Mirza Malkam Khan

Mirza Melkum Khan (1834–1908; Persian: میرزا ملکم خان; Armenian: Յովսէփ Մելքումեան, romanized: Hovsep’ Melk’umyan), also spelled as Melkum Khan, was an Iranian modernist writer, diplomat, and publicist.

Melkum Khan was born to an Armenian Christian family in Iran[1] and educated at the Samuel Muradian school in Paris from 1843 to 1851.

[4] He returned to Tehran in 1872 as assistant to Grand Vizier Mirza Hosein Khan Moshir od-Dowleh, and became the chief of the Persian legation in London (and later ambassador) in 1872.

[2] Naser ad-Din Shah explains in his third trip's memoir how he went to Mirza Melkum Khan's house one evening, met his wife and his three daughters, two of them as old as 19-20 and the third one who was 6 at the time (1889).

Melkum Khan eventually became recognized as the most important Persian moderniser of the century, and he was later pardoned and reinstated as ambassador to Italy by Mozaffar ad-Din Shah, Nasser ad-Din Shah's son and successor, in 1898 with the title of Nezam od-Dowleh.