Abolqasem Naser ol-Molk

Abu’l-Qāsem Khān Qarāgozlu (Persian: ابوالقاسم‌خان قراقزلو), known by the title Nāṣer-al-molk (Persian: ناصرالملک, lit. 'Assistant of the Realm'), (July 13, 1856 – 26 December 1927) was an Iranian politician who served as Regent, Prime and Finance Minister of Iran during the Qajar dynasty.^[1]

Abolqasem Naser al-Molk
Regent of Persia
In office March 1911 – 21 July 1914
Appointed by	Parliament
Monarch	Ahmad Shah
Preceded by	Azod al-Molk
3rd Prime Minister of Iran
In office 27 October 1907 – 21 December 1907
Monarch	Mohammad Ali Shah
Preceded by	Moshir al-Saltaneh
Succeeded by	Nezam al-Saltaneh
Minister of Finance
In office 1904–1906
Monarch	Mozaffar ad-Din Shah
Prime Minister	Eyn od-Dowleh
In office February 1897 – June 1898
Monarch	Mozaffar ad-Din Shah
Prime Minister	Amin od-Dowleh
Vali of Kurdistan
In office 1900–1904
Monarch	Mozaffar ad-Din Shah
Prime Minister	Amin al-Soltan
Personal details
Born	13 July 1856 Sheverin, Qajar Iran
Died	26 December 1927(1927-12-26) (aged 71) Tehran, Pahlavi Iran
Political party	Moderate Socialists Party
Children	3
Relatives	Hossein Ala (son-in-law)
Alma mater	Balliol College, University of Oxford Ecole des Sciences Politique
Awards	Order of Saint Michael and Saint George

Early life

Naser al-Molk studied at the Balliol College, Oxford, from 1879 to 1882. Among his classmates were Sir Edward Grey, later British Foreign Secretary, and Cecil Spring-Rice, later British Ambassador to Tehran and Washington.

Political career

Prime minister

After returning to Iran, he became an interpreter for Naser al-Din Shah. Later he served as Finance Minister, then as Governor, and for a short time as Prime Minister during the period of the Constitutional Revolution of Iran in the reign of Mohammed Ali Shah Qajar in 1907. However, under pressure from some parliamentarians he resigned. Because he failed to ask Mohammed Ali Shah for his permission before resigning, the latter had him arrested. Naser al-Molk was released from prison only after an intervention by the British ambassador. Seeing his life threatened, he fled to England.

Regent

He did not return to Iran until after the fall of Mohammed Ali Shah in the summer of 1909 where he was installed as Regent for the infant Ahmad Shah Qajar and assumed the office of prime minister once again for a short time. He held the office of Regent until Ahmad Shah came of age in 1914. In a deep political character analysis of Naser al-Molk, the American treasurer-general of Persia William Morgan Shuster suggested that he showed a lack of strong leadership in his office.^[2]

Life in England

In 1915, Naser al-Molk left Iran and lived in England until his death. In 1919, he made another political appearance as an advisor to Lord Curzon in the drafting of the Anglo-Persian Agreement of August 1919. He died in 1927 at the age of 64.^[3]

Literary activities

Naser ol-Molk translated William Shakespeare's Othello into Persian in 1916, under the title Dastan-e gham-angiz-e Otello-ye maghrebi dar Venedik. It was published for the first time in Paris in 1917. It was staged in Tehran in 1932, with the Soviet Armenian actor Vahram Papazian playing the lead role (since Papazian did not know Persian, he said his lines in French, while the other actors spoke in Persian).^[4] Naser ol-Molk also translated Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.^[1]