[2] During his youth, Abbas spent his time with his father in the holy Shi'ite sites in Ottoman Iraq, where he was tutored by the Ne'matallahi Sufi teacher Molla 'Abd-al-Samad.

[3] For a period, Abbas embraced the life of a homeless dervish and made pilgrimage to Mecca, until he finally returned to his hometown, where reportedly served as a clerk to the Armenian patriarch of Iravan.

Mohammad Mirza ascended the throne November 1834, appointing Abol-Qasem as his minister, which essentially consolidated the power of the newly crowned shah during a period of difficulty.

"[4] While he has often been criticized for contributing to the disasters of the reign, it is possible that he was attempting to use Sufism as a weapon against the growing hold of the official representatives of religion, the mullahs, who were opposing both modernization and foreign influence.

In foreign affairs, he managed to "prevent Iran disintegrating either into autonomous principalities or appanages of Russia, and Britain," and internally he "revived the cultivation of the mulberry tree in the Kerman region, to feed silkworms; and he envisaged the diversion of the waters of the River Karaj for Tehran's water-supply.