Abbas Mirza (August 26, 1789 – October 25, 1833)[1] was a Qajar crown prince of Iran. He developed a reputation as a military commander during the Russo-Persian War of 1804–1813 and the Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828, as well as through the Ottoman–Persian War of 1821–1823. He helped modernize Persia's armed forces and institutions.
In October 1813, with Abbas Mirza as commander-in-chief, Persia was compelled to make a severely disadvantageous peace known as the Treaty of Gulistan, irrevocably ceding swaths of its territory in the Caucasus, comprising present-day Georgia, Dagestan, and most of Azerbaijan.
The drastic losses suffered by his forces made him realize that he needed to train Persia's military in the European style of war, and he started sending his students to Europe for military training. Influenced by Sultan Selim III's reforms, Abbas Mirza set out to create an Iranian version of the Ottoman Nizam-ı Cedid, and reduce the Qajar dependence on tribal and provincial forces. In 1811 and 1815, two groups were sent to Britain, and in 1812 a printing press was finished in Tabriz, as a means to reproduce European military handbooks, as well as a gunpowder factory and a munitions depot. The training continued with constant drilling by British advisers, with a focus on the infantry and artillery.
His newly reformed military was tested in the Ottoman–Persian War (1821–1823) began, and gained several victories resulting in a peace treaty signed in 1823 after the Battle of Erzurum.
In 1833, he sought to restore order in Khorasan province, which was nominally under Persian supremacy, and while engaged in the task died at Mashhad.
Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (May 1769 – 24 October 1834) was the second Shah of Qajar Iran. He reigned from 17 June 1797 until his death on 24 October 1834. His reign saw the irrevocable ceding of Iran's northern territories in the Caucasus, comprising what is nowadays Georgia, Dagestan, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, to the Russian Empire following the Russo-Persian Wars of 1804–1813 and 1826–1828 and the resulting treaties of Gulistan and Turkmenchay.
At the end of his reign, economic and military problems took Iran to the verge of governmental disintegration, which was quickened by a consequent struggle for the throne after his death.
Fath-Ali Shah had many visual portrayals of himself and his court created. These include rock reliefs next to the ones erected under the pre-Islamic Sasanian Empire (224–651) in Ray, Fars and Kermanshah. Fath Ali also employed writers and painters to make the Shahanshahnama, a book about his wars with Russia, inspired by the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi.
David Pocock was born in London and studied under FR Leavis at Pembroke College, Cambridge. In the early 1950s he went to Oxford and under the supervision of Edward Evans-Pritchard, carried out field research among Asian migrants in east Africa and subsequent work in Gujarat which resulted in two monographs. His collaboration with Louis Dumont led to the founding, in 1957, of the journal Contributions to Indian Sociology, which they wrote jointly for five years.
He moved to the University of Sussex, Brighton, in 1966, becoming Professor of Social Anthropology, retiring in 1987.
Gordon Calver, had been a member of the British Institute since 1967 and a member of the council from 1977. His life-long interest in Iran and the Arab world grew from his work for the Imperial Bank of Iran for his entire working life. He was until 1985 a member of the advisory committee of HSBC.
James Barr was born in Glasgow and went to Edinburgh University. He was ordained as a Church of Scotland minister and served for two years in Tiberias, Israel. He published “The Semantics of Biblical Language” in 1961 and became professor of Semitic languages at Manchester in 1965. He moved to Oxford in 1976 and thence to Vanderbilt University, Nashville in 1989, publishing further books on theology.