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Article: For God, Mammon, and Country: A Nineteenth-Century Persian Merchant.(Review)
- Article from:
- Middle Eastern Studies
- Article date:
- April 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Frank Cass & Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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For God, Mammon, and Country: A Nineteenth-Century Persian Merchant by Shireen Mahdavi. Boulder-Oxford: Westview Press, 1999. Pp. xvii + 286, biography, index. $30.00 (paper). ISBN 0-8133-3642-2.
Muhammad Hassan Amin al-Zarb was Iran's most prominent trader, industrialist, and financier of the nineteenth century. He was born sometime between the years 1834 and 1837 in Isfahan to a humble merchant family. Muhammad Hassan left Isfahan for Tehran in 1853, and documents show that at the time of his departure, he had a meagre amount of cash in his pocket, a scale, and an aba (a loose outer garment). It is questionable whether or not he owned anything else at the time. ...