Zarrinnaal
"lord") were the Aghas of Senneh ("Masters of Sanandaj") and ruled their fiefdom during the time of four hundred years when the Safavids (r. 1501-1722), Afsharids (r. 1736–1796) and finally Qajar dynasty (r. 1785–1925) reigned in Iran.
When the Persian shahs conquered their empire and established their supremacy over the western Kurdish principalities the Zarrinnaal family began to reach local prominence in Kurdistan.
"Golden Horseshoe"), whose family belonged to the clan of Zarrin Kafsh, had been settled in Kurdistan minimum since the year 1448 A.D. and possessed the area of Sanandaj as their hereditary fief, was ordered by Shah Abbas I the Great to make war on the Ottomans; and on August 24, 1605 with the aid of his troops from the Mokri tribes could reconquer the Turkish occupied Kurdistan Province for Persia.
After that he was made vicegerent (Persian vali) of that area and reigned probably from 1609 to 1615 as governor and was head of the administration and army, chief judge and legislator.
[8] In 1631 Mohammad ‘Ali Beyg was the ambassador sent to the Mughal court by Shah Abbas of Iran, arriving in time for the New Year festival in March 1631.
[9] After Shah Abbas I's death in 1629 the Ottoman vizier Khusrew Pasha attacked the Kurdistan Province in 1634 and destroyed its capital city of Hassanabad.
Oghli Beyg wanted to join his own family with the new established Qajar dynasty by marriage, and asked for the hand of Princess Noor-Jahan Khanom, the 9th daughter of Crown Prince Abbas Mirza Nayeb as-Saltaneh.
Himself from a family of Ardalan court grandees, responsible for army supplies, he got an extensive education in Arabic, literature, calligraphy and arithmetic.
Zaman settled then permanently in Tehran, moving from the Ark district to that of Oudlajan in the city's north-eastern part where the nobility had its residences and founded in 1868 a family.
His career started there as a clerk (Persian Mirza) and he was in charge of fiscal duties of the government, administration and military, responsible for the Kurdistan Province in special.
Until 1904 he worked in this office which became the hereditary post in his family for three generations and documented all costs and vouchers of payment of the entire soldiery of 200,000 men of that time.
"Sir") by Nasser al-Din Shah and the former tribal title of Beyg, used in the family’s past, changed in that of a superior Khan ("magnate"), according to common Persian customs of calling landowners of old provenance with this not only hereditary but also adoptive sobriquet.
He got a private education in writing, arithmetic and reading and in fencing, poetry, hunting, horsing and calligraphy and then he started military service.
After his studies he entered service at court and became, like his father, military adviser to Nasser al-Din Shah and was also honorarily called Agha.
With the nickname "Kordi" he was a delegate for Kurdistan and one leader of the royalist conservative wing (etedahiyun), supporting Mohammad Ali Shah's efforts to return to absolutism, because both men feared that the British dominated parliament could strengthen more English influence in Persia during the Great Game.
In the reign of Ahmad Shah Qajar (r. 1909–1925) he was senior public prosecutor at martial court (moddai ol-omum koll-e nezam), which was instituted 1915 by Prince Abdol-Hossein Mirza Farmanfarma as minister of justice and war 1915 to 1925.
For his loyal service to the Qajars he got parts of Nasser al-Din Shah's imperial hunting area east of Tehran, called Doshan-Teppeh.
This sandy area became the base for the family, when it was cultivated in the days of Reza Shah Pahlavi by Nasr-e Lashkar's sons and villas and summer residences of Tehran's court elite were built there, naming it "Zarrinnaal-District" (mahalleh-ye zarrinnaal).
