Mirza Malkam Khan Explained

Mirza Melkum Khan
Office1:1st Ambassador of Iran to Austria
Monarch1:Naser al-Din Shah Qajar
Term Start1:1872
Term End1:1878
Predecessor1:Position created
Successor1:Emanuel Goldberger de Buda
Office2:Ambassador of Iran to the United Kingdom
Monarch2:Naser al-Din Shah Qajar
Term Start2:1872
Term End2:1889
Predecessor2:Muhsin Khan Mo'in al-Molk
Successor2:Mohammed-Ali Ala al-Saltaneh
Office3:Ambassador of Iran to Germany
Monarch3:Naser al-Din Shah Qajar
Term Start3:1878
Term End3:1889
Office4:Ambassador of Iran to Italy
Monarch4:Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar
Term Start4:1899
Term End4:1908
Predecessor4:Nariman Qawam al-Saltana
Successor4:Mohammad Ebrahim Ghaffari
Birth Date:1834
Birth Place:New Julfa, Iran
Death Date:1908
Death Place:Rome, Italy
Nationality:Iranian Armenian
Occupation:Politician, diplomat, publisher, translator

Mirza Melkum Khan (1834–1908; Persian: میرزا ملکم خان; Armenian: Յովսէփ Մելքումեան|Hovsep’ Melk’umyan), also spelled as Melkum Khan, was an Iranian modernist writer, diplomat, and publicist. He is known for his social reform efforts, as well as for being the first Christian to adopt the title of 'Mirza' in Persian. He is considered one of the fathers of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution.

Biography

Melkum Khan was born to an Armenian Christian family in Iran[1] and educated at the Samuel Muradian school in Paris from 1843 to 1851. He later returned to Iran and entered government service. He was elected as instructor at the newly established Polytechnic in Tehran called Dar ul-Funun, in 1852. He went to Paris in the diplomatic service in 1857.[2]

Melkum Khan introduced societies similar to the Freemasons in Iran[3] in 1859, and was exiled by Nasser ad-Din Shah, the fourth Shah of Qajar Iran, for doing so in 1862.[2] He was later pardoned and given a post at the embassy in Constantinople. There, two years later, he married the daughter of Arakel, a prominent Armenian, with the ceremony taking place in an Armenian church.[4] He returned to Tehran in 1872 as assistant to Grand Vizier Mirza Hosein Khan Moshir od-Dowleh, and became the chief of the Persian legation in London (and later ambassador) in 1872. He remained in the position until 1888, and lost his position in 1889 as the result of a scandal over selling a cancelled concession for a lottery.[2] Naser ad-Din Shah explains in his third trip's memoir how he went to Mirza Melkum Khan's house one evening, met his wife and his three daughters, two of them as old as 19-20 and the third one who was 6 at the time (1889).

From London, Melkum Khan attacked both the shah and the Iranian government, and edited the newssheet Qanun, which was banned in Iran but read by the shah and his ministers. Melkum Khan eventually became recognized as the most important Persian moderniser of the century, and he was later pardoned and reinstated as ambassador to Italy by Mozaffar ad-Din Shah, Nasser ad-Din Shah's son and successor, in 1898 with the title of Nezam od-Dowleh. He remained ambassador to Italy until his death in 1908.[2]

See also

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Lloyd Ridgeon, Religion and Politics in Modern Iran (I.B.Tauris, 2005), . p. 14.
  2. Nikki R. Keddie, with a section by Yann Richard, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2006), . pp. 431-32.
  3. Amin Banani . Impact of the West on Iran, 1921-1941: A study in modernization of social institutions. . Stanford University. 16. PhD. 9781084919372. 1959.
  4. Algar, Hamid. Mīrzā Malkum Khān: A Study in the History of Iranian Modernism p. 10 University of California Press, 1973.