ʿABDALLĀH BEHBAHĀNĪ (1256-1328/1840-1910), theologian (moǰtahed) and a prominent leader of the constitutional movement. Born in Naǰaf in 1256/1840, he was descended from a prominent Shiʿite scholar of Baḥrayn, ʿAbdallāh al-Belādī from the village of al-Ḡorayfa, whose numerous offspring migrated to various centers of learning in Iraq and Iran. The task of ʿAbdallāh Behbahānī’s education was at first assumed by his father, Sayyed Esmāʿīl; but he later studied under more prominent scholars in Naǰaf, such as Ḥosayn Kūhkamaraʾī, Mīrzā Ḥasan Šīrāzī, and Shaikh Rāżī Naǰafī. In 1287/1870, Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah made the acquaintance of Sayyed Esmāʿīl while on a visit to Naǰaf; and he prevailed upon him to accompany him back to Tehran in order to establish a center of religious leadership favorable to the court (Āḡā Bozorg Ṭehrānī, Ṭabaqāt aʿlām al-šīʿa II, Naǰaf, 1381/1962, pp. 146-47). Three years later, we find him among the few ʿolamāʾ to bid the monarch a friendly farewell on the eve of one of his European journeys (Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah, Rūznāma-ye safar-e farangestān, Bombay, 1293/1876, p. 4). In addition to his royal patronage, Sayyed Esmāʿīl attained a position of some influence among the people of Tehran as marǰaʿ-e taqlīd and judge of the religious law (šarīʿa; see Mīrzā Moḥammad Ḥasan Khan Eʿtemād-al-salṭana, al-Maʾāṯer wa’l-āṯār, Tehran, 1306/1889, p. 140; Moḥammad Mahdī Mūsavī Eṣfahānī Kāẓemī, Aḥsan al-wadīʿa fī tarāǰem mašāhīr moǰtahedīn al-šīʿa, 2nd ed., Naǰaf, 1387/1965, I, pp. 65-66). When he died in 1295/1878, ʿAbdallāh Behbahānī fell heir to his function and influence and emerged as one of the influential ʿolamāʾ of Tehran.
His first significant participation in political affairs reflected the loyalist attitudes of his father, as well as a lively ambitiousness that was to persist until the end of his life. In 1309/1891 a campaign took place under clerical leadership against the tobacco concession that had been granted by Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah to a British company; and a fatvā attributed to Mīrzā Ḥasan Šīrāzī forbade all consumption of tobacco until the concession was rescinded. Behbahānī refused to associate himself with the boycott and was seen to smoke openly in a gathering at the Ottoman embassy in Tehran (Mīrzā ʿAlī Khan Amīn-al-dawla, Ḵāṭerāt-e sīāsī, ed. Ḥāfeẓ Farmānfarmāʾīān, Tehran, 1341 Š./1962, p. 155; according to other accounts he went so far as to smoke while preaching from the menbar; see Sayyed Ḥasan Taqīzāda, “Ašḵāṣī ke dar mašrūṭīyat sahmī dāštand,” Yaḡmā 24, 1350 Š./1971-72, p. 66). He claimed that as moǰtahed he was exempt from obedience to the fatvā, the accuracy of whose ascription to Mīrzā Ḥasan Šīrāzī he in any event doubted; and he raised certain other technical objections to the boycott (Nāẓem-al-eslām Kermānī, Tārīḵ-e bīdārī-e īrānīān, ed. ʿAlī Akbar Saʿīdī Sīrǰānī, Tehran, 1346 Š./1967, p. 22; Mīrzā Moḥammad Ḥasan Khan Eʿtemād-al-salṭana, Rūznāma-ye ḵāṭerāt, ed. Īraǰ Afšar, 2nd ed., Tehran, 1350 Š./1971, pp. 784-85). Suspicions arose, however, that he had been bribed; one source claims that he received 1,000 pounds from the British to smoke in public (ʿAbbās Mīrzā Molkārā, Šarḥ-e ḥāl, ed. ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Navāʾī, Tehran, 1325 Š./1946, p. 116; see also Nikki R. Keddie, Religion and Rebellion in Iran: the Tobacco Protest of 1891-92, London, 1961, p. 79). The accusations raised against Behbahānī are plausible; for he maintained close relations with the British legation in Tehran for a number of years and was described by Lt. Col. H. Picot in May, 1897, as having “stood by his legation at the time of the Régie [Tobacco Monopoly]” (memorandum enclosed in dispatch of Hardinge to Salisbury, F. O. 539/76, quoted in Keddie, Religion and Rebellion, p. 118; and Firuz Kazemzade, Russia and Britain in Persia, 1864-1914, New Haven, 1968, p. 309). It is also said that the Iranian government rewarded him for his loyalty in the episode with a gold watch (Picot, “Biographical Notes of Persian Notables,” F. O. 60/592, quoted in Hamid Algar, Religion and State in Iran, p. 213, n. 46). His alleged venality in any event earned him the opprobrious epithet of Ebn al-Feżża (“Son of silver”) (Eʿtemād-al-salṭana, Rūznāma-ye ḵāṭerāt, p. 947). Loyalty to Mīrzā ʿAlī Aṣḡar Khan Amīn-al-solṭān, the minister under whose auspices the concession had been granted, provided another reason for Behbahānī to oppose the tobacco boycott; and he once visited Ornstein, Tehran manager of the company that had obtained the concession, on behalf of Amīn-al-solṭān to discuss ways of breaking the boycott (Ebrāhīm Teymūrī, Taḥrīm-e tanbākū yā avvalīn moqāvamat-e manfī dar Īrān, Tehran, 1328 Š./1949, p. 149).
