Firouz Nosrat ed Dowleh III

Biography

Records are unclear, but the prince is purported to have been born around 1889. He was educated at the American University of Beirut and the Sorbonne in Paris. He spoke five languages (Persian, French, English, Russian and German) and attended Lycee Janson de Sailly in Paris and Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland. As surnames had not been established in Persia at the time of his studies in France, he registered himself as 'Firouz Firouz', using his grandfather's name as his surname. Afterwards, when the Persian government made having surnames mandatory by law, his father Prince Abdol-Hossein Farmanfarma picked the surname Farmanfarmaian for himself and his children. However, Nosrat-ed-Dowleh, one of his 23 brothers (also a son of Princess Ezzat-ed-Dowleh), and one of his 12 sisters (daughter of Princess Ahshami) held on to the surname 'Firouz' and became known as Firouz Firouz, Mohammad Hossein Firouz, and Maryam Firouz, respectively.

Minister of Foreign Affairs under Ahmad Shah Qajar; architect of the ill-fated Anglo-Persian Agreement (1919); candidate for accession to the Qajar throne after Soltan Ahmad Shah's exile and removal; in 1921, during the coup which brought Reza Shah to power he spent three months in the Qasr-e-Qajar jail with his father and younger brother Abbas Mirza Salar Lashgar while Reza Shah consolidated his power base. During his stay at the prison which he had helped build, he often boasted about its cleanliness. Nosrat-ed-Dowleh also translated Oscar Wilde's De Profundis during this time. Following his release he continued his public life for nine more years serving as a member of parliament, provincial governor, minister of justice, and minister of finance.

In June 1930, while he was acting loyally as Finance Minister for Reza Shah, the Shah had him arrested for accepting a bribe in the amount of five hundred tomans (about 100 dollars today). This episode deeply alarmed Nosrat Dowleh's father, Abdol Hossein Mirza Farmanfarma, and warned his son to curb his extravagant princely lifestyle. The warnings were not heeded. Towards the end of 1936 Reza Shah had grown more tyrannical and unpredictable than in the past. Eventually, Nosrat Dowleh was arrested by the Tehran police chief, Mokhtari and held in a Tehran prison. Despite pleas from the Farmanfarma family he was not released, but instead transferred to a guarded house in Semnon, a village about eighty miles east of Tehran, where he was held incommunicado. In 1937, news returned to Nosrat Dowleh's father that he was dead. The shah had ordered that he be buried without any ceremonies or mention in the press. Abdol Hossein Mirza Farmanfarma ensured that his son was buried in the Shrine of Shah Abdol Azim where many others leading personalities of the Qajar dynasty had been buried. Not long after his death Reza Shah seized Nosrat Dowleh's compound. He had also been given time to write a letter to his twelve-year-old son before he was killed.

It was eventually revealed that he had been killed in his room by strangulation under the supervision of a doctor named Ahmadi. In 1940, after Reza Shah abdicated to his son, the courts found Dr. Ahmadi guilty of killing dozens of political prisoners and sentenced him to death by hanging. Mokhtari was sentenced to a long prison term.

Nosrat-ed-Dowleh translates to "Illumination of the State"

Offspring

Honors

Government Positions Held