Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/675

HISTORY.] PERSIA 645 From this period up to the accession of Aglia Muhammad Khdn the summarized history of Markham will supply the principal facts required. All Murad reigned over Persia until 1785, and carried on a successful war with Aglia Muhammad in Mazandaran, defeating him in several engagements, and occupying Tehran and Sari. He died on his way from the former place to Ispahan, and was suc ceeded by Ji afir, son of Sddik, 1 who reigned at Shiraz, assisted in the government by an able but unprincipled " kalantar, " or head magistrate, named Hajji Ibrahim. This ruler was poisoned by the agency of conspirators, one of whom, Saiyid Murad, succeeded to the throne. Hajji Ibrahim, however, contriving to maintain the loyalty of the citizens towards the Zend reigning family, the itf Ali usurper was killed, and Lutf AH Khan, son of Ji aiir, proclaimed i&n. king. He had hastened to Shiraz on hearing of his father s death and received a warm welcome from the inhabitants. Hajji Ibrahim became his chief adviser, and a new minister was found for him in Mirza Ilusain Shirazi. At the time of his accession Lutf Ali Khan was only in his twentieth year, very handsome, tall, graceful, and an excellent horseman. To his fearless bravery and indomitable perseverance he united the nobler virtues of generosity and mag nanimity. He formed many enduring friendships ; and, though false-hearted traitors forsook him in the hour of adversity, others loyally stood by him to the last. While differing widely in character, he was a worthy successor of Kari m Khan, the great founder of the Zend dynasty. Lutf All Khan had not been many months on the throne when Agha Muhammad advanced to attack him, and in vested the city of Shiraz, but retreated soon afterwards to Tehran, which he had made the capital of his dominions. The young king then enjoyed a short period of peace. Afterwards, in the year 1790, he collected his forces and marched against the Kajars, in the direc tion of Ispahan. But Hajji Ibrahim had been intriguing against his kind young sovereign, to whose family he owed everything, not only with his officers and soldiers but also with Agha Muhammad, the chief of the Kajars, and arch-enemy of the Zends. Lutf All Khan was suddenly deserted by the whole of his army, except seventy faithful followers ; and when he retreated to Shiraz he found the gates closed against him by Hajji Ibrahim, who held the city for the Kajar chief. Thence falling back upon Bushahr, he found that the shaikh of that town had also betrayed him. Surrounded by treason on every side, basely deserted alike by his dearest friends and by those who had been raised from the dust by his family, yet, still undaunted by the black clouds that gathered round him, with his little band he boldly attacked and routed the chief of Bushahr and blockaded the city of Shiraz. His uncon querable valour gained him many followers, and he defeated an army sent against him by the Kajars in 1792. Agha Muhammad then advanced in person against his gallant young rival. He encamped with an army of 30,000 men on the plain of Mardasht, near Shiraz. Lutf All Khan, in the dead of night, suddenly attacked the camp of his enemy with only a few hundred followers. The Kajars were completely routed and thrown into confusion ; but Agha Muhammad, with extraordinary presence of mind, remained in his tent, and at the first appearance of dawn his "muazzin," or public crier, was ordered to call the faithful to morning prayer as usual. Astonished at this, the few Zend cavaliers, thinking that the whole army of Kajars had returned, fled with precipitation, leaving the field in possession of Agha Muhammad. The successful Kajar then entered Shiraz, and promoted the traitor Hajji Ibrahim to be his wazir. Lutf Ali Khan took refuge with the hospitable chief of Tabas in the heart of Khurasan, where he succeeded in collecting a few followers ; but, advancing into Fars, he was again defeated, and forced to take refuge at Kandahar. In 1794, however, the undaunted prince once more crossed the Persian frontier, determined to make a last effort, and either regain ipture his throne or die in the attempt. He occupied the city of Karman, Kar- then a flourishing commercial town, half-way between the Persian an. Gulf and the province of Khurasan. It had a very fine bazaar and was well fortified. Agha Muhammad besieged it with a large army in 1795, and, after a stout resistance, the gates were opened through treachery. For three hours the gallant young warrior fought in the streets with determined valour, but in vain. When he saw that all hope was gone he spurred his faithful horse against the ranks of the enemy and, with only three followers, fought his way