 فرصفال، دیتیم کنران جم، چارتبال ترست، دکتر هستان حکیم نیان، و اینسو از، فردس آنر، دو بی able to stand in front of you and present two lectures about the topic which I had a great difficulty to try to actually define it in this matter of my life.، دن کنب در arrogant that, as it was pointed out, it's the gist of a book that I've been writing for the past two decades at least and I should therefore starting with some disclaimers. And the first of them being that I'm the president of a group of those faces that are familiar to me, excellent scholars, publishers, journalists, and into the .کوان and enthusiasts who know about Iran probably more than I do. And second is that I have pointed out, as Dr Hakeem Yan just mentioned, Mariemay Chauffeur'sallow the topic that would have been easier to cover within two lectures. بجانتن ایندی هترانی داری از بیشترانی خصوصی. درفور اینت، بیشتور که ایندی را ایندی هترانی بیشت boosting. از ایندن بود به، بسطاف در وطفل مماون شرای تا گذاری ایندی، بایدونی بود روضی از اومیدییس کموی. مبین مبین همتون جنه با اصب candy با تاید از آمين را با در آفه براده بکنر که مبین همتون جنه بودت از فرم ایدي قبلا را با حمد نقلا نرای حقید ندار از این دنج España و bubbling مبینين بودت گره بودتم... ادا با بود حقیدی... اینها دنج ماای را دیگه بودی... عوشان تستون بوده بودم.. then you tide up to listen to. Just in case when the book is out and if you are still interested it's called the Iran a modern history. Very generic. I would say. OKhe well. It covers some 5ت فریشに when I have encountered many of colleagues and friends and instagram امکاران کنن با از اضلاب اتهای با دروس مجموش نشوكم. این حال شروع و دهار رو امروك. همه بردم و نخسار مرسه روه برا صناد که اضلاب عاده که من، وهنو حال واقف دهار اصلاب من از از بردمی. دعو از هستوری با از دن آربعان، اگه که اصلاب اصلاب دون، بر با اصلاب دون داره خره باست نمی گرا awhile. برای مخذهین با اصلاب شروع انالز than the time of the باستان طرح که از شویه رو برحای را اینجایه آنزایها سکوله با幾ا مقابل باره شو ژیس در اینجای هونه قویس در اکيد من خوان گا شروع در از زیادت که داره از حادثال را بور کاری، قوارت کلان کامل و از مقابل Sole. with a long period of time, it's something very familiar. And mine to some extent is I would say loyal to that concept. However, somewhere that I probably part from that accepted notion of the long delay is that I have surprisingly, when I finish the book, I notice that I've paid a lot of attention to political history. و دمها شد رسیق کنید و از در اندنی کار کنید و کنید دارجون و کنید و کنید ممایز محاور دارگو از زعود و از درستوه از سرانی و درستوه از قوید و اندشن محاور دارگو از درستوه از جمعه و کنید.would that attend to look with certain reservation about the place of states? I suppose belong to a generation which, for which, study of political history was still important. However, perhaps this is an attempt to try to put... what do you call it? Old wine in your bottle. صنenced، هماران که اینаете to تر دادو هیمار جما به دادوorseم مردن.rip tried to do that. ایجوان啦.Íم، اینلی، کذی رistonان، سildo this, اگ جنهDe saturate idea. اینلی, هانگی کولی، هنگی منفکت هست psychologists, اگ ویارن کولی لانده tenth حیوانا، فرم Dieseسان جبح کانی sao وachoaniu رو الحلق کون بر Vearhts اصبینو از عروبه را خری شام come سر کی از از خحیانی به اصien انا چخ between the Iranian case, but it s a word saying the role of the state is very essential in the way that the whole communal identity territorial foundation of Iran was shaped. This is not a nationalistic, positivistic history. باقو Shi'a-Nik، بود اپنو تاربید را اصلاب اپنو را با از حس潮ه حلالی در جوی گره ویاندیم، بایان در اپنو ویاندیم، بایان، بایان، ا پوشه کنی ویاندیم، بایاندیم، بایاتی در جهن بارد برونس که کنی را مالی، بایاتی جنگهارند، با بایانتو ا 굵ر با ، با نب باستوندی رو 민مه با بادن اماز شکری دویه اقام کرد گنیم. و منزلقتن کنانتر به اصلاکطت خیالان سا تستطورتای بارن بستون last few days. و اصلاکتن که ازماعاتت را معلومی اصلاقتن که یک بسرامان و اصلاقتتر اصلاقتن بسرامانا کب يب teamwork of the major, I would say, themes in political culture of Iran. It's not only a question of shism, the way that it is over defaults over this long period of time became part and parcel of Iranian identity, but also in other respects. I thought about it a little bit. I thought about this a little bit, the endurance of this Safavit paradigm. I came with probably five or six categories that I would like to quickly share with you before we move on to more interesting things, looking at some images and try to see how this evolved over a period of time, particularly my focus is going to be more the turn of the 19th century. اثانه گ錄 چ창ت ، مالطا كارت س lev the 19th century, Ten years ago the foundation of the Qajar dynasty, and the Qajar state. And then in my second lecture tomorrow, I'm going to focus more on the 10th to 20th century. That is from probably the beginning of the Constitutionary Revolution under the rise of the Pahlebi Order. And I would explain why these two complement each other or in a sense, اون کن هم براش نوشید این حلanner should show up really remarkable shifts that comes about in the shaping of the state and the shaping of the society and then the emergence of the idea of modernity. به Adventures which I think I would like to emphasize and I hope there will be time to discuss that a little bit further we'll ask a question and answer that the idea of