-
Verethragna.
Masdjid-e Suleiman,
Iran. 2nd–3rd century CE. Louvre Museum Sb 7302. The city of Masjed Soleyman is among the ancient cities of the early Mesopotamian
Elam civilisation which was originally known as Assak, but was changed to Parsomash by the early
Achaemenids. In 1955, Roman Ghirshman discovered evidence of human inhabitation dating to 10,000 years ago in Pepdeh cave in vicinity of the current city of Lali, making it one of the oldest inhabited sites in the Khuzestan plain. Negotiations with the reigning monarch
Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar began in 1901, and with the offer of £20,000 (£ million today), for a sixty-year concession to explore for oil—later, the
D'Arcy concession—was secured in May, covering , and stipulated that D'Arcy would have the oil rights to the entire country except for five provinces in Northern Iran. In exchange, the Iranian government was given 16% of the oil company's annual profits, an agreement that would remain in effect until the 1979
Iranian Revolution. After the D'Arcy concession, the
British government became much more concerned with the stability of Iran because of their reliance on the country's vast oil reserves.
Constitutional Revolution Ḥossain Qolī Khan Haft Lang was appointed superintendent (nāẓem) of the Baḵtīārīs by the Shah in 1862 and head of the tribe (īlḵān) in 1867. He was the first recipient of this title, and in the tribe he became known by the surname Īlḵānī. In 1882, the Shah caused him to be murdered and replaced by his brother Emām Qolī Khan, surnamed Ḥājī Īlḵānī. From then almost without interruption until the abolition of the title khan in 1956, the successive heads of the tribe were descendants of one or the other of the two brothers. The Haft Lang tribe played a significant role; particularly during the advent of the country's
Constitutional Revolution (1905–1907). This event largely succeeded as a result of the Bakhtari tribal coalition military campaign led by Ali-Gholi Khan, Sardar Asaad II, a chieftain of the Haft-lang tribe and his brother Najaf Qoli Khan Bakhtiari-
Saad ad-Daula (also referred to as Samsam-os Saltane) whom in 1909 marched up to the gates of Tehran, and eventually deposed
Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar (r. 1907–1909). Following his abdication in 1909, Mohammad Ali Shah went to exile in Russia. This incident secured
Saad ad-Daula the position of Prime Minister in the period that followed the abdication of the Qajar Shah. Nonetheless, with Russian backing, the Shah would attempt to regain his throne in 1911 by landing with a coalition of forces at
Astarabad . However, his efforts to reclaim his throne would bear no fruit. moreover, the existence of oil on Bakhtiari territory further motivated the Pahlavi monarch to undermine the autonomy of the tribe and force its population to adhere to the commands of the central government. The latter event was a turning point for Bakhtiari and their rise within Iranian politics. Once again Reynolds encountered problems in this region with hostile tribes and the local population. Reynolds often had to pay them a high fee and guarantee them a share of profits in order to protect the concession.[20] In 1907, due to no success in findings, D'Arcy sold off the majority of his shares to Burmah Oil for £203,067 cash and £900,000 in shares, allowing Burmah to become the major shareholder of the company.[15]. At 4:00 am on 26 May 1908, commercial quantities of oil were struck at the Masjed Soleyman site and a fifty-foot gusher of petroleum shot up the no. 1 drilling rig.[22] In April 1909, D'Arcy was appointed a director of the newly founded
Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), which would later become
British Petroleum (BP). By 1911, APOC had run a pipeline from the oil field in Masjed Soleyman to
a refinery at
Abadan. ==Demographics==