The year 1844 was about to dawn when Siyyid Káẓim breathed his last and was laid to rest near the tomb of Imám Ḥusayn. His death was reported by Farrant, who wrote on January 24th 1844 to Sir Stratford Canning, sending a copy in February to Lt.-Col. (later Sir) Justin Sheil,[6] the British chargé d'affaires in Ṭihrán:
Hajee Seid Kausem one of the Chief Priests of Kerbella died lately on his return from a visit to Samerrah—Seid Ibrahim Kasveenee the other Chief Priest who was greatly opposed to him, will now enjoy full power, and all contention between the two religious parties will cease.[7]
When Mullá Ḥusayn-i-Bushrú'í returned to Karbilá from his highly successful mission in Írán, his teacher was dead. He had not appointed anyone to succeed him.
II
To follow the events of this narrative, it may be helpful to consider their background in some aspects of Iranian history.[G]
Muḥammad Sháh, the third monarch of the Qájár dynasty, ruled the land in 1843, but real power rested in the hands of Ḥájí Mírzá Áqásí, his unprepossessing Grand Vizier. The Qájárs were a tribe of Turkish origin. Áqá Muḥammad Khán, a eunuch chieftain of this tribe, arose in the year 1779 to carve out a kingdom for himself. Fifteen years later he finally won the crown of Írán when he captured and brutally murdered Luṭf-`Alí Khán, the last ruler of the Zand dynasty, who was brave and high-minded but piteously young. The eunuch king was utterly and savagely ruthless, and he managed to hold off the Russians in the area of the Caucasus until 1797 when he was struck down by three assassins. He was succeeded by his nephew, Fatḥ-`Alí Sháh, a man of soft heart and weak will, who was highly uxorious. At his death in 1834, fifty-three sons and forty-six daughters survived him.
During the reign of Fatḥ-`Alí Sháh, Írán lost heavily to Russia in a series of disastrous wars. Her ministers, comfortably cocooned in their isolation from the currents of world affairs, and totally ignorant of the realities of the European situation, believed that with the aid of the Emperor of France the Russian menace could be thwarted. Hard on the heels of General Gardanne, Bonaparte's envoy, not one but two envoys from the more familiar 'Ingríz' (English) came in 1808. Sir Harford Jones had been dispatched from the court of King George III and Sir John Malcolm from India. In 1801 the latter, on behalf of the Marquis of Wellesley, Governor-General of India, concluded an abortive treaty with the shrewd and immensely ambitious Grand Vizier[H] of Fatḥ-`Alí Sháh. But in the intervening years Bonaparte, subsequent to his débacle in Egypt and Syria, showered his dubious favours on the Persians, and the British connexion was conveniently ignored by the ministers of Fatḥ-`Alí Sháh, who had entered into the Treaty of Finkenstein (1807) with the French. Moreover, in the same period, the most capable Ḥájí Ibráhím Khán, who had contributed more than anyone to the downfall of the Zand dynasty and the ensuing victories of the eunuch king, fell from power and, as legend has it, met his death in a boiling cauldron.
Indeed, high hopes centred on what the Emperor of France would do for Írán, only to be dashed by Bonaparte's change of policy; when he met Tsar Alexander I at Tilsit (1807) he did not remember any of his promises. And so General Gardanne was ignominiously ousted from Ṭihrán, and Sir Harford Jones and Sir John Malcolm were left at peace, to glower at each other, much to the amusement and also surprise and embarrassment of the Persian ministers. But as Napoleon's star waned, so did the interest of the British in Persian affairs. The wars with Russia went on until the Persians acknowledged defeat in the Treaty of Gulistán of 1813.
Amidst abysmal ignorance, nepotism and malpractice which abounded in the realm, there stood two men in particular, untouched by corruption, who were fully aware of the needs of their country: Prince `Abbás Mírzá, the heir to the throne, and his vizier, Mírzá Abu'l-Qásim, Qá'im-Maqám-i-Faráhání. But their attempts at reform could not obtain the success they deserved because of the obscurantism surrounding the person of the sovereign. It was this Crown Prince who sent the first group of Iranian students to Britain to learn the crafts of the West. Their story, which does no credit to the government in London, is preserved in a number of documents lodged in the Public Record Office. Incidentally, one of these men, a student of medicine, was named Mírzá Ḥájí Bábá, the eponym of the chief character of James Morier's well-known satire.