. The two grew further apart as time passed.

In 1906 the ascendance of her brother Mohammad Ali Shah to the throne plunged the country into civil war again as the new shah tried to crush the democratic movement. During the Iranian Civil War Farmanfarma sided with the constitutionalists who were victorious. He continued his government service by holding the posts of Minister of Justice and War Minister. He also became the leader of a party of conservative moderates. In his role as Minister for Justice he introduced the Western custom of court trials into the Persian legal system.

Eventually, Farmanfarma was dispatched by the Shah to Tabriz in order to make peace between warring Persian and Kurdish tribes. During his stay there he had married his second wife, the daughter of a Kurdish mountain chief, in order to seal a pact. The young Kurdish bride had actually been sent back to her tribe and died a few years later. Princess Ezzat-Dowleh and Abdol Hossein Mirza Farmanfarma grew even more apart and the two became completely estranged.

In 1911 Farmanfarma married his second true wife, Masoumeh Khanoum who was accepted by a very lonely Princess Ezzat-Dowleh amidst the chaos of the civil war. Abdol Hossein Mirza Farmanfarma returned to Tehran in 1915 after quelling the secession in the west of Iran. With his arrival he brought his third wife, named Batul (the marriage, like that of his Kurdish wife, was to seal a pact).

Farmanfarma was in Tehran for only one year, serving first as War Minister and then as Prime Minister. For most of his tenure he was trying to keep the country unified, which he successfully managed to do. During his time as Prime Minister, he established the Ministry of Health, and created the Pasteur Institute of Iran whose first action was to introduce a smallpox vaccine that saved countless lives. After only three months he resigned from the post of Prime Minister. In 1916, he returned to Shiraz for his second appointment as governor general of the Fars province.

On his arrival in Shiraz, the entire province was in total chaos. His first task was to prevent the spread of a famine. He carried this out by organising Iran's first agricultural cooperative. To ensure his acceptance by the people of Shiraz he took a wife, Fatimeh Khanoum, from one of the leading local families. He also raised an all-Iranian regiment to restore security and order to the province with the help of British General Sykes who referred to Farmanfarma as "my friend" in his famous History of Persia. Sykes also went on to praise Farmanfarma as "one of the ablest men in Iran". Farmanfarma for his part was a well known Anglophile.

He completed his term as the governor of Shiraz in 1921 when he was replaced by his nephew Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh. Upon his return to Tehran he was arrested, with two of his elder sons (Nosrat Dowleh the foreign minister, Abbas Mirza Salar-Lashgar a general), by Reza Shah who had just taken power in a coup. He spent the next three months in the Qasr-e-Qajar jail until Reza Shah had proclaimed himself War Minister and consolidated his power base. Upon his release Abdol Hossein Mirza Farmanfarma retired from politics and tended to his remaining estates and villages from Tehran after a great portion of them were confiscated by Reza Shah. He spent his final years under house arrest suffering from gout, arthritis, and insomnia. He died in 1939 and is buried in the Shrine of Shazdeh Abdol Azim.