Crowning Anguish: Memoirs of a Persian Princess from the Harem to Modernity, 1884–1914: Memoirs of a Persian Princess from the Harem to Modernity, 1884–1914

By Taj al-Saltaneh

The life of Taj al-Saltaneh, daughter of the ruler of Iran, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, epitomized the predicaments of her changing era. Overcoming her limited education within the harem walls, Taj chronicled a thirty-year span in the life of a generation that witnessed a shift from traditional order to revolutionary flux. It is as though she had chosen this moment to recall her personal history—a tale filled with “wonder and anguish”—in order to record a cultural and political leap, symbolic of her time, from the indulgent, sheltered, and often petty world of her father’s harem to the puzzling and exposed, yet emotionally and intellectually challenging world of a new Iran.
Now almost one hundred years later Taj’s memoirs are relevant and qualify her not only as a feminist by her society’s standards but also in comparison with feminists of her generation in Europe and America. Beyond her fascination for the material glamors of the West at the turn of the twentieth century—fashion, architecture, furniture, the motorcar—she was also influenced by Western culture’s painting, music, history, literature and language. And yet throughout this time she kept her bond with her own literary and cultural heritage and what she calls her “Persianness.”
Despite her troubled life of agony—an unloving and harsh mother; a benevolent but self-indulgent father; an adolescent, bisexual husband; separation from her children; financial difficulties; the stigma of leading a libertine lifestyle and the infamy of removing her veil—Taj’s is a genuine voice for women’s social grievances in late-twentieth century Iran, and one that reveals a remarkable woman in her own right.
This new paperback edition, now also available as an eBook, coincides with the release of the audio book read by the Iranian-American actress Kathreen Khavari. Abbas Amanat, who edited the book, and wrote its superb introduction and historical biographies, has written a new preface that adds details that have emerged since 1993 about Taj al-Saltaneh’s tragic life after 1914.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mage Publishers Inc.
• Release date: Dec 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781949445213

Taj al-Saltaneh

The life of Taj al-Saltaneh, daughter of the ruler of Iran, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, epitomized the predicaments of her changing era. Overcoming her limited education within the harem walls, Taj chronicled a thirty-year span in the life of a generation that witnessed a shift from traditional order to revolutionary flux.

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Taj Al-Saltaneh

[Khatirat-I Taj Al-Saltaneh. English]

Taj Al-Saltaneh. Crowning Anguish: Memoirs of A Persian Princess From The Harem To Modernity, 1884–1914; Introduction and Historical Notes, Abbas Amanat; Translated by Anna Vanzan and Amin Neshati.

p. cm.

Includes Bibliographical References and Index.

1. Taj Al-Saltaneh, 1884–1936. 2. Iran—Princes and Princesses—Biography. 3. Feminists—Iran—Biography. I. Amanat, Abbas.

II. Title.

DS316.T33A3 1993 955.05’1’092-DC20 [B] 93-3329 CIP

ISBN 0-934211-35-3 (Hardbound first edition)

ISBN 978-1-949445-20-6 (Paperback, second edition)

ePub: 978-1-949445-21-3

Kindle: 978-1-949445-22-0

Also available as a digital Audiobook

Visit Mage www.mage.com

[e-mail]

CONTENTS

PREFACE FOR THE SECOND EDITION

INTRODUCTION

The Changing World of Taj Al-Saltaneh

In the Harem

The Unhappy Union

New Horizons

Regenerated Hopes

THE MEMOIRS

Crowning Anguish

Birth and Childhood

Education in the Harem

Courtship and Betrothal

Amusements at Court

The Grand Vizier

Preparing for the Jubilee

The Assassination of the Shah

Portrait of the New Shah

Nuptials and Married Life

Royal European Tours

The Cholera Epidemic

Liberating Women

Pilgrimage to Qom

Breakdown of the Marriage

POSTSCRIPT

HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHIES

A NOTE ON THE TEXT

FURTHER READING

GLOSSARY OF PERSIAN TERMS AND NAMES

SOURCES AND CREDITS

INDEX

ILLUSTRATIONS

ii / Oil painting of Taj al-Saltaneh in European clothes.

x / Black and white detail from a mid-Naseri period painting by Esma‘il Jalayer.

