Qajar dynasty

The Qajar dynasty ( listen ; Persian: سلسله قاجار‎‎ Selsele-ye Qājār; also romanised as Ghajar, Kadjar, Qachar etc.; Azerbaijani: قاجارلار Qacarlar) was an Iranian royal dynasty of Turkic origin, which ruled Persia (Iran) from 1785 to 1925. The state ruled by the dynasty was officially known as the Sublime State of Persia (Persian: دولت علیّه ایران‎‎ Dowlat-e Elliye ye Irān). The Qajar family took full control of Iran in 1794, deposing Lotf 'Ali Khan, the last of the Zand dynasty, and re-asserted Iranian sovereignty over large parts of the Caucasus and Central Asia. In 1796, Mohammad Khan Qajar seized Mashhad with ease, putting an end to the Afsharid dynasty, and Mohammad Khan was formally crowned as shah after his punitive campaign against Iran's Georgian subjects. In the Caucasus, the Qajar dynasty permanently lost many of Iran's integral areas to the Russians over the course of the 19th century, comprising modern-day Georgia, Dagestan, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.

Origins

The Qajar rulers were members of the Karagöz or "Black-Eye" sect of the Qajars, who themselves were members of the Karapapak or "Black Hats" lineage of the Oghuz Turks. Qajars first settled during the Mongol period in the vicinity of Armenia and were among the seven Qizilbash tribes that supported the Safavids. The Safavids "left Arran (present-day Republic of Azerbaijan) to local Turkic khans", and, "in 1554 Ganja was governed by Shahverdi Soltan Ziyadoglu Qajar, whose family came to govern Karabakh in southern Arran".

Qajars (tribe)

The Qajars (also spelled Kadjars, Kajars, Kadzhars, Cadzhars, Cadjars and so on) are a Turkic Oghuz tribe who lived variously, with other tribes, in the area that is now Armenia, Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran. They are considered as a branch of the Azerbaijanis. In the 17th and 18th centuries the Kajars resisted the Safavids and settled the Karabakh Khanate. In 1794, a Kajar chieftain, Agha Mohammed, founded the Qajar dynasty which replaced the Zand dynasty in Iran. In the 1980s the Kajar population exceeded 15,000 people, most of whom lived in Iran.

A branch, attested only as ‘Kadzhar’ (i.e. ‘Qajar’ via Cyrillic transcription), lived in Russian Armenia in the 19th century and likely earlier. In 1873 they numbered 5,000.

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