Bagher Khan

Bagher Khan (c. 1870 – November 1916), honorarily titled Salar-e Melli, "National Chieftain", was one of the key figures of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. A bricklayer of Tabriz who became chief luti of the Khiaban quarter, he fought beside Sattar Khan through the defence of Tabriz in 1908-09 as his deputy on the High Military Council. ^{1 2}

His birth year is split across the sources: the Encyclopaedia Iranica gives "born in Tabriz in the 1870s" and the English article "c. 1870", while the Persian article's lead dates him from 1240 Solar Hijri (1861/62). This record follows the scholarly tradition, with the variants stated. ^{1 3}

He was the son of Haj Reza Bana and a bricklayer by profession. He emerged in the streets of Tabriz as the luti of the east end of the city, chief of the Khiaban quarter, and joined the ranks of the revolutionary militia by 1907. Abbas Amanat describes him as "from an orthodox (motasharreʿ) background but with an inclination to the pro-Constitution Shaikhi leader Seqat al-Eslam"; the Persian article states the contrast directly: unlike Sattar Khan, who was a Sheikhi, Bagher Khan was of the Mutasharre'a and sided with its ulama. ^{1 3 2}

After the bombardment of the Majles in June 1908, Bagher Khan and Sattar Khan were dispatched toward Tehran but returned as Tabriz came under attack, and he prepared the defence of his own quarter, which lasted ten months. On 22 March 1909 he led the revolutionary militia to victory in the Battle of Saridag, in which the supply routes to Tabriz were opened. In recognition, Sattar Khan and Bagher Khan received the honorary titles Sardar-e Melli and Salar-e Melli. ^{1 2}

At the height of the siege the two leaders were persuaded to take refuge in the Ottoman consulate, but Sattar Khan pulled down the white flags and formally called Bagher Khan back to the fight, and after expressing regret he resumed the struggle at the head of the crowd that came for him from the Samsam Khan mosque. ³

In March 1910 Bagher Khan went with Sattar Khan to Tehran, where they were received with great ceremony. When the Majles ordered the fighters disarmed, the confrontation at Atabak Park on 7 August 1910 crushed their supporters and subjected both leaders to isolation; Bagher Khan then lived five years in obscurity in Tehran on a government pension. ^{1 2}

In the summer of 1915, at the Mohajarat and the formation of the nationalist government in exile, he joined the Committee for National Defence and skirmished with Russian forces before retreating to Kermanshah and later to Kirkuk and Mosul. ¹

In Muharram 1335 (November 1916), while wandering in the border villages near Qasr-e Shirin, he was offered overnight shelter by the Kurdish bandit Mohammad-Amin Talebani, who on the same night murdered him and all his party and dumped their bodies nearby. Six years later the killers' confession revealed the burial place; in 1354 Solar Hijri (1975/76) his son-in-law brought the remains to Tabriz and buried them in the family plot beside his daughter. ^{1 3}

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.