'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎412] (467/714)

412 PERSIA
12 daughters. His eldest son was born forty-four years ago, his
youngest during the present year. Of his grown-up daughters
Family of who bear similar titles to their mothers, and are known
the Shah as p r id e? Purity, Chastity, Splendour, and Diadem of the
Kingdom or Empire, one is married to the Chief Priest of Teheran
—an ingenious method of annexing the ecclesiastical interest—and
the rest are wedded to princes, or eminent subjects. It is with no
special delight that one of the latter receives the intimation that
he has been selected as a son-in-law of the sovereign; for although
it may bring official promotion for himself, the distinction also
involves a large ready-money present, followed by recurrent dona
tions, to his royal father-in-law; it entails a great outlay in keep
ing up the requisite state for a Princess of the Blood; and it
deprives the favoured husband of the liberty of taking anv other
wife. The Shah, as a rule, gives a dowry of 2,000/. a year to his
married daughters.
Under the Sefavi kings there existed no rule determining the
succession to the Persian crown. Differing from the practice that
His Sons, prevails among the Sunni Mussulmans, e.g. in the Court
to U the ' n Constantinople, of the heredity of the eldest surviving
male, the Persian ruler selected which of his offspring he
pleased, and often did not declare his choice till his deathbed. The
Kajars have resumed what is an ancient Tartar or Turkish custom,
by instituting the Blood-Royal qualification, and closely regarding
the rank of the mother. Mohammed Husein Khan, the father of
Agha Mohammed and grandfather of Path Ali Shah, when a
refugee with the Turkomans, refused to wed the daughter of one
of their chiefs, on the ground that she was not of sufficiently
exalted rank to give birth to a line of possible aspirants to the
throne. Abbas Mirza was not the eldest son of Path Ali, but was
preferred above Mohammed Ali Mirza, his elder brother, because
he was the son of a Kajar princess. It is true that early in his
reign the present Shah departed from this custom, and gratified
both the pride of irresponsibility and the instincts of love by
nominating as Vali-Ahd, or Heir Apparent (after his first male
child and bearer of that title, had died), the son of a favourite
sigheh, who was of humble birth. But upon the death of this
child he reverted to the more normal custom; his eldest sur
viving son, the Zil-es-Sultan, was passed over, and the junior
of the latter by three years—being the son of a princess—