Autorentext

Assef Ashraf is University Assistant Professor in Eastern Islamic Lands and the Persian-Speaking World in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge, as well as a Fellow of Pembroke College. Ashraf is also the co-editor of The Persianate World: Rethinking a Shared Sphere (2019).

Klappentext

In 1722, the Safavid empire collapsed. An empire that ruled for over two centuries, in its heyday it spanned parts of Central Asia, the Caucasus, and present-day Iran. The decades following its fall were ones of unrest and discord, and it was only with the rise of the Qajars in the 1780s that a level of stability was restored. Assef Ashraf devotes this book to an analysis of the making of the Qajar empire. It adopts a socially-oriented approach to political history - an approach that examines the discourse and political practices, and the centers and peripheries, of empire. Each chapter focuses on a particular practice that was at the heart of Qajar governance - land administration, gift giving, marriage, political correspondence, provincial diplomacy, and territorial conquest and tribal relations. By situating the formation of Qajar Iran in its early nineteenth-century context, Ashraf highlights the overarching themes of transition and change.

Inhalt

Part I. Frameworks: Introduction; 1. An imperial vision: the culture of Qajar political authority; Part II. Centers: 2. Land; 3. Gifts and tributes; 4. Marriage and masculinity; Part III. Peripheries: 5. Petitions, firmans, and correspondence; 6. Provincial diplomacy and entangled authority; 7. Tribal relations and the limits of Qajar authority; Conclusion; Selected bibliography; Index.