Jalal Jahanbani

Jalal Jahanbani (b. 1640), known 1664–1672 as Jalal Esposito, is an Elwynnese–Shirerithian civil servant and politician (Ayreonist). Jahanbani was born into a rich aristocratic family (non-peerage nobility) of lawyers and architects, Jahanbani's life was marked with his mother's, Talra Megadaezj, early death in 1648. His father, Ashraf, was hard upon the young Jalal, forcing him to study more and more, and brought early him to university in Ardashirshahr, where he graduated with a mid-grade degree with law in 1657. Meeting Lady Dragonmoor during his studies, the two began an affair, and she officially designated him her personal secretary and lawyer. Their relationship continued until her death in 1661, whereupon the Jahanbani took up employment as head of the lawyers of the Dragonmoor Foundation. He also inherited half of Dragonmoor's human chattel estate. In 1662, he left the Foundation and became personal secretary to Kaiser Ayreon IV. It had been noted that the Kaiser had found a liking in Jahanbani and enquired of his suitability for employment in the Imperial Court.

In 1663, Jalal was appointed Shireroth's Minister of the Exterior. During his ministry, he oversaw the Batavian negotiations (leading to the establishment of a united Batavian state on the Benacian continent) and the full occupation of Benacia by Benacian states. In mid 1664, however, he announced that he would seek to restore relations with Stormark, that the Auspicious Occasion was unlawful and that reparations ought to be made to the former king Noah and the royal family of Elwynn. He was immediately arrested and removed from the nobility with caste shame (hence the surname Esposito). A subsequent investigation showed that Jalal had offered his sexual services to the Kaiser, and discussed matters of Froyalan, Stormark and the House of Ettlingar Freyu with the Kaiser. Jalal was subsequently arrested by the Shirekeep City Guard after leaving the Landsraad. Prefect Titus Morvayne published an explanatory memorandum connecting Jalal with a Vanic insurgent organisation, the Vanic Web.

Jalal Esposito underwent treatment in Raikoth from 1668 until his release in 1672, when he was restored to his surname. A Shirerithian investigation found that Morvayne's investigation into Jahanbani had been fraudulent. Thus Jahanbani was officially rehabilitated in Shirerithian law in 1673, when he was restored to the nobility and the records of his caste shame expunged by a decision of the Imperial Judex. He remained in Elwynn, however, marrying Selri Karovion, a Hyperborean academic and landowner from western Raikoth. He became active in local politics in Hyperborea, sitting on the bailiwick assembly in Hyperborea for the Ayreonist Independence Party (1676–1680), and then received employment as Attorney-General of the Bailiwick 1680. He held that position until the Ayreonist purge in 1681, whereafter he set up an independent lawyer's practice in Thule. In 1684, he published his memoirs, The Kaiser, the Auspicious Occasion and I, in which he discussed his relationship with the Kaiser (indicating that his relationship with the kaiser was non-sexual – though this publication did not dispel the rumours), his relationship to the former royal family of Elwynn (which he called non-existent, labelling also the royal regime of Elwynn as a perverted state engaging in the slow genocide of the native nations of Elwynn), and his views on the legal issues stemming from the Auspicious Occasion (complicated but its a fait accompli).

He sided with the rebels during the Second Elwynnese Civil War, and began working in the government of Free Elwynn as its minister of justice in 1696. In common with all other surviving members of the rebel leadership a bounty has been placed upon his head, with the Political Directorate of Benacia Command offering a sum of five million Natopian natopos for any information that will lead to his capture or death.