[Naqsha-yi Īrān — Map of Iran]. Produced by Mu’tamid al-Sulṭān Mīrzā ʿAbd al-Razzāq Khān Sartīp Muhandis. AH 1316 / AD 1898–99.

Description

Large-scale indigenous Iranian printed maps from this period are exceptionally rare on the market.

This large map of Iran, produced at the Dār al-Funūn in Tehran in AH 1316 (1898–99) by the engineer and brigadier Mīrzā ʿAbd al-Razzāq Khān, belongs to a rare and historically significant category: maps of Iran made by Iranians, for Iranian purposes, within Iran’s own scientific institutions. The history of nineteenth-century cartography in the Middle East is overwhelmingly a history of maps produced by British military surveyors, Russian trigonometric teams, French geographers, and German cartographic publishers, all mapping Persia from the outside and for their own strategic purposes.

This map inverts that dynamic. It is a product of the Dār al-Funūn, the polytechnic institute founded in Tehran in 1851 that served as the crucible of Iranian scientific modernization, bearing the seal of Najm al-Dawla, the most celebrated Iranian scientist of the nineteenth century, and the endorsement of the Minister of Science. A note on the map declares that it corrects all mistakes in previous maps. Another prohibits copying without permission.

The Map in Detail

The map covers the full extent of the Iranian state as constituted under the Qajars, with southern Russia visible at the north and the Persian Gulf at the south. The overall extent captures the geopolitical reality of late nineteenth-century Persia, a country bounded to the north by the Russian Empire’s advancing Central Asian frontier and to the south by British-controlled waters and the approaches from British India. The terrain is rendered in the tinted relief style of contemporary European cartography, with the mountain chains of the Alborz and Zagros rendered in warm oranges and browns, the central plateau in pale buff, and the waters of the Caspian Sea, Persian Gulf, and major rivers in blue-green. Roads, routes, and settlements are marked throughout in Persian script.

The lower left carries a small inset plan of Tehran, the Qajar capital, and a substantial text panel that includes endorsement notes, the journey-time table, and the copyright prohibition. The journey-time note records distances from Bombay and from Karachi to the Persian Gulf and return, locating the map firmly within the commercial and communications geography of British India’s relationship with southern Persia. The map is printed on paper backed with cloth and folds to 31 × 38.5 cm, indicating it was made for use in the field or in transit as well as for display.

The verso image shows the folded cloth-backed sheet with a small oval cartouche in Persian script, the label by which the map identified itself when folded and stored.

Historical Context

The Dār al-Funūn (House of Sciences) was founded in 1851 by the reformist prime minister Amīr Kabīr under Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh, modeled on European polytechnic institutions and initially staffed with Austrian and French instructors. By the 1880s and 1890s, a generation of Iranian-trained graduates was beginning to produce original scientific work in medicine, engineering, mathematics, and cartography. Mīrzā ʿAbd al-Razzāq Khān was among them: trained at the Dār al-Funūn under ʿAbd al-Ghaffār Najm al-Dawla, he rose to the rank of Sartīp (brigadier) and Muhandis (engineer), and was honored with the title Muʿtamid al-Sulṭān (Trustee of the Sultan).

His teacher, ʿAbd al-Ghaffār Najm al-Dawla (d. 1909), was the most distinguished Iranian scientist of his generation, an astronomer, mathematician, geographer, and translator of Western scientific texts into Persia. His seal on this map directly certifies its accuracy and authority. The co-endorsement by Jaʿfar Qulī Nayyir al-Mulk, Minister of Science and director of the Dār al-Funūn, places the map at the apex of Iran’s official scientific establishment.

The date, 1898–99, situates the map at a moment of acute geopolitical pressure. The Anglo-Russian rivalry over Persia — the southern dimension of the Great Game — was approaching its resolution in the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, which would divide Iran into British and Russian spheres of influence. A map that asserted Iranian cartographic competence, corrected errors in foreign maps, and explicitly prohibited unauthorized reproduction was not merely a scientific document; it was a statement of sovereign capability in a country whose territorial integrity faced sustained external pressure.

Publication History and Census

This map was produced by at the Dār al-Funūn, Tehran, AH 1316 (1898–99). It is endorsed by the seal of ʿAbd al-Ghaffār Najm al-Dawla and by the signed note of Jaʿfar Qulī Nayyir al-Mulk, Minister of Science and director of the Dār al-Funūn.