5 / The Shams al-‘Emareh (sun building).

7 / The Citadel’s main gate.

8 / Panorama of Tehran by George Curzon from his 1890 visit.

9 / The magnificent audience hall of Golestan Palace in Tehran.

10 / Eshratabad (pleasure-land).

11 / Eshratabad.

12 / A royal woman and her relatives, accompanied by their eunuchs.

14 / Indoor costume of Persian women.

15 / Anis al-Dowleh and her companions, returning from a summer resort.

16 / Naser al-Din, in a casual mood, shepherding some women of his harem.

17 / Ziba Khanum.

23 / Gholam Ali Aziz al-Soltan (Malijak) in his finery.

30 / Tehran crowd gathered for ‘Ashura.

31 / The Imperial Bank of Persia.

32 / The poet Aref-e Qazvinj.

41 / Mozaffar al-Din Shah in his automobile.

42 / Woman in traditional dress playing the tar (six-string Persian lute).

43 / Woman in modern dress playing the tar.

47 / Shirin Khanom posing proudly with her water-pipe (qalyan).

48 / Mirza Ali Asghar Khan Amin al-Soltan, Atabak-e A’zam (Grand Atabak).

50 / Mozaffar al-Din Shah in 1902.

57 / Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar in 1907

68 / Taj al-Saltaneh at the age of fifteen.

72 / A frontal view of Golestan Palace.

78 / The inner quarters (andarun) of Golestan Palace.

84 / An eastern view of the palace of Saltanatabad.

87 / Young harem woman in white tights and short skirt.

91 / A gathering of Persian women in the andarun.

95 / Anis al-Dowleh.

97 / An all-female wedding party.

99 / The all-male feast held in the reception hall of Golestan palace.

103 / Naser al-Din Shah, accompanied by his favorite, Aziz al-Soltan (Malijak).

109 / The Golestan grounds in front of Badgir Palace.

111 / Royal palace of Badgir (wind tower).

119 / Khanom Bashi (right), one of Naser al-Din Shah’s later favorites.

123 / Kamran Mirza in all his glory.

125 / Amin al-Soltan’s residence in Tehran.

126 / Prince Zell al-Soltan in his Kaiserian attire.

131 / His Majesty’s Bed Chamber (Khabgah).

137 / Naser al-Din Shah Qajar in his mid-fifties (during Taj’s childhood).

141 / Kamraniyeh, country seat of Kamran Mirza.

143 / Entrance to the shrine of Shah Abd al-Azim.

145 / Inner courtyard of the shrine of Shah Abd al-Azim.

147 / Mirza Reza Kermani.

151 / Mozaffar al-Din Shah and his entourage, c. 1902.

153 / Three of the younger daughters of Naser al-Din Shah.

173 / The lovers Ayaz and ‘Azra.

175 / A love triangle in a watercolor by Mirza Baba Shirazi (d. circa 1824).

180 / Mozaffar al-Din Shah on board the royal yacht, Portsmouth, England.

183 / Mohammad Baqer Khan Sardar Shoja’ al-Saltaneh.

185 / The Rasht-Tehran carriage road.

188 / Horse race in Bagh-e Shah.

197 / Women’s outdoor outfit around the turn of the century.

199 / A Jewish Fortune-Teller and His Female Clients.

200 / Life of a Persian Family.

201 / The gradual removal of the veil.

203 / A view of the public cemetery adjacent to the shrine of Ma’sumeh in Qom.

209 / Hasan Khan Shoja’ al-Saltaneh, Taj’s husband.

212 / Taj al-Saltaneh in European-style clothes.