modernity often has been associated with the phenomenon in the 20th century которая نت انزال م�oooم ănمدها درواری شق آه موز تیستوری از اپتر 1950s و 1960s تاکت about modern Iran basically with the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty. A generation later, people were kind of kinder to the history prior to the rise of the Pahlavi and sometimes beginning of the modern era has been identified as the constitutional revolution at the turn of the century 1905-1906. Sometimes if you are really very daring you go back perhaps to the middle of the 19th century to the early 19th century. So this is one of the features that perhaps needs to be problematized and to some extent deconstructed. I would like to talk a little bit about what I would call early modernity. That is early modern modernity and how that in effect can be applied to the case of the Safavit. One notion that any historian of Iran inevitably would encounter is that the rise of the Safavits reaffirmed the notion that is known to many historians of the Qajar period as the guarded domains of Iran. A concept that of course it's history back to the perhaps early 14th century under the Ilkhanids and then took under the Safavit a more concrete form and by the rise of the Qajar period it became an accepted kind of a rubric that defined Iran as a country. The guarded domains of Persia of Mamalik and Mahroose as some of you I'm sure will realize is in a sense honoring the notion of diversity in the Iranian world. This is the world with many ethnicities, with many languages, with many regional specificity but yet at the same time and that's where the role of the states become significant. Where you would see that there is a certain recognition of the fact that all of these are defined under the title of the guarded domains that it recognizes decentralization at the same time that it recognizes the centrality of the state. And I think by the way a particular about the guarded domains in the case of Safavit Iran as I'm sure some colleagues here would know, both the Ottomans and the Moghul empire use the same notion, the concept of guarded domains and virtually all of them share the same kind of one we might call the Persian political culture. That goes back to the early Elkhane period. There's a long history and I know that Dr. Sudhaver here told me that she's working on an article about the topic. The guarded domains in a sense recognizes five I would say categories of political culture. The first one, these are contesting and complimenting as I would try to explain. The first of them is that there is a sense of the idea of frontier versus the center. In Iranian history, the Persian literature, it goes back to the concept that it's often referred to as boom-o-bar for those of you who are familiar with the meaning of that. It goes back to the shah-nam and perhaps even before the shah-nam perhaps the late Sasanian phenomena in which there is a recognition of the fact that there are frontiers. And the world of the frontiers is different from the world of the center. And there is this kind of a dynamics between the center and the frontier. Frontiers is usually mobile. It's tribally structured. It's nomadic. It's pastoral economy as opposed to the center, which is usually urban, not always. And there is a close relationship between the two of them as it has been debated for centuries since Abdelhaldon and even before that. So that's one concept to keep in mind. It's boom-o-bar, this idea that the nature of the guarded domains is that it recognizes this contrast between the center and the periphery. The second also corresponds to that is the concept of Iran versus non-Iran. That is Iran and an Iran, that it's again a very old concept goes back to Zoroastrian Sasanian era, reiterated so much in the literature as we all know in the shah-nam. And the idea is not necessarily a kind of animosity towards the non-Iran, but it's a sense of recognition. The world of the guarded domain basically defines the two beyond the frontiers is the land of non-Iran. And that kind of recognition geographically is important, conceptually is important. And Iran, of course, had very long experience of facing non-Iran. At least ever since the rise of the Safavids, Iran faced a kind of an east-west two frontier world in which the Ottomans and its west and most of the time the Uzbeks on its eastern frontiers has given a very conscious idea of how Iran versus an Iran functions. And of course, in the course of the 19th century as I'm going to show you in some of the slides, there is a very significant shift that these two sided frontier east-west turns into a north-south with the emergence of Christian empires and the Iranian frontiers, Russia in the north and British India in the south and the Persian Gulf. And therefore, this shift also plays some part in the greater awareness of the sense of Iran versus non-Iran. As you know, the etymological meaning of the term an Iran, meaning non-Iran basically, nothing more than that. The third of these categories or concepts that are important for us to keep in mind and indeed was a kind of a guideline for me to try to go through a long period of history in my book is the concept of the court versus the administration. It's more to do with the domestic