Origins
The Qajar (or Ghajar) rulers were members of the Karagoz of the Qajars, originally the members of the Qarapapaqs of the larger Oghuz peoples. 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 speaking khans", and, "in 1554 Ganja was governed by Shahverdi Soltan Ziyadoglu Qajar, whose family came to govern Karabakh in southern Arran".
Qajars 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 Quvanlu (also spelled Ghovanloo) of the Quvanlus of Ganja, married into the Quvanlu Qajars of Astarabad. His son, Fath Ali Khan Qajar (born c. 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.
Read more about this topic: Qajar Dynasty
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