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Ali Akbar Bahman (also Mirza Ali Akbar Khan; b. 1883 - d. 1967) was an Iranian employee of the Foreign Ministry, diplomat and politician under the Qajar and Pahlavi dynasties. Ali Akbar Bahman was during the rule of the Qajar dynasty as well as at the time of Reza Shah Pahlavi ambassador and minister.
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Family Background
Ali Akbar Bahman was a member of the famous Bahmani-Qajar family. He was born in Tehran as Mirza Ali Akbar Khan in 1883, and died there in 1967. He descended from the family of Prince Bahman Mirza Qajar, son of Abbas Mirza, Iran's hero in two rounds of Perso-Russian wars of 1804-1813 and 1826-1828. Bahman Mirza, sometimes governor-general of Azerbaijan, had 16 wives and issued 31 sons and 30 daughters. One of them was Princess Malekeh Afagh Khanom (1863 - 26 October 1917), Ali Akbar Bahman's mother. His father was Mirza Hossein Behnam from an aristocratic family from Tabriz, which served the royal house since the days of Fath Ali Shah, who already has died in 1897. Because of his father's early death his mother married secondly Amanollah Khan entitled Zia' os-Soltan (lit. "Splendour of the Sovereign") from the Donboli family, her maternal cousin, who was a big landowner at Tabriz, and notable at court. In 1931, when family names were mandated in Iran, Ali Akbar and his siblings Ali Asghar and Nosrat ol-Molouk Khanom named their family Bahman in honor of their grandfather Prince Bahman Mirza.
Career
From noble birth with his mother a royal princess, the young Mirza Ali Akbar Khan had every chance to make a career at court. Thus, he was occupied in the administration service. His stepfather was a staunch opponent to absolutism and open to reforms, thus he supported the Constitutional Movement of 1906. His companion Yahya Dowlatabadi, a leading left-winged constitutional politician and reformist of the Iranian school system sent Mirza Ali Akbar Khan in 1907 to Russian Azerbaijan to teach at the Persian Sa'adat-School at Baku. There, a lot of Ali Akbar's relatives from his mother's family lived.
After the Russian Revolution and World War I many Persians from the Caucasus tried to escape from the Red Army to Iran. With his family ties in Azerbaijan and Iran, Ali Akbar Bahman was able to help many of these refugees to cross the border. On 26 August 1919 Ali Akbar was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Persia to Bucharest, and then in 1921 he became ambassador to Belgium. 1934-1935 he was Iran's Imperial Ambassador in Afghanistan, and in 1935 arranged the "Atabay Arbitration" (territorial exchanges between both countries in the Sistan-Zabulistan region). In 1935 he also became Minister of Transport and with seven other members of the cabinet responsible for the 1935 commemoration stamp set. Finally 1939-1943 he became ambassador in Egypt. There he arranged the marriage of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (in those days Crown Prince of Iran) with Princess Fawzia, daughter of King Fouad I and sister of King Farouk of Egypt on 16 March 1939 in the Abdeen Palace at Cairo.
Back in Iran from Egypt, where he also headed a gathering of Iranians at the embassy about Iranian Settlement in Egypt and participated in the Cairo Conference 1943, Ali Akbar Bahman became sometimes Minister for Trade 1944-1946. He bought the splendid Gowharshad residence in Tehran and a huge garden area of Bagh-e Mostowfi, in the city's cosy north at the slopes of Alburz Mountains. Ali Akbar Bahman died in 1967 and was buried next to his mother's mausoleum in the Shah-Abdol-Azim shrine, Tehran.
Ali Akbar Bahman married Zoleykha Khanom Gadjieva and issued one daughter, Mehr-e Jahan (Mehri) Khanom Bahman.