Mirza Jahangir Khan

Mirza Jahangir Khan (c. 1870 or 1875 – 23 June 1908), known as Jahangir-Khan-e Sur-e Esrafil, was an Iranian writer and journalist from Shiraz, the founder and editor of the progressive weekly newspaper Sur-e Esrafil, and one of the main pillars of the Persian Constitutional Revolution. He was executed by Mohammad Ali Shah at Bagh-e Shah in Tehran after the coup of June 1908. ¹

Both of his dates are debated within the single article tradition that records him: the article gives his birth as "1870 or 1875", and gives his execution as 23 June 1908 in its lead but 4 June 1908 in its biography. This record follows the lead dates, with the variants stated. ¹

He was born at Shiraz to a relatively impoverished family; his father was Rajab-Ali Shirazi. In his youth he studied Persian literature, logic, philosophy and mathematics with the masters of his birthplace, then moved to Tehran and studied modern sciences at the Dar ol-Fonoon and other centres. At the inception of the constitutional movement he joined underground revolutionary groups and became a devotee of Haj Sheikh Hadi Najmabadi. ¹

The English article states that "it is known that Mirza Jahangir Khan was an Azali Babi", citing Nikki Keddie's Modern Iran; Mangol Bayat makes it very likely, by inference, that he became a Babi in Tehran through Najmabadi. The attestation rests on that one scholarly tradition, and his recorded faith is therefore unknown, with the wording preserved in the record. ¹

Backed financially by Ghasem Sur-e Esrafil, he published the weekly Sur-e Esrafil from 30 May 1907; thirty-two issues appeared under his editorship, with a circulation said to have reached some 20,000 to 24,000 copies. Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda's satirical column Charand o Parand, written in the ordinary language of the common people, made the paper famous, and after Jahangir Khan's death Dehkhoda and Hasan Taqizadeh published three further issues from Switzerland. ¹

When the Russian-led Cossack Brigade shelled the Majles in June 1908, Jahangir Khan escaped the besieged compound with some deputies and sought refuge at the house of Mirza Mohsen Khan Amin ad-Dauleh. Amin ad-Dauleh gave sanctuary to Behbahani, Tabataba'i and others but declined it to Jahangir Khan and Malek al-Motakallemin — both of them Babis in the eyes of many of their contemporaries — and is reported to have betrayed them to Bagh-e Shah. There the Shah's soldiers executed both men in Mohammad Ali Shah's presence; Jahangir Khan was strangled and stabbed in the heart, and is reported to have said, pointing to the ground, "O Land, we are being killed for the sake of your preservation". Their bodies were thrown into a moat outside the garden walls and buried by friends at night; after the Shah's overthrow the graves were marked with stones engraved with their names. ¹

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