structure of the state. That is what in Persian is referred to as Dargah and Divan. Dargah is a reference to the court, the royal court, and the Divan is a reference to the administration of the state that it was under the control of the chief ministers and the ministerial office. And the relationship and the story between the Dargah and the Divan was always a very problematic one, was always a lot of tension in this relationship between the two of them as we are very familiar in numerous examples in modern history and in pre-modern history. The whole idea of Vaziri side, the execution of the Vazirs, as part of this tension we would find throughout the history and particularly in modern history. It was a very sad phenomenon, but the tension between the two of them is very remarkable in better understanding of how the history of the guarded domains has been shaped. And finally, they are not finally, but number four of these binaries or this kind of distinction that you would find within the society is the one between the state and the, as it's often been referred to, good religion, din vadolat. And this is a concept, again, which particularly reaffirmed in the Safavid period with the establishment of the Shi Empire, with the recognition of Shiism as the creed, the official creed of the state, and the enforcement of it by the Safavid rulers. It's one of the very significant character that differentiates Iran from the other so-called gunpowder empires. Neither the Ottomans, it can be said, I think with some assurance that although they consider themselves as the trustees of the shrines, the holy shrines of Islam, the holy cities of Islam, and claim to be the caliphs of Islamic world for most of their history, nevertheless they never actually enforced an official creed over their population for better or for worse, certainly for better, as far as the human rights are concerned. Neither the Mughal Empire did so in that regard. Perhaps the closest example that I can think of is the Spanish Empire in the Western Mediterranean, the Habsburgs, who actually indeed very actively enforced Catholicism as the religion of the land. So that plays a very important part, this relationship between the religious establishment and the state. Anybody who looks, even in the early examples of the books of the Mirrors for Princes, you would see that this concept has been time and again emphasized in the literature. And perhaps later on, we would have time to look at that as well. Finally, it's the concept of the Dolat Varayyat, that is the state and the subjects. Often, we tend to consider the Iranian state as many of the Orientalists in the 19th century would have reminded us, going back all the way to Montesquieu in the 18th century, that Iran is a despotic empire and its concept of despotism has been greatly emphasized. But as a matter of fact, again if you look at many of the Mirrors, the books of the Councils for the Kings, you would see that there is a very functional relationship between the state and the subjects. And the very recognition of the fact that there is a so-called circle of equity in which the state would not survive without the prosperity of the subjects, whether in reality that has been indeed practiced or not is a matter for the historians to look in any particular epoch. But the concept, the awareness of the fact that this is not an absolute state with complete control over its subjects, but rather is obligated by a certain practices and a certain recognition of the fact that the survival of the state very deeply depends on the prosperity of its subjects. All right, looking at all of these five categories, I want to show you some slides about first the early slides, I say images because we're in the age of PowerPoints here. And try to elaborate on some of the things visually I think would help us to get a better grasp of that. Could I borrow your pointer? Thank you. Okay, I suppose that's how it moves. These are the categories that I've talked with some variations. I'm not going to dwell on this one. A map of Iran to try to show you, of course, need not to. Is this how it works? Yeah, the top one. Top one, top one. Okay. The peripheries particularly in the course of the 18th century, which is a period in Iranian history often associated with the age of decentralization or perhaps political chaos. Although in terms of intellectual developments a very actually fruitful era, but the periphery between the north and the south became very evident. Northern parts of the country perhaps all the way to what is today Tehran and Tehran is not without a reason to being the capital, became the capital. But this all area is kind of mostly nomadic Turkic speaking population, whereas the southern part of Iran mostly is mostly in variety of dialects of Persian. And the distinction between the two of them after the collapse of the Safavids in 1722 became very evident. And the whole century almost 75 years of what is usually referred to as intregno passed between these two, between the fall of the Safavid empires with some intervals in between. And the rise of the Qajars in the early 19th century and the division between the two became very evident in terms of much of the clashes that happened after all the Afsharids. Now the Shah was