Did Iranian Shah Keep a Harem with a Mustache: Myth and Truth About Popular Photos

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Photos of strange fat and mustachioed women in oriental headdresses and short fluffy skirts have twice stirred up the Russian-language Internet. The first time they were signed as the wives of an Iranian shah, they were surprised that the shah clearly suited their appearance (as well as how immodest they were dressed). The second time they were presented as enemies of the Shah, whom he forced to portray women as a shameful punishment. Where is the truth?

Enchanted by ballet

This is what the version sounds like, calling mustachioed women with bare legs the wives of the Shah. Nasser ad-Din, the fourth shah from the Qajar dynasty in Iran, visited St. Petersburg at the invitation of the Russian Tsar Alexander II. He was given a full cultural program, including a ballet show. The ballerinas in puffy tutus completely charmed the Shah, and when he returned, he ordered his wives to wear only short puffy skirts. The wives, however, reserved the right of every honest Muslim woman to cover her hair.

The Shah also liked such an achievement of progress as photography. The Shah learned to photograph, and then to develop and print photographs and immediately began to record his harem right in his ballet skirts - despite the fact that Shiite Muslims were forbidden to create images of people in any form. So there are many, many hundreds of photographs of mustachioed women left after him. No one else could take pictures of them: firstly, the photographer would not be allowed into the harem, this is a harem, and secondly, there were a lot of Shiite Muslims around, all of them were not allowed.

In addition to ballet tutus, the Shah's wives also learned to wear cute white socks with a colored border, which were also new for Russia - they were intended specifically for sports. I must say, despite the absurdity of the dress, all the wives of the Shah in the frame look very confident, stand, sit and lie calmly and with dignity, which especially surprises the audience. In addition, among the photographs of wives there are a lot of group photographs, which is why some portraits seem to be made at a choir performance or in memory of a change in a sanatorium by the sea.

Rebel in a woman's dress

Supporters of the version that the photographs depict men pay attention to a number of details. First, indeed, the ladies in skirts being photographed in many of the photographs sit exactly like any work collective - for example, a theater troupe. Secondly, the mustache. Thirdly, they are very confident in holding on. Fourthly, not a single Muslim would take pictures of his wife's face, then everyone will see him! Fifth, not a single Muslim woman in her mind would walk with bare feet even at home. Finally, one of the photographs is replicated with the caption "Princess Anise", and anise is a plant, so this is a nickname, not a name.

Who, then, is depicted in popular photographs, according to this version? First of all, the actors of the theater, which got himself a shah after he visited St. Petersburg. Since a woman could not play on stage in Iran, the female roles went to men. So it was the men who were running around the stage in short skirts, to the delight of their main audience. The mustache did not bother the viewer at all: in the East, a young man was a model of beauty, so it was enough to cut the mustache for the actors to make them look attractive enough.

In addition, captured religious rebels were forced to play as punishment in an acting troupe depicting princesses and other wives of the Shah. It was one of them who allegedly bore the nickname "Anis". Women's clothing for a man in the Muslim world is a traditional way to humiliate an enemy or a criminal. That is why some of the Shah's wives have a particularly impenetrable expression on their faces.

What do the Iranians themselves think?

The Shah, the ruler of the country, is a very prominent figure. He communicates with a large number of people, both from among his subjects and all kinds of diplomats from neighboring and distant countries. It could not be that no one left written memoirs about a harem in ballet tutus or about religious rebels playing in the theater - this is the nineteenth century, one of the richest eras in different memoirs!

Shah Nasser al-Din of the Qajar dynasty was a very modern ruler for his region, although in order to take truly progressive steps, he lacked systematic education and natural ingenuity. But he very actively adopted what he could from European life. For example, he arranged receptions for foreigners, at which his main wife met guests. Anis al-Daula (yes, Anis is a normal Muslim female name; we are not surprised if we see a girl named Rosa or Violetta, although these names also come from plants).

There are a lot of photographs of Anis al-Dawla, far from all of her - in a ballet tutu. Anis liked European dresses, and she introduced fashion to them among Iranian women from wealthy families. A Russian eyewitness who lived in Iran at that time describes Anis as a tall brunette with a noticeable mustache. The antennae were not just normal in the east - they were believed to add piquancy to a woman, shading bright lips as if with a stroke and showing that she had a passionate temperament.

Women in packs from the Shah's harem were regularly seen by the wives of European diplomats, visiting. For some time, the shah, just as Anis helped to receive men, remained with the harem to kindly receive women. True, his courtesy did not feel constrained by European rules, and during a conversation Nasser ad-Din could throw over the head of his interlocutor into the window the seeds of berries that he ate in front of her. After a while, the shah left, leaving the women to communicate with each other.

So, the wives of the diplomats noted that the harem residents really walk in packs. At one time, ballet tutus were put on directly on bare legs, but, noticing the embarrassment of European women, Iranians began to put on tight-fitting leotards in different pastel colors: pink, lilac, turquoise.

If you look closely at the photographs from the harem of Nasser al-Din, you can see that women not only solemnly stand on them in a handful or one at a time, but also often hug children, write something of their own, have a snack, smoke a hookah, and so on. This does not fit well with the theory of theater actors, only dressed in women's clothing: the photographs clearly capture the most ordinary, everyday life.

By the way, Queen Victoria presented the camera to the Shah when he was only eleven years old. It was with this gift that Nasser al-Din's passion for photography began. Women were his number three hobby, after photography and hunting. Only four inhabitants of the harem had the status of permanent wives, the rest were officially considered temporary. The shah married simply: wherever he appeared, before his eyes all the girls and young widows in the house had to appear with an uncovered face. Actually, this is how he married Anis (her name before marriage was unremarkable - Fatima): she was the daughter of a miller.

The shah naturally considered all his wives beautiful - after all, he chose them for their beauty - and did not find masculinity in them. The confident expression on his face befitted them in status, fullness was considered desirable, we have already mentioned about the antennae and temperament. Tutu is not the only thing that the shah made his wives look forward to. He ordered to build a slide in the garden like a nursery. From this hill, with their legs spread out so that the shah's exciting place could be seen, his wives were supposed to go naked at his feet when the shah had a playful and passionate mood to spend time with one of them in the little garden.

The quirk of Nasser al-Din is so well-known in Iran that they walk around in cartoons and cartoons on this topic, and it never even occurs to any Iranian that the Shah's wives can be passed off as men: several dozen photographs from Nasser al-Din's harem are officially exhibited. as a museum value, and you can always go to see them. So the authors of the version about disguised men simply played on modern European prejudices about how a woman can and cannot look, and even the wife of a monarch who can afford literally everything. And it allows.

Nasser ad-Din was not the only monarch to love photography. Russian Tsar Nicholas II left behind a rather extensive family album showing how the Romanov family lived in the last years before the tragic execution.