The modern history of mathematics in Iran began with the small group of students whom Abbas Mirza sent to Europe for study in 1811–1815. Mirza Jafar-khan Moshir-od-Dowleh, one of those five, was not a mathematician and never became one, yet the arithmetic book he wrote to educate Mohammad Shah (when he was still a child and crown prince) was Iran’s first step toward breaking free from three centuries of reliance on Sheikh Baha’i’s arithmetic text. The tree of modern Iranian mathematics begins with him, passes through the Dar al-Funun school, and, with the expansion of institutions such as Alborz and Hadaf schools, reaches us. We are leaves on this tree.