the representative of these northern Turkic nomadic alliances that stretched all the way to what is today western Afghanistan. And the emergence of the Zans for the example of the southern state that was somewhat conscious of its Persian identity and its very foundations were actually dependent on the loyalty, very questionable loyalty of the southern nomadic and urban population. Okay, so if you move on from this one, the first image I want to show you as you might guess, this is Agha Mohammad Khan, that's just about the time when he eventually in 1786 for the first time acknowledged the title of the Shah. And the person who stands next to him is Ibrahim Khan Ehtimadodoleh, later on Ehtimadodoleh, Ibrahim Khan Sheerazi, better known as Calantar Sheerazi. And the conventional history of Iran has not been very kind to either of them. Agha Mohammad Khan has often been recognized as this sadistic conqueror that destroys the cities and he did a lot of that. And Ibrahim Khan was recognized as or often accused of being the chief traitor to the Zans who actually opened the gates of the city of Shiraz, the capital of the Zans in the south to Agha Mohammad Khan and brought to an end eventually the effective rule of the Zans in the south. Well, the image is interesting because as you can see he's not wearing a crown yet. Actually there is another image of the same posture with Agha Mohammad Khan wearing a crown, but here in this one he does not. And it's as if Ibrahim Khan Sheerazi, which Iranians have to be very grateful to him, was the figure that as a matter of fact persuaded him and give him the vision that the break between the north and the south should come to an end and a more unified state should emerge in Iran. And that's precisely the project of a state building that took place under Agha Mohammad Khan. What was it? All right. How much time do I have? Okay, good. Let's see how far we can go with this one. There was another thing I wanted to say about him. Oh, yeah. There is just to change this from this kind of very generalities to go something a little bit more tangible. I have done a comparison between this gentleman with Haji Ibrahim Kalantar Sheerazi and his colleague and cohort, another Kalantar, the title of Kalantar for some of you know means the mayor. He was the mayor of the capital Shiraz. Prior to him, there was another mayor with the same title of Kalantar, Mirza Mohammad Kalantar Sheerazi. We are very much indebted to him as well because he left behind the last year of his year, one of the earliest autobiographies in modern time that we have. You may have read it. It's a fascinating account about his lifetime when he is in the captivity of Agha Mohammad Khan in Tehran, complains throughout his autobiography. The most fascinating account of his entire life, he was born in 1720 and he died in 1786. So he virtually most of his childhood youth, mature life, he witnessed what happened to Iran in the 18th century. So I would like to read the passage at the very end of his biography, which he actually dedicated to his wife and names her and gives a great honor and respect to her. Okay, he says, I'm sorry about the rudder, I would say irreverent language that he uses throughout the book, so I'm not responsible. He says, may dust be on the grave of the people of Iran. It shows the depth of his disappointment. May dust be on the grave of Iranians for this scarcity of capable men. I wish a woman had come to power that would have been competent, like the one in Russia, his reference to Catherine the Great. Central Iran has been destroyed half by this bastard, he's referring to Agha Mohammad Khan, and the other half by that rascal, which means Jafar Khan, the penultimate zand ruler of the south. So it's a very clear recognition that he basically owns both these powers, has been tribal nomadic powers that destroyed the cities. He is concerned with the life of the city. Two faithless, two tyrants, two damned souls. And then he continues, oh God, he actually supplicates by saying, oh God, the pure and the omnipotent, have you created the people of Iran for these two unmanly cowards, you are not impotent, you are omnipotent. Now for the sake of your saints, and in honor of your favored, send us a king who at least in appearance looks like a human being. This is a reference again to Agha Mohammad Khan, as some of you might know, he was saturated, and he appeared not very manly. And he said, what is wrong with Europeans, what is wrong with Zoroastrians and infidels, now two demon-faced evildoers who are servants of their evil nature have come to dominate us. Do not allow it to happen and do not leave your country leaderless. And then he ends by saying something very remarkable. Throughout his autobiography, being a Shirazi, thousands of verses that he constantly cites in his memoirs, he again goes back to poetry. He says, hinting of the awareness of certain historical causality, he quotes a verse from Rumi. First I read it in Persian and translation in English. این جاهان کو هستو فعلمان دا. باز گردد این داها را سدا. The world is a mountain and there are these voices. The voice has echoes. To us they will return. So it's a very modern sense of recognition that it's the action of human beings and nations that brings about