MAJD-AL-MOLK II, Mirzā Taqi Khan Monši-e Hożur (b. 1278/1861) a high ranking Qajar official and poet with the pen name ʿAbqari (FIGURE 1). He was the second son of Ḥāji Mirzā Moḥammad Khan Sinaki Lavāsāni (Majd-al-molk I) and the younger brother of Mirzā ʿAli KhanAmin-al-dawla. From 1874 he served at the court of Nāṣer-al-Din Shah and in 1878 became his private secretary (monši-e ḥoẓur) and one of his boon companions. He received the title Majd-al-molk after the death of his father on Šawwāl 1299/August 1882. In 1300/1883, he became the director of the office of pensions (waẓāʾef) and pious endowments (awqāf), as the deputy of his brother, a position he held for eight years, and in 1302/1884 he was the official receiver of petitions and requests from various ministries and was responsible for the drawing up of royal decrees. A little later, he was responsible for the implementation of royal commands and the receiving of appeals from the provinces. In Moḥarram, 1303/October 1885, he was decorated with the Order of the Lion and Sun and Green Sash. In 1304/1886, he became a member of the Consultative Council (dār al-šurā). In Ṣafar 1306/1888, while the king was touring Europe, he was put in charge of the court apparatus, the government (dawlat), and the Assembly and was entrusted with the responsibility for the formulating of important questions. He was deputy prime minister and the minister of interior in the prime ministry of his brother in 1898. He was dismissed by the next grand vizier Mirzā ʿAli-Aṣḡar Khan Amin-al-Solṭān and remained unemployed for some time, but in 1320/1902 he again became the minister of pensions and pious endowments, a post he held for almost two years. In 1324/1906, he represented the nobility of Tehran in the Majles; in the same year, he served as the minister of commerce in the cabinet of Mirzā Aḥmad Khan Mošir-al-Salṭana (q.v.). Following the taking of Tehran by the Constitutionalists in 1909, he became a member of the Supreme Finance Commission (Komisiun-e ʿāli-e māli) and afterwards governor of Māzandarān. In 1332/1913, Majd-al-Molk went to Tabriz in the entourage of Crown Prince Moḥammaḍ-Ḥasan Mirzā as the latter’s major-domo but soon returned to Tehran. Majd-al-Molk was a learned man with a sound knowledge of Persian and Arabic literature. He was knowledgeable in philosophy and religious sciences and was an expert calligrapher and engraver and a master of all kinds of secretarial craft. As a poet, he followed the style of past masters. Samples of his poetry mentioned by Ebrāhim Khan Madāyeḥnegār.
Majd-al-Molk was married to the daughter of Āqā ʿAli Āštiāni Amin-e Ḥoẓur and was survived by five sons and three daughters. Two of his sons, Jawād and Esmāʿil, were career diplomats serving in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Bibliography:
Mahdi Bāmdād, Šarḥ-e ḥāl-e rejāl-e Irān...I, Tehran, 1347 Š./1968, pp. 221-22.
M oḥammad-Ḥasan Khan Eʿtemād-al-Salṭana al-Maʾāter wa ‘lāṯār, ed. Iraj Afšār, 3 vols., Tehran, 1363-68 Š./1984-89, index, s.v. and Ḥosayn Maḥbubi Ardakān’s comment, III, p. 489.
Idem Ruz-nāma-ye ḵāterāt, ed. Iraǰ Afšār, Tehran, 1345 Š/1966, pp. 109, 143, 150, 212, 137, 384, 512, 1157.
Mirzā Ebrāhim Khan Madāyeḥnegār Tafreši, Taḏkera-ye Anjoman-e nāṣeri and Taḏkera-ye majdiya (two books in one vol.), Tehran, 1363 Š./1984, pp. 225-50, 531-49 Abu’l-Fażl Qāsemi, “Ḵānadān-e Amini,” Waḥid 13/1, 1354 Š./1975, pp. 35-37.
(M. Dabirsiāqi)
Originally Published: July 20, 2002
Last Updated: July 20, 2002
