Akhtar (magazine)
persian magazine published in the Ottoman Empire (1876–1896)
Akhtar (Persian: اختر, lit. 'The Star') was a Persian-language periodical published in Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, between 1876 and 1896.
History and profile
Akhtar was launched in 1876 following the suggestion of the Iranian ambassador in Constantinople at that time, and was published until 1896. Editor and director was Agha Mohammed Taher Tabrizi, and the editor in chief Mirza Mehdi Tabrizi (1839–1907) was the founder of the Khorshid Publishing House in Constantinople who later edited another magazine entitled Hekmat (1892–1912) in Cairo. Mirza Mohammad Ali Khan Kashani, founded the periodical Sorayya (1898–1900) which was later published in Cairo, also briefly worked for the journal. Akhtar was the first Persian magazine to be published outside Iran.
At the beginning, Akhtar – the first non-official press medium – was published almost daily, later twice, and eventually once a week. The distribution of this journal extended from many cities of Iran and the Ottoman Empire to the Caucasus and South East Asia. It served as a mouthpiece for Iranians in diaspora and was used by the Iranian embassy and the consulate in Constantinople as a newsletter. Alongside political daily reports it contained domestic and international news, articles on scientific and literary topics as well as reports from correspondents and letters from Iran. Among its notable contributors were Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani, Shaykh Ahmad Ruhi and Mirza Mehdi Tabrizi.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18018202. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1876, 1896, 1839 and 1907.
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This entry incorporates text from “Akhtar (magazine)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.