For God, Mammon, And Country: A Nineteenth Century Persian Merchant: Haj Muhammad Hassan Amin Al-zarb [Hardcover]

Shireen Mahdavi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2, 1999

This book is the first major account of the life and times of a merchant in nineteenth-century Iran or in the Middle East. Haj Muhammad Amin al-Zarb (1834–1898) rose from humble beginnings to become one of Iran’s wealthiest and most prominent merchants. He built up his wealth as a money changer, a trader in textiles, precious stones, opium, carpets, agricultural products, and staple foodstuffs amongst other goods, and judicious transactions in land. Adept at cultivating powerful connections, he became the principal supplier of luxury goods to the Shah, his court, and members of the ruling elite; served as private banker to the Shah, his prime minister, and influential bureaucrats; and became Master of the Mint. He had agents in all the main towns of Persia and Europe with correspondents in Asia and America.Amin al-Zarb was also an entrepreneur, industrialist, and innovator. Determined to bring to Iran the advances he had witnessed in Europe, he invested in mining, established factories with imported machinery (such as glass, china, and silk reeling), built a railway line, and urged the Shah to establish a national bank. He also became an advocate of reform and curbs on arbitrary rule. He befriended the famous Islamic reformer, Jamal al-Din Afghani. An innovator in business, Amin al-Zarb led a very traditional life at home. Gifted at making money, he was nevertheless a pious man who contributed generously to religious and charitable causes. Shireen Mahdavi draws on hitherto unpublished family archives to write not only a biography of a fascinating nineteenth-century merchant but also a social history of the period. Her portrait of Amin al-Zarb also provides important insights into the economic, social, and political role played by merchants in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East in the nineteenth century.

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About the Author

Shireen Mahdavi was born in Tehran, Iran, and educated at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the University of Utah, and the University of London. Prior to the Iranian Revolution she taught at the Institute of Social Research in Tehran, was involved in research in the field of social affairs, and served as an advisor to the government. Currently an independent scholar, she has written extensively on various aspects of Iranian history, with special emphasis on the nineteenth century. She is married to the Iranian architect Reza Khazeni.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press (September 2, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813336422
• ISBN-13: 978-0813336428
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,472,797 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, October 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: For God, Mammon, And Country: A Nineteenth Century Persian Merchant: Haj Muhammad Hassan Amin Al-zarb (Hardcover)

This is a book about Haj Mohmmad Hasan Amin al-Zarb, the first major Iranian entrepreneur. It is based primarily on his family archives in Tehran and some of his unpublished letters. He was a self-made man who, in his late twenties, had begun the most extensive commercial enterprise and became the richest and most influential merchant in Qajar Iran in the latter part of the nineteenth century. His business agents were active in all major Iranian cities and in a number of European capitals. He imported luxury items for the Qajar royal family and the Iranian aristocracy, invested heavily in industry and was engaged in agricultural and mining projects. It was, however, his penchant for constructing a railway line in northern Iran that took him to Europe where he was struck not by the dazzling displays of a libertarian life style but by the byproducts of the industrial age and signs of a civil and democratic society. In his numerous letters written during his European travels, Amin al-Zarb compares the sorry state of affairs in his homeland with the advanced and orderly life of the Europeans.

Amin al-Zarb was both a financial genius and a visionary who grasped the fast-changing economic conditions in Iran and the outside world and saw both the need and the opportunity to involve his country in the post-industrial revolution in Europe. However, circumstances mitigated against him. He lived in an era of foreign concessions, British and Russian rivalries and bewildered but well-meaning Qajar Shahs who were no match for their European counterparts. Thus, a combination of court intrigue and foreign intervention prevented many of his projects from reaching fruition.