The museum of Imam Reza’s (PBUH) holy shrine, the eighth Imam of Shias, is one of the richest museums in Iran where, among thousands of other artifacts, very precious souvenirs from Mirza Mohammad-Taqi Khan Farahani, alias Amir Kabir, have been put on public display.
Amir Kabir (1807-1852) was the prime mister of the Qajar king Naser al-Din Shah who reigned over Iran during 1848-1896, IRNA reported.
The souvenirs have been donated to the museum of Imam Reza’s holy shrine by pilgrims and include a very beautiful manuscript of the Holy Quran.
Also donated to the museum are a number of copies of Vaqaye-e Ettefaqiyeh newspaper, the first official daily of an Iranian government, and state documents signed and sealed by Amir Kabir.
The museum of Imam Reza’s holy shrine comprises four museums, namely the Holy Quran Museum, the Precious Artifacts Museum, the Carpet Museum, and the Central Museum, in which some 8,000 invaluable artifacts are kept, with some dating back to several thousand years ago.
The museum is one of the richest of its kind and home to souvenirs from kings and prime ministers of several Iranian dynasties.
Amir Kabir is righteously famous as a nobleman who always told the truth and was very brave, quite competent, very wise and talented, a true patriot and a reformist politician.
He is among the most respectable and greatest men in Iran’s history owing to his unique services to the country and its people, including the establishment of the first Iranian modern university (Daar ul-Fonun) and official newspaper.
The head of the museum, Ebrahim Hafezi, told IRNA that although Amir Kabir was the founder of Vaqaye-e Ettefaqiyeh newspaper and introduced modern journalism to Iranian people, after establishing the daily, he trusted competent intellectuals for running the job and was rarely seen at the paper’s office.
In addition, less than a year after the establishment of that newspaper, he was assassinated at the king’s order in Kashan’s (central Iran) Fin Bathroom on Jan 10, 1852, he said.
Hafezi noted that even the newspaper which Amir Kabir, himself, had founded did not react fairly to his assassination and wrote negatively about him.
Even the news of his brutal assassination was published very briefly 20 days after the tragic event, he added.
Amir Kabir is considered to be the first reformer of Iran.
In the final years of his life, he was exiled to Fin Garden in Kashan.