With their ambition – and the cruelty they meted out to their enemies – the first Qajar kings brought Persia, a region already coveted by hegemonic powers, firmly under their control. Little more than a century later, internal divisions and rivalries as well as the external conflicts that had escalated on the international stage, the secessionist attempts, and the revolts of the provinces all endangered the unity of the kingdom. After Nāser od-Din Shāh’s long and eventful reign, degeneration and decadence followed under the rule of a sickly king, then a despot deposed by the people, and finally the libidinous and greedy adolescent who would attempt to pass off his egoism as wisdom. Ahmad Shāh personified the absence of any political direction in Iran.