¹ Cambridge University Press, New York, 2000.

² Cambridge University Press, New York, 2011.

³ New York, 2011, especially chap. 3, pp. 69–95.

⁴ “Meteorological Hazards and Disasters in Iran: A Preliminary Survey to 1950,” Iran 22 (1984): 130Google Scholar. See also Appendix 3 of Gurney, J.D. and Sefatgol, M., Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 1288 Qamari (Qom, 2008)Google Scholar for Gurney's assessment of earlier studies.

⁵ Disaster 1 (1988): 309–325Google Scholar.

⁶ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 49 (1986): 183–192Google Scholar. See also Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, Appendix 3 (pp. 187–90) for surveys of secondary literature on the 1871–72 famine.

⁷ An insightful review article entitled “Erasures” on the historiography of the Irish famine by the Irish novelist and critic Colm Toibin in the London Review of Books (July 1998) draws attention not only to the growing interest in the last quarter of the twentieth century to the otherwise neglected history of the Irish Great Famine but the methodological challenges, semantic intricacies and emotional nuances in dealing with a colossal human disaster. Many of his observations well apply to the study of Iranian great famine. He cites the Cambridge historian Brendan Bradshaw who, assessing studies on Irish famine, argues that “value-free” history cannot work in a society such as Ireland which is “seared … by successive waves of conquest and colonisation, by bloody wars and uprisings, by traumatic social dislocation, by lethal racial antagonisms, and, indeed, by its own 19th-century version of a holocaust.” For a digital version of the above see: www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n15/colm-toibin/erasures.

⁸ The bulk of research and writing of this volume was carried out by John Gurney, which includes the Introduction, chapters 1–7 and analysis of appendices 1–3. In Part Two the text of the Fayz's treatise is edited jointly with Sefatgol and in collaboration with Iraj Afshar. Sefatgol also was responsible for footnotes to Fayz's treatise and contributed to the appendix on the Persian sources—especially documents in the Golestan collection—and prepared the genealogical table, the list of fatalities based on Fayz's account, the bibliography and the Index (Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 15).

⁹ Earlier on John Gurney also produced a valuable monograph in Persian with Nateq, Homa, Akherin Ruzha-ye Lotf ‘Ali Khan Zand (Tehran, 1353/1974)Google Scholar based on Harford Jones’ valuable account in his The Dynasty of the Kajars (London, 1833)Google Scholar about his last encounters with the unfortunate prince.

¹⁰ Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, English Introduction, p. 3 (cf. Persian, p. 11).

¹¹ Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, Eng. Intro. 2.

¹² Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, Eng. Intro. 4.

¹³ ‘Mostowfi, A., Shar-e Zendegani-ye Man (Tehran, n.d.), I: 517–518Google Scholar cited in Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 24. Translation is mine and for the other passages.

¹⁴ Afzal al-Molk, Ghlam-Hosain, Tarikh va Jooghrafiya-ye Qom, ed. Modarresi-Tabataba'I, H. (Qom, 1392 Q.), 93–94Google Scholar cited in Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 28.

¹⁵ Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 191.

¹⁶ One of ‘Ali Akbar's daughters, Seddiqeh Khanum (who is missing from the genealogical table not without reason) married a Baha'i nephew of hers and later converted to the Baha'i Faith. A few members of the next generation, including Shaykh Muhammad Fayzi, the founder of the Qom teaching circle (Howzah) also extended their protection to the vulnerable Baha'is of Qom. Two of ‘Ali Akbar's grandsons (through her converted daughter and son-in-law) became prominent Baha'is. Mohammad ‘Ali Fayzi, among other works, wrote a history of the Bab's family and Abol-Qasem Fayzi rose to highest rank in the Baha'i administration. See Mohammad-Hosaini, N., Tarikh-e Amr-e Baha'i dar Shahr-e Qom (Darmstadt, 2005), 296–298Google Scholar. The author's major source for the Fayz family is an unpublished manuscript history of the city by a Baha'i of Qom with a Zoroastrian background. I am indebted to Mehrdad Amanat for drawing my attention to this source.

