"While he has often been criticized for contributing to the disasters of the reign, it is possible that he was attempting to use Sufism as a weapon against the growing hold of the official representatives of religion, the mullahs, who were opposing both modernization and foreign influence.In foreign affairs, he managed to "prevent Iran disintegrating either into autonomous principalities or appanages of Russia, and Britain," and internally he "revived the cultivation of the mulberry tree in the Kerman region, to feed silkworms; and he envisaged the diversion of the waters of the River Karaj for Tehran's water-supply."