Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani
Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani (;‎ 1854 – 1896/97) was an Iranian intellectual reformer, a Babi, and son-in-law of Subh-i-Azal. In his writings, he advocates for political, social, and religious reform characteristic of his generation of intellectuals whose reformist ideas and engagement with sociopolitical themes set the stage for the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, and the political and literary changes that were to follow. Kermani was also a literary critic and like many of his contemporaries an advocate of simpler, more accessible prose. He believed that meaning as opposed to the mode of expression exerts real influence on the reader. He thus discouraged the destruction of the natural clarity of language by means of complicated metaphors, difficult words, long sentences, and complex expressions. Life Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani was born in 1854 in Kerman into a family with a proper position on the socio-economic ladder. There, he was schooled in mathematics, natural science, and theology (ḥekmat-i ilāhī) and also learned some French and English. He was influenced by Voltaire. At age 32, because of hardship he faced from the governor of Kerman, he moved to Isfahan and then Tehran where he taught Qur'anic interpretation (tafsīr). Eventually, he ended up in Istanbul where many Iranian intellectuals resided. There, he wrote letters to the ulema and statesmen of Iran and elsewhere calling for Islamic unity and attacked Nasir al-Din Shah and his court, including prime minister Mirza Ali Asghar Khan Amin al-Soltan. These attacks motivated the prime minister to seek Kermani’s blood, instructing the Iranian ambassador to Istanbul to convince the Ottomans that Kermani had played a role in the Armenian riots two years earlier. Eventually, the Ottomans turned Kermani over to Iranian authorities and he was executed. Three Essays (Se maktūb) Of his most influential texts advocating for reform is Three Essays (Se maktūb). Like many of his contemporaries, Kermani has an idealized image of pre-Islamic Iran. He thus praises pre-Islamic Iran for the geographic vastness of her lands, the virtues and mercy of her kings aided by wise court advisers and Zoroastrian clergy, the order of her fighting men, and the all-encompassing rule of law that governed her lands. This pre-Islamic Iran is then contrasted with the current state of affairs under the Qajar kings. Kermani devotes his energies to the critique of the Shah, though no names are mentioned, and men in court service. Their mismanagement, Kermani tells us compels many talented men to leave Iran for India, Istanbul, and Europe. In addition to political actors, social groupings are also subject to Kermani’s critical pen: merchants are criticized for their immoral trade practices, young men are scorned for their laziness and uselessness, and agents of handicrafts are condemned for their lack of skills. Kermani is distressed over social customs regarding women and marriage. Women’s isolation, he asserts, causes men to pursue sexual acts with children (bache bāzī) while causing depression for women. Moreover, arranged marriages are a problem as they bond two people who have never met—a prescription for disaster