Sepahdar, Fathollah Khan Akbar A Biography

The history of modern Iran has been momentous, precarious, and turbulent. The country's struggle with democracy started in 1906 with the Constitutional Revolution that established Iran's first parliamentary democracy and ended in 1921 with a coup d'état that eventually brought a new monarch to power. Sepahdar: Fathollah Khan Akbar is the biography of a consequential player during this period. By the 1880s, Fathollah Khan Akbar had inherited enormous wealth from his uncle, and had added to it from running the Gilan and Mazandaran customs administrations. He was an important provincial landowner who on several occasions had hosted Mozaffar al-Din Shah. However, as the Constitutional Revolution started to take shape and protests hit home, he became involved in national politics and came out in support of the cause and the Majles. Over his forty-year political career, during which he witnessed the rule of five monarchs, Sepahdar experienced setbacks such as imprisonment and kidnapping, as well as victories such as the 1909 "Triumph of Tehran," which he personally financed while exiled from the city by the shah.