Naser al-Din Shah Qajar’s book of travels to Soltanieh Grass

Translated by: Fazel Shirzad

2016-1-11

Soltanieh during Naser al-Din Shah Qajar reign (photo from Iranian Institute for Contemporary Historical Studies)

Naser al-Din Shah was one of the few kings who have written their Memoirs and Travelogues. Some travelogues and dairies remained from the king of Qajar age can be divided into two categories: travelogues and diaries. His travelogues can also be divided into two categories: domestic and international travels. Almost, all travelogues of Naser al-Din Shah have been published, such as three books of Travels to Frangistan in the years 1290, 1295 and 1306 LH, the book of travels to Atabat (Shia Iraq) with title of  “Shahriar of Roods”, two travelogues to “Khorasan Province” in the years 1238 and 1300 LH  , two books of travels to “Mazandaran Province” in the years 1292 LH, travelogues to  Iraq Ajam in the year 1309 LH, and travelogue of “Qom Province”. An unfinished travel of Naser al-Din Shah to Soltanieh Grass has been mentioned in some recent research. So maybe, one of the reasons for this issue is lack of access to the current book.

Naser al-Din Shah Qajar’s travelogue of Soltanieh Grass is edited and ready to be published by Zahra Mossivand and Nader Parvaneh. It is another travelogue of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar that has not been published as yet. This travelogue, in terms of time, is prior to the previous travelogues, and it includes the events for two hundred days, from 25th of Sha'ban/Farvardin 10, 1275 AH to 22^nd Rabi al-Awwal / 28th of Mizan SH, 1276 LH. In this Travel, Naser al-Din Shah passed through eighty places, and visited different cities including Qom, Mahallat, Malayer, Hamedan, Bijar, Mianeh, Tabriz, Zanjan, Soltanieh grass, Qazvin and etc. This travel, in addition to the appointments and dismissals, to visit the cities, political and social conditions, hunts of Naser al-Din Shah, is also importance in terms of historical geography of travel route. During this travel, he met with various scholars of cities whose number of names would be fifty. In the Travel, many of the princes and officials accompanied him, such as Kayumars Mirza Malik Ara, Ali Quli Mirza I'tizad al-Saltaneh, Bahman Mirza Baha al-Dawla, Ahmad Mirza Azud ad-Dawla, Mirza Muhammad Khan Sepahsalar, Farrokh Khan Amin al-Dawla, Abbas Quli Khan Motamed  al-Dawla, Mirza Saeid Khan Foreign Minister, Amir Arsalan Khan Majd al-Dawla and Mirza Ja'far Khan Moshir  al-Dawla and etc. Sam Ibn Muhammad Quli with surname of Malik Ara and pen name of Rezvan who was one of the court poets of Naser al-Din Shah, wrote the book of travels. As he says:

I wrote this book by orders of king

I completely excused for everybody

If the useful work is not accepting,

"This pen, this book!” Tell to whom is unhappy

Thus, according to structure of the book of travels, it is not only tried to explain unfamiliar terms and words, but also tried to document and explain all poems, verses, traditions, names of officials, the clergy, towns and villages. It should be mentioned that the editors of this book, has worked for many years in the field of documentation and holder of MA in history.