The political activities of Behbahānī in the decade following the tobacco boycott appear to have been coordinated with the British legation in Tehran. Whether, for example, the ʿolamāʾ began demanding the dismissal of ʿAlāʾ-al-dawla, governor of the province of Ḵūzestān (then called ʿArabestān), because of the alleged murder of one of their number in Šūštar, be contacted the British legation to inquire of their wishes in the matter, offering to “throw cold water on the whole affair” (see Picot’s memorandum of May, 1897, quoted above). Further contacts took place in 1319/1902, when the Iranian government was about to conclude a new loan agreement with Russia. Behbahānī was now faced with a conflict of loyalties; for Amīn-al-solṭān, now in his second term as prime minister, had aligned himself with the Russians instead of the British after the repeal of the tobacco concession. He was therefore initially reluctant to participate in the clerical agitation against Amīn-al-solṭān and the Russian loan; but in February, 1902, he was visited by Grahame, an agent of the British legation, “under the guise of other business,” and encouraged to “express himself.” He confided to the agent that, together with all moǰtaheds of Tehran, he was “revolted at the loan and its conditions,” but pointed out that his opposition to an earlier loan had had no effect. He would nonetheless seek to prevent conclusion of the new loan, and he asked for 2,000 tomans to bring over those ʿolamāʾ who were not yet hostilely disposed to it. In the course of a further meeting with Grahame at the end of the month, Behbahānī repeated the need for funds to bribe prominent moǰtaheds, but received only 250 tomans as traveling expenses for emissaries he was to send to contact ʿolamāʾ in the provinces (dispatches of Hardinge to Lansdowne, February 14 and 27, 1902, in F. O. 60/660, quoted by Kiddie, “Iranian Politics 1900-1905: Background to Revolution,” Middle Eastern Studies 5, 1969, pp. 22-24).
Clerical agitation failed to prevent the conclusion of a new loan agreement for more than a year and ultimately forced the renewed dismissal of Amīn-al-solṭān in Jomādā II, 1321/September, 1903. Behbahānī had no share in the latter stages of this campaign, coming indeed to the minister’s aid late in 1320/1902 by persuading clerical demonstrators demanding the dismissal of the governor of Māzandarān to disperse (see his letter to Amīn-al-solṭān in Ebrāhīm Ṣafāʾī, Asnād-e nowyāfta, Tehran, 1349 Š./1970, p. 209). He re-emerged into political activity only when Amīn-al-solṭān’s successor, ʿAyn-al-dawla, failed to accord him the differential treatment which he had been accustomed to receive from the state and favored instead his chief rival for supremacy among the Tehran ʿolamāʾ, Shaikh Fażlallāh Nūrī. It was Behbahānī’s opposition to ʿAyn-al-dawla that gradually drew him into the constitutional movement, his share in the leadership of which came to form the most significant part of his career. The first clash between Behbahānī and ʿAyn-al-dawla occurred in the aftermath of a struggle between the ṭollāb of the two madrasas in Tehran, the Moḥammadīya and the Ṣadr. Behbahānī gave refuge in his house to one of the ṭollāb of the Moḥammadīya, Moʿtamad-al-eslām, and as a result was attacked one night by a party of the opposing side as he was passing by the Masǰed-e Shah. The attack took place partly at the instigation of Ḥāǰǰ Mīrzā Abu’l-Qāsem Emām Jomʿa, who wished to avenge his father, Ḥāǰǰ Mīrzā Zayn-al-ʿābedīn, for a humiliation suffered by him and his party at the hands of Behbahānī, during commemorative ceremonies for Ṯeqat-al-eslām Eṣfahānī several years earlier (Kermānī, Bīdārī, pp. 96-98). Fourteen of those responsible for the attack were arrested at the demand of Behbahānī’s supporters, but they were punished with a severity that was received as an affront to the whole clerical class. Behbahānī’s intercession on their behalf with ʿAyn-al-dawla was brusquely rebuffed, and his hostility to the minister increased (Kermānī, Bīdārī, pp. 34-35; Mahdī-qolī Khan Hedāyat, Ḵāṭerāt va ḵaṭarāt, 2nd ed., Tehran, 1344 Š./1965, p. 141).
