Journal of Historical Researches
Year:2009 | Volume:45 | Issue:2|Papers Count:7

During the Qajar era in Iran, servants found abundantly in the houses of the wealthy, were the kani-zan, ghula-ma-n and eunuchs. There were African ghula-man and kani-zan who were traded via the Persian Gulf. The white servants of various ethnicites were bought or captured during wars and invasions. Often any behavior towards these groups were admitted by all and accepted in the society. Kani-za-n entered the harem either as concubines and legitimated wives or as servants of the wives of the grandees. ghula-ma-n were also used in different fields of military, domestic works, guards, agricultures, irrigators, fishermen and divers in the south. Able and experienced servants could reach high official and military positions. This research aims to examine the state of slaves (kani-zan, ghula-ma-n and Eunuchs) during the Qajar era through several discourses: provision centers, population, treatment of slaves, their responsibilities and the ways of behaving towards them.

The matter of Iran's governing over the Eastern states faced many obstacles caused by the death of Nader Shah, the formation of the Dorrani's dynasty in Afghanistan and the occupation of the these regions such as Sistan by Ahmadkhan Abdali Dorrani in 1774. After the murder of Nader Shah, Iran's central government became weak which resulted in the extension of fragmented systems in Iran. The struggles of Nader's successor and the Zands family helped this significantly. This motivated Sistan's governors in continuing to establish tighter relations with Abdali, the ruler of Afghanestan, their semi-independent life were compromised during this period. These governors centralized their power according to political situations. In order to prevent internal and external threats from the Afghan rulers either they received protection from the Afghani central government or they paid taxes and tolls to survive. The matter of Sistan's state changed into the most difficult problem that the newly established Qajar dynasty faced. At first the Qajarid's attempted to solve their internal and external problems so that later they could extend their power over Sistan. This paper aims to discuss the matter of Sistan's governors from the beginning of the establishment of the Qajar dynasty up to the obedience of the central government by Alikhan Sarabandi during the reign of Naser al-Din Shah.

During the Safavid era, different actions were taken to improve and stabilize Shi'ism in Iran. One of these actions was to translate idealistic and religious texts of Shi'ite into Persian with the aim of generalizing the Shi'i culture. In this way, some books about Sira and Manaqeb related to the Imams were translated. Among these books were, kashf-o al-qome fi ma'arefate al-ae'ma written by Ali ben Isa al-Erbali arose the interest of the translators far more than other texts did, resulting in the appearance of many Persian of that one text. Although these translations helped improve general awareness of shi'i but it caused scientific degradation of the source texts due to the omission of stated facts and temptations towards epic literature.

The Sherley brothers' mission in Iran dealt with some aspects. They carried a message from England and the Christian world to Shah Abbas. In addition, they trained Iranian army and taught them how to make artillery, they fought with the Iranians against the Ottoman Empire shoulder to shoulder and both of them were sent to Europe for political and commercial purposes by Shah Abbas. Shah Abbas sent the brothers with the intention of making the west frontier active against the Ottoman Empire. Anthony Sherley was sent to Europe once and not getting any result, he didn’t come back to Iran. Moreover Robert Sherley, his younger brother, who was respectfully held as a hostage in Iran, was sent to Europe twice, owing to the fact that Shah Abbas liked him and utterly trusted him. Although the Sherley brothers couldn’t yield much result during their mission, the mission facilitated political relationships of Iran and Europe and made closer ties, especially by including the fact that their mission was not limited to any special country, that they paid particular attention to powerful governments and also the fact that the Pope was taken into consideration. Their presence in the scope of political relationships, definitely, was not irrelevant to the Pope and the Christian priests' prior intentions. Such missions made the priests partly jealous of the Sherley brothers. Meanwhile, it also made the priests partly happy with them. On the one hand Carmelites supported the Sherley brothers and in particular Robert whose wife, Treza, was baptized by them. On the other hand, the Portuguese Augustinian priests noticed the effective presence of the Sherley brothers against the Portuguese and Spanish national interests especially by taking the fact that Shah Abbas succeeded in deporting the Portuguese from south of  Iran and Hormoz with the help of the British.

The rise of Timor (1336–1405) and the expansion of his sovereignty on Transoxania was–at first–an internal transition in Chagatai Ulus. Therefore the future of Timor's actions depended on the answer to this question: What will be the destiny of Chagatai Ulus? Political legitimacy and military security as two main factors of Timor's rule was in direct relation with this question. The essay will describe and analyse the relations between Timor and Chagatai Ulus with emphasis on political legitimacy and military security.

The act of separating Azerbaijan from Iran in the 19th century became serious while some unknown Powers helped some Internal Factors on the base of new tribal identity excited from the language of Azerbaijani people (Turkish speech).The interesting point is that political and independent defiance in their regions took place while the Iranian government was at its weakest. Despite the fact that in both instances of Azerbaijan’s separation in the 19th century arbitrary  leaders, made efforts in flourishing that region, but these material and spiritual efforts could not satisfy people from the oppression of the government. In the end, the separable thoughts had aroused from amongst the people in this province confronting with the Azerbaijani people and then broke up. In this paper, the historical background, Geographical, linguistics, religious, nationalistic ideas and the identity of Azerbajian will be deeply studied to present some reasons for the broken the independent movements in Azerbaijan. Here the question is why in spite of many reasons for separation of Azerbaji people; Iranian Identity caused those movements to obstacle? In this article, national identity will be explain, the identity that has originated from religious and national beliefs of this area.

The establishment of the Safavid dynasty at the beginning of the 16th century took place simultaneously with the emergence of the Uzbeks in Transoxiana and the expansion of the Ottoman’s Asian empire in the western boarders. Meanwhile the policies of the Safavids for the propagation of Shi’ism as an official religion created a good situation for the Uzbeks and the greedy Ottomans to legitimize their regional and political claims in the shadow of religious differences. In addition to the political and military conflicts, a number of official and unofficial written works can be identified against the Safavid religious policies and the spreading of the so called raddiyahs. This article assesses one of the subjects appearing in such works which the official histories of the Safavids in the 16th and the early 17th century have no information about. These events tell that the Safavid kings ordered their subjects to prostrate before them when they came to their courts. In the article first rate information for and against this action are applied, then present roots and cues of this ceremony will be identified. The argument here is that this ceremony of sijdah was a tradition between Turks of Central Asia for respecting human characters, which Qizilbashs brought with themselves from Minor Asia to the Safavid court, where it became a custom while entering the Shah’s presence.