PREFACE FOR THE SECOND EDITION

Since the 1993 publication of Crowning Anguish, new details have emerged about Taj al-Saltaneh’s life beyond the internal evidence in her memoirs and supplementary references in Qajar sources.¹

I

To begin with, no trace has yet been found of the presumed incomplete portion of the memoirs. A brief note by Taj al-Saltaneh’s granddaughter, Taj-Iran Zarghami (Fasihi), who in 1983 wrote recollections of her grandmother’s final years, makes no reference to another complete version.² It is worth mentioning that the existing manuscript of Taj’s memoirs (published by Mansoureh Nezam-Mafi and Syrus Sa‘dvandian and translated here), originally belonged to the library of Sa‘id Nafisi, the celebrated literary scholar, historian and bibliophile. After his passing, this manuscript along with others, were purchased by the Tehran University Central Library (manuscript no. 5741).³ To the extent that we are aware, Nafisi held no reservation about the incompleteness or the authenticity of Taj’s memoirs. The late Iraj Afshar who refers to another copy of the manuscript, albeit without personally examining it, didn’t raise any question about its completeness either.⁴

On further reflection, the concluding part of Taj’s memoir raises no doubt about its completeness. Nor does it beg, so to speak, for a different closure. It is clear that in 1914, when she completed the memoirs, she was traumatized because of the divorce from her first husband, Hasan Khan Shoja‘ al-Saltaneh.⁵ She saw her separation as a symbolic break from her Qajar past, an ancien régime of privilege and prosperity, but also a liberation from the segregated life of the harem. Standing at the threshold of a new era, which came with the Great War and soon after with the rise of Reza Shah Pahlavi and the demise of the Qajar dynasty, she must have felt that she had reached the end of that portion of her life that was worth recording. We may thus safely assume that the reference by Rahmatollah Da’i Taleqani, the secretary of the embassy of Afghanistan, at the end of his copy of Taj’s memoirs to the effect that the rest of this book has not yet been recovered, is nothing but the figment of his imagination. It is as if his hopes for a juicier finale were sapped.⁶

In the same vein, and along the same lines that are discussed earlier (see page 231 for example), new questions were raised in recent years about the authenticity of Taj’s memoirs by two informed scholars, the late Dr. Iraj Afshar⁷ and Naser-al-Din Parvin.⁸ Though both scholars raise interesting questions and offer new insights about Taj’s life and her memoirs, neither go beyond the realm of speculation. What they question, in essence, is Taj’s aptitude to express herself in the style and with the vocabulary that appears in the memoirs (and specifically the use of Arabicized expressions), which they found odd and out of place. Hence, they suggested that the text must have been the product of some anonymous journalist or ghostwriter who heard some of the factual details from Taj al-Saltaneh. They also detected inaccuracies in some dates and scrutinized curious juxtapositions in some passages.

Upon closer examination, however, one may argue that such inaccuracies occur virtually in any memoir, let alone that of a dilettante like Taj al-Saltaneh. As briefly mentioned in my Introduction, it is not entirely implausible that in writing her memoirs, Taj indeed had received some assistance. It is possible that the very teacher who is Taj’s interlocutor in the text, acted as her editor as well. Nor is it unrealistic that her editorial assistant added a melodramatic luster to her prose. At times one can hear the resonance of Persian translations of European popular novels (especially French) which were then in vogue, particularly in newspaper serials. What is rather troubling, however, is the doubt that both critics cast on Taj’s intellectual capacity to express herself in the way she did. It is as if they subscribe, no doubt unconsciously, to a misogynistic trend that routinely denies women writers, Taj included, the voices of their own. Resorting to textual inconsistencies rather than paying attention to the substance of Taj’s writing, is an easy way to deny that clearly feminine voice. Iraj Afshar, whose bibliographical erudition and his great service to Qajar studies is beyond doubt, may further be critiqued for not extending his textual scrutiny to other Qajar memoirs and diaries by male authors that he steadfastly published throughout his illustrious career.