In Moḥarram, 1323/March-April, 1905, there came into the hands of Behbahānī a photograph of Naus, the Belgian supervisor of the Iranian customs, attired in clerical dress on the occasion of a fancy-dress ball; this provided him with a pretext for demanding the dismissal of the unpopular Naus, who was widely accused of discriminating in favor of non-Muslim merchants. He had copies of the photograph distributed, and preached against Naus and ʿAyn-al-dawla throughout Moḥarram (Kermānī, Bīdārī, pp. 27-28; Kasravī, Mašrūṭa5, pp. 37, 48; Yaḥyā Dawlatābādī, Tārīḵ-e moʿāṣer yā ḥayāt-e Yaḥyā, Tehran, 1331 Š./1952, II, pp. 4-5). These instigations were ineffectual, and the merchants of Tehran withdrew to the shrine at Shah ʿAbd-al-ʿAẓīm in protest at the government’s economic policies. Behbahānī was, however, assured by the crown prince, Moḥammad ʿAlī Mīrzā, that Naus would be dismissed, and temporarily ceased his preaching (Kermānī, Bīdārī, p. 58). Shortly after this episode, an alliance was formed between Behbahānī and another Tehran moǰtahed, the reform-minded Moḥammad Ṭabāṭabāʾī. Kasravī sees in this alliance the origin of the constitutional revolution (Mašrūṭa5, p. 48), and it is certainly true that the two moǰtaheds together effectively dominated both the events that led to the granting of the constitution and the activities of the first Maǰles. Kermānī claims that the alliance of the two men, and the direction of their combined energies to the cause of constitutionalism, was the achievement of a secret anǰoman (society) to which he belonged; emissaries were sent to Behbahānī persuading him to aim higher than the dismissal of Naus and the disgrace of ʿAyn-al-dawla (Bīdārī, pp. 29-33; see also Mahdī Malekzāda, Tārīḵ-e enqelāb-e mašrūṭīyat-e Īrān II, Tehran, 1329 Š./1950, pp. 24-25). Whatever the truth of this claim, Behbahānī appears to have initiated the alliance by approaching four of the moǰtaheds of Tehran through an intermediary and seeking their cooperation in bringing about the fall ʿAyn-al-dawla: Of the four, it was only Ṭabāṭabāʾī who gave him an unambiguously positive answer. The alliance was sealed by a visit of Behbahānī to Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s house on 25 Ramażān 1323/23 November 1905 (Bīdārī, p. 84). Less than a month after the conclusion of the alliance, ʿAlāʾ-al-dawla, now governor of Tehran and a protégé of ʿAyn-al-dawla, inflicted a beating on a group of Tehran merchants, allegedly for selling sugar at extortionate prices, but in reality to punish them for opposition to the government. A meeting of protest in the Masǰed-e Shah was organized under the leadership of Behbahānī and Ṭabāṭabāʾī; but the intrigues of the Emām Jomʿa, anxious for further vengeance on Behbahānī, caused it to end in violence and disarray. Behbahānī was escorted from the mosque by a guard of Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s supporters to the safety of the Madrasa-ye Khan-e Marvī; and the next day, at the suggestion of Ṭabāṭabāʾī, the two moǰtaheds led the ʿolamāʾ of the capital out of Tehran to take refuge at Shah ʿAbd-al-ʿAẓīm (Kermānī, Bīdārī, pp. 94-100; Kasravī, Mašrūṭa5, pp. 60-64; Malekzāda, Tārīḵ-e enqelāb II, pp. 41-47; Dawlatābādī, Tārīḵ-e moʿāṣer II, pp. 10-17).