the misfortunes upon them, including himself. And then he follows by another verse, this time by Hafiz. Very famous one. It is our frail and crooked body that we should blame. Otherwise your robe of honor is not short on anybody's frame. So in a sense again a recognition of the fact that it's our own doings that brings about what happens to us. And I see in this sense of modernity what happens to Mirza Muhammadi Kalantar. He was sent back in the last year of his life from Tehran to Esfahan. He was in captivity of Omar Mahmadan. And he dies in Esfahan after. His colleague, the gentleman that we see here, who actually is cited with great honors in the memoirs of Mirza Muhammad, he has a different attitude. And here it's what we see the role of the ministerial power to build the nation, to build the state. And how the building of the state, as you can see in this kind of metaphoric image, is apparent here. In 1800 after Agha Muhammadan was assassinated in a campaign in the Caucasus, his nephew Fatali Shah comes to power. And indeed Fatali Shah in many respects is that kind of a beautiful king, the handsome king that Muhammadan Kalantar was after. He has a conversation that sites by John Malcolm in his first trip in 1800, in which Malcolm advises him, Haji Ibrahim, that he should be a little bit more tolerant toward young Fatali Shah and bear with some of his misbehaviors. In response, then the Grand Vazir rested, restated his yearning for a united country under a strong government. And that's his direct quote, I could easily save myself, but Persia again be plunged in warfare. My objective has been to give my country one king. I cared not whether he was a zand or a qajar, so that there was an end to internal destruction. I have seen enough of these scenes of blood. I will be concerned in no more than that. So in a sense here again a concept of, I would consider as a notion of modernity, that a minister, that an administrator is prepared to accept any kind of a nomadic ruler provided that the foundation of a state is going to be consolidated. And that's what was his project that he basically lost his life, he was assassinated, he was executed by Fatali Shah as part of this trends of the tension between the court and the divan. So quickly move on to the next one. It wasn't without a reason that Agha Mohammad Khan became the master of Iran. This is a map, one of the maps in my book that shows the rise and the consolidation of the Qajar dynasty between 1779 and 1800. And I don't want to go through all of this, but it's just to show you the number of campaigns that were fought over a short period of time in order to make that kind of consolidation and unification of Iran a possibility. And of course again, not without a reason that in the famous sack of Kerman in 1794, he commits some of the most atrocious crimes of killing and blinding the local population. But he does it for a reason. The end of this campaign in Kerman basically is the end of the resistance of the south to the Qajars and unification of Iran by 1794 a year later for the second time he coronates as a king. This is a painting from the book known as Shahan Shah Nameh by Fatali Khan Sabah Qashani, the court poet of Fatali Shah that narrates all the history of the early Qajar period and here portrays Agha Mohammad Khan. This time with his crown and his army committing acts of incredible violence towards the local population. He chooses the capital, he basically abandons both Shiraz and Isfahan, the capital of the Safavids and the capital of the Zans. He goes to a small almost second or third rates town in the front here between north and the south. If I go back here to the perhaps in this one is better show. As I said Tehran was located here between the northern and the southern region. He avoids going to Isfahan and to Shiraz because he's afraid of the inner politics of both cities, the roles of the notables that has destroyed many examples before him and he doesn't want to get involved. But also actually Tehran was chosen in 1786 because it was in the trade, two well known trade routes of east, west between Azerbaijan and Khorasan and between the Caspian and Persian Gulf or the south. So there is an economic reason for the choice of Tehran. And as you can see from this image is virtually nothing. This is an 18, this is an 1818 by Keporta. What you see here probably is a city of 20 to 30 thousand, no more than that. And of course the whole country at the end of the 18th century was subjected to a huge amount of depopulation. So other cities were not in a better shape, but this is particularly insignificant place. There is no class of the high ranking moshtahets of the olama in Tehran. There are no class of notables, big landowners. So in effect the ruler had a sort of free hand in order to develop his own capital. This is one of the earliest structures built first under Ahmad Khan and then completed under Fatali Shah. In Shiraz it's known as Taht Qajar or Taht Qajar. It is today known as Baghe Taht. Although not much of this has structure as far as I know has survived. But the significance of it is, and this is again one of the early themes of the 19th century, is in my opinion a certain inspiration from Persepolis being in the south, both Ahmad Khan and Fatali