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Nasser-al-Din Shah Qajar (, 1831 - May 1 , 1896 ) was the Shah Of Persia from September 17 , 1848 until his death on May 1 , 1896 . He was a son of Mohammad Shah Qajar . He was in Tabriz when he heard of his father's death in 1848, and he ascended to the Peacock Throne with the help of Amir Kabir . He tried to bring the part of eastern Persia (especially Herat ) which had came under the British influence back to Persia but faced the British attack on Bushehr and had to retreat. Herat is today a part of Afghanistan . Nasser-al-Din Shah was forced to sign the Declaration Of Paris granting Afghanistan supremacy over the former Persian territories. Though Nasser-al-Din had early Reformist tendencies, he was dictatorial in his style of government. He persecuted Bábís and Bahá'ís , and this increased when a deranged Bábí attempted to assassinate him in 1852. He was the first Persian monarch to visit Europe in 1871 and then in 1873 (when he saw a Royal Navy Fleet Review ), and finally in 1889 and was reportedly amazed with the technology he saw there. During his visit to the United Kingdom in 1873, Nasser-Al-Din Shah was knighted at Order Of The Garter , one of Britains most nobel orders by Queen Victoria. He was the first Persian monarch to be knighted at Order Of The Garter . In 1890 he met British Gerald Talbot and signed a contract with him giving him the ownership of Iranian Tobacoo Industry, but he later was forced to cancel the contract after Mirza Reza Shirazi issued a Fatwa that made farming, trading and consuming tobacoo as Haram. It had even affected the personal life of Shah as his wives were not allowing him to use Tobacoo. This was not the end of his attempts to give advantages to Europe because he later gave the ownership of Iranian Customs Incomes to Paul Julius Reuter . He was a Patron of Photography and had himself photographed thousands of times. Nasser-al-Din introduced a number of western innovations to Iran, including a modern Postal System , train transport, a banking system and newspaper publishing. He was the first Iranian to be photographed. He was also the first Iranian monarch ever to write his diaries. Nasser-al-Din was assassinated by Mirza Reza Kermani , a follower of Jamal Al-Din Al-Afghani , when he was visiting and praying in the shrine of Shah-Abdol-Azim. It is said that the revolver used to assassinate him was old and rusty, and had he worn a thicker overcoat, or shot from a longer range, he would have survived the attempt on his life. Shortly before his death he is reported to have said "I will rule you differently if I survive!" He was buried in the Shah-Abdol-Azim Cemetery , in Rayy near Tehran , where he was assassinated. His one-piece marble tombstone, bearing his full effigy, is now kept in the Golestan Palace Museum in Tehran and is renowned as a master piece of Qajar era sculpture. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS |
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