Under the modernizing Shahanshah Nasser al-Din Shah (r. 1848 to 1896), Qajar Persia gained telegraph lines, a modern postal service, Western-style schools, and its first newspaper. Nasser al-Din was a fan of the new technology of photography, who toured through Europe. He also limited the power of the Shi'a Muslim clergy over secular matters in Persia. The shah unwittingly sparked modern Iranian nationalism, by granting foreigners (mostly British) concessions for building irrigation canals and railways, and for the processing and sale of all tobacco in Persia. The last of those sparked a nationwide boycott of tobacco products and a clerical fatwa, forcing the shah to back down.