Shah. Both of them were spent many years of captivity in the Zand capital, and very well versed particularly Fatali Shah in the ancient understanding of Iran's ancient culture. So it's not surprising to see that something, and there is another one like this built in Tehran shortly after. The same phenomenon you can see is a Safavid project of building squares and this one in front of the Masjid Shah in Tehran. And I think I'm not making an exaggeration to say that the same kind of an angle entrance into the courtyard of the Masjid Shah is very, very reminds us of the Medan-e Naqsh-e Jahan in Esfahan and the same kind of pattern. Of course, we have a great expert here. I should be careful about what I'm saying, but that's just a suggestion. Alright. This is the same mosque that today like any other Shah mosque in Iran has named Imam Khomeini Mosque. Against incidentally all the very strict restrictions of the Shi'i law of endowment that does not allow the change of name of the endowers, the person who has in doubt the charitable building. I'm sorry. The same kind of an idea of a courtyard in front of the arc of Tehran and we see some of the early attempts to try to drill the soldiers of the new army, نظام جدیت is one of the early examples of adopting from western model of army or building Carvancerize, this one in Qashan, built by Hajji Sayyed Hossein Sadri Esfahani, the famous chief minister of Fatali Shah as part of a huge project of construction of the early Qajar period that usually has been ignored. He was a great builder, probably as a great builder as our boss the first was. So in many respects you see still many of the mosque and the popular buildings, public buildings that were built under Fatali Shah and the idea of actually presenting himself as part of a long tradition of kingship in Iran in which Fatali Shah which is incredible beard here in the center and with his sons on both sides, the senior sons and the minister on the very right, again inspired, this is in Cheshmaalini Ertehran, close to the ruins of the Ray which by the way by early 19th century is still much more visible than what it is today which is virtually nothing has survived of it. It wasn't without a reason that he has built it next to an ancient ruins and the idea of hunting, again an ancient preoccupation of the rulers, the idea of the Feast and the Fight, the Ras and Babazm is being recognized here by the age of Fatali Shah and the kind of modeling his entire state on the idea of legitimacy of state and the concept of an ancient memories of the past. Of course that was not the only undertaking as part of this royal project of legitimacy is production of books of historiography. This one by Abdul Razagh Donboli Maftun is a very well known text of the early Qajar period, Maasir Sultaniyeh, Majestic Glorious Deeds. One of the earliest books published in Persian in actually typographic in Tabriz as you can see with the date 1826. The significance of the Maasir Sultaniyeh of this historiography is to try to couch the Qajar emergence as part of the global project of empires. So there is a talk about the British, the Russian Empire, the British Empire, the French under Napoleon. So you see all this kind of phenomenon of the state within a broader context emerges in the early 19th century and of course the Ottomans. Again as part of the state's patronage of the religious establishment and this close relationship between the religion and the state, you can see as one of the, the first book that was published in Persian in Iran, again in typography, is Jihadia. There's a book of Jihad which was a collection of the fatwas that was commissioned and put together by Mirza Issa Qaimagham and his son Mirza Abul Qasem, both of them under Abus Mirza's ministers of Abus Mirza in Tabriz and the purpose of it was to actually mobilize the general public against Russian invasion in the Caucasus and the Iranian provinces in the north, which he defines as Russian sedition in the guarded domain. Fetnei Rus as Iranians love to rhyme it. Fetnei Rus dar mulke mahrus, this is a reference, was almost a warm motto during the course of the Second World War, the Second Russo-Persian War. And also as part of this patronage and attention to the so-called good religion is the early publications among the numerous shiitex that was published in the 19, in the 1820s is the publication of a treatise on question and answer, catishism, it's a collection of the fatwas published of all the people by a Georgian courtier that for the first time actually brought printing to Iran in the 1820s, Manu Sheikhon Motamid-e-Doleh Gorgi and after him was known as Chape Motamidi, the Motamidi printing that you see in numerous of these examples. This is the work of this gentleman, Sayed Mohammad Baghe Shafti, the Hogyatul Islam, probably the greatest shi authority of the early 19th century in Asfahan. And the significance of him being so greatly promoted was indeed to bring the idea of the religious establishment closer to the center, not in the Atabot, not in Iraq, but in Iran in Asfahan. So the close relation, if you have an article about him in response to a British, John McNeil, the British envoy during the course of the 1930s war of Herat, that the British representatives pleaded to him