Tehran - Shimran gate c 1800 |
But just as the world was being roused into a flurry of
activity, Iran was settling into a comfortable repose after a turbulent
eighteenth century which had seen the two-hundred year Safavid dynasty
overthrown and a seventy-year period of turmoil.
At the end of the eighteenth century, the Qajar tribe had
imposed its authority over the whole of Iran and settled into a system of
government where every governorship of the provinces and every high government
position was sold off to the highest bidder who would then act as a tax farmer,
milking his position for whatever returns it offered until he was replaced. There
was no law or system of government beyond the will of the king or of the local
governor. They had the power of life and death over their subjects, who could
be killed for even the most trivial reason. Even the state treasury was very
rudimentary with officials being allocated in lieu of salary the taxes of
certain villages, of which they in effect became lords and from which they were
responsible for collecting their salaries as taxes. The nomadic tribes which
were at least a third of the population were virtually independent.
- Moojan
Momen (‘Bahá'u'lláh, a Short Biography’)