Abol-Qasem Qa'em-Maqam Farahani

Mirza Abol-Qasem Qa'em-Maqam Farahani (1779 – 1835) was an Iranian statesman and prose writer who stood at the centre of Qajar politics in the first half of the nineteenth century ¹. He served as minister to the crown prince Abbas Mirza, helped negotiate the treaties of Erzurum and Turkmenchay, and became the first grand vizier of Mohammad Shah in 1834, only to be strangled at the shah's order within a year ^{1 2}. His Monsha'at is a landmark of Persian prose ³.

Abol-Qasem belonged to a family of bureaucrats from Farahan in central Iran, a region noted for its literacy and its proficiency in statesmanship ¹. His father, Mirza Isa Farahani, better known as Mirza Bozorg Qa'em-Maqam, had been an official of the Zand rulers and became one of the leading statesmen of the Qajars, serving as minister of the crown prince Abbas Mirza ¹. The title Qa'em-Maqam, "adjutant" or "deputy", was first given to Mirza Bozorg in 1809/10 when he was made deputy of the grand vizier Mirza Shafi Mazandarani, and Abol-Qasem inherited it, with his father's titles and offices, on his death in 1821 ¹. From an early age he showed his skill in poetry, writing qasidas under the pen name Thana'i ^{1 3}.

After his father's death Abol-Qasem succeeded him as minister of Abbas Mirza, whose broad-minded and progressive outlook appealed to him, and he accompanied the crown prince in his wars as the architect behind his attempted reforms ¹. In 1823 he played a part in negotiating the peace with the Ottoman Empire that became the Treaty of Erzurum; later the same year he was compelled to retire under suspicions of friendship with Russia, was restored in 1825, and then fell out of favour with Fath-Ali Shah for opposing a new war with Russia, spending the whole Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828 in exile at Mashhad ¹. Reinstated to negotiate with a victorious Russia, he was determined to recover as much land as possible, even agreeing to reimburse the Russians financially to keep Azerbaijan, but the Treaty of Turkmenchay of 1828 ceded Iravan, Nakhjavan and Talesh and confirmed Abbas Mirza as the indisputable heir to the throne ¹. In one of his qasidas he regretted the change in Iran's fortune, acknowledging that the Russians, not the Iranians, were now the superior force in the region ¹. Fath-Ali Shah also appointed him atabak-e azam, principal tutor, of his son Farrokh-Siyar Mirza; in his works Abol-Qasem indicates that he took the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk as his role model ¹.

When Abbas Mirza died in 1833 his son Mohammad Mirza became heir, and after Fath-Ali Shah's death in 1834 it was Abol-Qasem who assured Mohammad Shah's accession, jailing five of the new shah's brothers at Ardabil and later having Khosrow Mirza and Jahangir Mirza blinded on suspicion of plotting ¹. He became the first grand vizier of the reign, but his centralising policy made him enemies of the Davalu faction of the Qajars, and the British and Russian legations disliked his opposition to foreign and domestic pressure ¹. Through the instigation of the shah's tutor Haji Mirza Aqasi, Mohammad Shah had him strangled in the crypt of the Negarestan palace at Tehran in June 1835, and Aqasi was made grand vizier in his place ^{1 2}.

Abol-Qasem was a prominent prose writer, whose most notable works are his divan, the Shir Qa'em-Maqam and above all the Monsha'at Qa'em-Maqam, his collected letters and documents ^{1 3}. During the Russo-Persian wars he compiled at Tabriz the Jehadiyeh, a book built from the fatwas that two distinguished Shia jurists of Iraq had issued on the necessity of jihad against the Russian invasion, and wrote its introduction, arguing that defence of the Guarded Domains of Iran was a collective religious duty ¹. The distinguished reforming minister Amir Kabir entered government service through Abol-Qasem's patronage and training ¹.

No source read names a religion or a legal school for the man himself, and Wikidata carries no religion value for him ⁴. What the sources describe is the court he served: he was minister and grand vizier of the Twelver Shia Qajar monarchy, and he compiled the Jehadiyeh from the jihad fatwas of two Shia jurists of Iraq, writing its introduction himself ¹. Service to a Shia court and the compilation of its jihad fatwas are dynastic and official context, not a naming of the man's own school, so his faith is recorded as unknown.

The sources disagree on his birthplace and on the day of his death. The English article gives his birth in 1779 at Tehran, while the Arabic article gives 1193 AH in the districts of Arak and Wikidata gives the village of Hazaveh in the Arak region ^{1 3 4}. For his death, the English article gives 26 June 1835, while the Arabic article's infobox, the Urdu article and Wikidata give 28 June 1835 ^{3 2 4}. Tehran, Arak and Hazaveh have no museum place records, so his record carries no birth- or death-place edge.