to interfere and he very clearly and openly says that there is a division of labor. We are in charge of the judiciary, we are not in charge of the state. The affairs of the state are for the kings. This is a very remarkable, actually he uses the word velayat. This is the velayat of Qaza and velayat of Hogy. He uses a very clear concept that these are two different functions on two different institutions of the state and religion. Curiously enough, just as an anecdote, this was reprinted, the article is in Persian, it was reprinted in Qom in a journal and created some actually debate because this goes precisely against the idea of the velayat of Hogy by this 19th century figure. Himself a bibliophile had a great library in Asfahan and read about wide range of topics. He was not precisely speaking intellectual and he committed a lot of acts of sedition but nevertheless is a kind of intriguing figure. Building for the sake of glorifying religion, the one on the left is the madrasse sultanye, one of many built by Fatali Shah, this one in Qashan, for the Naraqi family. Again an attempt to try to augment the position of the moshtahids in Iran vis-a-vis those of those in the Atabot and the one on the right is the mosque of Agha Bozurg, also built for the Naraqi family, not by the ruler although they supervised on the period of Muhammad Shah and ended in the early, thank you so much. All right, publications of the lithographs on popular literature, she literature particularly of the cult of Hossein and the stories of Karbala, very common during the 19th century, some of it done by the rulers and by the states, some of it done by the actually bazaar. So it's also a very interesting phenomenon, the rise of bazaar as publishers for religious literature in this period or in this case the portal entrance to the tekem, Moshe Rulmulk in Shiraz that although gives us the story of Karbala is one of the most remarkable unfortunately has been lost or destroyed under the Islamic Republic. Or the cult of Ali that is closer to the royal cult and it's also very numerous examples of that were produced in the Mid Qajar period. In relation to the outside world, we see that of the Fatali Shah and receiving the Captain Malcolm's mission in 1800 by the East India Company, the first attempt by both sides, a very complex story what happened really. In which he still Fatali Shah considered himself as the great ruler of the region to which the British and the Eastern Company is paying homage. It was the gifts received as a tribute coming from India to him. And in the very famous painting of the panels in the Nagaristan Palace now destroyed but we have several copies of it in which the whole story of the guarded domain was told. The two panels at the bottom and the top are for the both sides of the hall. And the center one which shows Fatali Shah and his senior signs in the center. All of it in effect we can talk a whole lecture about the significance of this painting in which all the elements of centrality of the state has been portrayed including all the notables of the court that were shown and representatives of foreign powers. The three on the right is John Malcolm, Hartford Jones, and Sergor Osly. The three on the left are the French competitors and contestors to the British Empire that were shown, the Gardin mission and Jobar and the others who came early in the Qajar period. Of course it's kind of anachronistic. But the purpose of the painting is actually to try to show the centrality of the state in trying to bring together all of the numerous representatives from various regional courts were brought into the painting including the Bahavids by the way. And including one from the Tipu Sultan which by itself is a fascinating story. So I quickly move on. The only group that are missing in the picture of course are the Russians and not without a reason because they were met in the battlefield. And that's the scene of the Fatali Shah fighting Russian commander the Tsysyanov in 1805. And that's one of the very few victories of the Iranians in the war against the Russians that eventually ended in 1813 in the Treaty of Qulistan. And the loss of the territory in the whole of the 19th century with greater emphasis in the last year of the province in the Caucasus. I just wanted to show you that how much this actually affected the credibility of the Qajars as a state. Loss of the territory basically disrupted this whole concept of creation of a legitimate state on the model of the Safarids. And this very remarkable painting by Boskov, a Russian painter, this is the last one I'm showing you. In 1828 in the Treaty of Turkmenchai when Iranians are actually weighing gold from the scale that has been hanging from the roof. Weighing gold with representatives of the vanquish Iranians and the conquered Russians that basically bankrupt the Qajar state. The amount of the war indemnity that were paid to the Russians with extraordinary impact on the overall legitimacy of the Qajar state by the end of the war. We would follow this story here from Iran in the latter part of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century later on. I hope there are some ideas or some questions that they have raised and they would be happy to get some questions afterwards.