Behbahānī and Ṭabāṭabāʾī, together with the other ʿolamāʾ, now formulated conditions for their return to Tehran, including a demand for the establishment of an ʿadālatḵāna (“House of Justice”), the nature of which was not yet fully defined but emerged later as the equivalent of a consultative assembly. ʿAyn-al-dawla was convinced that the aim of Behbahānī was merely personal, and he sought to separate him from Ṭabāṭabāʾī in order to destroy the leadership of the movement (Kermānī, Bīdārī, p. 107; Kasravī, Mašrūṭa5, pp. 66). His efforts were fruitless, and Behbahānī emphasized the demand for an ʿadālatḵāna through a series of emissaries he sent to Tehran, as well as by the intervention of the Ottoman ambassador, Şemsettin Bey (Kermānī, Bīdārī, p. 120; Dawlatābādī, Tārīḵ-e moʿāṣer II, pp. 20-21, 29). The demands of the ʿolamāʾ were accepted, at least formally, by Moẓaffar-al-dīn Shah, and on 16 Ḏu’l-qaʿda 1323/13 January 1906, Behbahānī returned in triumph to Tehran, together with Ṭabāṭabāʾī and the other ʿolamāʾ. There now began for him a period of almost uncontested prominence among the ʿolamāʾ of Tehran, his chief rival, Shaikh Fażlallāh Nūrī, having failed to associate himself with the rising constitutional movement. But many in the ranks of the constitutionalists suspected him of imperfect loyalty, and a private meeting he had with ʿAyn-al-dawla aroused great, if passing, hostility against him. Leaflets were distributed at night denouncing his alleged treachery (Kermānī, Bīdārī, p. 171; Malekzāda, Tārīḵ-e enqelāb II, p. 125; Dawlatābādī, Tārīḵ-e moʿāṣer II, pp. 35-36). Ṭabāṭabāʾī defended Behbahānī’s motives, despite his disapproval of the move; and Behbahānī cleared himself by continuing to preach in favor of constitutional reform at the Mesǰed-e Sar-e Pūlak. Before long, in any event, a new incident, the murder of one of Behbahānī’s followers, Sayyed ʿAbd-al-Ḥamīd, provoked a new clash between the ʿolamāʾ and the government, a new protest meeting (in the Mesǰed-e Jāmeʿ), and a new migration from the city, this time to Qom. All accounts agree that Behbahānī displayed exemplary courage and determination in these events (Kermānī, Bīdārī, pp. 240-58; Kasravī, Mašrūṭa5, pp. 97-106; Dawlatābādī, Tārīḵ-e moʿāṣer II, pp. 68-71). A simultaneous movement of the merchants of Tehran into the grounds of the British legation took place, almost certainly at Behbahānī’s instigation. A British report, at the end of 1906, describes Behbahānī as “very corrupt” and acting chiefly out of personal motives (General Report on Persia for the Year 1906, F. O. 416/30, p. 29); but the same cooperative relationship that had existed earlier between the moǰtahed and the legation was still intact. Behbahānī wrote a series of letters to Grand Duff, chargé d’affaires, requesting his aid, and the replies he received must have been of a nature to inspire the influx of merchants into the legation (General Report, p. 5; Kermānī, Bīdārī, pp. 261-62; Dawlatābādī, Tārīḵ-e moʿāṣer II, p. 71; Kasravī, Mašrūṭa5, p. 109, acquits Behbahānī of responsibility for unspecified reasons).
