| Biography | Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar (16 July 1831 1 May 1896) (Naser-ud-Din Shah Qajar) was the King of Iran from 17 September 1848 to 1 May 1896 when he was assassinated. He was the son of Mohammad Shah Qajar and Malek Jahan Khanom and the third longest reigning monarch king in Iranian history after Shapur II of the Sassanid Dynasty and Tahmasp I of the Safavid Dynasty. He had sovereign power for close to 50 years and was also the first Persian monarch to ever write and publish his diaries.
]Naser al-Din was in Tabriz when he heard of his father's death in 1848, and he ascended to the Peacock Throne with the help of Amir Kabir.
Naser al-Din had early reformist tendencies, but was dictatorial in his style of government. With his sanction, some Babis were killed after an attempt on his life.[2] This treatment continued under his prime minister Amir Kabir, who even ordered the execution of the Báb regarded as a manifestation of God to Bábí's and Bahá'ís, and to historians as the founder of the Bábí religion.
Unable to regain territory lost to Russia in the early 19th century, Naser al-Din sought compensation by seizing Herat, Afghanistan, in 1856. Great Britain regarded the move as a threat to British India and declared war on Iran, forcing the return of Herat as well as Iranian recognition of the kingdom of Afghanistan.
Naser al-Din was the first modern Iranian monarch to visit Europe in 1873 and then again in 1878 (when he saw a Royal Navy Fleet Review), and finally in 1889 and was reportedly amazed with the technology he saw there. During his visit to the United Kingdom in 1873, Naser al-Din Shah was appointed by Queen Victoria a Knight of the Order of the Garter, the highest English order of chivalry. He was the first Iranian monarch to be so honoured. His travel diary of his 1873 trip has been published in several languages as Persian, German, French, and Dutch.
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