The Reign of Mohammad Shah Qajar (1834–1848) and the Early Germination of Constitutional Thought One year after the death of Abbas Mirza, his father, Fath-Ali Shah Qajar, died on Thursday, October 23, 1834, at the age of sixty-three, after a reign of thirty-seven years. In the wake of his death, the throne passed to his grandson, Mohammad Shah Qajar, the son of Abbas Mirza, who ascended with the decisive support of the Farahani statesman Haji Mirza Aqasi. The succession did not unfold in a purely domestic context. Both the Russian and British governments had previously recognized Abbas Mirza as the legitimate heir to the Persian throne in their diplomatic arrangements with Iran. Consequently, their representatives—John Campbell and Ivan Simonich—extended political and, where necessary, military support to ensure a smooth transfer of power to Mohammad Shah. Their intervention was guided less by dynastic loyalty than by strategic calculation: any contest among rival princes risked destab...