On 27 Jomādā II 1324/18 August 1906, the ʿolamāʾ reentered Tehran, having achieved a triumph more substantial than their first. ʿAyn-al-dawla had left office, and before long the first Maǰles was convened. Behbahānī entered on a period of even greater influence than before. His only formal title to power in the Maǰles was a mandate to represent the Jewish and Armenian communities (Kermānī, Bīdārī, pp. 343, 196; Malekzāda, Tārīḵ-e enqelāb II, p. 179), but he exercised a decisive say in almost all matters concerning the Maǰles. Suspicions again arose that Behbahānī was concerned only with personal ambition; and after visiting the shah alone, he was obliged to defend himself before the Maǰles against the charges of having been bribed (Kermānī, Bīdārī, pp. 350-54; Dawlatābādī, Tārīḵ-e moʿāṣer II, p. 87; Malekzāda, Tārīḵ-e enqelāb II, p. 188). In Rabīʿ I, 1325/May, 1907, Behbahānī’s old patron, Amīn-al-solṭān (now titled Atābak) was reappointed prime minister; and the two men kept in close contact (Dawlatābādī, Tārīḵ-e moʿāṣer II, pp. 118, 125, 130-31; Malekzāda, Tārīḵ-e enqelāb II, p. 12). But a complex pattern of rivalries was emerging, in and out of the Maǰles. The Atābak found himself caught between the shah and the Maǰles; a clerical party to support the court in its struggle against the Maǰles had been established by Shaikh Fażlallāh Nūrī; and within the Maǰles “moderate” and “extremist” groups had come into being. Behbahānī maintained cordial relations with the Atābak, despite the ambiguities of the minister’s position, and at the same time vigorously combated the efforts of Shaikh Fażlallāh Nūrī to portray the constitution as opposed to religion. This he did primarily with telegrams to provincial cities and to Naǰaf, denouncing the activities of Nūrī, and ultimately obtaining a condemnation of him by the influential moǰtaheds of Naǰaf (Kasravī, Mašrūṭa5, pp. 372-73; Malekzāda, Tārīḵ-e enqelab II, p. 167; “Do maktūb rāǰeʿ be tārīḵ-e mašrūṭīyat,” Yādgār 3, 1325 Š./1946-47, pp. 30-36). Two of Behbahānī’s contemporaries, Dawlatābādī and Mahdī-qolī Khan Hedāyat, blame him for driving Nūrī into hostility to the Maǰles by refusing to share with him any of the power and influence he had accumulated (Tārīḵ-e moʿāṣer II, p. 108; Ḵāṭerāt va ḵaṭarāt, p. 164). Within the Maǰles, Behbahānī aligned himself with the moderates, seeking to prevent the enactment of any legislation incompatible with Islamic law, and trying to avoid breach between the court and the Maǰles (Kasravī, Mašrūṭa5, p. 286; Malekzāda, Tārīḵ-e enqelāb III, p. 204). The impatience of the radical wing of the Maǰles led to a sharpening of tensions and the assassination of the Atābak while emerging from the Maǰles in the company of Behbahānī on 21 Raǰab 1325/31 August, 1907 (Kasravī, Mašrūṭa5, p. 447). Thereafter the hostility of the shah to the Maǰles continually increased, and matters were not helped by persistent conflicts within the Maǰles. Behbahānī insisted on subordinating the operations of the Ministry of Justice to his own dictates (Dawlatābādī, Tārīḵ-e moʿāṣer II, pp. 213, 239-40, 248).
The rivalries within the Maǰles were brought to an abrupt end by the royal coup d’état of 23 Jomādā I 1326/23 June 1908, when the Maǰles was bombarded and its members dispersed. With his universally acknowledged courage, Behbahānī made his way to the Maǰles on the day of the bombardment, later seeking refuge in the garden of Amīn-al-dawla behind the Maǰles building. There he was discovered by the royal troops, beaten, stripped, insulted, and borne off to the royalist camp at Bāḡ-e Šāh. Taken into the presence of Moḥammad ʿAlī Shah, he insisted on being courteously addressed by the monarch. He was provided with traveling expenses and sent under armed guard for expulsion to the ʿatabāt, by way of Kermānšāh. The governor of Ḵāneqīn refused Behbahānī and his party entry to Ottoman territory, and he was obliged to live under guard at the village of Bezehrūd in Kurdistan for eight months before being able to proceed to Naǰaf in Rabīʿ I, 1327/March, 1909 (Kasravī, Mašrūṭa5, pp. 643-47, 676; Malekzāda, Tārīḵ-e enqelāb IV, pp. 110-15; Ẓahīr-al-dawla, Asnād-e tārīḵ-e vaqāyeʿ-e mašrūṭa-ye Īrān, ed. Jahāngīr Qāʾemmaqāmī, Tehran, 1348 Š./1969, pp. 46-64). Soon after the constitutionalist forces had conquered Tehran and overthrown Moḥammad ʿAlī Shah in July, 1909, Behbahānī returned to Tehran, with the evident intention of resuming his dominant role. This time he had no formal mandate in the Maǰles, but continued to be active in promoting his interests and those of his followers; and his residence again took on the aspect of a minor court. The new Maǰles saw a recrudescence of the former division into moderates and extremists (i.e., the Social Democrats), the latter wing being led by the deputy from Tabrīz, Sayyed Ḥasan Taqīzāda. The moderates were able to obtain a condemnation of his attitudes as irreligious by the moǰtaheds of Naǰaf, and it was thought that Behbahānī was instrumental in this move. Partly as a result of this, and partly as a result of old resentments of Behbahānī’s autocratic ways, he was assassinated in his home on 8 Raǰab 1328/16 July 1910, by four men associated indirectly with the Social Democrats. No direct link could be established between the murderers and Taqīzāda; but he was widely suspected of responsibility and found it prudent to leave Tehran for Tabrīz and Istanbul (Dawlatābādī, Tārīḵ-e moʿāṣer III, pp. 128-29, 136-37; Malekzāda, Tārīḵ-e enqelāb III, pp. 212-19; Mahdī-qolī Khan Hedāyat, Ḵāṭerāt va ḵaṭarāt, p. 211; Kasravī, Āzarbāyǰān3, pp. 130-32).
