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The Sale of Offices in Qajar Iran, 1858–1896

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

A. Reza Sheikholeslami
A. Reza Sheikholeslami*
Affiliation:
Islamic Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles
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Extract

Political systems which are able to develop share two general characteristics: first, they show an ability to assimilate political demands, and second, they sustain a dynamic integrity. The study of bureaucracy derives its importance from the essential role it plays in this dual process through its functions of recruitment of new elements on one hand, and socializing the new recruits and providing for the functioning of the system on the other.

The sale of offices as a part of this system—maintenance mechanism will be studied here through its functions of recruitment and socialization. I will attempt to study the problem as a subsystem within the larger context of a patrimonial state, and as a natural extension of the concept of an office as a piece of property. Then, I will discuss the reasons for the increase of the sale of offices during the second half of the nineteenth century in Iran, the nature of the sale itself, and finally the effect of it on the Iranian political system.

Type
Administrative Developments in Qajar Iran
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 4 , Issue 2-3: Administrative Developments in Qajar Iran , Spring Summer 1971 , pp. 104 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1971

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Footnotes

An earlier version of this article was presented at a panel on “Administrative Developments in Qajar Iran,” cosponsored by The Society for Iranian Studies and the Middle East Studies Association, held in Denver, Colorado, November, 1971.

References

Notes

1. For details on the question of the relationship between bureaucracy and political development, see Marx, Fritz Morstein “The Higher Civil Service as an Action Group in Western Political Development,” in Bureaucracy and Political Development, edited by LaPalombara, Joseph (Princeton, 1963), pp. 62-95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. The ideal-typical model of the “Weberian” primitive bureaucracy has been arrived at here by way of contrast to Weber's definition of an ideal-typical rational bureaucracy. See Gerth, H. H. and Wright Hills, C. (editors and translators), From Mar Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York, 1958), pp. 196-244.Google Scholar

3. The concept of an office as a piece of property was held even by the most enlightened members of the government. Thus Amīn al-Dawlah, the Westernizing statesman, writes in a matter-of-fact manner that, “By the royal rescript, the ministry of the post which was created at the personal [financial] cost and labor of Amīn al-Mulk [Amīn al-Dawlah] was entrusted to himself for ever and the probable and expected profits were to go to him.” Mīrzā ˓Alī Khān Amīn al-Dawlah, Khāṭirāt-i Sīyāsī-yi Amīn al-Dawlah, ed. Farmāiān, Ḥāfiẓ Farmān (Tehran, 1962, p. 59.Google Scholar

4. The following discussion of the patrimonial system is based on Weber's study of modes of traditional dominations. See Weber, Max Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Vol. II (Tübingen, 1925), PP. 679-752Google Scholar; The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, translated by Henderson, A. M. and Parsons, Talcott (Oxford, 1947), pp. 341-358, 371-381Google Scholar; Bendix, Reinhard Max Weber; An Intellectual Portrait (New York, 1962), pp. 329-384.Google Scholar

5. Sale of offices as a legal phenomenon was most developed in France. See Pagès, G. “La Venalité des offices dans l'ancienne France,” Revue historique, 169 (1932), pp. 477-482Google Scholar; Ford, Franklin L. Robe and Sword: The Regrouping of the French Aristocracy after Louis XIV (Cambridge, 1953).Google Scholar For the European examples and some oriental ones see Swart, Koenraad Wolter Sale of Offices in the Seventeenth Century ('s-Gravenhage, 1949).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. It is interesting in this regard to notice the letter that Amīr Kabīr, the powerful chief minister of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh, wrote to him, promising the youthful Shah that, having resigned from the office of the chief minister, he would not attempt to interfere with the nonmilitary affairs of the state. He starts his letter by declaring that, “This slave from the first day has considered himself the lowliest servant of the center of the world [the Shah], may our lives be sacrificed to him. And I do not claim any dignity unless it is bestowed on me, except for God, by the order and grace of the protector of the world, the Shah, may our lives be sacrificed to him.” Although the manner in which Amīr Kabīr addresses the Shah may be the prevalent style of the time, the ease with which the powerful chief minister was dismissed and murdered shows that the style represented the reality of the situation. The original copy of this letter is deposited in the Royal Library, Tehran. The text of it is reproduced by Ādamīyat, Farīdūn Amīr Kabīr va Īrān (Tehran, 1969), pp. 693-694.Google Scholar Nor is Amīr Kabīr the only example. The Shah's other Westernizing and powerful chief minister, Mīrzā Ḥusayn Khān Sipahsālār, wrote to the Shah in the same vein: “It is clear to the blessed dirt under your royal feet that from the day you appointed this contemptible, worthless and undeserving slave only through your mere act of kindness to this glorious and honorable position, God forbidding, I have never attempted to block the blessed decisions of that royal majesty, may our lives be sacrificed to him.” The text of the letter is reproduced by Maḥmūd Farhād Mu˓tamid, Sipahsālār-i A˓ẓam (Tehran, 1946), pp. 113-121.Google Scholar See also the theory of emanation proposed by Halpern, Manfred “A Redefinition of a Revolutionary Situation,” Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 23, No. 1 (1969), PP. 54-75.Google Scholar

7. Ṣanī al-Dawlah, Muḥammad Ḥasan (the later I˓timād al-Salṭanah), Tārīkh-i Muntaẓam-i Nāṣirī, Vol. I, lithograph (place of publication not given), 1979-1880, Vol. II, 1880-1881, Vol. III, 1881-1882; Vol. I, pp. 239-245.Google Scholar

8. Benjamin, S. G. W. Persia and the Persians (Boston, 1887), pp. 180-191.Google Scholar

9. Ṣanī al-Dawlah, op. cit., “supplement,” pp. 21-24; Vol. II, “supplement,” pp. 22-27, Vol. III, “supplement,” pp. 25-33.

