فتح علي شاه
Jalal al-Din Mirza was born in 1827 at the court in Tehran, the capital of Qajar Iran. He was the fifty-fifth son of Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (). His mother was a Kurdish woman named Homai Khanum, from Mazandaran. During this period, Fath-Ali Shah Qajar, in the last years of his reign, had stepped down and devoted himself to a life of relaxation and creation of more offsprings. Being one of the last sons of Fath-Ali Shah meant that Jalal al-Din Mirza was a low-ranking member of the Qajar family, which made him insignificant in the affairs of the family. However, Jalal al-Din Mirza still had access to some benefits that the royal family enjoyed, particularly education. Part of his education included learning classical Persian literature and the French language.