¹⁷ His seminal 1966 article, “Ottoman Reform and the Politics of Notables,” in Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East, ed. Polk, W.R. and Chambers, R.L. (Chicago, 1968), 41–68Google Scholar, drew attention to the importance of urban notables (a'yan) as conduits of state reform. They also served as a shield, it may be argued, against the abuses of the state. However, ample evidence may be found to the contrary whereby urban notables, especially the large landowners and senior mojtaheds, were chief hurdles to centralization and state-initiated reforms.

¹⁸ For a comparable episode in early Islamic Iran, between the tenth and twelfth centuries, see Bulliet, Cotton, Climate and Camels, 69–95. Passages in Tarikh-e Bayhaqi also demonstrate climatic effect on famine in eleventh century Khorasan (see The History of Bayhaqi, translated with notes by Bosworth, C.E. and Ashtiyani, M. [Cambridge, MA, 2011), II, 303–306Google Scholar. I am indebted to Mohsen Ashtiyani for drawing my attention to the above reference.

¹⁹ Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg. 118.

²⁰ Despite his Sufi proclivities Fayz was in close contact with the clerical families of the city. See for instance Gurney's observation (Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 46), which rules out the possibility of him not knowing of charitable activities among the clergy if there were any.

²¹ Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 134–35. See also illustration no. 4 (p. 199), a photographic panorama of Qom in 1871 by ‘Abdollah Qajar with the royal camp in the background.

²² Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 135–36.

²³ Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 136.

²⁴ Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 130. The Indian couple residing in Mashhad near the new entrance to the Shrine of Imam Reza, presumably among many Shi'i pilgrims (mojavers), initially adopted two or three of the infant orphans whose mothers had died of hunger and who had been abandoned and left at the threshold of the shrine:

The people of the city who saw such an act [of charity] from that couple, brought whatever orphans in the city they could find and left them near their house. After a while some seven hundred little orphans were living in their house. For their upkeep, Mo'in al-Molk, the Chief Custodian of the Shrine, made available two large rooms in the [enclosure] of the sacred Shrine. The [Indian wife] housed them in these two rooms and every morning and evening cleaned them up and kept them alive with broth (shurba), porridge (harireh, possibly the same as haritheh) and cow milk. Eventually all these infants died except for a few. As a result of this [the woman] lost her mind (makhbut al-anf) and was weeping most of the time.

²⁵ Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 19

²⁶ Okazaki, “The Great Famine,” 191.

²⁷ Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 19. Zell al-Soltan probably was only surpassed in his avarice by the likes of Shaykh Mohammad Baqer Najafi Isfahani and his son Shaykh Mohammad Taqi (better known as Aqa Najafi), the chief mojtaheds of Isfahan and wealthy landowners. Other large landowners, senior mojtaheds of the city such as the Imam Jum'eh from the old Khatunabadi family, some grain sellers and high officials, also participated in hoarding vast reserves of grain in order to create artificial shortages, hike up prices and maximize profits.

²⁸ Walcher further points out that during famine in the 1910s Aqa Najafi refused to sell his stores of grain at a just price. “To deflect from the situation he accused Hajji Muhammad Ja'far, head of the city council (Baladiyih) as Babi, who was dragged into the street, blamed for the starvation, and killed; his corpse was then tied to the tree as a warning”: In the Shadow of the King: Zill al-Sultan and Isfahan under the Qajars (London, 2008), 178–184Google Scholar, esp. 178.

²⁹ Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 121

³⁰ Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 152

³¹ Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 152.

³² Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 130.

³³ Qom dar Qahti-ye Bozorg, 160–80. For the list of documents see p. 160.

³⁴ The shortcoming is indicative of systemic weaknesses. It seems that millions, perhaps billions, that were poured over the past thirty years into centre of today's Shi'i learning has never reached Mar'ashi Library.