The Qajar dynasty ) ( - or دودمان قاجار, also anglicized as Ghajar or Kadjar) was a Turco-Persian Qajar royal family who ruled Persia (the country now known as Iran) from 1794 to 1925.Abbas Amanat, The Pivot of the Universe: Nasir Al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831-1896, I.B.Tauris, pp 2-3; "In the 126 years between the fall of the Safavid state in 1722 and the accession of Nasir al-Din Shah, the Qajars evolved from a shepherd-warrior tribe with strongholds in northern Iran into a Persian dynasty.."Rice, Edward, Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, (Da Capo Press, 1990), 114.The Qajar family took full control of Iran in 1794, deposing Lotf "Ali Khan, the last of the Zand dynasty, and re-asserted Persian sovereignty over parts of the Caucasus.In 1796 was formally crowned as shah. Qajar Dynasty on Encyclopædia Britannica



Origins

The Qajar or ghajar rulers were members of the Ghovanloo clan of the Qajars, originally themselves members of the Oghuz branch of the larger Turkmen peoples Genealogy and History of Qajar (Kadjar) Rulers and Heads of the Imperial Kadjar House.Cyrus Ghani. Iran and the Rise of the Reza Shah: From Qajar Collapse to Pahlavi Power, I.B. Tauris, 2000, ISBN 1860646298, p. 1William Bayne Fisher. Cambridge History of Iran, Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 344, ISBN 0521200946 Qajars first settled during the Mongol period in the vicinity of Armenia and were among the seven Qizilbash tribes that supported the Safavids. Encyclopedia Iranica. The Qajar Dynasty. Online Edition The Safavids "left Arran (present-day Republic of Azerbaijan) to local Turkic speaking khans",K. M. Röhrborn, Provinzen und Zentralgewalt Persiens im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, Berlin, 1966, p. 4 and, "in 1554 Ganja was governed by Shahverdi Soltan Ziyadoglu Qajar, whose family came to govern Karabakh in southern Arran". Encyclopedia Iranica. Ganja. Online EditionQajars filled a number of diplomatic missions and governorships in the 16-17th centuries for the Safavids. The Qajars were resettled by Shah Abbas I throughout Persia. The great number of them also settled in Astarabad (present-day Gorgan, Iran) near the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea, and it would be this branch of Qajars that would rise to power. The immediate ancestor of Qajars, Shah Qoli Khan Qajar Ghovanloo of the Ghovanloos of Ganja, married into the Ghovanloo Qajars of Astarabad. His son, Fath Ali Khan Qajar, born circa 1685-1693, was a renowned military commander during the rule of the Safavid shahs Husayn and Tahmasp II. He was killed on the orders of Tahmasp Qoli Khan Afshar (Nader Shah) in 1726. Fath Ali Khan"s son Mohammad Hassan Khan Qajar (1722-1758) was killed at the behest of Karim Khan Zand, and was the father of Agha Mohammad Khan and Hossein Qoli Khan (Jahansouz Shah) Qajar (father of "Baba Khan," the future Fath Ali Shah Qajar).Within 126 years between the demise of the Safavid state and the rise of Nasir al-Din Shah, the Qajars evolved from a shepherd-warrior tribe with strongholds in northern Persia into a Persian dynasty with all the trappings of a Perso-Islamic monarchy.