One example is particularly pertinent. The secret diaries of Mohammad Hasan Khan E‘temad al-Saltaneh, which Afshar published as Ruznameh-e Khaterat E’temad al-Saltaneh,⁹ and is an invaluable source for our understanding of the Naseri era, is by no means free of historical inaccuracies, even though it was recorded at the time by a professional historian. Afshar acknowledges this. Yet what he only mentions in passing, and is pertinent to his critique of Taj’s memoirs, is that E‘temad al-Saltaneh’s secret diaries were copied by his cultivated wife, to whom Afshar simply refers as the wife (‘ayal). But it should be borne in mind that in the seclusion of the inner quarters (andarun) of E’temad al-Saltaneh, this cultivated wife, whose full name is ‘Ezzat Malek Ashraf al-Saltaneh, a woman of the Qajar nobility, most likely not only copied her husband’s secret diaries but edited and improved on the text. She in effect not only acted as his copyeditor but also was instrumental in preservation of the only copy of Ruznameh-e Khaterat in the Library of Astan Qods Razavi in Mashhad.¹⁰

II

Some fresh details have also emerged, thanks to Taj-Iran Zarghami, who gives us for example Taj al-Saltaneh’s first name, Zahra Khanum, and names of her three daughters and one son, all from her marriage with Shoja‘ al-Saltaneh. She also offers, among other details, the family history of Taj’s descendants.¹¹ More importantly, we learn that Taj al-Saltaneh’s third marriage was with a certain Majd al-Saltaneh, another offspring of the sprawling but rapidly diminishing Qajar nobility. This union came to a quick end because of the couple’s differences. One may surmise that even in the early decades of the early-twentieth century, when Qajar women like Taj conducted a less restricted life, and some even could pick and choose husbands at will, Taj’s reputation was viewed by her husband as too indulgent.

Taj al-Saltaneh’s status as a single woman after her second divorce may very well have put her in dire financial straits for the rest of her life. Presumably sometime in early 1920s, Zarghami points out, Taj’s monthly government pension of 80 tumans (about $57 at the 1920s exchange rate) was discontinued on the ground that she had in her possession adequate financial resources. Evidently, she didn’t and even her meager monthly pension would have been insufficient for the lifestyle that she was accustomed to. Financial impoverishment may have further diminished her matrimonial appeal. No longer a Qajar princess, she couldn’t attract suitors merely on the grounds of her blue blood.

Other familial issues seem to have exacerbated Taj’s anxieties. After separation from her first husband sometime in 1909, her four young children remained in custody of Shoja‘ al-Saltaneh, who shortly after his divorce married another wife, hence putting the life of the children from the earlier marriage in jeopardy. By the mid-1920s, when the three girls became eligible for betrothal, they were hastily married off to suitors who had financial means, apparently without concern that they were commoners. The oldest daughter, Qamar-Taj Turan al-Dowleh, then no older than fifteen, was married off to a husband many years her senior, who already had many children and was on his third marriage. Arbab Faraj Zarghami, father of Taj-Iran Zarghami, was a Baha’i refugee from Kashan who as a flour-trader (‘allaf) had made his money in Tehran’s flour market. He owned several bakeries and was the virtual head of the baker’s guild in the capital. A generous man and proud of his union with the Qajar family, he provided a comfortable, even a luxurious, life for his new wife and children. Turan al-Dowleh also had access to enough funds to purchase a house for her mother, where Taj resided with one of her granddaughters and a black nanny. Marrying off the young Turan al-Dowleh with the new money, a familiar story for the impoverished nobility in rapidly changing societies, had paid off, at least for a while, hence allowing Taj al-Saltaneh a comfortable life near her growing family.

