Mozaffar ad-Din (pictured), Shah of Persia, granted exclusive rights to prospect for oil in the country to William Knox D'Arcy.

Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar was the fifth Qajar shah of Iran, reigning from 1896 until his death in 1907. He is often credited with the creation of the Persian Constitution of 1906, which he approved of in one of his final acts as shah.

The Guarded Domains of Iran, alternatively the Sublime State of Iran and commonly called Qajar Iran, Qajar Persia or the Qajar Empire, was the Iranian state under the rule of the Qajar dynasty, which was of Turkic origin, specifically from the Qajar tribe, from 1789 to 1925. The Qajar family played a pivotal role in the Unification of Iran (1779–1796), deposing Lotf 'Ali Khan, the last Shah of the Zand dynasty, and re-asserted Iranian sovereignty over large parts of the Caucasus. In 1796, Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar seized Mashhad with ease, putting an end to the Afsharid dynasty. He was formally crowned as Shah after his punitive campaign against Iran's Georgian subjects.

The D'Arcy Concession was a petroleum oil concession that was signed in 1901 between William Knox D'Arcy and Mozzafar al-Din, Shah of Persia. The oil concession gave D'Arcy the exclusive rights to prospect for oil in Persia. During this exploration for oil, D'Arcy and his team encountered financial troubles and struggled to find sellable amounts of oil. Facing high costs, they were about to give up but eventually struck large commercial quantities of oil in 1908. The Burmah Oil Company created the Anglo-Persian Oil Company to take over the concession in 1909.

William Knox D'Arcy was a British-Australian businessman who was one of the principal founders of the oil and petrochemical industry in Persia (Iran). The D’Arcy Concession was signed in 1901 and allowed D'Arcy to explore, obtain, and market oil, natural gas, asphalt, and ozokerite in Persia.