through the Kajar host and escaped to Bam-Narmashir, the inost eastern district of the province of Karman on the borders of Sistan. Furious at the escape of his rival, the savage conqueror ordered a general massacre ; 20,000 women and children were sold into slavery, and 70,000 eyes of the inhabitants of Karman were brought to Agha Muhammad on a platter. The monster counted them with the point of his dagger, then, turning to his minister, he exclaimed, " If one had been wanting I would have made up the 1 A five days usurpation of Bakir Khan, governor of Ispahan, is not taken into account. number with your own eyes." Karman has never fully recovered 1779-178 from the effects of this fiend s atrocities. Lutf Ali Khan took refuge in the town of Bam ; but the gov ernor of Narmashir, anxious to propitiate the conqueror, basely surrounded him as he was mounting his faithful horse Kuran to seek a more secure asylum. The young prince fought bravely ; but, being badly wounded and overpowered by numbers, he was secured and sent to the camp of the Kajar chief. The spot where he was seized at Bam, when mounting his horse, was marked by a pyramid, formed, by order of his revengeful enemy, of the skulls of the most faithful of his adherents. The most hideous indignities and atrocities were committed upon his person by the cruel Kajar, in whose breast not one spark of generous or humane feeling had ever found a place. Finally, the last reigning prince of the house of Zend was sent to Tehran and murdered, when only in his twenty- sixth year. Every member of his family and every friend was ordered to be massacred by Agha Muhammad ; and the successful but guilty miscreant thus founded the dynasty of the Kajars at the price of all the best and noblest blood of Iran. The Zend is said to be a branch of the Lak tribe, dating from the time of the Kaianian kings, and claims to have been charged with the care of the Zend-Avesta by Zoroaster himself. 2 The tree attached to Markham s chapter on the dynasty contains the names of eight members of the family only, i.e., four brothers, one of whom had a son, grandson, and great-grandson, and one a son. Four of the eight were murdered, one was blinded, and one cruelly mutilated. In one case a brother murdered a brother, in another an uncle blinded his nephew. Kajar Dynasty. Agha Muhammad was undoubtedly Aglia one of the most cruel and vindictive despots that ever Muham- disgraced a throne. But he was not without care for the nia<1- honour of his empire in the eyes of Europe and the outer world, and his early career in Mazandaran gave him a deeply-rooted mistrust of Russia, with the officers of which power he was in constant contact. The following story, told by Forster, 3 and varied by a later writer, is charac teristic. A party of Russians having obtained permission to build a " counting-house " at Ashraf, in the bay of that name, erected instead a fort with eighteen guns. Agha Muhammad, learning the particulars, visited the spot, ex pressed great pleasure at the work done, invited the officers to dine with him, imprisoned them, and only spared their lives when they had removed the whole of the cannon and razed the fort to the ground. As this occurrence must have taken place about 1782, when he was engaged in family feuds, and the sovereign power was vested in the hands of Ali Murad, it may be received as an illustra tion not only of his patriotism but of the independent action he was ever ready to exercise when opportunity offered. Forster was travelling homeward by the southern shores of the Caspian in January 1784, and from him we gather many interesting details of the locality and period. He calls Agha Muhammad chief of Mazandaran, as also of Astrabad and " some districts situate in Khurasan," and describes his tribe, the Kajar, to be, like the Indian Rajput, usually devoted to the profession of arms. Whatever hold his father may have had on Gilan, it is certain that this province was not then in the son s possession, for his brother, Ji afir Kiilf, governor of Balfrush (Balfroosh), had made a recent incursion into it and driven Hiddiyat KhAn, its ruler, from Rasht to Enzali, and Agha Muhammad was himself meditating another attack on the same quarter. The latter s palace was at Sari, then a small and partly fortified town, thickly inhabited, and with a plentifully- supplied market. As "the most powerful chief in Persia" since the death of Karim Khan, the Russians were seeking to put their yoke upon him, and he was naturally averse to the infliction. It is not clear, however, from the context 2 Markham. Morier says of Karim Khan s family, "it was a low branch of an obscure tribe in Kurdistan." 3 Journey from Bengal to England (1798), vol. ii. p. 201; see also Markham, pp. 341, 342.