Whether it was her difficult adjustment to the realities of the post-Qajar era or experiences of her unhappy unions, in her later years Taj’s secluded life was imbued with mystical religiosity, as we learn from Taj Iran Zarghami. In particular, her devotion to Anjoman-e Okhowwat (brotherhood society), the public face of the Safi-Ali Shahi Sufi suborder, seems to have taken a central place in Taj al-Saltaneh’s life. The Anjoman was co-founded by Ali Khan Zahir al-Dowleh, an enlightened Qajar nobleman turned mystic (and former court minster of Naser al-Din Shah) and his wife, Tuman Agha Forugh al-Dowleh, a cultivated daughter of Naser al-Din Shah (and hence a senior sister to Taj al-Saltaneh). Being steadfast supporters of the Constitutional Revolution, the couple’s house in Tehran was bombarded, looted and destroyed by Russian-led Cossack forces during the anti-Constitutional coup of August 1908. In later years Forugh al-Dowleh remained an advocate of women’s rights (and by implication voluntary unveiling) and the Anjoman under the couple’s auspices continued to organize lectures and stage Persian musical concerts in the Anjoman’s conference hall, which was a novelty for the period.

By the 1930s, when Taj attended the Anjoman’s weekly gatherings in Zahir al-Dowleh’s large estate in Ja‘farabad (north of Tajrish village in the Shemiran suburb of the capital and now the famed resting place of celebrated poets, musicians and cultural figures), the affairs of the Anjoman were managed in part by the enlightened daughter of the couple, Forugh al-Moluk. After her mother’s death, Forugh al-Moluk presided over the women’s branch of the Safi Ali-Shahi order. A poet, musician and watercolor painter, trained by the celebrated master painter, Mohammad Ghaffari Kamal al-Molk, Forugh al-Moluk in turn inspired women of her circle, including Taj al-Saltaneh, to engage in painting and music. That was attested by Zarghami, who had seen Taj making a self-portrait and on other occasions listened to her piano playing in the Persian style.

Taj al-Saltaneh died of cancer of the pancreas on January 31st 1936 at the age of 51 and was buried in the Zahir al-Dowleh garden cemetery. In her final years she apparently moved in with Turan al-Dowleh and her family. Taj’s wish to visit Europe was never fulfilled even though she went on pilgrimage to the Shi’ite holy cities of southern Iraq. Her first husband, Shoja‘ al-Saltaneh, had died destitute a few years earlier. Zarghami, who in 1930 as a young girl visited her grandfather on his deathbed, recalls that he complained that he had nothing but a tar (Persian string instrument) and a few threadbare rugs.

Finally, a number of pictures of Taj and her family were collected in Women’s World in Qajar Iran. Of these, nine are identified as reproductions of the photos preserved in the archive of the Institute for Iranian Contemporary Historical Studies in Tehran. In all likelihood, these photos were looted after the 1979 revolution from the house of Colonel Changiz Voshmgir, Taj’s grandson from another daughter. It is a bittersweet ending to her story and how it was recorded, confiscated but somehow salvaged and archived for posterity.¹²

Abbas Amanat

November 2020

1See my Introduction: The Changing World of Taj al-Saltaneh, pp. 1–66 and the Postscript, page 215).

2This is an addendum to Taj-Iran Zarghami’s copy of Taj al-Saltaneh’s memoirs. See Women’s World in Qajar Iran, http://www.qajarwomen.org/en/items/15155A31.html, an exemplary online resource created by Professor Afsaneh Najmabadi and her team at Harvard University.

3Presumably by the great bibliographer, the late Dr. Iraj Afshar, who at the time was the director of Tehran University Central Library.

4Khaterat-e Taj al-Saltaneh? Hafez, 20 (Aban 1384/2005), 18–22.

5However, based on two Qajar journals cited in the entry on Taj in Encyclopaedia Iranica (Taj-al-Saltana, by A. Najmabadi), after her first divorce, in 1909 Taj briefly remarried with a certain Qollar-Aqabashi, a nephew of Hosain Pasha Khan Amir Bahador-e Jang, a staunch anti-Constitutionalist. That the marriage came to a speedy end, we may surmise, may had something to do with the defeat of the Royalists in the civil war of 1908–1909 and the end of a period known as Minor Tyranny (Estebdad-e Saghir). Upon abdication of Mohammad-Ali Shah in 1909, Amir Bahdor-e Jang accompanied his master to a Russian exile. In this exile, he was also accompanied by Taj’s father-in-law from her first marriage. Whether soon after that Taj married for the third time to a certain Rokn al-Saltaneh is nearly impossible since Mohammad Reza Mirza Rokn al-Saltaneh, the only holder of that title known to us, was a minor son of Naser al-Din Shah and therefore a half-brother of Taj. It is quite possible that ‘Ayn al-Saltaneh, on whose account we know of this union, mis-recorded the name of the new husband, Mohammad-Qoli Khan Majd al-Saltaneh, with Rokn al-Saltaneh (see blow).