10. Ibid., Vol. I, “supplement,” p. 4; Vol. II, “supplement,” p. 4. The membership of the Council increased from 17 in 1879-80 to 22 in 1880-81.

11. Muḥammad Ḥasan Khān I˓timād al-Salṭanah, Rūznāmah-i Khāṭirāt-i I˓timād al-Salṭanah, edited by Afshār, Īraj (Tehran, 1967).Google Scholar

12. See, for example, Benjamin's description of the sumptuous and Europeanized life style of Mīrzā Yaḥyā Khān Mushīr al-Dawlah, Sepahsālār's brother, who regularly held high positions. Benjamin, op. cit., pp. 222—226; I˓timād al-Salṭanah, op. cit., p. 188. For a general description of the life style of the upper classes see Ḥājj Muḥammad ˓Alī Sayyāḥ, Khāṭirāt-i Ḥājī Sayyāḥ, ed. Gulkār, Sayf Allāh (Tehran, 1967).Google Scholar

13. ˓Abbās Mīrzā Mulk Ārā, Sharḥ-i Ḥāl-i ˓Abbās Mīrzā Mulk Ārā, ed. by ˓A Navāāī (Tehran, 1946) P. 122.Google Scholar

14. I˓timād al-Salṭanah, op. cit., p. 1144. For further examples, see pp. 345, 1066, and 1149, as well as Sayyāḥ, op. cit., pp. 480, 485-486.

15. I˓timād al-Salṭanah, op. cit., p. 1068.

16. Mulk Ārā, op. cit., pp. 102-103.

17. Anonymous, “Rūznāmehāh-yi Mamlikat-i Khurāsān,” ed. by Isfahānīān, Karīm Farhang-i Īrān Zamīn, Vol. 15 (1968), pp. 331 and 349-50.Google Scholar This is a report of a government agent who must have travelled to Khurāsān around 1850; I˓timād al-Salṭanah, op. cit., p. 986. See also, Benām[n]-al-Mulk, “Memorandum,” Sir Henry Drummond Wolff to the Marquis Salisbury, Gulahek, September 3rd, 1890, Great Britain, Foreign and Commonwealth Library, #5991, P. 4. This is a biography of Ẓill al-Sulṭān, written by his one-time financial officer, Mīrzā Riza Hakīm, after he lost position with the prince. I am grateful to Professor G. R. Garthwaite of Dartmouth College for bringing this source to my attention.

18. I˓timād al-Salṭanah, op. cit., pp. 593, 823, 886-887, 1045, 1079.

19. Ibid., p. 1158.

20. Amīn al-Dawlah, op. cit., pp. 121-122. Riza Arfa˓, Īrān-i Dīruz: Khāṭirāt-i Prince Arfa˓ (Arfa˓ al-Dawlah) (Tehran, 1966), pp. 151-156.Google Scholar I˓timad al-Salṭanah, op. cit., pp. 1145, 1150. The urban poor also broke into open rebellion. See Amīn al-Dawlah, op. cit., pp. 152, 181; I˓timād al-Salṭanah, op. cit., pp. 426, 1150, 1170-71.

21. Muḥammad Ibrāhim Khudābandahlū, “Rūznāmah-yi Safar-i Khurāsān va Sīstān,” pp. 122-144, ed. by Afshār, Īraj Farhang-i Īrān-Zamīn, Vol. 12 (1964), pp. 127-128Google Scholar; “Rūznamehah-yi Mamlīkat-i Khurāsān,” op. cit., pp. 348, 354-55; Āqā Mīrzā˓Alī Ṣafā al-Salṭanah, Tuḥfāt al-Fuqarā, pp. 90-190, ed. by Humāyūn Farrukh, Rukn al—Dīn Farhang-i Īrān-Zamīn, Vol. 16 (1969-70), pp. 117-118.Google Scholar For more information see the travelogues of the two Qajar functionaries who travelled to Harāt and Marv in the 1850s in Sī Safarnāmah, ed. by Rushanī Zafarānlū, Qudrat-Allāh (Tehran, 1968).Google Scholar

22. Aḥmadī Kirmānī, Shaykh Yaḥyā “Fihrist-i Asāmī-i Farmāndihān-i Kirmān,” pp. 1-86, ed. Bāstāni Pārīzī, Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Farhang-i Īrān-Zamīn, Vol. 12 (1964), pp. 64-65.Google Scholar

23. I˓timād al-Salṭanah, op. cit., pp. 327-328. For more examples of inheritance of office see Ṣanī al-Dawlah, op. cit., Vol. III, pp. 256, 311, 324-325, 327.

24. Sanī al-Dawlah, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 322.

25. I˓timād al-Salṭanah, op. cit., p. 620.

26. Ibid., p. 834.

27. Ḥusayn Sa˓ādat-Nurī, “Āṣif al-Dawlaha: Mīrzā Abd al-Vahhāb Khān Aṣif al-Dawlah,” Yaghmā, Vol. 15, No. 11 (November, 1962), pp. 522-527.Google Scholar For the relationship between Mu˓tamin al-Mulk, minister of foreign affairs, as the head of the household, and Abd al-Vahhāb Khān, as a member of the household, see Ṣanī al-Dawlah, op. cit., Vol. III, p. 314; Dūst ˓Alī Khān Mu˓ayir al-Mamālik, “Rijāl-i ˓Ahd-i Nāṣirī: Mīrzā Naṣr-Allāh Khān Pīrnīyā,” Yaghmā, Vol. 9, No. 6 (1956), pp. 283-286.Google Scholar