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Qajar Iran

Qajar Iran (/kɑːˈdʒɑːr/ kah-JAR ), also referred to as Qajar Persia,[7] the Qajar Empire,[a] Sublime State of Persia, officially the Sublime State of Iran (Persian: دولت عَلیّهٔ ایران Dowlat-e 'Aliyye-ye Irân) and also known as the Guarded Domains of Iran (Persian: ممالک محروسهٔ ایران Mamâlek-e Mahruse-ye Irân[8]), was the Iranian state[9] under the rule of the Qajar dynasty, which was of Turkic origin,[10][11][12] specifically from the Qajar tribe, from 1789 to 1925.[13][14] The Qajar family took full control of Iran in 1794, deposing Lotf 'Ali Khan, the last Shah of the Zand dynasty, and re-asserted Iranian sovereignty over large parts of the Caucasus. In 1796, Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar seized Mashhad with ease,[15] putting an end to the Afsharid dynasty. He was formally crowned as Shah after his punitive campaign against Iran's Georgian subjects.[16]

"Qajar" redirects here. For the modern-day country on the other side of the Persian Gulf, see Qatar. For other uses, see Qajar (disambiguation).

Sublime State of Iran
دولت عَلیّهٔ ایران (Persian)
Dowlat-e 'Aliyye-ye Irân

 

None (until 1906; 1907–1909)
National Consultative Assembly (1906–1907; from 1909)

 

1789

24 October 1813

10 February 1828

4 March 1857

21 September 1881

5 August 1906

31 October 1925

toman (1789–1825)
qiran (1825–1925)[6]

In the Caucasus, the Qajar dynasty permanently lost much territory[17] to the Russian Empire over the course of the 19th century, comprising modern-day eastern Georgia, Dagestan, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.[18] Despite its territorial losses, Qajar Iran reinvented the Iranian notion of kingship[19] and maintained relative political independence, but faced major challenges to its sovereignty, predominantly from the Russian and British empires. Foreign advisers became powerbrokers in the court and military. They eventually partitioned Qajar Iran in the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention, carving out Russian and British influence zones and a neutral zone.[20][21][22]


In the early 20th century, the Persian Constitutional Revolution created an elected parliament or Majles, and sought the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, deposing Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar for Ahmad Shah Qajar, but many of the constitutional reforms were reversed by an intervention led by the Russian Empire.[20][23] Qajar Iran's territorial integrity was further weakened during the Persian campaign of World War I and the invasion by the Ottoman Empire. Four years after the 1921 Persian coup d'état, the military officer Reza Shah took power in 1925, thus establishing the Pahlavi dynasty, the last Iranian royal dynasty.

History[edit]

Origins[edit]

The Qajar rulers were members of the Karagöz or "Black-Eye" sect of the Qajars, who themselves were members of the Qajars (tribe) or "Black Hats" lineage of the Oghuz Turks.[24][10][11][12] Qajars first settled during the Mongol period in the vicinity of Armenia and were among the seven Qizilbash tribes that supported the Safavids.[25] The Safavids "left Arran (present-day Republic of Azerbaijan) to local Turkic khans",[26] and, "in 1554 Ganja was governed by Shahverdi Soltan Ziyadoglu Qajar, whose family came to govern Karabakh in southern Arran".[27]


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 Iran. The great number of them also settled in Astarabad (present-day Gorgan, Iran) near the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea,[10] and it would be this branch of Qajars that would rise to power. The immediate ancestor of the Qajar dynasty, Shah Qoli Khan of the Quvanlu of Ganja, married into the Quvanlu Qajars of Astarabad. His son, Fath Ali Khan (born c. 1685–1693) was a renowned military commander during the rule of the Safavid shahs Sultan Husayn and Tahmasp II. He was killed in 1726. Fath Ali Khan's son Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar (1722–1758) was the father of Mohammad Khan Qajar and Hossein Qoli Khan (Jahansouz Shah), father of "Baba Khan," the future Fath-Ali Shah Qajar. Mohammad Hasan Khan was killed on the orders of Karim Khan of the Zand dynasty.


