Remembering Sanie al-Dowleh and His Distinct View of 'Security,' with Emphasis on Livelihood and Exchange Capacity

For the first time, Sanie al-Dowleh stated in his treatise Nejat-e Iran that real security without 'livelihood, education, and the capacity to transport goods' is nothing but an illusion. 'A society that lacks the ability to exchange its products will remain in insecurity and misery, even with the best-equipped armies.'

Ambassador Arjan; Omid Jahanshahi-Mortaza Qolikhan Hedayat, nicknamed Sani al-Doulah, was born in Tehran in 1235. Being from a noble family and a bureaucrat, he went to Europe during the first trip of Naser al-Din Shah, and with his father's tact, he was entrusted to Werner Siemens, the founder of the German industrial giant, in Berlin.

Studying at the Berlin School of Industry in the field of mining engineering and then an experimental internship in Siemens factories made him a modern and technocratic personality.

Marrying the daughter of Muzaffar al-Din Shah with respect to the sultan, strengthened his position in power and became the head of the treasury, and the minister of post office and customs.

Undoubtedly, it is not possible to understand the concerns and priorities and the importance of Sani al-Dawlah's activities without understanding the social political conditions of his time, i.e. the late Naseri and Mozaffari eras: court and court corruption was systematic to the extent that states were auctioned and Russian and British embassies and influential agents interfered in the country because they wanted Iran to be weak and dependent. More than 80% of the country's population were landless and illiterate villagers, and only 2% of people were literate. Despite all the efforts that were made during the Naseri era to expand the roads, for many provinces there was still no road and no security for goods trade.

With the arrival of Muzaffar al-Din Shah, this situation worsened, and in reaction to it, a coalition was gradually formed of businessmen tired of corruption, modernist intellectuals, urban guilds fed up with insecurity, scholars who were the voice of the protesting masses, and the justice-seeking public, which led to the constitution. Therefore, it can be clearly said that Brind's constitution was a multiple and heterogeneous set of demands that made the situation complicated, especially when he faced a stubborn dictator, Muhammad Ali Shah.

In such a situation and with the issuance of the constitutional decree, Sani al-Dawlah was placed at the head of the commission that compiled the "Election Regulations"; A historical document that laid the foundations of Iran's first electoral framework and then became the head of Iran's first parliament.

He did not run the parliament with the fiery political speeches of modernism, but on organizing the administrative and financial system as the foundation of modernity; That too in a situation where the representatives did not know anything about politics and the parliament, and the princes were constantly conspiring so that their power would not be limited, and of course the Russian embassies were not idle and their agents were active. It got to the point where Ali Asghar Khan Atabek (Amin al-Sultan) was assassinated in the court of Baharestan, so that Sani al-Dawla came and resigned but did not stop trying to manage things.

It was a year after the constitution that he wrote the historical treatise "The Way of Salvation"; What some called the first manifesto of state building and development in Iran. A treatise in which the view of security changes for the first time. Until then, security was synonymous with discipline and the amount of weapons used by the army to suppress protesters. But for the first time, Sani al-Dawlah said in his treatise "Saving Iran" that real security without "livelihood, education and the ability to transport goods" is nothing more than an illusion. "A society that does not have the ability to exchange its products, even with the most well-equipped armies, will remain in insecurity and misery." He proposed "security as statehood aimed at comfort". And he clarified: "The whole secret of statehood lies in providing the means to increase the wealth of the people of the country." He explained that the government can have a regular budget and stable tax revenues when the people first become rich.

In this treatise, which is considered one of the most important documents of Iran's development, he emphasized the importance of railways for Iran's economy.

He strongly opposed foreign borrowing and proposed a plan to finance the construction of railways through tolls and taxes on the consumption of basic goods (such as sugar and tea).

The construction of the railway was not in line with the interests and by the order of the British, which was the desire of the national intellectuals for the development of Iran.

Sani al-Doulah believed that the possibility of realizing the collective desire for justice and law depends on the fact that the roads are safe and smooth and the lights of the workshops are on, in the familiar expression "the wheel of people's life turns." And that's why he said: "Iran doesn't have a constitution as long as it doesn't have a railway, a university, and an army."

The treatise "Rah Nejat" is important because despite the passage of more than a century, Sani al-Dawlah's warning still seems to be ponderable: "The whole secret of statehood lies in strengthening the productive base of society and ensuring public welfare."

The most important concerns and activities of Sani al-Dawlah were in reforming the administrative and financial structures and modern budgeting of the country. When he was the minister of finance in Mustofi al-Mamalek's cabinet, he invited the American Morgan Schuster to reform the financial system and supported him against corrupt courtiers and Russian and British interference.

For the first time, Sani al-Dawlah compiled the "budget plan of the entire country of Iran" in 160 pages, in which the government's revenues and expenses were included in a single document. But organizing the administrative and financial system of the country was not pleasant not only for some corrupt totalitarian courtiers but also for the colonial powers. In February 1289, when Sani al-Dawlah was taking the first budget of the entire country to the parliament, he was shot by Iran's enemies in his personal carriage near Mokhbar al-Dawlah intersection.

The murderers were two Russian citizens, who were exempted from trial by Iran according to the provisions of capitulation left over from the Turkmencha treaty, and they were handed over to the Russian embassy.

But really, why isn't the description of Sani al-Dawlah's efforts, bitterness, and resistances made into movies and series, so that people, by understanding these efforts and resistances, have more sensitivity and awareness about why the Laser and Plasma Research Center of Shahid Beheshti University and the Information Technology Center of Sharif University of Technology were destroyed.

Promoting a completely black view and a specific ideological narrative of history weakens the national sense among the youth because it deprives people of the possibility of historical understanding of the ups and downs of standing up for the development of Iran against foreign colonial powers and domestic totalitarian corruptors.