Amina Aqdas

Amina Aqdas (Persian: امینه اقدس) (died 1893) was a royal consort of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar of Iran (r.

[1] She was the daughter of an impoverished shepherd from a village near Garrūs in Kurdistan, and was employed as a free maidservant to the shah's wife Anīs-al-dawla in the Qajar harem in 1859.

Contemporaries attributed her influence to an ability to manipulate the shah's weak spots: she catered to his whims, encouraged his obsessions, and appealed to his parsimony.

Her power was also enhanced by the shah's intense attachment to her nephew, Gholam-Ali, Malijak-e Thani, also known as Aziz Al-Soltan.

In 1890, she became the first royal consort to visit the West, when she went to Europe to have treatment for her eye condition, a journey which was widely criticised by the ulama.