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ORIGIN
The first traceable male
line ancestor of the Hedayat family of whom we know by now, is Mohammed
Esmail Beg, who was killed in spring 1779 at Chahardeh Kalateh during
the fights between the Zands and the Ghajars for the national supremacy
over Iran.
It is his grandson, Mirza
Reza Gholi Khan
Hedayat, who serves us here as main source, as
he gave a short
account of the places' history, relating the tragical events of
spring 1779 at the occasion of his passing by at that place, on his way
back from his diplomatic mission to the Khanate of Khiva, in October
1851, (1)
:
" This district, which
is depending on
Damghan and part of Hezar Jarib has played great prosperity during many
years. The inhabitants have
shown themselves devoted to the glorious dynasty of the Ghajars, since
the time when Mohammed Hassan Khan Kishver Setan came into power, the
son of Fath Ali Khan Ghajar-Ghovanlou. (i.e. in 1747, note of A.
H. P.) (...)
My
grandfather
Mohammed Esmail
Beyg, known by the name Esmail Kamal,
was the chef of the notables from this district. He refused his
submission to Zaki Khan Zand, cousin of Karim Khan Vakil. Forty-one
notables and outstanding personnages of Chahardeh Kelateh sheltered in
the residence of the governor which was solidely fortified, and they
repulsed the attacks and assaults that were delivered to them.
Zaki
Khan had brought a message to them: "Come down to me," he had them
told, "I
have sworn on the glorious Qoran not to kill one of you." The besieged
condescended to place confidence in the perfidy of this oath, and they
descended from the castle full of security. Zaki Khan, in order to hold
his hypocrite vow, gave one of these notables the liberty and had put
to death the other forty men. Besides this, he ordered to erect a tower
with their heads to perpetuate the souvenir of his action. Esmail
Kamal, my paternal ancestor, said to him: "If you want to kill me and
if you want to erect a tower with our heads, please have placed mine on
the top, as I am the first and the chief of all these chieftains." Zaki
Khan granted him this request.
(...)
I
saw Kelateh after a
great
number of years (i.e. 72 years later, in October 1851, note of
A. H. P.). I received visits from numerous relatives, men and
women, but I knew none of them."
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The
leadership of Mohammed Esmail Beg might be doubtable
as the historian
Mirza
Mohammed Abolhassan Ghaffari Kashani, who seems to have in addition
better
references than Reza Gholi Khan, mentions another leader of above event
(a
certain Haji Zaki Khan instead of Esmail Beg) (2).
If
we are cautious with Reza Gholi Khan's designation of his own
grandfather as ra'is-ol
ravasiyan ("chief of chiefs") of
Chahardeh Kalateh, what was then the social
position and family background of our first ancestor ?
It is a
striking circumstance, that all male family members
from the
late 18th century down to the first quarter of the 20th century appear
in the sources in- and outside the family with the title "Khan"
(respectively "Beg" for Esmail). There are other
important Divani families of undoubtedly same rank
and high reputation during the Ghajar era, such as the Ashtiani-Clan
(with its sub-branches Mossadegh, Daftari, Meykadeh, Ghavam, Vossugh,
etc.) as well as the Mostofi family and many others, whose
members have never or only in very few cases used the title
"Khan"
for themselves, while other families such as the Amini, Nouri, Ghavami,
Vaziri and other wellknown Divani families have used
the
title regularily. As an assumption, which verification would require
more material and comparative genealogical study,
the difference
in use might hint to a different social, local and or
cultural-ethnic origin; and in case
of the Hedayats might indicate an
ultimately feudal landowning offspring, perhaps being an early
tribal offsplit that might have become sedentary in the 18th century -
or even before.
Subject
to all incertainty, from what we know by
now, we
may conclude that Esmail
Beg belonged to the local settled people, probably a local
landlord, one
among the other above
mentioned chieftains of the district.
His
son, Reza
Gholi
Khan's father, styled "Agha Mohammed Hadi" or "Mohammed Hadi Khan", was
part of the retinue of Ghajar tribal leaders in Mazandaran, and hereafter in
charge of the internal
management of
the court and keeper of the personal chests of Agha Mohammed Khan
Ghajar. After serving Fath Ali Shah for a short while in the same
capacity, he had been
appointed Treasurer of the province of Fars under the Governor Prince
Hossein
Ali Mirza, in which office he died at Shiraz in 1218 A.H. (=1803/04
A.D.)
(3)
The
spouse
of Mohammed Hadi Khan, mother of Reza Gholi Khan, came from an
aristocratic family
from Sari and Barforush, Mazandaran. Her grandfather, Haj Mohammed
Khan, had
come with Nader Shah in the 1730's from Herat in Khorasan (which
eastern
part belongs today to Afghanistan), and was made Daryabegi (Admiral)
of the
Caspian Coast and shortly afterwards Daryabegi of the Persian
Gulf (4)
(1)
- Reza
Gholi Khan Hedayat / Charles Schefer
(Transl.), Relation de l'ambassade au Kharezm,
Paris 1879, pp. 203-204
(2)
- John
R.
Perry, Karim Khan Zand; A History of Iran,
1747-1779,
Chicago and London 1979, p. 145
(3)
- Mehdi
Gholi Khan Hedayat (Mokhber-ol Saltaneh),
Khatarat wa Khaterat,
Tehran 1965, introduction
(4)
- Reza
Gholi Khan Hedayat, Tazkerah-ye Riyaz-ol
Arefin,
Tehran 1965, p. 443
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