6Khaterat-e Taj al-Saltaneh, p. 110.

7Afshar, Khaterat-e Taj al-Saltaneh?

8‘Khaterat’-e Taj al-Saltaneh Ja‘li Ast, Jahan-e Ketab, 24: nos. 9-10 (Azar and Day 1397/2019), 12-17.

9Ed. Iraj Afshar (Tehran, 1345/1966), page seh. See also Encyclopaedia Iranica: Taj al-Saltana, (A. Najmabadi) for the author’s excellent discussion of debates about authenticity of the memoirs.

10See Encyclopaedia Iranica: E‘temad al-Saltana (A. Amanat).

11For Afsaneh Najmabadi’s interview with Taj-Iran Zarghami Fasihi and other supplementary material see http://www.qajarwomen.org/en/items/15155A61.html.

12Voshmgir himself was arrested and later committed suicide in the prison of the Islamic Republic.

PREFACE

For a Western reader accustomed to the prevailing images of women in the Middle East, the memoirs of a turn-of-the-century Persian royal woman with liberal views present a refreshing alternative. Seen in the light of her own time, Taj al-Saltaneh’s emerging feminism and her unconventional lifestyle, challenged the hailed values of confined chastity and sexual segregation—values which, after a phase of secularism, have found a new lease on life in the current revival of fundamentalist Islam. Taj’s Crowning Anguish, as the title for the English translation of her memoirs has it, gave her a chance to transcend the restricted milieu of the harem and enter an independent—albeit confusing—world of modernity, a course of emancipation with all its enlightenments and follies.

The English translation of the memoirs aptly renders that spirit of romanticism and revolt that lies at the heart of Taj’s predicament, without sacrificing accuracy. The Introduction aims at illustrating the historical backdrop, while accentuating, successfully I hope, the dimensions of Taj’s experience. My Historical Biographies and comments on the illustrations are meant to facilitate the reader’s entry into the bygone world of Qajar Iran. The headings in the body of the memoirs serve the same purpose. It must be admitted, however (as indicated in the Note on the Text), that much remains to be discovered about the enigmas of Taj’s life; for instance, we have only recently learned that she died in 1936.

I am thankful to Mohammad and Najmieh Batmanglij for their enthusiasm in publishing this work. My thanks are due as well to Anna Vanzan for her initial translation for her thesis and to Amin Neshati for skillfully revising the translation for publication. I would also like to thank Haynie Wheeler for her generous assistance.

A.A.

New Haven, Connecticut

THE CHANGING WORLD OF TAJ AL-SALTANEH

The infant girl born in 1884 to the ruler of Iran, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, and a minor princess from the same ruling family named Turan al-Saltaneh had an ancestry noble enough to deserve a lofty name. The name chosen for her, however, was only a royal title: Taj al-Saltaneh, crown of the monarchy, one of many generic titles coined in the title-conscious court of the late Qajar period and bestowed upon royalty and commoners alike. The crown of the monarchy, however, turned out to be a remarkable woman in her own right, with a personality and drive that enabled her to outlive her counterparts in a waning royal house. Even though our knowledge of Taj al-Saltaneh is largely limited to what she cared to share with us, there are enough sincere thoughts and sentiments in her unfinished and untitled memoirs to qualify her not only as a representative of the emerging secular intelligentsia in the aftermath of the Constitutional Revolution (1906–1911), but also as an ardent feminist who reflected many of the predicaments of her culture and society in a changing age.

