The evolution of Qajar bureacracy: 1779–1879

Abstract

When Agha Muhammad Qajar (1779-97) left Shiraz at the death of Karim Khan (1750-79) and rode to the Qajar tribal country, he did more than collect horsemen for his tribal army. At Astarabad, the home of the Qajars, he took into his employ one Mirza Isma'il, a steward to a Qajar tribal chief, as his revenue officer (ntustawfi). At Mazanderan, he picked up a second officer, Mirza Asadullah Nuri, to act as revenue officer-secretary to the army (lashkar nevis).1 These two men, and this early separation of military and non-military financial affairs, formed the embryo of Agha Muhammad's 'bureaucracy'. In the twelve years between Agha Muhammad's first bid for power and the final conquest of Shiraz in 1791 and his assumption of the Persian throne, these two men accompanied Agha Muhammad on his military campaigns, performing their simple, but essential, functions. Wherever he went with Agha Muhammad, Mirza Isma'il, the mustawfi, gathered information on the amount of taxes collected in each province, district or town, the manner of its collection and the character of the local tax officials. He took copies of the local tax lists and continued to update this information until he was able to obtain access to the central records office in Shiraz. At Shiraz, Agha Muhammad took into his service Hajji Ibrahim Shirazi, the kalantar of the Zand capital, who had turned against his Zand chief and had opened the gates of Shiraz to Agha Muhammad. This man later became the shah's chief minister. Although it can be assumed that, along with Hajji Ibrahim, Agha Muhammad inherited the rest of the Zand bureaucracy, he does not appear to have expanded his top-level administration beyond these three principal officers.2 Agha Muhammad had no official private secretary, no minister of justice, no minister of court. He ran a highly personal administration and, finances aside, paper work was almost non-existent. He himself administered justice, punished and disciplined his officers and supervised accounts. As 'Abdullah Mustawfi has written, 'Agha Muhammad was himself the treasurer, minister of finance and saheb-e divan of his own government'.3 Members of the administration were attached to him in almost physical fashion. The shah was constantly on the move, and the bureaucracy moved with him. After he transferred the capital to Tehran, Agha Muhammad established Fath 'Ali, his nephew and chosen successor, in Shiraz and when on campaign, generally left Hajji Ibrahim to supervise matters in Tehran. But the two treasurers, the mustawfi and the lashkar nevis, continued to accompany him on his wars, and both of them were with him when he was killed on his last campaign.4 He recognized no division between the privy purse and the public treasury. In fact Agha Muhammad kept the royal treasure under his personal lock and key. Salaries to troops and officials were generally paid