Mirza Taghi Khan-e Farahani, better known as Amir Kabir, was chief minister to Naser al-Din Shah Qajar for the first three years of his reign. He is widely considered to be "Iran's first reformer", a modernizer who was "unjustly struck down" as he attempted to bring "gradual reform" to Iran. Amir Kabir founded the first centre for higher education in Iran and the second Persian language newspaper in the country. He prohibited bribery, torture of defendants and prisoners, and structured Iranian tax and financial system. As the prime minister, he also ordered suppression of Babism and the execution of the founder of the movement, the Báb. In the last years of his life he was exiled to Fin Garden in Kashan and was murdered by command of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar on 10 January 1852.
Naser al-Din Shah Qajar was the fourth Shah of Qajar Iran from 5 September 1848 to 1 May 1896 when he was assassinated. He was the son of Mohammad Shah Qajar and Malek Jahan Khanom and the third longest reigning monarch in Iranian history after Shapur II of the Sassanid dynasty and Tahmasp I of the Safavid dynasty. Nasser al-Din Shah had sovereign power for close to 51 years.
Ezzatollah Sahabi was an Iranian politician and journalist. He was a parliament member from 1980 to 1984.
Mostafa Chamran Save'ei was an Iranian physicist, politician, commander and guerrilla fighter who served as the first defense minister of post-revolutionary Iran and a member of parliament as well as the commander of paramilitary volunteers in Iran–Iraq War, known as "Irregular Warfare Headquarters". He was killed during the Iran–Iraq War. In Iran, he is known as a martyr and a symbol of an ideological and revolutionary Muslim who left academic careers and prestigious positions as a scientist and professor in the US, University of California, Berkeley and migrated in order to help the Islamic movements in Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt as a chief revolutionary guerilla, as well as in the Islamic revolution of Iran. He helped to found the Amal Movement in southern Lebanon.
Mirza Abol-Qasem Qa'em-Maqam Farahani, also known as Qa'em-Maqam II, was an Iranian official and prose writer, who played a central role in Iranian politics in first half of the 19th-century, as well as in Persian literature.
Opponents of the Baháʼí Faith have accused the faith's followers of committing various acts of political mischief, such as having a supposed "dual loyalty" and being secretly in the employ of foreign powers supposedly inimical to the interest of their home state. These accusations, together with others with a more theological bent, have been used to justify persecution of adherents of the Baháʼí Faith and the religion itself.
Bahman Mirza was a Qajar prince, literary scholar, and writer who lived in Iran and later the Russian Empire. The fourth son of the former crown prince Abbas Mirza, his career in Iran was marked by several governorships, including the province of Azerbaijan (1841–1847).
Aziz Khan Mokri was an Iranian military officer and grandee, who occupied high offices under the Qajar shah Naser al-Din Shah. He served as the commander-in-chief of the army from 1853 to 1857.
Aliqoli Mirza Qajar was an Iranian prince of Qajar dynasty and scholar who served as the first Minister of Science in Qajar Iran. He was the forty-seventh son of Fath-Ali Shah, King of Iran. Aliqoli Mirza was fascinated by the European Enlightenment and tried to spread its ideals in Iran. During the heyday of the Dar ul-Funun college, he was the headmaster of the school and played a key role in its survival.
Houchang Esfandiar Chehabi is a scholar of Iranian studies at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University where he is Professor of International Relations and History.
Qajar Iran, also referred to as Qajar Persia, the Qajar Empire, Sublime State of Persia, officially the Sublime State of Iran and also known as the Guarded Domains of Iran, was an Iranian state ruled by the Qajar dynasty, which was of Turkic origin, specifically from the Qajar tribe, from 1789 to 1925. The Qajar family took full control of Iran in 1794, deposing Lotf 'Ali Khan, the last Shah of the Zand dynasty, and re-asserted Iranian sovereignty over large parts of the Caucasus. In 1796, Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar seized Mashhad with ease, putting an end to the Afsharid dynasty. He was formally crowned as Shah after his punitive campaign against Iran's Georgian subjects.
Abbas Amanat is an Iranian-born American historian, scholar, author, editor, and university professor. He serves as the William Graham Sumner Professor of History at Yale University and Director of the Yale Program in Iranian Studies.
Haji Mirza Abbas Iravani, better known by his title of Aqasi, was an Iranian politician, who served as the grand vizier of the Qajar king (shah) Mohammad Shah Qajar from 1835 to 1848.
Fereydun Sahabi is an Iranian academic, writer, translator, and social activist. He was the first president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and the second in the administration of President of Iran after the Iranian revolution.
Abbas Sami'i was an Iranian politician who held office as the third head of the Environmental Protection Organization.
The Iranian Committee for the Defense of Freedom and Human Rights was an Iranian organization that was founded in 1977.
Habib Sabet was a businessman and follower of the Baháʼí Faith. He is considered one of Iran's major industrialists.
The Iranian Enlightenment, sometimes called the first generation of intellectual movements in Iran, brought new ideas into traditional Iranian society from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. During the rule of the Qajar dynasty, and especially after the defeat of Iran in its war with the Russian Empire, cultural exchanges led to the formation of new ideas among the educated class of Iran. This military defeat also encouraged the Qajar commanders to overcome Iran's backwardness. The establishment of Dar ul-Fonun, the first modern university in Iran and the arrival of foreign professors, caused the thoughts of European thinkers to enter Iran, followed by the first signs of enlightenment and intellectual movements in Iran.
Mirza Yusuf Ashtiani also known as Mostowfi ol-Mamalek was the Grand Vizier of Iran during the reign of Nasser al-Din Shah and one of the most influential members of Qajar bureaucratic system at that time. He was from the conservative faction of the Qajar court and an opponent of Mirza Hosein Khan Moshir od-Dowleh and his reforms.
Fakhreddin Shadman, also known as Fakhreddin Shadman Valari, (1907–1967) was one of the leading scholars, writers and statesmen in the Pahlavi Iran. He was a faculty member at the University of Tehran. He also held various cabinet posts in 1948 and in 1953–1954.
