page_title: Amir Kabir
section_title: Dar al-Fanun and cultural achievements
hierarchical_section_title: Amir Kabir / Background and achievements / Dar al-Fanun and cultural achievements
caption_attribution_description: English: Amir Kabir's painting by Mirza AbulHasan khan Ghafari Kashani فارسی: ،یک نقاشی از امیرکبیر؛ نقاشی به قلم میرزا ابوالحسن خان غفاری کاشانی (ضیع الملک)، اولین استاد نقاشی مدرسهٔ دارالفنون؛ از کتاب خطی هزارویکشب، مکان فعلی کاخ صاحبقرانیه
context_page_description: Mirza Taghi Khan Farahani, better known as Amir Kabir, also known by the titles of Atabak and Amir-e Nezam was chief minister to Naser al-Din Shah Qajar for the first three years of his reign. He is widely considered to be "Iran's first reformer", a modernizer who was "unjustly struck down" as he attempted to bring "gradual reform" to Iran. As the prime minister, he also ordered the killing of many Babis and the execution of the founder of the movement, the Báb. In the last years of his life he was exiled to Fin Garden in Kashan and was murdered by command of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar on January 10, 1852.
context_section_description: Among the various measures enacted by Amir Kabir, the foundation of the Darolfonun, in Tehran was possibly the most lasting in its effects. Decades later, many parts of this establishment were turned into the University of Tehran, with the remaining becoming Darolfonun Secondary School. The initial purpose of the institution was to train officers and civil servants to pursue the regeneration of the state that Amir Kabir had begun, but as the first educational institution giving instruction in modern learning, it had far wider impact. Among the subjects taught were medicine, surgery, pharmacology, natural history, mathematics, geology, and natural science. The instructors were for the most part Austrians, recruited in Vienna by Daʾud Khan, an Assyrian who had become acquainted with Amir Kabir during the work of the Ottoman–Iranian border commission. By the time the instructors arrived in Tehran in Moharram, 1268/November, 1851, Amir Kabir had already been dismissed, and it fell to Daʾud Khan to receive them. The Austrian instructors initially knew no Persian, so interpreters had to be employed to assist in the teaching; but some among them soon learned Persian well enough to compose textbooks in the language on various natural sciences. These were to influence the evolution of a more simple and effective prose style in Persian than had previously existed. Dar ul-Funun had large fluctuations in its enrollment, primarily due to the Shah's fluctuating commitment in funding put into the institution. A clear decline in investment was apparent when a visitor reported in 1870 that seventy students and only a single European instructor were enrolled at the institution. Mirza Aqa Khan Nuri, Amir Kabir's successor, sought to persuade Naser-al-din Shah to abrogate the whole project, but the Darolfonun, soon became a posthumous monument to its founder.
  Amir Kabir made a second indirect contribution to the elaboration of Persian as a modern medium with his foundation of the newspaper Vaqayeʿ-ye Ettefaqiyeh, which survived under different titles until the reign of Mozaffar-al-din Shah. A minimum circulation was ensured by requiring every official earning more than 2,000 rials a year to subscribe. In founding the journal Amir Kabir hoped to give greater effect to government decrees by bringing them to the attention of the public; thus the text of the decree forbidding the levying of soyursat was published in the third tissue of the paper. He also wished to educate its readers in the world’s political and scientific developments; among the items reported in the first year of publication were the struggles of Mazzini against the Habsburg Empire, the drawing up of the Suez Canal project, the invention of the balloon, a census of England, and the doings of cannibals in Borneo.
  All of the measures enumerated so far had as their purpose the creation of a well-ordered and prosperous country, with undisputed authority exercised by the central government. This purpose was in part frustrated by the Ulema, who throughout the Qajar period disputed the legitimacy of the state and often sought to exercise an independent and rival authority. Amir Kabir took a variety of steps designed to curb their influence, above all in the sphere of law. He sought initially to supersede the sharʿ courts in the capital by sitting in judgment himself on cases brought before him; he abandoned the attempt when he realized that the inadequacy of his juridical knowledge had caused him to pronounce incorrect verdicts. Then he established indirect control over the sharʿ courts by giving prominence to one of them that enjoyed his special favor and by assigning the divan-khana, the highest instance of ʿorf jurisdiction, a more prominent role. All cases were to be referred to it before being passed on to a sharʿ court of the state’s choosing, and any verdict the sharʿ court then reached was valid only if endorsed by the divan-khaneh. In addition, any case involving a member of the non- Muslim minorities belonged exclusively to the jurisdiction of the divan-khana. Not content 
caption: Painting of Amir Kabir, 19th century AD, Niavaran Palace Complex.
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