Estimates vary of Behbahānī’s career and importance. The accounts of Dawlatābādī and Mahdī-qolī Khan—particularly the former—stress his egoism and ambition; while Nāẓem-al-eslām Kermānī suggests, instead, a gradual movement from personal to patriotic motive. By contrast, Taqīzāda—for whatever motive—lavishes praise on Behbahānī as the foremost leader of the constitutional revolution, a man without whose virtues the movement would never have succeeded (“Ašḵāṣī,” pp. 65-66; Tārīḵ-e avāʾel-e enqelāb-e mašrūṭīyat-e Īrān, Tehran, 1338 Š./1959, p. 50; “Mašrūṭīyat va Sayyed ʿAbdallāh Behbahānī,” Maqālāt-e Taqīzāda, ed. Īraǰ Afšar, Tehran, 1350 Š./1971, II, pp. 174-76). Kasravī and Malekzāda offer a balanced judgment, noting the confluence of ambition with courage and a genuine desire for governmental reform. Although Behbahānī was not highly regarded as a scholar, he composed a collection of twenty-five treatises on feqh, a copy of which is said to exist at the Āstāna-ye Qods library in Mašhad. Among his numerous offspring, Āyatallāh Moḥammad Behbahānī (d. 1383/1963) attained some fame as one of the Tehran ʿolamāʾ friendly to the court.
Bibliography:
See also: Hamid Algar, Religion and State in Iran, 1785-1906: the Role of the Ulama in the Qajar Period, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969, pp. 241, 243-44, 348-51.
Esmāʿīl Mortażavī Borāzǰānī, Zendānī-e Bezehrūd, Tehran, 1337 Š./1958.
E. G. Browne, The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909, Cambridge, 1910, pp. 113, 115, 203, 204, 206-07, 336.
“Do maktūb az Qavām-al-salṭana be Sayyed ʿAbdallāh Behbahānī,” Rāhnemā-ye ketāb, 1341 Š./1962-63, pp. 907-09.
Moḥammad Ḥerz-al-dīn, Maʿāref al-reǰāl fī tarāǰem al-ʿolamāʾ wa’l-odabāʾ, Naǰaf, 1383/1964, II, pp. 17-18.
M. S. Ivanov, Iranskaya revolyutsiya 1905-1911 godov, Moscow, 1957, pp. 75, 94, 123, 129, 170, 174, 195, 202, 424.
Ebrāhīm Ṣafāʾī, Asnād-e dawrān-e Qāǰārīya, Tehran, 1346 Š./1967, pp. 366, 382, 407.
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Āḡā Bozorg Ṭehrānī, Ṭabaqāt aʿlām al-šīʿa, Naǰaf, 1373/1954, I, pp. 1193-95.
Ẓahīr-al-dawla, Ḵāṭerāt va asnād, ed. Īraǰ Afšar, Tehran, 1351 Š./1972, pp. 108, 151-52, 248, 323, 332, 337-38.
(H. Algar)
Originally Published: December 15, 1982
Last Updated: July 15, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 2, pp. 190-193
H. Algar, “Abdallah Behbahani,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/2, pp. 190-193; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abdallah-behbahani (accessed on 17 January 2014).
