マヌーチェフル・ハーンの資産とワクフ

Abstract

The first aim of this paper is to illuminate the socio-economic background of Manuchehr Khan Mo‘tamad al-Dowle, the most powerful military and political figure in Iran during the first half of the nineteenth century. An Armenian from Tbilisi who had been taken prisoner in war, Manuchehr Khan converted to Islam, was castrated and attained faim in the royal harem as a eunuch. This paper is the first to examine the socio-economic background of the harem elite of the Qajar Period. A second aim of the paper is to clarify the actual circumstances of the management of property rights during the Qajar Period. Many of the historical documents employed in this article have never been used previously. Therefore, as prerequisite to this study, it is necessary to distinguish their character. To explore the questions of for which purposes the documents were created and which aims the documents served in the society of the day, is, in other words, to address directly the issue of how property rights were guaranteed. The records used for this article were 1) deeds concerning Manuchehr Khan, including of debt, gift, settlement, and vaqf; 2）the census of buildings in Tehran for the years 1852-1853; 3) the inventory of the crown property during the reign of Naser al-Din Shah; and 4) the certified inventory of the palace created in 1873. From these records, one is able to attain some indication of details of the content of the vast property of Manuchehr Khan. Furthermore, by ａ comparative examination of these documents, one can repeatedly confirm that the deeds that were supposed to guarantee property rights were not in the possession of the owner. In illuminating the problem of the state's confiscation of the property of Manuchehr Khan including the vaqf property, I have demonstrated one aspect of how the law was practiced in the society of the day.