Ali Asghar was born on 6 January 1858. He was the second son of Agha Ebrahim, a influential court minister of Georgian origin. When Ali Asghar became 15 years old, he began helping his father in politics.
The next year, Ali Asghar and his father accompanied Naser al-Din Shah to his pilgrimage to the holy Shi"a cities of Najaf, Karbala, Kadhimiya, and Samarra.
When Ali Asghar returned to his native Tehran, he was promoted to commander of the royal escort cavalry, and in the following years continued to rise to higher offices, eventually getting promoted to the treasurer of the army. After the death of his father in 1883, he received the latter"s honorific title Amin al-Soltan and became the Justice Minister. A few years later he received the title of Atabak and took over the post of Prime Minister.
In November 1896, Ali Asghar was dismissed from his prime minister office by Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar.
Ali Asghar then initially retired to Qom, and later traveled through Russia to China and Japan, and then emigrated to Switzerland. During the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, the new Qajar king Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar invited Ali Asghar back to Iran.
Although Ali Asghar had many who opposed him, he also had supporters in major Iranian cities such as Qazvin, Rasht, and his native Tehran. He was shortly appointed by Mohammad Ali Shah as the Prime Minister of Iran.
At the time of Ali Asghar"s re-appointment as prime minister, Iran was in chaos: the state owed money to the people who served them.
British-Russian rivalry over Iran. Ottoman incursions on the west Iranian borders. And devastating rebellions.
Ali Asghar managed to quickly stop the Ottomans, and also tried to make stability fix the financial problems in Iran.
Ali Asghar was later killed in the front of Iranian Parliament on August 31, 1907.