Belonging to a tiny, secularized upper class in a society dominated by traditional Perso-lslamic values, Taj led a rebellious lifestyle that brought her much notoriety. Still, she fares favorably in comparison with other feminists of her generation, perhaps not so much for her actions as for expressing views well advanced of her own time. Nearly ninety years later, Taj’s memoirs are relevant. The realities of late-twentieth-century Iran and the restrictions which Persian women have been subjected to, or have opted for, attest to the persistence or revival of old religious values and institutions. The plight of today’s Muslim women remains strikingly and sadly comparable to that of Taj a century ago. Yet, curiously, contemporary reaction to the female predicaments imposed by society is still unclear. It remains to be seen whether the sincerity of Taj’s secular convictions will be matched or surpassed by women of our time.

Taj’s memoirs are unusually self-revealing. Her language and mode of expression are iconoclastic, for she not only voices the flaws of her social class but those of her family and herself. Even compared to the liberated upper-class Western feminists of her time, Taj appears less inhibited. A sensitive observer, she narrates the story of her life with the lucidity of an intimate conversation, a style mastered by the matriarchs of the old families. Inspired by the spirit of European romanticism, her individuality comes through effortlessly. Among the memorialists of her time, Taj stands out for having crossed the formidable barriers of self-censorship. In Persian prose, as in any other formalist tradition, the authors of memoirs were, and still are, expected to hold back the harshest and most personally revealing realities for the sake of social stature, honor, and political expediency. Having acquired something of the candid language of the womenfolk, the cultivated as well as the common, Taj echoes in her narrative a refreshing divorce from literary formalism. In spite of its many shortcomings, her account is charged with nuances and flashes of a real life, which makes it comparable to the memoirs of her nonconformist uncle, Abbas Mirza III, to the secret diaries of her father’s astute confidant, E‘temad al-Saltaneh, and to the memoirs of the shah’s enlightened minister, Amin al-Dowleh. She was the only royal woman known to us who has left an account of her life. When compared to the memoirs of her elder brother, Zell al-Soltan, written less than a decade after her own, or the historical reminiscences of Naser al-Din Shah’s grandson, Dust Ali Khan Mo‘ayyer al-Mamalek, compiled some four decades later, Taj’s candid tone becomes all the more conspicuous. The self-righteous complacency of one and the defensive nostalgia of the other stand in marked contrast to her frankness.

Written in 1914, at the disheartening close of the Constitutional Revolution (and the outbreak of the Great War), Taj’s memoirs cover a thirty-year span in the life of a generation that was acutely aware of a changing world. It is as though she had chosen this culminating moment to recall her personal history—a tale filled with wonder and anguish, as she put it—in order to record a cultural leap which she, symbolic of her time, made from the indulgent world of her father’s harem to the puzzling, yet emotionally and intellectually challenging, world of a profane lifestyle. The driving force behind this hazardous journey to modernity was Taj’s desire to embrace independence. French literature, revolutionary rhetoric, and journalism reshaped Taj’s sentiments and sensibilities as distinctly as modern fashion and make-up, entertainment, music, furniture, luxury goods, and architecture reshaped her lifestyle.

In narrating her journey from the confinement of her harem mentality into what she defines as liberated life, Taj is remarkably aware of not only her own intellectual and emotional rebirth but also the public and private lives of others around her. She takes it upon herself to demonstrate the ills of a society of privilege and intrigue: a crippled yet indulgent monarchy in its last gasp, a decaying aristocracy, abused and insecure womenfolk, a cynical officialdom, and a destitute populace so little noticed that it only flickers through Taj’s account.

Hardly typical of the Persian woman of her time, Taj anticipated in her writings and conduct something of the emancipation movement of the Reza Shah era (1925–1941). Her memoirs are unique in consciously recording a life which she could afford to lead because she was a member of the royal house, albeit a declining one. The notable absence of Islam and its representatives in her account also points to the waning power of religion in the post-Constitutional craving for modernity; this decline was also vital in