Sattar Khan
A popular leader of the Constitutional Revolution and hero of the resistance of Tabriz, honored as the 'National Commander' (Sardar-e Melli) (1868–1914).
Read in context →At a glance
- Field
- popular leader of the Constitutional Revolution
- Title
- Sardar-e Melli (National Commander)
- Key event
- the resistance of Tabriz (1908–1909)
- Death
- 1914 in Tehran, from complications of the Atabak Park wound
Biography
Sattar Khan (1868–1914) was among the foremost popular leaders of Iran's Constitutional Revolution, rising from the Amirkhiz quarter of Tabriz. When Mohammad-Ali Shah Qajar bombarded the Majlis and abrogated the constitution in 1908, Sattar Khan — together with Baqer Khan (Salar-e Melli) — led the armed resistance of Tabriz against the besieging royalist and tribal forces. His months-long defense turned Tabriz into a living bastion of constitutionalism and proved decisive in restoring the constitutional order, earning him the title 'Sardar-e Melli' (National Commander) from the constitutional councils. After victory, conflict erupted over disarming the volunteer fighters (mojaheds); in 1910 he was wounded in the leg during clashes at Atabak Park in Tehran and never fully recovered, dying in 1914. The contested point is the disarmament itself: some regard it as a necessary step to establish order and the authority of the constitutional state, while others see it as a betrayal of the popular forces who had saved the constitution.
Related entities
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Sattār Khan"
- Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Constitutional Revolution"
- Janet Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906–1911 (1996)