Amina Aqdas (died 1893) was a royal consort of shah

Naser al-Din Shah Qajar Naser al-Din Shah Qajar ( fa, ناصرالدین‌شاه قاجار; 16 July 1831 – 1 May 1896) was the fourth Shah of Qajar Iran from 5 September 1848 to 1 May 1896 when he was assassinated. He was the son of Mohammad Shah Qajar and Malek ...

of Persia (r. 1848–1896).G. Nashat,
Amīna Aqdas
" Encyclopædia Iranica, I/9, pp. 954-955, accessed on 30 December 2012. She was the daughter of an impoverished shepherd in a 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 The harem of the monarchs of the Qajar dynasty (1785-1925) consisted of several thousand people. The harem had a precise internal administration, based on the women's rank. Hierarchy and organisation Mother of the Shah As was customary in Muslim ...

in 1859. She eventually became a favorite of the shah, second only to Anīs-al-dawla. Contemporaries attributed her influence to an ability to manipulate of 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. She supported the career of

Mirza Ali Asghar Khan Amin al-Soltan Mirza Ali Asghar Khan ( fa, میرزا علی‌اصغر خان; 6 January 1858 – 31 August 1907), also known by his honorific titles of Amin al-Soltan and Atabak, was the last prime minister of Qajar dynasty, Iran under Naser al-Din Shah Qa ...

. She was entrusted with several important responsibilities, such assupervising the shah's private apartment, where the crown jewels were kept; keeping the shah's most important seal, and put in charge of all presents given to the shah. 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 olama. During her last three years, she was paralyzed due to a stroke.

References

{{reflist 1893 deaths Qajar royal consorts 19th-century Iranian women