Description

This is the first printed (lithographed) book in Persian language to introduce the Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation and Western modern heliocentrism.

It is the first book that brought, what might be termed as scientific enlightenment to 19th century Iran (Arjomand 1997, p. 17).

I’tizad Al-Saltanahn 

The book was written by an Iranian prince from the Qajar dynasty Aliqoli Mirza Qajar, I’tizad Al-Saltanah (1819-1880), the chancellor of the Academy of Fine Arts, the founder of the Iranian Ministry of science and the first minister of this institution.

I’tizad Al-Saltanah was born as the 47th son of shah Fath-Ali Shah Qajar, who fathered, according to the modern and contemporary sources, between 100 and 280 children. His mother was a concubine Gul Pirhan Khanum, an Armenian woman from Tiflis.

After receiving education at the court, he started a job as an advisor at the court. In 1272/1856, , I’tizad Al-Saltanah published a book on the history of Azerbaijan (تاريخ وقايع و سوانح افغانستان). Two years later, in 1275/1858, he was confirmed by the shah to the directorship of Dar al-fonun (دارالفنون‎ , lit. House of Arts), a position that I’tizad Al-Saltanah kept until the rest of his life . Dar al-fonun, founded in 1851, was a polytechnical institute and the first modern university in Iran.

The university was founded for the upper-class Persian youth to learn the subjects, such as geology, medicine and engineering for military purposes. Under the leadership of I’tizad Al-Saltanah the institute came to gravitate towards the Western scientific thought, instead of following the local traditions. In 1858-59, I’tizad Al-Saltanah organized the first scholarship for 41 students of the university for additional education in technical sciences in Paris.
In the same year as being appointed the director of Dar al-fonun, in 1858, I’tizad Al-Saltanah convinced the shah to build Persia’s first government-operated telegraph line between Tehran and Tabriz, which was running parallel to the recently-erected British-owned Indo-European line. The telegraph line was functional next year, at which occasion I’tizad Al-Saltanah was appointed Persia’s first minister of sciences.

Under I’tizad Al-Saltanah Iran modeled large parts of its infrastructure, based on the European standards. Beside the telegraph lines, the first European-modeled public hospital was built, offices for the supervision of crafts and education were founded, as well as the governmental newspaper, publishing houses and factories.

The second telegraphic line was built in 1283/1866-67 to Bushehr and Jolfa, connecting the Persian lines to the British leading to India and to the Russian lines in the Caucasus.

In the early 1870s the development, influenced from the West slowed down rapidly. The new reforms and I’tizad Al-Saltanah’s deliberate split from the traditional sciences brought a resistance from the conservative circles, which reached the boiling point with the Reuter concession, signed in 1872, which gave the control over the Persian public works, roads, telegraphs, mills and factories to a German-born British entrepreneur of Jewish background Paul von Reuter.

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Aliqoli Mirza Qajar, I’tizad Al-Saltanah was active as a supporter of the modern Iranian press, editor, translator and author. His goal was to introduce the modern Western scientific achievements to Iran.

In Dar al-fonun, I’tizad Al-Saltanah supported the press for scientific publications. Rūz-nāma-ye ʿelmīya-ye dawlat ʿalīya-ye Īrān, issued from 1864 on, was the first Persian scientific monthly with articles also published in French and Arabic. Over the years the press issued circa 160 scientific publications (Arasteh, p. 22).

One of the last important editorial projects by I’tizad Al-Saltanah was the supervision of the first Persian encyclopedia, Nāma-ye dānešvarān, where he was appointed by the shah in 1877.

I’tizad Al-Saltanah wrote several scientific newspaper articles, influential books, yet many of his manuscripts (one of them being on ballooning) remained unpublished. His library and manuscripts are today preserved at the Malek National Library and Museum Institution in Tehran.

Despite this vivid activity among the 19th century scientific Iranian elite, their publications had little influence on the general population and on the traditional science, tightly interconnected with the religion.

Falak al-saʻādat is I’tizad Al-Saltanah most important book and one of the milestones in the Iranian science (Honarmand 2011, p. 197).

The book is the first original text to explain the Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation on practical cases in Iran and was published amid two influential translations in Tehran: Newton and his idea of heliocentricity was only introduced to Iran a year before (Mangol Bayat, Iran’s First Revolution: Shi’ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909, 1991, p. 37) and the translation of another influential work, René Descartes’s Discours, was published a year after, in 1862.

Although respectful to the traditional Islamic methodology, the language of the book was deliberately offensive to the astrology, practiced at the time by the Iranian clergy. The author quoted as one of the motifs for writing this work combating the traditional astrology with words:

Now all [the people] on the earth except a few blockheads in Iran have accepted the movement of the earth
(Arjomand 1997, p. 17).

I’tizad Al-Saltanah dismissed the contemporary Iranian astrology with arguments, that it does not support contemporary discoveries such as the existence of the newly observed planets, comets and meteors.

The manuscript for the book is today preserved at the Malek National Library and Museum Institution in Tehran. (CLICK HERE FOR THE LINK)

We could find circa four institutional examples on Worldcat (Harvard University, Library of Congress, University of California Libraries, Universitätsbibliothek der Eberhard Karls Universität). The other listed examples appear to be eBooks.

References: OCLC 1036218020, 946607431, 35121352, 315099109. Cf.: Kamran Arjomand. The Emergence of Scientific Modernity in Iran: Controversies Surrounding Astrology and Modern Astronomy in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. In: Iranian Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1/2 (Winter – Spring, 1997), pp. 5-24; Abbas Amanat, Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. VIII, Fasc. 6, pp. 669-672 (https://iranicaonline.org/articles/etezad-al-saltana); A. Reza Arasteh, Education and Social Awakening in Iran, 1962; M. Tavakoli-Targhi, Refashioning Iran: Orientalism, Occidentalism and Historiography, 2001; Saeed Honarmand, The Impact of the Modernity Discourse on Persian Fiction. Dissertation, 2011; Sheldon Pollock, Forms of Knowledge in Early Modern Asia: Explorations in the Intellectual History of India and Tibet, 1500–1800, 2011, p. 262.