The Persian Tobacco Protest (Persian: نهضت تنباکو, romanized: nehzat-e tanbāku) was a Twelver Shia Muslim revolt in Qajar Iran against an 1890 tobacco concession granted by Emperor Naser al-Din Shah Qajar to the British Empire, granting control over growth, sale, and export of tobacco to an Englishman, Major G. F. Talbot. The protest was held by merchants in major cities such as Tehran, Shiraz, Mashhad, and Isfahan in solidarity with the clerical establishment. It climaxed in a widely obeyed December 1891 fatwa against tobacco use issued by Grand Ayatollah Mirza Shirazi.