FARMĀNFARMĀ, FĪRŪZ MĪRZĀ NOṢRAT-AL-DAWLA (1233-29 Jomadā II 1303/1817-4 April 1886; Figure 1), the sixteenth son of ʿAbbās Mīrzā and grandson of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (qq.v.). His political and military career flourished in the reign of his brother Moḥammad Shah (1250-64/1834-48) and continued under his nephew Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah (1264-1313/1848-96), under whom he held numerous governorships and other prominent posts. Upon the accession of Moḥammad Shah, Ḥosayn-ʿAlī Mīrzā Farmānfarmā, the king’s uncle and governor of Fārs, laid claim to the throne and was supported by his brother Ḥasan-ʿAlī Mīrzā Šojāʿ-al-Salṭana (qq.v.). An army was dispatched from Tehran under Manūčehr Khan Moʿtamed-al-Dawla and two English officers Henry Lindsay-Bethune and Justin Sheil to quell the rebellion and install the youthful Fīrūz Mīrzā as the new governor of Fārs. The rebellious army was defeated at Qomša near Isfahan, the rebels were sent to Tehran, and Fīrūz Mīrzā took over the governorship of Fārs with Manūčehr Khan as his minister (Fasāʾī, Fārs-nāma, ed. Rastgār, pp. I pp. 762-65, tr. Busse, pp. 233-41; Eʿteżād-al-Salṭana, pp. 432-35; Hedāyat, Rawżat al-ṣafā X, pp. 156-62; Curzon, Persian Question II p. 63; Jahāngīr Mīrzā, pp. 235-36; Ḵūrmūjī, p. 24). In 1252/1836 Fīrūz Mīrzā was removed from the government of Fārs and sent as governor to Kermān to replace Āqā Khan Maḥallātī (q.v.), who had been summoned to Tehran (Ḵūrmūjī, p. 28; Eʿtemād-al-Salṭana, Montaẓam-e nāṣerī, ed. Reżwānī, p. 1637; Wazīrī, pp. 386-88). Āqā Khan, however, took refuge in the citadel of Bam but surrendered after a siege of fourteen months (Eʿteżād-al-Salṭana, p. 518; Eʿtemād-al-Salṭana, Montaẓam-e nāṣerī, ed. Reżwānī, p. 1637; Wazīrī, pp. 366-88; Ḵūrmūjī, p. 28). Subsequently Fīrūz Mīrzā held the following positions: governor of Fārs for the second time in 1266/1849-50, governor of Arāk in 1274/1857, governor of Tehran in 1275/1858, the head of the government in the king’s absence during the latter’s three-month tour of the country in 1276/1859, minister of war in the years 1285-88/1868-71 and 1290/1873-74, three times vizier of Azerbaijan beginning in 1280/1863, governor of Arāk in 1292/1875, and governor of Kermān and Baluchistan in 1296/1879. He was also a member of the Government’s Consultative Assembly (Majles-e šūrā-ye dawlatī) in 1276/1859 and a member of Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah’s entourage on his first European tour in 1290/1873. Fīrūz Mīrzā led several military campaigns in the reign of Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah, from whom he received in 1293/1876 the title of Farmānfarmā (Bāmdād, Rejāl III, p. 114). He was also a man of letters and a master of the kamānča, a spiked fiddle (Ḵāleqī, I, p. 16). In his memoirs of a tour of Kermān and Baluchistan in 1297/1879, he describes in detail the geographical and social conditions of each place he visited, showing great knowledge of fauna and flora. He also displays genuine, compassionate distress when describing the prevailing poverty of the area.
Fīrūz Mīrzā married Homā Ḵānom, a granddaughter of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah, and the present Fīrūz and Farmānfarmāʾīān families are their direct descendants.
Bibliography (for cited works not given in detail, see “Short References”):
ʿAlīqolī Mīrzā ʿEteżād-al- Salṭana, Eksīr-al-tawārīkò, ed. J. Kayānfar, Tehran, 1370 Š./1991. Bāmdād, Rejāl III, 110-14.
E ʿtemād-al-Salṭana, Monṭaẓam-e nāṣerī, ed. Reżwānī, pp. 1630-31, 1637.
Idem, Rūz-nāma-ye ḵāṭreāt, p. 414.
Idem, al-Maʾāṯer wa’l-āṯār, s.v. index.
Fīrūz Mīrzā Farmānfarmā, Safar-nāma-ye Kermān o Balūčestān, ed. M. Neẓām Māfī, Tehran, 1342 Š./1963.
Hedāyat, Rawżat al-ṣafā X, pp. 456-59.
Jahāngīr Mīrzā, Tārīḵ-e now, ed. ʿA. Eqbāl, Tehran, 1327 Š./1948.
R. Ḵāleqī, Sargoḏašt-e mūsīqī-e Īrān, 2 vols., Tehran, 1333 Š./1954.
Jaʿfar Ḵūrmūjī, Ḥaqāyeq al-aḵbār-e nāṣerī, ed. Ḥ. Ḵadīv Jam, Tehran, 1344 Š./1965.
Aḥmad-ʿAlī Khan Wazīrī, Tārīḵ-e Kermān, ed. M.-E. Bāstānī Parīzī, Tehran, 1340 Š./1961.
Figure 1. Drawing of Fīrūz Mīrzā Farmānfarmā by Abū Tor āb Ḡaffārī Naqqāš-bāšī. Courtes y of H. Farmayan.
(Shireen Mahdavi)
Originally Published: December 15, 1999
Last Updated: December 15, 1999