Within 126 years between the demise of the Safavid state and the rise of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, the Qajars had evolved from a shepherd-warrior tribe with strongholds in northern Persia into a Persian dynasty with all the trappings of a Perso-Islamic monarchy.[9]

Demographics[edit]

In the late 18th century, during the final period of Shah Agha Mohammad Khan's reign, Iran (including the Khanates of the Caucasus) numbered some five to six million inhabitants.[109]


In 1800, three years into Fath-Ali Shah's reign, Iran numbered an estimated six million people.[110] A few years later, in 1812, the population numbered an estimated nine million. At the time, the country numbered some 70,000 Jews, 170,000 Armenian Christians, and 20,000 Zoroastrians.[110] The city of Shiraz in the south numbered circa 50,000, while Isfahan was the largest city at the time, with a population of about 200,000 inhabitants.[110] More to the north, Tehran, which became the capital of Iran under the Qajars in 1786 under Agha Mohammad Khan, resembled more-so a garrison rather than a town prior to becoming the capital.[111] At the time, as a developing city, it held some 40,000 to 50,000 inhabitants, but only when the Iranian royal court was in residence.[111] During summer, the royal court moved to a cooler area of pasture such as at Soltaniyeh, near Khamseh (i.e. Zanjan), or at Ujan near Tabriz in the Azerbaijan Province.[112] Other Tehrani residents moved to Shemiran in Tehran's north during summer, which was located at a higher altitude and thus had a more cool climate. These seasonal movements used to reduce Tehran's population to a few thousand seasonally.[112]


In Iran's east, in Mashhad, holding the Imam Reza Shrine and being Iran's former capital during the Afsharid era, held a population of less than 20,000 by 1800.[112] Tabriz, the largest city of the Azerbaijan Province, as well as the seat of the Qajar vali ahd ("crown prince"), used to be a prosperous city, but the 1780 earthquake had devastated the city and reversed its fortunes.[112] In 1809, the population of Tabriz was estimated at 50,000 including 200 Armenian families who lived in their own quarter.[112] The Azerbaijan province's total population, as per a 1806 estimate, was somewhere between 500,000 and 550,000 souls. The towns of Khoy and Marand, which at the time were no more than an amalgam of villages, were estimated to hold 25,000 and 10,000 inhabitants respectively.[112]


In Iran's domains in the Caucasus, the town of Nakhchivan (Nakhjavan) held a total population of some 5,000 in the year 1807, whereas the total population of the Erivan Khanate was some 100,000 in 1811.[112] However, the latter figure does not account for the Kurdish tribes that had migrated into the province. A Russian estimate asserted that the Pambak region of the northern part of the Erivan Khanate, which had been occupied by the Russians after 1804, held a total population of 2,832, consisting of 1,529 Muslims and 1,303 Christian Armenians.[112] According to the Russian demographic survey of 1823 of the Karabakh Khanate, its largest city, Shusha, held 371 households, who were divided in four quarters or parishes (mahaleh). The province itself consisted of twenty-one districts, in which nine large domains were located that belonged to Muslims and Armenians, twenty-one Armenian villages, ninety Muslim villages (both settled and nomadic), with Armenians constituting an estimated minority.[112] In the Ganja Khanate, the city of Ganja held 10,425 inhabitants in 1804 at the time of the Russian conquest and occupation.[112]


In 1868, Jews were the most significant minority in Tehran, numbering 1,578 people.[113] By 1884 this figure had risen to 5,571.[113]

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The Qajar (Kadjar) Pages

The International Qajar Studies Association

Dar ol-Qajar

Qajar Family Website

Some Photos of Qajar Family Members

Digital Archive by Harvard University

Women's Worlds in Qajar Iran

at the International Institute of Social History

Qajar Documentation Fund Collection